Inheritance

by AisforAmy71

Summary:

When Inko dies in a trainwreck while protecting Izuku from the impact, Izuku discovers he had a quirk all along. The ability to inherit the quirks of people that die is, to say the least, problematic. It sends Izuku on a much different track that he ever imagined his life taking, but will hopefully end up exactly where he needs to be.

Notes:

I will try to proofread really well, but do not have a beta reader. Please feel free to point out any errors you see while reading, so I can fix it.

Chapter 1

“Sorry kid, It aint gonna happen.”The doctor’s voice sounded indifferent, even bored.

Four year old Izuku felt the All Might action figure slip from his grasp and heard it clatter on the floor, but merely sat, stunned. He didn’t have a quirk? None at all? He couldn’t fathom it. He heard the doctor explaining to his mother that the x-ray of his foot was the best indicator, and why. He didn’t understand what the bones of his toe had to do with anything, and he really didn’t care. How could he not have a quirk? Everyone had one! He didn’t know a single person who didn’t have at least a tiny one.

Izuku walked silently alongside his mother as they left Dr. Tsubasa’s office and down the crowded sidewalk to the station, where they boarded a train to go home. His mother kept her arm around and tried to talk to him softly, but he didn’t hear her, so deep was his shock at what the doctor had said. He couldn’t even cry. Not yet.

He was only vaguely aware that something was wrong when his mother gave a startled cry of alarm and gripped him tightly by the arm and pulled him from his own seat, and into her arms. There was loud clattering and people were shouting as the train rocked roughly from side to side. There was a moment of relief when the train seemed to settle on the tracks and his mother let out a relieved breath.

That’s why it was all the more jolting when there was a deafening BOOM!! It seemed like the train jumped like a cat pouncing on prey, then the handful of people in the train car seemed to be floating for a moment. Izuku’s stomach felt funny as the lack of gravity took hold, then released as the train car plummeted downward on its side. Everyone flew sideways as the train left the tracks and began to tumble like a rectangular barrel down a hill.

Everyone was getting tossed around like dolls, and Izuku felt his mother’s arms tighten and her hand press his head against her shoulder. He felt her knees squeeze against him from below as she became a protective ball around him as tightly as she could. His heart was beating very fast now, and he could hear his mother’s heart thundering with the ear pressed against her. It was like what Izuku imagined it might be like to take a ride in a tumble dryer as they rolled around, with the world (and everything in it) spinning around them. There were lots of bumps, and Izuku was scared because his mother was screaming as they fell, they flipped over and fell again. And again. And again.

“Izuku,” he heard his mother say close to his ear once the train became mostly still again. “Izuku, are you okay?”

Her voice was quiet, and she was breathing funny.

“Okay,” Izuku answered, whispering, too.

“I love you, baby boy,” she told him, like she did when she tucked him into bed at night.

“Love you, too,” he answered, wondering why she was crying.

Was she hurt, or just scared? He was scared. He didn’t know what was going on, but he could tell that something bad was happening. He hurt pretty much all over from being bumped around, but he didn’t want to scare his mother by crying. While he was in pain, it didn’t hurt that bad, and he was going to be a hero someday, and heroes never cry! He was trying to think of what he could do or say to make his mom feel better, but then more bad things happened.

There was another shudder of the train car then, and then a sharp SNAP! and a rushing sensation as the train began to slide on it’s roof down an incline. The seats were where the ceiling should be, and there was broken glass all around them. Izuku could feel something warm and wet on his face, and on the arms wrapped around his mother. The other passengers were all shouting again, but not his mother. She was still wrapped around him, but not as tightly, and she was quiet and calm. Izuku thought she was very brave, not panicking like everyone else. It was then that the train came to an abrupt stop, and Izuku felt something hit him in the head hard enough to make stars float in his vision before everything went black.

When Izuku woke up, he thought he must be dreaming. He did feel sleepy. He was in a bed in a white and blue room with bright lights, and Kacchan’s mom was there, for some strange reason. She looked tired and her eyes were red around the edges, instead of just in the middle, like normal.

“Auntie?” Izuku asked, surprised when his voice sounded way too loud in the quiet space.

“Hey there,” Auntie said, reaching out a hand to gently ruffle his hair. “Tough day, huh?”

She picked up something from the mattress that had a red button on it, and pressed the button before putting it back down.

“Where are we?” Izuku asked, using a quiet voice and looking around curiously.

There were weird curtains hanging from the ceiling, and poles with weird machines on them, and a tube was taped to his arm, and his arm was taped to some kind of board.

“This is a hospital,” Auntie said gently. “You got a little banged up in an accident.”

Izuku tried to remember, but only had blurry memories of riding a train with his mother and that something strange had happened.

“I think the train crashed,” he finally said, thinking hard about it.

“That’s right,” Auntie told him with a wobbly smile. “A villain made the train crash.”

Two people came into the room, then. One was a short man in a blue shirt and pants, with greenish skin and sleek feathers for hair, and the other was a kind looking woman in a white dress.

“Well, well, Midoriya-kun,” the man said kindly. “It’s good to see you awake. You have quite a bump on your head.”

“I do?” he asked in surprise, lifting his one unencumbered hand to touch his head. His fingers found the edges of a bandage on his forehead and he patted the soft padding, wincing slightly when he got to a sore spot.

Auntie gently steered his hand away from his head and smiled at him softly.

“You have seventeen stitches,” the man told him. “I’m Doctor Wu. I’ve been taking care of you since you were brought in.”

The woman in the white dress was busy with the machines, and then she started to take the tape off of Izuku’s arm. Izuku was surprised when she held a cotton ball against his arm and pulled a long piece of plastic out that looked like a needle. She wrapped the spot with a stretchy bandage in bright blue.

“Where’s my mom?” Izuku asked, looking around. “She was on the train with me.”

Auntie made a strange sound in her throat, but gave a little cough and said, “You can’t see her right now, but I’ll look after you, okay? You can come stay at my house for a while and have a sleepover with Katsuki.”

“A sleepover with Kacchan?” he asked curiously. He’d never gotten to spend the night at a friend’s house before. “Wow!”

Izuku felt sleepy still, but the idea of having Kacchan all to himself for a whole night was exciting enough to distract him from not being able to see his mom.

“Yep,” Auntie affirmed, sounding like she was getting a cold. “You should be able to go back home tomorrow.”

“M’kay,” Izuku agreed. “I don’t have to stay here?”

“We’ve done everything we can for you, young man,” Dr. Wu told him with a nod. “We’ll give Bakugou-san your discharge instructions and you can go with her.”

Izuku was okay with this. Auntie was nice, even if she yelled a lot. Mostly she yelled at Kacchan, and she never yelled at him, so he wasn’t scared. She helped him get dressed in clothes he didn’t recognize, though his shoes were the same light-up All Might sneakers he had been wearing that morning.. There was a lot of paperwork that had to be signed, but Izuku was allowed to sleep a little while Auntie filled it out, then they rode in a taxi back to Kacchan’s house.

Izuku clung to Auntie’s skirt as they entered the house, and looked around for any sign of Kacchan. Instead, Kacchan’s dad was standing up from where he’d been on the couch and approaching with a soft smile.

“Hello, Izuku-kun! Are you hungry? I was just about to call Katsuki down for a snack,” he said kindly, looking at his wife with questions in his eyes.

Auntie shook her head ever so slightly, and Izuku knew that they were probably communicating the way grown ups did when they didn’t want the kids around to know what they were saying to each other.

“Yes, please,” Izuku said, remembering to be polite.

He didn’t know how long it had been since breakfast that morning, but his tummy was feeling grumbly, now.

Auntie ruffled his hair again, just as Kacchan came thundering down the stairs.

“Is mom home yet?” he called out as he approached.

“Hi Kacchan!” Izuku said brightly, stepping out from behind Auntie.

“Izuku!” Kacchan greeted him. “Hey! Why are you wearing my clothes?”

Izuku shrugged and looked down at the red shirt with skateboarding T-rex on it. “I dunno. Your mom brought them.”

“Why do you have a big bandaid on your head? You got an ouchie?” Katsuki demanded.

Izuku nodded uncertainly, and Auntie came to his rescue.

“Izuku was in an accident this morning and his clothes got dirty, so I took him some of yours. He got a cut on his head, but the doctor gave him some medicine so it’s not hurting right now. He’s going to stay here with us, tonight.”

“Cool,” Katsuki accepted easily. “I can show him the rhinoceros beetle I caught yesterday!”

Kacchan’s dad came in a moment later holding a tray with tea and snacks, and set it on the table. Izuku sat across the table from Kacchan and grinned at him.

“Dorayaki!” Kacchan announced, standing on his chair and grabbing two plastic wrapped treats from the tray and holding them up. “Do you want red bean or strawberry?”

Izuku held out his hand toward the strawberry one, since he knew that red bean was Kacchan’s favorite. To everyone’s great surprise, the strawberry flavored treat flew from Katsuki’s hand and straight into Izuku’s waiting one.

“Woah! Did you get your quirk?” Kacchan asked excitedly. “It’s about time!”

“Katsuki!” his mother scolded his rudeness before turning to the green haired boy. “It looks like you got your mother’s quirk, Izuku! How exciting! When did this happen?”

“I don’t know! I never did it before!” Izuku cried with wonder. “Wow!”

“Do it again!” Katsuki demanded, jumping up and down on his chair.

Izuku looked to Kaccan’s parents for permission, and wondered why they looked at each other sadly. Wasn’t getting a quirk a good thing? The doctor had said he didn’t even have one, and now Izuku could see that the doctor was just wrong.

“Try to float this one over to you!” Kacchan demanded with a huge grin, holding up the other dorayaki.

Izuku concentrated on the other packet and made a waving motion like he’d seen his mother do when she used her quirk. He was delighted when it gently floated over to him.

“All right,” Auntie said indulgently after a moment. “Don’t overdo it. Eat your snack and then go and play.”

She picked up the red bean treat and passed it back to her son, and both boys grinned at each other before tearing open the plastic and starting their little feast. Izuku ate two dorayaki and then some crackers, as well, feeling much better with some food in his tummy. Once their tea was finished, Kacchan jumped down and rounded the table to pull at Izuku’s arm.

“C’mon! Let’s go to my room and see what you can do with your quirk!”

Izuku hopped down and followed, with Auntie calling after them to be careful of Izuku’s head wound. “The doctor gave me some medicine for you, so if you start getting a headache or feel bad, come tell me!”

Izuku followed Kacchan to his room, where they practiced with Izuku’s quirk, by having Izuku pull all kinds of things toward him. His mother had only been able to pull small objects to herself, and it seemed that Izuku was no different. He tried to move a CD player off of Kacchan’s desk, but all he could do was make it slide a little, and it couldn’t hover at all.

“Well, it’s not as good as my quirk,” Kacchan told him, somewhat consolingly, ‘but maybe it’ll get stronger if you practice enough.”

Izuku was feeling tired and sore by the time the boys were called down for dinner. Auntie gave him some medicine that tasted bitter, but gave him some fruit milk to wash it down with, so it was okay. By the time dinner was finished, Izuku was beginning to feel sleepy. When Auntie came to help him and Kacchan with their bath and getting into pajamas, he got the first look at his body.

“Woah! You’re covered in cuts and bruises!” Kacchan exclaimed excitedly.

Izuku looked at shirtless body in the mirror and saw blue and purple bruises in splotches all over his arms. HIs legs looked even worse when he got further undressed, and there were scratches and scrapes all over him, as if he’d had a run in with a very unfriendly cat with very sharp claws.

“What happened to you?” Kacchan asked eagerly, as if he expected to hear about a great adventure.

“Katsuki!” Auntie said in a scolding tone.

“I don’t remember,” Izuku said. “I was on the train with my mom, and I think it crashed.”

“That’s okay,” Auntie told him, sounding funny again. “The doctor said you might not ever remember, because you hit your head. Let’s get you washed up, and into the tub, then you can get a good night’s sleep. You feel better after a nice soak.”

“You were in a train crash?”

Kacchan sounded amazed, unable to let it go, even with his mother glaring daggers at him.

“I guess,” Izuku said with a little shrug, feeling uneasy for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

“What happened to your mom?” Kacchan asked, as if it had just occurred to him that it was unusual for Izuku to be spending the night, right after being in a train wreck. “Is she still in the hospital?”

“Katsuki, that’s enough. It’s time to wash up!”

Kacchan looked at his mother with annoyance, but Izuku had a sudden feeling of guilt. He’d been having fun with Kacchan all day, and even found out he had a quirk, and hadn't thought about calling his mom even once.

“Is my mom hurt, too?” he asked timidly, afraid of the answer.

By that time, Auntie had guided him to a small stool and wash bowl while the tub filled with warm water.

“She’s still at the hospital,” she answered softly. “She wanted me to take care of you for now. Okay?”

She helped him wash very gently, carefully avoiding his head wound before helping him climb into the tub to soak. A couple of minutes later, Kacchan climbed in with him, splashing a bit as he did so. Auntie tidied up the room while the boys enjoyed the warm water.

“That one’s shaped like an alligator,” Kacchan said, pointing to a long, thin bruise that had blossomed on Izuku’s side.

Izuku looked down and could kind of see what he meant. It was like looking for shapes in clouds; they could look like animals and things if you thought about it.

“Do they hurt a lot? Did you cry?” Kacchan asked curiously, giving the alligator a small poke that made Izuku jump in surprise.

“Katsuki! Don’t jab at him like that!” his mother scolded, gathering big, fluffy towels from a shelf. “You’ll make the bruises worse!”

“They hurt a little,” Izuku told him honestly. “But it’s okay.”

He looked back at Kacchan’s mom and obediently got out of the tub and allowed himself to be enveloped in the soft, clean-smelling towel. Kacchan was similarly cocooned in his own towel, and was using the ends to rub at his wet hair. Next, they dried off before getting into pajamas. Kacchan had a new pair of All Might pajamas to show off, and he let Izuku wear his old pair, which had grown just a little too small for Katsuki, but were just right for Izuku.

There was a child-sized futon on the floor beside Kacchan’s bed, and Izuku settled down under the quilt while Kacchan climbed onto his mattress and under the covers. Once they were both tucked in, Izuku looked to Auntie.

“Will I be able to go and see my mom tomorrow?”

Auntie gasped and looked away for a moment, then took a deep breath and said, “I’m not sure, honey. We’ll have to wait and see. Sleep well.”

The lights were turned off as she shut the door behind her, but there was an All Might night light plugged into the wall by the door, so it wasn’t too dark. Izuku thought that he and Kacchan would stay up, playing and talking, but before he knew it, his eyes were getting droopy, and he fell asleep.

Thirst and woke him a couple of hours later, and Izuku quietly crept out of the room, and went to see if he could get a drink of water. Auntie was in the kitchen talking to Uncle, and they didn’t see him at first.

“She was the only casualty, apparently,” Auntie was saying. “Hisashi said he’d catch the first flight he could book a seat on. He should be here tomorrow, so you might need to go and get him from the airport.”

Izuku didn’t know what ‘casualty’ meant, but Hisashi was Izuku’s dad’s name. He knew that, because his mom talked to him on the phone all the time, and that’s what she called him.

“My dad’s coming?” he asked sleepily, rubbing at his eyes.

“Hey! I thought you were asleep. Are you okay? Did you have a bad dream? Does your head hurt?” Auntie said, sounding flustered.

“Thirsty,” Izuku said.

Uncle immediately went to the cabinet for a glass and filled it with water.

“Is my dad coming back?” Izuku asked again.

“Yes he is, little man,” Uncle told him, handing him the glass. “He’s coming tomorrow. They called him about the accident and he’s coming to see you and take care of you.”

“Wow. Mom will be so happy,” Izuku said, feeling a little better about it. He knew mom missed dad a lot while he worked far away.

Uncle looked like he was about to cry, and turned back to the sink. Auntie sniffed and put a hand on his head.

“Finish your drink, and we’ll get you back to bed. Maybe your dad will be here by the time you wake up.”

Izuku wasn’t sure what was going on, but did as he was told. As he settled back under the quilt, he fell asleep hoping that once his father got there, they could go and see his mom together.

Izuku was disappointed that his dad wasn’t there when he woke up, but Auntie said he was on his way and would be there soon. Taiwan was so far away that his dad couldn’t come home on weekends, so it would probably be a long trip.

“I never met your dad before,” Kacchan said as they sat at the table and ate breakfast.

Izuku wasn’t feeling very hungry, and was picking at his eggs instead of actually eating them. His whole body was sore, and his head hurt a lot more than it did yesterday. Auntie had given him some more medicine, but it wasn’t working yet.

“He works at a place called Taiwan, and he’s the boss of a lot of people at a big company,” Izuku said, spouting off what he had been told by his parents. “He can’t come home too much because he’s got a lot of important work, but my mom doesn’t want to live there so she stays here.”

“Weird,” Kacchan said with a shrug.

After they finished breakfast, Katsuki was very interested to learn that they would not be going to school that day. His parents worked a lot, and almost never took random days off without a lot of planning, first.

“Izuku needs some time to rest from his accident,” Auntie explained. “And it would be boring here by himself, right?”

“Right!” Kacchan answered eagerly. “Can we play video games?”

“I think that would be all right,” she answered indulgently.

Kacchan knew exactly how to hook up the game console to the television in the living room. They had played several games of Racecar Pro 4 before they got bored, and changed to a fighting game featuring several prominent heroes, including All Might. Izuku chose to play All Might in his bronze age costume, and Kacchan chose his silver age one. They were happily fighting virtual villains when the front door opened.

“I’m home,” Uncle said brightly. “Izuku! There’s someone here to see you!”

Izuku turned his head and saw a sight he hadn’t seen outside of photographs for months. His dad. A bit on the skinny side, with messy black hair and freckles that matched Izuku’s own, he looked exactly the same as always. He was wearing a business suit that looked rumpled, and his tie was undone, and he looked really, really tired.

“Dad!” Izuku cried happily.

He launched himself at his father without hesitation, wrapping his arms around his neck as the man crouched to gather him up in his arms.

“Hi, Zu,” his dad said, hugging him tightly enough to make his bruises twinge with pain.

“I’m glad you’re back!” Izuku said joyfully, not complaining about the discomfort as he rubbed his cheek against his father’s stubbly one.

“He looks exactly like his dad,” Kacchan observed to his own father as they watched the reunion.

“He sure does,” Uncle replied.

“Can we go see mom, now?” Izuku asked, turning large worried eyes to his dad.

“I… I just saw her,” his dad said, sounding like he had a sore throat. “We can go after you and I have a man to man talk, if you want.”

“Okay,” Izuku said easily.

He wasn’t sure what a man to man talk was, but it didn’t sound so bad. He politely thanked the Bakugou family for taking care of him, and his father did the same before setting Izuku on his feet and taking his hand.

Chapter 2

Summary:

Izuku discovers that his mother’s quirk isn’t the only one he has, and Kacchan doesn’t like that idea at all.

Notes:

Thank you everyone for the kudos and comments! They make me so happy!! I got this chapter done a lot faster than expected! I hope you like it!

Izuku didn’t know how his life would ever be the same again. His mother hadn’t just been hurt in the train wreck, she had died in it. Dad said that she’d died protecting him from being hurt, and that she was a hero.

Heroes weren’t supposed to die.

After the funeral (which was something of an emotional blur), Dad had taken Izuku on a long airplane ride to Taiwan, where Izuku had been looked after by an older lady named Shuling that didn’t speak any Japanese. It was weird to hear his father speaking Mandarin to other people, too. His dad promised that they would only be there for a few days while he got things here in order, so they could move back to Japan. Izuku didn’t really like it in this place. His dad lived in a really tall building, but all you could see out the windows were other really tall buildings. He ended up spending all of his time watching unfamiliar cartoons that he couldn’t really understand, since he wasn’t allowed to go out, and didn’t know how to tell the woman looking after him if he wanted to do anything, anyway. He missed home. He missed his mom.

Izuku often got tearful when he thought about his mother. Every time his eyes filled with tears, Shuling would give him little squares of nougat and pat his hand gently. He understood that she was trying to comfort him, but it didn’t help much. His dad was gone most of the time, and when he came back, he was exhausted and usually went right to sleep, only to be gone again by the time Izuku woke up each morning. The only time Izuku really went out the entire time he was in Taiwan was to visit the hospital to have the stitches in his forehead removed. His father had gone with him for this, and Izuku had been less anxious, but as they were arriving at the hospital, an ambulance arrived and stopped right in front of them. They hurried a man out of the back who was very old looking, and they were pressing on his chest and calling to others to come and help. Izuku felt a shiver zoom up his spine at the sight, and his father quickly detoured him away from the ambulance entrance to a different door.

He sat still on the examination table while a doctor came and carefully removed the bandage over the stitches on Izuku’s head.

“He says this won’t hurt,” his dad translated for the doctor. “It might feel a little weird or itchy, though.”

Izuku nodded and closed his eyes and held his breath.

“Izuku--what?” his dad asked, sounding alarmed.

Izuku opened his eyes and let out his breath in anticipation, when his dad began to speak in rapid Mandarin to the doctor.

“Izuku, do you feel okay?” his dad asked, studying him carefully. “Can you do that again?”

“Do what?” Izuku asked, feeling puzzled.

“What you were just doing,” his father encouraged.

Izuku obediently closed his eyes, thinking that the doctor was about to pull the stitches out. He held his breath, and waited, but no one did anything, so he opened his eyes again and looked at his dad quizzically.

“Is he not going to take them out?” he asked anxiously.

He had seen the stitches when the bandage had been changed, and they were ugly and black and looked like a centipede marching across his forehead. He wanted them to go away.

More Mandarin.

“Zu...can you keep your eyes open and hold your breath for me for a few seconds? Like if you were going swimming?” his dad finally asked.

Izuku did what he asked, and he could see the doctor and his dad staring at him with interest. Izuku looked down at his knees, and saw that he could see the table he was sitting on through his legs. It was the same with his hands. He had turned see through! He let out his breath in a whoosh and saw himself go back to normal.

“Again,” his dad said, at the direction of the doctor. “Hold your breath as long as you can.”

Izuku sucked in a breath and saw himself turn transparent again. The doctor poked him with the end of a pen, but nothing else happened.

“Okay, Zu. You can breathe normally, now. Has that ever happened before?”

Izuku shook his head. What did it mean?

His dad talked with the doctor in Mandarin again. And after a long conversation that Izuku couldn’t understand, his dad sighed.

“Okay, Zu, he’s going to take your stitches out, now. Try not to hold your breath while he does it, okay?”

“But what about…” Izuku began to ask.

“We don’t know, buddy. We’ll see the doctor when we get back to Japan and find out.”

Luckily, they got back on a plane two weeks later and returned to Izuku’s familiar home, in the apartment he had lived in with his mother before. His forehead was as healed as it was likely to get, according to the doctor in Taiwan. Izuku had a bright pink scar that wasn’t much more than a long line from his hairline above his right eyebrow to his left temple. Time would probably fade it from bright pink to more closely resembling his skin tone. All of the bruises had faded by now and physically, Izuku was back to normal.

His father dropped him off at school on the Monday morning after they got back to Japan, and the kids all gathered around him, having heard from Kacchan that he had a quirk, now. The teachers exclaimed over him and made a fuss when he showed everyone how he could make a box of crayons float over to him from a nearby table.

“Congratulations, Izuku-kun!” one of the teachers said proudly.

“Oh! I can do this, too!” Izuku said, feeling proud of himself as he breathed in deeply and held his breath.

Everyone gasped as he turned transparent, clothes and all, until he let out his breath again.

‘Wow!”

“Amazing!”

“How’d you get two quirks?” Kacchan demanded, looking upset.

Izuku shrugged.

“I dunno. It just happened. My dad’s gonna take to the doctor to find out as soon as he can,” Izuku said.

“Well, having two quirks is weird,” Kacchan declared with a pout. “And neither of them is as good as mine.”

Izuku didn’t know what Kacchan was getting mad about, but he nodded anyway. “Kacchan’s quirk is still the coolest!”

The other boy seemed to be slightly mollified by this and the day went on as usual. When it was time for them to go play outside, Kacchan approached him and said quietly.

 

“I’m sorry about your mom.”

“Thanks,” Izuku said, which is what his father always said to people who said that to him. “I miss her.”

“Of course you do, stupid. She’s your mom. But my mom says it’ll be okay, so it will.” Kacchan seemed absolutely certain of this.

Izuku nodded, not knowing what else he could say, and let himself be drawn into games on the playground. After school, Izuku was picked up by Kacchan’s mom when she came to get Kacchan.

“Your dad said that you should come home with me and Katsuki for a while, until he can make other arrangements for you while he’s at work. Won’t that be fun?”

Izuku looked over to Kacchan, who looked like it was the first time he was hearing about this new arrangement.

“For how long?” the blond boy asked.

“I’m not sure,” his mother said with a raised eyebrow. “As long as it takes for Midoriya-san to find an after school program or babysitter that he trusts to take care of Izuku while he’s at work.”

“Okay,” Izuku said, not sure why Kacchan didn’t seem excited about it. “Thank you.”

The school wasn’t too far from Kacchan’s house, so they all walked together. Kacchan found a stick on the ground, and ran ahead, dragging it along the low walls and fences next to the sidewalk. Izuku took Auntie’s hand like he used to do when his mother picked him up from school. He didn’t even really think about it beforehand as he held onto her fingers and walked quietly next to her. He felt his eyes sting a bit as he remembered that he wouldn’t be able to do this with his mother ever again, but held the tears back. Dad said he needed to be brave, now.

“Hey!” Kacchan said, stomping back to them and pulling Izuku’s arm.

Izuku was forced to let go of Auntie’s hand as Kacchan dragged him ahead to look at a dead bug being carried away by a line of ants near the street.

Once they got to the Bakugou house, Kacchan immediately went to sit at the little table in the kitchen that only had two chairs near a window that looked out onto a tiny backyard that was mostly paved, with poles for hanging laundry. Izuku went to sit in the chair across from him, but Kacchan shouted at him.

“No! That’s my mom’s seat! We have snack together here every day after school!”

Izuku froze, and didn’t know what to do. He used to eat his snack and tell his mom about his day when they got home from school too. He knew how important that was, and didn’t want Kacchan to miss out on his time with his mom because of him.

“Katsuki!” Auntie scolded, sounding angry, “What a way to behave! Izuku is our guest!”

Kacchan made an angry sound at them both and crossed his arms across his chest with a glare.

“I’m sorry,” Izuku said, trying hard not to let his voice shake. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s all right,” Auntie said in a much softer voice than she’d used for Kacchan. “You can sit there and have snack time with Katsuki.”

She put a hand on his mop of curls that definitely needed a haircut, and stroked gently.

“No he can’t!” Kacchan angrily denied.

Izuku faded to transparency and ducked his head, backing away from both of them.

“Oh my god!” Auntie exclaimed. “What’s happening?”

Izuku released and sucked in a breath, not realizing that he’d been holding his breath, waiting for a verbal explosion from either Kacchan or his mother about everything.

Kacchan growled, sounding angry or frustrated or both.

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!” Izuku chanted, wanting everyone to be happy. “That happens sometimes! I’m sorry!”

“But I thought your quirk was…” Auntie began.

“Well, he’s got TWO quirks now!” Kacchan snarled, hopping down from the chair and stomping from the room. They could hear his loud, but hasty retreat through the house, up the stairs and the slam of his bedroom door as they stood there in shock.

Izuku felt the first tear fall and sniffed, struggling not to cry. Why was everything so hard today?

“Oh, Izuku,” Auntie scooped him up into her arms, even though he was too big to be carried around anymore, and hugged him tightly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“K-kacchan’s mad at me,” he said miserably. “He said having two quirks is weird.”

“Having two quirks is unusual,” she corrected him gently. “Not weird. Why don’t you sit down and have your snack, and I’ll go tell Katsuki he needs to apologize.”

“No! Don’t!” Izuku said as she put him on his feet. “He’ll just get madder! He just wants to have his snack with you. I can go read a book and you can have a snack with him like always!”

Auntie looked like she wasn’t sure what to say to this. She thought about it for a moment and finally decided, “How about I fix you something you can eat in the living room? I’ll turn on the T.V. and you can watch cartoons while I go see if I can get Katsuki to come down.”

Izuku nodded at this solution. This way he would still get something to eat, and Kacchan could have his alone time with his mom. He sat on a cushion beside the low table near the couch and Auntie gave him a juice box, some apple slices (cut to look like bunnies!) and a handful of rice crackers. There was a cartoon about All Might on that he had seen a dozen times, but loved enough to watch a dozen more, and he thanked her politely. She patted his head and went upstairs, and Izuku ate his snack in contented silence.

Auntie stayed upstairs for a long time, so when the cartoon was over, Izuku turned off the television. He sat on the couch with a notebook retrieved from his schoolbag and doodled for a while until he started to feel sleepy. He didn’t even realize he’d dozed off until he was being shaken awake by a rough hand. He opened his eyes to see Kacchan standing by the couch, looking at him with a scowl.

“Mom said to wake you up cause it’s almost dinner time. She said I have to tell you sorry for earlier, too.”

Izuku sat up and looked around, surprised that it was already late enough to be dinnertime. He didn’t know what time his dad would even be done with work, since he was always at work.

“Is my dad coming to get me?”

“I dunno.”

Kacchan didn’t seem inclined to say more than that, but he didn’t really seem too mad anymore, either. He just walked away, retreating up the stairs, leaving Izuku where he was.

At a loss, Izuku found his way to the toilet and took care of his own pressing needs, and washed his hands extra good since it was almost time to eat. He didn’t know if he would be joining the Bakugou family for their meal, or if he would be eating with dad.

When they were in Taiwan, the lady who looked after him had cooked their meals, too. The food had been mostly unfamiliar, but still good. When they had gotten back to Japan a couple of days ago, his dad had bought convenience store food or takeaway for every meal. He was pretty sure his dad didn’t know how to cook.

“There he is!” Uncle said with a friendly smile as Izuku wandered into the kitchen.

“Hello, Uncle,” Izuku greeted him the way his mother had taught him he should greet people. “Kacchan said it was almost dinnertime. Is my dad coming to get me, now?”

Auntie looked over her shoulder from where she was preparing bowls of rice on the counter.

“He called and said he was going to be a little late,” she told him with an apologetic smile. “So we get to keep you here a bit longer! I hope you like curry!”

Izuku did.

Kacchan didn’t make another appearance until he was called for dinner, and everyone gathered around the dining room table . Izuku waited until he could tell where everyone would sit before timidly taking the remaining chair for himself. Auntie sighed, and she and Uncle gave each other another of those ‘looks’ that adults give each other that mean something. Auntie glared a bit at Kacchan, then, and the other boy scowled.

“What? I did what you said!”

Auntie sighed again, but smiled warmly at Izuku as she put a plate of delicious smelling curry.

“Thank you!” he said brightly, “It looks so yummy!”

Both grownups chuckled.

Kacchan banged the handle of his spoon on the table and said, “It smells great!”

“I’m glad you think so! Enjoy!” Auntie told them.

“Itadakimasu!”

Both boys dug in eagerly. Izuku carefully scooped up some rice, then some curry and blew on it before putting it in his mouth. Kacchan stirred up everything on his plate until the rice and curry were indistinguishable from each other and then scooped up a mouthful and ate it without checking to see if it was hot. Both boys made noises of appreciation as they got their first taste.

After everyone had gotten a few bites of their dinner inside of them, Uncle turned to Katsuki and asked, “How was school today?”

“It was okay, I guess. There was a frog near the bird feeder outside that ate a dead bug, and the class guinea pigs got into a fight again.”

“How was your first day back, Izuku-kun?” he asked after listening to Kacchan.

“Okay,” Izuku said quietly, taking a drink of the water by his plate.

He wasn’t sure if he should say more, since it had been a very emotional day for him and wasn’t sure if he could explain how, even if he wanted to risk making Kacchan mad again. Kacchan had been cranky all day, but he did like it when he was praised...

“Kacchan and I played otedama during outside time. Kacchan won, like always! He’s really fast!”

“You’re just too slow,” Kacchan said, but not in a mean way.

The lighter atmosphere helped Izuku relax, and Kacchan began to talk more about things at school. He seemed happy to have the attention on him, so Izuku concentrated on finishing his curry.

He had just finished his last bite when the doorbell rang.

“That’s probably Hisashi,” Auntie said, getting up and moving out of the room.

“May I please be excused?” Izuku asked Uncle.

Uncle seemed a little surprised by Izuku’s formality, but smiled at him and nodded. “Of course.”

“Thanks for the meal!” Izuku said as he climbed from his chair and went to see his dad.

His dad looked tired, and was in the middle of apologizing to Auntie for being so late.

Auntie packed up some curry for his dad to take home for his dinner, and Izuku collected his notebook and school bag. They decided to walk, even though it was at least thirty minutes away by foot. Izuku was happy to have time with his dad, who was so busy all the time. His dad said it was nice to stretch his legs after a long day in the office.

“How was school today, Zu?” his dad asked as they walked. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you that Bakugou-san was going to pick you up. Did you have fun?”

He let Izuku carry the bento with the curry in it and he carried his bag with his computer and work stuff.

“I don’t think Kacchan likes having me there very much. He got mad at me for having another quirk. He said it’s weird.”

“That brat,” his dad muttered quietly. He patted Izuku on the head with a smile and consoled him. “He’s probably just jealous because you’re lucky enough to have an extra.”

“Maybe… he said that neither one of mine is as cool as his. He’s right about that, but I still like them.”

“Your quirks are amazing, Zu. So are you. I am so proud of how you’ve been handling everything that’s happened this last month. I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much as either of us would like, but I’m working on it.”

Izuku felt the little knot that had been residing in his chest for most of the day loosen a little after hearing his father praise him.

“I’ve got my assistant researching to find someone who can look after you while I’m at work, so you can be at home, at least. I gave her a list of things we need them to be able to do, like cooking and cleaning and taking good care of you,” his dad continued.

“Like mom used to do?” Izuku asked, a little worried.

“No one can take your mother’s place, Zu. I know that better than anyone, but I’m useless at housework, and you’re not old enough to stay by yourself until I get home. We need help.”

He said it gently, and sounded as sad as Izuku felt about it. Izuku knew he was right, but there had been so many changes lately that he felt lost. Maybe his dad did, too.

“I know,” Izuku said with a nod.

“Is there anything in particular you think someone looking after you should be able to do?”

Izuku gave it some thought before he answered.

“They should like All Might and heroes as much as me!”

His dad laughed at that, and said, “I don't know if anyone loves heroes as much as you do!”

The rest of the walk home was nice as Izuku chatted with his dad. He believed it when his dad said that everything would be okay, soon.

The next day at school, Kacchan seemed to be feeling better, especially since the teachers praised his ability to read some kanji that none of the other kids had even started to try learning. Most were still learning hiragana and some katakana. This put Kacchan in a good mood, and Izuku was able to play and participate like normally without walking on eggshells.

After school, Izuku was careful not to infringe on Kacchan’s time with his mother, saying that he wasn’t hungry and didn’t want a snack. Instead he said he was tired, and pretended to sleep on the couch for a while, happy when he heard Kacchan and Auntie in the kitchen chatting about their day. When enough time had passed, Izuku ‘woke up’ and he and Kacchan were allowed to go down the street to the little park that had a small stream and some trees. Kacchan brought his net and a little container, in case they found any good beetles.

Two other boys from the neighborhood were there already, looking bored.

“Hey!” Tsubasa said when he saw Izuku. “You’re Midoriya! My mom heard from Bakugou’s mom that you have two quirks! That’s a lie, right?”

“Nobody has two quirks, stupid,” a boy called Onaga said, shoving Tsubasa with his elbow.

“It’s true,” Izuku said.

“It’s weird,” Kacchan said immediately.

“Prove it!” Onaga demanded, pointing at Izuku.

Izuku reached out a hand and pulled a stick from the nearby grass to his waiting hand, and grinned.

“That’s one,” Tsubasa said. “What’s the other one?”

Izuku glanced over at Kacchan, and saw he was scowling again. He remembered what his father said about jealousy.

“It's not really that great,” he said carefully.

He paused, then held his breath. He didn’t feel anything in particular, but could tell by the interested response from the others that he was now transparent.

“Whoa,” Onaga said. “He really does have two quirks. Cool!’

“You mean weird,” Kacchan corrected with a snort.

“Anyway,” Izuku said with a shrug. “That’s them. I don’t know why I’ve got two.”

“Cause you’re a freak,” Kacchan supplied with a roll of his eyes.

The other two boys looked back and forth between Izuku and Kacchan, before nodding slowly.

“Weird,” Tsubasa agreed.

“Weird,” Onaga parroted. “It might be cool if they were better quirks, though.”

Kacchan looked satisfied by this, and picked up a stick and wrote his name in the soft dirt beside the sidewalk.

That distracted the others, and they began drawing with sticks on the ground. Izuku watched in amazement as Kacchan wrote all of their names in kanji.

“Look!” Kacchan said, writing Izuku’s name in the dirt. “This can also be read as Deku! That means useless, just like his quirks!”

The other boys laughed, and Izuku dropped his stick.

“That’s mean, Kacchan.”

“I’m only telling the truth,” came the spiteful answer. “What’s the matter, Deku? You mad that you’ve got two quirks, and they’re both stupid?”

“I’m going to go back,” Izuku said.

He turned away as the other boys started chanting, “Deku! Deku!”

“You’d better not go crying to my mom, or you’ll be sorry!” Kacchan called after him warningly.

Izuku didn’t look back as he ran back to the Bakugou’s house. Why was Kacchan being so mean? He sat on the front step of the house, not sure if he should knock or just go inside. Would he get in trouble for not staying with Kacchan? Would Kacchan get in trouble for not staying with Izuku? If Kacchan got in trouble, then he might be even meaner to Izuku. He didn’t want that to happen. He wanted Kacchan to be his friend.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat outside trying to figure out how to be friends with Kacchan without making him mad, but eventually the front door opened and Auntie was standing there, looking concerned.

“Izuku? I thought you went to the park with Katsuki,” she said, holding out her hand to help him up.

“I did,” he said, proud that he hadn’t been crying about it. “I didn’t want to do what the other boys were doing, so I came back.”

Auntie didn’t look convinced, but didn’t question him about it, either. She looked down the street toward the park, where she could just see the trees and benches from where she stood.

“Well, come on inside. You didn’t have your snack before. Do you feel hungry, now?”

Izuku did. He sat at the table in the kitchen and had some juice and some melon bread while Auntie sat in the other chair with a laptop in front of her and a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose.

“I got a message from your dad,” she told him as he munched. “He said he should be able to pick you up just before dinnertime, today.”

“Okay,” he said agreeably. “He said he’s trying to find someone to look after me, so you don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind looking after you,” she told him with a soft smile.

“Kacchan does,” Izuku said simply. “I don’t think he likes me here.”

“He’s used to being the only one here and getting all of the attention,” Auntie said wisely. “He’d get used to it. Is he being mean to you?”

Izuku didn’t like to lie, but he also didn’t like Kacchan to be mean to him, which is what would happen if Izuku complained about it.

“My dad says he’s just jealous.”

“Your dad is right,” Auntie said with a sigh. “But that doesn’t mean he gets to pick on you. If he does, you come and tell me about it so I can talk to him, okay?”

“Okay,” Izuku said noncommittally.

After his snack was finished, he went to the living room and picked out a book to look at from a little book shelf. It had lots of pictures, and appeared to be a story about a shark. He sat on the couch and opened it in his lap, trying to read some of the hiragana, with only a little success.

“Can you read that, Izuku-kun?” Auntie asked, sitting beside him and setting her computer on the table.

“Only a little,” he confessed. “I like the pictures, though.”

“Would you like me to read it to you?”

Izuku nodded, and sat close to Auntie so he could see the pictures while she read the story. He was feeling a little sleepy for real, and leaned his head against her while he listened. When the door crashed open and Katsuki came in and saw them, he fisted his hands and shouted at Izuku.

“Hey! That’s my book!”

“Katsuki!” Auntie shouted at him. “How dare you!”

Kacchan didn’t even take off his shoes as he stomped over and grabbed the book off of his mother’s lap, throwing it across the room. Izuku scrambled up and backed away from the furious glare and the sparks he could see popping in Kacchan’s hands. He was really, really mad!

“I’m sorry!” Izuku said timidly, tears springing to his eyes. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Stupid Deku! Go home! This is my house, not yours! She’s my mom, not yours! Your mom is dead!”

Kacchan froze as the words left his mouth, as if he knew that he’d gone too far. It also might have had something to do with the fact that Auntie had slapped his cheek right after he said it. Everyone stood there, stunned for a moment. The slap hadn’t been super hard, but it had been jarring, just the same.

“I hate you!” Kacchan shouted with tears in his eyes.

He shoved Izuku out of his way as he ran past to scurry up the stairs to his room and slammed the door. Izuku fell down from the force of the blow, which had been aided by two mini explosions from the palms of Kacchan’s hands. His shirt had a pair of scorch marks on it, though his skin didn’t feel burned. Izuku was too stunned to even cry.

“Izuku-kun, are you okay?”

Auntie kneeled down in front of him and helped him stand up. She inspected his shirt and the skin underneath to make sure he wasn’t too hurt, then pulled him into a hug, rubbing his back.

“I’m so sorry he said those horrible things,” she said with tears in her own eyes.

Izuku just nodded and stood very still in her embrace. He would not risk clinging to her as he wanted to, in case Kacchan came back and saw.

“I’m sorry I made him mad,” Izuku said, trying to make things better.

“No, Izuku-kun. You don’t apologize for this; this is not your fault. Not even a little bit. It’s mine, and it’s Katsuki’s.” she told him firmly. “I’ve spoiled him far too much.”

“You… you hit him,” Izuku said.

His tone was not accusatory, but surprised. His own mother had never raised a hand to him, though he couldn’t ever recall being as hateful as Kacchan before, either. Maybe she would have spanked him if he’d been bad enough? He couldn’t imagine it, though.

“I did,” she agreed, sounding sad. “I probably shouldn’t have. I’ll go and talk to him about it once we’ve both had time to settle down, a little.”

“O-okay,” he said, not sure what to say to that.

They both stayed there for a moment, staring at each other awkwardly.

“How about I turn on a movie for you to watch?” she suggested at last.

“Okay,” he agreed, for lack of anything better to say.

She turned on an animated movie and he sat on the floor in front of the television obediently to watch, not making a sound and not moving from that spot.

He could hear her talking on the phone a few minutes later, telling someone about what had just happened with Kacchan, and hoped that there wouldn't be even more trouble when Uncle came home.

Izuku quietly watched the movie about a boy who lived with a pirate in outer space, and was surprised when his father showed up before it was even halfway over. He got up and ran to him, throwing his arms around his dad’s legs and squeezing tight.

“Thanks for everything, Mitsuki,” he said to Auntie. “Sorry to have caused so much turmoil for your family.”

“Inko was my friend,” Auntie said, using Izuku’s mom’s name. “It’s the least I could do. I’m sorry it turned out this way. Izuku is a sweet, sweet boy.”

The next day, Izuku went to a different school; one that stayed open very late for kids whose parents worked late. He didn’t go back to Kacchan’s house again.

Chapter 3

Summary:

Izuku makes new friends, gets a new babysitter and a new quirk. Then he learns more about why. Keep an eye out in the chapter for a little cameo by someone you might recognize!

Notes:

Things have been kind of slow at work, so I've been getting in some good writing time! A million thank yous to everyone commenting and leaving kudos, they really to make me more motivated to write!

Izuku’s new school was nice. He made some new friends and flourished without the added stress of everyone knowing that his mother had recently died and treating him differently because of it. The days were long, because sometimes his dad didn’t get off of work until after dark, but the staff were nice.

He met a girl with pink hair and funny eyes that was always hogging the lego set, but she was nice, if she happened to notice you. The other kids didn’t make a big deal about Izuku having two quirks, and it was easy to fit in and relax in a way he hadn’t been able to at his old school.

A few weeks later, Izuku’s dad finally took him to see the same doctor that had told him before that he didn’t have a quirk, to find out why he now had two. Izuku didn’t see why they needed to see a doctor about it, but his dad said he wanted to be sure it was nothing to worry about.

Dr. Tsubasa had been very surprised to find that Izuku had manifested a quirk at all, and expressed sympathy at the death of Izuku’s mother. He questioned them about the circumstances surrounding each manifestation, and made some notes, but in the end, he didn’t have much to add to what they already knew.

“His case is pretty unique,” the doctor told Izuku’s dad. “Usually when a person has more than one quirk, it’s either because the child got each of his parent’s quirks, or something linked to them. It would make sense, for example, if he was able to breathe fire, and then pull it back to himself; that sort of thing. Telekinesis and turning transparent are completely different and unrelated to each other. There’s no one on either side of your family who can disappear or phase through objects or anything like that?”

“Not as far as I know. Inko’s parents passed away in an accident when she was in her teens, and my own parents are gone, as well. I don’t know much more family history beyond that.”

Izuku sat, incredibly bored, while the doctor nodded and made more notes. The office was a bit cold, and he shivered a bit, hoping that they were almost done.

“From what you’ve told me, there doesn’t seem to be anything worth worrying about. Nature sometimes produces an outlier, and Izuku-kun is otherwise a healthy boy. Unless anything else develops, I don’t think you need to worry too much. If something does develop. Please contact me right away. From a clinical standpoint, his case is really quite interesting.”

His dad had seemed relieved to know there was nothing particularly wrong, and dropped Izuku off at school to finish out the day while he went back to work. The peace lasted only a couple of hours before something strange happened.

“What do you think about my new baby?” Mei asked Izuku as she presented her latest lego creation for inspection. It was a real working claw that she had rigged up with some rubber bands and levers and wheels from a huge bucket of lego pieces that were scattered around the area.

Izuku looked up from his own creation, which was a simple car and not very interesting.

“That’s amazing, Mei-chan! But why is this one blue? It should be red like the rest!” Izuku tapped the odd blue plastic brick in the middle of the claw, and it instantly changed from blue to red, to match the rest of the creation.

“How’d you do that?” Mei demanded, putting her hands on her hips and staring down at him.

Izuku shrugged. “I just touched it and it changed color.”

“Do it again! Change this one red, too!” she demanded in a bossy tone.

Izuku touched the brick she held out to him and blinked when it changed from yellow to red.

“Make this one black!” she said, shoving another plastic brick at him.

He did.

Other kids began to gather around and make innocent demands, too.

“Turn this green!”

“Can you make this purple?”

One of the teachers came over to see what was going on and was surprised to see Izuku changing classroom toys to different colors. She called another one of the teachers over.

“Izuku,” the head teacher asked, kneeling down next to him, “Were you able to do this before?”

Izuku shook his head, but was grinning at his newfound popularity.

“Your daddy took you to the doctor today to find out about your other quirks, right?” she asked, sounding curious.

He nodded. “The doctor said don’t worry about it.”

“Did he see you change things to a different color?” she asked.

“Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t do it then. Just now.”

The two teachers looked at each other with raised eyebrows. They took him to another small room where they asked him to change a few different things to different colors. He was able to change plastic things and crayons, but not fabric, rocks, metal or glass. He couldn’t change skin or hair, either. There was no detail work when the color changed - the entire object changed, regardless of how many colors it had been before. They made some notes and then told him he could go back and play, but not to change any more toys without permission. No one seemed upset that he now had three quirks, though they did tell him he wasn’t supposed to use any of them without permission; that was the rule for everyone.

When his dad picked him up later, he asked him how he felt, and questioned him a bit about his new quirk, but didn’t seem too upset, either. Mostly he seemed confused.

“I’ll call Dr. Tsubasa tomorrow and see what he has to say,” his dad said.

Two days later, Izuku was back in the doctor’s office, and this time it wasn’t as easy and boring as just sitting there while the adults talked. This time, there was a needle that sucked some of his blood out, and x-rays of his whole body, and noisy machines in big tunnels and all kinds of people poking and prodding at him for a really long time.

By the time his dad was allowed to take him home, he was tired and cranky. It didn’t help when the doctor had said that they would need to return for the test results “in a few days” before he could tell them anything.

At dinner that night (which his dad had ordered to be delivered) his father looked almost as tired and cranky as Izuku did.

“It’s been a long day, huh?” he asked Izuku as he transferred a portion of fried rice onto Izuku’s plate.

Izuku nodded and poked at his food moodily.

“I might have some good news, though. Saki, my assistant, thinks she might have found someone to come and look after us. I’m going to meet them tomorrow, and if I like them then you’ll get to meet them and we’ll decide together, okay?”

Izuku wasn’t sure what to think about that.

“Can they cook?” he asked.

The food on his plate wasn’t bad, but he was tired of eating out of cartons and paper wrappers.

“That was one of the biggest requirements on the list,” his dad promised solemnly.

“Okay.”

Three days later, Izuku was playing in his room when the doorbell rang and his father called to him. He ran out to the living room to see a young man standing there wearing a high school uniform. The high school guy waved at him with a friendly smile and Izuku waved back shyly.

“Izuku, this is Tanaka-san. He’s a senior in high school, and wants to be the one looking after us a while. Come on in and meet him.”

Izuku came over and politely greeted Tanaka as he’d been taught to. Tanaka knelt down on the carpet in front of Izuku and smiled.

“I’m pleased to meet you Izuku-kun,” he said in a nice voice. “Do you have any questions for me?”

Izuku looked questioningly at his father, who nodded in encouragement. His dad had told him that it was up to him to decide if he liked the person that wanted the job, since Izuku would be the one spending the most time with him.

“Are you a good cook?” Izuku asked first of all.

“I think so,” Tanaka answered confidently. “My mom taught me how. My specialty is hamburg steak, though I can make lots of other stuff.”

Izuku nodded thoughtfully. He liked hamburg steak.

“Do you have a quirk?” was the next question.

Izuku was always interested in people’s quirks. As soon as he learned to write better, he was going to make a book about them.

“I do, but it’s not terribly impressive,” Tanaka said. “Watch.”

The young man pulled a little bottle of soap bubbles from his bag and held it up.

“What is your favorite animal?” he asked.

“Octopus!” Izuku said, just naming one off the top of his head. He didn’t really have a favorite.

Tanaka took out the bubble wand and blew through the soapy ring, and to Izuku’s amazement, a bubble shaped like an octopus floated out of it and into the air. It hovered for a while before it popped, and Izuku clapped his hands.

“That’s so cool! Can you do any shape?”

“Mostly,” Tanaka said, “But animals are the easiest.”

“Wow!”

“Any other questions?” he asked, tucking the bottle away in his bag again.

“Do you like heroes?”

“I love heroes! Especially All Might!” Tanaka said, scoring big points with Izuku.

“Are you married?” Izuku asked.

He didn’t really have a particular reason for asking, other than that he didn’t really know what he should ask beyond what he already had. Tanaka laughed. It was a nice laugh.

“No, I don’t even have a girlfriend,” he answered cheerfully. “Most high schoolers don’t get married until after they grow up some more.”

Izuku looked at his dad, “I like him. He’s good. Do you have any questions?”

“I already asked him lots and lots of questions before,” his dad said with a small smile. “I had to make sure he could do the job and be on time and everything, you know.”

“Good thinking,” Izuku said with a firm nod.

This seemed to amuse both men.

“I think you’ve got the job, if you’re comfortable with it,” his dad told Tanaka.

“Thank you, sir! I’m sure Izuku-kun and I will get along just fine!”

“So, Izuku! Tomorrow your dad will take you to school, and then I’ll pick you up from school when I’m done at my school, and I’ll bring you home and stay with you until your dad gets home. How does that sound?”

“Great!” Izuku said, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little.

Things were looking up.

When Izuku was taken to the doctor to get the results of all of his tests, he was glad when they promised him that he wouldn’t have to have any more blood taken or lay in any machines. He sat next to his dad as the Doctor explained.

“The tests didn’t show any stress to his system, which is the most important thing,” he said as he looked over the papers in Izuku’s file. “The human body isn’t normally equipped to handle multiple quirks, and there can be some backlash when more than one manifests, but there’s no sign of it in Izuku. I have a theory about him that I would like to test, but I will have to do a small amount of research and wait for the right opportunity, first.”

“What kind of theory?” Izuku’s dad asked.

Izuku had whimpered a little, and scooted over to hold his dad’s arm at the mention of another test.

“I believe that your son actually has four quirks, not three.”

“Explain,” was the only thing his dad said, even as he put a protective arm around Izuku’s shoulders.

“From everything you’ve told me, each one of the quirks he’s demonstrated has manifested after he’s spent time in a hospital.” Dr. Tsubasa pointed out, ticking them off on his fingers. “The first was after the train accident, the second was after you took him to get his stitches removed at the hospital in Taiwan, and the third just after an appointment here with me.”

“Yes, but he didn’t get a new one when he was here for all of those tests a few days ago,” his dad pointed out.

Izuku didn’t understand what they were talking about. What did being in a hospital have to do with getting quirks?

“No, but I checked the records and no one died here during the time period that he was here for the tests.”

Izuku looked at his dad, who had gone very still and quiet.

“Someone did pass away in this hospital during the time of the appointment after he received the color changing quirk,” Dr. Tsubasa continued. “And they also had a color changing quirk.”

“Oh shit,” Izuku’s dad said, earning him a look of shock from Izuku.

“Dad! You said a bad word!”

“Sorry, little man. Please excuse my bad language,” his dad said.

“I think you see where I’m going with this,” the doctor said. “But perhaps we should talk more about it privately?”

“Yes, of course. I wouldn’t want him to…”

The Dr. picked up the phone and asked a nurse to come in. She arrived within a minute, and Izuku was surprised when the doctor asked her to take him to get an ice cream in the cafeteria while he spoke privately with ‘the patient’s father.’

Izuku’s dad told him it was fine, and that he should go with the nice lady for a few minutes. He would come and get him after he talked to the doctor. Izuku slipped off the chair and took the nurse’s offered hand.

She was a nice lady who said she had a little girl just Izuku’s age. She chatted with him as she took him down a couple of long hallways to a little place that was kind of like a restaurant and got him a cup of ice cream that came with a little wooden spoon to scoop it out with. He shivered a bit as the ice cream made him feel cold, but it was tasty. She got one for herself as well, and they shared a small table in the busy space until Izuku’s dad showed up and said it was time to get him to school.

On the drive back in the car that his dad got just a couple of weeks ago from his company, Izuku waited for his dad to say something. When his dad didn’t really talk at all, Izuku prompted him.

“Did the doctor find out something bad about me?” he asked.

“No. Not bad. Just confusing,” his dad told him. His dad smiled, but it didn’t look like a real smile. “He’s still trying to figure things out.”

“He said I needed another test.”

“Not the kind you had before,” his dad said. “I’m not convinced you even need that test, so I’m going to wait and see. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“Okay,” Izuku said, unconvinced.

His dad dropped him off at school just before lunchtime, and things were fine for all of five minutes. The children were all served a tray with grilled fish, mixed veggies and sweet potato miso soup. Hana-chan got upset at this for some reason and began to cry (she was a bit of crybaby over very small things) and no one could figure out why until Izuku spoke up.

“She’s sad because she wanted fried tofu for lunch,” he told the teacher.

“She told you she wanted fried tofu?” she asked him.

“No. She just does. Sorry Hana-chan, you have to eat fish today,” he said consolingly. “Maybe your momma can make you fried tofu for dinner.”

Hana-chan sniffed, but stopped crying. “She makes the best fried tofu! I want to eat it right now!”

Hana was eventually coaxed into sitting down with everyone else, and lunch could continue. The head teacher came to sit by Izuku, as she did a lot of days, and started to talk to him while they ate.

“How did you know that Hana-chan wanted fried tofu for lunch?” she asked curiously.

Izuku shrugged. “I dunno. I could just tell. Takashi wishes he could have daifuku right now,” Izuku said, pointing to one of the boys at another table. “You want a Kit Kat.”

She blinked at him in surprise, but listened to him tell her all about what each person sitting around him wanted to eat. The kids nearby confirmed what he ‘guessed’, saying things like, “Yeah! Curry would be really good! I wish we were having that, today!” and “He’s right! I like the other miso soup better.”

Izuku finished his own lunch without complaint. He liked the school lunches most of the time, but Tanaka-san hadn’t been lying when he had said that his hamburg steak was very good. He preferred his babysitter’s food over the school food.

Tanaka-san picked him up at school just like he did every day, now. They walked the short distance to the bus stop, where they got on and rode for ten minutes to another stop that was a five minute walk to the Midoriya’s apartment.

Tanaka-san made him a fruit sandwich for his snack, cutting it into neat triangles on the plate. While Izuku ate, Tanaka took care of the laundry from the day before, and vacuumed the living room and bedrooms. Izuku climbed on a stool near the counter after that and ‘helped’ Tanaka-san prepare veggies and things for cooking. Izuku washed the rice, and helped dry dishes when they got washed.

Tanaka talked to Izuku while he prepared items for breakfast that could be easily warmed up in the morning. Izuku liked hearing about Tanaka-san’s day at school, as he explained about how his class was planning what they would do for their culture festival. It sounded like a lot of fun! Izuku liked how Tanaka-san didn’t treat him like a little kid, and asked him questions and explained things to him when he asked. If he didn’t know the answer to something Izuku wanted to know, he would look it up on his phone, and they would learn about it together.

After the chores were finished, Tanaka-san checked Izuku’s school bag for the folder that got sent home every day with any notes from the teacher. This was something he checked on, to be sure he didn’t need to prepare anything that might be needed the next day at school, like a smock for painting or anything like that.

“Izuku-kun,” Tanaka-san asked after reading the note the teacher had written. “Can you tell me what I want to eat right now?”

“A spicy tuna roll,” Izuku immediately supplied from where he was sitting, ‘writing’ in this notebook. “With extra wasabi.”

Tanaka-san laughed at this answer, which puzzled Izuku, because it wasn't really funny.

“Do you know what your dad wants for dinner?” he asked next.

Izuku thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “I dunno. He likes most of the stuff you make.”

“Very cool,” was all Tanaka-san said to that.

They ate dinner together, though it wasn't a spicy tuna roll, because they didn’t have the ingredients. It was still very tasty, and they saved a big plate for Izuku’s dad for when he got home.

After dinner, Tanaka-san supervised Izuku’s bath and then blow dried his hair for him before helping him get ready for bed. By then, Izuku’s eyes were drooping and he fell asleep almost immediately after a long, strange day.

Izuku woke in the morning to find his father already awake and dressed, warming breakfast in the microwave when Izuku came into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” his dad said when he saw Izuku come in and sit down at the table. “Breakfast will be ready in just a minute.”

Izuku already knew that there would be rolled omelette, salad and rice, with instant miso soup. He had helped Tanaka-san prepare it, after all.

“I talked to your teacher yesterday,” his father said, setting a glass of milk on the table in front of him. “She says you have an interesting new talent.”

Izuku looked at him, feeling puzzled. “I do?”

It was his dad’s turn to look puzzled.

“She said you were telling her all about what everyone wanted to eat for lunch yesterday. Nao-kun said that you were right about what he wanted to eat yesterday, too.”

“Who’s Nao-kun?”

“That’s Tanaka’s name,” his dad supplied. “Can you tell what I want right now?”

“Coffee,” Izuku said. “With cream, and one of those fancy rolls with jam on it.”

“I’ll be damned,” his dad said.

“Dad! That’s a bad word!” Izuku scolded.

“Sorry! Sorry!” his dad chuckled. “I was just surprised. You’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t say words like that.”

The rest of the day was normal, and nothing unusual happened for over a week. It wasn’t until a Friday evening that his dad brought up his new ‘talent’ again.

“I talked to Dr. Tsubasa,” he told Izuku as they enjoyed some shortbread that Tanaka-san’s mother had sent to them via their son. “He thinks that being able to tell what people want to eat is probably actually another quirk.”

“That would be a dumb quirk,” Izuku said with all of the disdain an almost-five-year-old could muster.

“Dr. Tsubasa said that someone who was at the hospital recently had the same quirk, and they ran a pretty successful little restaurant. I’m sure it came in handy to know what the customers there wanted.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Izuku conceded. “But I don’t want to be a cook. I want to be a hero, like All Might!”

His dad poured himself some coffee from the small pot he’d made earlier and added some creamer. “All Might, huh? Those are some pretty big shoes to fill! Though at the rate you’re collecting quirks, who knows?”

The last part was murmured, as if he wasn’t really talking to Izuku. Izuku took a mental count. He had his mom’s quirk, the see-through one, the changing color one, and now the food one.

“Do I really have four quirks, now?” he asked.

“If your doctor is to be believed, you might have five.”

“Five? What’s the other one?”

“It’s complicated,” his dad told him with a soft sigh.

He got the food on the table and sat down across from Izuku, sipping his coffee while Izuku picked up his chopsticks.

“Dr. Tsubasa thinks that you’re getting quirks from people who die when you’re nearby.”

Izuku frowned in concentration as he tried to make sense of what that might mean.

“I don’t get it,” he finally said.

“I don’t really understand it either, kiddo,” his dad said, setting down his mug.

“Does that mean I stole people’s quirks? Did I steal mom’s?” Izuku asked, suddenly feeling guilty and panicked.

“No!” his father assured him quickly. “You didn’t steal anything, Zu. Your own quirk just kind of collects the quirks that get left behind when people die and don’t need them anymore. I think.”

Izuku was very confused.

“Think of it like...when you go to the beach and pick up a shell,” his dad explained. “Where did that shell come from? Something used to live in there, right?”

Izuku thought about this, then nodded.

“Is collecting the shells a bad thing to do?” his father asked.

“No…” Izuku said, still considering the matter.

“Why not?” his father prompted.

“Because… the things that lived in them are gone. They died and don’t need them anymore?” Izuku guessed.

“Right! So if a person dies and doesn’t need their quirk anymore, how can it be a bad thing to collect it if you can? I know you’re not doing it on purpose; it just seems to happen. It might become a bad thing if you get too many quirks because that’s just too much for one person to handle. So far, you’ve gotten pretty small quirks that don’t use up a lot of your energy to use.”

Izuku thought he understood, but it was still complicated. “I have a quirk collection?”

“Exactly,” his dad confirmed, seeming relieved. “And we don’t want that collection to get too big. Just like you don’t have room for every shell, your body might not have room for every quirk it wants to collect. We don’t know what would happen to you if you got too many.”

“But I can’t help it,” Izuku said seriously. “What do I do?”

“Well, for now we are going to keep you away from places that we know people die pretty often, like hospitals and nursing homes. Other than that, there isn’t much else we can do, except try to be careful. Okay?”

Izuku wasn’t sure how this was any kind of plan. He’d gotten four quirks from people without even knowing they died! How was he supposed to be careful? How often did people die, anyway? It was a lot to think about.

“Another thing to think about is that you have a birthday coming up! You should think about how you’d like to celebrate! We can have a little party, or go out to eat or see a movie… and you can pick out your own gift, too.”

“Really?” Izuku asked, allowing himself to be distracted from the conversation about death.

Chapter 4

Summary:

Izuku meets a man that has a quirk kind of like his, almost has an accident and doesn't, and meets a lot of animals.

Izuku’s fifth birthday was the best! He got all kinds of All Might toys and clothes from his dad, and even light up shoes. They had a small party for him at school, and Mei-chan gave him an invention she made that actually worked like an auto slingshot, but his dad confiscated it almost right away when he almost broke a window.

When Tanaka-san picked him up from school, instead of taking him straight home, he took Izuku to a small cafe where they met a couple of his friends. One of which was a pretty girl named Nana that made Tanaka-san blush when she talked to him and giggled a lot. They all gave Izuku a lot of attention and bought him a whole parfait, just for him! They were really nice!

Izuku still missed his mom; she used to make him a special cake and let him stay up late, but everyone else worked really hard to make the day special for him in other ways.

It wasn’t until a month after his birthday that anything out of the ordinary happened. Izuku was at school when a tall man with white hair in a casual suit came to talk to the teacher, and Izuku got called into the head teacher’s office to talk to him. The teacher told Izuku that the man was someone called a counselor, and was there to talk to him about his quirks.

Izuku sat in a big chair that the parents usually sat in when they came to talk to the head teacher, so his legs didn’t hang over the edge of the seat much.

“Hello Midoriya-kun,” the man said with a kind smile.

“Hello. What’s a counselor?” he asked curiously.

“It’s someone who talks to you about things and sometimes helps you figure out what to do about problems. I heard from my friend Dr. Tsubasa that you have a very interesting quirk. I came to talk to you about it.”

“I got lots of quirks,” Izuku said.

“Yes, I’ve heard,” he said with a nod and a small smile. “You were told how unusual that is, weren’t you?”

Izuku nodded.

“My dad says I have a quirk that makes me collect other quirks.”

“I think your dad is right,” the man tells him with a nod of his own. “Dr. Tsubasa says that you now have five quirks, including the one that helps you collect new ones.”

“Yep. I got my mom’s quirk to pull stuff to her, but only little things. I can change plastic stuff to a different color if I touch it, I can turn see-through, and I can tell what people want to eat.”

“Only what they want to eat? Nothing else? You can’t read their minds in any other way?”

“I don’t think so,” Izuku says. “You aren’t hungry right now, so I can’t tell what you want.”

“That’s true. I just had a meal,” he says with a smile.

“What would you say if I told you I have a quirk similar to yours?” the man asked, leaning forward as if he was sharing a big secret.

Izuku’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You do?”

“I do. I collect quirks, too. Just… in a different way. That’s why I wanted to meet you; there aren’t very many people like us in the world.”

“Wow! How many quirks do you got?” Izuku wanted to know.

“Oh, a few more than five,” he answered with obvious amusement.

The man asked a few more questions about when Izuku first got his quirks, and how he felt at the time it happened. The man nodded and smiled the entire time, and let Izuku talk as much as he wanted about his quirks.

“I’m glad I came to talk to you today, Izuku. I hope I get to come and talk to you again, soon.”

“Okay!” Izuku said amiably.

The man bent to shake Izuku’s hand, and Izuku felt a strange shiver up his spine when their hands touched, but it was gone right away.

“Bye-bye,” Izuku told the man as he left.

“Until next time,” the man said.

“Did you have a nice chat with the counselor?” the head teacher asked as Izuku joined the class on the carpet for their social skills time.

“Uh-huh,” Izuku said. “He was nice.”

Five minutes later, everyone who had seen the ‘counselor’ forgot everything about him, or that he had been there at all. There was no note in Izuku’s daily take-home journal, and no mention of him again at all.

That day, when Tanaka-san came to pick him up at school, Izuku discovered he had a sixth quirk. He now had extraordinary balance and agility.

As they walked, Izuku was full of chatter about the really-super-tall block tower he and two other kids had built during playtime. Tanaka-san grinned at him and listened, making appropriately impressed sounds as Izuku described it as being ‘almost to the ceiling!” They were stopping at the market on the way back to the Midoriya apartment to pick up ingredients for the meals that Tanaka-san was going to make for dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast.

Tanaka retrieved a shopping cart, and Izuku asked if he could ride inside. He was a little too big for the child seat, but he liked to sit in the basket and be pushed around the store. Tanaka lifted him up, and Izuku’s legs got caught on the edge of the cart’s basket. The cart began to roll away under him, and Tanaka lost his grip on Izuku and there was a tense moment when they both shouted in alarm as Izuku fell. Then everyone who looked their way froze in surprise.

Izuku had caught himself on one hand, and was doing a very awkward-looking handstand, instead of crashing to the floor. His school bag was dangling, and should have thrown him off a little, but Izuku seemed to have no trouble maintaining a steady balance.

“Izuku… how are you doing that?” Tanaka asked, walking around him and looking at him from every angle.

He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture.

“I didn’t want to hit my head,” Izuku said reasonably. “It just happened.”

“Can you stand up, now, or do you need help?”

Izuku put one of his legs down on the floor, and the rest of his body naturally followed gracefully until he had righted himself.

“That was wild,” Tanaka-san told him. “It scared the heck out of me, but it was really cool! You’re not hurt?”

“Nope,” Izuku said with a smile.

They did their shopping, then went back to the apartment. Tanaka gave Izuku a snack while he put the groceries away. Then, instead of starting food preparation or laundry, he turned to Izuku and said, “Let's go to the park for a little bit.”

Izuku put on his new All Might shirt and light up shoes, and went happily with Tanaka to the small park near the train station down the street. It was just a small grassy area where people could walk their dogs, but there was a swing set and a slide, too.

“I want to try something out,” Tanaka said, pulling out his phone and using it to pull up a video on it.

He showed the short video to Izuku of a man doing a two handed handstand on a gymnast mat.

“Do you think you can copy that?”

“I can try!” Izuku decided after watching.

It seemed pretty simple, and it was! He planted his hands in the grass and lifted his legs easily over his head with a grin, looking at Tanaka upside down

Tanaka laughed and took his picture.

“Can you do it with one hand, like at the market?”

Izuku could. He lifted one hand off the ground, pleased with Tanaka’s excitement.

“Okay, your face is turning all red,” Tanaka said. “Better come down.”

Izuku easily stood back up and felt momentarily dizzy as the blood rushed from his head to the rest of his body.

“Could you do any of that before?” Tanaka asked, sitting in the grass next to his charge.

“I never tried,” Izuku said. “But it’s fun!”

“Let’s see what else you can do,” Tanaka suggested.

Izuku watched a few more videos on Tanaka’s phone, copying everything he was shown with ease.

“Those are really advanced yoga poses!” Tanaka said, snapping pictures the whole time. “I think maybe you picked up another quirk, kiddo.”

Izuku’s heart sank a little.

“What’s the matter, Zu?” Tanaka asked, seeing Izuku’s expression change from joy to concern in just a moment.

“If I got a new quirk, it means someone died.” he said gravely.

“I guess so,” Tanaka said, sobering as well. “But that’s not your fault, okay?”

The older boy looked around as if to make sure no one was around to hear them talking.

“Let’s go back for now,” he said quietly, taking Izuku’s hand. “I’ve still got a lot of chores to do.”

Since they were near the station, Tanaka stopped and gave Izuku a 100 yen coin to buy a sheet of stickers from a machine in front of a newspaper stand. Izuku wasn't lucky enough to get All Might, but he did get a sheet of Crimson Riot decals that he could put in his notebook, where he had been drawing various heroes he saw on TV. It was enough to distract him from his gloom.

When they got home, Izuku went to get his notebook, and then Tanaka turned on the TV to a documentary about UA High school, where kids went to learn how to be heroes. Izuku was enthralled. He spent the rest of the day designing his own super suit, which greatly resembled his childish drawings of All Might. Tanaka joined him in playing with action figures once the chores were done, and played the victim of villains, so Izuku could save him from their evil clutches.

When Hisashi came home later that evening, Izuku was grinning at him from where he was balanced on one hand on the back of the couch in his pajamas, and Tanaka was sleeping at the end of the same couch, a red, child-sized cape tied around his shoulders.

“Looks like you wore him out, Zu,” his dad told him with a chuckle. “I heard you had a busy day.”

Izuku giggled as his dad plucked him from the couch and carried him upside down into the living room and plopped him right side up into an armchair. “Tanaka says I have a new quirk.”

The laughter woke Tanaka, who sat up with a start and immediately apologized for falling asleep.

“It’s fine,” Izuku heard his dad say. “I was running late anyway, and you’re still working a part time job in the mornings, too.”

Izuku didn’t know this about Tanaka, and looked at him curiously.

“I only have a few more weeks to save up before I leave for University.” Tanaka said sheepishly.

“You’re leaving?” Izuku asked in surprise.

“Not right away,” Tanaka promised. “But I get to go to University in the United States. I got a scholarship and everything.”

“The United States? All Might went there!” Izuku said knowledgeably. “What’s a soccer ship?”

“A scholarship,” his dad corrected. “It’s when someone pays for part of your school fees to make it easier for you to go.”

“Oh,” He didn’t really understand a lot of the explanation, but he knew that Tanaka had to go away to school, soon.

“I’m going to miss you,” Izuku said sadly.

‘I’m going to miss you, too. We’ll have to have a lot of fun memories before I go!” Tanaka promised.

Izuku thought that he would be taken straight to Dr. Tsubasa after he got his newest quirk, but he assured his dad that unless it seemed to be causing a problem, there was really nothing to be done.

A week later, Izuku got to talk with a nice counselor who had a quirk like his! He was friendly and asked him questions about how he felt about his newest quirk. Did his body feel healthy? Did he get tired easily? Headaches? Nosebleeds? Did his arms or legs hurt? Izuku told him all about all of the cool things he could do, now. He told him all about how he felt fine, and liked to play superheroes with his babysitter, and how sad he was that Tanaka-san was going to have to go away to the United States, soon.

“Who will look after you once Tanaka-san leaves?” the nice man asked, sounding concerned.

“I don’t know. My dad’s assistant picks some people for my dad to choose from, then he asks me.” Izuku says, remembering what happened when Tanaka came.

“Very interesting,” the man told him, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll find just the right person to look after you, when it’s time.”

“I guess,” Izuku said with a shrug, a little shiver skating up his spine.

He still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of losing Tanaka.

Fifteen minutes later, Izuku was out on the playground, with no memory of the nice man who had been there only a short time ago. In fact, no one at the school remembered him at all.

When Tanaka picked him up at school that day, he took Izuku to a bookshop, where he was picking up a book about the United States. He sat with Izuku in the kids area and read to him for a while, then took him home by way of the shops in front of the station, where they stopped and got a couple of umaibo for a snack.

“Kitties!” Izuku cried, pointing at a couple of shop cats lying in a patch of sun in front of a koban. Tanaka altered his steps so that Izuku could go and see if they were friendly.

“Be careful,” Tanaka said as Izuku crouched next to a sleek white and black cat with large green eyes. “They can scratch or bite if they don’t like you.”

Izuku talked softly to the cats about how pretty they were for a minute, then carefully reached out his hand so they could sniff it. They didn’t seem to have any objection to his presence, and the black and white one bumped Izuku’s hand with its nose.

“I think it likes you,” Tanaka said, nodding to Izuku. “I think you can pet it, but don’t touch its tummy; most cats hate that.”

Izuku reached out a tentative hand and stroked the cat’s head. Tanaka had his phone out, ready to take a picture. He had been taking a lot of them lately, saying he wanted lots of photos for when he went away.

“It’s really soft!” Izuku said.

He stroked it a couple of more times before Tanaka noticed something was ...off. “I don’t think-- oh, boy.”

Izuku pulled his hand away, and Tanaka let out a sound somewhere between a snort and a wheeze. The cat looked different now, and Izuku sat back on his heels while Tanaka laughed almost hysterically, but silently. Izuku wasn’t really sure why, but the laughter was contagious, and soon he was laughing, too. The cat blinked at them, but was otherwise indifferent to the patch of fur on it’s head that had grown about five or six centimetres in the past few moments.

Tanaka finally calmed down and wiped a tear from his very red cheek before he crouched down beside Izuku and put a hand on his back.

“Give it another pet, and see what happens. See if it’ll let you scratch under its chin. Cats love that.”

Izuku nodded and stroked the cat’s head a couple more times, then moved his hand under its chin and tickled. The cat approved of this and began to purr, tilting its head this way and that to coax Izuku to reach the spots it wanted. Tanaka was trying to hold his laughter back while he held his phone steady, taking a video as the cat grew a white beard to match the flowing black locks now sweeping from the top of its head.

“Okay, Izuku. That’s enough,” Tanaka finally said, pocketing his phone. “We’d better get you home. Uh… better not touch anything on the way, okay?”

Izuku wasn’t sure what was going on, but the cat did look pretty silly, now. He grinned and followed along as Tanaka led the way home. When they got there, Tanaka had Izuku wash his hands since he’d touched an unfamiliar animal, then bravely asked Izuku to pat the top of his head.

Izuku did so, stroking the spiky black hair as he had the cat’s fur, but nothing happened. Izuku tried his own head at Tanaka’s urging, but it stayed the same, too.

“Maybe it only works on cats,” Tanaka mused as he gave Izuku the umaibo and some fruit milk before getting started on the chores.

“Heard you got another quirk,” Izuku’s dad said the next morning.

Izuku had fallen asleep before his father had gotten home, and hadn’t gotten a chance to see him before now.

“I guess,” he said with a shrug. “I made a cat grow a beard!”

“Yes, I saw,” his dad said with some amusement. “Tanaka-kun sent me a video and pictures.”

“It didn’t hurt the cat,” Izuku assured him. “It liked being petted.”

“We might have to do a little testing with this quirk, Kiddo. We need to know what kinds of animals you can and can’t be touching without permission,” his dad told him, not sounding too upset. “But I’m more concerned that you’ve had two new quirks show up when you haven‘t been anywhere but school. I’m going to have to check the area and see if there’s a nursing or care home around there that I don’t know about. You may have to go somewhere else.”

“I like my school!” Izuku said with a pout. “Mei-chan and Takashi-kun are my friends!”

“I know, Zu, but it’s more important that you be safe. I won’t make a decision right now, but I won’t make any promises, either.”

Izuku pouted about this, but there wasn’t much he could do about it, otherwise.

Izuku could hear his dad talking to Dr. Tsubasa on the phone later that day, answering questions about Izuku’s new quirk, confirming that Izuku’s health seemed totally fine. Izuku was relieved that he didn’t have to go to another appointment when the call was over. Instead, his dad took him to a shopping mall in the city.

The store they went to had all kinds of animals in tanks, cages and pens, all for sale. People milled around in front the windows, cooing over kittens and puppies and other animals. Izuku held his dad’s hand and was careful not to touch anything as they approached the counter.

“Hello, I’m Midoriya Hisashi,” his dad told the person at the counter. “I called earlier and spoke to the manager?”

A few minutes later, Izuku was kneeling on the floor of a tiny room that was meant for people to use to meet animals they might like to buy. The manager of the store brought in three cages and set them on the floor in front Izuku,

“You’re sure this won’t hurt the animals?” the man asked, looking at Izuku’s dad.

“He’s only done it once, but the cat involved seemed to enjoy it,” his dad answered. “I’ll take full responsibility.”

The man nodded and opened one of the cages, and removed a small, white mouse. He held it carefully in his hand and extended it toward the waiting boy.

“You’d better let me hold it. Mice can be squirmy,” the shopkeeper advised. “Just use a finger on the top of his head to pet him.”

Izuku smiled at the way the mouse’s whiskers twitched, and gently tickled the top of it’s head with his index finger. When he pulled his finger away, the mouse sported a tuft of hair that made it look like it was wearing a hat made of dandelion fluff.

“That’s adorable,” the manager said with a chuckle. “All done with this one?”

At Izuku’s nod, the man put the mouse back and opened the next cage, which held a guinea pig. The little rodent made a repetitive squealing noise that concerned Izuku, but the manager assured him that guinea pigs were just noisy like that, and it wasn’t in pain. He let Izuku hold it in his lap, and Izuku giggled and it tried to shove its way under his shirt. He stroked its wavy fur while he laughed at the tickle of little paws crawling on him. When the manager picked the animal up from his lap, they could all see that the guinea pig looked like it was ready to model for a pet shampoo ad. It’s fur had been about three centimeters long before, but now hung in thick waves to cascade a few centimeters over the man’s hands as he put it back in its cage.

“This is one of the best things I’ve ever seen,” the man said, sounding sincere. “Let’s try something that isn’t a mammal.”

The third cage held a small blue and green parakeet. It hopped onto the man’s outstretched finger, and he moved it over in front of Izuku.

“Try petting it on its back between its wings,” he suggested.

Izuku looked to his dad, who nodded that it was okay.

Izuku carefully did as instructed, but the only thing that happened was that the bird nibbled at his arm. No feathers grew or fell out or anything else.

“Interesting,” the manager said. “Let me take these back out, and I’ll be back with some more.”

An hour later, Izuku left the store knowing that his new quirk only worked on mammals, as far as they could tell, though not humans. The chances of him ever getting near enough to touch a monkey or a bear or tiger or anything of that nature was very small, so they might never know if this quirk worked on them. Izuku also learned that his father was not keen on him having a snake or a tarantula for a pet any time soon.

Izuku was happy to spend some time with his father, who had the day off for a change. After the pet store, they strolled around the mall, and Izuku was allowed to have a bubble milk tea as they walked. It was a good day.

Chapter 5

Summary:

Izuku gets a new babysitter, meets a man with a quirk kind of like his, and meets Kacchan again.

Notes:

Surprise! Since I have a bit of a holiday from work this week, I thought it would be nice to post an extra chapter! Enjoy!

Two weeks before Tanaka was due to leave for the United States, Izuku’s dad brought home a young woman to meet him. She was a university student, he said, that was studying to become a teacher. Izuku thought she was pretty, and that she had a nice smile, but there was something about her he wasn’t quite sure of. He hid behind his father’s legs when they were introduced, and didn’t want to talk to her.

Izuku’s dad, to his credit, did not try to force the encounter. He apologized to the young woman, but explained that he needed someone in the position that Izuku felt extremely comfortable with, and that he was sorry he had wasted her time. The young woman had stared at Izuku for a few moments longer than seemed polite before she simply turned around and left without another word.

Two other candidates were also rejected by Izuku, and his dad finally asked him if he was just turning them down because he didn’t want Tanaka to leave.

“I don’t want him to leave, but I know he’s gonna,” Izuku said solemnly. “But those other people felt bad. I didn’t like them. They looked nice, but they weren’t.”

His dad had lifted an eyebrow at him, but simply ruffled his hair and said, “Okay.”

The week before Tanaka had to leave, Izuku’s dad brought home one more candidate. She was different from the others, and Izuku liked her at once. She was short and plump, with gray strands in very dark purple hair cut short to frame her face. Everything about her seemed to be what Izuku imagined a grandmother would be like. He came out from behind his father’s legs and offered her a shy smile.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said politely. “I’m Midoriya Izuku.”

She smiled at him with slightly crooked teeth, and her eyes crinkled in the corners. He liked her immediately.

“Do you like All Might?” he asked her, giving her the ultimate test of suitability.

“Oh my, yes!” she said. “He’s so big and handsome!”

She gave him a wink and Izuku’s dad chuckled.

“I like her,” Izuku decided, looking up at his dad.

That was how Granny Ito came to be in charge of taking care of Izuku and Hisashi when Tanaka left to continue his education abroad.

Izuku missed Tanaka, but Granny Ito was really nice to have around. She picked him up from school each day (Dad’s search for care homes nearby had turned up nothing) and walked with him, listening intently to his chatter. She baked special treats, her meals were really yummy, and she had a quirk that let her grow really nice houseplants. She read to him a lot, and helped him learn how, too. As far as he was concerned, she could stay forever.

A week after Granny Ito began working for the Midoriyas, she told Izuku that they were going to go on a field trip. She picked him up from school and they took a train. He kneeled on the bench seat and watched as the scenery flew by and he kept up a stream of chatter about everything he saw. He recognized one or two hero agencies by their signs and exclaimed excitedly. She smiled at him, but seemed nervous and uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong, Granny Ito? If you don’t want to take me anywhere, you don’t have to!” Izuku told her, noticing she was twisting her hands in her lap.

“No, no,” she said with a strained smile. “Don’t worry, Izuku. Everything is going to be fine. We’re going to see something you’ll really like!”

Izuku tried to coax their destination out of her, making guesses like ‘the zoo’ or ‘a candy store’ but she simply smiled.

“You’ll see.”

They got off the train about forty minutes after they got on, and walked through an area with some tall buildings. When they got to where Granny Ito wanted to go, Izuku looked at the building with a sense of disappointment. The building was utterly plain, with no real distinguishing features. She rang a doorbell, and there was a buzzer before the door clicked and she pulled it open, ushering a hesitant Izuku into the dim interior.

“Who’s that?” a voice demanded.

Izuku looked over to where the voice had come from a scrawny boy with white, messy hair, torn jeans and a wrinkly t-shirt. He didn’t look very old (maybe just shy of going to middle school), but was pale and sickly looking. He also didn’t look happy to see them.

“Tomura,” a man’s voice said from the doorway that the boy was standing in. “You haven’t finished the assignment I gave you.”

“Yes, sensei,” the boy said in a surly tone.

He glared at Granny Ito and Izuku for a moment longer before turning on his heel and slouching out of sight. A moment later, a tall man appeared who looked vaguely familiar to Izuku, but he couldn't think why.

“Please forgive my student,” the man said cordially. “He doesn’t deal well with strangers.”

Izuku wasn’t sure what was going on, and held Granny Ito’s hand in his own, even though he was getting to be a little old for such things.

“Ito-san, thank you for bringing Midoriya-kun to visit me. You can go and wait in the lounge, if you would. Our little meeting shouldn't take too long, and then the two of you can be on your way.”

Granny Ito gently released Izuku’s hand and shooed him toward the man. “Go on, dear. Everything will be just fine!”

Izuku’s reluctance melted away at her words, and he walked over to where the man was waiting.

“Follow me; there’s someone I want you to meet with,” the man told him, leading him down a hallway.

Izuku glanced into the room that the boy had been in, and saw he was bent over a large desk, writing something. The other boy must have sensed that he was being watched, because he looked up from his work and stared at Izuku until Izuku moved past, following the man.

“Who are you?” Izuku finally asked the man, as he opened a door and led him into a room that looked like a doctor’s office exam room.

“My name is Shigaraki,” he answered, patting the exam table for Izuku to climb onto. “I brought you here so Dr. Tsubasa can run a few tests on you. You remember him, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh,” Izuku said, kicking his legs as they dangled off the edge of the table. “Why didn’t we go see him at the hospital like last time?”

“It’s dangerous for you to go to a hospital because of your quirk, isn’t it?” Shigaraki-san said.

That made sense.

Dr. Tsubasa came into the room just a moment later, wearing a lab coat and carrying a small metal tray. A tray that Izuku recognized.

“You’re going to poke me with a needle!” Izuku said accusingly.

“You won’t even feel it,” Shigaraki-san told him. “I’ll hold your hand the whole time.”

Izuku put his hand into Shigaraki’s and then the next thing he knew, he blinked and it was over. He wasn’t sitting anymore, but laying on the exam table, and sat up in confusion.

“All done! Let’s get you back to Ito-san,” Shigaraki said, lifting him off the table and setting him on his feet.

“Did he poke me with a needle?”

“Yes, he needed a little more of your blood to run some tests and do some research. Your quirk is very, very interesting to me and to him! Your blood might be able to help us figure out what makes you so special.”

He led Izuku back to the front door area. The boy he called Tomura earlier was no longer in the room off the hall. Granny Ito heard them coming and stood to meet them. She was twisting her fingers and looked anxious.

“How are you? Are you okay, Izuku?” she asks worriedly, looking the boy over with a critical eye.

Izuku nodded easily and took her hand.

“You said it wouldn't take very long,” she said to Shigaraki-san. “It’s been an hour!”

“We needed to be thorough,” he said. “He won’t remember any of this in five minutes time, so be sure to take him away and spend some time somewhere interesting before taking him home. We wouldn’t want to have the missing time damage his psyche, would we?”

Izuku had no idea what they were talking about.

“Still,” she said with a sniff.

“The trust quirk I gave you will smooth things over. They will suspect nothing. Keep doing as I say, and your family and their restaurant will be fine.”

“I thought your quirk was a green thumb,” Izuku said, commenting on the only thing he even sort of followed.

“It is,” she told him, tugging him toward the door. “The one I was born with, anyway.”

She guided him out into the afternoon sunshine and helped him fasten the zipper on his jacket. They walked down the street to a busier road and turned toward a different station than the one they had arrived at.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I can show you what we came all the way out here to see!” Granny Ito told him.

Izuku was puzzled for a moment about what he meant by ‘got that out of the way’, but decided she must mean the long train ride to get here. He didn’t question how they had gotten so far from the station, or why they were headed back in that direction. Granny Ito was nice and always took really good care of him.

As they neared the station, Granny Ito pointed upward, and Izuku looked to see what she was showing him. There, right in front of a big store, was a humongous All Might statue, the fiberglass figure was almost as tall as the roof of the building it was standing in front of. Izuku gasped and tugged at Granny’s hand trying to get her to walk faster so that he could see it up close. There were people everywhere taking pictures in front of the giant All Might, and Izuku was in awe of how the hero seemed to be smiling at the whole town from up there.

“This is so cool!” Izuku said enthusiastically.

“That’s not all,” Granny told him with a smile, enjoying his reaction.

She turned him gently by the shoulders to see the store behind the statue was full of hero merchandise. Izuku’s eyes turned to saucers as he stared.

“Can we go in? Can we?”

“Of course we can!” she laughed. “I told your father I was bringing you to see this, and he gave me some money so you could pick out something small as a souvenir.”

Izuku was practically vibrating with joy about this, but waited patiently and held Granny’s hand when she told him to. The store had only recently opened and was quite crowded with people of all ages.

All Might was the main hero on display, but there were also items for Endeavor, Crimson Riot, No Nonsense and all the other top tier heroes. Izuku was in heaven! He took his time looking at everything in his price range, and finally settled on a poster for his bedroom wall. While they paid for it, he was also allowed to enter a drawing for a limited edition All Might snow globe that would be coming out in three months’ time for the Christmas season. Granny Ito bought him a package of All Might shaped cheese crackers to eat before they got back on the train and headed back home. As far as Izuku was concerned, it had been a great day.

Granny Ito took Izuku on ‘field trips’ to that statue about once a month after that. He had quite a growing collection of All Might posters and trading cards! By the time Izuku started first grade, it seemed like Granny Ito had always been with them. She never missed a day of picking him up from the kindergarten and always made yummy meals and took him on little adventures a lot.

First grade was more formal than his old school, and Izuku had a longer school day once he started attending. On his first day, he chafed a bit at his new uniform, missing the loose fitting shirt and shorts from his old school when he was forced to wear navy shorts and a button up shirt and a navy vest. His shoes were shiny new black leather, stiff and hard to walk in compared to his sneakers. He was glad when he got to change into his indoor shoes.

His dad walked him to the classroom for the first time and greeted the teacher. They had met her before, because of the nature of Izuku’s quirk, and the subsequent quirks as a result. She seemed a little uneasy about it, but was friendly enough. Izuku liked the look of his new classroom.

Each student had a desk with a little hook on the side for their school bags, and there was a bright carpet in the corner with different colored polka dots all over it in the back of the room. There were brightly colored decorations hanging on the walls along with hiragana and katakana charts, the English alphabet and number charts. Izuku was proud that he could already count to fifty (though sometimes he forgot thirty seven and thirty eight). There were other children finding their seats or saying goodbye to their parents, when Izuku spotted three familiar faces.

“Dad! It’s Auntie and Uncle and Kacchan!” Izuku said excitedly, tugging on his dad’s sleeve.

“So it is!” his dad smiled down at him.

The teacher moved on to speak with other parents and students, and Izuku went over to greet the Bakugou family.

“Izuku-kun!” Auntie said with a huge smile.

She crouched down to ruffle his hair and exclaim over how much he’d grown since she last saw him. Uncle shook hands with his dad, and Kacchan just stared sullenly.

“What’s Deku doing here?” Kacchan demanded of no one in particular.

His mother flicked his ear and scowled at him.

“H-Hi Kacchan,” Izuku said timidly, trying to be friendly.

“Tch,” was Kacchan’s reply.

The teacher got everyone’s attention at that point, and thanked them all for coming, then gently escorted the parents out the door so that they could begin their school day.

Izuku found his desk and climbed into this seat, looking at that stack of supplies sitting on top, waiting for him. There was a yellow sun hat on the top of the pile, and under that, folders, a notebook, crayons and markers and pencils and paper. Izuku felt excited about all of the things he would be doing with each item and listened to the teacher and her aide with rapt attention.

They spent their morning getting to know each other and singing songs and learning their way around the classroom. Soon, they sat on the colorful carpet, with each boy or girl on one of the polka dots, facing the teacher, who sat in a chair and read them a story about a boy that fell into a koi pond and had an adventure with the fish.

“How many of you think you could hold your breath that long?” the teacher asked the class.

Hands shot into the air in excitement.

“Let’s see who can hold their breath the longest! Ready? Go!”

Twenty sets of chubby cheeks puffed out as everyone sucked in a breath and held it. Izuku won the game, because as soon as he held his breath, he turned transparent and all the other kids gasped and giggled and pointed. Izuku started to laugh with them, but then Kacchan decided to speak out.

“That’s a stupid quirk!”

Some kids gasped. One girl said he was mean. Several scolded him for saying a ‘bad word.’

Izuku just sat there and looked at the navy blue stripes on his white socks, feeling sad that Kacchan was still mad at him since the last time they had seen each other.

One of the girls that Izuku thought was called Emri patted his arm in sympathy and whispered, “He’s dumb. Your quirk is cool!”

Izuku smiled shyly at her and felt better.

At lunchtime, they all learned how to push their desks together to turn them into tables. Kacchan was at the end of Izuku’s table, and Izuku was filled with dread about what he might say to the other children about him. Izuku’s dad had told him not to advertise the fact that he had multiple quirks, though he didn’t have to keep it a strict secret either. They already knew about the see-through one, so Izuku kept quiet about having more than that. Unfortunately, while they were eating their lunch, the talk turned to quirks.

Emri-chan said that she could stretch her arms almost a meter, to reach stuff up high. Izuku thought that a quirk like that would be really useful. Michi-kun could turn his hands into flippers, like a seal. Aiko could scream loud enough to break glass and Goro could make his hair change color by shaking his head really fast.

“I've got the best quirk of anyone,” Kacchan bragged. “The sweat on my hands can explode!”

He looked at the other kids at their table as if waiting for them to be impressed, but that didn’t quite happen.

“Ew,” Emri-chan said, wrinkling her nose.

“What are you talking about?” Kacchan demanded angrily. “Explosions are cool! I’m going to be the greatest hero in the world when I grow up!”

“You’ll never be as good as All Might!” Michi-kun told him arily.

“Will too!” Kacchan said back heatedly.

“I’m going to be a hero some day, too,” Izuku announced.

“I dunno,” Aiko-chan said skeptically. “Turning see through isn’t very good for heroes.”

“Like I said,” Kacchan said smugly. “It’s a stupid quirk. All his quirks are lame!”

“All his quirks?” Emri-chan asked. “How many do you have, Izu-chan?”

Izuku opened his mouth to answer, but Kacchan beat him to it.

“He’s got four, cause he’s a freak!”

All the kids around the room turned to stare, because Kacchan’s voice was so loud.

“Nobody has four quirks,” one of the kids from the next table said.

“Deku does,” Kacchan insisted. “Because he steals them from dead people.”

Izuku’s eyes widened. He didn’t know how Kacchan knew about how he got his new quirks.

“What?” several kids asked.

The teachers tried to get the situation under control, but it was too late. Chatter swept across the classroom while kids all tried to ask Izuku about it at once.

“Go ahead, Deku! Tell them!” Kacchan said with satisfaction.

“Boys and girls,” the teacher said, clapping her hands to get their attention. “That’s enough. We’ll talk more about this after lunch. Until then, focus on eating and being kind to each other.”

Izuku sighed and put down his chopsticks. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Do you really have four quirks?” Emri-chan asked him in a whisper voice.

“Seven,” Izuku told her miserably in an even quieter whisper.

“That’s so cool! You’re so lucky!” she whispered excitedly.

Izuku looked at her in amazement, and felt some of the pressure in his chest dissipate.

After lunch, they all did their part to clean up and put the classroom back to the way it had been. When they were finished, the teacher stood in front of the class.

“Normally, this would be when we would go outside for recess, but I think that we should have a talk as a class, first.”

Everyone sat back on the polka dot carpet and the teacher called Izuku up to stand in front of everyone.

“Our friend Izuku-kun has a very special quirk,” she told them. “It’s a quirk that gives him other quirks.”

“He steals them from dead people!” Kacchan said with a nod.

“I do not!” Izuku fired back hotly. “It’s not stealing!”

The other kids were unusually silent during this exchange, waiting to see what would happen.

“Izuku-kun,” the teacher said kindly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “When you came to meet me the other day, you did a very good job of explaining how your quirk works. Why don’t you tell them about it, the same way you told me.”

Izuku felt nervous with all of those eyes on him, but swallowed and told them about how his dad had told him to think of it like collecting shells. Most of the kids looked confused, but accepting. Several hands shot into the air to ask questions.

“How many quirks do you got?” a little boy whose name Izuku couldn't remember asked.

“Seven,” Izuku said uncertainly.

“Whoa!” many of the kids murmured in awe.

Kacchan looked as if someone had slapped him in the face.

“Cool!”

“Lucky!”

“What are they?” Aiko-chan asked.

“Um...the collecting one, I can turn see-through, I can tell what people want to eat, I can make some animals’ hair grow, I can change plastic stuff a different color, and I got really good balance and agilby” Izuku said, counting on his fingers. “Oh! And I got my mom’s quirk that lets me pull small things to me.”

"Agility," the teacher corrected with a smile.

There was the familiar TCH! sound, and Izuku knew it was Kacchan, though he didn’t say anything more. At least, not yet.

When they were finally released to go outside and play, Izuku had a group of other kids around him, curious to know more about how his quirk worked and to tell him about their own. He was just as interested in their quirks as they were in his. He asked them lots of questions about theirs and wished he knew how to write better, so he could put them in his notebook. Tanaka used to help him before. Maybe Granny Ito could help him this time.

They were all trying to organize a game of tag, when Kacchan made an appearance (the teacher had asked him to stay inside for a minute more for ‘a talk’) and started trying to cause trouble.

“You’d better watch out, or Deku will steal your quirk next,” he told them with a leer.

“Who’s Deku?” one of them asked.

“It’s that freak,” he said, pointing to Izuku. “It means useless!”

“That’s mean! You’re mean!” one of the other kids accused.

“I don’t want my quirk stolen,” said one of the girls, sounding scared.

“I can’t just take quirks,” Izuku said worriedly. “And I wouldn’t, anyway!”

“Yeah, you have to die, first,” Emri said with her hands on her hips. “And you’re a kid. You’re not going to die for a long, long time!”

Many of the kids looked unsure about everything, but most were on Izuku’s side.

“C’mon! Let’s go play!” A boy called Hoshihiko said, breaking the awkwardness. “Bet you can’t run as fast as me!”

The rest of the day was better, and Izuku had made the beginnings of some friendships with classmates, even if Kacchan wasn’t among them. Granny Ito was waiting for him when he was released at the end of class, which was later than his old school let out. She listened to his account of his day and asked lots of questions as they went home.

He tried to stay up to tell his dad all about it when he got home from work, but he was worn out from his long first day, and fell asleep long before his father arrived.

Chapter 6

Summary:

Izuku enjoys some normalcy, or so he thinks, until he encounters a man with a quirk a little like his and things change.

The school year was a relatively good one for Izuku. Kacchan continued to try to rally the other kids against him, but was largely unsuccessful in his attempts. He quieted down a bit after the school called his parents about his bullying and brash behavior, but still insisted on calling Izuku “Deku” instead of his real name. Izuku didn’t really mind, since the other kids were friendly and most of them agreed that Kacchan was mean.

Granny Ito took Izuku on ‘field trips’ every so often, but Izuku always had fun, and came back with some sort of reward for excellent behavior. During one such outing, Izuku acquired a mysterious, almost black, bruise in the crook of his arm, but he said it didn’t hurt. Granny Ito told him and his father that it was probably a strange reaction to an insect bite; they trusted her, of course.

Over the summer, Izuku enjoyed trips to the beach, field trips with Granny Ito to pick berries at a farm, or to the hero store, or even a couple of overnight trips to festivals. Granny's sister ran an inn that they stayed at that was a lot of fun. He met Dr. Tsubasa and Shigaraki-san several times over the summer, but never remembered it afterward. He got to visit colorful shrines and temples with beautiful landscapes, and even got to meet some local heroes of small towns they visited.

The only thing that wasn’t really welcome was Izuku attaining a new quirk called, “teflon” that made things not stick to him. His skin didn’t feel any different to the touch, but it was kind of a pain, because his socks would slide down really easily, and hats didn’t like to stay on him unless they were tied under his chin. A little research helped them learn that Granny Ito’s sister had an inn next to a house where an elderly woman lived, and she had died of old age there while Izuku was nearby. He had to make adjustments to his clothes like belts or suspenders, straps and buckles to secure anything to him. The good part was that he didn’t really get dirty; spills just seemed to roll right off of his skin.

When school started again, the other kids thought his new quirk was hilarious, and would purposely spatter paint or other things on him, to see if they could make anything stick. In the end they all got scolded, because while Izuku’s skin stayed clean, his clothing did not.

“I don’t understand how you can have seven quirks, and all of them end up being lame,” Kacchan had teased him one day when no one else was around. “You really are a Deku.”

Izuku refused to get upset; he was sure that Kacchan was just jealous. He felt bad that Kacchan had such a wonderful quirk, but still got mad that Izuku had a handful of mediocre ones.

“Sorry, Kacchan,” he told his former friend. “I don’t get to choose, you know.”

For some reason, that only made Kacchan angrier, and Izuku left him alone as much as possible.

As the school year progressed and winter was in full swing, Kacchan began to make almost everything into a competition, especially with Izuku. In P.E., he bragged about being the fastest runner and the highest or farthest jumper. He was good at sports, but some of the other kids were better at some things. Izuku was never quite able to beat him most of the time, but didn’t lag behind by much, either. That didn’t stop Kacchan from calling him ‘Deku’ and ‘lame’ and other mean things. Some of the kids that hung out with Kacchan did the same, but Izuku didn’t care about them.

On the day that Izuku scored a goal in soccer while Kacchan was playing goalie, they got into an actual physical fight. Kacchan got so mad that Izuku bested him, that he used his quirk on the ball. It rocketed toward Izuku, hitting him in the face with a loud THONK. Izuku had been stunned as his lip split and started to swell and his nose began to bleed. Kacchan had laughed at that, until Izuku threw the ball back at him, and hit him in the chest with it. Izuku didn’t have a quirk that let him launch the ball like the other boy had, so it didn’t hit him very hard. Kacchan had gotten angry that Izuku had dared retaliate (even if it didn’t hurt), that he used his quirk on Izuku’s shoulder, burning his P.E. shirt. By the time the teacher pried them apart, both boys were hitting each other and shouting.

Granny Ito was the one who came to talk to the teachers when they called home about it. Izuku sat in a chair beside her, looking at his shoes with tears in his eyes. Kacchan sat next to his father with a scowl on his face and traces of blood under his nose and a long row of scratches down one arm.

Izuku had promptly apologized when he was told to, and he even meant it. He didn’t want to fight; he never had. All he had ever wanted was acceptance from a friend he admired.

Kacchan, on the other hand, refused to apologize, and made it known that he definitely wasn’t sorry. No matter how his father tried to reason with him, Kacchan would only say that he hoped Deku would drop dead.

Granny Ito held onto Izuku’s hand firmly and finally spoke up.

“I will speak to Izuku about his behavior today,” she said soothingly. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience and trouble this has caused. I hope that Katsuki-kun will think about what he’s done and realize that hurting people is never the answer to frustration.”

The principal allowed Granny Ito to take Izuku home, and said Izuku would be allowed to come back the following day, since he had apologized, and reports from other students said he had not instigated the attack. Since Kacchan was not repentant, he would be suspended for the rest of the school week. It was made very clear that Katsuki-kun was a problematic presence at the school, and was often reprimanded for behavior that could only be described as bullying.

Izuku went home with Granny Ito, expecting to be confined to his room, or punished in some way. Instead, Granny sat him at the table and gave him a slice of cake and a cup of milk. She sat down across from him while he ate and sighed.

“To be honest Izuku, I thought that something like this might happen. Your father expected it to happen a lot sooner.”

Izuku stared.

“Katsuki is a very angry little boy,” she said gently. “He’s been spoiled, and it’s turned him into a bit of brat. What he did today was wrong.”

“I shouldn’t have hit him with the ball,” Izuku said, putting down his fork.

“No, you shouldn’t have. I understand why you did, though. Sometimes things happen that make us angry, and we end up doing something we shouldn’t. Understanding that what we did wasn’t okay and apologizing for it is important, but staying in control is better.”

“I am sorry,” Izuku said sadly. “I just got really mad cause he laughed when I got hurt, then kept hitting me. And he used his quirk, even though we’re not supposed to.”

“I know,” she said with a soft smile. “But next time, I want you to try to remember that you’re not like Katsuki-kun. You need to be better than him, and just walk away when he acts angry like that. Tell a teacher if he tries to hurt you or says he’s going to hurt you, okay?”

Izuku nodded.

“Alright,” she nodded, standing up. “That’s all I’ll say about it, then. Finish your cake, and we’ll get started on the chores.”

Kacchan didn’t come back to school. Izuku’s dad told him that he’d gotten a call from the Bakugous and that they had decided that it would be easier for both Katsuki and Izuku if they went to separate schools, at least for a while. Since Izuku hadn’t been the one causing trouble, it was only fair that he be allowed to stay at his current school and enjoy his new friends and teachers. Izuku felt tears prick his eyes at the news, and was ashamed to find that they were ones of relief, instead of grief. He had honestly wanted to be Kacchan’s friend, and had been pushed away so many times. Seeing him again in first grade had seemed like a chance to start over, but that was impossible, now.

Izuku flourished, once Kacchan was gone. The teachers simply told the other kids that Bakugou-kun had transferred to a private school, and everyone had accepted it. Izuku excelled in reading, writing and history, but struggled with English. Math was okay, but he wasn’t brilliant at it, either. School was school; he liked it, but didn’t love it. He had a group of kids he liked and played with, but didn’t allow himself to really have a best friend, or go to anyone’s houses when he was invited. He had learned his lesson about that from Kacchan.

First grade ended and Granny Ito waved goodbye to them as they started the summer break. Izuku’s dad took him to Sapporo with him on a combination business trip and vacation. His dad’s company was having something called an “executive retreat” and Izuku was allowed to go along and join a summer camp that featured a lot of time hiking and learning about nature. His favorite part was the huge sunflower fields and getting to play in the streams, even though they were freezing cold. He met a lot of interesting kids from a couple of different countries and got to practice his English a little.

From there, Izuku and his dad went to Okinawa for a couple of days. His dad had a lot of business meetings, but Izuku was still able to go to the beach and earn a few more freckles on his cheeks and nose as souvenirs. After that, they had to go to Taiwan again. That wasn’t as fun for Izuku, but it was better than the time before. The grief of losing his mother wasn’t as fresh as before, and they were staying in a fancy hotel that even had a pool! The person that his dad found to look after him while he worked spoke Japanese, and was polite and somewhat disinterested in babysitting, but not unkind. Izuku played in the pool, watched movies in the room, and learned origami from the computer while his guardian tapped away at a laptop most of the time. His dad even took some time to take him to some sightseeing spots around the city before they traveled back to Japan. He’d been away from home for almost a month!

Granny Ito showed up the day they returned, and Izuku threw his arms around her middle and hugged her. She seemed surprised by the sudden affection, but pleased at the same time. She explained that she had taken time away from her family’s business for the next two weeks, to look after Izuku full time until school began again.

“You have another job?” Izuku asked in surprise.

“Not officially,” she said as she tackled the laundry from their trip. “I help my family with their restaurant before I come to get you each day.”

Izuku had had no idea that Granny Ito did anything other than look after him.

“It used to be mine before my husband passed away, and my daughter and her husband run the place now.”

“Where is it? What kind of food do they have?” Izuku wanted to know, suddenly full of questions. “Can I visit? No wonder you’re such a good cook!”

Granny Ito had smiled a little sadly, but nodded. “It’s not too far away, just a twenty minute train ride. Maybe we can go for lunch one day before school starts again.”

“If you already have a job and stuff, why do you work here?” Izuku wanted to know.

“Some things happened,” she said gently. “And I like working here. My children are grown up, so getting to see you every day keeps me young. Now, what did you bring me from your trip?”

The distraction was enough to send Izuku running to find his backpack, which was filled with souvenirs.

Two days later, Granny Ito took Izuku on a ‘field trip’ where he met a nice man with a very similar quirk to his, but he couldn’t really remember anything about it. He got to visit the restaurant run by Granny’s daughter, and got to eat some delicious katsudon while he was there. Granny’s daughter seemed a little afraid of Izuku, which Izuku thought was silly, but he minded his manners and tried not to fidget so much.

As time went on, Izuku started second grade and was glad to see his friends again. At home, he became more and more proficient in the kitchen under Granny’s watchful eye. He learned how to make a passable tamagoyaki, decent miso soup, rice - and by extension rice balls, and even curry, with a little help. He also liked to help with the chores, and learned how to properly scrub the bathtub, vacuum the floors and wash dishes. He didn’t have quite the eye for detail that Granny did, or even Tanaka, but he did alright. Things settled into an easy rhythm, with few hiccups.

Izuku avoided getting any new quirks for the entirety of second grade, in fact. It wasn’t until just before Christmas during his third grade year that he went on a ‘field trip’ with Granny Ito that his quirk situation changed. Izuku had been pulled out of school a little early one Friday to go to a dental appointment, and after that, Granny had taken him to meet a nice man with a quirk very similar to Izuku’s own! He also met a boy in his very early teens with white hair and a scarred face, and a man with black mist where his head should be. The boy’s name was Tomura, and to eight year old Izuku, he seemed practically grown up. They’d asked him a bunch of odd questions, and then before he left, Dr. Tsubasa, whom he hadn’t seen in years, arrived and drew some of this blood. They said he had his dad’s permission, and Granny Ito nodded when asked to confirm, so Izuku didn’t put up a fuss.

The whole thing had been very odd. The man with the quirk like Izuku’s rode the train with Granny and Izuku back to Tokyo, since he had business there. He spoke to Izuku about the heroes that Izuku liked best, and Izuku went on at length about the subject. When they arrived in Tokyo, Shigaraki (that was the man’s name) asked if they might accompany him to meet someone for a few minutes before they separated.

Izuku and Granny Ito followed him to a normal apartment complex. It didn’t look that much different from the one that Izuku lived in, just in a different part of the city. They went to an apartment on the fifth floor, and when the door was answered, there was a nurse there to greet them.

“She’s stable, but she doesn’t have long. Another couple of days at most,” the nurse told Shigaraki, before moving to disappear into another room.

Shigaraki ushered them into a room where a hospital bed was set up, and a woman about the age he remembered his own mother being when she died was sitting up, with her face turned toward the window. She was painfully thin, and her skin was grayish and waxy looking. There were straps secured across her legs and hips, over the blanket. There were no flowers or room decor, just bare walls and floor and plain white blinds hanging above the windows. It smelled stale and a bit dusty in the room.

“I’m not supposed to be near sick people,” Izuku said, his steps faltering.

“It’s alright,” Shigaraki told him. “I already spoke to your father, and he said it was perfectly fine. There’s no danger, here.”

Granny Ito took Izuku’s hand; something she hadn’t done in a long time, now that he was getting older. Izuku gripped hers, feeling uneasy.

“This is Mariko,” Shigaraki said. “She was one of Dr. Tsubasa’s experimental patients.”

Izuku didn’t know what that meant, but Granny squeezed his hand even tighter as they looked at the woman. Mariko didn’t move or acknowledge their presence. She seemed like a living doll, except for being so sickly.

“She simply wasn’t a suitable candidate for our project, and her body rejected the treatments. We weren’t going to keep her, but I thought she might be suitable for one more test,” Shigaraki explained as if Izuku was supposed to know what he was talking about.

Shigaraki was studying Izuku intently, as if expecting something, but Izuku didn’t know what. However, within moments, Mariko closed her eyes and seemed to relax back into the pillow under her head, and there was a long, tinny-sounding whine coming from a small machine on the table beside the bed. Izuku felt a shiver crawl up his spine, and his skin erupted in goosebumps.

The nurse who had answered the door came into the room and shut off the machine, then she looked at Shigaraki, who smiled and nodded. The woman turned and left the room again.

“Looks like Mariko isn’t up for company right now,” Shigaraki said. “But I think the test had very interesting results.”

“What was the test?” Izuku asked quietly, not wanting to wake the woman in the bed.

Shigaraki motioned for them to leave the room, and he shut the door as all three of them filed out into the living room. This room was devoid of furniture or decor altogether.

“The test was for you, Izuku. The rest isn’t important, but I will say that I’m quite pleased.”

Izuku was beyond confused, and Granny Ito looked upset.

“Am I understanding what just happened? The nurse said one or two days, not minutes,” Granny asked Shigaraki.

“Correct,” Shigaraki affirmed. “Not only does he inherit quirks left behind, he can hasten the host’s passing, if they are close enough to the end.”

Izuku hoped he was wrong about what Shigaraki-san was saying. It seemed like Granny and Shigaraki were using a roundabout way of talking so that Izuku wouldn’t really know what they were saying, but he wasn’t stupid.

“Did-- did that lady in there just die?” he croaked, pointing at the bedroom door.

“Yes,” Shigaraki said, sounding unconcerned. “She died quite quickly and peacefully, didn’t she?”

Izuku could feel his heart starting to race, and his breath was coming short as his stomach twisted in his gut. Granny Ito was rubbing circles on his back and telling him to take deep breaths.

“Is it my fault?” Izuku demanded, on the verge of tears.

“No!” Granny told him forcefully. “Not even a little. She was very sick, and there was nothing that could be done for her.”

Izuku felt her words sooth him. Granny was the most trustworthy person he knew. She wouldn’t lie to him. It was sad that the lady had died, though.

“Don’t worry, Izuku,” Shigaraki told him, sounding pleased. “This is something I have suspected for a while, now. You’ve given me much to consider, and so I’ve given you something, too. A new quirk from the recently departed! I want to see how your body handles something a little more powerful. It’s one I think you’ll eventually enjoy! You’ll have to discover what it is on your own, I’m afraid. You’re going to forget any of this ever happened in just a few minutes.”

Granny looked angry but didn’t say anything. Shigaraki-san spoke, seemingly to the ceiling.

“Kurogiri? Kindly transport Izuku and Ito-san to the train station.”

A black void opened up in the air beside them, and both Granny and Izuku gasped.

“No need to worry,” Shigaraki told them both. “You’re both far too valuable to me at the moment to let any harm befall you.”

He firmly guided them into the void, and they were shocked to see the train station directly in front of them when they passed through the darkness. The void disappeared as their feet touched the pavement, and Izuku began to cry. He didn’t understand any of this and that Shigaraki man scared him.

“Let’s get on the train,” Granny told him. “Everything will be alright.”

“She guided him through the station and they got on the train. Izuku used the handkerchief granny pressed into his hand to wipe his eyes and blow his nose. She patted his arm, and they rode in silence for a few minutes until Izuku nodded off for a moment, then woke with a start.

“Oh! Sorry! I didn’t think I was tired, but I just fell right asleep!” he said to Granny, who was looking relieved. “Are we almost there, yet? I want to see if a store has the pen I want to buy for my dad for Christmas!”

“It’s the next stop,” she told him, sounding shaky.

They got off the train in a busy shopping district and headed toward a store that Izuku was interested in. He had made a little extra money from one of his neighbors, who had taken her dog to a groomer, then hated it’s new look. She had paid Izuku quite a bit just to pet her dog and make its hair grow back. Now with that, plus his other savings, he could afford to buy his dad a nice Christmas gift, and get something for Granny Ito, if he could find a way to get her something without her being there to spoil it.

Izuku found the pen he’d wanted for his dad; the kind that wrote upside down or even under water. While Granny Ito was busy looking at kimono obi for her daughter, Izuku managed to purchase a nice rail pass holder for her, and hide it in the bag with his dad’s pen.

When they were mostly finished with their shopping, Izuku begged to go to a store that featured hero merchandise, and Granny Ito indulged him (as usual). There was a hoodie that he wanted to check the price on, but it was too high up on the wall for him to reach. Granny Ito wasn’t much taller than him by this time, and she couldn't reach it either. Then, just when Izuku was up on his tiptoes trying to stretch for it, he felt his feet lift off the ground.

“Uh…” was all he could think to say as he rose toward the ceiling.

“Izuku!” Granny Ito cried out, trying to grab him by the ankles.

Luckily, Izuku had the presence of mind to grab a hold of one of the clothing racks jutting from the wall.

“Wha--” Izuku said, looking down at the people looking up at him. “Did someone use their quirk on me?”

Everyone shook their heads as he made eye contact with a couple of them inquiringly.

“I think you must have picked up something new,” Granny Ito told him quietly.

Izuku thought she must be right. The biggest problem with that is that he didn’t know how to get down. With his other quirks, it was pretty much easy to manage. How was he supposed to manage this?

“Ma’am your grandson can’t use his quirk in here like that,” an employee told Granny Ito, looking up at Izuku with mild annoyance.

Izuku knew that quirk use in public was generally against the law, unless you couldn’t help it.

“He’s been having some trouble with his quirk,” Granny told the lady. “We’re very sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll try to get it under control.”

The employee looked somewhat skeptical; eight years old was a little old to be having trouble controlling a quirk, but she shrugged.

“Izuku, try to use the slats on the walls to walk yourself down to the floor,” Granny advised him.

That made sense. Izuku fit his fingers into the grooves in the wall that the display bars were slotted into, and with some effort, was able to get low enough for her to reach, so she could help him touch down.

“Now what?” Izuku asked as people began to go about their business, now that the spectacle was over.

“I’m not really sure,” Granny admitted, looking worried.

She let him go, and he started to float upward again. She grabbed hold of him and pulled him back down. It was no real strain to do so, kind of like holding onto a large balloon.

“I don’t want to take you outdoors until I’m sure you won’t float away,” she said. “Or worse, get up in the air, then have it quit and you fall.”

Izuku didn’t want that, either.

“Is there something I can help you with?” a voice asked from behind them.

Izuku looked over to see a policeman standing there, looking curious, but not angry.

“I uh…” Izuku said sheepishly. “I don’t know how to turn my quirk off. It’s kind of new, and I just keep floating up in the air.”

“You’re a little old to just now be getting a quirk,” the man said pointedly.

“I know,” Izuku said nervously. “But it’s true.”

Granny let go of him for a moment, but Izuku stayed on the ground this time.

“It stopped!” Izuku said with relief.

Granny Ito still kept a firm grip on his jacket, just in case.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the officer said. “Why don’t the two of you come with me back to the koban, for now?”

“You’re going to arrest us?” Izuku asked, beginning to panic.

“No, no. Of course not,” the officer said with a laugh. “We have information there about quirk counselling, and agencies that might be able to help you learn how to control it.”

That could be helpful. Izuku looked to Granny to see what she thought they should do.

“I’m mostly concerned that this quirk will activate again while we’re outside, and there won’t be a ceiling to keep him from drifting away,” she told the officer.

“That would be bad,” he said, scratching his chin. “How about we each take one of his hands while we walk, and if he starts to levitate at all, we can keep him grounded.”

That matter settled, they walked together down the road to a small building that wasn’t even as big as Izuku’s apartment. He sat down in a folding chair while the officer rummaged in a filing cabinet. Granny sat stiffly beside him, gripping her purse tightly in her lap. As they waited, Izuku looked around and suddenly he was airborne again.

“Wah!” he said, feeling his butt leave the seat.

Granny reached out and snagged his coat with her hand, stopping him from going any further. Izuku hung in the air, about three feet off the ground, feeling ridiculous as the policeman stood and walked over.

“I see what you mean,” he said to Granny Ito. “He’s kind of like a human balloon.”

Granny nodded, and Izuku sighed. This was not how he envisioned his day going. It seemed strange that it was so late already, but the sun was setting quickly and the sky was starting to get dark. They needed to figure this out so he could go home and hide his dad’s present before he got home.

“Let’s try something,” the policeman said. He took a large binder off of a shelf and held it up to Izuku. “Try holding this.”

Izuku took the thick binder and felt himself sink toward the ground. The man handed him another, similar book and Izuku was able to stand on his own without Granny holding onto him.

“That’s better,” the officer said with satisfaction. “Now maybe you could explain why no one has figured this out before?”

Izuku nodded, and Granny sighed. Then Izuku explained about how his quirk worked, and ended with, “...and this one just showed up while we were shopping.”

“I’ll be damned,” the officer said quietly, mostly to himself.

“Everyone says that,” Izuku said glumly.

Chapter 7

Summary:

Granny Ito finally confesses what she’s been doing all this time, and it’s decided that Izuku needs more help than anyone realized.

Notes:

A MILLION hugs and happy dances for you all! I am so happy about all of the comments and grateful for all of the Kudos! It's like a drug and makes me want to write more and more! *MWAH*

Izuku didn’t make it home before his dad. In fact, his dad had to come and pick them up from the koban, and bring Izuku a backpack full of books for him to wear for the time being. His dad had been worried and surprised, and maybe a bit exasperated, but not angry. Izuku loved that about his dad. He had simply shown up and picked Izuku up, and saw Granny Ito to the station so she could catch her train home. The police had given them a whole bunch of pamphlets that dad promised to look at, and then they’d gone home and had leftovers for dinner.

Izuku’s teachers had been very understanding about him having to wear a backpack all day, and the kids didn’t make fun of him too much, either. Almost everyone had trouble with their quirk at one time or another, and Izuku’s case was especially trying. His father made appointments for him with a quirk counsellor and a personal trainer who specialized in helping kids get a handle on their quirks. Izuku was pretty much the trainer’s oldest new client, but he really enjoyed the sessions. Within weeks, he was able to adequately control his levitation quirk, and his balancing quirk helped to keep him safe, as well. Soon he was performing simple tricks like levitating to the top of a pole and balancing there like a seasoned acrobat, doing trick moves for fun. His trainer suggested that he be signed up for gymnastics to hone his skill, and give him better control, should his levitation quirk fail him and he needed to rely on his balance to land well. His father agreed, and Izuku was enrolled in a class after school most days.

The counselor was concerned over the mental strain of having to adapt to suddenly appearing quirks, and did her best to supply him with tools to deal with stress and make sure he knew the legality and ethical choices that each of his quirks entailed. Izuku liked the counselor well enough, but was a remarkably well-adjusted boy for someone who had been through so much in his short life. He remained cheerful and optimistic, and continued to focus on his hero worship and the desire to become a hero himself one day.

He continued to keep notebooks on various heroes he saw on television or learned about in school or from friends. He also kept one on himself, and the possible applications of each of his quirks as it applied to everyday life and possible hero work in the future. Aside from the levitation quirk, he made it all the way to fourth grade without acquiring any new quirks, which was a relief to everyone. At the end of third grade, he even met a man who had a quirk similar to his own, that allowed him to collect quirks, though Izuku didn’t really remember much about their meeting.

Granny Ito was a reliable constant in his life, though most days Izuku was busy from sunup to sunset with school, gymnastics and homework. She spent most of her time cleaning and doing housework, and preparing meals for Izuku and his dad that didn’t get eaten until they got home and heated them up. He only really saw her for a short time each day between getting home and his father showing up after work. Then one day just before the end of fourth grade, something changed.

Granny Ito was becoming more and more agitated. So much so that even Izuku’s dad noticed it. It began after one of their ‘field trips’ on a weekend to that hero store that Izuku adored, and got progressively worse over the course of the following week. Finally, Granny took a couple of days off from work, and Izuku was left to manage his own schedule. He did fine, and even cooked meals (thanks to all of the lessons Granny had given him over the years), and was proud of himself, but he was worried. He’d never seen granny like this. He certainly couldn’t remember her ever asking for time off before.

When Granny returned, she asked Izuku’s dad if she could have a private meeting with him, and they disappeared into the kitchen. Izuku, being worried for Granny Ito, had snuck from his room and crawled through the house to listen in, hoping to find out what was bothering his beloved guardian.

“I don’t think I understand what you’re telling me,” Izuku heard his father say to Granny.

Izuku was lying on his stomach on the carpet, his head just out of sight of the two seated at the kitchen table.

“I...I’ve been lying to you from the start,” Granny said, her voice sounding shaky. “You see, there’s a man that used to come to my family’s restaurant, and he seemed very nice. Always polite and appreciative, always got take out food. One day he came to us and he said that he wanted my daughter to take on a position as a housekeeper, looking after a little boy and his father. My daughter refused, saying that she intended to take over the family restaurant, and didn’t need another job.”

Izuku’s dad was quiet for a moment.

“He wanted your daughter to take the job looking after me and Izuku.”

“Yes,” Granny said. “He said that he would give her a quirk to make you trust her, and if she didn’t, he’d destroy us.”

“Wait… give her a quirk?” his dad asked.

Izuku was more concerned with the ‘destroy us’ part, and had to stop himself from jumping up and demanding to know more.

“That’s his quirk,” she said, sounding fearful. “He can steal quirks from anyone, and he can give them to others, if he wants. I stepped in and demanded to take her place, so she wouldn’t be put in that situation, or have to be away from her husband for so long. ”

“Why did he want you to take the job here?” his dad asked, sounding very serious.

“He’s interested in Izuku’s quirk,” she said, beginning to weep a little. “Because he’s able to have multiple quirks without putting a strain on his body. That isn’t supposed to be possible; two is usually the most a person can handle. He wants to know what’s so special about Izuku, so he can duplicate it in his…student. I don’t know how they’re related, but there’s a boy named Tomura, and he’s got a perfectly awful quirk! He disintegrates anything or anyone he touches with all five fingers. It's...it’s terrifying.”

“So he wanted you to spy on Izuku for him?”

“Yes,” Granny admitted. “But that’s not all. He’s been making me take Izuku to meet with him since the beginning. All of the field trips we’ve gone on have been a distraction, so Izuku and you won’t find out what’s really been going on.”

Izuku stayed where he was, hidden out of sight, and tried to remember Granny ever taking him anywhere like that. He had brief flashes of being confused about falling asleep for so long on the train, but nothing about meeting anyone.

“I don’t know how he does it, but a few minutes after we leave from meeting him, Izuku completely forgets all about it. He’s met him dozens of times and never remembers a thing,” Granny saed, sniffing loudly, her voice painfully wobbly. “I didn’t want to take him, but he said he’d let Tomura do to my family what he did to our cat if I didn’t follow his directions.”

“What exactly happened at these meetings?” his father asked, sounding grim.

“Mostly he just talked to him, and sometimes he took blood samples but I wasn’t allowed to see what he was up to most of the time,” she said, hiccupping the words out with difficulty. “Every time I objected, something would be a pile of ash or rubble or...or...or something dead and half dissolved when I got home that night, as a warning.”

“He took Izuku’s blood?”

Izuku’s father sounded angry. Angier than Izuku had ever heard him sound before. The smell of hot ash drifted to Izuku’s nose, and he knew his father must be smoking at the mouth again from his quirk.

“Yes,” Granny answered, barely audible. “Then, one time, he took Izuku and I to an apartment, and there was a woman there… a very sick woman…”

Izuku listened in horror as she told her father about a woman who had died while Izuku and she watched. She described how Izuku had inherited her quirk right in front of their eyes without either of them noticing until it was done. She told him about Shigaraki’s theory that not only was Izuku collecting the quirks of people that died in close proximity, but would hasten their death, if they were sick or weak enough that the end was very near.

Izuku had trouble believing it; he didn’t remember anything like that. Granny wouldn't lie… But she had lied, a lot. Or she was lying now? Did she just say he’d killed someone? That couldn’t be true!

“What… what made you decide to tell me about this, now?” Izuku’s dad asked, sounding shaken. “What’s changed?”

“Because he wants me to bring Izuku to him again,” she said, stifling a sob. “In two weeks. I- I don’t think he’ll let me bring him back, this time. He said my services would no longer be needed!”

For a little while, the only sound was Granny Ito crying, and Izuku wasn’t sure what to do. He could see the smoke his father was emitting now, and wondered if the smoke alarm would sound because of it.

“Izuku is like my own grandson,” Granny finally said. “I may not have protected him before, but I won’t let him be taken. If that means I have to pay the price for what I’ve done, then that’s what will happen.”

Izuku couldn’t stand it anymore. He jumped to his feel and ran into the room.

“No! We can’t let something bad happen to you!” Izuku said, hands balled into fists at his side.

“No. We can’t,” his father agreed.

He said nothing about Izuku’s apparent spying and eavesdropping.

“These past two days, I’ve talked to my daughter and her husband,” Granny said sadly. “They’ve packed and gone ‘on vacation’ for a while. I don’t care what happens to the restaurant, as long as they’re safe.”

“What about you?” Izuku demanded. “Are you going away?”

“Yes, Izuku. One way or another, I don’t think I’ll be coming back here again.”

Izuku couldn’t help the tears that sprang up in his eyes.

“We’re going to do our best to keep you safe,” his dad told her, taking out his phone. “We’ll start by calling the police, and see if we can’t get some help that way.”

“I’m ready to face whatever consequences need to be faced,” Granny said firmly.

“I’m angry, but not so angry I’d let you be killed over it,” Izuku’s dad said, finally getting his smoke under control. “You’ve been in an impossible situation, and I get that you were protecting your family. I just wish…”

He didn’t finish the thought as he dialed the police and tried to find who could handle a case like this. It took several phone calls, but within two hours, there was a detective with a lie detecting quirk and a policeman in their living room, asking all kinds of questions. Granny answered as best she could, and the detective kept texting on his phone back and forth with someone the whole time.

“There are some people I’d like to bring in on this case, this sounds like a villain we’ve known of for quite some time,” the detective finally said, tucking his phone in his pocket. “They should be here in a few minutes.”

Izuku sat next to his father, and answered questions from the detective, who was nice, and treated Granny with respect and kindness, even when she kept saying that she didn’t deserve it.

“Izuku-kun,” the detective said kindly, “Why don’t you go out and wait for my friends to arrive? Officer Sansa will go with you. I need to talk to your dad and Ito-san in private, okay? You don’t have to go anywhere but right outside the front door.”

Izuku nodded and walked with the officer to the front door. He had a whole list of questions he wanted to ask the feline headed man, starting with the bell around his neck. While he plied the officer with a million questions, he kept looking back at the apartment door, wondering what they were talking about. A little while later, Izuku heard heavy footsteps approaching on the stairs leading up to their apartment’s floor.

Izuku blinked as he saw golden hair spikes seeming to rise from the stairwell, followed by a man whose height alone gave him away.

“A-a-a-a-a-a-a-All Might!”

He wasn’t wearing his hero gear, but his identity was unmistakable. The man let out the familiar trademark laugh as he spotted Izuku staring, and Officer Sansa looking amused.

“Hello there!” All Might boomed with a grin. “I’m looking for Detective Tsukauchi!”

“He’s inside, sir. Izuku-kun and I were just having a chat all about quirks,” Officer Sansa said.

“Were you, now?” All Might asked in a friendly (loud) voice.

Izuku managed to nod, even though he felt like he might pee his pants in excitement. Then he remembered why All Might was probably here.

“Please help Granny Ito. It’s not her fault she lied.”

“Don’t worry young man,” All Might said, resting a hand on Izuku’s curls. “Because I am here.”

Izuku couldn’t help but feel better hearing that simple catchphrase.

There was another man behind All Might. He was tall, thin and looked like a salary man with a suit and tie and glasses and neatly combed hair. He didn’t say anything, just followed along behind All Might like a shadow.

Officer Sansa went ahead and opened the door, letting the two men in. Izuku crept in behind them, but was immediately sent to his room for a while so the adults could discuss matters. There was no way to sneak out and listen, since the apartment was too small for him to go unnoticed by that many people in the living room. He went to his bed and sat with his handheld gaming console, but didn’t turn on the game.

His room was full of All Might merchandise, carefully saved up for over time and selected with painstaking care.

Would All Might go and arrest that Shigaraki man and the kid? Could kids be arrested?

Izuku sat contemplating what would happen if Granny Ito had to go away for a long time. Finally, there was a light knock on his door (he’d tried to leave his door open to try to hear, but they’d caught him). Scrambling off the bed, he opened the door to find the salary man standing there.

“May I come in?” the man asked.

Izuku shrugged and stood back for the man to enter.

“You can sit in my desk chair, if you want,” Izuku offered, remembering his manners.

“Thank you,” the man said, doing so. “This is quite a remarkable All Might collection for someone your age..”

“He’s my favorite. I wanna be a hero like him, some day.”

Nighteye pointed to a snow globe with a place of honor on a shelf with a limited edition All Might figure from a blind bag collection.

“I have that same snow globe,” he said. There were 500 made.”

“I won it in a raffle!” Izuku said proudly.

Izuku sat on the edge of his bed facing his visitor, wondering what he wanted.

“Very lucky. My name is Sir Nighteye,” the man told him. “I’m All Might’s sidekick.”

Izuku’s eyes widened. He didn’t know that All Might had a sidekick! What kind of fan was he? He had a million questions!

“I came to ask you if you would let me use my quirk on you,” the man said calmly.

“What’s your quirk?” Izuku asked curiously.

“Good for you,” the man approved. “I’m glad you were smart enough to ask me that before agreeing. My quirk is called Foresight, and it allows me to see into a person’s future.”

“That’s kind of…” Izuku began, then cut himself off before he could say something rude.

“Go on, don’t be afraid to say what you think.”

“It’s kind of silly,” Izuku said apologetically. “Sorry.”

The man smiled slightly.

“Why do you think it’s silly?”

“Because no one knows what will happen in the future,” Izuku told him, as if the answer was obvious. “Too many people have too many choices to predict the future. It's always changing!”

Izuku thought he heard that in a movie, or something.

“Interesting. How old are you, again?”

Sir Nighteye didn’t seem offended by Izuku’s words. In fact, he sounded curious.

“I’m almost ten,” Izuku said, even though his birthday was still four months away.

“I see,” he said inscrutably. “Well, I should say my quirk shows me the most probable outcome, then. It’s just never been wrong, before.”

“Wow! That’s really impressive! Good job!” Izuku said excitedly.

He was definitely going to put a page in his hero notebook about this!

“Thank you,” Sir Nighteye said with a wry smile. “I would like to try to see what might happen in your future, so we can figure out the best way to protect you.”

“Okay, I guess. Will you tell me what you see?” Izuku asked. ”Am I going to be a hero someday?”

“I probably won’t look that far ahead,” he said easily. “And I’ll only tell you something if you really, really need to know about it.”

Izuku sighed. “Do I have to do anything, or do I just sit here?”

“I have to touch you, like putting my hand on your hand or arm, and I have to make eye contact. All you have to do is sit still,” he explained.

“Okay.”

Izuku held out his arm, and Sir Nighteye gently grasped his wrist and looked into Izuku’s big green eyes. They sat like that for a couple of minutes, until Izuku started to feel squirmy. It didn’t hurt; it didn’t feel like anything. Sir Nighteye’s eyes glowed an interesting purplish color, and there was a strange pattern in the glow that looked kind of like a gear, which was neat. Izuku tried to memorize it so he could draw it later.

After he was finished, Nighteye blinked and let go of Izuku’s arms.

“Did you see anything good?” Izuku asked, hoping for a hint.

“I could see that you are a good person, Midoriya-kun,” Nighteye told him, getting to his feet. “And I think we’ll be seeing more of each other in the future at some point. Other than that, I won’t say.”

Izuku simply sighed and nodded.

“Thank you for helping,” Izuku told him before the man turned toward the door.

The man paused at the door and turned back to Izuku.

“Tell me a joke,” the man said unexpectedly.

Without hesitation, Izuku recited one of his favorites.

“What is a villain’s favorite part of a joke?”

Sir Nighteye raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

“The PUNCHline!” Izuku told him with a grin.

The man chuckled at that.

“I’ll look forward to seeing you again one day,” he said.

He turned and left the room, making Izuku wonder if he was allowed to go out and find out what was going on now.

When he poked his head out and looked toward the living room, Officer Sansa spotted him and subtly shook his head. Izuku nodded and went back into this room, closing the door. He got out his latest notebook and began to painstakingly write about Foresight.

Chapter 8

Summary:

Some things go right, some things go wrong, and Izuku's world changes again.

Notes:

SHHHH! I'm secretly posting from work!

When Izuku was finally able to come out of his room, Granny Ito was looking very tired, but was sitting comfortably on the couch, and not in handcuffs. Izuku had been afraid that she would be under arrest, or something. He went and took a seat beside her, wanting to comfort her, somehow.

“Are they gonna be able to help?” Izuku asked her quietly while the detective talked to Sir Nighteye and All Might.

“”They’re trying to figure out what to do right now,” she told him, patting his arm. “But the most important thing is keeping you safe. It doesn’t matter what happens to me as long as you’re okay.”

“It matters to me,” Izuku said, crossing his arms across his chest.

A tear rolled down Granny’s cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Izuku,” she said in a shaky voice. “I never wanted to do any of the things he told me to.”

“He didn’t give you a choice,” Izuku told her loyally.

“I don’t deserve such kindness,” she insisted, “but I want you to know that I wasn’t pretending to like you, ever. You’re a wonderful boy, and you’re growing up to be a wonderful young man. I wish…”

“I’m really not going to see you again, am I?” Izuku asked quietly when she didn’t finish.

“No,” she said, wiping away a tear. “It would be far too dangerous.”

He nodded, and leaned toward her to rest his head on her shoulder.

“I’m going to miss you,” he said sadly.

“I’m going to miss you, too.”

In the end, they decided that Granny Ito and her family should be moved for their own protection, at least until All Might could deal with the man Granny knew as Shigaraki, but who All Might knew as a villain called All For One. It was a stroke of luck, really, that Granny knew where his base was and could draw a map for them. They had at least a week to work with to come up with a plan for a confrontation between the number one hero and the number one villain. In the meantime, Izuku and his father would also need to move, and Granny Ito was not allowed to know where, for everyone’s safety.

Before the heroes and police left, All Might asked to be excused to ‘take care of business’ and disappeared down the hallway. Izuku had assumed that the man needed the toilet, but when he went to his room later, he found that every poster on his wall had been autographed, and so had the bottom of his snowglobe. He might not have gotten to ask All Might all of the questions he had wanted to, but this absolutely made up for it!

The rest had all happened very quickly. Izuku was moved to another school just before summer break, so he barely had time to get to know anyone, but the other kids seemed okay. While he was at his first day of the new school, a group of movers had descended on the Midoriya household and packed everything up. They were moved to an apartment in a much taller building, with much better security, and an elevator inside instead of stairs outside to their floor. The rooms had a slightly different layout from their old apartment, but otherwise were pretty much the same. The building itself was more modern, and their location was more in the city than the suburbs. It was closer to his dad’s office, so that was nice, too. It was just a lot to take in.

Three days after Izuku moved to his new home with his dad, a raid was planned on All For One’s home base, and it was hoped that Izuku and his father would no longer have to worry about a strange man giving Izuku quirks or taking his blood.

It went without saying that Izuku was not allowed to talk to anyone about any of it, and when asked why he moved to a new school after the beginning of the school year, they kept it simple and said that his dad had been transferred for work, and it couldn’t wait. When the other kids asked Izuku what his quirk was, he showed them how he could turn see-through, and left it at that.

The raid on All For One… didn’t go as planned. There was nothing about it on the news, but Detective Tsukauchi came to see Izuku’s dad to fill them in on things, and he looked shaken.

“We don’t think that you’ll need to worry about Shigaraki,” he told them, holding his cup of untouched tea. “But the boy named Tomura and the warping villain escaped, and Shigaraki’s… body was taken, as well. It was an intense battle, and the amount of blood Shigaraki lost really wasn’t consistent with sustainability. We’ve got the story suppressed-- it won’t be reported on any news outlets.”

Izuku knew he was using big words to try to keep him from understanding what he was saying, but he knew that it meant that the bad guy was probably dead.

“How are All Might and Sir Nighteye?” Izuku’s dad asked.

Izuku thought that was a weird question, since All Might was indestructible!

“There were some injuries,” the detective said, his eyes flicking to Izuku for a moment, looking worried. “Nothing the doctors can’t handle, though.”

Izuku nodded with satisfaction. All Might always came out on top! He wondered if Granny Ito knew that the man who had been threatening her and her family was dead. He hoped so.

“I’m gonna write All Might a letter to say thank you!” Izuku said as Detective Tsukauchi was leaving.

“I’ll bet he’d like that.”

“Where should I send it?” Izuku asked. “I’d normally send it to his agency, like the others, but this is supposed to be a secret, right?”

Izuku practically knew the address to his agency by heart. He had a small stack of thank you form letters from there, for all of the letters he’d sent in the past.

“Right,” the detective said with a nod. “I have a feeling you’ll be seeing Sir Nighteye before long, and you can pass it to him. He’ll get it where it needs to go.”

Izuku nodded, and couldn’t help but feel excited to meet the sidekick again. Maybe he could ask some of his questions, then. In the meantime, he would write his letter so it would be ready!

That night Izuku had troubling dreams. Shigaraki was in them, and so was Dr. Tsubasa, and Izuku was strapped to a table in a dark room and there was eerie light coming from tanks of what looked like green slime. It was scary, but Izuku found he couldn’t move his limbs or cry out for help. When he woke in a panic, he was covered in sweat and shaking, but was overcome by sleepiness again. He vaguely remembered his dream for the few few minutes after waking, but they faded away by the time he’d used the bathroom and gotten dressed. All that was left was a vague sense of unease.

It didn’t take long for Sir Nighteye to show up at the Midoriya’s new apartment; he came the very next day. He looked a little disheveled and wild-eyed, but unhurt in any way. He was still dressed like a salaryman, but there were dark smudges under his eyes, and he was a little pale.

“Sir Nighteye!” Izuku said happily when he opened the door.

He already knew it was him from the door camera. The new apartment building made people who lived there ‘buzz in’ any guests from the lobby.

“Midoriya-kun,” he said formally. “I wonder if I could have a moment of your time. Is your father at home?”

“Come in,” Izuku invited, setting out a pair of guest slippers for him. “My dad’s at work right now.”

“He leaves you alone?” Sir asked, looking a little troubled.

“Not usually. Just since Granny Ito had to…” Izuku trailed off, knowing he knew why Granny Ito was no longer looking after him. “He says I’m old enough to stay home by myself for a while, as long as I don’t go out or cook anything on the stove.”

Sir Nighteye nodded slowly as if considering the situation as he took a seat in the living room and refused the offer of tea. Izuku knew they couldn’t hire a new housekeeper, just in case. Normally he’d spend all day in school, then go to gymnastics and wouldn’t be home alone as much. It was summer break, though, so he was on his own.

“That makes sense, I suppose. The reason I’m here is to ask if you would allow me to use my quirk on you again, to confirm something I already saw,” he explained.

“It’s fine with me,” Izuku said. “Is everything okay?”

“The fight with All For One was very difficult, and hard on All Might,” Sir told him seriously. “He was injured, and I used my quirk on him to make sure he would be alright. However, I want to look into your future, because I already know that you will see him again at some point in the future, and I want to see him as you will, to make sure he’s going to recover well.”

“You said your quirk is never wrong,” Izuku reminded him shrewdly. “You shouldn’t need to check with me.”

“You’re a smart kid,” Sir said with the ghost of a smile bending the corners of his lips upward. “You’re right; seeing All Might getting injured like this has made me nervous. I’m second guessing myself, and want to use your future encounter with him to make myself feel better.”

“If it makes you feel better, then sure!” Izuku said, sitting on the edge of the coffee table and holding out his arm like before.

Sir Nighteye looked grateful as he reached out and grasped Izuku’s wrist lightly and looked into his eyes. It seemed to go on for a long time, with Sir Nighteye in sort of trance and Izuku sitting somewhat awkwardly, waiting for him to find whatever it was he was looking for. When Sir finally blinked and released him, Izuku tried not to be rude and rub the arm that was starting to go numb from hanging in the air for so long.

“Yes,” the sidekick murmured to himself. “Alright. Okay. We can deal with that.”

“Is everything still okay?” Izuku asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Hmmm? Oh, yes. Thank you. I saw what I needed to see.”

“That’s good, then,” Izuku said, feeling glad.

After a moment, Sir Nighteye stood up.

“I need to go meet with All Might,” he told Izuku.

“Oh… Okay. Could you wait just a minute? I wrote him a letter, if you could give it to him!”

He waited a moment until Sir nodded in agreement, and then sprinted to his room to get the letter sitting on his desk. He folded it up and took a moment to find an envelope to put it in, then trotted back out to find Sir looking at Hero Analysis for the Future No. 10, which had been sitting on the coffee table, where Izuku had been writing in it before the door buzzer had sounded earlier. Seeing his notebook in the hands of someone else made his heart jump. He didn’t share his notes with people very often.

“You’ve made some very astute observations,” Sir Nighteye said without apology for snooping. “And your drawing skills are very good for someone your age.”

“Th-thanks!” Izuku said, feeling proud. “I have a lot of questions. If I write you a letter, do you think you could answer some of them?”

“I think that could be arranged,” he said, closing the notebook and handing it back to Izuku in exchange for the letter to All Might.

Sir produced a business card and handed it to Izuku, who looked at it in awe. It was plant white, with navy blue lettering, but it had the address of Sir’s office at Might Tower and his phone number on it.

“You can send a letter to this address, and you may call that number if you have an emergency. Only if you have an emergency. Understood?”

“Yes sir!” Izuku said reverently. “I promise!”

“Very well,” Sir said with a little smile. “I look forward to hearing from you. Now, one last thing. A joke, if you would?”

Izuku laughed. Sir must really enjoy jokes! He thought for a moment before he came up with one he thought was suitable.

“What do you call a fly with no wings?”

“What do you call a fly with no wings?” Sir asked.

“A walk,” Izuku told him with a big grin.

Sir Nighteye gave a huff of laughter before he nodded in appreciation.

“Goodbye, Midoriya-kun.”

The moment the door closed behind Sir Nighteye, Izuku was racing to get some paper to start the letter he wanted to write.

When his dad got home, Izuku was still awake. He’d made a passable meal using just the microwave and rice cooker, and sat and talked to his dad while they ate a late dinner.

“Hey, Izuku,” his father said as they washed the dishes together. “Would you be interested in attending a summer camp this year? It’s a little late to sign up, but there are a couple that you go away to for a week or two. You liked the nature camp that one time.”

“Hmmm. That was fun, but if I go, who will take care of you?” Izuku asked seriously.

His father sighed and ruffled his hair.

“Who’s the parent here? If you’re away at camp, and I’m at work, there won’t be much to take care of around here. Don’t let housekeeping get in the way of something you want to do! Besides, I feel bad leaving you home by yourself all the time. You should be out having fun and there really should be a reliable adult to look after you for a couple of more years, yet.”

Izuku considered this.

“Maybe if there was a gymnastics or quirk training camp…”

“I’ll have my assistant look into it.”

In the end, Izuku did not get enrolled into a summer camp for a week or two. HIs father proposed a completely different idea altogether, after getting a phone call from Sir Nighteye. All Might’s sidekick had called Iuzku’s dad to ask if Izuku might be allowed to do a sort of junior internship at All Might’s agency for a few weeks. Until school started again, he could take a train each morning, and spend the day learning the ins and outs of a hero agency, and then take the train back home in the afternoon.

Izuku had nearly fainted when his father had said he’d turned down the offer, because Izuku would be bored hanging out in an office all day. He laughed uproariously when Izuku had actually shouted at him in disbelief, and admitted that he’d accepted the offer. What safer place for his son to be than in the agency of the world’s greatest hero or his sidekick?

“Dad! I’m going to need some new notebooks!” Izuku insisted excitedly.

Two days later, Izuku was met in the lobby of Might Tower by a nice lady in a black pencil skirt and a frilly blouse. She pinned a special visitor badge to Izuku’s shirt and took him on a (truncated) tour of the building.

“This place is huge!” Izuku said, in awe of how many buttons there were in the panel on the elevator.

“All Might does so much hero work that it takes scores of people to handle the paperwork, scheduling, merchandising, image branding and things like that. That way, All Might can concentrate on what he does best.” she explained kindly.

“Saving people and catching villains!” Izuku said enthusiastically.

“Exactly right!” she agreed with a smile.

She led him down long hallways full of busy people, explaining what each department they passed did for the agency. They skipped floors here and there for no reason Iuzku could discern, but he didn’t worry too much about it. Exploring this place seemed like it could take years to see it all. He was very interested in one of the areas they passed, which had a large collection of All Might merchandise on display, including some prototypes and items that had never even gone to production. He wanted to linger there and soak it all in, but he also didn’t want to slack off on his first day. He reluctantly followed the woman leading him, hoping he’d get a chance to come back and examine everything some other time.

They passed through a cafeteria that was relatively quiet, since it was between breakfast and lunchtime, and took another elevator that was not connected to the other one they had taken before.

“This elevator takes us up to the floors that All Might uses. There’s a special entrance on the roof that only he can use, and the very top floors are only accessible to him, Sir Nighteye, and a couple of other very close friends of his.”

When the doors slid open, there was a noticeable lack of people, compared to the lower floors. There was an attractive woman sitting at a reception desk that looked up from her computer when the elevator arrived, and she smiled at them. She thanked the woman that had escorted Iuzku this far, then dismissed her. She waved at Izuku, then got back into the elevator and was gone.

“Hello there, Midoriya-kun,” she said in a honeyed voice that was so nice it was probably her quirk. “We’ve been expecting you! Sir Nighteye will be down in just a minute. In the meantime, I’ll help you get your iris scanned for security clearance.”

Izuku was amazed by the little panel in the wall that he had to stand in front of (on a small step stool) to have his eyes scanned into the computer so that he could get into the upper floors of Might Tower. By the time the panel beeped and gave a green light, another door opened across the room, and Sir Nighteye stepped out and beckoned Izuku to come with him.

“I trust you had no trouble getting here this morning?” Sir asked him as he led Izuku into a stairwell with a wall of windows that allowed him to see across the city.

“”It was easy,” Izuku told him, climbing the steps eagerly beside him. “This building is the tallest one around, and has a big globe on top!”

“That’s true,” Sir told him. “I’m going to take you to my office for now, but then I’d like to take you to see All Might. He’s still in the hospital, but it’s okay for him to have visitors.”

“Was he really hurt that bad?” Izuku asked worriedly.

He couldn’t imagine it. As long as he’d hero-worshiped All Might, he’d never seen him with more than a scratch on the news.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Sir said seriously, using an iris scanner to open the door at the top of the stairs.

He led Izuku into an area that was way bigger than any office he had ever seen or heard of. It took up at least half of the entire floor of the building. There were floor to ceiling windows with an incredible view, and a large seating area with an absolutely huge armchair that must have been made specifically for All Might’s height and bulk. There were other chairs and a sofa grouped around that. There was a large desk with a couple of chairs in front of it, some office equipment, and an enormous bank of television screens that seemed to show different parts of the city in real time.

“Wow!” Izuku said, eye roaming over the different screens, “I’ll bet you don’t even have to patrol, with so many cameras around!”

“Well, that would be ideal, of course, but why do you think patrolling is still necessary?” Sir asked him, coming to stand beside him and look at the monitors.

“Um… cameras can’t be everywhere?” Izuku guessed.

“Correct. Villains and criminals seldom plan or commit crimes out in the open. Most crimes start indoors, and end up in public as the result of getting caught.”

“That makes sense,” Izuku said, wondering if it would be okay to get out his new notebook and start taking notes. “Bad guys need to have hide-outs.”

Sir nodded and turned away from the monitors to go to his desk.

“What does a junior intern do, anyway?” Izuku asked. “My dad said that interns are usually from high schools or universities, and they go to places like where they want to work in the future to learn stuff.”

“That’s a good explanation. Occasionally, we will take on an especially promising student from one of the hero high schools like UA, Shiketsu or others and give them a taste of what it’s like to use what they’ve learned at school in the real world. There is only so much school can teach you, and the rest must be gained by experience, trial and error.”

“But I haven’t learned anything about hero work in school. I’m not even in middle school, yet.”

Sir gave him a small smile as he tapped at the keys of his computer.

“That’s why you’re a junior intern. Your father said you’ve had some quirk counselling and training, but we both agree that you could use more. You and I, and perhaps some trusted allies will spend some time this summer to examine each of your quirks and decide which are best suited to hero work, if that is still what you wish to pursue.”

“I want to be a hero more than anything!” Izuku said firmly. “I want to protect people like Granny Ito who get bullied by villains, and people like...like my mom, who died because of villains. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else.”

Izuku didn’t get as emotional anymore, talking about his mother and her death, but he never forgot how it felt to lose her. Now he was simply passionate about protecting anyone else from dying needlessly.

“A worthy goal,” Sir told him. “Also, you’ve been given an immense power, with immense potential. All For One had similar potential, and made some very unfortunate choices that led him to where he is today. It’s our responsibility to make sure that you understand the best uses for your quirks and how to make the best choices regarding them. Do you have a notebook like the one I saw, that lists your observations about your own quirks?”

Izuku looked at Sir slightly suspiciously, wondering how the man knew about that. He nodded.

“Excellent. You’ll bring it with you tomorrow and we can see what you’ve already discovered,” Sir told him, sounding satisfied. “Today, we’re going to visit the hospital, and let that determine what else we’ll be doing.”

He stood from behind his computer and motioned for Izuku to follow him across the room to another retinal scanner. A moment later, they were in a small, private elevator that took them all the way down to the parking garage under the building. Sir’s car was a normal looking sedan with dark-tinted windows and comfortable leather seats, a lot like the car his dad drove when he didn’t take a train to work.

“I want to prepare you for what you’re going to see when we get to All Might’s room,” Sir told him. “He’s healing as well as they can manage, but he’s lost a considerable portion of his left side. He’s not as strong as he once was, and tires quickly. This should all improve over time.

“I’m… I’m not supposed to go into hospitals because of my quirk,” Izuku said timidly.

He really, really wanted to see All Might, even though he was afraid of what he might see. He didn’t want to miss out on this chance to spend time with his idol just because of the off-chance that someone might die in another part of the hospital.

“This is a special hospital,” Sir assured him. “No one there is in danger of dying.”

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed into his seat. “I’m glad.”

“Me, too,” Sir said with feeling.

Chapter 9

Summary:

A visit to All Might in rehab cements a theory about Izuku's quirk.

Notes:

A bit shorter chapter this time! Thank you all so much for continuing to read and comment!

The building they parked at was a two story, modern-looking one. All of the windows were mirrored so that no one could see inside from outside, and Izuku watched himself walk beside Sir Nighteye in the reflection they cast as they moved toward the door.

“This place takes care of heroes who are recovering from serious injuries,” Sir told him as he entered a passcode on a number pad beside the door. “If you see anyone you recognise, please do not interrupt their sessions. They are here to train so they can return to their hero work as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir,” Izuku said firmly, determined to behave impeccably, so there would be a good report if his father asked Sir about him later.

Izuku had been expecting a quiet atmosphere and hushed voices, like the other times he’d been in a hospital. Instead, it was bright, and looked like one of those ads on television for fitness centers. There was exercise equipment everywhere, and the clink of weights tapping each other as men and women worked through their reps. There were also people in scrubs standing by many of them, giving encouragement or instructions, and a lot of grunting from the people being pushed to perform. It was all very interesting.

Izuku did recognize at least two of the heroes he saw, but said nothing as he kept close to Sir’s side. He was led to an elevator. However, instead of going up, as he expected, they went down; not one floor, but two. In this underground space, there was more sturdy looking equipment, a large open area, and a single bedroom off to the side. There was even a little walled off room with a small pool and an even smaller pool with steam rising from the surface of the water. It seemed like a space to hide the fact that the world’s number one hero was in residence, which made sense. He wondered who else got this type of treatment or privacy, when All Might wasn’t here.

A very short man leaning on a walking stick was standing off to one side as All Might did pull ups on a bar attached to the wall.

“Who’s the kid?” the short man asked.

Suddenly, All Might dropped from the bar and landed on his feet, panting.

“You shouldn’t be that tired yet,” the short man told him, sounding concerned. “You just started!”

“It came on suddenly,” All Might said.

Sir Nighteye looked thoughtful at this announcement.

“This is Midoriya Izuku,” Sir told the short man. “I told you about him.”

The short man grunted and gave a sniff. “Thought he’d be older. And bigger.”

“Are you feeling better?” Sir asked All Might, approaching the hero with Izuku following him like a shadow.

“I was… but there’s this feeling like… tugging… inside me. I can’t explain it. It just came out of nowhere, and it’s making me feel drained, all of the sudden.”

Izuku looked at All Might in concern. He looked pretty much the same as the last time he’d seen him, except for the wide swath of bandages wrapped around his middle.

“Interesting. Let me perform a small experiment,” Sir said, sounding thoughtful. “Izuku, come with me.”

He ushered Izuku back toward the elevator and called to the two men, “We’ll be back in five minutes. Monitor how you feel once we leave.”

The door slid closed, and Izuku looked up at Sir Nighteye with solemn concern.

“You think I’m making him feel sick, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Sir said, sounding more interested than upset. “I think your quirk senses his weakness, and is trying to prepare to take his quirk.”

“I can’t take All Might’s quirk! He’s not going to die!” Izuku said in a panic.

“Correct,” Sit said, placing a hand on his shoulder as they exited the elevator on the main floor. “The nature of his quirk will not allow it to be forcibly taken, and he is not going to die in the near future.”

If Sir was saying it, it must be true. Izuku could feeling the tension that had suddenly tied his heart in a knot loosening.

Izuku followed along behind him as Sir travelled through the facility to a small room with what looked like a cafeteria, but also had a bank of vending machines. He pulled out his wallet and fed money into a machine that dispensed drinks. He purchased four cans of tea, and handed two to Izuku to carry and took the other two himself. The cans promptly reacted to Izuku’s teflon quirk and slipped from his fingers before he could adjust his grip to hold them from the bottom. His reflexes were good though, and he managed to snag them before they hit the ground and tuck them into the crook of his arm.

“Oops?” he said in embarrassment “I forgot to grab my gloves before we left my place.”

Sir regarded him with a small, indulgent smile before leading the way back to the elevator.

“So… how can I be making All Might sick, if he’s not dying?” Izuku asked, getting the subject back on track.

“I think your quirk can tell when someone is weakened, physically; maybe even mentally. I think it kind of sends out feelers, as it were, to check if a new quirk will be inherited soon. Because All Might is currently not in top shape, your quirk is kind of like a curious ant, scouting out new territory.”

Izuku appreciated the analogy, but it still concerned him.

“Does that mean I shouldn’t be around him until he’s all better?” Izuku asked.

“Possibly,” Sir admitted. “The reason we came up here is to see if your absence negates the weakness he began to feel when you arrived.”

Izuku liked that Sir didn’t try to ‘dumb down’ his vocabulary when he spoke to Izuku. Sometimes he didn’t fully understand what some stuff meant, but could still figure it out, even without someone explaining.

“So he should feel better when I’m gone?” Izuku asked. “That’s what we’re checking, right?. We’re going to go back and see if it happens again?”

“Precisely,” Sir told him with a nod. “Are you ready? I’m afraid that if he starts to weaken, we’ll have to leave and meet with him another time when he’s built his strength again more, or even over the computer.”

“Does he even want to meet with me?” Izuku asked.

He didn’t want to force his company or his presence where it wasn’t wanted, even if it meant missing out on spending time with All Might. He’d already lost his friendship with Kacchan because of that, and it had hurt. To cause harm or annoyance to a man he’d idolized for as long as he could remember was unthinkable.

“I’m not sure it’s a question of wanting to, so much as needing to,” Sir told him cryptically. “All Might might be having a bit of trouble accepting that he might not be as strong anymore as he was before his fight with All For One.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Izuku asked as they made their way back to the elevator.

It was a big worry that All Might was weaker than he had been, especially since he might not have had to fight All For One if it hadn’t been for Izuku.

“I’m hoping that he will see in you what I’ve seen in you,” he said. “And that he’ll help us with your quirks and get you ready to be a great hero some day.”

Again, Izuku didn’t understand exactly what he meant, but wasn’t about to argue with the idea of having help from All Might himself. He remained silent and a little tense as they descended to the underground space, and cautiously stepped out of the elevator.

All Might and the short man were having a conversation, but stopped when Izuku appeared. All Might stood with his trademark smile on his face and came closer.

“I’m feeling much better…” he paused for a moment before finishing saying, “now,”.

The smile gradually disappeared into a puzzled frown as he paused midstep.

“Do you feel it again?” Sir asked interestedly.

“I do,” All Might said, also sounding intrigued. “It’s not as strong as before, though. It’s very strange.”

He got down on one knee to be closer to Izuku in height and studied him intently for a moment.

“I can leave,” Izuku said, backing up a step, but coming up against Sir Nighteye, who was behind him.

“Give it a little time, Izuku-kun,” Sir advised kindly.

“Do you feel anything, Gran?” All Might asked the short man.

“Nope. Not a thing,” the man said gruffly.

“Do you?” he asked Izuku.

Izuku shook his head, and inadvertently turned transparent.

“It’s fine, young man,” All Might told him, the smile returning to his face. “Just unexpected. You’re not hurting me at all.”

Izuku was not so sure about that, but All Might didn’t look pained, and Sir Nighteye wasn’t pulling him away. He breathed again and became fully visible.

“I got your letter, young man,” All Might said, as he might address a frightened puppy. “It really lifted my spirits. It’s no fun being stuck in a hospital, especially when there’s no one but these two to talk to!”

Izuku looked at the short man curiously when he snorted. He was stocky, but looked pretty strong despite his walking stick. The wrinkles around his mouth and nose told him that he must be relatively old, and his hair was snow white, though that wasn’t always an indicator of age.

“I’ve written you lots of letters,” Izuku told him, reassured. “I sent them to your fan club and my dad said you probably don’t read those, because if you did you wouldn’t have time for anything else.”

“What do you think?” All Might asked.

“I think you probably read some, but there’s no way you can read all of them,” Izuku answered honestly. “But that’s okay. I think maybe you read the ones that people are smart enough to send you at Might Tower… or maybe there’s someone who reads them for you and gives you the most important ones.”

“You’re pretty smart,” All Might said approvingly.

Izuku smiled. He was really talking to All Might! And it was okay!

“How old are you, kid?” the old man asked.

Izuku looked up at Sir questioningly and he nodded. “This is Gran Torino. He’s a retired hero, and a good friend.”

Izuku had never heard of Gran Torino before, and he wondered how many other secrets All Might had that no one knew anything about. For the number one hero in the world, he did a good job keeping people important to him out of the public eye.

“I’m ten, “ he answered. “I’m in fifth grade.”

“You sure you wanna start him this early?” Gran asked, looking at Sir.

“It’s never too early to learn the basics of one’s quirk,” Sir answered with a shrug. “If he learns how he could possibly apply them to hero work while he’s at it, what’s the harm? It’s not like we’re asking him for a huge commitment, just yet.”

Izuku looked back and forth between the adults, who all seemed to be having a silent conversation with just their eyes. Unless Gran Torino was a telepath, or something, and helping them all speak with their minds. He also didn’t miss the word ‘yet’ in Sir Nighteye’s comment. Was he talking about becoming a hero, or something else?

Gran looked Izuku over before shrugging.

“He seems to be in decent shape,” he admitted grudgingly. “What are your quirks, kid?”

“The first one is one my dad called “inheritance” on the registry forms he filled out. That’s the one that gives me new quirks… though Granny Ito said that that man gave me at least one other one, so I’m not sure. I got my mom’s pulling quirk; I can move small objects to me, but nothing heavy.”

Izuku had all of this memorized by now, since he seemed to have to recite it for every new person he met.

“Then I found out that I turn see-through when I hold my breath,” he said.

“We just saw that one,” All Might said with a nod of encouragement.

“I can change the color of anything plastic by touching it, and for some reason, I can tell what people want to eat when they’re hungry,” he said.

He pointed to Gran Torino and said, “You really, really, want a custard filled taiyaki right now.”

“He always wants taiyaki,” All Might said with a chuckle.

“All Might isn’t hungry right now, but Sir wants sushi for lunch,” Izuku supplied.

“He’s not wrong,” Sir said with a wry smile.

“I have a balance and agility quirk that helps me land without getting hurt and lets me do neat tricks. I can also make a small animal’s fur grow by petting it, and stuff won’t stick to my skin if it gets spilled on me. The last one I got...the one that I got from the lady that the villain guy took me to meet… I guess she had a levitation quirk that lets me float in the air.”

“Float?” All Might asked, suddenly looking at Gran Torino. “It’s almost like a sign.”

Gran didn’t look convinced that whatever All Might was talking about meant anything.

“Don’t get so caught up in the idea that you end up putting all your eggs in one basket, Toshi.”

“That one was the hardest for me to figure out,” Izuku admitted. “I had to wear a weighted backpack for a while, and I got sent to quirk counselling and training to get it under control. I was going to gymnastics before, but they’re on break for the summer.”

Gran Torino gave a long, low whistle.

“That’s a lot of quirks, kid.”

Izuku nodded a little uncertainly, not sure if it was a criticism or just an observation.

“Nine,” Izuku said with a nod. “My dad did some checking in the records from the doctor who was helping the villain guy. Dad knows for sure how I got my mom’s quirk and that lady’s levitation quirk. Also that the see-through quirk happened at the hospital in Taiwan. The rest of them are kind of a mystery; they say that All For One might have given them to me using his quirk.”

“He was experimenting on you,” Sir Nighteye confirmed. “We think we know why, and that’s one of the reasons we wanted to take you under our wing, so to speak. Shigaraki Tomura escaped with the warpgate villain, and that doctor that was aiding them. It’s important that you have protection, and that you be able to protect yourself as much as possible.”

Izuku nodded consideringly. It was scary to know that there might still be people out there who wanted to keep doing stuff to him, even though All For One was gone.

“You’re all going to teach me?” he asked, somewhat in awe.

He wasn’t exactly sure why All For One had been experimenting on him, but he was glad it wasn’t going to happen anymore. He knew it had something to do with trying to figure out why Izuku was physically able to house so many quirks within his body without being hurt. He wondered why All For One hadn’t just taken away his quirk, if that’s what his own quirk allowed him to do. Maybe he couldn’t because it was too much like his own? Why hadn’t they used All For One’s blood, instead? Maybe they had, and they thought Izuku’s quirk worked in a different way?

“That’s the plan,” All Might told him with a smile. “As long as you work hard and want to learn.”

“We’ll be working with you for the remainder of your summer break, at the very least,” Sir said. “After that, we’ll have to see what can be arranged, but your formal education comes first and foremost.”

Izuku nodded in understanding, but couldn’t help the excited gleam in his eye. At the moment, he felt like the luckiest kid in the world.

Chapter 10

Summary:

Izuku was prepared to work hard, but sometimes it’s brutal! All Might might not be as okay as he seemed.

All Might had been released from his rehab hospital and allowed to return to Might Tower, where he apparently lived on the very top floor. He was not allowed to do any hero work for another few days, and even then, nothing too strenuous. Izuku was glad he had people looking out for him, to keep him from overdoing it. Sir and Gran made sure he sat on the sidelines as much as possible until All Might was grumbling about being treated like a baby.

They started Izuku’s training by examining his quirks, starting with pull. In the highest rooms of Might Tower, Izuku stood before a shelf full of various objects. Simple things, like a box of pocky, a calculator, a huge t-shirt with an American flag on it, a ring full of keys, a hammer; all things that didn’t weigh too terribly much. Izuku was tasked with pulling each one to him individually, then in different combinations, which he was not very good at. He could get one to come to him with little problem, but as soon as he added another item, he lost control of both. He worked on it again and again and again without complaint, but he didn’t improve.

Sir Nighteye finally concluded that his ability in this area was limited, and while useful, it just wasn’t very strong.

“Don’t be discouraged,” he told Izuku when he seemed disappointed in himself. “Never underestimate the power of being able to call a small tool, such as a rock or key, at an important moment.”

Next they worked for a short time on his turning plastic or wax different colors, trying to see if he had any talent for detail. He didn’t. They gave him Lego bricks and asked him to only change the small round knobs on the tops of them to different colors, but it was never any use. Anything he changed the color of was all or nothing, no matter how much he tried.

Gran Torino looked thoughtful for a moment and said, “Maybe if your hero costume has a plastic cape with a hood on it when you get one, you can use that quirk to help camouflage yourself a bit.”

Izuku liked that idea, but the thought of having a hero costume seemed like a long way off.

Transparency was deemed a similar possibility, since he was unable to make himself completely disappear. They thought that maybe if he combined the two abilities, he might be able to hide almost in plain sight. They would test in one day when it was safer to train in public and play hide and seek, though Might Tower was a large place...

The quirk that let him know what anyone wanted to eat was deemed useless for hero work, even by Izuku himself. It might be a neat party trick, or useful in the catering or restaurant business, but that was pretty much it.

For making an animal’s fur grow, Izuku was taken to the lower floors of Might Tower, where there were a couple of people with animalistic quirks who were willing to let a child try to make their hair grow. Interestingly enough, one was officer Sansa, who had a cat’s head, and one was a pro hero named Hound Dog, that Izuku was aware of, but didn’t know much about. He peppered the man with questions before All Might reigned him in and got him back on track.

Officer Sansa was amused when he finally bent his head and let Izuku stroke the fur between his ears. Izuku was careful to be very gentle, and huffed out a laugh when Officer Sansa suddenly looked like he was wearing a furry toupee.

“It worked!” Izuku said excitedly. “Cool!”

Officer Sansa accepted the offered hand mirror while everyone looked very amused.

“No offense, Midoriya-kun, but I think I’ll go back to my short hair after this.”

Izuku grinned widely and nodded.

“It does look kind of silly.”

Hound dog was another story. He was excited by the prospect of having shaggy long hair on his head. Something about his quirk limited the length of the hair he could naturally grow, and he wanted a different look. Izuku was a little worried the quirk wouldn’t work on him, since he had slightly more humanoid features than Sansa, but it was fine. The blonde shaggy hair/fur on his head grew longer and longer the more Izuku ran his hands over it, finally stopping when it reached the man’s shoulders. Hound dog got so excited by his reflection and it was hard to understand him as some of his human speech turned into growls and whines, but they got the gist : he was very pleased.

His reaction made Izuku wonder if Sansa ever purred, or had the urge to play with string. It didn’t seem polite to ask.

They thanked the men, and then went back to the upper floors to consider what this could mean.

“Hair and fur are basically the same thing,” Sir Nighteye told Izuku as they began the discussion. “Both are made from keratin and the same proteins. The main difference is in how it grows. Animals other than humans tend to have a different, often faster, growth cycle, which is why dogs and cats seem to shed so much. Most of those also have a set length they will grow to, and not grow any longer than that. You don’t see stray cats dragging a long coat of hair around because no one’s taken for a haircut.”

Izuku thought of the first cat he’d tried his quirk on and grinned at the image of what it might have looked like if he’d continued petting it.

“But it’s not really valuable for hero work, is it?” he asked.

He’d already made a little money with that particular quirk, but it had hardly been heroic.

“Not as such, no,” Sir said thoughtfully, “But you couldn’t totally rule it out in very special circumstances. For example, if you were fighting someone like Hound Dog, and could get up on their shoulders, you might be able to make their hair grow long enough to wrap it around their eyes or neck and weaponize it. That would take time and a certain amount of skill, but it’s not impossible. I don’t think it’s something you need to train to do, but it’s always good to keep any unusual skills in the back of your mind for unique situations.”

“Your teflon quirk could be quite useful in many situations,” All Might told him as they moved through the list of his other quirks. “I’ve fought a lot of villains that spit or shot or oozed nasty things that have slowed me down. Depending on how well you repel such things, it could prove very useful, indeed!”

That being said, Izuku was supplied with a pair of swim trunks (All Might themed, of course) and had the very odd experience of having All Might, Sir Nighteye and Gran Torino try flinging various substances on him to see if any of them stuck. He wasn’t sure how they would get it off if something did, but not even the strongest glue would adhere to his skin or hair. They even did a small patch test with various acids (with proper precautions to negate any effects), but those just slid off of him, as well. His skin could definitely be pierced, scraped or cut, but was otherwise very, very non-stick. It was one of the reasons he often wore slim cloves with velcro straps to help him keep his grip on things.

“You might consider a pair that match your skin tone to avoid drawing attention to it,” Sir suggested, but that’s merely aesthetics.”

The two quirks that were of the most interest to them all in terms of hero work were his balance/agility and levitation abilities. Combined with the gymnastics lessons he’d been taking (he’d been barred from competitions because he was aided by a quirk), he had an excellent base to start with. His core strength was superior due to his balance quirk using those muscles pretty much perpetually all day, every day. His flexibility had been ingrained through his lessons, and his levitation helped him to get impressive height with his acrobatics.

“Now we’re talking,” Gran Torino said with relish, rubbing his hands together.

Izuku still didn’t know what the man’s quirk was, until he suddenly flew at great speed toward him, narrowly missing crashing into him when Izuku bent over backward to get out of the way. He landed on his hands and feet in a sort of crab walk, and stared in amazement and disbelief at how fast the old man had moved.

“His reflexes are crap,” Gran complained to the other men. “He shoulda’ been able to dodge that without using his hands.”

All Might smothered a smile behind his hand. Sir Nighteye sighed.

“He’s ten, Gran. The most he’s had to worry about dodging is a ball in P.E. class.”

“Sorry,” Izuku said, scrambling to his feet with an awkward smile. He would be eleven in a couple of weeks, but didn’t say so, because he didn’t want them to think he was asking to be attacked by Gran. “I wasn’t expecting that. That was so cool! Is that your quirk? How does it work?”

They decided to let Izuku have a break to pester Gran about his quirk for a bit, then had a hasty lunch before letting Gran Torino fly at Izuku, forcing him to dodge under various circumstances. Luckily there was a large open area on the roof for this, and while Izuku was having fun, he was also working hard. Gran demanded not only that he dodge after a while, but that he do it with style.

“It’s not like you’re gonna fall, kid!” Gran told him, shooting a jet of air into Izuku’s face playfully. “Get inventive! Flip outta the way! Cartwheel! Spin! Don’t just duck; that’s boring!”

By the end of Gran’s tutelage, Izuku was sweaty, bruised and scraped, but the happiest he’d been in a long time.

“You’ve had a long day,” Sir told him as he checked his watch.

The end of the afternoon meant it was time for Izuku to go home for the day.

“Then it’s a good thing you didn’t make me eat a clock,” Izuku told him as he gathered his things. “That would have been too time consuming!”

Sir ruffled his hair for that one and Izuku grinned, pleased with himself. He went home feeling sore, exhausted and accomplished.

Many days passed this way, sometimes Gran was there, sometimes not. Sometimes Nighteye put him through his paces, and was as demanding as Gran, just in a different way. All Might tied a huge rope to a cement pillar on the roof and tasked Izuku with swinging it like an enormous (heavy!) jump rope, or had him flipping a ridiculously gigantic rubber tire end over end until he thought he’d die, with his arms turned to noodles.

Just as important as the physical, Sir Nighteye told him, was the mental aspect of development. After two weeks of intense physical workouts, Sir added an hour or more of discussions or lectures on ethics and morals, especially focused on decisions heroes were forced to make regularly. Izuku’s mind boggled at anyone having to choose between letting someone be crushed by a building, or saving all of the people inside that building. It was very interesting, but also very troubling to think about. He had no idea how many heartbreaking choices got made every day that most people never knew about. Sometimes he would assign Izuku a short essay about how he would handle a hypothetical situation, then they would discuss his answers the next day.

In the beginning of the third week of Izuku’s junior internship, something important happened.

All Might received a call asking for his help to capture a villain that was rampaging through a shopping district and causing a lot of damage. Other heroes on the scene had attempted to apprehend her, but the injuries were piling up. He suited up against Sir’s advice, and leapt from the roof with his trademark smile and a jaunty wave. Izuku watched him go with a reverent feeling of awe.

Sir Nighteye kept a careful watch over the monitors in that part of the city, while Gran kept Izuku busy with training. Izuku was on his second lap around the edge of the rooftop when All Might returned, but there was blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, and he collapsed to one knee, in the grip of a sudden, painful looking coughing fit.

Everyone rushed over to him, but stopped short when there was a sudden blast of steam in every direction. Once it cleared, a thin, emaciated looking man had taken the place of the robust, muscular All Might. Izuku let out a cry of alarm, Gran said some Very Bad Words, and Nighteye instantly pulled out his phone and began speaking rapidly to someone on the other end.

“All Might?” Izuku ventured, not completely sure this was the same man, even though he’d seen the transformation for himself.

His hero costume looked comically large on his shrunken form, and his hair looked like a lion’s mane of limp tangles around his face. The blood was the most worrying, flying from his lips in spatters against his hand and the ground with each cough.

“I’ll be fine, Midoriya-kun,” he rasped out. “I might have overdone it a bit, out there.”

“A bit?” Gran growled, using more Bad Words.

“Recovery Girl and the medical team are on their way,” Sir Nighteye announced, pocketing his phone and going to help All Might to his feet.

He slung one of All Might’s arms over his shoulders, even though All Might was almost eighteen centimetres taller. He guided him inside, and down the short staircase to the living quarters. Izuku and Gran followed in their wake, both with troubled expressions.

Izuku hurried around them to open doors, and turned down the covers on All Might’s super large bed just before Sir guided him to sit down on the mattress. Izuku didn’t realize there were tears in his eyes until one fell on his arm, and he quickly wiped them away with the heel of his hand. He looked on in horror as Sir helped All Might out of his hero costume, seeing the huge, ugly wound on his side for the first time. Gnarled, scarred skin, puckered and angry-looking, covered the entire left side of his rib cage. Did he even have a left rib cage, anymore? Did he have a left lung? What kind of damage was underneath all of that surface scarring?

How had All Might survived such a terrible injury?

Sir patiently helped All Might pull on a large pair of pajama bottoms and settle back onto the pillows. He looked at his watch with a furrowed brow.

“Can I do anything to help?” Izuku asked shakily. “I’m not making you feel bad, am I?”

It seemed they had forgotten he was there. All three men’s eyes swung to him at once.

“Are you feeling the pulling sensation again? Is it any stronger than usual?” Sir asked All Might.

All Might shook his head. “It’s fine. It’s not that much stronger.”

“Maybe it would be best if you headed home for the day,” Gran said quietly, putting a hand on Izuku’s shoulder.

Panic welled up inside of him, and Izuku shook his head.

“I can’t leave! Not until I know he’s okay! Not if I’m not making him sick!”

“You shouldn’t have to see me like this,” All Might said quietly, sounding almost ashamed.

His voice was stronger than it was before, and the coughing had subsided.

“You shouldn't have to be like this,” Izuku pointed out. “You got hurt because you were helping me and Granny Ito! It’s my fa--”

“It’s not your fault!” Gran interrupted sharply.

At the same time, All Might shook his head and Sir Nighteye made a cutting motion with his hand.

“This is also a risk of hero work.” Sir Nighteye told him calmly, despite the storm brewing in his eyes. “It’s a choice we make to protect those who can’t protect themselves, regardless of personal cost.”

Izuku thought about it for a moment before nodding.

“Young Midoriya… there’s no shame in changing your mind about being a hero,” All Might told him quietly. “Not everyone is cut out to take risks like this every day--”

“I want to be a hero now, more than ever!” Izuku said, cutting the hero off, mid-sentence. “If someone out there is strong enough to do that to you, what chance does anyone else have? Japan needs all the heroes it can get, and I’m going to be the best of all of them… except for you, of course.”

Sir Nighteye looked… proud, maybe? Izuku wasn’t sure. Gran was looking down at the toes of his pointy cowboy boots and gripping his walking stick in a white knuckled grip. All Might smiled at him and nodded.

“Then I guess I’d better get better, so I can help you do that,” he said.

His voice grew deeper as he said it, and his form seemed to re-inflate to his normal appearance, right before their eyes. It was both bizarre and inspiring. The form held for a few seconds until the man coughed again, and he reverted back to the weakened form with a poof!.

“Oh boy,” Gran commented with a sigh.

Recovery Girl turned out to be a tiny woman with gray hair in a severe bun on top of her head. She was even shorter than Gran Torino, but just as spry and bossy. Izuku liked her immediately. Along with her, was a team of people in lab coats and scrubs, carting in equipment with them and hooking all kinds of things up to All Might to measure his heart rate and oxygen and other stuff Izuku had no clue about. He winced as a needle was inserted into the crook of All Might’s arm, and a bag of clear fluid hung above his head on a hook. The most surprising, however, was when Recovery Girl stretched out her lips an improbable distance and kissed All Might right on top of his scarred ribs.

Izuku watched with interest as some of the tense lines on All Might’s face smoothed over as he relaxed, obviously feeling some relief. None of the damage appeared to clear away, but it was obvious that All Might felt better.

“Thank you, Chiyo-sama,” All Might told her, sounding sleepy.

“I told you your time was limited,” she scolded him sternly. “And when I turn on the news, what do I see? Your block-headed self tossing an armored truck at a human juggernaut like it was a beach ball! Where’s your sense?”

The other medical people seemed somewhat amused by her tirade as she went on to nag at him for another couple of minutes, even as he was drifting off to sleep. Once they had ascertained that the equipment they had toted in was hooked up properly, they departed. Recovery Girl shooed everyone else out of All Might’s bedroom and into the adjoining sitting room, where they all took seats. (Sir Nighteye was the only one who didn’t have to climb onto the oversize furniture.)

“That wound is as healed as it’s going to get,” Recovery Girl said bluntly once they were all settled. “I wouldn’t have been able to heal what little damage he had from this fight, otherwise; he would be too worn out for that.”

Izuku gasped, but clapped a hand over his mouth, afraid they’d send him away if they thought he was hearing too much.

“His physical deterioration is alarming,” Sir said delicately. “Is that to be expected?”

“That would be my best guess,” Recovery Girl said with a nod. “He can probably sustain his hero form for a few hours each day, but should resign himself to this new change in circumstances. Overdoing it too often could very well shorten the time he can hold his hero form each time, until there will be no going back, eventually.”

“I was afraid of this,” Sir said thoughtfully.

Gran looked grim, but said nothing.

“He really should consider retiring,” Recovery Girl told Sir seriously. “He can start getting the public used to it slowly, but he should at least begin the process of stepping out of the public eye.”

“You know how stubborn he is,” Sir said with a heavy sigh. “As the Symbol of Peace watching over Japan, crime rates have plummeted. All For One is out of commission, no longer pulling the strings of the underworld. I’m afraid that this will just leave a vacuum that other criminals will rush forward to try to fill.”

“Then it’s time to let the other heroes fill the vacuum that All Might will also leave,” Recovery Girl countered. “There are other, very capable heroes in the ranks just dying to prove themselves. UA produces a new batch of hopefuls each year. Take on some more sidekicks and whip them into shape!”

“You know it’s not that simple,” Sir said, pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

He looked over at Izuku, who had been listening intently. Izuku looked back, but wasn’t sure what he should say, so he just stayed quiet.

“Well,” Recovery Girl said, sliding to her feet. “You’d better sort it out, and soon. I give him another three or four years, even if he’s careful, before his body gives out and he’s stuck like that.”

“Hopefully more like five,” Sir Nighteye murmured cryptically to himself.

Gran Torino apparently knew what he meant, because he nodded, also looking at Izuku.

Izuku knew that there was something he was missing, but didn’t press for answers at the moment. He accepted the handful of gummy candy that Recovery Girl fished out of her pocket and pushed into his hand with a bow and a thank you, and then she was gone, too.

“I know I don’t need to tell you that what you’ve seen and heard today is strictly confidential,” Sir said to Izuku as they all stood.

“I know,” Izuku said solemnly with a nod. “I would never tell anyone. Not even my dad.”

“Better go home and rest up, kid,” Gran told him with a cocky smirk. “Tomorrow I’m going to kick your butt.”

“You can try!” Izuku shot back with a grin, following them out of All Might’s quarters and to the elevators.

“Brat,” was all Gran said as Izuku scanned his iris to call the elevator.

“Be careful on your way home. Text me when you get there,” Sir told him, as he did every day.

Izuku’s smile faded as the elevator descended. This was a lot to take in.

Chapter 11

Summary:

Izuku's junior internship comes to an end, and he starts at a new school, where things go smoothly, until they don't.

All Might was wearing his hero costume and looking like his old self when Izuku arrived the following day. Instantly worried, the hero was quick to reassure him that he was merely attending a public event, and there would be nothing more strenuous than signing autographs and taking pictures involved. Izuku felt a sense of relief to know that All Might was not on the job, which was a strange feeling.

Izuku only had a week left of his junior internship, but Gran made the most of it by making him play tag with both himself and Sir Nighteye (who used his quirk to figure out where Izuku would be at any given moment). In addition to constantly flying at him at any given moment, no matter what else he was doing at the time. On the final day before school started again, Sir Nighteye gave him several books that he expected him to read that dealt with ethics, history and law. They didn’t look like any books a ten (almost eleven) year old would be expected to read in normal circumstances.

Even though his daily trips to Might Tower were over, there were still weekends and holidays where he would be getting ‘refresher’ sessions from time to time. Other than that, he was urged to pursue a full and happy school life. Izuku thanked them all for the amount of time they had taken out of their busy schedules to teach him. He knew that they had done it mostly because they were afraid that his quirk would eventually make him too potentially powerful if he wasn’t educated on right and wrong, and given strong role models to keep him on the right path. Still, he was grateful, even if he couldn’t brag to anyone about it.

He would go back to his weekly gymnastics glass, and normal housekeeping, for now. It almost seemed anti-climactic.

He didn’t have high expectations for school, being a new kid in a class of students that had probably been in class together for years, and had established friendships and cliques in place. He did find most of them to be friendly though, and got along fine with most of them. Belonging to a club was a mandatory part of the school’s curriculum. He actually thought the cooking club sounded fun, but he was invited to join many of the sports teams since he was so physically fit. After texting Sir Nighteye to ask him his opinion, he decided to join the judo club. He’d never really done actual martial arts before, but it seemed like almost all of them were beginners, so it was okay. It certainly couldn’t hurt to have a better grasp on how to take someone down, or flip them over his shoulder.

It wasn’t until November that things changed. A girl in his P.E. class was showing off her quirk, which was making her arms turn into long blades like swords. In a careless moment, she twirled around and accidentally sliced Izuku’s leg through his pants, across the middle of his thigh, causing boys and girls alike to panic. There was a lot of blood, and the adults wouldn’t listen when Izuku told them he shouldn’t be taken to the hospital.

An ambulance was summoned while the school nurse kept pressure on the deep gash. The girl responsible was wailing hysterically, apologizing repeatedly while her friends tried to calm her down. Izuku had tears in his eyes from the burning, stinging pain, but was more concerned that no one was listening to him about the hospital.

Luckily, Izuku had his phone in the pocket of his gym pants. It was really, really against the rules to carry one at school, but his father and Sir Nighteye had insisted that his was a special case, and that it was best to have a way to communicate in an emergency. Thank goodness! He knew the school was already trying to contact his father, but his dad was always busy in meetings, and he didn’t know how quickly he could do anything. Once the paramedics had wrapped his leg tightly and loaded him into the back of the ambulance, he pulled out his phone and dialled Sir Nighteye’s private number.

“You have an emergency?” was the answer as soon as the phone was picked up after only two rings.

“I got hurt at school, and they’re taking me to the hospital. They won’t listen to me when I say I shouldn’t go,” Izuku said without preamble.

“Which hospital?”

Izuku asked the paramedic, then relayed the name.

“Someone will come for you as soon as possible.”

The line went dead after that, and Izuku pocketed his phone once more. He had done what he could, and the rest was out of his hands.

Unfortunately, the hospital was not a very long drive from the school, so they got there quickly. Izuku was taken into an emergency room, which was relatively busy, since there had apparently been an apartment fire that had injured several people. Izuku was deemed a lower priority than some, and the gurney he was sitting on was pushed up against the wall of a corridor, where other recent arrivals were taken to await triage.

He fidgeted and looked around at all of the people busily moving around the different rooms. He wondered if anyone would notice if he just slid off of the gurney and limped his way out the back door. He didn’t quite have the nerve to try it, and his leg had begun to throb in time with his heartbeat; he didn’t think he’d get far. He felt a shiver skate up his spine as he saw a man with badly burned arms be guided past in a wheelchair. A few minutes later he felt a chill again as a small child was wheeled past on a gurney much like the one he was seated on. The child didn’t appear to be burned, at least.

It was only a few minutes more before an orderly came down the corridor with purposeful strides while pushing a wheelchair and calling, “Midoriya Izuku?”

Midoriya raised his hand high in the air, and nodded when the man confirmed who he was.

“You’re being discharged immediately,” the orderly told him.

He gently lowered the gurney so that Izuku could stand with his help, then transferred to the wheelchair, where his leg was elevated for him. He was pushed through to a lobby where Sir Nighteye stood waiting at a desk for his turn to speak to the woman receiving inquiries.

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t understand you!” the woman at the desk was saying in distress.

“My daughter! She was brought here! I must find her! Her apartment caught fire!” the man said frantically, wringing his hands and near tears.

“I told you, I can’t…” the woman began to repeat.

“He wants to see his daughter,” Izuku told the woman as the orderly rolled him to a stop beside Sir Nighteye.

“You can understand him?” Sir asked him curiously.

“Yes?” Izuku said, making it more of a question.

The man was upset, but not so much that he couldn't be understood.

“Can you ask him his daughter's name?” the woman asked Izuku.

Izuku asked the man, feeling a little foolish. The man seemed excited by this and answered Bitna! Bitna Pak!”

“Bitna Pak?” the woman repeated. “She’s in the third bay, being treated for smoke inhalation right now.”

Izuku told the man what the lady said.

The man nodded eagerly, and turned back to Izuku. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

He shuffled off to find his daughter, and Izuku looked at Sir Nighteye in confusion.

“Later,” Sir said decidedly. “We need to get you out of here, first.”

He made short work of the discharge and was soon rolling Izuku out the front door of the emergency room to where his car was parked. Gran was sitting in the passenger seat, but hopped out to open the back door. They helped Izuku in, keeping his injured leg as straight as possible. Once Sir Nighteye was back behind the wheel, they pulled out and away from the hospital.

“Sorry to trouble you,” Izuku said somewhat sheepishly. “I know you’re busy.”

“You called a hero for help,” Gran told him from the front seat. “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“I reached your father and let him know what was happening. He agreed that it would be best for us to pick you up, since we were closest. We’ll take you to a clinic that can treat your cut that’s not attached to a hospital. If they can’t help, we’ll call in a favor from Recovery Girl, though we’ll get an earful for it, if it comes to that.”

Izuku gritted his teeth and nodded. His leg hurt more now that he’d had to move around a bit, and was looking forward to some pain relief.

“How long have you been able to speak Korean, Izuku-kun?” Sir asked as he drove.

“You speak Korean?” Gran asked, sounding confused.

“No,” Izuku told him. “I don’t.”

“I think you’ll find you’re wrong about that,” Sir said.

“Huh?” both Izuku and Gran said in unison.

“I think we were a little late getting Izuku out of there,” Sir told Gran.

“What does that mean?” Izuku asked, still confused.

“You were speaking Korean to that man at the hospital who was looking for his daughter. You didn’t realize you were speaking another language?”

“I was? How is that even possible?” Izuku asked, amazed. Then: “Oh.”

“I’m afraid so,” Sir said, making eye contact with Izuku through the rearview mirror. “We’ll have to do some testing to see if it’s just Korean, or if you can speak other languages as well. You might just be a polyglot now.”

“A polywhat?” Gran asked.

Izuku was glad he’d asked, so he didn’t have to. He was already feeling a little dumb.

“Someone who’s naturally fluent in several languages,” Sir supplied patiently.

“Is there a way to find out through hospital records who died and what their quirk was?” Gran asked.

“Possibly, though we may be hindered by the personal information laws. It might just be faster to have him listen to different things and see if he understands them.”

Izuku’s head hurt just thinking about it. An tenth quirk? It was beginning to sound really ridiculous and was almost embarrassing at this point.

“There are worse things he coulda’ picked up, I suppose,” Gran finally said grudgingly.

Izuku sighed.

They arrived at a clinic a few minutes later, and Izuku was seen almost immediately. The doctor on staff was a nice woman who recognized the signs of pain etched in Izuku’s features and gave him a shot of something that made him feel a bit floaty and took most of the pain away. Then he was given something called nitrus oxide through a tiny mask that fit over his nose, and made him feel even stranger. He watched with detached interest as she expertly matched the edges of the wound together and used ten staples to hold it shut. About the time that she was putting a protective dressing over it, Izuku’s dad arrived, looking worried. Izuku didn’t remember too much about any of it.

Once Izuku was allowed to leave the exam room, they guided him out to his father’s car. He was still a little out of it from the medication he’d been given, and rested his head back against the seat. He was sitting at an angle because of the splint keeping his leg still, and his pant leg had been cut away, but he just couldn’t seem to summon any emotion about it just now.

He watched in odd fascination as Sir Nighteye spoke to his father in the parking lot for a few minutes, then drifted off to sleep for a while.

Izuku woke when his dad gently shook his shoulder. He opened sleepy eyes to find they were in a parking garage, and realized that he had slept all the way home from school...no… the doctor. He’d gotten hurt at school and all kinds of things had happened.

“Did you know I could speak Korean?” He asked his dad fuzzily.

His dad chuckled a bit as he gently extracted Izuku from the car, trying not to jostle his leg.

“That’s what Sir Nighteye says,” his dad answered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner, Zu.”

“S’not your fault,” Izuku said, leaning on his dad as they shuffled to the elevator together. “You gotta work.”

“How are you feeling?” his dad asked as the elevator ascended to their floor.

“Tired,” Izuku said. “A bit weird.”

“No pain?” his dad asked.

“Nope,” Izuku said, trying his best to help his dad propel him down the corridor to their apartment door.

It was hard because of the splint on his leg, and the muddled feeling in his brain. He didn’t like either.

Finally, they got inside, and Izuku was settled on the couch, where he promptly fell asleep. He didn’t wake for a couple of hours, but had a much clearer head than when he’d started his ‘nap.’

Izuku winced as he sat up and the splint on his leg tugged a bit, causing his wound to twinge with pain. His movement caught the attention of his father, who had been sitting at the table with paperwork spread around him, and his laptop open.

“How are you feeling?” his father asked in concern.

“Okay,” he said automatically, then amended his answer to, “A little sore. I remember up to the part where Sir Nighteye and Gran Torino took me to a clinic, but the rest is... “

“They gave you a pain killer and some laughing gas, so you were pretty out of it,” his dad explained. “The doctor gave us a few pain pills to get you through the next couple of days if you need them, but doesn’t want you to take them unless you’re really hurting and can’t sleep or something. He said they’d knock you out.”

“I think I’ll be okay for now,” Izuku said, adjusting his weight to lever himself to his feet.

He shuffled down the hall to the bathroom, and when he returned he noticed that it was already late afternoon.

“I’m going to make something to eat,” he told his dad. “Are you hungry, too?”

“I don’t know if you should be on your feet for too long,” his dad said doubtfully. “I can order something to be delivered.”

Izuku agreed, and they ordered pasta from a nearby shop. Izuku looked over all the stacks of papers around the table, so he took a sheet of blank printer paper and began to doodle on it while his father continued to work. When his paper was full of doodles, he reached over for another sheet, and accidentally swept one of his father’s documents to the floor. It took him some effort, but his balance quirk helped him reach it without falling. He picked it up and took another clean sheet of paper, and then blinked.

He stared at the paper he’d taken to doodle on, and saw that it was covered in writing… had he picked up another document? He set it down and picked up another blank sheet, only to find that printing suddenly appeared on it, too.

“Uh… Dad…” Izuku said apprehensively.

“Hmmm?” his father tapped a few more keys on his laptop before looking up.

“Something’s… happening?” Izuku said.

His father looked at what he was holding.

“Oh, that’s for a presentation I’m going to be… why are there three of them?” He took the sheet from his son and picked up the other two copies with a frown. They were all identical.

“Um… watch…” Izuku said.

Moving with exaggerated slowness, he reached out and picked up a blank sheet of paper, and it again filled with text, identical to the last two. They both frowned in confusion.

“How did you…?” his dad asked, then. “Oh. Oh no.”

“Another one?” Izuku practically wailed. “Seriously?”

“What else could it be?” his father reasoned.

Izuku huffed. If he had to keep getting quirks, shouldn’t he at least have the good luck to get something useful for hero work? He supposed the Korean one was okay, but human copy machine? And how did he turn it off?

“Show me what you were doing when this started,” his father instructed.

Izuku thought about it and they figured out that after he’d touched the document in question, then touched a blank paper, it had copied onto the blank paper.

“Let’s try this,” his father said, rummaging through different papers. “This one’s not important. Touch the document again, then this paper.”

He held a paper that already had printing on it. He set it in front of his son, and watched as Izuku touched the original document, then the one his father had set down. It copied right over the existing print, making a jumbled mess of kanji all over the paper.

“Interesting,” his father said, examining the paper.

“Try touching a blank paper first, then touching another blank paper.”

Izuku did as he was told, and was relieved to see that both papers remained the same.

“One copy per touch, maybe?” his father muttered to himself. He pinched his lower lip and began discussing matter intently with himself in a low voice. ”If he has to touch a blank paper to erase the first paper, does that mean he has to do that with everything he touches? What if he touches a blank paper, then a paper with writing on it? Does it erase? Can it be done at will, or is it just automatically triggered? Does he have to touch it with all five fingers, or can it be a single point of contact.”

“Dad.” Izuku said patiently, used to this sort of thing. (He wasn’t really aware that he often did this himself.)

“Sorry. Sorry. It’s just really interesting. Do you mind experimenting with it a little more, or is it tiring?”

“It’s not really tiring, physically,” Izuku confirmed. “It just seems like such a boring quirk to have.”

“They can’t all be great, son,” he dad said with a small chuckle. “I can’t believe your mother and I used to worry that you didn’t have a quirk at all, and now you have eleven”

“I can’t believe it, either,” Izuku said, a little grumpily. “I sound like some overpowered character in a manga or something.”

“That’s not true!” his dad denied, shaking his head. “Most of the quirks you’ve gotten never even get used more than once or twice a month or so! It’s not like you shoot lasers out of your eyes or something.”

“Don’t jinx me!’ Izuku said seriously.

They experimented a bit with the copying quirk and found that it did need five fingers to activate, and that it only worked on paper that they could tell. They didn’t have a canvas or anything like that to test it out on.

Their early dinner arrived, and Izuku gratefully ate his fill of pasta, putting aside thoughts of his new quirks for a while. According to his father, the doctor would take out his staples in about ten days, and until then, he had to take it easy. The splint strapped around his leg needed to stay in place for at least three days. He would have to cancel his gymnastics classes, and confine his exercises to upper body until then.

He hoped there wouldn’t be any more days like this one, ever.

Chapter 12

Summary:

Izuku tests out one his new quirks and finds out that Shigaraki Tomura is still lurking.

Izuku stayed home from school the next day. His leg was achy, and the pain pill his dad urged him to take made him groggy, so he mostly spent the day on the couch, half-dozing and trying to read his notes for a history test he’d be having the next day. When he finally went back, he found a matcha flavored Kit Kat on his desk with an apology note from the girl who had accidentally cut him with her quirk. He was mildly annoyed with her for being careless, but he wasn’t angry. He met her eyes across the classroom and gave her a thumbs up to show her there were no hard feelings. She looked incredibly relieved. He also got a lot of attention from the other kids who were impressed with the fact that he had staples ‘holding his leg together.’

Much to his surprise, Sir Nighteye was waiting for him at the school gates to pick him up. Izuku had been planning to take the train to Might Tower, despite the splint still making him walk stiffly. Instead, Sir had brought his car, and drove him so that he didn’t have to deal with extra inconvenience. At Might Tower, All Might was sitting in his smaller form in the extra large armchair, absorbed in some papers that looked like the boring documents his dad was always reading. He looked up briefly to greet Izuku, but went back to reading immediately. Gran was napping on the couch, a half eaten taiyaki on a plate on the low table in front of it. Izuku grinned.

“We’ll go to my office for this,” Sir told him, ushering him through the room.

Izuku took a seat in a chair across from Sir’s desk, while the man tapped some keys on his computer.

“Sir?” Izuku said while the man was finding what he wanted on the computer.

“Hmmm?” He asked absently.

“Did you hear about the guy who drank a bottle of food coloring?”

Sir’s hands paused on the keyboard, letting Izuku know he was listening.

“He dyed a little inside.”

Sir actually barked out a short laugh at that one and resumed typing. Izuku grinned.

A few moments later, Sir picked up a clipboard with a sheet of paper on it, and clicked a pen to prepare to write.

“I have a list of languages here that I’m going to play for you on the computer, and you will tell me what the person is saying. It will be a different simple sentence or phrase in a different language each time. If you can understand it, I’ll check it off on my list. After we finish with this, I’ll show you some phrases written in other languages, and you will tell me if you can understand those.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Izuku said. “What happens if I fail?”

“It's not that kind of test. There is no passing for failing, just fact finding.”

He began by playing a short sound clip, and Izuku nodded before speaking.

“He who hesitates is lost.”

“Correct. That was latin, by the way.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

They continued on that way, but there were no languages on the list that Izuku couldn’t understand, other than ones that were made by machines or animals. The same was not true when it came to reading. He did not understand anything written in Russian, Arabic, Chinese or any of the other languages with different alphabets other than English, and he had to sound those out before he could translate. It was a little unsettling to know he could literally speak to anyone on the planet, if he wanted.

“You appear to be able to converse in any language, but if I were to ask you to tell me something in say… French, without my speaking it to you first, could you do it?”

“I’m… not sure. Talking to that man in the hospital was just… normal. I didn’t know I was speaking another language, which is super weird, by the way.”

“Ask me where the nearest post office is, in French,” Sir suggested.

"Where is the nearest post office?” Izuku asked.

Sir shook his head.

“You’re speaking Japanese. Interesting. It’s a good, useful quirk, but you’re going to have to work to be truly fluent. I suspect you’d have to immerse yourself in each language you wanted to truly master it, but simply being able to answer questions is undoubtedly valuable.”

Izuku nodded, thinking about how difficult it would be to learn to deliberately speak another language, once he tried.

“Sir?” Izuku asked, looking over the man’s shoulder at a bulletin board on the wall behind him. “Who’s that person?”

Sir Nighteye followed his gaze and turned to look at the several photos pinned on the board there. “Which?”

“The one with the white hair and the cracked lips.”

“That’s Tomura, family name presumed to be Shigaraki, though there’s no record of it.” he answered after a brief pause.

“That’s not the villain that All Might fought, right?” Izuku asked, feeling his heart pick up speed.

“No,” Sir said, studying Izuku intently. “Though he seems to have been his student, possibly even his son.”

“I--” Izuku said, swallowing hard. “I’ve seen him. Like, recently.”

“Where, exactly?” Sir’s focus sharpened on him suddenly, and he pressed a button on his desk.

A moment later All Might poked his head in. Sir waved him forward.

“Izuku has seen Shigaraki Tomura,” Sir told All Might immediately.

All Might’s eyebrows rose and he also looked at Izuku sharply.

“I see him all the time,” Izuku admitted cautiously. “When I go to gymnastics. He’s usually hanging out in front of the convenience store next door. I go there sometimes to get a sports drink to take with me to class.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” All Might asked.

“I don’t remember ever meeting him before, though Granny Ito said I did,” Izuku explained.

“All For One routinely removed any memory of their interactions from his mind,” Sir reminded All Might.

Sir checked a paper that apparently had Izuku’s daily schedule on it, and nodded. “You’re scheduled for gymnastics class tomorrow after school.”

“Yes, but I can’t go until my leg gets better,” Izuku said. “I wanted to, but Dad said no.”

“All right, then, it’s the perfect chance to set up a stake out,” Sir said with practical reasoning. “One of us will go and survey the area and see when and how he shows up. When Izuku doesn’t arrive, he’s bound to leave; and one of us can attempt to follow.”

“Why not just arrest him?” Izuku asked, feeling slightly revolted, knowing how close he’d been to the teen without even knowing it.

“He technically hasn’t broken any laws that we know of, or can prove,” All Might said, frustration evident in his voice.

“We’ve only seen any sign of him the one time, after my battle with All For One.”

“What happened then?” Izuku asked.

All Might coughed up a little blood and looked helplessly at Sir Nighteye.

“A surveillance camera near the Ito residence caught a hooded figure appearing out of a warp gate and destroying the restaurant and home,” Sir said calmly. “The footage didn’t show his face, but the build was the same as was the white hair briefly visible in some of the frames. We’re certain it was Tomura.”

Izuku had blanched and was sitting there stiffly, hands balled into fists. Sir Nighteye paused and made eye contact with him before speaking.

“I immediately checked on the Ito family. They are completely fine, and unaware of what’s happened. There is nothing to suggest that the villains have any idea where they’ve gone, or what name they’re using.”

The knot in Izuku’s chest loosened, some. He was still angry and sad and frustrated, but took comfort in knowing that Granny and her family were safe.

“Can I take Izuku with me for a bit?” All Might asked Sir.

Izuku didn’t know why he was asking, but Sir nodded, so Izuku followed All Might (a little awkwardly in his splint), and they ended up in a room with lots of exercise equipment. All Might led him past machines and weights made especially for his enormous build and strength to a simple cylindrical bag, hanging from a chain in the ceiling.

“A punching bag?” Izuku asked.

“Yep. You looked like you could use some stress relief. Feel free to pound on this whenever you want.”

Izuku only hesitated for a moment before making a fist and punching the bag. Hard.

“OW!” he said, shaking his hand. “What’s in there? Concrete?”

“Ah. They had to make this to be able to stand up to my punches and kicks,” he said apologetically. “I’ll see about getting some boxing gloves in your size.

Izuku looked at his knuckles to see them turning red and let a small laugh escape.

“I still feel a little better, though. Thanks.”

Izuku sat in one of the huge chairs in the sitting area, doing his homework while All Might went out on a call for help and Sir Nighteye was making calls to whomever he usually made calls to. Gran had woken up and shuffled away, and hadn’t come back; Izuku wasn’t sure where he lived.

Once his homework was finished, Izuku was allowed to do some upper body exercises like pull ups and bench presses, with a bot for a spotter that monitored him at all times. Finally, Sir appeared and told him that he wanted to drive Izuku home, because he needed to have a word with his father, who had promised to meet them there.

Once home, Izuku changed clothes and began preparations for dinner while Sir spoke to his father. Izuku knew that he was showing his father pictures of Tomura, Kurogiri and Dr. Tsubasa (though his father had seen Tsubasa before) and ascertained that he hadn’t seen any of them that he could recall.

“There have been reports of many petty criminals disappearing off of the streets lately. They’ve been seen entering Kurogiri's warp gate willingly, but none have ever returned,” Sir told them once Izuku joined them. “We suspect that Shigaraki Tomura may be attempting to amass a small army of men to command as All For One commanded a large web of people. Unfortunately, we don’t have the names or good descriptions of any of the men who have vanished, so we have no way of tracking any of them.”

“What about Tsubasa?” Izuku’s dad asked. “That man needs to go to prison for his part in all of this.”

“I agree, but he’s been elusive. He disappeared from his job immediately following All For One’s defeat, and has only resurfaced once, that we know of. We have some security footage of him going into a hospital posing as staff and stealing several blood samples and some equipment from a lab, and disappearing into a warp gate when he was done. We’re still working on whose blood it was and why he might have wanted it.”

“He’d better hope I don’t find him before you do,” Izuku’s dad told Sir, smoke escaping his mouth as his quirk stirred in his chest.

Izuku knew his father didn’t breathe fire very often, because it was hard on his esophagus and tended to give him terrible heartburn. It usually only happened when he was super angry, which hardly ever happened, or sometimes when he was upset, and occasionally when went out drinking with his work friends and had a little too much.

“I’m afraid you’d have to stand in line for a shot at him,” Sir said grimly in reply. “For now, our biggest hope is in tracking Tomura and hoping he leads us to the others.”

Izuku knew that his days of going to gymnastics were now over, and wondered how he would feel safe again. How had they figured out about his gymnastics? From Granny Ito? Dumb luck? From his old school? There were a lot of variables. Too many. If that was the only location they knew for sure that he went to regularly, he was probably pretty safe, but what if it wasn’t? What if they’d followed him home one day? How would he know if the guy sitting near him on the train at any given time was stalking him?

He sighed. Would they have to move again? The prospect made his heart feel heavy.

Tomura didn’t lead them to the others. He had shown up and waited until fifteen minutes after the usual time Izuku arrived, then disappeared around the corner of the building and entered a warp gate that appeared out of thin air, impossible to trace. The same thing happened the next two times Izuku missed gymnastics, and then Tomura actually went inside the gym and asked the receptionist there if there was a student there named Midoriya Izuku, and said that he was supposed to meet him there. The woman at the counter (silly girl) told him that Midoriya-kun had withdrawn from classes weeks ago. She did not, thankfully, give him any other information.

Sir Nighteye arranged for Midoriya’s school computer file to be changed to reflect his former address, and his paper file to be destroyed. Izuku wasn’t sure how he managed to get these things done, but he was grateful for it.

In the end, they decided that moving would not solve anything. Teams were brought in to search the apartment for any hidden cameras, listening or tracking devices, and everything came up normal. They scoured not only the apartment building’s security cameras, but also ones in surrounding areas when they could, for signs of any warp gates or anyone matching the description of any of their suspects. Anyone who looked the least bit suspicious was watched. It must have been a massive undertaking, but either they weren’t being watched at home, or whomever was doing it was very, very clever.

Izuku didn’t know if this was a comfort or not. At any rate, things were kind of in a holding pattern. He still went to school, and after his staples were removed, began practicing with the judo club every day. His balance quirk disqualified him from any competition (just like in gymnastics), but he enjoyed the experience it gave him. The other members liked to spar with him and to take turns to try to trick his quirk and knock him down. It was a lot of fun, and let Izuku feel like a normal kid for a while.

He continued his weekend training, and made it through his entire final year of elementary school without incident or any new quirks appearing, for which they were all immensely grateful. It wasn’t until Izuku started his first year of middle school that he began wondering again if he was somehow cursed.

Kacchan was in his new homeroom class.

Chapter 13

Summary:

Middle school sucks.

Notes:

First of all, Happy Holidays for those of you who celebrate! If you are anything like me, this season looks a lot different this year than it normally does. I hope you are all being safe and finding happiness in the small things that happen to make every day special.

Secondly, I sincerely apologize for any comments that I’ve missed replying to. I have had a little surge in comments for some of my other stories as well, and sometimes get mixed up and miss some here and there. I value and appreciate every single comment and don’t mean to offend anyone by not answering.

Thirdly, someone suggested a list of All of Izuku’s quirks, so until I can find a better solution, I have listed them in the end notes of this chapter for now.

Thank you all again for your amazing support!

“What the hell are you doing here, Deku?”

Kacchan’s first words to Izuku in years were not encouraging. Izuku sighed inwardly and kept his expression even.

“Attending school?” he replied coolly. “How have you been, Kacchan?”

“Better, before you showed up again.”

“Hey! You two know each other?” another kid asked Kacchan.

“Creepy nerd used to go to the same school as me back in first grade.”

“That would explain why he calls you Kacchan,” the kid said with a teasing nudge at Kacchan’s arm.

“Shut it,” Kacchan told the kid, shoving him away irritably.

Izuku decided it would be best to ignore Kacchan as much as possible without being outright rude to him. There was no reason to start off the school year pissing him off. Thankfully, there was another student between them in their row of desks, so they didn’t have to be in close proximity and had something of a buffer.

Izuku knew a handful of his classmates, including one boy who had been in his judo club the year before, but since the students at this school were from several different elementary schools, it was only natural that he didn’t know most of the others. Still, it was comforting to see some familiar faces that didn’t belong to a certain explosive blonde. This school didn’t require its students to join any clubs, but Izuku thought about joining the judo club when the other boys in his class asked him if he was going to.

Izuku didn’t like his homeroom teacher much. The man had a sickly, sallow complexion, and Izuku wondered if the man ever went outside. He also seemed to dislike kids, which wasn’t ideal for a person who spent their life teaching them. He didn’t appear to have a sense of humor at all, and only looked annoyed when he saw anyone laughing or smiling. The clincher for Izuku came when the students were asked to participate in an ‘icebreaker’. They would stand, say their name, the school they had attended before, and what their quirk was.

Izuku internally groaned at this direction, and he wondered if the man had chosen this ‘icebreaker’ on purpose to put Izuku in the spotlight in a negative way on the first day of school. He knew for a fact that his father had asked the principal to make sure he was never sent to the hospital except in life or death circumstances, and had provided the number and address of the clinic that had treated him when his leg was cut before. He’d also explained Iuzku’s quirk, and asked that the staff not tell the other students about it, to avoid any ostracization from his peers. However, this teacher seemed to believe that if he could make Izuku tell them himself, then he wouldn’t technically be disobeying that request.

The students started with seat number one, and Izuku had until his own seat (number 25) to decide how he would handle the situation. All of his thoughts about that went out the window as soon as his turn came up, though.

“My name is Midoriya Izuku, and I came here from Anaxes Elementary. My quirk--”

“Go ahead, Deku, tell them about your creepy-ass quirk-stealing quirk!” Kacchan whisper-yelled.

The others in class began to murmur to each other, and the teacher smirked before telling everyone to settle down and let him answer.

“My quirk is called Inheritance,” Izuku said, looking straight at Kacchan as he said it, fuming at the smug look on his face. “If I’m around someone who dies, my body kind of absorbs their quirk.”

“Ew,” one of the girls said, making a face. “That sounds gross.”

A couple of others nodded.

Izuku started to sit down, when a boy from the front of the class asked, “C’mon how many times are you near dead people right when they die? It’s not that big a deal.”

“I’ve never been near a dead person,” someone else said, consideringly.

Izuku was just starting to feel relieved, when the teacher spoke up.

“Apparently it’s not as uncommon as any of us thought. It’s apparently ten times by the time you reach middle school.”

He delivered it in a flat tone, appearing to read it off of a paper on his desk, but Izuku could see the petty shift of his eyes as he looked at Izuku. He had decided before even meeting Izuku that he didn’t like him, based on his quirk.

The effect on the class was electric. Everyone, including (or maybe especially) Kacchan looked stunned by this news.

“TEN?” several kids all but shouted.

Izuku sank into his seat and wished one of his quirks was teleportation. This sucked.

The people on either side of him shifted their desks a bit further away from his.

“Wait! Wait! What are the quirks you got?” a couple of others wanted to know.

“Enough, enough!” the teacher finally said, looking satisfied. “Next student…”

The introductions continued, but most of the kids were still staring at him.

Izuku had never looked forward to a lunch break less.

As soon as the teacher left the room, the questions started.

“You have ten quirks?” one of the boys asked.

“Eleven,” Izuku said glumly, “If you count my original one.”

“That’s wild!” another kid said. “What are they?”

“Does it matter?” Kacchan asked from his own desk, where he had his feet up on his desk, and was eating a conbini bento. “It’s still creepy as fuck.”

“What? No way! Think of how cool it would be to just get new quirks all the time! You could do anything! Can you walk through walls? That would be so awesome!”

Izuku looked at the kid like he was crazy. “No. And I”m not a criminal, I can’t just do what I want. Most of my quirks aren’t that interesting, anyway.”

“Did you really see ten people die?” a girl asked.

“No. I didn’t really see any of them, I just happened to be in the hospital at the same time as someone who died a couple of times. Once I was at an inn next to a nursing home where someone died. Some of my quirks were forced on me by a villain,” he told them.

“Bullshit!” Kacchan said, clearly listening in. “No one can force a quirk on anyone else.”

Izuku just shrugged. “One person could.”

“That’s amazing!” an excitable boy announced. “You could just go hang out at the hospital and pick up a bunch of quirks, any time you wanted!”

“That would be both gross and creepy,” Izuku told him. “Not to mention all kinds of wrong.”

Most of the kids finally left him alone and let him eat his lunch in peace. Soma-kun from his old judo club sat with him, and they talked about whether or not to join this school’s club, or if they might consider others, since the middle school levels had more choices. Izuku was happy to have someone who already knew about his quirk and didn’t mind being normal around him.

The rest of the day was uneventful, but he was feeling cranky by the time it was over. He skipped out on going to see the judo club in action to head to Might Tower instead, hoping to get in some time with the punching bag.

By this time, Izuku had his own access badge that he picked up from the front desk when he arrived, and his own locker and changing space in All Might’s private workout room, where he could go to any time he wanted to, as long as he wasn’t neglecting any of his other responsibilities. He taped up his hands the way Gran had shown him and got to work.

He chose to work with the speed bag first, finding the rhythm soothing and mindless, giving him a chance to let off some steam. From there, he moved to the heavy bag, practicing his side kicks for a while. When that still didn’t ease the knot in his gut or the clench of his jaw, he switched to push-ups. He didn’t notice that Sir had come into the room until he saw his perfectly shined wingtips appear in his line of vision.

“You’ve been at this for a while,”

Izuku stopped the smooth up and down motion of his push ups and got to his feet. He was dripping sweat and a bit winded, but felt a lot better.

“Today was the first day of school,” he told Sir.

“Yes, I’m aware. I thought you would be too busy looking into clubs and getting reacquainted with friends to come here today.”

He handed Izuku a small towel from a neat stack nearby and waited for Izuku to take a long drink from his water bottle.

“I didn’t have a very good day,” Izuku finally confessed, towelling the sweat from his face and neck.

He glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that he’d been working out for well over an hour.

Sir looked at him inquiringly, and Izuku gave him the short version, about running into an old classmate that he didn’t get along with, and the teacher being a jerk about his quirk. Sir’s eye twitched when he heard this, but otherwise he remained unflappable.

“I’m sorry; that does sound unpleasant. I wonder if your teacher is not aware of the consequences of being… indelicate.”

“I think he just hates his job,” Izuku said with a shrug. “But I’ve only known him for one day. Maybe it’ll get better, once he figures out that I’m not really that different from the rest of the kids.”

“You’re different, Izuku, in the best possible way,” Sir told him in a rare show of praise. “He’ll be sorry one day that he was such an uncaring teacher.”

Izuku wasn’t so sure about that. Still, he felt better for having gotten it all off his chest. He thanked Sir, and told him a silly joke (’Did you hear about the mathematician who was afraid of negative numbers? He'd stop at nothing to avoid them.’) and then went home with a lighter heart.

The next day was interesting in a completely different way. Izuku was asked to stay behind for a moment after school, only to have the teacher apologize to him for being cruel the day before. He claimed that he didn’t know that Izuku had been the victim of a villain because of his quirk, and wouldn’t mention it again in the future. Izuku accepted his apology (knowing that Sir had probably called to have a chat with him), and left the classroom, only to run straight into Kacchan.

“What the hell is going with you?” the other boy asked him angrily, getting into Izuku's personal space.

“Kacchan,” Izuku said, taking a deliberate step backward.

“Don’t call me that shit,” he said.

“I’ll stop when you stop calling me Deku or whatever else,” Izuku countered, not in the mood to take his crap.

“Whatever. What’s he talking about, you were a victim of a villain?” Kacchan demanded.

Izuku inwardly sighed. He shouldn’t really be surprised that Kacchan had hung around to eavesdrop.

“I already said this yesterday. You said it was bullshit,” Izuku pointed out. “Can I go now? I want to check out one of the clubs today.”

“What villain? When did this happen? Why don’t I know about it?” Kacchan persisted.

“Why do you even care?” Izuku asked, starting to feel angry. “You hate me! Why should you know about anything that happens to me?”

“Because you just fuckin’ disappeared! My mom tried calling your dad about some shit, and his number was changed, and you guys moved away without telling anyone.”

“And?” Izuku asked, trying hard to act bored, even though his heart was racing.

“Where did you go?” Kacchan asked in frustration.

“Somewhere different,” Izuku said flatly, stating the obvious. “Where I would be in less danger. Why didn’t you go to Aldera Middle School, like everyone else in your neighborhood?”

“The school I got moved to feeds into this one,” Kacchan admitted.

“Same,” Izuku said. “Now you know. I’m going now. See you around.”

Izuku had no hope that he and Kacchan would ever be friends, but maybe they didn’t have to be enemies?

Izuku dropped by the room that was supposed to be the judo club’s dojo after school, but the room was having a part of the floor replaced and there was no sign saying where they might have moved to. He decided to just go home, and maybe stop by the store on the way to pick up some groceries.

He took his time walking, enjoying the few remaining cherry blossoms still clinging to the trees along the way. He was considering an evening run, since it was so nice outside, when he heard a commotion up ahead. People were shouting and Izuku spotted two boys from his class; ones that usually hung around Kacchan. He waved them down and asked what was going on.

“Some big pile of slime just grabbed Bakugou!”

“A pile of slime? Like a villain? And you just left him? Is he okay?” Izuku babbled, feeling his heart start to race.

He looked over to where the commotion was still going on, and saw a crowd had gathered. Kacchan’s explosions were setting everything on fire around him as he tried to blow the slime off of himself. There were a couple of heroes on the scene, but they had their hands full with keeping spectators safe, and keeping the fires at bay. Kamui Wood swung by on a vine, sweeping a pair of people away from the flames, but was unable to get close enough to grab Kacchan, because his body was primarily made of wood.

Kacchan was putting up a fight, but it was hampering anyone rescuing him. Izuku didn’t wait around to see if anyone else was going to risk it, he just ran. Darting around people in the way, Izuku launched himself through the crowd to get in as close as he could. He threw his notebook at the sludge and it jabbed an eye floating in the ooze draped over and around Kacchan, holding him immobile. The villain howled in pain or anger as its eye was hit, and Izuku started to form a plan.

“Kacchan, quit exploding everything! I’m going to try to get them to let you go!”

“Deku? What the hell are you doing here?” Kacchan growled in disbelief.

“You can try,” the voice of the sludge villain gurgled at him. “Once I take over this body, I’ll be unstoppable!”

The monster was trying to envelop Kacchan, peeling his lips apart to make an opening to slither into. Kacchan was either panicking, or too angry to care about anything but blasting the villain off of him, because the explosions kept coming. Izuku engaged his levitation quirk, and used it in conjunction with his balance quirk to get above the villain, basically standing lightly on it’s (their?) head. His backpack kept him from floating away, but made him a lot lighter than normal. He was kicking at it’s eyes while trying not to hit Kacchan (too much) in the process.

It seemed to be working fairly well; it kept the sludge from taking over Kacchan, because it was too busy trying to fend off Izuku. It wasn’t letting go of its prey though, and that was what Izuku needed it to do. Izuku could hear snippets of the heroes shouting at him to get out of there, and the crowd shouting encouragement at him, but mostly he heard explosions and the blood rushing in his ears. His balance quirk was doing an excellent job of keeping him steady while the explosions that would have dislodged him detonated around them.

“You’ve got a great quirk, kid!” the villain told Iuzku.

Izuku tried to use pull on one of the villain’s eyes, and shuddered in disgust when the eye actually slid from the slime into his hand with a wet THOCK! Repulsed, he threw the eye away, letting it roll down the street.

“Hey!” the villain shrieked. “You’ll pay for that!”

Before Izuku could try pulling the other eye (that was currently hidden from his sight), the sludge wrapped around his shoe and pant leg. Because of his teflon quirk, he had to tie his shoes extra securely and wear his belt pretty snugly, and that worked against him at the moment.

“Thanks for everything, blasty,” the villain gurgled, apparently to Kacchan, “But this kid’s got a way better quirk for me!”

Izuku felt the sludge covering him, and could see that it was transferring off of Kacchan and onto him. It was quickly curling up and around his uniform, and Iuzku allowed himself to land on the ground, since the weight of the villain was dragging at him, anyway.

“Run, Kacchan!” Izuku called, relieved to see that someone was grabbing the other boy and dragging him backward away from the slime.

Now he just had to figure out how to extract himself!

When the sludge reached the collar of Izuku’s gakuran, it stopped for a moment, the slime was not able to adhere to his skin at all. Every time tendrils of sludge tried to wrap around his head, or ears or lips, it just slid away uselessly.

“What the hell? Why are you so slippery?” the villain growled, beating ropes of gunk against Izuku’s face painfully in an attempt to force entry, somehow.

“There’s no need to fear!”

Izuku almost sagged with relief at the sound of a familiar voice bellowing over the noise around them.

“I am here!” All Might finished.

Izuku braced himself, unsure how All Might was going to get him out of this, but knowing he had to be ready to get out of the way as soon as he was free.

“DETROIT”

Izuku only had time to think, “oh crap!’

“SMASH!”

The wind pressure from the punch was incredible, and Izuku felt himself burst free from the slime and tumble across the concrete until he smacked up against the side of a building and was pressed there until the gale was past. He was just rolling over to survey what was happening when he felt the first drops of rain begin to fall. There was a collective gasp from the crowd, and someone called out.

“Holy crap! He punched so hard that the air pressure, with the rising air currents, changed the weather! He made it rain with a single punch!”

The crowd was cheering, but Izuku was being checked over and helped to his feet by Death Arms.

“Are you suicidal?” the hero asked him in a harsh tone. “There was no reason to run into danger like that! You could have been killed!”

“I just… wanted to save him,” Izuku said haltingly.

“And you thought you could succeed when none of the other heroes here could do anything?” he demanded crossly. “That was beyond reckless!”

“I think you mean brave!” came a booming voice. “That young man did what all of us have been trained to do, and that is to risk our lives to save those in need. If the heroes had remembered that, he wouldn’t have felt like he needed to intervene, would he?”

Death Arms looked like he wasn’t sure if he should feel ashamed or insulted, so he settled for somewhere in the middle.

“That might be true, but he still acted recklessly. I’m glad you’re okay, kid. Have your face looked at by a medic.”

Izuku nodded. He really was okay, and so was Kacchan, who had been sitting near a paramedic’s truck, getting checked over. He walked toward the other boy, with All Might walking beside him, and wasn’t sure what to say. Kacchan looked sullen and annoyed, and just glared when Izuku appeared in front of him. He was completely ignoring one of the heroes on scene who was telling him how great his quirk was, and how he should come be his sidekick when he graduated. He didn’t even see All Might for a moment, and when he did, his jaw dropped.

“How are you feeling, young man?” All Might asked.

“I feel like crap,” he answered petulantly. “First some slimy piece of crap grabs me, then Deku there kicks me in the head while I’m trying to fight it off.”

Izuku felt bad at the bruises forming on the other boy’s face.

“Sorry, Kacchan,” he said sincerely.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Kacchan snapped.

“I told you to stop calling me Deku,” Izuku countered.

“Boys,” All MIght said, intervening. “You’ve both been under a lot of stress in the past few minutes. Perhaps emotions are flaring…”

“No,” Izuku said, cutting him off quietly, sounding tired. “It’s always like this with us.”

“You were probably trying to kill me off so you could steal my quirk, too!” Kacchan growled at him.

Izuku balled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth. “Seriously?”

“I think it’s best if you two get some treatment. Separately.”

All Might put a huge hand on Izuku’s shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze and steered him away. There was a paramedic waiting to look at him, but all Izuku really needed was an ice pack.

There were police who needed questions answered, and reporters were all over the place, since All Might usually didn’t stick around for very long after he saved someone, and they all wanted a statement or sound byte from him before he dashed off again. Izuku didn’t miss the tiny droplets of blood beginning to leak from the corners of All Might’s mouth, and he pulled out his phone.

4:35 pm All Might! Pretend this is an emergency call, so you can just leave!

He hit send, and All Might’s phone pinged loudly in his pocket. He pulled it out, looked at it and slid it back into his pocket.

“Sorry folks! Duty calls!”

He took a few steps backward before leaping high into the air and out of sight.

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief.

A minute later, he got a message on his own phone.

“Thanks for that, young man! I was impressed by your heroism today. Come to Might Tower when you’re free. I think it’s time we talked.”

Notes:

Yes, I messed with the timeline for the sludge villain. No reason, I just wanted to.

Here is a list of the quirks Izuku currently has (straight out of my story notes to help me keep everything straight):

Inheritance (from birth)
Pull (Inko)
Transparency (Taiwan)
Color change plastic (Dr. Office)
Food prediction (Dr. Office)
Balance (AFO)
Making fur on small mammals grow (AFO)
Teflon
Levitation (AFO, by way of failed experiment)
Polyglot (Hospital after injury at school - human language only, spoken only)
Human copy machine (Hospital after injury at school - needs all five fingers)

Chapter 14

Summary:

Izuku has a decision to make.

Notes:

Sneaking in this chapter before rushing off to work!

Izuku arrived to find not only All Might, but also Sir Nighteye and Gran sitting around the low table in the sitting room on the top floor of Might Tower. He’d gone home to shower and change clothes, and now he was wondering if he should have come straight here, since everyone wore very serious expressions. Somehow, All Might in his deflated form looked even more serious than he might have in his muscular one; perhaps because he didn’t always smile in this form.

“Is something wrong? Did something happen?” he asked, frozen to the spot he had stopped in when he’d seen everyone gathered.

“No, there’s nothing wrong,” Sir told him. “Come in and have a seat. All Might has something he needs to tell you about, and it’s rather important that you listen carefully.”

Izuku let his bag slide to the ground beside the couch as he hopped up onto a cushion. He felt more like a little kid than usual, sitting with his feet dangling off the ground, and the adults all looking at him.

“Midoriya-kun,” All Might began, “First, I want to tell you that what you did today was extraordinary. It was reckless, but you handled yourself well. Seeing you there, running straight into danger while the other heroes hesitated to act was truly heroic. I, myself, was standing on the sidelines hesitating, because I’d used up my time for the day and was waiting for another hero to jump into action. You were the only one who did. You didn’t think twice about trying to rescue a person you don’t even like, and you kept your wits about you and used the tools you had on hand to do what you could to buy time.”

Izuku could feel himself blushing from the praise and felt like he might burst with pride.

“We were watchin’ from here,” Gran said, gesturing to Sir as well. “We were monitoring the area because there had been a report of a villain committing a theft, and then you showed up.”

“You comported yourself well,” Sir agreed, “Though I can see we will have to work on some strategies for fighting that sort of villain for the future.”

Izuku nodded, eager to learn more of what he did right, and what he could have done differently or better.

“Now,” All Might said, drawing the attention back around to why he’d asked Izuku to come. “I have a story to tell you about my quirk, and how I became a hero.”

Izuku had wondered about this for some time, but when he asked Sir or Gran, they always said that All Might would tell him when he felt the time was right. No one knew exactly what All Might’s quirk really was, though it obviously had something to do with super strength.

Izuku listened as All Might spoke about All For One and One for All, and how One For All had been passed down for generations. He explained about how he had been quirkless, but with a desire to be a hero, and how his master had given him One For All to cultivate. Now that All Might had been so gravely injured, it was time for him to choose a successor and begin the slow steps to retirement.

“After what I saw today, I'm both hesitant to retire, when the current heroes aren’t living up to their potential, and eager to get my successor up to speed as quickly as possible, so there won’t be too long of a gap without someone who can use One For All to become the new symbol people need to feel safe.”

“Once you step down, they’ll have to step up. They’ve gotten lazy, because you’re around to pick up their slack. Endeavor’s a creep, but he’s at least trying to keep up with you. The rest need a reality check.” Gran said bluntly. “The kid won’t be ready for another six years or more. Still needs to make it through middle school and UA.”

“Wait,” Izuku said, trying to follow the thread of what Gran was saying. “What? What kid?”

“Gran,” Sir scolded him lightly. “Let Toshinori handle it.”

All Might sighed.

“Izuku, I want you to be my successor.”

Izuku just sat there blankly staring, as if waiting for the punchline.

“Izuku, did you hear what he said?” Sir asked when the silence had gone on for an awkwardly long time.

“You don’t have to,” All Might rushed to assure him, “If you don’t want to…”

“Of course I want to,” Izuku said immediately. “I’m just kind of... me? Just because I jumped on a villain today?”

Sir snorted out a laugh that he tried to pass off as a cough, while Gran cracked a smile.

“That’s not the only reason, no,” All Might told him, sounding amused. “But it was the final proof I needed that you have what it takes to be a great hero. I actually did put a lot of thought into it - we-- put a lot of thought and consideration into it. One of the things that first made us consider you was your ability to handle multiple quirks without putting a strain on your body. One For All is a powerful quirk that gets more powerful with each passing. It’s a stockpiling quirk, and even though I was quirkless when I received it, I’ve still done my part to cultivate it, and all of that power would get passed on to you. It’s a lot to handle.”

“You can take your time to think about it, kid. You’ve probably got about a million questions to ask; you usually do.”

“I don’t need to think about it, but I know I’ll have a ton of questions,” he said with a nod. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted to do is be a hero, but none of my quirks are really that great for hero work.”

“That’s just not true,” All Might told him. “You have incredible quirks, and while it would be an uphill battle, you could absolutely become a hero with what you already possess.”

“Izuku,” Sir said seriously. “I don’t think you should give him your answer for at least a few days. Let it really sink in. I don’t think you realize what keeping a secret this huge entails, and how isolated it can make you feel. Think about it. Write down your questions. You need to be absolutely sure about this.”

“I guess maybe I should talk this over with my dad,” Izuku said sheepishly, seeing the wisdom in Sir’s words.

“That’s another thing to think about,” Gran said. “Anyone who knows the secret about All Might’s quirk is a possible target. There’s a reason his circle of close friends is so small.”

All Might himself just sat there with his fingers threaded together, looking at Izuku intently.

“Even if you turn down this offer,” he finally said. “We won't abandon you. You’re already a target for All For One’s remaining followers, and you need training to be prepared for any possible interaction with them in the future.”

Izuku nodded slowly, still thinking about what it might mean to tell his father about all of this. How much danger would it put him in? More than he was already? Somehow, he doubted it. They had already used his father’s need of a housekeeper to infiltrate their lives. They already knew where to find him, and Izuku doubted his father could just switch jobs.

“Is it okay for me to tell my dad about all this?” Izuku asked.

“It might be better if we explained it to him,” Sir said. “I’m sure he’ll have questions that you won’t be able to answer.”

“What if he says I can’t do it?” Izuku worried aloud.

There was a pause before All Might cleared his throat and said, “We’ll just have to hope we can convince him.”

“Ideally, we would have waited until you were out of UA before even suggesting that you take over One For All,” Sir said matter-of-factly. “But the confrontation with All For One and All Might’s present condition unfortunately pushes that timeline forward, considerably.”

“You were thinking about this before then?” Izuku asked with wonder.

“In a more abstract way, yes.” All Might said. “I’m not exactly a young man anymore, you know. I would have had to retire in another ten years or so, anyway. We were looking a bit farther into the future, and would probably have explored multiple different possibilities. You were kind of dropped into our laps like a sign from the gods. We wouldn’t even have to think of an excuse for you to suddenly have another quirk.”

Izuku’s eyes widened at that.

“Wow.”

He began to mutter to himself, pinching his lower lip as his mind whirled with all the new information. He missed it as Gran looked at the other two men and sighed.

“He’s doing it again.”

“Leave him be,” Sir said quietly. “He’s processing.”

“It’s kinda cute,” All Might said with a shrug.

Izuku put together timelines in his head and events that had happened, combined with the training they’d been giving him, and the events of the day. By the time he wound down he noticed that all three men were looking at him with varied expressions of amusement.

That evening, Izuku sat next to his father who was still reeling from the news about his son fighting a villain and saving his classmate. Izuku had kind of “forgotten” to call him afterward, and his father had been in meetings all day and not heard the news. Sir and All Might had explained all of that first, praising Izuku’s quick thinking and bravery. It had even been on the news, so they all got to watch the footage together. It was kind of surreal.

Izuku’s dad looked stunned, worried and proud, in that order. Then he got back around to worry again.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” he asked. “You didn’t come here just to tell me about this.”

“That’s true,” All Might said cautiously. “We have a bit of a story to tell you.”

Hisashi listened to All Might’s story about One For All with realization dawning on him as to why they were sharing this with him. The fact that All For One was that old, and that insidious within the crime world made him furrow his brow and clench his jaw. He didn’t seem to notice when tendrils of smoke started to drift up from his nostrils as they explained about the true damage that All Might had taken during his battle with All For One. A plume of smoke floated out of his mouth when he saw All Might’s true deflated, emaciated form where the huge, iconic figure had been sitting.

Izuku sighed when his father pinched his bottom lip and began to mutter, just as his son had done earlier as he processed everything. When he finally worked it out in his mind, he sighed, smoke still trailing from his nose and mouth.

“Dad, don’t set off the fire detectors,” Izuku said calmly as his father seemed to come out of this trance.

“Sorry! Sorry,” he said, taking a deep breath to suck in as much smoke as he could and consciously tamping down his quirk with effort.

He looked at the two men, who were regarding him with serious, cautious expressions.

“You want to pass this power on to Izuku.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“He’s a child.”

“Yes. But he won’t be for long,” Sir pointed out.

“And villains won’t always take his age into consideration,” All Might pointed out.

“Won’t this make him a target?” his father asked.

Izuku wasn’t sure if it was too early to say, but it seemed like a good sign that his father hadn’t just said no immediately.

“I’m already a target, dad,” Izuku said quietly. “All For One was beaten, but he had a lot of followers. Especially that Tomura guy, and he’s scary and has a really strong quirk.”

“Zu, agreeing to be the next All Might… it’s on a completely different level,” his dad pointed out.

“True, but I was going to apply to UA anyway,” Izuku said in his most persuasive voice. “So, if I’m going to be a hero anyway, don’t you want me to be the strongest one I can be?”

More smoke began to drift up from his dad’s nostrils, and Izuku bit his lip in worry.

“I need to think about this, and make sure I-- we-- are taking everything into account before a decision is made.”

Both men looked relieved to hear this.

“Of course,” All Might said firmly. “That’s all we’re asking.”

Izuku and his father thanked the men for coming and saw them to the door. Once they were gone, Izuku went to a small cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey. He took it to the kitchen and put some ice in a glass, before pouring a generous splash of the amber liquid over it before taking it back to his father.

His dad was still standing in front of the door, staring into nothingness, lost in thought. He jolted when he felt Izuku’s hand on his arm, and laughed a bit when he saw the glass in his son's hand.

“You read my mind,” he said, taking the glass.

Izuku just gave a small grin and thanked his most useless quirk from telling him what his dad wanted at the moment.

They went back to the living room and talked late into the night, both of them making a list of questions, concerns and (in his father’s case) requirements that they would need satisfied before a final decision was made. It wasn’t the hard yes that Izuku had been hoping for, but it was a conditional one. His dad had promised to be in contact with All Might and Sir Nighteye to get some answers and reassurances before anything else was settled.

In the end, Izuku was allowed to accept, with the promise from All Might that he would do everything in his power to guide and protect Izuku until he was ready to stand on his own as a hero. Both All Might and Sir Nighteye promised to be proper mentors, with Gran as an unofficial side benefit, lending a hand when and where he could.

Izuku’s heart was racing wildly as he stood beside his father in Might Tower and accepted… a hair from All Might’s head.

“Eat this,” All Might said.

Izuku and his father wore identical expressions of skepticism.

“Izuku has to consume some of All Might’s DNA for the transfer to happen,” Sir clarified.

“Ah. Okay…” Izuku said, still somewhat reluctant.

“Can he have something to wash it down with?” his dad asked.

Gran had a glass of milk and a taiyaki on a plate waiting.

“I’ve got you covered,” the old man said cheerfully. “Toshinori didn’t have such a luxury when he received One For All, and spent the rest of the day gagging on that damn hair. Think it got wrapped around his uvula!”

He seemed to think this was hilarious, but Izuku wasn’t so easily distracted.

After a moment, Izuku wound the hair around his finger until it was in a small ring, and shoved it in his mouth. Before he even tried to swallow it, he grabbed the taiyaki and took a huge bite, practically swallowing it whole, then washing it down with the entire glass of milk.

“I think it went down,” Izuku said once the glass was empty.

“Good job, my boy!” All Might said in the booming voice of his muscular form. “You are officially the ninth holder of One For All.”

He patted Izuku on the back with enough force to knock him forward a step before laughing happily and suddenly deflating.

“I don’t feel any…” Izuku began, but then felt a shiver travel from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. Faint crackles of verdant electricity spider webbed around him for a few moments, and the veins under his skin glowed pink as if lit from within, then settled down and disappeared.

“That was weird!” Izuku exclaimed, looking down at his hands that had just been glowing. “I’m pretty sure it worked!”

He looked at his dad, who looked shaken and had a tendril of smoke escaping from his open mouth.

Once Hisashi calmed down and after Izuku received One For All, of course he was excited to try it out. They went into All Might’s private gym and Izuku took the stance Gran had taught him. He listened to the advice All Might gave him about picturing the power surging in his mind. Gran helped lace up the boxing gloves that Izuku wore when he practiced.

Sir was keeping a careful eye on All Might, and Izuku wondered if he was worried about what would happen to him now that One For All had been passed along. All Might had already explained that the embers of the power were still glowing inside of him, and that it would take quite a while for them to be extinguished. Still. He’d never done it before; what if he was wrong?

All Might sensed both Sir and Izuku looking at him and smiled.

“I’m fine. In fact, better than I expected. The slight pull I was always feeling near young Midoriya had gone away. Maybe because I’m technically quirkless, again.”

That answer seemed to appease Sir, so Izuku nodded and went back to concentrating on trying to use One For All. He envisioned the power surging through him, and the reddish pink glow under his skin and the green sparks appeared again in a web around his body as he drew back his fist and punched the heavy bag as hard as he could.

There was a thunderous crash as the bag rattled on its chains and swayed wildly. Izuku gasped and hopped backward, amazed by the strength of the blow. He’d never so much as made this bag creak before, much less move it like he just had.

His dad was staring open mouthed again, and waited for the bag to settle before he leaned on it, pushing with both hands in an attempt to move it. He failed. His hand was shaking as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and patted at his forehead.

“Are you okay, dad?” Izuku asked in concern.

The glow that seemed to appear when the power of One For All was in use had faded away once more.

“I think that’s more than enough proof,” his dad whispered on a puff of smoke.

“I agree,” Sir said with satisfaction.

“Now the real training can begin,” All Might said, rubbing his hands together.

Izuku grinned.

Chapter 15

Summary:

The road with One For All starts off a bit bumpy.

Notes:

Happy New Year! Good riddance to 2020 - seriously! Please enjoy this chapter - it maybe be a TINY bit longer between chapters when I have to go back to work on this coming week!

The real training actually didn’t start as planned. After the first punch to try out One For All, Izuku winced when his father put a hand on his shoulder.

“Ow!” he complained, stepping away.

“Izuku?” Sir asked with concern at the same time as his dad asked, “Zu?”

“My arm hurts,” he said, rolling his shoulder a bit.

“That was a heck of a punch,” All Might conceded.

Gran stepped forward to unlace the gloves, and Izuku yelped when the right one was pulled off.

“Take off your shirt, kid.” Gran ordered.

Izuku reached for the hem of his hoodie, and groaned in pain as he lifted it up. His father caught hold of the fabric and helped to ease it over his head while Izuku hissed. As the fabric peeled away, all four men sucked in a breath at the sight of Izuku’s arm. It was bruised a dark purple from the tips of his fingers all the way up to his shoulder, where it faded to a lighter shade of purple, then blue, then yellow before ending around his shoulder blade.

“How did this happen?” his dad demanded, sounding both panicked and angry.

‘It must be some backlash from using the quirk at full force,” All Might guessed, looking concerned and apologetic.

Gran carefully examined the abused limb and said it didn’t seem to be broken, just really badly bruised.

“The power gets stronger with each person that holds it, so perhaps it’s more amplified than Izuku can handle at full strength,” All Might said.

“We should take him to the clinic to be looked at, just in case,” Sir said.

“I don’t want this happening again,” his dad told the men, thicker smoke billowing up from his mouth and nose. “I’m entrusting him to your care so that he’ll be safe, not so he can end up turned to a bloody pulp.”

“Understood, sir,” All Might said, bowing to Izuku’s dad.

Izuku’s eyes widened, and he fidgeted in distress. He’d never seen his dad emit so much smoke so often as he had in the past week.

“Dad, it’s not his fault…”

“It’s alright, young man. I promised your father that I would take excellent care of you, and the first time you use One For All, this happens. I will have to be much more careful in the future.”

“The car is being brought around,” Sir said, pocketing his phone.

Gran appeared with the biggest ice pack Izuku had ever seen. (It was more like an ice blanket!) He wrapped it around Izuku’s whole arm, and there were still several centimeters hanging past his fingertips. Gran said it was one that had been made especially for All Might, whose large frame required large equipment.

The doctor at the clinic easily accepted the explanation that Izuku had inherited a new quirk that he hadn’t gotten used to. She had treated him before, and knew his quirk history.

“An even dozen, now!” She said cheerfully as she used her x-ray quirk to check him for any breaks or fractures.

Izuku gave her a weak smile that got a little brighter when she announced no need for a cast or brace. She gave him a sling to rest his arm in, some analgesic cream to rub on it, and some pain killers. Those were to help him sleep more comfortably for a couple of days until the pain subsided enough to get relief from over the counter medicine.

In the end, they put any training on hold for a week, and Izuku was told to keep a journal of any changes he noticed, physically, or otherwise in the meantime.

At school on Monday was when he had his first mishap. His pen rolled off his desk and onto the floor, landing just out of reach. He didn’t see the harm in using pull in getting it back, since his arm was in a sling. He held out his hand toward it and pulled, but instead of his own pen hitting his hand, there was a tearing sound, a yelp of surprise, and suddenly Iuzku was holding the teacher’s pen. Unfortunately, it had come to him through his teacher’s shirt pocket, tearing a pen-sized hole in it in the process. The class roared with laughter as Izuku blushed beet read and jumped up to return the pen and bow a few thousand times in apology.

“Stupid Deku,” Kacchan laughed.

Izuku sighed, knowing his detention was well-deserved.

The next day, Izuku began floating up out of his seat while working on a math assignment. When his knees hit the underside of his desk, the desk lifted up off of the ground as well, falling with a loud clatter as he got it under control. The short fall back into this chair painfully jolted his arm, and he gritted his teeth as everyone stared. He avoided detention when he was asked to stay after class by explaining that a new quirk was making his other ones act up. The teacher had shuddered, as if he’d forgotten about the nature of Iuzku’s quirk, and dismissed him.

He found himself accidentally changing the color of one of his All Might action figures, and lamented that he couldn’t turn it back. In class, he accidentally used his copy quirk while passing papers back in his row of desks, ruining the handouts. It now seemed he could copy an entire stack at once, and not just one page at a time. The rest of the week wasn’t too bad, and the bruising on his arm responded well to ointments, icing, and rest. His arm was a mottled mass of spectacular colors, but the pain was tolerable, and he didn’t have to wear the sling past the first week.

When he presented Sir Nighteye with his journal pages (that were extremely sloppy as he had trouble writing with his injured hand, and his left hand was even worse for writing skill), it earned him a raised eyebrow.

“It would appear that One For All is affecting some of your other quirks. It’s worth exploring just how much.”

This meant that while his arm continued to heal, he was put through his paces with his other quirks all over again to see how applying One For All affected their potency.

Pull had obviously gotten stronger. The size and weight of the objects he could call to him hadn’t changed all that much, but the distance and speed were vastly improved. So much so, that Izuku had to be careful not to hurt himself when catching small objects. The coin he’d pulled from across the room had definitely stung when it had smacked into his palm with an audible slap!

His levitation quirk sometimes took him by surprise and caused him to lift off the ground from time to time, usually when his mind was wandering. His previous training helped him get it under control quickly, but All Might thought he might be able to use it to learn a sort of gliding flight, if combined with his balance quirk and a One For All leap. All Might could travel long distances with such leaps, even without levitation, so it stood to reason that if he did the same while levitating, he could go much further, and possibly faster. That was a tricky one to monitor though, so it might have to wait to test out until they found someone who could keep up with him and rescue him if things went awry.

Turning transparent didn’t really change much… he got slightly more transparent, but not quite enough to say he was mostly invisible. It could be good for stealth missions, if he could train to hold his breath for extended periods. Things still slid off of his skin, but not any better than before, and he still knew what people wanted to eat at any given time, but couldn’t tell what they’d want tomorrow, or if they were far away. He didn’t improve any with being a polyglot, either, though it would have been cool to be able to read or write in different languages without any work on his part.

Finally, they called back Hound Dog, who had agreed to let Izuku experiment, and it seemed that a single touch from Izuku could now make the hair on the hero’s head grow several centimetres, instead of needing several strokes to get it that long. Hound Dog had been delighted, and said he was going to get a makeover with his new hair. Izuku grinned at that, glad he could help.

Once his arm was healed, All Might asked him to meet him at a stretch of beach near a run-down shopping district called Takoba Municipal Beach Park. Izuku could tell that it had once been a thriving little spot for locals to hang out at, but had deteriorated over the years. Once he found the beach, it was clear why.

“Where did all this trash come from?” he asked in dismay.

“Careless people dumped here, and the currents tend to draw waste tossed into the ocean to this beach, where it washes ashore,” All Might said, looking almost cheerful.

“Why is that a good thing?”

“Because it means you’ll always have plenty to do!” All Might said in his booming voice before a coughing fit overcame him and he deflated. “You’re going to bulk up those muscles by hauling all of this junk out of the sand and cleaning up the beach! I’m thinking that maybe the reason your arm bruised that badly is because One For All binds the strength of all of the previous holders into a single person! That’s a lot for such a small body to contain! Bulking you up may help with that!”

“This could take months!” Izuku said in disbelief.

“Possibly more than a year, even,” All Might agreed without concern.

Izuku guessed that made sense, and he wasn’t about to tell All Might that he didn’t trust him. He took the work gloves that were offered, and started small. All Might actually helped with regular trash; papers and plastics that didn’t weigh enough to give either of them a workout of any kind. While they gathered bag after bag of light rubbish, All Might regaled Izuku with tales of his early years training with Gran, what it had been like to be quirkless as a kid (it wasn't so uncommon then) and how the heroes of today seemed to have forgotten their roots.

“It’s not all about fame and adulation, young Midoriya!” he said as he handed off another bag to be tossed into the back of a flatbed truck in the parking lot. “Heroes should be about community involvement! Getting to know the local business owners when they can, volunteering for the betterment of the area you serve, like we’re doing right now!”

Izuku agreed with that philosophy. He had seen a couple of heroes come and go from the spotlight, looking great and powerful at first, but more interested in the rankings and photo ops than in saving people and helping out. He vowed to never be like that. He wanted to be as great as All Might one day, but not for the popularity or praise; he wanted to save people, and keep them from ever having to lose a loved one like he’d lost his own mother. He never wanted to gain another quirk, if he could help it.

At the end of their first day at the beach, it was hard to tell that anyone had done any work at all, if Izuku was honest with himself. Despite the dozens of trash bags they’d filled, the place still looked more like a landfill than a beach park.

“Here,” All Might said, handing him a sheaf of notes.

Izuku was careful to tug on his lighter weight gloves so as not to touch them with all five fingers of either hand as he scanned the pages.

“All American Dream Plan?” he read aloud, looking at lists of exercises, foods and schedules.

“Precisely. We’ve only got a couple of years to get you ready to face the Board of Directors for UA High School!”

“Why would I meet the Board of Directors?” Izuku asked, feeling confused.

“They’re the ones who will decide if you’ll be able to be placed as a recommendation student,” All Might told him, sounding as though that should have been obvious.

“A rec--” Izuku’s mind was reeling with this new information. “There are only two recommendation spots for each class each year, and the criteria to even qualify is crazily complicated.”

“Which is why we need to get you in tip-top shape!” All Might said confidently. “The recommended students meet the Board, sit for the written exam, and then give a demonstration of their quirk, skill, and their mental and physical fitness.”

“You think I can qualify?” Izuku asked hopefully.

“I know you can!” came the immediate answer. “If you work for it.”

Izuku wasn’t sure how many people got recommended each year for UA, but it was possible that the number of recommendations was higher than the number of available spots. That was why they met earlier than the actual entrance exam date. If a recommended student didn’t win one of the spots, they could still sit for the regular entrance exam and earn a spot that way.

Izuku wasn’t about to let everyone helping him and cheering for him down. He would work hard, and keep focused on his goal, whatever it took.

On his way home, he stopped at the market to buy groceries that would help him get started on the meal plan that was included in the lists that All Might had made for him, and vowed to follow them to the letter.

His classmates noticed that he was looking more tired lately, and asked about it.

“I’ve got… a personal trainer… that’s working me hard,” he answered, not wanting to let the truth slip too much. “Y’know, cause my quirks have been acting up.”

“Sounds rough!” the other boy said sympathetically.

It was rough, but Izuku was loving every minute of it. Well… mostly every minute; some of the stuff he found on the beach was beyond disgusting, and All Might didn’t help him again after that first day. Still, his already fit body was becoming even more defined and muscular, instead of just toned. He didn’t seem to be gaining a lot of bulk, but he was just getting started. On top of daily beach clean up, Izuku’s schedule had him meeting with either All Might, Sir Nighteye or Gran Torino twice a week for “other lessons,” which turned out to be different each time.

Gran almost always taught him fighting, often street-style with few rules. He insisted that Izuku needed to know how to fight dirty, because villains sure as hell wouldn’t be following a rule book. Sir and All Might argued that they had to be better than that, but Gran found ways to throw in little pointers here and there that he was sure wouldn’t be allowed in anything but a knock-down, drag-out brawl. Often it was about boxing, looking for an opponent’s openings and taking advantage of weaknesses.

To that end, Sir Nighteye helped him continue practicing Judo, which had been abandoned because of circumstances, but was useful enough to keep in his repertoire. He also often went over Izuku’s hero notebooks (the ones that had become legible over time, anyway) and pointed out any flaws or incorrect assumptions in thinking. He demanded that he memorize the different types of quirks, and the best ways to counter them with what he already knew or had at his disposal. He continued to pose hypothetical scenarios and demand that Izuku find the most expedient and ethical solutions to them. He insisted that more than fighting, it was best to think one’s way out of sticky situations, and outsmart the enemy.

All Might wasn’t… the best teacher. He was, however, very enthusiastic! One For All had come so naturally to him, that he was baffled as to why Izuku was having as much trouble as he was. They worked on how and when he should use it, since it seemed to take precious seconds for Izuku to call it forth and be ready to use it. Even then, it sometimes fizzled out mid-leap or punch, or kick, leading to a big wind-up with little reward at the end. It was unclear if it was a matter of poor concentration or being distracted, or if there was some kind of “loose connection” somewhere, where his other quirks were somehow interfering. Many of their sessions together were spent working to combine One For All with his other quirks in various inventive ways.

All Might was still doing hero work for a handful of hours each day, but had begun leaving the ‘big’ jobs to other heroes to handle. He only got involved in something that would strain him if there appeared to be no other option to prevent a loss of life. Because of his transition to less time on the streets, the crime rate had started to rise a little, mostly with small-time criminals testing the waters, looking to fill in the spaces where All For One no longer held influence. The fact that rumors said All Might had been the one to take down All For One still kept the major players on the crime scene in line, and well-hidden.

The media speculated wildly about All Might’s diminished time on the hero scene. Gossip blogs speculated that he had met ‘someone’ and was settling down into a more domestic life. Reporters and analysts gave wing to wild conspiracies from the internet about the number one hero living a double life (which wasn’t exactly wrong, until they started giving their theories about it that were nowhere near close). Interviews with other heroes turned up no clues, with most of the shrugging and saying that the man had basically been on duty for decades, and deserved a break, if he wanted one. Everyone had a theory, but only a handful of people knew the truth.

Sir was concerned that things would get out of control before Izuku could make it through UA. His plan had been to have Izuku graduate, then begin a short stint as All Might’s sidekick, eventually taking over so that All Might could retire for good. He insisted that he was ‘working on some things’ to buy some time and explain the number one’s decreased presence on the streets. Something much less crazy than the rabid media was putting out there.

Time began to move quickly, and the beach was starting to look less and less like a landfill. Gran had taken up a hobby he liked to call ‘sneak attack’ and would often show up out of nowhere, trying to take Izuku by surprise while he was hauling large appliances or something similar. Sir thought that this was a fine way to keep Izuku on his toes, and had joined in, in a more subtle way. Sir would throw his hyper density seals at the towers of refuse, causing them to teeter or even collapse, forcing Izuku to evade or attempt to stop a minor catastrophe at a moment’s notice. Izuku never knew when they would show up, and only knew they were there when he was already under attack. All Might thought it was hilarious.

All Might spent most of his time in his diminished form now, and had started calling it his ‘true form’ when they spoke about it. He saved every ounce of energy and strength he had left for the times he took up the mantle of the number one hero, doling out the power in small increments to make it seem like he was more active than he really was. Izuku wasn’t sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, it was very smart thinking and a good way to cover how little time he actually got to spend fighting crime. On the other hand, it had to be hard for him to not be able to easily do what he’d always done, as much as he wanted.

School was… school. Izuku had a lot of friendly acquaintances, but kept mostly to himself. He didn’t join any more clubs or extracurricular activities. He couldn’t really become close with anyone his own age, since he was always with one of a trio of men who were training him. It would be hard to explain all of his covert comings and goings and lack of free time to anyone. On top of that, could he really trust anyone right now? The one real, hang-out-with-outside-of-school friend he’d had in his life had been Kacchan, and that had ended poorly. They had an unsteady truce in middle school, but it was clear that Kacchan still held him in disdain. It didn’t hurt anymore when he was ignored; it was better than being noticed too much and having to answer questions.

He didn’t bother to try to make other friends. Anyone else could be a plant, couldn’t they? How could he know who was trustworthy?

Best not to risk it.

Chapter 16

Summary:

Time flies, and the Recommendation exam arrives!

Before he knew it, Izuku was in his third year of middle school.

The beach project was nearly complete, and was mostly maintenance from what the currents washed up, or what unscrupulous people dumped there. Izuku spent a lot of his time simply running on the beach, or swimming along the shoreline. A couple of times, he’d spied Kacchan watching him from across the street, where a corner store had reopened once people started visiting the beach again. It might have been a coincidence, but when Izuku had waved the second time, he could have sworn that he’d startled the other boy, and Kacchan had spun on his heel and disappeared around the corner.

Finally, at the beginning of his third year of middle school, Izuku was sent home with forms to be filled out, stating which high schools he would be aspiring to. He wondered if he should list UA, or if that was giving too much personal information out to an institution that Shigaraki Tomura and Kurogiri and Dr. Tsubasa might be able to access.

His father had a talk with Sir Nighteye about it over the phone, and they decided that they would list UA heroics course as a first choice, and Shiketsu as a second, though they had no intention of his applying there. A call to the school administration would help to keep the staff quiet about it for the most part, and it wasn’t anything a decent hacker wouldn’t be able to access, at any rate.

It was also news to Izuku that he periodically had people from the Might Agency following him from a distance, in case he ever ran into trouble. When he mentioned as much, Sir simply told him that it only happened at times he wasn’t expected to be somewhere in particular, when they would know very quickly if he wasn’t where he should be. That was hardly ever, with his regimented schedule.

A week later, when the teacher was going through the stacks of papers in front of the class, he mentioned that most of them would be moving up to the attached high school.

“With the exception of Moriyama, who will be applying to Kamino High,” she told them, glancing at her lists, “And Bakugou, who’s aiming for the Heroics track of UA High.”

“Hey, Midoriya, weren’t you going to take the entrance exam for UA, too?” one of the kids asked from a row away. “You used to be all about trying to be a hero.”

“No, I don’t plan to take the UA entrance exam,” he said, technically not lying.

“Of course not,” Kacchan sneered. “He can’t even keep from levitating out of his damn seat.”

“Hey man,” one of the others laughed, “That hasn’t happened in a long time!”

Izuku just smiled and shook his head ruefully. It wouldn’t do any good to say anything about expecting a recommendation spot at UA.

“UA only takes the best, and that’s me,” Kacchan bragged loudly. “Deku wouldn’t stand a chance; he’d be killed in the exam! All those quirks, and he’s still an idiot.”

Izuku sighed, and tried to ignore him, only spurring Kacchan on to continue his bragging about how much he’d been working out with his quirk and how good he was. It didn’t matter, Izuku knew the truth, and one day soon, Kacchan would, too. In the hallway after classes, Kacchan shouldered Izuku out of his way, and when Izuku made an annoyed noise he stopped and spun to face him.

“Look nerd, It seems like you finally realized you’re not UA material, but don’t go thinking you can keep looking down on me because you’ve got a bunch of lame-ass quirks. Even if you did get into some other hero school, the best you’ll ever manage is being a side-kick to some busted D-lister.”

“When have I ever looked down on you?” Izuku demanded crossly, losing his temper. “What I don’t get is, why are you even trying for UA? If you want to be a hero, you actually have to care about people, right? I don’t think that’s something they teach there. I haven’t seen you care about anyone but yourself since we were kids. Good luck with that.”

He shoved past Kacchan, and ignored the angry shout for him to stop and the crackling sparks that Kacchan threw at his back as Izuku stormed out of the school.

Sure, Kacchan had an amazing quirk; Izuku had always known that, and even been envious of it in the past. He’d idolized the other boy and always complimented and encouraged him until they’d been separated by Kacchan’s temper and superiority complex. Izuku had no idea how Kacchan had ever gotten the idea that he was being looked down on in any way by Izuku. If it wasn’t so infuriating, it would be funny.

When the day came that Izuku was to meet the Board of Directors of UA, he was nervous and fidgety. Gran had pulled him aside the evening before and told him that he’d better not slack off.

“You remember everything you’ve worked for,” he told Izuku gruffly. “You give it everything you’ve got, no matter what they ask you to do. No one in their right mind would pass up a student that All Might had personally hand-picked and mentored, but that just means you have to shine brighter than anyone else.”

Izuku had swallowed hard and nodded, and Gran had grinned.

“No pressure, though,” the old man added with a laugh, slapping Izuku on the back affectionately.

He was ushered to a room with five other prospective students, all in different middle school uniforms. There was a taller girl with a large, spiky ponytail who looked nervous, yet poised. She wore a small, forced smile on her lips as she waited for everyone else. There was a really tall boy who Izuku found hard to believe was a middle schooler, who stood with a huge grin on his face, his hair clipped close to his head and he had sharp eyes. He was fidgety and seemed to be struggling not to talk to anyone and everyone in the room. Another boy, with bi colored hair (red on one half and white on the other) and eyes (gray and blue) and a large scar over his left eye stood with a stoic expression, but Izuku could see his jaw was clenched, betraying his nerves. A girl with shoulder length black hair and a pleasant smile stood near the girl with the ponytail, and Izuku noticed she was balanced on the balls of her feet, as if wanting to bounce in her excitement. Finally, there was the most interesting looking boy. He appeared to have no lips, and all of his teeth were on display, though it didn’t seem like he was smiling. It was hard to tell. Izuku couldn’t wait to find out what all of their quirks were!

He didn’t have long to wait. A small man (mouse/dog/bear?) with a scar crossing one eye, and wearing a suit stepped forward.

“Welcome to UA, recommend students! I am principal Nezu, and these ladies and gentlemen behind me are on the committee that will decide who will ultimately get the four available recommend seats in the heroics program.”

They all bowed to the collected adults in respect when Nezu introduced them. The boy with the short cropped hair had a strange bow that almost had his head smacking into the ground in his zeal.

“Each of you has excellent sponsors who have assured us that your skills are a head and shoulders above our other applicants. As such, they believe you are deserving of advanced placement in our program, and that you can maintain grades in the top five percent of your year in heroics.”

Izuku nodded, and noted that a couple of others did, too. The tallest boy, with the short cropped hair bit his lip, but didn’t demur at this statement. Izuku wondered if he had trouble in academics, or an unstable quirk, or something.

“We will begin with the written exam, which you will have two hours to complete, if needed,” Nezu told them cheerfully. “After which, there will be introductions, and the physical portion of the exam can begin.”

They were led to a large room with six desks, spaced widely apart. There were pencils and calculators provided, but were otherwise bare. They each took a seat at random, and waited while a thick stack of papers was placed in front of each of them, face down. Izuku was very careful not to touch any of the papers, even with his glove on (just in case) with all of his fingers when they were told to begin.

Izuku was grateful to Sir Nighteye for all of the tutoring he had received in the weeks leading up to the exam, and mock exams he had taken. He finished the test in just over an hour, and checked all of his answers before he turned his paper over as a signal that he was finished. He noted that the girl with the pony tail had finished before him, as had the boy with the exposed teeth. The boy with two different colored hair finished not long after Izuku did, followed by the other girl. The tall boy who had bowed weirdly earlier chewed on his thumbnail and seemed to be sweating a lot by the time he turned his test over, just minutes before time was up.

Once the papers were collected, the principal returned and congratulated them all on completing the first half of the exam. From there, he led them to the locker room, where they changed into gym clothes. The four boys were largely quiet as they changed, not having been introduced yet. The boy with bi-colored hair looked surly and unfriendly, and he was apparently not the only one to notice; the tall boy kept giving him sidelong glances, too. The boy with exposed teeth took a fortifying breath and nodded to himself as he shut his locker and turned to face the others.

“Let’s all do our best!” he said.

Izuku grinned and nodded.

“Yeah!” the tall boy added enthusiastically.

The remaining boy simply turned and left the locker room, leaving them to follow. They all eyed each other as if one of the others might know what his problem was, but they all just shrugged. People handled stress in different ways.

They were met outside the door by the two girls, the principal and the other committee members, and were led to a small arena with a track around it, and plenty of room for track and field type of activities.

“Now, for the introductions!” Principal Nezu said, once all six students were gathered around.

There was a sheaf of papers in his hand, and he called out a name.

“Tokage Setsuna!”

“Yes, sir!” the girl with shoulder length black hair said promptly, giving a quick bow.

“Your quirk is listed as Lizard Tail Splitter. Could you please tell us more about it?”

Izuku noted that the committee members all had clipboards that they would occasionally look at and write on, but their faces were inscrutable.

“Yes! I can split my body up into dozens of different pieces and control them all separately. If a piece is damaged or destroyed, it will regenerate, like a lizard’s tail, only much faster.”

“And why do you aspire to be a hero?” The principal asked serenely.

“I believe my quirk would be a great asset to rescue teams and covert operations, so it seemed only natural that getting my hero license would be the first step in making that happen.”

“Very nicely said,” Nezu said with a pleasant tone. “Next we have Yoarashi Inasa.”

“YES, SIR!”

It was the tall boy with the close cropped hair. Everything about him seemed huge, including his voice and personality. He bowed deeply again, this time scraping his head on the ground as he did so. Izuku fought the urge to giggle.

“Your quirk is called Whirlwind.”

“Yes!” His voice was loud and confident sounding. “I can control and manipulate the air around me over a very wide area! I can use my whirlwinds to move heavy objects, clear rubble and transport people without harming them! I can even move myself… with limited success. I want to be a hero because I have a passion for helping people and think that all good heroes need to be passionate about what they do!”

“Impressive,” Nezu said with the same tone as before.

Inasa looked as pleased as if Nezu had told him he’d won the lottery.

“Next is Todoroki Shouto,” Nezu called out.

“Here,” said the boy with the red and white hair.

Izuku couldn’t help but wonder if the boy had low blood pressure or something. He seemed overly calm, and his face held almost no expression as he raised a hand in acknowledgement of his name.

“Your quirk is Half-cold, Half-hot?”

“Yes, I produce Ice from my right side, and fire from my left side. I only use my left side to defrost or melt the ice I produce. I won’t use it in battle or heroics.”

Izuku blinked. The boy had two quirks, but only wanted to use one of them? Why? Maybe the side with fire was too weak to be of any other use? That’s not what he implied. How did he get two? It was fascinating, and he really wanted to question the other boy to learn more and take some notes!

“I see,” Nezu said, while committee members scribbled on their clipboards. “And why do you want to be a hero?”

The boy was silent for so long that Izuku wondered if he was going to answer.

“I want… I need to surpass my father and become the number one hero in Japan.”

Izuku wasn’t sure what that meant, but he knew that wasn’t really an answer, but a goal. He also knew he would be expected to answer the same question, and was formulating the answer in his mind, so he didn’t trip over his words.

“I see,” Nezu said again, noncommittally. “Our next applicant is Honenuki Juzo.”

“That’s me,” the boy with the exposed teeth volunteered, stepping forward and bowing.

“Your quirk is called, Softening?”

“Yes, sir! My quirk allows me to soften anything I touch! Anything non-living, that is...I can’t do it to people or animals. It’s most useful when I use it on the ground and turn it to something like quicksand, making my opponents sink in.”

“Very interesting,” Nezu commented without a change of expression.

How much expression could a mouse-bear-man have, Izuku wondered.

“I want to become a hero to help clean up the streets and keep villains from getting away when a crime is committed, keeping others safe. I also believe my quirk would be excellent for saving lives in disaster zones, making it easier to extract those stuck in places that are hard to reach.”

He stepped back and breathed a small sigh of relief that Izuku could empathize with. This was strangely nerve-wracking.

“Thank you,” Nezu said. “Next is Midoriya Izuku?”

Izuku stepped forward and bowed.

“I see your quirk will take a bit of explanation, but it’s called, Inheritance?”

“Yes, sir,” Izuku said, willing his voice not to shake. “My quirk is one of those invisible ones that you don’t really know about until something triggers it. In my case, someone else’s death in close proximity to my location triggers my own quirk, and I absorb - or inherit the quirk of that person when they die.”

He heard a couple of gasps from the other applicants behind him, and tried not to cringe. He knew how gruesome it sounded without further explanation.

“As a result, I have multiple other quirks,” he continued. “Though at least a couple of them were also forced on me by a villain when I was a young child.”

“I’ve read your file about this,” Nezu said. “You don’t have to explain that part at this time. Please tell us about the quirks you currently have.”

Izuku did. He began with Pull and listed them in the order he had received them, listing enhanced strength in place of One For All.

“Crap, dude! That’s crazy!” Yoarashi said excitedly before clapping a hand over his mouth and looking contrite.

Izuku grinned, feeling some of his nervousness ease.

“I know, right?” he acknowledged. “The enhanced strength one still gives me a little trouble and fades in and out. I’m working with a trainer on it, and hope that UA can help me learn to master it and use it heroically.”

“And why do you want to become a hero, Midoriya-kun?”

“To be honest, I’ve always been inspired by heroes for as long as I can remember. I’ve never wanted to be anything else. I idolized All Might growing up and admired how he could always keep a smile on his face and make people feel safe in the worst situations. All Might won’t be around forever, and when he finally steps down as the Symbol of Peace, good heroes will need to be there to fill the huge void he will leave behind. I don’t know if I could ever be a Symbol of Peace, but a Symbol of Hope wouldn't be so bad.”

Izuku bowed again and stepped backward with a murmur of thanks. He could feel the others staring at him, even as there was scribbling from all of the committee members. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

“Last, but certainly not least, Yaoyorozu Momo.”

The girl with the spiky ponytail stepped forward, and Izuku focused his attention on her, trying not to overthink what was being written down about him.

“Yes, sir. My quirk is called Creation. My Quirk gives me the ability to create any non-living material or object from my exposed skin by transforming the molecular structure of the lipids in my body. In order to create something, I have to understand the molecular structure of what the material or object is made of.”

Izuku stared. The sheer amount of studying and memorization that must go into a quirk like that was staggering, and he instantly admired her for the hard work she must have put into it. He was already hypothesizing in his head about the amount of food she would have to consume to be able to create anything of real size and whether she had a specialty.

“And what prompted you to try for the hero course?” Nezu asked her kindly.

“I wanted the challenge, and have the desire to help people with my quirk. People look at what I can do and assume that I’m only good for granting wishes, not realizing how many laws and rules exist to keep me from using my quirk that way. I would like to break that stereotype and use my quirk in a way that truly helps people and saves lives.”

“Excellent, all of you,” Nezu said when Yaoyorozu had stepped back.

The committee members nodded as they finished their notes.

“Next, we’ll have a practical demonstration of your abilities and general physical fitness.”

Somehow, Izuku sensed that the hardest part (for him, at least) was over.

Chapter 17

Summary:

The test for the Recommend students!

“Next, we’ll have a practical demonstration of your abilities and general physical fitness.”

Izuku wondered how much was riding on this particular aspect; they all had such amazing quirks, that there was no way for him to judge who would make the best impression on the committee.

The physical test began with a light run around the track, just two kilometers so they could warm up. They were asked not to use their quirks for this portion of the test, and so Izuku stretched and set his usual easy rhythm as if it were part of his daily run. As he rounded the first curve, he could see Yoarashi keeping pace with Todoroki, and was close enough to hear what they were saying.

“Wow! You’ve got an amazing quirk,” Yoarashi was saying to Todoroki.

His tone was friendly; even admiring, as he jogged next to the other boy. Todoroki didn’t answer, and kept his eyes forward. Izuku raised his eyebrows at the snub, but kept listening. He noticed that Honnenuki had jogged up beside him, and glanced over and nodded at the other boy with a smile. It was hard to tell if the other boy was smiling because he didn’t have lips, but he did wave.

“So, your father is Endeavor, right?” Yoarashi said to Todoroki, not giving up on making a friendly connection. “It must be great to have the number two hero in Japan to--”

“Don’t talk about my father. We’re nothing alike,” Todoroki snapped, finally showing some emotion.

Too bad that emotion was anger. Yoarashi looked surprised for a moment, and missed a step before catching up again.

“Didn’t mean to hit a sore spot,” he said apologetically.

“Look, I don’t know what your game is, but just stay out of my way,” Todoroki snapped, picking up his pace to leave Yoarashi behind.

“Hey, wasn’t that a little rude?” Izuku couldn’t help saying loudly to Todoroki’s back. “I know we’re competing, but there’s no reason we can’t be polite.”

“It’s fine,” Yoarashi said with gritted teeth as he fell back to run with the other two. “I really didn’t expect anything else from him. He’s his father’s son after all.”

“You know Endeavor?” Honenuki asked curiously.

“Not really. I used to idolize Endeavor, so I was super stoked when I met him once right after he beat a villain. He acted the same way as that one,” he said, and nodded toward Todoroki’s back.

“Hmmm.” Izuku said speculatively. “I’ve heard that Endeavor is as hot-headed as his quirk, but that guy uses ice.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Honenuki told them both. “Competition can sometimes bring out the worst in people.”

They finished their run, with the girls leading the way, and gathered around the principal once more. There was a rumbling under their feet, and Izuku prepared to levitate, if necessary, but it wasn’t a threat of any kind. Cement walls were rising up from the ground at regular intervals, the full length of the field, one row of walls per applicant. The walls were about two meters apart, and three meters tall, and Izuku counted eight of them in each row.

Izuku saw a hero he recognized erecting the walls, and had to concentrate on not getting distracted.

“Thanks to Cementos,” Nezu waved to a blocky figure at the far end of the field. “We can begin with our first demonstration. You’ll each begin in front of a row, and navigate your way to the end of the row as quickly as you can. You may not go around the sides of any of the obstacles, and you must at least touch each one as you pass it. The rest is up to you. You may use your quirks in any way you see fit.”

“How will we be graded?” Tokage asked, raising her hand in the air.

“Speed, inventiveness and mastery of your quirks,” Nezu supplied immediately. “Not necessarily in that order.”

They all nodded and took their places, waiting for their signal to start. Izuku already knew how he intended to tackle this task, but wished they were doing it one at a time so that he could observe the others in action. A whistle blew, and Izuku levitated to the top of the first wall, and jumped. He caught the top of the second wall under his gloved palms and launched his body forward, landing on the third wall on his feet, then jumped again, hand springing and flipping to the end. He landed on his feet in the grass on the other side of his row and looked to see who had beat him to the end of theirs. Yoarashi grinned at him and waved, and Tokage looked satisfied as she looked up at the back side of the final wall of her row. Izuku wasn’t sure which of them had beat the other, time-wise. Todoroki landed next, practically tied with Honenuki, who walked through his wall. Yaoyorozu wasn’t far behind, dropping to the ground shortly after.

“Well done, all of you!” Nezu congratulated, appearing in the smallest golf cart Izuku had ever seen.

A rumbling later, and the walls had receded into the ground. Instead, back where they had begun the race, there was a pile of what looked like four cannonballs in front of each of them.

“The next challenge will be to move those balls from that end of the field to this one as quickly as you can. You will start from here, race to the balls, and work from there. You may use your quirks in any way you see fit, the only rule is that they cross the line left behind by the final wall you just passed. Then you will end the race back here after they’ve all crossed the line.

The line was quite visible from the lack of grass in the space the wall had occupied.

“Any questions?” Nezu asked.

No one spoke up. They all took their places and waited for the whistle to sound. Izuku charged up One For All, feeling the green web of sparks tingling along his skin as he took a racing stance. At the whistle, he shot forward and stopped just in time, depending on his balance to keep him from tumbling over from the abruptness of it. He hefted one of the balls and wondered if it was made of the same stuff as Sir’s hyper density seals; it was Very Heavy. He picked up a second ball and held one under each arm as if they were playground balls, and sprinted back the way he’d come. He dropped them with a THUD! then ran back for the other two. He was finished in under a minute, but Yoarashi had still beaten his time. He had used strong, precise whirlwinds to pick up all four balls and transfer them all simultaneously at an insane speed. Izuku had actually cheered out loud for him when he saw it while he was sprinting with his first two.

From the finish line, Izuku could see Todoroki forcing his across the field using ice to make them slide.

Tokage had separated her hands from her arms and was sending them, carrying a ball between them, slowly. The problem was that the balls were so heavy, her hands struggled to keep them above the ground. Still, she was making progress, sending other body parts to help ease the burden.

Honenuki was having a bit of trouble, as softening the ground beneath the balls would just make them sink. It took him a short while to soften the balls themselves and break them up into smaller, more easily movable pieces. He would still have to transport them all, but it would be easier, at least.

Yaoyorozu had lifted the hem of her shirt and produced a sort of catapult, but wasn’t able to lift any of the balls onto due to their weight. She thought about it for a moment, and turned to Honenuki. Izuku watched as they had a conversation, then Honenuki moved to turn Yaoyorozu’s cannonballs into smaller pieces, while she began to launch his pile across the finish line. Once he was finished breaking down the balls, they worked together to launch her pile. They finished at nearly the same time as Tokage, looking very pleased with themselves.

“Inventiveness and cooperation are essential tools in hero work; just as important as strength or quirks,” Nezu told them when they were all finished. “Well done to all of you.”

There were two more exercises as individuals. One that dealt with getting across a huge pit without touching the bottom in any way, and another that tested their skills at devising a way to climb to the top of a very tall pillar (courtesy of Cementos, again.)

Once they had all gathered together once more, there was a team exercise where they had to all work together. The game was called Human Knot, they all stood in a small circle and followed Nezu’s instructions to put their right arm into the center, and grab the hand of one of the other player's hands not immediately beside them. Then they did the same with their left arm. Once they were all holding hands, the object was to untangle themselves until they were standing in a circle with their hands still joined. They were not allowed to let go of each at any point.

Izuku was certain that he was holding Yaoyorozu’s hand in his left, and judging by the temperature, Todoroki’s hand in his right. They had only been connected for a few seconds when Yaoyorozu looked up at Todoroki.

“I would appreciate it if you kept your comments to yourself. We’re all taking this seriously. If you don’t want to participate, then feel free to withdraw your application!”

Izuku stared at Yaoyorozu in surprise, and he noticed that he wasn’t the only one. Todoroki looked stunned, and the others looked curious.

“What are you talking about?” Todoroki demanded.

“You just said this was stupid and a waste of time!” Yaoyorozu accused.

“No he didn’t,” Izuku said in confusion. “He didn’t say anything!”

“I am not crazy!” she said to Todoroki, looking scandalized. “How dare you!”

Everyone was looking at Yaoyorozu uneasily, now.

“Is there a problem?” Nezu interrupted when none of them moved to try to untangle the knot their arms made.

“Something strange is going on,” Todoroki said at once. “She’s listening to my thoughts!”

“That’s not possible,” Nezu said, sounding interested. “None of you are telepathic… that we know of…”

His eyes shifted to Izuku.

“It’s not me!” Izuku said defensively.

“I’m hearing her thoughts, too.” Todoroki said, a slight blush dusting his cheeks. “What’s going on?”

“Whose hands are you holding?” Nezu asked Todoroki.

“I’ve got his left hand,” Izuku said. “I think so, anyway. It’s hotter than a normal hand would be.”

“I’ve got his right,” Tokage volunteered. “It’s cold.”

“I’ll squeeze the hands of the people I’m holding onto,” Yaoyorozu said. “That should be the fastest way to find out.”

Izuku felt her squeeze and nodded. “That’s mine.”

“And mine.” Honenuki said.

“Most interesting,” Nezu said. “Let’s experiment, shall we? Everyone let go of each other’s hands for now.”

Everyone unlinked and stood looking at each other in confusion.

“Midoriya-kun, please take one of Tokage’s hands,” Nezu directed.

Izuku moved over to where Tokage was looking at him warily, and held out a hand to her. She took it after a moment and then looked at Nezu.

“Very good. Now, Tokage, I’d like you to sing a simple song in your mind. Something anyone can recognize, and keep doing it until I say to stop.”

Tokage thought for a moment, then nodded and closed her eyes. Izuku assumed she had started the silent song.

“Yaoyorozu, would you please take Midoriya’s other hand?”

She did, and gasped almost immediately. “Sakura, sakura!”

Tokage opened her eyes and nodded warily.

“Fascinating!” Nezu announced. “Both of you can let go. Midoriya-kun please take Honenuki’s hand.”

Izuku did as he was instructed. Honenuki sang a simple song in his head this time, and Yoarashi was asked to take Honenuki’s hand. When he did, he couldn’t tell what song the other boy was thinking about, but when Nezu told him to hold Izuku’s other hand, he quickly named the song.

“What does this mean?” Yaoyorozu asked.

Izuku deflated, dropping the hands in his and shaking his head in resignation.

“That’s number 13, isn’t it?” he said glumly.

“That seems to be the case,” Nezu said, sounding cheerful. “You had no idea you could do this before now?”

Izuku shook his head.

“No, sir. I don’t really… hold people’s hands, ever.”

Izuku couldn’t remember the last time he had held two people’s hands at once. In grade school P.E. when he was very young? How long had he even had this quirk? It could be years!

“Fascinating! Fascinating!” Nezu repeated, bouncing on his feet.

Everyone was looking at them both strangely, and Yaoyorozu finally broke the silence.

“Did Midoriya-kun just… manifest a new quirk?”

“So it seems!” Nezu confirmed.

“Looks like it,” Izuku answered at the same time, with less enthusiasm.

“Does that mean someone…” she ventured uneasily.

“Probably not,” Izuku said. “Not recently, anyway. I probably got this one a while ago and just never met the requirements to make it work.”

“I will conduct some research to be sure, but Midoriya-kun is likely correct. He probably attained this quirk without realizing it, sometime in the past.” Nezu agreed.

“What about the Human Knot?” Yoarashi asked.

“We’ll forego that exercise for now,” Nezu told them easily. “That was more of an ice breaker than part of the actual exam. The final part of today is individual interviews with the committee members. If you’ll follow me back inside, you can get changed and you will each be called in turn. Once your interview is complete, you are free to leave, and you can each expect your results in one week.”

Once they were in the locker room, Yoarashi practically exploded with excitement.

“Dude! That was insane! You’re like… like… a human telephone line right into people’s brains! Could you hear any of it?”

“No,” Izuku said, trying to be patient, even though he felt like punching a wall. “I had no idea what was going on until Principal Nezu figured it out.”

“You don’t sound stoked!” Yoarashi observed, sounding hyper.

“I’m not, really. What use is a quirk like that?” Izuku asked.

“Hmmmm. You do have a point,” the other boy admitted. “I’m sure there’s something cool about it, though! You just have to find it!”

“I like your optimism,” Izuku told him with a small but genuine smile. “But some of my quirks are just kind of dumb.”

“I wanna see you pet Nezu!” Yoarashi said with an impish grin. “Just two fingers down the middle of his head, and he could have a mohawk!”

Izuku grinned and Honenuki snorted out a laugh.

“I don’t think that would be the best way to get on the principal’s good side,” Honenuki said, closing his locker and shouldering his bag.

“Probably not, but it would be really funny!” Yoarashi insisted.

Izuku startled when one of the lockers behind them slammed with more force than necessary. They all turned their heads to see Todoroki snatch his bag and leave the room without a word or glance at any of them.

Yoarashi scowled.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Izuku advised. “This is a lot of pressure, and if his dad’s the number two, what do you think will happen if he bombs this test? That’s gotta be hard.”

Yoarashi shook his head.

“I dunno, man. He just rubs me the wrong way. How’s someone that unfriendly ever gonna be a hero?”

“There are plenty of unfriendly heroes,” Izuku said, thinking back to his notebooks full of observations. “They usually don’t get ranked very high, but it’s possible. Look at his father, for instance.”

“We should go,” Honenuki said, motioning to the door.

The three of them made sure they had all of their belongings and went to join the others.

They were back in the room where they started earlier in the day. There were chairs against the wall, a small table with a chess board set up, and a stack of magazines. It seemed like almost any waiting room anywhere. Tokage was already missing, and so Izuku surmised that she had been called for her interview first. Todoroki was sitting in a chair against the wall, and Yaoyorozu was talking to him, though he didn’t look overly receptive. Juzo looked at the chess set and raised an eyebrow at Izuku and Yoarashi in question.

“I’m not great at chess,” Yoarashi said, holding up his hands to demur.

“I’ll play,” Izuku said. “I’m not that good, but I do like the game.”

They took seats opposite each other, and Yoarashi stood beside the table to watch. A few minutes later, Yaoyorozu joined the audience and watched as Izuku got trounced. Todoroki got called in next, and a short time later, Yoarashi was summoned.

“Good luck! I hope we’re in the same class in April!” Izuku said to the taller boy.

Yoarshi waved and entered the side room where the committee waited.

The chess game ended spectacularly badly for Izuku, and he bowed out and turned over his seat to Yaoyorozu. If she was as intelligent as Izuku suspected she was, she was a much better match for Honenuki. It seemed that their opening moves had just been made when the door opened once more and Izuku was called for his own interview.

“It was nice to meet you both,” he told them with a smile. “Hopefully, I’ll see you in April!”

They both wished him luck and he entered the room where the others had gone when they’d been called. There was a long table with four committee members and the principal sitting facing an armchair, where they indicated Izuku should sit.

“You can relax, young man,” a woman in a pinstripe suit told him with a small smile. “This is somewhat informal. We just want to get a feel for your personality and how we feel you’ll fit in here at UA. There are two heroics classes in each year: Class A and Class B. We try to choose applicants for each that will best fit in with the teachers we have in place and can act as examples of what we expect from the other students.”

“We have a very difficult decision to make this week,” added a man in a (strangely) purple business suit. “We’ve seen very impressive performances from each of you.”

The other two committee members smiled and nodded in agreement.

“If you would, Midoriya-kun, please tell us a bit about yourself, and what you hope to get out of the heroics course, should you be admitted,” Nezu said, his paws resting on the table in front of him.

Izuku wasn’t sure exactly what to say; Sir hadn’t prepared him to make any kind of impromptu speech, and everything he thought they needed to know should be in his file.

“To start with, I guess I would say that I’ve never really felt like a normal kid. I found out I got a quirk, because my mother died protecting me in a train wreck caused by a villain. I inherited her quirk, and we just thought I’d gotten a quirk just like hers, but it turned out to actually be hers.”

He wiped sweaty hands on his pant legs before he could stop himself.

“People treat you differently when your mom dies. Since then, I’ve kept getting quirks, and my life was just kind of… different from other kids, I guess? A villain found out about my quirks from my doctor, and he blackmailed a very nice woman to become my babysitter, and used her to get his hands on me, because he was interested in using my quirk in some way. My babysitter confessed, and she and her family had to be relocated, and so did me and my dad. Since then, I’ve been working hard to do whatever I can to get into UA, so I can become a hero and keep that sort of thing from happening to other people. Kids should be able to have a normal life, you know? That’s what I want, most.”

“Very well said, young man,” one of the other men said with a firm nod.

“I must say, I was very interested when I read about your quirk. I thought of how easy it would be for you to gather new quirks for your personal use by simply visiting hospitals, but there’s no evidence that you’ve ever considered doing so. Why is that?” the woman in the pinstripe suit asked. “It’s not as though the quirks would be missed.”

Izuku wondered if this was some kind of trick question, but answered honestly.

“Because it would be wrong,” he said. “I can’t control it when I inherit a quirk, and I feel like it would be wrong to circle like a vulture because someone with a powerful or really cool quirk is about to die. It’s disrespectful. I’ve been learning about ethics, and I think that if I had knowledge beforehand about someone like that dying, it would be my responsibility to… ask permission, I guess? But it seems kind of wrong to go looking for power like that. I’m thankful for what I have, but I don’t ever go looking for more. I avoid hospitals as much as I can, too. I don’t know if there’s a limit to how many quirks I can inherit, or if my body can handle having many more. So far I’ve been lucky, but that doesn’t mean I will always be.”

All of the committee members nodded along with what he was saying but remained noncommittal.

“Thank you, Midoriya-kun. You can expect to receive your result by mail in one week.”

Izuku stood, bowed to the committee, thanked them, and exited through a different door than the one he’d entered through.

He wasn’t sure what to think.

The night of the recommendation exam, Izuku made a large pot of curry. It was something of a comfort food, and when his dad came home, he ladled out two huge servings. They sat at the table, and before his father could even ask how his day was, Izuku spoke.

“So I have another quirk that I didn’t know about.”

His father paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth and stared.

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Izuku told him all about it, from the beginning of the exam to the end. He’d already called and talked to All Might and Sir about it, and his father said that same thing they had.

“Huh.”

Izuku rolled his eyes.

“How do I know where it came from?” Izuku asked in a voice that was as close to whine as he ever got. “How do I know that evil bastard didn’t force it on me during one of those creepy ‘field trips’ where he did who-knows-what to me?”

“You don’t,” his father said simply. “But it doesn’t really matter, now that he’s gone, does it? You might have had this quirk for years without knowing it; there’s no point in getting upset about it, now.”

“I guess. It’s just… embarrassing, you know? I was there with five other kids with amazing quirks and mind-blowing control over them, and suddenly I’m showing a brand new one I didn’t even know I had?” Izuku vented tiredly. “I was supposed to be making a good impression on everyone.”

“It sounds to me like you did,” his father said seriously. “Aside from that little hiccup, it sounds like you handled everything really well.”

“I did okay,” Izuku admitted. “But the others were so amazing! Endeavor’s son was one of the kids! I didn’t even know he had a son!”

“And you call yourself a hero fanboy,” his father teased good-naturedly.

“Ugh,” Izuku answered, stuffing curry into his mouth.

He’d been so busy explaining everything, that his father was almost done with his food, and Izuku was only about half way finished with his own meal.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” his father advised. “I don’t know about those other kids, but I’ve seen what you can do, and I know you’re also pretty amazing. You’ll find out in a week what the committee thought.”

Izuku barely had time to think about it as the week went by very quickly. Their teachers were busy cramming their brains with everything they needed to know for the upcoming final exams on top of students also taking entrance exams for High School, if they weren’t attending the one connected with their middle school. After school, Izuku was continuing his work at the beach, and also being supervised at Might Tower by both All Might and Sir Nighteye in various aspects of training. All Might was still convinced that the secret to perfecting his grip on One For All was to continue accelerating his weight training.

Sir Nighteye still gave him assignments that focused on ethics or hypothetical scenarios for them to discuss when there was time, but he’d taken on a new project. Sidekicks. There were two freshly graduated heroes that Sir had been keeping an eye on, and he felt that now was the time to bring them on board and train them up under the agency’s umbrella. Once he deemed them properly prepared, they could possibly become heroes with the Might Agency, thus keeping it going, even as All Might himself was stepping down.

Izuku met them one day on the lower floors of Might Tower, introduced as a junior intern and UA hopeful.

Centipeder was, well, pretty much a centipede; at least his head and neck. Izuku was fascinated by his quirk, which gave the man insectile limbs that he could coil around a suspect to detain them. From the neck down, he appeared to be a completely normal man. He was friendly and polite, and Izuku liked him immediately. He hoped he’d get to question him more for his notebook, later.

Bubble Girl was completely different. Her skin was a shade of light blue, and her hair was a deeper shade of the same color. Izuku felt his cheeks heat up when he noticed that her midriff was completely bare, and the underside of her breasts were completely exposed. The white shorts she wore over dark tights didn’t seem to have a button or zipper, and hung open and looked like they were suggesting… his face got even hotter when he couldn’t figure out where to look without feeling perverted.

Sir Nighteye seemed amused by this, turning a laugh into a cough as Bubble Girl explained that her quirk allowed her to form bubbles filled with any scent she has smelled before.

“It’s great for causing distractions!” she said enthusiastically, seemingly unaware of Izuku’s discomfort (or kind enough not to mention it). “I can send in a bubble that smells like smoke and make people think there’s a fire; things like that.”

“Ah! Distractions! Yeah!” he managed to stammer out.

Normally, Izuku would have been eager to discuss it, but at the moment he was studying her boots.

Sir finally took pity on him and let him off the hook, telling him that it was possible that the mail would bring his exam results today. Izuku lit up and grinned, waving goodbye before practically sprinting for the elevator. He was lucky enough to catch the train just before it was about to pull out of the station, and bounced on the balls of his feet the entire way.

He ran from the station all the way to his apartment building, fumbling with the keys to the mailbox, only to droop when he found it empty.

“Well, crap,” he muttered.

He opened the door for the stairwell and jogged up to the fifteenth floor, and let himself into the apartment.

“Welcome home!” his father called from the kitchen.

“Dad? What are you doing home?”

“I had a meeting this evening, but the person I was supposed to meet came down with the flu,” his dad explained. “So I stopped at that place you like near my office and got a ton of gyoza and stir fried veggies for dinner.”

That was nice news, anyway.

“Let me put my stuff away and wash my hands,” Izuku said, turning toward his room.

“Don’t you want this, first?” his father called after him.

Izuku paused to look back, and saw his father holding up an envelope with the UA logo on the front. He dropped his bag in the middle of the hall and ran back.

“It came!”

“Open it!” his dad urged with a grin.

Izuku’s hands were slightly shaky as he took the somewhat heavy envelope and tore it open. A thick stack of papers slid out, along with a metal disk about the size of his palm. He set it on the table, intending to read the papers, when a hologram activated above the disk, and an image of the mammalian principal appeared.

“Greetings, Midoriya Izuku!”

“What the…” his father asked quietly.

Izuku shushed him and flapped a hand at him for good measure.

“It is I, the lovable Principal Nezu of UA High School! I would like to start by saying that the committee was very impressed with your abilities, and even more by your well-thought-out answers to our questions. We feel you embody the qualities we encourage and nurture here at UA and would like to offer you one of the recommendation spots in the heroics course in Class 1-A. If you choose to accept this offer, please inform us by filling out the enclosed forms and returning them to us within the next three days. Congratulations, and we look forward to seeing what you accomplish with us in the coming three years!”

“YES!” Izuku said at the same time as his father, and they grinned at each other before his father pulled him into a tight hug.

“I’m so proud of you, Zu. Your mom would be thrilled, too. I just know it.”

Izuku felt a lump in his throat at the words and squeezed his father a little tighter before letting go.

“Thanks, dad.”

This calls for a celebration! Let’s eat!

Izuku and his father demolished the food while talking animatedly about his acceptance and what a huge relief and achievement it was.

“I’ll take care of the dishes so that you can start filling out those forms! You don’t want to lose that spot now that you’ve won it!”

Izuku took the papers carefully, not wanting his copy quirk to ruin the papers. He stopped to pick up his bag and closed himself in his room. His heart was still beating wildly and the smile on his face felt like it might be stuck there for a while.

“I need to call All Might and Sir!” he said suddenly, patting his pockets for his phone.

That night, he went to sleep with a lighter heart and a smile on his face.

Notes:

Okay guys, first of all - I LOVE YOU! Thank you so much for all of your comments and (very polite) criticisms that help me write a better story! You're all amazing.

Now, I work at a school, and this week and next week most students are working remotely because of the Christmas break and probable exposure to others so many have had. The district is being cautious and basically making them all quarantine for two weeks, just in case. I have been working at the school, supervising the kids in their 'remote' studies on-site (some don't have access to internet or parental supervision as it is a high poverty area). That means that I have been getting a TON of time write this week! Hooray! I've JUST started writing chapter 35, if you can believe it! I like to stay a few chapters ahead, in case I need to go back and change any details or add something I forgot that ends up being important later. But... wow. I'm pretty far ahead.

That being said, I wanted to give you all fair warning...I'm not going to be using "Deku" as Izuku's hero name (at least not at first, if at all). I have given him a completely different one to reflect his changed upbringing and such, and I hope you all will like it - but it still might be a temporary one. I haven't decided. It's still quite a few chapters away.

Anyway, I hope that doesn't ruin it for anyone. I honestly hate Bakugou's new hero name in the manga, and may not use that one either. I have some ideas for his, but I'll leave that for later. Please keep enjoying the story, and letting me know what you think!

Chapter 18

Summary:

Izuku's got some time on his hands before the new school year at UA begins.

Izuku’s father filled out all of the forms he could relating to personal information and permissions from UA. All Might and Sir Nighteye helped Izuku complete the remaining parts of his acceptance forms, explaining about the costume allowance, what he was and wasn’t allowed to request, and debating over design. They had to take all of the quirks he had that were useful for hero work into account to be sure it was as useful as it could be within the constraints of his budget.

Izuku had drawn a basic outline of what he thought he’d like it to look like, and Gran was there to put his opinion in (mostly saying how cool capes looked while the others rolled their eyes). By the time they were through, Izuku didn’t know exactly what his costume would end up looking like, but it seemed like it would be as functional as they could possibly make it, keeping his quirks in mind (especially since his teflon quirk would require him to wear gloves all the time during heroics).

Sir Nighteye said he would personally see that the forms were returned to the school by the end of the day. The three days they’d given him were because they needed to know for sure who would be taking the recommended spots before the main entrance exam. That reminded Izuku that Kacchan would be facing his own test the next day. He didn’t examine his own feelings about that too closely...because a part of him hoped that Kacchan wouldn’t be a part of his high school experience. He didn’t wish Kacchan ill, but also didn’t particularly want to see him again.

His hopes for that were crushed about a week later, when Kacchan swaggered into the classroom with a cocky grin on his face. Izuku knew before his friends asked about it, that the explosive blonde had made it into UA. He had known it was a probability, since Kacchan got really high marks in everything, and had a powerful quirk. Even Izuku would admit that all of Kacchan’s bragging wasn’t just talk; he had the skills to back it up.

“What about you, nerd?” Kacchan asked him, kicking the back of Izuku’s chair. “Did you get into whatever loser school you applied to?”

His friends laughed stupidly at his insult, but Izuku smiled.

“I got exactly the placement I wanted,” he said pleasantly. “I’m sure I’ll be really happy there.”

“So where--” Kacchan began to ask, but was interrupted by the final bell, and the teacher’s arrival.

After that, it was all exams and studying for the next exams, and Izuku didn’t need to talk to Kacchan again. Maybe he would get lucky, and they’d be in different classes at UA. If Kacchan was in 1-B, they might not interact all that much.

Before they knew it, the school year was over. Izuku had been vague when classmates had questioned him about what high school he would be attending, and managed to give non-answers that the others let slide, or didn’t care enough about to press the issue. He hadn’t made any close connections with anyone, mindful of the dangers that could represent, so he didn’t have to worry about keeping in touch with anyone after graduation.

In the two weeks before UA classes began, Izuku was at a loose end. All Might and Sir Nighteye had insisted that he take the time off from formal training to relax and have some personal time before the grind of high school began. He wasn’t to show up at Might Tower to train or anything else unless there was an emergency.

Izuku wasn’t sure what to do with his time. He could still go for his daily run and general exercise routine. He would check on the beach, but the shopping district association had banded together to bring the area ‘back to life.’ Now that people had started to visit the beach again, they had formed a committee to keep it clean and had police patrolling to catch illegal dumping in action.

Izuku wasn’t sure he’d ever been bored, before; not recently.

“I’m going to need to travel to Taiwan the day after tomorrow,” his father told him when Izuku explained his problem over dinner the first day after graduation. “It’ll be for eight days. Do you want to go?”

“I didn’t really have that great a time the last couple of times,” Izuku said doubtfully.

“You couldn’t speak the language back then,” his father reminded him. “It could be a good opportunity to practice with your polyglot quirk.”

Izuku hadn’t thought of it that way. It might be interesting. Almost like training.

“Would I have to have a babysitter?” he asked thoughtfully.

“I don’t think so,” his father answered, considering the idea. “I think you’re smart enough to stay in safer areas, and away from hospitals and things like that. You’re a teenager, now. As long as you check in frequently, I don’t see a problem with it.”

That was how Izuku ended up getting to spend a week in Taiwan. He spent time in night markets where he chatted with strangers about various foods. He rode in a glass bottomed gondola up a mountain where he had fun hiking with some tourists from Germany that were amazed by his perfect German. There were gorgeous temples, interesting tea houses, world-class museums, and of course, heroes. All Might was popular here (and Izuku snagged some merch that may or may not be officially licensed), but so were Atomonoose, Avenganna, and Microbe, who were all famous in Taiwan for their many heroic acts.

Izuku spent each day from dawn until late into the night exploring and meeting people from all sorts of different cultures and countries, never having any trouble communicating at all. It was very… freeing. His father was even kind enough to give him a generous ‘good kid bonus’ of spending money for his adventures, and didn’t mention it when Izuku was forced to purchase another suitcase for the trip home because of all of the souvenirs he’d bought.

Once home, Izuku slept for twelve hours straight, then woke with some kind of virus. He knew it was common to get sick when visiting other countries (or riding in a plane, for that matter), but was still surprised. He didn’t get sick often, and his throbbing head and congested chest were not welcome, especially with less than a week before starting at UA. His father had gone out to get him some medicine before going to work, and Izuku stayed curled up on his couch watching reruns with sports drinks and a box of tissues nearby. He wondered if this is what it felt like to feel like a normal kid. Did All Might ever get sick? Was there some kind of quirk out there that was just good health? How would they know if they had it?

Recognizing that his thoughts were getting strange, he finally took some medicine and slept for the rest of the day. He didn’t wake until his father came home and brought him some soup and checked his temperature. It was saying something about how crummy he felt, that he ate his soup and went to bed and was able to sleep through the night, even after sleeping for a large portion of the day. He moved to the couch again the next day and was surprised when the door buzzer sounded. Izuku got up and checked the camera to see a man with...short tentacles in place of his nose. He was wearing a cap and a jacket for a restaurant and held up a bag to show when Izuku asked why he was there through the speaker.

“Food delivery for Midoriya Izuku,” he claimed.

“I didn’t order anything,” he said with a frown.

“The order says ‘Midoriya Hisashi’ on it,” the man said.

“Oh.”

It was possible that his worried father had thought to send him something to eat because Izuku was sick. More likely he’d have his assistant do it, though.

“You can leave it at the security desk in the lobby,” he told the man, pulling his cell phone from the couch to his hand and beginning to text his father.

“I’m not supposed to leave it anywhere but with the person on the form,” the man said plaintively. “I could lose my job.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “What restaurant did you say you were from?”

Izuku got a reply from his father and frowned. Then he hit the red button on the security phone.

“Look kid, I’ve got other deliveries to make…”

The man looked to his left, then dropped the bag was holding and disappeared from the screen’s view. Izuku watched as a security guard came into sight, speaking into a cell phone.

Izuku answered the phone when it rang and confirmed that the ‘visitor’ had been suspicious. Once he was done with that, he texted his father back and then texted All Might and Sir. His phone rang a moment later and he ended up explaining the situation to his father. Then as soon as he hung up, he got another call and had to explain it to Sir.

Security contacted Izuku’s dad to let them know that the ‘suspicious character’ had disappeared, but that the supposed food delivery bag had just been stuffed with crumpled newspaper. Someone was up to no good.

Within an hour, Sir Nighteye, Bubble Girl and a young man that they introduced as ‘Rapidfire’ showed up to view the security footage and check on Izuku. Sir insisted that he would be having sidekicks monitoring the building closely for the next few days until the start of school. They would also be double checking the security of the building and looking for possible entry points other than the front door and correcting any weak points.

“Besides Shigaraki Tomura and that Kurogiri guy, who would want to get to me?” Izuku asked.

“We can’t rule out that that isn’t precisely who is behind this,” Sir told him seriously.

“But they have a guy who can teleport,” Izuku pointed out, sounding strange because of the congestion. “Wouldn’t they just open up a portal and snatch me that way?”

“That's making a lot of baseless assumptions about Kurogiri,” Sir scolded. “We don’t know if he can open a portal to a place he’s never been, or if there’s a limit to how far away he can do it from, or if he’s still even keeping company with Shigaraki Tomura now that All For One is out of the picture.”

Izuku nodded in understanding. He also knew he was being scolded for not realizing those things for himself, after all of the studying and hypotheticals they had done.

Sir looked at Izuku for a few moments, then placed his hand against Izuku’s forehead.

“You’ve got a fever,” he announced. “That’s probably why you’re not thinking as clearly as you should be. How long have you been ill?”

“Since I got back from Taiwan,” Izuku said, feeling tired.

“I see. You need medicine and rest,” he pronounced. “We’ll be looking into this matter, so there’s no need for you to do anything but sleep once you’ve taken something for the fever.”

Izuku nodded, knowing he was in good hands. Hands he trusted.

It wouldn’t stop him from thinking about why someone had tried to gain access to him, and if it had something to do with him starting school soon. He was still chasing the little information he had around in his head, even as the medicine he’d taken dragged him down into sleep.

The disturbing dreams woke him. Or maybe it was the sound of his father rushing in. He had vague images of needles, and weird shapes in huge vats of murky liquid, and voices telling him to be calm. It faded as he woke to find his father leaning over the back of the couch, checking Izuku’s temperature with the back of his hand.

“Sorry to wake you. I got home as soon as I could,” his father told him quietly.

“You didn’t have to rush,” Izuku said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. He glanced at the time and saw it had only been a couple of hours since the ‘delivery man’ had tried to gain entry. He didn’t feel feverish at the moment, and his congestion had eased; probably due to the medicine he had taken.

“Don’t be silly! Of course I’d come home after someone tried to get my son!” his dad said, sounding vaguely insulted.

“That’s not what I meant,” Izuku said, still groggy. “Sorry.”

His dad sighed and ran his fingers through messy curls that looked like they’d been raked with fingers multiple times already.

“Let me get you some tea,” his dad finally said. “Do you think you could eat something?”

“Tea would be good,” Izuku said.

He did not want anything his father might attempt to make, food-wise.

He went to the table and sat, feeling a little fuzzy and disconnected as he swam up out of the haze of sleep and cold medicine. His father set a steaming cup in front of him a couple of minutes later and took a seat across from him.

“I talked with Sir Nighteye, and we might have a bigger problem than we thought,” his dad said quietly.

“I was trying to think about it,” Izuku said. “It seemed like they knew I was sick, maybe? Why else would they say that food was being delivered? It didn’t make sense, because you would have had your assistant do it for you, right?”

“Yes, I usually trust her to handle things like that,” he agreed.

“You were the only one who knew I was sick.” Izuku continued. “I didn’t even tell All Might or Sir.”

“I mentioned it to my assistant when I had her cancel a drinking party I was supposed to go to,” his father said.

“Is she… a spy? Has she been a spy all along?” Izuku felt as if an elephant was sitting on his chest at the thought.

“No!” his father was quick to assure him. “But she did start dating someone new, and mentioned to them that the reason she was off work early was because I left early because my son was sick. She said she’d started seeing him because she liked ‘the bad boy’ type.”

“So he really was bad,” Izuku surmised.

“It seems that way. Sir Nighteye said he’d be doing a thorough investigation into the man, though it’s not the same man that showed up here today, unless it was a really good disguise.”

“You think her boyfriend was dating her so he could try to get information about us?” Izuku asked for clarification.

His dad nodded.

“Shit.”

Izuku didn’t know if he had ever sworn in front of his dad before, but his dad didn’t scold him for it. Instead he sighed and nodded in agreement.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“It’s been years since All Might fought All For One,” Izuku complained. “If it’s Shigaraki Tomura behind this, why now?”

“And if he isn’t behind it, then who is?” his dad asked, finishing the thought.

Izuku went to bed after finishing his tea and felt a bit better when he woke up. Good enough to make breakfast and see his father off to work. He wasn’t allowed to go for his usual run, so settled for doing basic calisthenics in the living room. He played some music as loudly as he could could without the neighbor’s complaining, and sang along loudly until he was too out of breath to do so. He definitely had not been blessed with a singing quirk.

After push ups, sit ups, jump squats, burpees, dead lifts and crunches, he walked around the apartment and over the furniture on his hands. When he got bored, he added his levitation into the mix to repeat the circuit on the ceiling. He dropped into a split and enjoyed the mild burn in his muscles as they stretched, then rolled his hips so he was in a straddle position, going through several yoga poses until he felt nice and loose. He finally finished with cooling down exercises and went to bathe.

He felt loads better once he was clean and felt he’d moved around enough, despite his confinement. Even if he hadn’t been sick, he was sure he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the apartment until Sir and the others had dug something up on the people who had targeted him.

Realizing that it was still only just after lunchtime, he sighed and made a simple meal for himself. With not much else to do after that, he spent the rest of the afternoon playing online games. Once he figured out that he could play on almost any server with any language, it was a lot more fun than he expected.

At the end of the day, his father came home to a more elaborate meal than usual, since Izuku had plenty of time on his hands to be creative. As they ate, his father casually dropped a bomb into the conversation.

“So… Do you usually walk around the house upside down or was today… special?”

Izuku stopped mid-chew and stared at his father, who was obviously trying to hold in laughter.

“How do you know…”

“You must have really been out of it yesterday. Sir installed a camera on the bookcase that allows the apartment to be monitored in real time.”

“You were watching me?” Izuku asked, running the day through his mind to examine how embarrassing he’d be acting.

“Just every once in a while, to make sure you were okay. It just caught my attention when you were moving across the back of the couch on your hands. I don’t think I was prepared to see you using your quirks that way.”

“I was bored,” Izuku said in his defense.

His father finally gave way to laughter and shook his head.

“To be honest, I’m just amazed at how flexible you are!”

“”Wait,” Izuku said, “Who else has been watching me?”

“Whoever is on duty for it,” his dad answered. “Someone at the Might Agency; Sir said it was mostly going to be sidekicks doing the monitoring.”

Izuku’s cheeks heated, hoping he hadn’t done anything too humiliating in his boredom induced wandering around his own home.

“They don’t have cameras anywhere else, do they?” Izuku asked suspiciously.

“No,” his father assured him with a chuckle. “Just the living room, because there’s a window to the outside in that room, and the front entrance can be seen from there.”

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief that only amused his father even more.

“So what am I going to do when school starts?” Izuku asked (to move past the subject of his embarrassing antics). “Will I be allowed to take the train to school and back if there’s someone out to get me?”

“I’ll be driving you each day on my way to work for the foreseeable future,” his dad said ruefully. “If I can’t do it, someone from the Might Agency will pick you up.”

His father had obviously discussed things with All Might and Sir, and they were taking things into consideration that Izuku hadn’t been clearheaded enough to think of before.

“We’ll keep you safe, Zu. I know you can protect yourself, but we don’t want you to have to. Just remember that you are allowed to use your quirks in self-defense. If someone tries to hurt or grab you, do what you have to do.”

Izuku nodded. He was more worried about what they might do to his father to get to him; it’s how they’d gotten to Granny Ito, after all. What could he be forced to do, if it meant keeping his father safe?

Chapter 19

Summary:

Izuku's first day at UA has arrived!

Notes:

**Shoves another chapter at readers**

I've been a writing fiend lately, so I don't really feel like I have to hold onto the ones I feel pretty secure about right now. Enjoy!

Izuku was feeling completely better on the first day of school, without a sniffle or cough to betray the fact that he’d been sick just the week before. He donned his new school uniform with pride and ate a good breakfast while he waited for his dad to be ready to go. When his dad took a seat at the table and quickly bit into his fried egg on toast, he almost spat it back out when he caught sight of his son.

“Zu… where did you learn to tie a tie?”

“Nowhere. That’s why it looks this way,” Izuku told him with a grin.

His dad sighed and shook his head. “I’ll show you how to do it properly before we leave.”

Izuku was not good at the tie thing. He always misjudged how much tail to leave, and it ended up being too long or short. Finally, his dad just did it for him so they wouldn’t be late. Dropping Izuku off at school was going to make Izuku just a little early for class, so his dad wouldn’t be late for the office.

Izuku hopped out of the car at the curb quickly so they wouldn’t hold up traffic, but his father had been sure to snap a picture of him through the window before he drove away.

“I’m proud of you!” His father had called as he pulled away from the curb.

Izuku smiled and headed toward the huge building. He’d been sent a simple map of campus with his enrollment forms and had pored over it, trying to memorize where everything was. He already felt safer here, knowing that no one without a special badge could get past the gates without raising an alarm. Plus, anyone trying to grab a student at a hero school, where all of the staff and teachers were current or retired professional heroes was insane.

The halls were mostly quiet as he passed rooms with absolutely enormous doors, likely for students or staff with mutation quirks that gave them extra large bodies. All Might was super tall, and Endeavor was, also. Both of them had gone to UA at one time, so it was probable that it wasn’t uncommon. He reached room 1-A and took a deep, bracing breath before sliding the door open and stepping inside. He had expected to be the first to arrive, except for maybe his teacher, but he was mistaken.

In the fourth seat, sitting tall and ruler-straight, was another student. Izuku nodded to him as he entered and was about to issue a friendly greeting, when the boy shot to his feet and approached with a somewhat stiff, but fast gait with his hand extended.

“Hello! I’m Iida Tenya from Somei Academy! It’s a pleasure to meet another student who values punctuality as much as I do as we embark on our most important high school career!”

Izuku froze like a deer in headlights, dazed by the rapid-fire speech and forward attitude of his new classmate.

“It’s nice to meet you, Iida!” he said, shaking the other boy’s hand. “I’m Midoriya Izuku.”

He left out the part of only being early because his transportation situation kind of made him be. Iida was tall, with perfectly groomed dark hair, rectangular wire framed glasses, and neatly manicured nails on his hands, which seemed to have the fingers glued together. Maybe that was part of his quirk?

At the mention of Izuku’s name, the other boy stood up even straighter (if that was possible).

“You’re one of the students who got in by recommendation!” he said, sounding excited.

“Er… How?” Izuku asked.

He was suspicious of anyone who knew more about him than they should.

“It was posted in the class entrance exams results list in the main entrance hall!” Iida said immediately. “You and a student named Yaoyorozu are the two students who didn’t have to take the entrance exam. You must be truly exceptional to deserve such an honor! I look forward to learning what I can from you!”

“Oh. Well. Thank you?” Izuku said, taken aback. “I’ll do my best to live up to it.”

The door slid open again, and another student filed in, looking unsure that they were in the correct place. A girl with asymmetrically cut black hair, and long earlobes that hung past the ends of her shoulder length hair and seemed to end in some sort of point.

“Good morning,” Izuku said with a smile when their eyes met.

“Good morning!” Iida said at nearly the same time, only twice as loud.

He went over to her and introduced himself, the same as he had with Izuku. She looked at his hand for a few seconds before shaking it and saying that her name was Jirou Kyouka.

Izuku was about to introduce himself to her, but the door flew open, and a boy with extremely red, extremely spiky hair strode through with a sharp-toothed grin.

“Yo!” he said in a friendly but loud voice.

“Good Morning!” Iida said.

Iida looked like he wanted to say more, but the door opened again and a blonde boy with a thick tail peeking around his back entered with a shy smile. His tail had a bushy tuft of what seemed like fur spouting from the end, and Izuku wondered what would happen if he were to touch it. Would the fur grow or not?

The door slid open again as the people who had already arrived were getting to know each other and finding their desks. The red haired boy was named Kirishima Eijiro, and seemed really nice; Izuku talked with him the longest of anyone so far and learned that his quirk was called hardening that turned his skin to something resembling stone.

All of his new classmates seemed to be fairly nice, though a couple seemed shy. One was even completely invisible, except for her uniform, and it made Izuku want to barrage her with questions about it.

“Oh! It’s you!” a girl’s voice said loudly when the door slid open again.

“Should I know who you are?”

Izuku’s blood turned to ice for a moment at the familiar voice that had him turning his head and seeing the one person he had hoped to avoid. Kacchan was sneering at a cute girl with rosy cheeks who was talking to him in a friendly tone.

“You kind of saved me from that zero pointer at the entrance exam?” she reminded him.

Izuku wasn’t sure what a zero pointer was, but the fact that Kacchan had saved anyone was something new.

“Tch. I didn’t do that for you,” he growled rudely. “I just knew time was running out, and thought I’d take down the only thing worth fighting in that whole place.”

“Oh!” the girl said uncertainly. “Well. Thanks anyway.”

“Whatever, Roundface,” Kacchan said, pushing past her.

It took him only a few more seconds for him to spot Izuku, who was standing beside his desk, which was right behind Kacchan’s.

“What the hell are you doing here, Deku?” he demanded angrily, storming past everyone else as if they didn’t exist. “You didn’t take the entrance exam. I double checked.”

“You’re right,” Izuku told him evenly.

Before Kacchan could demand more answers, Iida butted in, seeming outraged.

“How incredibly rude! I’ll have you know that this is Midoriya Izuku! One of the two students brilliant enough to win recommendation seats at this illustrious institution!!”

Anyone who hadn’t been staring before, probably was now. Izuku sighed inwardly.

“Stay outta this, four-eyes,” Kacchan snapped, grabbing hold of the front of Izuku’s jacket. “I ain’t buyin’ any bullshit like that. How’d you fool them into letting you in?”

“Everyone take your seats,” said a voice from the front of the room.

There, a tired looking, unshaven man with a puffy yellow sleeping bag over one arm was regarding them all. He looked unimpressed.

It took a moment for everyone to register what the man had said, since his appearance was so strange. As soon as one of them moved, they all scrambled into their seats and sat up straight. Well, everyone besides Kacchan, who sat in a slouched posture, looking annoyed.

“It took nine and a half seconds for you to settle down,” the man told them flatly, holding up a stopwatch. “Time is a precious resource; it’s only rational that you would be in your seats and quiet by the time I arrive.”

Izuku looked at the man that he assumed was his new teacher. Even after studying him for a moment, the haggard looking man did not look familiar. He wore a black jumpsuit that looked like it had been slept in, and judging by the sleeping bag, probably had. There was also an oddly long scarf wrapped several times around the man’s neck and shoulders that Izuku couldn’t figure out. A fashion choice? A tool of some kind?

“I’m Aizawa Shota,” the man told them, tossing his sleeping bag behind the teacher’s desk. “I’m your homeroom teacher. Pleased to meet you.”

He did not look pleased to meet them. He looked annoyed to meet them, if anything. Still, the staff and teachers were all supposed to be current and former heroes, so this man had to be hiding something behind the rumpled exterior.

“Now hurry and change into your gym uniforms and head out to the grounds.”

He pulled a stack of folded uniforms from under the desk and set it on top. He turned and left the room, leaving everyone to hurriedly find their gym clothes in the stack. Luckily they were all labeled, and Iida quickly started handing them out as he called student names.

“Todoroki Shouto!”

Izuku turned his head to see the unfriendly boy from the recommendation exam come forward to take his uniform. Izuku knew from Iida’s informative chat that Todoroki had been forced to take the entrance exam for admittance. He hoped there were no hard feelings.

As soon as Midoriya got his uniform he headed to the changing room and quickly got dressed--just not quickly enough. Kacchan blocked his path as he tried to leave, and boxed him in with one foot on the wall, and his hands spitting sparks.

“What’s this about a recommendation, nerd? Who the hell would see you and think you deserved a free pass?”

“What do you even know about me, Kacchan?” Izuku asked, attempting to move past the other boy so he wouldn’t keep the rest of the class waiting.

Kacchan grabbed him by the collar of his tracksuit and pulled him back, and Izuku sighed.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Kacchan said.

“Then you’re just going to have to figure it out for yourself,” Izuku told him, tugging his collar free. “I’ve tried talking to you for years and you ignored me or made fun of me all this time. I’m here to learn how to be a hero, not to explain anything to you.”

Izuku left and broke into a jog to try to catch up with the others. He was trembling slightly as he tightened the straps on his gloves; partly from nerves and partly from anger. It didn’t take long for him to spot the rest of the group, and joined them just as a couple of the girls arrived as well. Kacchan was the last to arrive, and Izuku noticed that his knuckles looked red, as though he had punched something recently. Not his problem.

“Now that the last of us have deigned to join the group,” Aizawa said pointedly. “Let’s get started on the test of your quirks.”

“Um… aren’t we supposed to go to the entrance ceremony?” the cute girl with pink cheeks asked. “And guidance sessions?”

“There’s no time to waste on that sort of thing if you want to become a hero,” their teacher said blandly. “UA is known for it’s freestyle educational system. Us teachers basically have free reign to run our classes as we see fit.”

No one knew what to say about that, so they just stood in a cluster, waiting to hear what would come next.

“Softball throwing, 50 meter dash, standing long jump, endurance running, grip strength, side-to-side step, upper body strength and seated toe touch. You’ve done all of those in standard physical tests in middle school; no quirks allowed, right?”

They all nodded or shrugged.

“Japan still persists in calculating the average of those records without taking quirks into account. That’s irrational.”

It didn’t escape Izuku that this was the second time his new teacher had referred to rationality.

“Bakugou,” Aizawa said, “What’s the furthest recorded throw you had from middle school?”

“About 67 meters,” Kacchan answered easily.

“Great,” Aizawa said, gesturing to Kacchan to stand in a small circle in chalk that looked like it was meant for shot put competition. “Now try it with your quirk. You can do whatever, just don’t leave that circle.”

Aizawa tossed him a softball, and Kacchan caught it in one hand and stretched his shoulders for a moment in preparation.

“Give it all you’ve got,” Aizawa advised.

“Awesome!” Kacchan drew his arm back and then added an explosion to his throw while yelling, “DIE!”

Die? Seriously? Izuku thought as the breeze from the blast tossed his hair around and kicked up dust.

They all watched in impressed silence as the ball disappeared from sight. There was a beeping from a device in Aizawa’s hand, and he lifted it to show them the screen: 705.2 meters!

“Wow!” a blonde boy with a black lightning-like streak in his hair said excitedly. “That’s insane!”

“It’s important to know our limits so we can push past them. That’s the first rational step to determining what kind of heroes you’ll be.”

“We finally get to use our quirks to prove ourselves! This is going to be awesome!” one of the boys said happily.

“Awesome?” Aizawa asked in a low voice that had them all uneasy. “You’re striving to become heroes in just three years, and you’re acting like it’s going to be fun and games?”

He didn’t raise his voice even a little, but the tone had them all flinching and listening with dread.

“Right. Whichever one of you scores the lowest, averaged across all eight events, will be deemed to be hopeless and will be expelled.”

Izuku’s brow scrunched together at hearing this. Surely the man was joking? The looks on his classmates’ faces said they weren’t so sure. Kacchan didn’t look worried of course, and neither did Todoroki. Izuku felt confident enough in his own aptitude that he didn’t think he’d fall in last place, but he had no idea what quirks the others (besides Yaoyorozu) had.

They started off easy with the seated toe-touch. Aizawa had them go one at a time, testing their flexibility, seeing how far past their toes their fingertips could stretch while their legs were extended in front of them. Some were only able to reach their ankles while others like Asui, who had the abilities of a frog, was able to stretch far beyond that. Izuku couldn’t reach quite as far as Asui, but it was only a centimetre off of her score.

“Damn, you’re flexible!” the blonde boy with the lightning stripe in his hair said enviously. I could barely reach my ankles and it hurt like hell! I’m Kaminari, by the way.”

“Midoriya,” Izuku answered with a smile. “I have an advantage. One of my quirks is agility and balance.”

“One of your quirks?” he asked curiously.

Izuku was saved from having to explain by Aizawa calling them to attention to move on to the next test. There were pull-up bars at the edge of the track around the field and they each took turns not only seeing how many pull-ups they could do in one minute, but chin-ups as well, testing how long they could hang on with their chin above the bar.

The cute girl with the pink cheeks, who Aizawa called forward as ‘Uraraka’ used her anti-gravity quirk on herself to give her an advantage, but after the pull-ups, the chin-up she did only lasted about fifteen seconds before she dropped to the ground, staggered a few feet away and vomited into the grass.

Izuku wrinkled his nose, but felt bad...obviously her quirk did something to make her nauseous after too much use, since she had been bubbly and cheerful just a few minutes ago.

Kacchan did very well, of course, with amazing upper body strength because of his quirk. There was a guy named Shoji who had multiple appendages that could be turned into extra body parts that did even better; he lasted the entire sixty seconds in the chin-up part. Izuku beat Kacchan’s score by several pull-ups and also lasted to the end of the chin-up time, thanks to his levitation quirk.

Everyone was blown away by Shoji’s grip strength; no one came even close to matching him at first, not even Sato, who ate sugar cubes to enhance his strength just before attempting to beat Shoji. Kacchan sneered at Izuku when Izuku didn’t quite match his grip strength at first, but the look soured when green sparks appeared around Izuku. The meter on the grips rose up, coming within a of kilograms Shoji’s score.

The side-to-side stepping was dominated by a very short kid with purple balls on his head that were apparently super sticky to anything or anyone but himself. He put a couple of each on the ground by popping them from his scalp (new ones replaced them instantly, and Izuku was fascinated). Once the balls were in place, the small boy bounced between them like a ball in a hyperactive pachinko machine.

Kaminari twisted his ankle during this exercise and was getting increasingly worried about his overall score. Hagakure, the invisible girl, was equally worried. Many of them were having serious doubts, in fact. The further the test went, the more tension built up for those who weren’t performing as well.

The softball throw came next, and Izuku fired up One For All again and let loose with the hardest pitch he could manage. He beat Kacchan’s score by thirty-three meters and was just patting himself on the back mentally when there was a shout from behind him. He spun to find Kacchan’s face contorted with rage, and his body wrapped in… Aizawa’s scarf?

“What’s this fabric crap? It’s stiff! I can’t move!”

“It’s my capture weapon,” Aizawa told him, sounding aggravated. Izuku noted that his sensei’s hair was floating around his head as he spoke, and his eyes were open wide and gleaming a faint red. “It’s made from a carbon fiber and special alloy wire. Now stop trying to use your quirk, I’m getting dry-eye over here.”

Izuku realized then that Kacchan’s hands were turned up, though his wrists were now bound, but no threatening sparks were escaping. Aizawa sensei appeared to have a quirk cancelling quirk. Kacchan must have relaxed at that point, because the capture weapon was released and returned back to it’s owner to rest on his shoulders once more. Izuku had lots of questions about that, but it was the wrong time to ask them.

“Use of a quirk against another student outside of battle practice is strictly prohibited and possible grounds for expulsion, Bakugou.”

Aizawa’s eyes were serious, even though his quirk was deactivated. Kacchan made an ugly face, but turned away from Izuku and stomped to the outside of the group gathered, waiting for everyone to finish the softball throw. His tantrum was soon forgotten when Uraraka got a score of infinity after her throw, and everyone lost their collective minds in excitement. Yaoyorozu scored even higher than Izuku, having produced a modified rocket launcher from her back, and firing the softball out of sight.

The fifty meter dash was easily won by Iida, who had engines in his calves that propelled him forward at incredible speeds. Izuku placed fourth overall in that particular portion of the test, when One For All stalled out on him for the final few meters. It was still a decent score, and nothing for him to worry about. Mineta, the boy with balls on his head came in last for that trial, but having the shortest legs of anyone there made that kind of inevitable.

The standing long jump was where there was seriously tough competition. Asui, with the abilities of a frog was obviously at the top of that scoring table. Izuku fared well, using his levitation, along with his gymnastics training, to come in third, behind Kacchan.

The endurance run was relatively easy for Izuku, they just had to keep an even pace and run for up to thirty minutes without stopping or slowing down considerably. Since he normally did running as a daily exercise, it was no big deal. Most of the others seemed to follow a similar fitness observance, since everyone seemed to be fine for the full thirty minutes. Mineta was slowest, followed by Jiro and Kaminari (whose quirk was electricity!). Izuku was relatively certain that those three were the ones who should be the most worried if Aizawa meant what he said about expelling one of them.

“Sensei?” Izuku asked Aizawa quietly as the class waited for the last of his classmates to finish their run. “You’re not really planning to expel any of us today, are you?”

“Why would you think I wasn't serious?” his teacher asked him, not taking his eyes off the final runners.

“Because you’ve talked to us about the importance of rationality three times today, and expelling any student based solely on a handful of physical fitness tests seems to be very irrational.” Izuku said respectfully.

“How so?” Aizawa asked.

Izuku was encouraged by the fact that the man didn’t sound angry with his question or answer, so far.

“Crime is on the rise since All For One was taken down, and All Might isn’t going to be on the scene forever. Japan is going to need really good heroes once he retires, to keep things from getting out of hand. Besides, aren’t there a lot of kids out there that have quirks that are great for hero work, but not really physical? Rejecting candidates that might make good heroes without giving them a real chance seems um… counterproductive?”

He tried to word it in a way that didn’t quite call his teacher’s judgement into question while totally calling his teacher’s judgement into question.

“How does a fifteen year old kid know anything about All For One?” Aizawa asked, finally pressing the button on his stopwatch and making eye contact with Izuku as Mineta passed the finish line.

“Oh! Uh… I kind of met him a few times… when I was a kid. Apparently.”

“Oh yeah,” Aizawa said as if remembering. “I read your file.”

Then, without further comment on Izuku’s analysis, he called the group together to give them their test results. He held up a device that projected a hologram of a scoreboard in the air in front of them all.

“I’m not last,” Kaminari gasped out in a whisper.

“Oh no!” Mineta moaned as he saw his name in last place.

Izuku saw with satisfaction that his own name was in second place, above Kacchan’s fifth.

“I lied,” Aizawa told them all. “No one's being expelled. It was a rational deception to make sure you all did your best.”

Two thirds of the class’s jaws dropped and a few looked like they might faint.

“It was pretty obvious it couldn’t be true, if you just stopped to think about it,” Yaoyorozu said, sounding bewildered by everyone’s relief. “I guess I should have said something.”

“You think?” several of them shouted at her.

Mineta looked like he might faint.

“Anyway, we’re finished here for now. All of the handouts and copies of the curriculum are back in the classroom, look them over. Midoriya, here’s a pass to go see the nurse about your arm.”

Izuku stopped and winced. He had been hoping his teacher hadn’t seen the bruising that had blossomed up his arm after his softball throw. He took the note with chagrin, but the man simply turned and walked away after handing over. No questions, no scolding.

“Whoa! Dude! What happened to your arm?” Kirishima asked, taking a look once the teacher had drawn attention to it.

“It’s no big deal,” Izuku said with a shrug. “I just get some backlash sometimes if I go all out with my strength quirk. I’ll see you guys later, I’m gonna go get this looked at, first.”

Izuku was happy to have an excuse not to get stuck in the locker room with Kacchan again.

“Wait...I wanted to talk to him. He was acting like he had more than one quirk,” Izuku heard Kaminari say as he walked back to the school.

“Really? Like Todoroki?” Kirishima asked.

“No,” Kacchan answered. “Deku has like ten or eleven quirks. He gets them from dead people.”

“WHAT?” both boys asked at the same time.

Izuku didn’t turn back to see what they thought, or what kind of nonsense Kacchan would try to feed them. He just kept walking, hoping that everyone would see through Kacchan’s malicious gossiping to the person he really was.

Chapter 20

Summary:

Izuku discusses his first day of school with Sir.

Notes:

Nothing Earth shattering in this chapter, but I should have the next chapter up pretty quickly. Possibly tomorrow. Also, I made a slight edit to the chapter where Izuku learns about his telepathic telephone line quirk. I erroneously stated that he had twelve quirks now, but it was actually the thirteenth to manifest.

Recovery Girl was even smaller than Iuzku remembered her being, from the one time he had seen her back when All Might had first deflated from his muscular form. She still looked basically the same, and was still as bossy as he remembered.

“Already up to something dangerous on your first day of school, young man?” she asked when he showed her his arm. “That’s some nasty bruising!”

He explained about the backlash from his quirk, and she tapped his name into her computer.

“Ah, yes! I’ve read about you! A most interesting quirk!” she said, glancing over his file. “Well, I’ll have you fixed up in no time, but you might want a nap when you get home. My quirk uses your own stamina to speed up healing.”

“That’s so cool,” Izuku said as she puckered up and kissed his arm.

He felt an instant drain on his energy, but not so much that he felt like he would fall asleep right away. The bruises faded away to nothing like magic, and the soreness did the same. She gave him some candy from a Kamui Woods PEZ dispenser and shooed him out of her clinic as an older student came in with a large lump on their head.

Izuku crunched on the grape flavored sweets as he headed back to get changed. He couldn’t figure out the tie again, and just let it do what it wanted. Thankfully, the classroom was nearly empty when he got there, and he gathered everything he needed while Iida sat at his desk, looking over the syllabus .

“See you tomorrow, Iida,” Izuku said as he shouldered his bag.

“Ah! Midoriya! I was actually waiting for you!’ Iida said, getting to his feet and grabbing his own bag. “I was concerned when you needed medical attention.”

They fell into step together as they made their way out of the school.

“Oh, it was no big deal, just some bruising. That happens sometimes when I use my strength quirk a little too energetically,” Izuku assured him, waving away the concern. “Recovery Girl fixed it right up! She’s amazing!”

“I’ve noticed you speak as though you have multiple quirks,” Iida said un-subtly.

Izuku nodded, knowing that he couldn’t avoid this topic forever.

“Yes, I have thirteen quirks,” he said easily, waiting for the reaction.

Iida stopped walking and blinked, then chuckled.

“You’re a joker, I see! Very humorous!”

Izuku smiled. “No, I’m being serious.”

“Hey you guys!”

Both boys turned to see Uraraka hurtling toward them with a cheerful smile on her face.

“Are you guys going to the station? We could walk together!”

“Ah! Infinity girl!” Iida said.

Infinity Girl would be an awesome hero name, but Izuku wasn't sure if Iida was teasing, or if he’d just forgotten the girl’s real name.

“It’s Uraraka,” she said, probably wondering the same. And you’re Iida, and you’re Deku!”

“Uh…” Izuku didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It’s Midoriya, actually. Midoriya Izuku.”

“But that loud, angry guy called you Deku,” she said, sounding confused.

“Yeah, we’ve known each other since pre-school. He calls me that to insult me,” Iuzku confessed. “He doesn’t like me, much.”

Or at all.

“I’m so sorry! I just assumed! I think Deku gives off a kind of, I can do it kind of vibe!”

“I think you’re thinking of dekiru, but don’t worry about it,” Izuku assured her. “It lost the power to hurt me a long time ago. Now it’s just a petty way for him to pick on me.”

“He does seem rather short tempered,” Iida said, giving it consideration. “But back to what we were talking about. Were you really not joking?”

Uraraka joined them as they began walking toward the gate.

“No, I really do have thirteen quirks,” Izuku said ruefully. “My original quirk is called Inheritance and if someone dies while in close proximity to me, I kind of absorb their quirk.”

Iida stopped in his tracks again, his mouth working, but no sound coming out as he processed and rejected several replies to that. Uraraka stopped, too, her eyes wide.

“Oh my gosh! How sad! You’ve seen that many people die?” she sounded very concerned about Izuku as she said this.

“No,” Izuku said. That’s only happened twice, and I don’t really remember either one. It’s a long story, but let’s just say I can’t be around hospitals for obvious reasons.”

“You say only twice like it’s no big deal,” Uraraka pointed out.

Iida straightened his glasses and made a chopping motion with his flat hand.

“Ah! I see. That could be quite disastrous, couldn’t it? And more than a little unsettling.”

Inwardly, Izuku sighed with relief that they weren’t completely repulsed by his quirk. “More than a little, for sure.”

“So what are they?” Uraraka asked curiously. “I mean, you’ve obviously got the levitation one. I thought at first that we had the same quirk, but we don't.”

“There’s the enhanced strength one, too,” Iida added, thinking back to the quirk tests earlier. “Do you have a speed one as well, or is that a benefit of the strength one?”

Izuku was about to reply, when they got to the gate and he spotted Sir standing on the sidewalk in front of his car, which was parked with the hazard lights flashing.

“Oh! I forgot I’m not supposed to take the train!” Izuku said as much to himself as anyone.

“Is that your dad?” Uraraka asked.

“Oh! No, he’s-- my quirk trainer,” Izuku said. “Sort of. I have to go now, but I’ll see you both tomorrow, okay?”

“I look forward to learning more about your quirks!” Iida said, giving a stiff bow. “It was nice to have made your acquaintance!”

“Bye, Midoriya! See you tomorrow!” Uraraka said cheerfully.

Izuku waved to them both as he approached Sir.

“Sorry, I got so caught up in everything that I forgot to ask how I was supposed to go home.”

“I’ll be driving you today,” Sir said easily, opening the passenger door then rounding the hood to get behind the wheel.

Izuku quickly slid in and shut the door, fastening his seatbelt as the car pulled into traffic.

“So what did you learn today?” Sir asked him as he navigated the busy roads.

“Apparently not enough, since I have to go back tomorrow,” Izuku told him promptly.

Sir rolled his eyes at that one.

“It seems like you’ve made the beginnings of some friendships?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Izuku said cautiously. “They seem nice, and there are some really interesting quirks in my class.”

“Any downsides?”

“Well, the biggest one is that Kacchan is in my class,” Izuku said.

“That’s the boy who’s been a thorn in your side since you were small,” Sir observed. “I’m somewhat surprised to hear he made it into the hero course.”

“You and me both,” Izuku said with feeling. “But he does have an amazing quirk, and probably amazing control over it.”

“Hmmm,” Sir murmured noncommittally, “Is that the only downside so far?

“I’m not really sure about my teacher,” he confessed. “He seems kinda…”

“His name?” Sir asked.

“Aizawa.”

“Ah.” Sir’s voice held understanding and amusement, and there was a suggestion of a smile on his lips. “I can see why you’d have some reservations, but he’s an excellent hero. He mostly works at night, out of the spotlight. He’s one of our best sources of information of what goes on in the underworld.”

Izuku wasn’t surprised that Sir had heard of him, he seemed to know everyone in the hero world.

“His quirk seems to be erasing other people’s quirks,” Izuku said. “I was thinking it should be called None For All.”

That actually earned a snort from Sir, which made Izuku crack up. As much as Sir loved humor, it was rather difficult to really get a good reaction out of him.

“He told you about his quirk?” Sir asked, once Izuku had settled down.

“Showed us,” Izuku said. “Kacchan lost his temper when I beat his score in the softball throw during our quirk evaluation and tried to start a fight. Aizawa used this cool capture scarf to grab him and then turned off his quirk so he couldn’t set off explosions.”

“And this boy wasn’t expelled?” Sir asked, sounding surprised (or as surprised as he was capable of sounding).

“No, but Aizawa scared everyone at the beginning by saying he was going to expel the kid that scored the lowest on today’s test, but then he said it was a logical deception to make us do our best.”

“Interesting. I believe that last year, he actually did expel an entire first year class,” Sir told him seriously. “He must have seen something in each of you that he liked.”

“An entire class?” Izuku all but shouted. “Why? What did they do?”

“I’m not sure,” Sir admitted. “But it seemed like a man who isn’t afraid to expel an entire class wouldn’t let a boy starting a fight on the first day of school remain there.”

“He did warn him,” Izuku said with a shrug. “That’s probably more than anything that’s happened to him in the past couple of years at middle school. Sensei said that if it happened again, he’d be expelled. Maybe he even means it.”

It was then that Sir pulled into the drop-off lane in front of Izuku’s apartment building, so their conversation was curtailed for the time being.

“I’m glad your first day was productive,” he said. “I’m sure tomorrow will prove to be even more… educational.”

“Thank you for the ride,” Izuku said as he got out of the car, spotting Bubble Girl standing just inside the lobby. “I’m sorry to be such a pain.”

“Nonsense,” Sir said, waving away the apology.

Izuku smiled and waved as Sir drove away and Izuku went inside.

“How was your first day?” Bubble Girl asked him as he went inside.

“It was… fun!”

Izuku was almost surprised to find he meant it. Aside from the negative moments, everything had been interesting and no one had freaked out about his quirk. Not yet, at least; tomorrow would determine how many people Kacchan would have poisoned against him in the meantime.

“Glad to hear it!” she said cheerfully. “I’ll go up with you and do a quick sweep in person, then take over watching the security monitors and the camera in your living room.

She gave him a wink, and he wondered if she had seen him being weird a couple of days ago. He felt his cheeks turn hot and knew he must be blushing, which only made it worse. He automatically turned toward the stairwell, and she paused to look at him questioningly.

“Sorry, I usually take the stairs,” he explained. “For the exercise. “

“Wanna race?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

She took off up the stairs before Izuku could ask if she was serious, and Izuku followed with a laugh. At the fifteenth floor, they were both breathing heavily, but grinning. Bubble Girl followed Izuku inside the apartment and made him wait by the door until she had checked out every room, then left him alone, to go relieve Centipeder on monitor duty.

Izuku sent his dad a text letting him know that his day was good, and that he’d gotten home safely, then went to his computer to see what he could find out about his new teacher.

The answer was: surprisingly little.

There were brief news articles about him accepting a teaching role at UA, and that he was known as Eraserhead in his hero persona. There was almost nothing about him being involved in anything big, and the only pictures of him were either from the UA faculty website, or blurry and/or dark pictures that were little more than a shadow among shadows. Izuku wondered exactly what an underground hero did while on the job.

After his internet search turned up almost nothing, Izuku got himself something to eat and settled down at the table with his latest hero notebook. He made rough sketches of as many of his classmates as he could remember, and what he knew about their quirks. He hadn’t had much of a chance to be social with many of them, but he expected to have an entire notebook devoted to the class, soon.

The day had been a short one, since the first day usually mostly consisted of the entrance ceremony and meeting your teacher and classmates (unless you were in Class 1-A, apparently). Izuku had plenty of time to tidy up the house, do what little laundry there was, and make dinner preparations.

Izuku had never realized how much he had taken his freedom for granted before he’d been forced to stay home. He longed to go out and run, or hang out in the book store, or even pick up trash at the beach. Stupid villains with their stupid secret plots! He wondered how long this would have to go on.

Maybe he could get permission to go to campus early, or stay later to get exercise on the grounds, which were absolutely massive. UA’s campus was so extensive, it was like it’s own little country, with several mock city scapes, more than one arena, several grassy open areas, a section of forest, and tons of training grounds spread all over it. There were even satellite campus areas for remote training experiences. Surely there had to be a place he could get a decent workout, or at least go for a run. He’d have to ask Aizawa if it was a possibility before he bothered anyone else about trying to make arrangements for transportation.

When his father got home, Izuku shared everything about his day, telling his father all the details and answering questions. His father was a little concerned about Kacchan being in his class, but didn’t say anything more than that he hoped the other boy behaved himself. His dad said that they had tracked down his assistant’s (now ex) boyfriend, and gotten a name to go with the face on the security camera, but searches weren’t turning up anything. For now, Izuku was still on house arrest for his own protection.

All in all, it had been a good day, and Izuku fell asleep excited about what tomorrow would bring.

The nightmares were more brutal than any he’d had before.

Granny Ito was there, shouting at Izuku to run, but Izuku’s feet were frozen to the ground, and he was unable to move, or speak or even scream. He watched helplessly as Granny tried to reach him, but could make no progress, instead sinking into the ground as though it had turned to quicksand. Granny was eventually swallowed up entirely, and Izuku could do nothing! Then All For One was there, with his creepy white-haired kid, and they were both holding huge syringes and wicked looking scalpels in their hands. All Might arrived, but a warp gate opened and sucked him away. Sir dropped from the sky and reached for the white haired boy, but turned to a flurry of confetti as the boy grabbed at Sir’s arm. The images were jumbled and confusing and terrifying.

Izuku jerked upright in bed with a scream caught in this throat, and his heartbeat roaring in his ears. He tried to take calming breaths, then reached for the bottle of water on his nightstand and drank every drop before beginning to calm, with only one thought in his mind.

What the hell was that?

Chapter 21

Summary:

What goes better with a hero than their costume?

Izuku realized that his alarm would go off in under an hour, and decided that he’d had enough sleep for now. The nightmares were still fresh in his memory, and his room felt stifling and hot in the aftermath, the sweat crawling over his skin like tickling ants.

He got dressed in shorts and a t-shirt that said ‘workout shirt’ on the front and went out to the living room. He got out a piece of paper and wrote a note on it in black marker.

I’m going to run up and down the stairwell for exercise. I promise not to leave the building.

He went and held the note up in front of the camera in the living room, hoping that whoever was watching wouldn’t freak out on him. He propped the note up on the kitchen counter where his dad could see it if he woke up before he got back. He went through his stretches quickly and headed out.

The door to the stairwell from the lobby required a tennant’s key to gain access, and he knew that it was being closely monitored, in any case. He should be as safe as if he was in his apartment, right? He opened the door, and started downward, keeping a steady pace, turning on each landing to go down the next and the next and the next. Until he reached the bottom floor. When he got there, he saw Rapidfire standing there, looking at the screen of his phone, which he held up in greeting.

Izuku could see that he was keeping an eye on the security monitors through the phone.

“You’re up early,” the sidekick said.

“Yeah. I guess I’m feeling restless,” Izuku said, jogging in place.

“Do what you need to do,” he said. “I’ll be right here. Good thinking, holding up a sign, by the way.”

Izuku nodded, and turned to climb the stairs he’d just descended. By the time he stopped thirty minutes later, he was sweaty, but much calmer. A quick shower had him refreshed, and by the time his father woke, breakfast was ready and Izuku was looking forward to putting the rough night behind him.

“Good Morning, Midoriya!”

Izuku smiled at Iida, who was the first to arrive at their class again. He looked as stiff as he had yesterday, and Izuku figured that this was his default mode.

“Hey, Iida!” Izuku said, dropping his bag off at his desk before turning to join his new classmate. “Sorry our conversation got cut short yesterday.”

“I completely understand. You should never keep someone willing to do you a favor waiting!”

He punctuated his comments with his hands chopping at the air for emphasis, which Izuku found curious, and sort of funny.

“I’m kind of on a strict schedule at the moment,” Izuku said vaguely.

“I see,” Iida said, politely dropping the subject in favor of asking another question. “Do you mind telling me more about your quirks while we wait for our classmates to arrive?”

“Sure,” Izuku said easily. “I’d like to know more about yours, too! I kind of make it a hobby to analyze quirks.”

Izuku explained about how his quirk worked, and how he’d gotten many of them by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He left out the involvement of All For One and his own mother’s death; no need to make a hard explanation even more difficult by making it awkward right before school.

“Fascinating!” Iida said with interest as Izuku explained. “Some of those could be extremely useful! Why, the polyglot quirk alone could be a ticket to work almost anywhere in the world!”

Izuku told him that it had come in handy during his recent trip to Taiwan, but didn’t get much further than that, since others were beginning to arrive. He went to sit at his desk, and when Kaminari and Kirishima made a beeline for Izuku, he had a feeling he knew what was coming.

He wasn’t wrong.

“Dude! Bakugou said you have, like, eleven quirks!” Kaminari said excitedly, catching the attention of everyone else in class.

“And that you got them from dead people,” Kirishima added, looking doubtful.

“Well, he’s partially right,” Izuku said, relieved that they didn’t just take whatever Kacchan said as truth. It was refreshing that someone would come and talk to him about it first. “I actually have thirteen, though.”

“Thirteen!” Mineta scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What’s ridiculous is that you all aren’t already in your seats by the time I arrive for the second day in a row.”

Aizawa looked like he hadn’t slept. He had an energy jelly packet in his hand, which he was twisting the plastic cap from as he stood behind the desk. As everyone scrambled, he sucked on the straw of the packet and emptied it in one long pull before putting the cap back on and setting it down.

“Does one of you want to explain why you kept me waiting?”

“Sir!” Kaminari said, raising his hand in the air. “Does Midoriya really have thirteen quirks?”

Izuku sighed as he felt his cheeks heat. All eyes were on him, and Kacchan was laughing quietly in front of him.

“Yes,” Aizawa said flatly. “Can we move on with our day, now?”

Everyone murmured for a few moments until Aizawa glared them into silence.

“You were all given a copy of the schedule and the syllabus yesterday…”

Izuku listened with half an ear to what the teacher was saying, but mostly he was trying not to react to the knowledge that everyone in class was staring furtively at him. Aizawa went on as if he hadn’t a care in the world, explaining that their day would be divided into two parts.

“In the mornings, you’ll have typical high school instruction such as English, math, history, modern literature, art history, geography and the rest,” he told them, sounding bored. “After lunch, is hero training, which will include a variety of different exercises with a variety of different instructors who all specialize in different aspects of hero work.”

He made a few announcements relating to the school and various upcoming activities, then turned them over to Yamada sensei, also known as Voice Hero: Present Mic. He was their new English teacher, and while Izuku hadn’t been a stellar student before, he was able to shine, now. Already having some background in learning the language before his polyglot quirk came into play allowed him to speak and read English with some fluency and excellent pronunciation, making the other students marvel at how good it was. He would still have to work to master it, but it would be much easier than it had been in the past, which he was grateful for.

They had math with Ectoplasm, which sent Izuku into a fanboy-frenzy, unable to stop himself from muttering to himself about all of the facts he knew about the teacher. It wasn’t until Kacchan turned around and growled at him to shut up that he realized he was talking out loud and apologized for disrupting class.

After math was Japanese history, taught by a grizzled, retired hero by the name of The Badger who sometimes forgot he was teaching kids and occasionally threw swear words into his lectures. Izuku appreciated that he was passionate about the subject, and enjoyed the lesson very much.

Lunch followed history class, where they all went to a huge dining area where they could buy really inexpensive, yet delicious food made by a pro hero named Lunch Rush. Uraraka was particularly excited by this prospect, and ordered an especially large meal. Iida waved to Izuku from across the room, indicating that there were seats near him that were still available in the rapidly filling dining room. Uraraka was right behind him, and they both headed over.

“It’s you!”

Izuku followed the sound of the loud voice and looked to his left, where he saw a familiar tall figure holding a lunch tray.

“Yoarashi?” Izuku grinned at the other boy, glad to see him. They had gotten along well at the recommendation test, after all.

“I got placed in 1-B,” he said excitedly. “Everyone’s pretty cool.”

“Everyone in 1-A is nice, too,” Izuku said.

“I’m going to go sit with my class,” Yoarashi said, “But let’s talk later!”

“Sounds good!” Izuku agreed, turning to go and join Iida and Uraraka.

They were joined by Kaminari, Kirishima and Mineta, who all wanted to grill Izuku about his quirks, and lunch turned into a loud and lively meal. Izuku didn’t mind their questions, though it was strange to be the focus of so much attention when everyone else had such amazing quirks. It was a little frustrating to be talking about himself when he really wanted to be the one asking the questions. He explained about how Inheritance worked, and how he didn’t know if or when he’d reach a limit to the number of quirks he could hold.

He got a lot of the usual suggestions about it, like hanging out near hospitals or traveling to disaster zones so he could get super-powered up, but Izuku just listened to the increasingly wild ideas with detached humor. They didn’t have the years of warnings and lessons from Sir under their belts, so they weren’t thinking of the moral or ethical implications their ideas presented. It was the kind of talk people resorted to for improbable scenarios like, ‘if I found a genie in a bottle…’ He knew they didn’t mean anything by it, and didn’t take it to heart.

After lunch Aizawa met them back in their classroom and explained that they would be having a new teacher at UA for their first basic hero training class. Izuku looked toward the door as it slid open, and his jaw dropped.

“I AM HERE! Coming through the door like a normal person!”

All Might was entering the room with dramatic flair, with his trademark grin firmly in place.

“All Might!” Izuku cried out, jumping to his feet.

“Sit down, you damn nerd,” Kacchan said as if every line of his own body wasn’t practically vibrating with excitement.

The other students were almost as excited as Izuku, who took a seat with embarrassed awkwardness. He’d had no idea that All Might would be a teacher at UA this year! He wondered why no one had said anything to him. Had they been afraid he’d let the cat out of the bag?

“That’s his silver age costume! Kirishima said enthusiastically enough that Izu ku didn’t feel like such a huge nerd anymore.

“I’m actually getting goosebumps!” Ashido said, bouncing in her seat.

All Might struck a dramatic pose that showed off his muscles and Izuku grinned.

“I am also here to mold you into heroes by putting you through all kinds of different training!” All Might told them, “So without further delay, today we’ll be working on this!”

He held up a small poster in one hand that read: BATTLE on it.

“Battle training!” Uraraka read aloud.

“Battle!” Kacchan said with a manic looking grin.

The rest of the class seemed almost as excited. Then All Might pressed a button on a remote and the room filled with a quiet rumbling as panels slid out of the wall, revealing numbered cases with handles.

“For this kind of training, you’ll need these!” All Might said with a booming laugh. “Before being admitted you all filled out your special request forms! That, and your quirk registry were taken into account to craft the best possible gear for each of you!”

“Costumes!” Izuku said excitedly.

“YEAH!” several of the others cheered.

“Go suit up!” All Might told them with a grin. “Then meet me out at training ground beta!”

Everyone scrambled to grab the case that corresponded to their seat number and scuttled out of the room. Izuku was the last one out, and he didn’t hesitate to give All Might a high-five when the giant hand was offered when they met at the classroom door. No words were exchanged, but Izuku felt happiness swell inside him as he went to check out what his new costume would end up looking like.

Everyone was so busy getting kitted out that no one was paying attention to anyone else in the locker room. Izuku wished he had time to sit and read the manual that came with his costume, but knew it would have to wait for later.

For now, he simply admired the design and color as he lifted out the main body suit. It was bluish-green with black accents, though not as deep a green as his hair or eyes; it was more of a teal. The fabric was tightly woven; sturdy but flexible and fit almost like a second skin. It zipped up the front to just under his chin. The suit was long sleeved, and the legs had stirrups on the bottom to keep them anchored in place. His boots were the requested red and looked very similar to his everyday high tops that he’d been wearing nearly daily for a couple of years (since he’d seen a photo of All Might wearing a pair in a candid shot of him in a tabloid). They had decent tread, had a matte-finish, clear coat of plastic over them and were lightweight enough that they wouldn’t hamper his ability to levitate.

There was a utility belt in red, made of the same kind of fabric as the suit and a simple touch showed him that it would change color as desired. The pouches on the belt were all part of the belt so they would change color along with it, needing only a single touch, saving time if he needed to camouflage quickly. His headgear was very similar to what wrestlers wear, with a built in receiver in the ear covering, ans clear visor over his eyes. There was a jaw guard that was a separate piece that snapped into place with super strong magnets that resembled a grin with its vertical slats for air filtration (All Might had designed that part). Izuku had also wanted something that resembled All Might’s trademark hair spikes, but Sir had vetoed the idea saying it was too obvious, and Gran had pointed out that it would just make him look like ‘a damn bunny rabbit.’

The last detail was the gloves. They were black, of the same material as the suit and belt. There was something hard embedded across the knuckles, and Izuku guessed it was plastic but would have to check the manual, later. There were fasteners at the wrists to keep them from sliding from his hands, and the index finger on each hand was exposed, for dexterity and so he could use his color changing quirk if he wanted. With seven touches, his entire costume could completely change color, though he knew he wouldn’t always have that kind of time. There were things that he would likely need to refine along the way, but for now, he was thrilled!

Once he was dressed, he turned to see that the others were mostly ready, too. They all looked so cool! Izuku grinned as they filed out the door, and met up with the girls, who were just emerging from their own changing room. Izuku surveyed their costumes and wanted to do some flips in excitement! He tried to hold it in as they all walked as a group to meet All Might and Aizawa sensei at the entrance to Ground Beta.

“Looking good, ladies and gentlemen!” All Might praised them as they came to a stop in a semicircle. “A confident bearing and well-designed costume can inspire confidence and trust, which you will need. Because as of today, you are heroes!”

“Listen up, everyone,” Aizawa said from beside All Might.

Their teacher was almost dwarfed by the huge hero, but showed no sign of discomfort.

“Today you’re going to be broken up into pairs. One team will be acting as villains, and the other will be acting as heroes. You’ll be graded by how well you coordinate with your teammate, overall strategy, and how well you comport yourself as an individual. Bonus points will be given for the winning teams. You’ll all have earpieces and will be observed using cameras and robots placed to give us the best views of the area you’ll be using.”

When he didn’t elaborate further, All Might stepped back into his role and continued. “Teams will be chosen by lottery.There are two bags: one with everyone’s names, and the second with four tiles for in it: villain team and hero team.”

“That makes sense,” Iida said with an approving nod. “Pro heroes are often called to work with others they may have never even met before, or don’t work with very often. We must be ready at all times to deal with new people as well as new situations!”

“Exactly so, young man!” All Might agreed. “So let’s get started, shall we?”

Without further ado, All Might plunged his hand into the first bag and drew out four strips of paper.

“Step forward: Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugou!”

The four of them moved forward, and at All Might’s urging each pulled a tile from the second bag.

“Our hero team will be Midoriya and Todoroki!” All Might announced loudly. “Our Villains are Yaoyorozu and Bakugou!”

Chapter 22

Summary:

Izuku and Todoroki face off against Kacchan and Yaoyorozu!

Notes:

Once again, I need to abjectly apologize for not replying to some reviews! I am discovering I’ve missed quite a few, and I feel terrible about it! I swear I value each and every one, and I am mortified when I realize that a couple of them were more than a month old.

Izuku took a moment to thank the gods that he didn’t have to try to cooperate with Kacchan for their first assignment. A moment was all he got, though.

“Now! For your objectives! Inside that building is a missile - for our purposes it’s obviously not a real one. The villains’ job is to guard the missile from the heroes. The heroes’ job is to acquire the missile. That’s it! Easy, right? The villains will have ten minutes to place the missile anywhere inside the building they wish to defend it from, then the heroes will be sent in and the test begins! All the heroes have to do is touch the missile to acquire it, and all the villains have to do is prevent that from happening. How you accomplish either goal is up to you. You’ll each be given a roll of capture tape that will act as handcuffs for this mission, and once you are bound with it, you’re out for the duration. The scenario will end as soon as the hero team touches the missile, gets captured or the fifteen minute timer runs out.”

,

All four of them nodded their heads in understanding, and Kacchan and Yaoyorozu were given the signal to go inside the building. A timer was started, and Iuzku turned to Todoroki, remembering how prickly the other boy had been at the recommendation exam. Today Todoroki was dressed completely in white, with the left side of his body completely encased in ice like some kind of snowman? Izuku didn’t comment on how silly he thought the look was, and instead focused on making a plan to defeat the villains.

“Where do you think they’ll hide the missile?” Izuku asked him quietly, in case one of the villains was listening, somehow.

“I’d put it close to the top floor,” Todoroki said with a shrug. “But that won’t matter when I freeze all the walls and floors. They’ll be stuck in place and…”

Izuku was already shaking his head.

“That won’t work.”

Izuku realized how unhelpful that sounded when Todoroki scowled at him, and softened his remark.

“Kacchan...I mean, Bakugou can make explosions with his hands, so ice won’t stop him. It might slow him down though, and make him give away their position with the noise,” Izuku said, pinching his bottom lip as he considered it. “And Yaoyorozu can make almost anything with her creation quirk, so we can’t bet on her being trapped by the ice, either.”

“So what do you suggest?” Todoroki asked, sounding surly.

Izuku gave it some thought and ran his idea past Todoroki to see what he thought.

“I can handle my part of that,” Todoroki said after hearing the plan, sounding as though he doubted Izuku could handle his.

“I know you can, I’ve seen you in action,” Izuku placated.

He couldn’t afford to screw up his first hero class assignment, and if that meant coddling someone with a prickly temperament, it wasn’t like he hadn’t had practice at that.

“You’re sure you can handle yours? That guy seems to really hate you,” Todoroki pointed out.

‘Yes,” Izuku said, not willing to entertain the idea of failure. “We can win this, but don’t underestimate them; they’re both crazy strong.”

Izuku was surprised and pleased that Todoroki wasn’t being too resistant to working with him. He’d thought at first that he would shut Izuku out in his attempt to just strong arm it with ice. Since Izuku wasn’t completely sure how strong his ice quirk really was, it was safer to have a plan. He’d been impressed by what he’d seen at the recommendation exam, but it was different in battle.

“Hero team! Start your search for the missile!” All Might’s voice said through the ear pieces they’d been given.

Izuku and Todoroki nodded at each other and went in through the front door. Only Todoroki’s quick reflexes kept them from being smacked by a volley of pellets that broke against the wall of ice that flew up in front of them . The pellets created a bright flash that burned itself out after a few seconds, but would have blinded them for far longer if the ice hadn’t provided a shield. They appeared to have been launched by a small catapult triggered by a tripwire.

“You’ll need to keep an eye out for more booby traps,” Izuku told his partner as they proceeded much more cautiously.

The pellets were probably the work of Yaoyorozu, intended to slow them down. It was pretty ingenious, and Izuku would have fallen for it if not for his partner. He mentally berated himself for not taking this danger into account, but knew they still had their best chance with the plan they had set in place. Todoroki headed for the stairs, which was very much like the ones at Izuku’s apartment building: up one flight, then a sharp turn in the other direction, making something of a closed spiral. Every other landing would have an entrance or hallway to the next floor up.

Izuku was relatively sure that Kacchan would never pass up an opportunity to engage in battle with him, where he could try to beat up Izuku without any consequence for it. If his guess was right, Kacchan would leave Yaoyorozu to guard the missile while he went on the offensive, looking for a fight on the lower floors. In fact, he was probably lying in wait, hoping Izuku would walk right into his waiting trap. Instead, Izuku quickly looked around his surroundings and started to initiate his plan. He tapped the various parts of his suit to make them the color of the ceiling, then engaged his levitation quirk so he floated to the spot he wanted.

From his new vantage point, he could see a couple of trip wires in the hallway leading in both directions off of the front entrance. He crawled along the ceiling to a shadowy spot, and listened intently to the sounds of the building. He heard some noises from above, and figured Todoroki was encountering some booby traps as well.

“You okay?” he asked into his microphone in the quietest voice he could.

“Fine,” was Todoroki’s quiet answer, though his voice was a little breathless. “I’m on the top floor, and I’ll work my way down each floor from here.”

“Understood,” Izuku replied.

He hoped that Todoroki would call for help if he needed it, and waited for Kacchan to make his move. He didn’t want to wait for too long, and took his small first aid kit from a pouch at his hip and tossed it, hitting one of the tripwires to set off a barrage of what looked like globs of glue being flung from further down the hall. It was impressive that all of this had been set up in only ten minutes time and wondered how many there were throughout the building. The trap made a loud enough noise that it would alert anyone nearby of someone on the first floor.

It was only seconds before he heard stealthy footsteps coming down the stairs. He waited until he saw a shadow on the floor from the stairwell before he held his breath, further camouflaging himself with transparency. Kacchan came into the area near the door and furtively checked left and right as he stalked around the small wall of ice, making sure no one was hiding behind it. He went to investigate the tripped wire and just as Izuku hoped, that put Kacchan directly under him for a moment. When Kacchan bent over to examine the trap to see if it had misfired, Izuku dropped onto his back from above and managed to get a hold of one of his arms. He almost had the capture tape on one wrist, but Kacchan was fast, and Izuku just barely avoided a blast to the face with an extreme backward flex.

A backward handspring had Izuku out of range in a matter of seconds, and he stood facing Kacchan, who looked furious. Izuku didn’t wait for him to initiate an attack and used his speed to get in close. He grabbed the front of Kacchan’s costume and pulled him forward, kicking one of his legs off balance by hooking it with his own, then thrust him backward. Izuku was apparently not the only one who had been training in fighting techniques though. Kacchan rolled with the throw and popped to his feet, and Izuku ended up taking a fist to the jaw for underestimating his opponent’s speed and tracking ability. His teeth clacked together on the impact, but he luckily didn’t bite his cheek or tongue.

They circled each other slowly in the tight space, feinting and dodging at each other while they each calculated their next move.

“I’ve been waiting for this day,” Kacchan told Izuku with a feral smile. “I’ve always wanted to smack that smug look off your face, always looking down on me.”

Izuku had heard that line before; there was no use in arguing with him about it.

“You can try, but it’s not going to be that easy,” Izuku warned him.

Kacchan charged at him, using his explosions to propel him forward until it was like he was in flight, but Izuku was ready for him. He swiveled on his heel and used Kacchan’s momentum against him, waiting until he was almost past to grab his leg and swing him around in a sideways arc. Kacchan slammed into the wall of ice that Todoroki had made earlier. The ice broke in large chunks as the impact cracked it and Kacchan jumped to his feet, even more livid than before.

“I’m going to fucking destroy you!” he snarled, launching at Izuku again.

This time Izuku launched himself lightly into the air with levitation, and then dropped to the ground once the threat had passed beneath him. Kacchan’s control was impressive as he twisted in the air and used a controlled explosion to turn in the direction he’d just passed through. This time, Izuku took hold of the large grenade covering Kacchan’s forearm and with a pivot, threw him over his shoulder to slam him onto his back onto the ground.

Kacchan was winded by the impact, and Izuku was quick to wrap the capture tape around one wrist, then around the grenade over his other forearm.

“Bakugou has been captured!” All Might’s voice sounded in their ears. “He’s out for the rest of the battle.”

“I’ll come back you up,” Izuku said to Todoroki, turning toward the stairs and becoming aware of scuffling noises over his ear mic.

His foot was on the first step when he was blasted by an explosion from behind. He turned transparent for a moment as the air was forced from his lungs, but his new costume kept the heat at bay, and didn’t seem to tear, either. His head snapped forward, and his balance kicked in just in time to keep him from smashing face first into the stairs.

He could hear All Might’s voice in his earpiece, “Bakugou, stand down! You’ve been eliminated from this exercise!”

Izuku foolishly expected him to obey, and let his guard down-- taking a punch to the kidney that had him taking a step forward.

“No villain in their right mind would just stay wherever they were put without trying to escape,” Kacchan shouted angrily. “He never should have turned his back on me!”

All Might was still ordering him to stop when Kacchan held up his left arm, and began to pull the pin near his elbow with his right hand.

“This thing’s been storing my sweat since--”

He never got to finish. Izuku couldn’t believe the dumbass was going to monologue at a time like this, but he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity it provided. Before Kacchan could register what was happening, Izuku was in his personal space, out of range of the blast. The bulk of the grenade gauntlets meant that bending his arms fully would be difficult for Kacchan, especially with Izuku up close. Angry that it had come to this, he drew back his fist and jabbed ‘the escaped villain’ in the throat, just like Gran had taught him. He knew it was a dirty move, but he also remembered Gran telling you that there were no moves too dirty in a fight for your life, and those explosions could be deadly.

Izuku quickly side-stepped out of the way as the other boy dropped to his knees. Before Izuku could react further, there was a tremendous blast as the pin left the grenade that had been hooked on Kacchan’s finger when he’d reached for his abused throat. Several things happened at once.

“Hero team wins!” All Might shouted, barely audible over the thunder of the explosion and the ringing in Izuku’s ears. It didn’t even register that the exercise was over as Kacchan began to scream. The blonde’s arm was forced backward at an awkward angle by the explosion, and being unbalanced sent him flying backward, spinning him and propelling him several feet, where he hit the wall, head first. From there, he fell to the floor face down, limp and unconscious.

Izuku hurried over to check Kacchan’s pulse and found it in his carotid with a sigh of relief.

“Don’t move him, Midoriya,” All Might ordered through the ear piece. “Help is on the way.”

Izuku quickly moved further away from Kacchan.

“What happened here?” Yaoyorozu exclaimed as she and Todoroki came rushing down the steps and saw what a wreck the front entrance was. Izuku barely had time to notice that Todoroki had swelling over his ‘good’ eye, both eyes were red and watery. The ice that had encrusted him earlier was gone.

Part of the front wall was rubble, and patches of sunlight were coming through the hole that the explosion had caused. The front door burst open at that point, and All Might, Aizawa and a couple of medibots filed in and began to assess their injured charge.

“Midoriya, you should go to Recovery Girl, too," Yaoyorozu told him while he watched them load Kacchan onto a stretcher.

“Me? Why?” Izuku asked in bewilderment. “Kacchan wouldn’t want me there.”

“Your face is bleeding, and you look like you have some burns,” she said. “You can't feel that?”

“Uh,” Izuku took a moment to take stock of how he felt. There was some stinging to his face and the back of his neck, and he’d taken a couple of solid punches, but mostly his adrenaline was keeping the worst of it at bay. “Maybe? Mostly my ears hurt, and everything sounds muffled.”

The medi-bots moved quickly to carry Kacchan’s prone figure out of the building for transport to the nurse’s office.

“I think Recovery Girl’s going to have her hands full for a while,” Izuku said, watching them go.

They walked out after the bots were clear, and stood in the street in front of the ruined building, unsure of where to go from there. Izuku sincerely doubted that Kacchan would want to see him when he woke up. The building itself was in bad shape and there were icicles hanging from all of the windows of the fourth floor.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said, coming to stand in front of him. “Do you feel like you need immediate medical attention?”

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “I think Kacchan’s injuries are more important.”

Aizawa just stared at him consideringly for a moment before checking his eyes and doing a quick assessment. Then he nodded.

“You can stay and watch the other team ups for now, but if you start to feel too uncomfortable or show signs of a concussion, you’re going immediately.”

“Yes, sensei,” Izuku agreed.

Aizawa looked as though he was going to accompany Kacchan back to the school, so the three of them remaining followed All Might to a building across the street, where there were monitors set up showing every room in the building they had just been in. Izuku looked at the monitor that showed the mock missile, and raised an eyebrow. Almost the entire room was encased in ice, except for a spot near the missile. There, a melted, slushy spot where the ice had been melted told Izuku what had happened.

He looked at Yaoyorozu (whom he had been avoiding really looking at because her costume was so revealing) and saw that her skin was red and covered in goosebumps, and her costume was wet. Oddly, her hair looked normal (though her lips were tinged blue); Todoroki must have cocooned her in ice from neck to feet.

“Wow. Are you okay?”

“A bit cold, but otherwise fine,” she said with a small smile. “Thank you for asking.”

All Might took off his enormous jacket and draped it across Yaoyorozu’s shoulders as he passed to go to the control board and the bank of monitors.

Sero (who emitted tape from his elbows) and Sato (who gained strength by eating sugar) were the villains for the next exercise and Jiro (her earlobes could plug into almost anything and allow her to hear things from afar) and Kaminari (electricity quirk) were the heroes. They would be using a different building, and All Might pressed a few buttons to activate the cameras for the new location. He spoke into a microphone telling the villain team to enter the building and prepare.

Sato and Sero went inside, and Jiro and Kaminari turned to each other to strategize. At least, Izuku assumed they were strategizing; there was no sound.

“Midoriya! That fight was insane!” Mineta exclaimed.

They had ten minutes to kill while they waited for the true exercise to begin, so many of the students gathered around Izuku, Yaoyorozu and Todoroki to talk about their recent experience.

“Todoroki, the way you froze that whole room was crazy! How did you do it?” Kirishima said excitedly.

“I stomped my foot.” Todoroki answered, completely straight faced.

Izuku wondered if Todoroki was more blunt than intentionally rude. He didn’t really show much expression in his face when he spoke or even when using his quirk. He might have even been joking, but didn’t know how to deliver it.

“Yaoyorozu, the anti-freeze you tossed on Todoroki was genius, and those booby traps were very clever!” Iida said admiringly. “As expected of a recommended student!”

She blushed a bit at the praise, but she definitely deserved it, in Izuku’s opinion. He bet he could learn a lot from her in the future.

“Boobie traps!” Mineta said jokingly. “Get it? ‘Cauze she’s got giant…”

Everyone just looked at him like he was crap on their shoes, and then there was a loud slapping sound before Mineta yelped in pain. Izuku assumed that Hagakure, being invisible, had done what the rest of them had wanted to and slapped the boy for being perverted and disrespectful.

“I hope Kacchan is okay,” Izuku fretted, as everyone pretended they didn’t know Mineta had been slapped. “That hit was pretty bad.”

“Why do you call him Kacchan?” Ashido asked, high-fiving Hagakure, by the sound of it.

Izuku had noticed that the girl with pink hair and skin had a very bubbly and extroverted personality. Her question seemed born from curiosity instead of teasing or anything like that.

“Ah, well, we went to preschool and kindergarten together for a while, then middle school, too. It was kind of a habit for a while, and now I just do it to annoy him, because he calls me Deku to annoy me.”

Most of them chuckled at that.

“Why’s he so angry all the time?” Hagakure wanted to know.

Izuku could only guess at the intent behind her question, since he couldn’t see her expression, but he simply shrugged. “He’s always been that way. Maybe it’s part of his quirk; an explosive temper to go with explosive hands? Maybe being pissed all the time makes his hands sweat more?”

“I must say it was very unsporting of him to attack you when your back was turned, especially since he had been eliminated from the exercise,” Iida said haughtily.

“Pretty unmanly,” Kirishima agreed. “I wonder if he’ll get in trouble.”

Izuku didn’t know the answer to that.

“I mean, he wasn’t wrong that in a real situation, a villain wouldn’t just be cuffed and left alone,” Izuku said. “He probably thought he was exploiting a loophole.”

“But at the same time,” Ojiro said, his tail swishing slowly back and forth behind him. “He was told the rules ahead of time, and his attacks seemed very… personal. At least by the expressions he was making. Or maybe he’s just a good actor.”

“We have a complicated history,” Izuku said with a sigh.

“Hero team may enter the building!” All Might told Jiro and Kaminari through the microphone.

Everyone’s attention was pulled toward the monitors at that point, and Izuku was saved from having to explain further.

Because the battles ran past their allotted time, it was decided that the remaining two groups would continue the following day, then they would go over the results and discuss everyone’s performances as a class. Those that had already participated had been assigned homework to write up a short report on their own observations about the team they were assigned to, and what went wrong and right during their exercise.

After class, Izuku was sent for medical attention, and by that time, he was glad to go. The burns had truly begun to sting, and the areas where he’d taken hits were sore. He stopped to change back into his uniform and found his way to Recovery Girl’s office.

“I was told you might be stopping by,” she said when she spotted Izuku. “It’s not a good sign for you to be in my office twice in two days.”

Izuku ducked his head sheepishly and gave her a wry grin. “Sorry.”

She tutted at him and told him to sit down on one of the six beds along the walls of the room. One bed had the curtains drawn around it, and he wondered if Kacchan was in there. He hadn’t come back to class.

“Bakugou just left a few minutes ago,” she said following his gaze.

“Is he okay?” Izuku asked. “That hit to the head was pretty bad.”

“I healed him completely,” she assured him, motioning for him to take off his jacket and shirt. “The worst was the dislocated shoulder and all that torn tissue.”

Izuku winced, remembering how his arm had been forced backward by the blast of the gauntlet.

“You should have come to me sooner!” she scolded as she looked at his back. “These bruises!”

“Bruises?” Izuku asked, trying to turn his head enough to look at what she was talking about.

“There you are, young man,” All Might said, entering the room in his diminished form. “Aizawa said you had come to see… ouch!”

That last part was a sympathetic sound as he looked at Izuku’s bare back.

“I can’t see it, but it doesn’t hurt too badly,” Izuku said.

All Might took out his phone and snapped a picture, then showed it to Izuku. It was hard to believe he was looking at his own back! The center between his shoulder blades was nearly black where he’d taken the brunt of the explosion, and it radiated out from there, getting gradually lighter in tone. There was another, more reddish bruise over his left kidney, where he’d been punched. His neck and ears looked like he had a bad sunburn, and some of his hair was singed.

“My suit was amazing!” Izuku marveled. “It took a direct hit, and it didn’t even take damage!”

“You should be more worried about your body than your suit!” Recovery Girl scolded. “And you! I know you transferred your power to him, but that doesn’t make him invincible!”

All Might quickly whipped his head around to make sure they were alone.

“Could you keep it down?” he begged. “Anyone who heard you could…”

“I’m not stupid!” she snapped at him. “Give me some credit! You need to be more responsible for your students’ safety! That Bakugou boy could have snapped his neck!”

Both Izuku and All Might bowed their heads in contrition at her steely glare.

“Sorry,” All Might said, cowed.

“Sorry,” Izuku parroted.

Technically it was Kacchan’s own fault he’d flown into a wall, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d been injured on All Might’s first day as a teacher.

Recovery Girl nodded in satisfaction at that, and continued to examine Izuku, to make sure he had enough stamina to be healed right away. Izuku was grateful when she placed a kiss on his cheek and felt the stinging of the burns fade. Tight muscles that he hadn’t realized had been tense loosened, and the ringing in his ears cleared up. He immediately felt tired, and knew he would likely fall asleep almost as soon as he got home.

“The bruising will mostly fade, but you still may feel tender until tomorrow while your body finishes healing up,” she told him as she handed him a couple of wrapped candies and patted his hand. “Go ahead and get dressed, then you can go home.”

Speaking of home…

“Um, All Might? I forgot to ask what the arrangement was for me to go home. Should I call a cab or something?”

“I’ll be driving you,” All Might assured him. “I have a car in the faculty parking lot, and no one will recognize me in this form. If any of your classmates see you, you can just say I’m a family friend or something.”

Izuku nodded, feeling bad that so many people were going out of their way to protect him when he was sure there were a lot of other things they probably wanted to do. He followed All Might to a minivan that was pretty nondescript.

“I would have thought you’d have a sports car, or something,” Izuku commented, climbing into the passenger seat.

“I have one that I take out occasionally, but this one was available from the agency and doesn’t attract any attention,” All Might explained.

Izuku nodded and settled back into his seat with a stifled yawn. “Today was really interesting! I was so surprised when you showed up in the classroom that I almost freaked out.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” All Might said with a grin. “Though I am sorry that you got paired against Bakugou; I shouldn't have let that happen, knowing the past you two share.”

Izuku hadn’t even thought about blaming anyone for that.

“It was bound to happen sooner than later,” Izuku said philosophically. “Just as well to get it out of the way. I purposely didn’t tell him that I got into UA, and let him believe I wasn’t going to attend a hero school. He’s probably thinking I was trying to make a fool of him.”

“Were you?” All Might asked curiously.

“Maybe a little?” Izuku answered around another yawn. “I knew it would be a shock for him, and not a pleasant one.”

“Then why did you do it?” All Might asked, sounding interested in the answer.

“Mostly because I didn’t want to deal with it until I had to,” Izuku admitted. “If he had found out before, the last weeks of middle school would have been a nightmare, and I had finals to deal with. I put it off to save myself the grief and trouble of his tantrums for a bit longer.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” All Might allowed. “I was afraid you had deliberately baited him for the satisfaction of seeing him upset.”

“No, it's more just being tired of him always turning everything I say and do into a personal attack on him. Don’t get me wrong, it’s satisfying to prove him wrong, but that wasn’t why I kept it a secret.

Izuku’s eyelids were beginning to droop as All Might pulled up to his apartment building. Rapidfire was waiting just inside the door of the lobby and nodded to let them know he had seen their arrival.

“You did well today,” All Might told him as Izuku reached for the door handle. “I’m proud of you.”

Izuku smiled, feeling a warm sense of pride at the praise.

“Thanks, All Might. You did good today, too!”

Izuku walked into the building and nodded at Rapidfire, who fell into step with him, but instead of the stairwell, Izuku headed for the bank of elevators.

“Rough day?” the sidekick asked as they ascended to the fifteenth floor.

“Yeah, but it was really cool,” Izuku said with a sleepy smile.

Once Rapidfire had checked the apartment and left again, Izuku face planted onto the couch and didn’t stir again until his father came home a few hours later. He stayed up late fixing a quick meal for them both while he told his dad about his second day of school, then spent some time doing homework. He went to sleep just before midnight and looked forward to what the rest of the week would bring.

Chapter 23

Summary:

Actions meet consequences!

Notes:

I really loved writing this chapter - it's been a long time in coming! Let me know what you think of it!

The following day had its ups and downs.

The first half of the day was fine; Izuku had managed to get all of his homework done, despite his long nap the evening before. It was after that, when the final heroes and villains matches finished that things got complicated.

They dissected each battle, discussing strategy, compatibility of quirks, successes and failures of everyone’s matches, but saved the first for last. Izuku’s fight with Kacchan seemed to be the one that everyone had an opinion about, and many were divided on how it was handled on both sides. Izuku listened and took notes about everything they said, especially where it pertained to him, and didn’t say much unless he was asked to clarify something. This was a time to listen to critique, not argue about whether the choices he made were the correct ones.

Kacchan, on the other hand, seemed to take everything anyone said as an insult or a personal attack. Especially those who said that his ‘escape’ excuse and subsequent attack from behind was a stretch in explaining his behavior. He shouted and growled and threatened every person who dared criticize him, even if no one seemed to feel threatened by any of it.

All Might let them hash it out for a while, until Kacchan started literally sparking off at people.

“These are all very interesting points,” All Might conceded. “I find it very telling in many ways how many of you took this assignment very seriously and embraced your role as though it was an actual real-life scenario. Also, as Yaoyorozu pointed out, how many of you used the fact that it was a school exercise and exploited the parameters of that to your advantage, knowing that in a real-life situation, that wouldn’t fly.”

Many of the class looked at each other either guiltily or triumphantly. That started out another rehash of who had taken their roles seriously and who hadn’t. Iida was pleased that everyone in his hero/villain group agreed that he had taken to the role of villain wholeheartedly, but Izuku couldn’t fathom it. He wished (not for the first time) that they had been allowed to hear what everyone was saying during their turns. He’d only known the speedster for three days, but it was pretty obvious that Iida was a die-hard rule follower. Still, his team had won, so there was no arguing with the results of his team-up with Uraraka.

The bell rang while they were teasing Aoyama about accidentally burning a hole through the missile with his navel laser. Everyone gathered their things and were standing to leave, when Aizawa called out that Bakugou and Midoriya should stay behind.

Izuku sank back down into his seat, wondering what this was about, but afraid he already knew. His battle with Kacchan had gotten personal on both sides, and now they were probably going to be in trouble for it.

Aizawa came and sat in Sero’s chair, facing the two boys with a sigh.

“You can guess why I asked you both to stay behind,” he said.

“Tch,” Kacchan said.

It was a noise dripping with derision.

“Sorry, sensei,” Izuku said contritely.

“Why are you apologizing?” he asked, his voice giving nothing away.

“I fought dirty,” Izuku said. “Because I was angry.”

Aizawa looked at Kacchan and just waited.

“What?” Kacchan asked defensively. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

When Aizawa just continued to stare at him, Izuku squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. He really wanted to say something to Kacchan about being more cooperative and respectful to their teacher, but didn’t think it would be appreciated by either of them.

When Kacchan didn’t say anything further, and just stared defiantly, Aizawa pulled out his phone and showed them a photo. Izuku had already seen it: his back before it had been healed. Izuku remembered having a slight freak out when he’d noticed blood in his urine last night, before remembering he’d taken damage to his kidney earlier. Even though the injury had been healed, the blood had already been shed.

The picture didn’t seem to have any effect on Kacchan, who stared at it with a bored expression. Aizawa flicked at the screen with his thumb, bringing up another picture. This time Izuku gasped at the sight of Kacchan lying in a bed in the nurse’s office. Both of Kacchan’s eyes were black and swollen shut, and the pillow beneath his head was stained with blood. His throat was a mass of purple bruises that traveled up to his jawline and down to his collarbones. His costume had been peeled away to reveal a shoulder resting at an odd angle, much lower than the other, and bruised just as badly as Izuku’s back had been. Izuku could feel tears sting the backs of his eyes and pool on his lashes; the pain must have been unbelievable, and it was a mercy that Kacchan had been unconscious for it. Recovery Girl was right; Kacchan could have easily snapped his neck, and Izuku would have had to live knowing that he’d had a part in it.

Aizawa’s eyes flicked briefly to Izuku’s before going back to bore into Kacchan’s steely gaze. This time, the blonde was scowling at the picture, then looking away as though embarrassed. He still didn’t offer any kind of remorse or explanation.

“Let me tell you my observations about this fight,” Aizawa said quietly.

For all he spoke softly, his words were very impactful and filled Izuku with a feeling of dread.

“First, Midoriya. A throat punch is fighting dirty, but let me be the first to tell you that it’s a valid tactic. It’s quick, and often disabling in a situation that needs an especially fast resolution. The media will drag you for it, but you’ll probably be alive to live through the bad press. Use it sparingly.”

Izuku didn’t tell him that he wasn’t the first to tell him this; but that was because he had a huge lump in this throat that he wasn’t sure he could speak around. He nodded jerkily.

“The rest of your fight was pretty clean; you telegraph a bit too much. You’re too trusting. Those are things we can correct.”

He nodded again, taking comfort in the implication that he was not going to be expelled for his actions.

“Now for Bakugou,” Aizawa continued. “The first thing you did wrong was not listening to your partner. Yaoyorozu isn’t a recommendation student for nothing: she’s incredibly intelligent, capable and inventive.”

“She still lost to Half n’ Half,” Kacchan grumbled, making Izuku want to scream at him to shut up for his own good.

“Would that still be true if you’d followed the plan she wanted to use?” Aizawa asked.

Kacchan shrugged and looked away. It made Izuku wonder what Yaoyorozu’s plan had been. He’d have to remember to ask her.

“Your second mistake was not only underestimating your partner, but also your opponents. Todoroki was also a recommendation student. He got edged out by Midoriya, but if there had been fewer recommended students this year, he would have won the spot easily. You were outclassed and outmatched from the get-go.”

“Bullshit,” Kacchan spat, finally showing some emotion.

“How so?” Aizawa asked as if one of his students hadn’t just sworn at him disrespectfully.

Izuku was also curious about this. Kacchan wasn’t in middle school anymore, where he’d been a big fish in a small pond. This was UA, where the standards were high and the students' skills even higher. Had he expected to walk in and own the place? Maybe he had.

“I’m better than any of them,” Kacchan averred, even though he had no proof at the moment.

“No. You’re not,” Aizawa said flatly. “So let me set the record here straight. You almost didn’t make the cut into UA for the start. Your discipline records show you’ve got a mean streak and a bad habit of bullying. We don’t tolerate that here.”

Izuku was shocked by this, though maybe he shouldn’t have been. How far back did they look at records? Kacchan had been a jerk in middle school, but hadn’t particularly been out of control… at least not that Izuku knew about. Maybe he’d found someone new to pick on.

Kacchan looked as though Aizawa had slapped him across the face.

“Your one saving grace was the entrance exam, where you took on the zero pointer to save Uraraka from being crushed while she was trapped in the rubble. That was what convinced the committee to give you a chance. That, and the fact that you’ve kept your nose relatively clean for the past couple of years and scored very highly on the written exam.”

Izuku chewed on his lower lip, remembering the first day of school. Uraraka had thanked Kacchan for saving her from the ‘zero pointer’ and he had said he hadn’t done it for her. Had that been true, or had that been a typical Kacchan response, trying to seem aloof and cool? If it was true, the committee had misunderstood Kacchan’s intentions and he had only passed due to a stroke of luck…

Kacchan seemed to realize it, too. He clamped his mouth shut so tight his jaw bunched and his lips compressed into a thin line.

“You’ve got talent,” Aizawa conceded. “You quirk is powerful and you have excellent control over it. However. Your battle exercise told a story of a hothead who can’t handle teamwork or failure with dignity. You flouted the rules of the scenario to continue to attack a classmate; one you have a past history of bullying. If it had been anyone else you went after, we might have just chalked it up to zealousness, but it wasn’t. Not only did you attack him when you were declared eliminated, you were planning on pulling the pin on your gauntlet at close range, indoors.”

“He would have dodged,” Kacchan said petulantly, but without much venom.

“Undoubtedly,” Aizawa agreed. “Do you know what would have happened to him if he wasn’t able to dodge, and you’d made a hit?”

Kacchan was looking at the top of his desk now, looking as though he might throw up. Izuku wondered if he should ask to leave, since his role in the conversation seemed to be over.

He didn’t get the chance.

“You’re the one who designed and made the specifications for your costume. You know that your gauntlets store a significant amount of your sweat in order to set off especially large explosions. To set one off at close range, indoors could have had two possible outcomes out of many that would have been catastrophic. What do you think they are?”

When Kacchan didn’t answer, unable to look at their teacher, Aizawa turned to Izuku.

“What are they?” he asked more kindly.

“The building could have taken damage that could have destabilized it. If it had hit a load bearing wall, it could have collapsed part of it,” Izuku said, having already considered this when doing his homework.

“That’s one,” Aizawa agreed. “What about what could have happened to you?”

“Almost anything,” Izuku answered, trying to evade giving the answer he knew his teacher expected. “Depending on whether or not I could dodge in time.”

“If you couldn't?” Aizawa asked.

“It probably would have killed me,” Izuku admitted.

He had considered this, as well. He doubted that it had been Kacchan’s goal; he probably absolutely believed that Izuku would dodge. Still. It was still a possibility. He had wondered why the team that made their costumes would allow such a dangerous support item, and guessed that they had assumed a hero would never use it against another human being?

Aizawa’s gaze swung back to the top of Kacchan’s head.

“It could have killed him, and it almost killed you,” he pointed out grimly. “You were reckless and vengeful. Those are two things that will get yourself or someone else killed in most situations.”

Izuku was stunned to see a tear drop from Kacchan’s down-turned face and splatter on the desktop. Was it from regret? Rage? Helplessness? It made Izuku’s heart hurt in an indescribable way that wasn’t anger or anything like that. Maybe it was pity?

“So, the question now is: how do we handle this?” Aizawa asked.

The feeling of dread in Izuku’s chest doubled. Kacchan’s head jerked up, seemingly of it’s own accord, and the dread Izuku felt was mirrored in the other boy’s expression.

“Normally, I’d just expel you,” the teacher said bluntly. “Cut my losses and send you packing without losing a moment of sleep over it.”

After hearing that Aizawa had expelled an entire class before, he was surprised that Kacchan wasn’t already on his way out the door.

“But?” Kacchan managed to croak.

“The powers that be have asked me to reconsider and mete out a different punishment,” he said, not sounding happy about it. “I’m not convinced, so I agreed to a compromise.”

Both boys looked at Aizawa, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Their teacher rubbed at his eyes with his fingers before retrieving a bottle of eye drops and administering them; letting them wait.

“Midoriya gets to decide,” he finally said, “Whether you’ll be expelled, or be sent to general studies, instead. You’re being dropped from the hero program until after the Sports Festival, but have a slim chance of returning to the hero course if you stay out of trouble and perform well in the festival. If Izuku decides you can stay, you will also be required to perform one hundred hours of community service at the place of our choosing.”

Izuku’s jaw dropped. He couldn't believe they were putting this on HIS shoulders! Why?

Kacchan must have been thinking the same, because his expression twisted. Everything in his demeanor said that he expected to be tossed out.

Izuku went with his instincts.

“I think he should stay,” Izuku said quietly, not looking at Kacchan. He felt conflicted, since his life would be so much easier without having Kacchan there all the time. He was trying to think of what All Might would do, or what Sir would have to say about it. “He has an amazing quirk and intuitive fighting skills. He just… he needs to learn to care about people? Am I allowed to suggest that his community service involve helping other people in some way, and not just doing chores or picking up trash or something?”

Kacchan was strangely quiet about this. Izuku looked at him, expecting to see disgust or anger, but instead he saw skepticism and suspicion.

“So, I can come back if I do well at the Sports Festival?” Kacchan asked, his voice sounding raw.

“And stay out of trouble and complete your community service. I would also strongly suggest making a standing appointment with our school counselor to help you get that ego under control.”

Aizawa looked 100% serious about this. Izuku was half hopeful Kacchan would accept, and half hopeful he’d cut his losses and leave. Did that make him a bad person?

“Izuku, I believe your ride home is waiting for you,” Aizawa said after that. “You go on ahead while Bakugou and I finish our discussion.”

Izuku quickly gathered his bag and bolted for the door, not wanting to witness any more of this ‘discussion’ than he already had. He would find out tomorrow whether or not Kacchan took the offer to stay, or not.

He found All Might waiting for him near his van, scrambled in, and buckled his seat belt in a hurry.

“I can see you’ve survived your meeting with Aizawa,” All Might said, sliding into the driver seat and starting the ignition.

“You knew about that, huh?” Izuku asked, feeling mildly ill after making such an important decision for someone else.

“I was going to be the one to meet with you both, but my time in that form ran out before I had a chance,” All Might said ruefully. “Plus I think in this case, Aizawa was probably scarier than I could have been.”

“So the point was to scare Kacchan?” Izuku asked.

“Yes and no,” All Might said, pulling into traffic. “A lot of factors came into play in this situation, including a long phone conference with his parents last night to discuss it. It was their idea to let you decide if he would be allowed to stay at UA, but he was going to lose his place in the hero course, regardless. His parents hope that this will ‘scare him straight,’ so to speak.”

“I feel kind of bad, but at the same time…”

“There’s no shame in being relieved,” All Might told him quietly. “Especially with the past you both share. Aizawa agreed to let you decide to determine young Bakugou’s fate, because it would help him keep his reputation for being willing to expel anyone at any time intact. That boy has serious potential, but it’s wasted on a personality like that. If he can learn to actually care for others instead of always seeing himself as the victim, he could turn out to be a great hero. It’s up to him, now.”

Izuku wasn’t sure how to feel about all of this. Was Kacchan capable of learning such a thing after all this time?

“So you think I made the right choice in saying he should stay?”

“There was no doubt in my mind that you would choose that. You’re the opposite of everything he is, sometimes to a fault,” All Might said simply. “But that throat punch…”

Izuku blushed and shifted in his seat. “Yeah. I really do feel bad about that. If I hadn’t done that, maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad for Kacchan’s injuries.”

“I’m pretty sure it would have ended badly, either way,” All Might told him. “But it’s still… unseemly. Thanks, Gran.”

“Probably,” Izuku said. “But maybe not as bad. Sensei showed us the pictures of Kacchan’s injuries, and they were… they were terrible. I was scared that my being there might have made them worse, since my quirk can sense when someone is hurt like that…”

All Might took his eyes off the road to look at Izuku for a moment, and it took him a while to reply.

“That is something we will definitely have to take into account. In the field, you will come across victims who are weak, and close to dying. That’s the nature of rescue work, and damned near unavoidable,” All Might told him.

Izuku had thought of this before, but his mind always tried to shy away from thinking about it too hard because of the implications.

“Because you can’t be around someone too weak for any length of time, we will have to find a solution; a way to keep people safe from you, and vice versa,” All Might mused. “I’ll have Mirai call some support companies and see if some sort of shield or suppressor might help. Maybe call David to start him looking into it…”

Izuku knew that Mirai was Sir Nighteye’s first name, and he suspected that David was referring to David Shield, the American that had worked with All Might in the United States when he’d had been fresh out of UA. He felt humbled and awed that such a famed scientist might be asked to help him.

“In the meantime, if you come across a case like that, where you’re not sure someone is going to survive, it’s best that you clear out and let others handle that person. You’ll help them more by not helping them, if that makes sense. In the event of larger disasters, there are always a lot of people who need rescuing, that you won’t pose any danger to.”

Izuku nodded glumly. Wouldn’t that make him half a hero?

“What if I’m the only one around?” he asked.

“In that case, you have to let your heart decide. If the choice is them dying without help, or dying knowing someone is doing everything they can, which do you think they’d choose?” All Might asked gently. “You also have to decide how willing you are to bear their quirk for the rest of your life, which is no small consideration.”

Izuku thought back to the discussions and lessons he’d had with Sir about ethics and morals and hard choices. Somehow, in all of that, Izuku had never imagined making a choice between what kind of inevitable death one person would have. It was a heavy weight in the back of his mind.

All Might steered into the pull up curb in front of his building and put a hand on Izuku’s shoulder.

“Remember, that this is likely a temporary problem,” he said in a comforting voice. “We’ll find a solution, and then nothing can stop you.”

Izuku hoped that was true.

Chapter 24

Summary:

Field trips are never good news for Midoriya, are they?

Kacchan did not come to class the following day. Izuku stared at his empty seat all morning, and pretended not to hear the whispers of the others speculating about it. As Aizawa took the front desk, he made an announcement without preamble.

“Bakugou has been transferred to general studies for the time being. He’s still on campus, so if you happen to run into him and he gives you any trouble, you will come and report it to me immediately. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sensei!” everyone answered, not daring to make a fuss over it in front of the teacher.

Izuku barely heard it when Aizawa told them that they needed to choose a class representative. The classroom erupted into excitement over this, and hands shot up into the air with everyone demanding to be chosen. Izuku realized that a position as class rep would look good on transcripts when they graduated and entered the hero scene. Knowing that he already had support from All Might and Sir, this wasn’t as much of a concern for him, but it would seem weird if he didn’t seem interested at all. He raised his hand slightly, to make a good showing.

Finally, Iida took charge by shouting over the din and saying they should put it to a vote, stressing the importance of choosing a good leader and not just someone who wants the job for show. Aizawa said he didn’t care how they made the decision, as long as it was made before homeroom came to an end. Izuku helped Ida by passing papers out so they could write in their candidate, then collecting them once everyone was done. He handed the stack to Iida and sat down again, having voted for Iida, who obviously wanted the job, but had also proven he could get everyone’s attention. He was serious about his school and how he was perceived, and would pay attention to details and rules.

Izuku knew that most people would end up voting for themselves, so his vote for Iida just might be enough.

“It looks like our new class representative will be Midoriya Izuku and the deputy representative will be Iida Tenya,” Aizawa said flatly.

He gathered his sleeping bag and left the room as everyone broke into chatter about it. Present Mic entered as Aizawa left, kicking off the English lesson with a loud good morning greeting in English.

At lunchtime, Izuku stayed back for a moment to ask sensei about Kacchan. He had been worried about how the ‘demotion’ would affect Kacchanm and what his chances were of regaining his place in the hero course.

“That isn’t something you should be worrying about,” Aizawa told him without rancor. “Bakugou has some growing up to do, and some serious reflection on what it means to be a hero. Whether or not he does that is up to him; I just can’t afford to wait for him to do it where he could negatively influence or impact any of the others’ learning or safety.”

“But, what are the chances that he could do well enough in the Sports Festival to earn it?” Izuku insisted.

“It’s only happened once before, and that was a different set of circumstances,” Aizawa said. “It’s not probable, but it can be done if he’s willing to do what needs to be done. Now go eat your lunch, battle training today will be… chaotic.”

Izuku caught up with his friends just as they were reaching the cafeteria, but didn’t have much of an appetite.

“You must eat something!” Iida cajoled with an air chop when Izuku said he wasn’t hungry. “Hero training is next, and you’ll need your energy!”

Izuku knew he was right, but nothing sounded appealing. He hadn't eaten much for breakfast, either.

“Some fruit?” Iida asked, trying to persuade him, waving a banana.

“Do you feel sick?” Uraraka asked in concern.

“No, I just have a lot on my mind,” he denied.

“You should at least have some rice,” she said firmly. “Lunch Rush’s rice is amazing!”

To appease them Izuku agreed to take the rice and a packet of furikake for the top, and a bottle of Orange juice that Iida set on his tray, probably thinking he was being sneaky. They were nice people; he shouldn’t be letting someone who wasn’t so nice dominate his thoughts.

“If you’re worried about being class rep,” Uraraka said cheerfully, “You shouldn’t! You’re going to do great! Your fight with Bakugou was amazing, and you kept your cool and even made sure that the nurse took care of him, even though you were injured, too, and even though he cheated.”

“That’s true,” Iida said. “While I don’t approve of punching people in the throat, I can’t deny it was a very effective strategy.”

He did manage to eat his rice and drink his juice under Iida’s careful eye, but their meal was interrupted by what sounded like a fire alarm.

"This is a level three security breach alarm a pleasant voice informed the crowd of dining students. Please make your way outside using the nearest emergency exits.

Students all stood up and rushed the exits, with the first years totally confused about procedure and causing a slight problem with traffic flow.

“What’s a level three security breach?” Iida asked a passing upperclassman.

“Someone breached the security gate,” they said. “That’s the alarm to evacuate!”

“There were reporters everywhere this morning,” Uraraka said as they shuffled forward into the crowd. “Asking about what it was like to have All Might as a teacher. I’ll bet one of them tried to sneak on campus.”

“Were there?” Iida asked in surprise.

“I didn’t see any either,” Izuku said.

“Yeah, but you two get here crazy early!” she pointed out. “They probably got here after you.”

It didn’t take long for the crowd to bottleneck in the small space that led to the emergency exit, and the three of them were packed shoulder to shoulder with other students and unable to move.

“Wait,” Iida said to his friends, “I can see outside, and the gate is open, and staff are trying to get reporters out. We’re panicking over nothing.”

“Tell them that!” Uraraka said.

“Midoriya, can’t you levitate? You could rise up and shout to everyone,” Iida suggested.

“I don’t think I can be that loud,” Izuku told him, already shouting to be heard.

They quickly devised a plan for Uraraka to use her quirk on Iida to make him float, then he would use his engines to propel himself to the front of the crowd to yell down at them, since he was loud enough to project his voice.

“Everyone calm down at once!” Iida bellowed, causing the students to quiet down in surprise. “There is no danger! It is merely the press trying to gain access to the school. The teachers and staff are handling it now. There is no reason to be alarmed!”

Everyone made noises of relief, and the space began to clear, both from the front and the back of the line as many turned to file back into the dining hall.

“Thanks, Exit Sign Iida!” one of their classmates called with a laugh.

Izuku had to admit that the pose that Iida was forced into, balanced above the door on the narrow ledge of the door jamb resembled the pictogram on most emergency exit signs.
Uraraka giggled as they waited for him to jump to the floor, once the space was empty enough, and went back to their trays. Their food had gone cold, but Uraraka still scooped up the last of her rice quickly until she resembled a rosy-cheeked chipmunk as they hurried to return their trays and head to class.

Once they were changed into their gym uniforms as instructed, they met in the sports arena, where there were mounds of dirt, fox holes, large pillars and various other debris scattered around. All Might met them there and divided them into two teams, and then there was a rousing game of capture the flag that had all of them sweaty, dirty and excited within the first fifteen minutes. While the game was fun, it was also challenging, and Izuku got to see lots of inventive ways for his new classmates to use their quirks. Izuku’s team lost the overall game, but it had been a close contest, and they good-naturedly complained that it was because their team only had nine players, and the other team had an invisible girl who didn’t mind getting naked.

By the time he was showered and ready to go home, Izuku was in a much better frame of mind. That good cheer lasted all of five minutes past the time he met All Might in the parking lot for his ride home.

All Might was distracted and didn’t look happy about something.

“What’s wrong, All Might?” Izuku asked with concern. “Are you feeling sick?”

“The security breach today has me worried,” All Might said grimly.

“The reporters getting in?” Izuku asked, wondering if it was really that big of a deal. Annoying, yes, enough to worry All Might? Why?

“Well, that too,” All Might said dismissively. “But it’s how they got in that’s troubling.”

“That’s a good point,” Izuku said. “How did they get the gates open? Iida saw it through the window.”

“It wasn’t open,” All Might said ominously. “It was destroyed.”

“Destroyed? How?” Izuku asked with dismay.

“It seems like it was turned to a pile of rust,” All Might said, looking at Izuku meaningfully.

“Like someone with a disintegration quirk touched it?” Izuku asked, feeling as if a led brick had dropped into the pit of his stomach.

“Exactly like that,” All Might said.

“There are security cameras everywhere, though! Did any of them catch footage of who did it?”

“The footage was destroyed. It seems that the gate being taken down might have been a distraction while someone hacked into our system. It will take a couple of days to scan all of the data and see if anything was taken, opened, corrupted or something else.”

“So… you think it was Shigaraki Tomura,” Izuku said. “But he probably didn’t come onto campus?”

“That’s the theory we’re going with at the moment,” All Might said. “Of course the campus was searched scanning ID badges and passes, infrared and attendance records. There was no one on campus who shouldn’t be.”

“Damn,” Izuku murmured. “They really aren’t going to stop trying to get to me, are they?”

All Might was silent, but his hands gripped the wheel, his knuckles turning white. Izuku felt the same way.

The rest of the ride back to his apartment building was tense and quiet as they both considered the implications of today’s events.

Centipeder and Bubble Girl both met him in the lobby and escorted him up to his apartment (no stairs today) and checked the apartment extra well. Centipeder even ran scans of Izuku’s computer and his dad’s home computer to make sure there hadn’t been external tampering. They found nothing, and left him alone again. He had a feeling they were not far away, even though he couldn’t see them.

Izuku had an argument with his father that evening. It wasn’t something that happened often, but this time, Izuku was adamant; he was not going to stay home from school until there were more answers.

“It’s for your own good, Zu,” his father said. “That guy is crazy, and all he has to do is touch you, and what happened to that gate could happen to you. Don’t you remember what he did to Granny Ito’s house? To her cat?”

“Where will I be safer than a school full of heroes and the most powerfully gifted kids in Japan?” Izuku argued. “I can’t miss school! They move too fast for that!”

“Were you safe when there was a security breach today?” his father said, unconvinced.

“Yes!” Izuku returned. “I was! I wasn’t in any danger at all! I was eating lunch when the alarm went off, and there wasn’t a single report of anyone being threatened. The gate thing was a distraction so no one would notice they were hacking the computers!”

“Probably to get information about you!”

“What can they possibly learn about me that they don’t already know?” Izuku asked. “I can’t think of a single thing, can you? Except maybe any new quirks I might have gotten since All Might fought All For One.”

That gave his father pause. Izuku knew he’d won when his father stopped arguing and sighed, rubbing his chest as if to calm the fire that wanted to stoke to life there.

“Promise me you’ll follow all of your teachers’ instructions.”

“I will.” Izuku promised.

“And that you won’t go anywhere alone. Always have an adult with you or nearby.”

“I always do. They even have adults around when we eat lunch,” Izuku told him, not mentioning that the teachers there were buying lunch themselves. It didn’t mean they wouldn’t help if there was trouble.

His father reluctantly nodded.

“As long as All Might is still driving you home each day, I suppose it’s all right.”

He didn't know if his father was aware that All Might was down to just three hours a day in his hero form, and that he used it almost completely just teaching class most days, but he wasn’t going to bring it up. They’d just started the school year, and Izuku was determined not to fall behind; Aizawa had impressed on them that every second of their schooling was precious.

“Deal!” Izuku said instantly.

“By the way, when were you going to tell me that you got voted to be your class rep? That’s fantastic!” his father said, offering an olive branch.

“Huh? Oh! With everything else today, I kind of forgot!” Izuku said. “I’m not even sure how I got the votes! I’m not surprised about Iida, because he’s so strict about rules and everything, but they barely know me.”

Another reason, in his mind, that he couldn't’ afford to miss school.

“I’m going to need to get everyone’s cell phone numbers so I can let them know about important stuff.”

“I’m sure they voted for you because you’re such a nice kid,” his father said confidently.

It was as good a reason as any, he supposed. Izuku wasn't sure how he’d earned anyone’s confidence, and he hoped he didn’t let them down. Still, choosing the class rep had taken the focus away from Kacchan’s absence in the classroom for the time being.

He wasn’t so lucky the following day.

Hero training would be taking place at a training facility in a far corner of the campus, and it was far enough that they would need to take a shuttle bus to get there in good time. After Iida and Izuku checked to be sure everyone was on board, the bus began it’s journey across campus. Aizawa had said that All Might and another staff member would be supervising them, but they hadn’t shown up before the bus pulled away from the curb, so Izuku assumed they would meet at their destination.

“So, Midoriya!” Kirishima said loudly across the aisle, “What’s up with Bakugou being transferred out? You and him got called to stay after the other day, then the next day he was gone.”

“I, uh…” Izuku wasn’t sure what he should or shouldn’t say or if it was a secret.

“C’mon man,” Kaminari said to Kirishima, equally loudly, “Everyone could see he had the personality of steaming crap. It’s not like it's a surprise he didn’t cut it.”

“Plus, he kinda cheated, attacking Midoriya after All Might said he was captured,” Asui added. “And he’d already been warned once that if he used his quirk on another student outside of battle training, he’d be expelled.”

“He probably got to stay in general studies, since when he did that, it was still technically battle training, even though he was out,” Sero pointed out.

Izuku was relieved that they were coming to their own conclusions, so he didn’t have to decide what to tell them.

“Good point,” Sato said, “But I dunno if I’d stick around the same school, after getting booted from the top program.”

“It’s still one of the top schools in Japan, not just for heroics,” Yaoyorozu pointed out. “He couldn’t have hoped for better, really.”

The rest of the class nodded.

“I’ve been wondering, Midoriya,” Asui said, “You have a lot of quirks, but which one is your favorite?”

“Oh! I guess I never really thought about it all that much. Some of them are just there, you know?” he said. “I guess maybe my balance and agility? It would take a lot of force to make me fall, so that’s really helpful.”

“Not your strength enhancement?” Kirishima asked in surprise. “I mean, that would be my favorite! Even though yours seems to mess you up sometimes, mine is just hardening. It’s good in a fight, but it’s not really that exciting, you know?”

“Really? I think it’s amazing! Your quirk is more than strong enough to go pro with!” Izuku said enthusiastically.

“Speaking of strong,” Iida said, “Todoroki seems to have quite an amazingly strong quirk, as well.”

Everyone turned their heads to look at the classmate in question, but he was sitting alone at the back of the bus, staring out the window.

“That’s definitely true,” Yaoyorozu said with a nod. “I speak from experience.”

Most of them laughed at that, since they’d all watched her on the monitors as Todoroki had literally encased her in ice two days before.

Aoyama joined in by saying something about strength not being the only important aspect of hero work, and that popular appeal also played a large role. They didn’t get much further that that, because the bus pulled up in front of an enormous domed building, easily as large as a professional sports stadium.

They filed off and followed Aizawa up the steps and into the building as the bus drove away. All of them stood on a large platform with a view of several different sections, with an atrium in the middle. Honestly it looked like an amusement park similar to Universal Studios Japan, each section looked as though it could be used to film action scenes in a blockbuster movie.

“There’s the flood zone, the landslide zone, the conflagration zone, et cetera! Every kind of disaster or accident you can imagine! I built it myself, and I call it the Unforeseen Simulation Joint!”

So it was the USJ, just like Universal Studios Japan! That couldn’t be a coincidence. Izuku could feel his heart rate picking up with excitement. Which zone would they be working in today? Maybe he could get the support class to add a body cam to his suit, so he could use the footage to take notes about everything after doing stuff like this?

“It’s the Space Hero: Thirteen!” Izuku said excitedly.

The person who had spoken was dressed in a costume very similar to an astronaut and was known for their record of spectacular rescues as a pro hero.

Uraraka seemed just as excited as Izuku.

“I love Thirteen,” she enthused, “They’re well known for their excellence in rescue operations!”

“I thought All Might was supposed to meet us here,” Aizawa told Thirteen.

“Sorry, senpai,” they answered. “It seems he ran into trouble during his morning commute and ran out of time.”

Izuku watched as they held up three fingers as they stressed the word time. All Might had overdone it already today, and wouldn’t be able to keep his hero form for a while. He likely would miss this lesson, which was disappointing, but Izuku knew that his hero work was more important. Aizawa sighed in… frustration? Anger? It was hard to tell.

“So irrational,” he muttered quietly. “So be it. Let’s get started.”

“Before we get started, there are one or two things I want you to be aware of,” Thirteen told the students. “Or three or four? Maybe five.”

Everyone signed, bracing for a long lecture before they could get to work.

“As you may know, my quirk is called Black Hole.”

Izuku and Uraraka both nodded vigorously, making their classmates chuckle.

“You’ve used it in some amazing rescues!” Uraraka said.

“You’ve saved people in all kinds of disasters!” Izuku inserted.

“That’s true,” Thirteen acknowledged. “However, my quirk could also easily be used to kill.”

Everyone sobered immediately and fixed their attention on Thirteen.

“My quirk is called Black Hole, and like a real black hole, anything that gets sucked in will be torn to shreds and disappear forever. We live in a super powered society with many restrictions and regulations. Quirks like mine are heavily monitored. Our society may seem safe and stable, but if someone like me was to lose control, or become a villain, then people would certainly die.”

Izuku was all too aware of that, from his own encounters with villains, and from his lessons with Sir and All MIght. Training and guidance were essential, even if you didn’t want to become a hero.

“During your quirk test with Aizawa on your first day, you learned how much better you can perform when you use your quirk as a tool to aid you. During your Battle Training with All Might, you learned how dangerous your quirks can be to others. Today’s training will teach another aspect, as well: how to use your quirks to save lives.”

Everyone visibly straightened with attention and eagerness. Izuku was practically vibrating with excitement.

“Your quirk is a tool, and not meant to inflict harm on others. My goal is that you leave here today with the understanding that heroism is about helping people. Thank you for listening!” Thirteen finished with a theatrical bow.

Everyone applauded. Izuku, though excited, felt a pang at the thought that this was exactly the kind of lesson that Kacchan could have used to help him understand what he needed to learn.

“Great,” Aizawa said. “First off…”

His words trailed off as something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Izuku turned his head to see what had distracted him, and his eyes widened as his blood ran cold. A vague memory, maybe from a dream, resurfaced in his mind and told him exactly what the black swirling mass in the atrium was.

A warp gate.

Kirishima used a hand to shade his eyes as he squinted at the figures pouring out of the warp gate.

“Are those robots?” he asked, sounding confused. “Like at the entrance exam?”

“Get back,” Aizawa said sharply, grasping his capture weapon with both hands. “Those are villains. Everyone huddle up and don’t move! Thirteen, protect them!”

Aizawa moved to the top of the stairs, staring down at the dozens of villains that had poured into the atrium below. While his teacher was scanning the crowd, Izuku was fixated on the man with white hair and froze. He knew that face. A photo of it was hanging behind Sir’s desk, and he’d studied it several times. He was older now, of course, but the scarred, cracked skin was unmistakable: Shigaraki Tomura.

He snapped out of it as Thirteen started issuing instructions. He pulled his cell phone from one of the pouches. He had an “emergency” button that automatically dialed Might Tower, but the call wouldn’t go through.

Call could not be completed. Trying again in 30 seconds.

“They’re jamming signals in and out,” Kaminari said to Thirteen, who had asked him to try to reach the school with the receiver in his headgear.

“Thirteen and Eraserhead is it?”

A pair of glowing eyes had emerged from the swirling blackness as it took on a mildly humanoid form. Kurogiri.

“According to the teacher’s curriculum file that we went to so much trouble to procure yesterday, All MIght was supposed to be here, and yet I don’t see him.”

“So it was you scumbags that caused all that trouble,” Aizawa growled.

Shigaraki was covered in what looked like...severed hands? Izuku shivered. Were they fake, and just for show? It was creepy as hell! He even had one stuck to the front of his face, and another on the back of his head, as if they were squeezing his brain.

“Sensei! Don’t let the one with the white hair touch you! He’s got a disintegration quirk!”

“Don’t ruin the fun, you little brat!” Shigaraki said. “You're at the top of my list after All Might, MIdoriya Izuku.”

Izuku could feel the eyes of his classmates shifting to look at him.

“He knows your name!” Sero said, sounding fearful.

“What kind of villains are stupid enough to attack a school for heroes?” Kirishima asked.

“This place is pretty far from the school, and they picked a time when there would only be a few people around. They’re not a stupid as you think They picked a perfect set of circumstances to launch a sneak attack,” Yaoyorozu said.

Izuku could hear Thirteen responding, but didn’t listen to what they were actually saying. Instead, he was trying to keep his eyes on both Shigaraki and Kurogiri. They were clearly the ones responsible for this attack.

“Where is All Might?” Shigaraki demanded. “I went to all of the trouble to invite all these playmates, and he isn’t even here? That’s no fun!”

“He’s not coming,” Aizawa said. “You’ll have to play with me, instead.”

“Not coming? No fair! I’ll bet a few dead kids would get his attention and bring him running!”

“There’s too many of them to fight by yourself!!” Izuku told Aizawa. “Your erasure requires eye contact, and there’s no way you can erase all of them!”

“No hero is a one-trick pony,” his teacher told him. “Thirteen! Take care of them! Evacuate and get far enough away to contact the school! Midoriya, you especially need to get out of here.”

Aizawa leapt for the atrium, clearing the stairs downward without touching them. It was almost a shock to see their normally sleep-deprived sensei move so swiftly. He met the villains head-on, wrapping them in his weapon and dispatching them left and right, working his way to Shigaraki.

“All of you kids, get outside!” Thirteen commanded, gesturing toward the door.

“Wow!” Izuku said, marveling at Aizawa’s skills. “I can’t believe he’s taken so many down when he’s that outnumbered! Not just his quirk, but his combat skills are…”

“Midoriya! Less analyzing and the evacuating! It’s your job as class rep to make sure everyone understands their job!”

 

Iida’s tone was harried and held a hint of frustration.

“That won’t be happening!” Kurogiri’s voice said out of thin air.

A moment later he materialized as a black cloud between the students and the door.

“Hello! We are the Villain Alliance,” Kurogiri told them, sounding almost cordial. “You’ll have to excuse the disruption to your studies, but we have a mission to complete: to end the life of the Symbol of Peace.”

“He means All Might!” Kaminari said, stating the obvious.

“He can’t kill All Might!” Mineta all but wailed. “He’ll come and wipe them out! WHAM! Right?”

“They must think they’ve found a way to kill him, or why else would they come here?” Asui reasoned.

Izuku knew that Asui was right, and if All Might had truly used up all of his heroic power for the day, where did that leave them? Even if he showed up, he was weak and wouldn’t be able to defend himself or the class. This was extraordinarily bad.

“It seems the schedule we received has been revised,” Kurogiri observed. “But my role here hasn’t changed.”

“Not if we end you, first!” Kirishima shouted.

He hardened his skin and charged toward the black hovering mass, Sato and Kaminari right behind him. Kaminari let loose with a surge of electricity, while Kirishima and Sato both took a swing at each of the glowing eyes.

“No! Get back, all of you!” Thirteen shouted, the cap on the end of one of their gloves popping open on a hinge.

Izuku’s blood rushed even faster, knowing that if Thirteen activated their quirk while the three boys were in the way, they’d be ripped to shreds.

“That was actually a good try,” Kurogiri intoned, “and even though you’re just students, you are the best of the best. BEGONE! WRITHE IN AGONY AND TORMENT UNTIL YOU BREATHE YOUR LAST.”

Chapter 25

Summary:

Izuku is forced to think fast to survive the USJ.

Izuku barely had time to dodge as a tendril of blackness appeared in front of him while a whirlwind of blackness began to churn around them. He barely managed to push Iida and Uraraka (who were standing side-by-side) out of the way of the spinning warp gate in the process. Izuku saw that Shouji had dropped to his knees, covering at least two others with his webbed limbs, and Iida had quickly grabbed Thirteen by the back of their costume and rocketed out of the way, as soon as he realized what was happening.

Everyone else vanished.

Izuku told himself not to hyperventilate when he saw most of his class disappear. He reminded himself that Kurogiri only transported people to other places, so unless he moved them directly over an active volcano or something, they had a chance of being okay. For now, he had to worry about what was happening in front of him.

The warp gate had vanished, and along with it, Kurogiri--at least for now. Thirteen and Iida were standing, braced for whatever might happen next. Shouji stood to reveal that he’d been shielding Sero and Mina, and Uraraka was dazed, but fine.

“If they think they’ve got a way to beat All Might, then there’s only one thing we can do,” Izuku said to the remaining group.

“Yes,” Thirteen agreed. “Find a way to escape and get more help!”

Izuku knew they were right, but he also knew that it wouldn’t be as simple as that. They were now as outnumbered as Aizawa sensei, who was still battling his way to Shigaraki down in the atrium. He might hold his own against the other villains, but Shigaraki was a whole other level of evil. He needed backup, and soon.

“These doors are shut tight, and I don’t think my acid can melt through them that fast!” MIna said, inspecting the sealed entry.

“I’ll bet me and Shouji could pry them open,” Izuku said. “If we can get them open for long enough for Iida to get through, he’s fastest and could run back to the school for help.”

Thirteen approved the plan, but lamented that the doors would automatically close once he and Shouji let go.

“You’ll have to maneuver yourselves out after everyone else goes through.”

Izuku and Shouji nodded in understanding before getting a grip on the seam between the doors. They were on the count of two out of three before pulling when Kurogiri appeared again.

“Sero!” Izuku shouted. “He has some kind of collar, so he must have a body somewhere in there.”

“Let me handle this! Thirteen shouted, pushing a ready Sero behind them. “You get Iida and the others out!”

Thirteen activated Black Hole while Izuku charged up One For All. Sparks of green and red traced over his skin and he and Shouji pulled the doors open just enough to let Iida slip through.

“Run as fast as you can, Iida!” Uraraka shouted, slipping through the gap behind him.

Mina followed, as did Sero. Izuku slid sideways to brace his back against the opposite door and his feet against the other, holding it open for Shouji to duck through.

“I’m going to yank you out,” Shouji told him as he got to his feet.

Just then, Thirteen screamed, and Izuku saw a portal opening behind them, as well as in front. Their own quirk was being used against them by swallowing their hand with the front portal and making it reappear behind.

Using his agility, Izuku spun out of the door gap, and back into the USJ, letting the door slam closed, leaving the others on the outside. Thinking quickly, Izuku sped to the portal behind Thirteen and closed the cap on the glove, effectively shutting off their quirk. But the damage was done. Thirteen fell to their knees and then face down on the ground, a gaping hole in the back of their suit and their back. Izuku only just had time to check for a pulse, which was barely there, before Kurogiri enveloped him in a warpgate and moved him away.

It was almost instantaneous. Izuku fell from a few feet in the air to the ground, springing to his feet to see he was in the atrium, beside a fountain. He could see the steps leading up to where he had just been standing, and Aizawa making headway through the crowd of villains advancing on him. Izuku prayed he was far enough away from Thirteen, so his quirk didn’t weaken them any further than their injury already had. And that his own quirk hadn’t made them ...he forced his mind away from that thought and made himself focus.

He scanned his surroundings to find his best course of action. He really wanted to get back to the entrance to try to help Thirteen; that wound had been troubling, possibly fatal. Since he couldn’t risk close proximity to her, he needed to get Aizawa to help her. That had to be his first priority, even though Aizawa was also fighting for his life. At least he was still on his feet and not bearing any serious looking injuries.

“You what?” Shigaraki snarled from closer than Izuku had realized. “If you weren’t our transport out of here, I’d turn you to dust right now!”

He saw that Kurogiri had materialized next to Shigaraki and was talking to him.

“Well, that’s game over, then, if the kids reach help, not only will All Might come, but so will the rest of the UA staff,” Shigaraki was saying, scratching horribly at his neck.

Izuku couldn’t believe his luck! Were they just going to leave?

“We’d better make sure that at least a few of the students die; and their teacher,” Shigaraki decided. “Nomu, after you take care of Eraserhead, grab Midoriya. He’s coming with us. Don’t kill him, yet.”

In the blink of an eye a hulking black villain that Izuku had assumed was there to protect Shigaraki was suddenly in front of Aizawa. With a single fist on the top of his head, ‘nomu’ sent the hero crashing to the ground, where he lay utterly still.

It was impossible for Izuku to tell if he was still alive as he cried out, “Sensei!”

He had just launched himself at the villain when it turned toward him, and it moved so fast that Izuku felt its arm scrape against his own as they passed each other. The villain was grotesque looking, with an exposed pink brain with eyes sunken into the sides of it, and a beak like a bird, if birds had sharp teeth. It had human- looking hands and feet, but the skin was black, and looked torn open in areas as if stretch marks had burst from being stretched too far. Izuku planted himself in front of Aizawa, facing this ‘Nomu’, and held his ground.

“Don’t you like my nomu?” Shigaraki asked Izuku, spreading his arms wide. “Sensei had him made just for me, but that wouldn’t have been possible without your help!”

Izuku wasn’t sure what he was talking about, and didn’t have time to examine the dread pooling in the pit of his stomach as he was forced to jump away from the nomu, to avoid being grabbed. That was fine; if it was chasing him, it wouldn't’ have time to finish off Aizawa, who had a very faint rise and fall to his back. He also needed to get away from Aizawa himself, in case his injuries were potentially fatal. Izuku needed to stall for time. Surely Iida would reach the school quickly, since it had only been about a five minute bus trip. He only needed to evade until help arrived. How long had it bed since he’d helped the others get out of here?

One For All thrummed in his bones as he launched himself away. He jumped high in the air with his levitation paired with his strength. It wasn’t really flying, but it was close enough for now; the trouble would be keeping momentum and speed. He wondered if the conflagration zone would be the best place to lead the monster. His own costume featured fire resistance and his mask had a filter for smoke… maybe the fire would be too much for it, and it could be slowed down. He reached the far wall by the entrance and ricocheted off of it like a pinball in a pachinko machine, shooting himself toward the dome at the far side of the USJ that was painted with flames.

The nomu was in pursuit, but Izuku seemed to be able to stay ahead of it so far. Would the roof of the conflagration zone be too hot to land on? He was about to find out! As he got within three meters of the side of the dome in his descent, he tucked his knees to flip over, so he could hit the building feet-first. The force of his landing didn’t break the panel as he’d hoped, and Izuku slid down the side of the building until he was on the ground. Luckily the answer to his earlier internal question was, ‘no.’ The surface of the dome wasn’t hot at all, and was probably super-insulated.

The impact of the nomu, however, did break the panel and it plunged through the hole it had created. A few moments later, it crashed back out from the inside, smoking and covered in blisters that disappeared right before Izuku’s eyes.

“Healing or regenerating quirk,” Izuku groaned.

That complicated things. He’d thought it was super strength or speed, but there was no mistaking the instant healing he was seeing...unless he had multiple quirks… Then it sunk in.

“Sensei had him made just for me, but that wouldn’t have been possible without your help!”

Crap.

Crapcrapcrap!

The nomu lunged for him again.

Izuku levitated with a leap using One For All, and launched himself by shoving off at an angle against the ceiling. He bounced around the USJ that way for some time, with quite a few narrow misses. Apparently tired of the game, Shigaraki called the nomu back to him. Izuku froze, unable to hear what the villain was saying to the nomu, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. The behemoth sped over to Aizawa and lifted both arms over its head, preparing to slam them down onto Izuku’s teacher.

“No!” Izuku didn’t even realize he was moving until he was already halfway across the USJ and to his teacher. At the last moment, the nomu turned and snatched Izuku right out of the air by his arm, and held him firm, even as Izuku did everything he could get free, including kicking the monster’s elbow in an attempt to break the arm long enough to loosen his grip. It was no use. The nomu delivered a brutal kick to Aizawa’s side that sent him tumbling across the atrium. All the way to the base of the steps, just meters below where Thirteen was knocked out.

Aizawa had left a pool of blood where he had been before the kick, right around where his head had rested in a dent in the ground. Izuku wondered what had happened to him while he had been leading the nomu in the world’s most terrifying game of tag.

“Well, at least we got the kid,” Shigaraki said with a sigh. ‘We’ll have to be satis--”

Just then the door to the USJ exploded inward, and All Might in his hero form stood silhouetted for a moment in the entrance as he took in what was happening.

“Fear not! I am here!”

All Might spotted Izuku dangling from the Nomu’s arm and gritted his teeth, looking as wild and angry as Izuku had ever seen him. It wasn’t a smile, it was a rictus of seething rage.

“Preying on children?”

Izuku watched along with Shigaraki, and the classmates who had shuffled back in behind All Might, as the number one hero ripped the tie from his neck and tossed the shreds away. He looked down at Thirteen, who was quickly surrounded by Shouji, Mina and Uraraka, hoping to help in some way.

With a single bound, All Might had swept away anyone remaining around Aizawa and gently picked him up. The sensei hung limply in his giant hands, blood dripping from his head and arms. All Might turned and spoke to Shouji, who hurried down the steps and gathered Aizawa in his many arms and began to carry him back up.

All Might continued to walk toward Shigaraki with intent written in every line of his body. Shigaraki didn’t look concerned, though.

“Stop right there, All Might,” Shigaraki called out. “Unless you want to see this boy’s arm ripped off.”

All Might halted in his tracks, huge hands fisted.

“I’m sorry, All Might!” Izuku said, even as he continued to struggle. “I wasn’t fast enough.”

Almost the moment the words were out of his mouth, a huge surge of ice encased the Nomu, leaving just its hand free, with Izuku dangling from it. Todoroki stepped from the shadows and also attempted to freeze Shigaraki, but the villain was too fast. In an instant, Izuku used One For All to punch the ice as hard as he could with his free hand, right where the nomu's arm jutted out, and the hand actually broke away from the arm and let Izuku drop to the floor.

“Gah!” he said as he pried the horrifying severed hand from his wrist. “Ew!”

Almost instantly, a new hand replaced the old on the nomu’s arm, but Izuku had backed away by then to stand beside Todoroki.

“Thanks,” he said as they both stood at the ready.

“You boys get out of here,” All Might ordered, even as the nomu broke free of the ice.

Too fast for any of them to register the movement, All Might had moved to the edge of the shipwreck zone to scoop up Asui and Mineta, who had apparently been hiding there. He placed them down near the stairs and ordered them to retreat and help with Thirteen and Aizawa.

Izuku didn’t move from his spot, and neither did Todoroki. There was no way either of them was going to turn their backs on the villains. The only reason Izuku even turned his head was because he sensed someone approaching from behind. He was about to deliver a blow to their would-be assailant when Uraraka whispered to him.

“Are either of you hurt?”

He put his fist down, and noticed that she and Sero had sneaked over to check on them.

“I’m fine,” Todoroki said in his usual bland tone.

“I’m okay,” Izuku said as well, turning his gaze back to the villains.

The now-free nomu was still standing beside Shigaraki, and Kurogiri was behind them both, awaiting instruction.

“I’m pretty sure your arm is broken, dude,” Sero told Izuku.

Izuku looked to where his arm was bent at a slightly unnatural angle with some surprise.

“Tape it for me, quick!” Izuku said, snapping his gaze back to the stand-off between All Might and the rest.

“Kirishima just showed up at the bottom of the stairs, and I see Yaoyorozu and Jiro, too,” Uraraka told them with relief.

She took hold of Izuku’s injured arm and held it steady while Sero used some tape from his elbow to wrap it snugly over his sleeve.

“Kurogiri, bring me the kid. Nomu, kill All Might!” Shigaraki ordered.

Izuku had to tear his eyes from the nomu as he charged All Might, because Kurogiri had appeared in front of them. Seeing the collar on the villain again, Izuku knew they had a chance and spoke quickly as he dodged.

“If he can wear a collar, he probably has a body,” he told the others, “That means we can bring him down.”

Todoroki tried ice, but it vanished into the blackness of a portal without impact. Izuku levitated upward to take the attention away from his classmates, which gave Uraraka time to sneak up behind him and use her quirk on the collar and the blackness above it. Sero then stepped forward to shoot his tape, adhering it to the metal collar around where they presumed Kurogiri’s neck to be. It was hard to tell with all the flailing, but Kurogiri now looked something like an amorphous black balloon, being whipped around in the suddenly strong wind being generated by the nomu and All Might trading blows at an unbelievable pace.

“You should get out of here,” Todoroki told Izuku. “They’re kind of trying to kidnap you.”

Izuku knew he was right, but he also knew that All Might only had so much power left before he was out of time. If this didn’t end quickly… All Might already had steam rising from his body, though it was disguised by the flying dust and debris. He also knew that he couldn’t go near the exit, because Aizawa and Thirteen were critically injured there.

Without giving himself time to think about it, Izuku jumped high into the air with the help of levitation and kicked off of the dome overhead to speed downward like a missile, pulling back his uninjured fist and slamming it forward straight onto the nomu’s exposed brain. At the same moment that the nomu was stunned from Izuku’s blow, All might shouted.

“PLUS ULTRA!”

The finishing blow All Might had meant to deliver hit the nomu square in the chest. The force of the blow sent the nomu flying into the air, and the wind it caused sent Izuku flying, as well. Izuku flailed, twisting to try to get his bearings, thinking he’d springboard off of the dome again to land safely on the ground. That would have been what happened, except for the fact that All Might had hit the nomu so hard, that the panel of dome that was the USJ shattered, and Izuku was left with nothing to springboard off of. He flew out the window along with the nomu, who was nothing more at this point than a giant, grotesque ragdoll.

A sudden jolt stopped Izuku abruptly, and he began to fall toward the ground, though he would likely hit the dome, first. He looked at his leg, which hurt with a sharp pain and saw that Sero’s tape was stuck to his pant leg and shoe.

“Uh-oh!” Izuku exclaimed as he arced closer to the dome. Now was not the time to marvel at Sero’s skill! He engaged his levitation, which saved him from a nasty impact, and released it a moment later so he only dropped a couple of meters before hitting. From there, he used a utility knife from one of his pouches to cut the tape free, and slid down the outside of the dome and hit the ground with a thud. His leg and arm both hurt like hell, but he was still alive. He could see police cars and ambulances arriving around the front of the building, jogged around to them, limping a bit.

“Izuku!”

He skidded to a stop at the sound of his voice and scanned the sudden flood of people spilling out of emergency vehicles everywhere. There was Sir, hurrying toward him, with an expression of enormous relief.

“Sir!” Izuku said in relief.

“You’re injured,” he said at once, signalling a paramedic over.

“That’s not important right now! Aizawa and Thirteen! They’re--”

“Being tended to as we speak, already on their way to the hospital” he insisted. “Your turn.”

“But All Might is still in there and he was already out of time before he even got here!” Izuku kept his voice low, knowing it would be bad if anyone caught on.

“Go with the medics, Izuku. I’ll go check on Toshinori,” Sir said firmly. “There’s nothing you can do about it, either way.”

The paramedic guided Izuku toward the back of an ambulance.

“You can’t take me to the hospital,” he said to the paramedic firmly.

“Your arm is obviously broken,” the medic said. “Your leg should be x-rayed, too.”

“Recovery Girl will see to the boy’s wounds,” Principal Nezu said calmly as he approached, riding on the shoulders of the hero Snipe. “In fact, there is a ride waiting for him right now.”

Izuku thanked the medic and followed Nezu and Snipe to a large van with dark windows and gestured for him to get in. Cementos was behind the wheel, and gestured for him to hurry; Izuku could see why. Sir and All Might (now in his diminished form) were sitting in the back, with Sir bracing his boss up with a hand on each shoulder.

“Is it safe for me to be in here with him?” Izuku demanded, already reaching for the door handle.

“It will be fine,” Sir said curtly. “Please hurry, Cementos.”

Without further ado, Cementos hit the gas with a heavy foot and sped off toward the school.

“Aizawa and Thirteen are being taken to the nearest hospital,” Cementos told Izuku before he could ask. “We might have more information once you’ve seen Recovery Girl.”

Izuku didn’t reply, because he was carefully watching All Might for any sign at all that he might be in distress or weakening further. As soon as the van pulled to the front of the school, he could see that the nurse was already waiting with a pair of robots carrying a stretcher. Sir carefully guided an unsteady All Might onto it.

“I’m going to go change clothes,” Izuku said. “So that she can get him stable and settled before I go in.”

Sir paused, looking torn. Finally he nodded and turned to follow the nurse toward her office.

“I’ll come help you out,” Cementos offered Izuku, walking with him to the changing rooms. “At least to get that boot off; I noticed you’re limping.”

Izuku explained how he had been saved from a nasty fall, or being levitated too high by Sero’s quick thinking, but that it had jerked his leg pretty hard in the process. Cementos empathized, and helped Izuku get his boot off, helped unwrap Sero’s tape and made sure he was okay on his own for a few minutes before leaving him to change his clothes. Izuku took his time showering and putting on his school uniform to give Recovery Girl time to treat All Might, first. He tried not to think of the rest. When he emerged from the changing room, Sir was standing in the hallway.

“All Might is stable and sleeping,” he told Izuku. “Your turn.”

Izuku nodded, feeling a wave of relief wash over him as he limped along beside his mentor.

“Has there been any word about sensei or Thirteen?” Izuku asked as they walked.

The end of the school day had come and gone while class 1-A had been facing peril, so there were no students milling around, wondering what was going on.

“It’s too soon for that,” Sir said quietly. “Recovery Girl can’t even go work her magic until they’re both strong enough for it. It’s time to worry about yourself. I should have made you go straight away, but you seemed to need some time to gather yourself.”

“I didn’t know if All Might was so badly hurt that I could do him more damage by being near him.”

Sir sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, making his glasses slide down a bit.

“I told you before that you don’t need to worry about that.”

“But what about the others? Were any of them hurt? Kurogiri sucked them up in a warp gate!” Izuku insisted. “Is everyone accounted for? Did they catch Shigaraki and Kurogiri?”

“Shigaraki was taken away by Kurogiri, though Snipe swears he hit him several times with his shots. The other students are all accounted for and largely unharmed. The rest of the villains have been rounded up and taken into custody.”

“That thing… the nomu…” Izuku said, gulping in air past the tightness in his throat. “Shigaraki said that it was made for him, and that I helped.”

Now that he had time to slow down and consider the implications of that, he was beginning to feel nauseous. Sir looked at him sharply, and paused mid step for a moment as he realized what Izuku was telling him.

“None of what happened today was your fault,” he said firmly, though he sounded angry. “If what he said is true, it’s not because of anything you did. He could very well have been lying, to try to scare you into making a mistake.”

“But… if they can make monsters out of blood or whatever else they took from me, what else can they do? They said they were going to kill All Might!”

“Izuku,” Sir said, stopping to face him and make sure that he was listening. “They wanted to kill All Might, true. They wouldn’t be the first to try, and they failed, just like all of the others.”

Izuku took a calming breath and began to walk again as Sir led the way.

“I just worry, because he’s so… vulnerable, now.” Izuku said quietly. “I know he’s not weak! He could never be weak, even if he didn’t have anything of One For All left, but they don’t know that. One of these times, he might not have enough to beat them.”

“That’s true. That’s why we’re pinning our hopes and trust in you to do your best, so that when it’s time, you can protect All Might from threats like this, instead of the other way around. Right?

 

Sir didn’t say it with any special intensity, but as a matter of fact he was stating, and simply reminding Izuku of what his goals were.

“In the meantime, All Might, myself, and other heroes will hold the line while you learn what you need to know to take your place among the pro heroes. That’s our job, and you don’t need to take over for us old folks quite so soon.”

Notes:

Not gonna lie; the only thing that kept me from killing off Mineta just because? The fact that Izuku would have inherited that hair. Who knows how that might have reacted to the teflon quirk! LMAO.

Chapter 26

Summary:

After the USJ, some realizations

The door to the nurse’s office opened as Izuku and Sir were approaching, and a detective that Izuku remembered from before stepped out into the hall.

“I was just coming to look for you,” Tsukauchi said with a calm, friendly expression. “Recovery Girl was afraid young Midoriya here had been more injured than we realized and was passed out somewhere.”

“I’m fine!” Izuku said, eager to assuage their worry. “I mean, I think my arm is broken, and my leg’s a bit weird, but I’m not like… hurt.”

Both men looked at him as if he’d grown an extra head.

“He believes he’s telling the truth,” Tsukauchi told Sir, sounding baffled.

“What would you consider hurt?” Sir asked Izuku with a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Izuku said, feeling flustered. “I know I’m hurt, but compared to All Might or Sensei or Thirteen, or---”

“We are going to need to have a discussion about self care and recognizing when to ask for help,” Sir said, sounding a little tired. “For now, go have Recovery Girl examine you.”

“I’ll need to take your statement, soon,” Tsukauchi told Izuku apologetically. “But it can wait until you’re ready.”

Izuku was tired. Exhausted, really, but didn’t feel like he had room to complain about it when everyone else had also been through the wringer today. Recovery Girl recognized the signs, and immediately put him in a bed beside the one All Might was currently ensconced in. The hero’s long frame didn’t quite fit even the largest bed in the infirmary, and his feet hung over the end, making Izuku feel tiny in comparison.

“I’m reluctant to use my quirk on you until you’ve rested more, so I’m going to splint your arm and give you some fluids before I try to heal you. Then you’ll probably sleep for quite a few hours.”

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to be near All Might?” Izuku asked, still worried.

“Izuku. Think,” Sir told him calmly. “I know that it doesn’t seem like it, but All Might is essentially quirkless, now. Your quirk stopped affecting him once you received One For All.”

Izuku had forgotten. It was so easy, when All Might still seemed so heroic.

“Do you really think I’d let you two be in the same room if there was any danger?” Recovery Girl asked, sounding brisk and slightly offended. “Relax and let me do my job.”

She went to work while Sir stepped into the hallway, and when he returned, Izuku was surprised to see his dad walk in behind him.

“Dad?” Izuku said in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

Sir sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose again . He looked like a man whose patience was at its limit.

“Zu--you just fought villains who attacked your school, and you’re injured! Where else would I be?”

Izuku guessed he had a point. He only really realized how upset his father was when he noticed tendrils of smoke escaping his nostrils.

“Sorry,” Izuku said, blushing slightly. “I didn’t mean for you to worry. I’m okay! Recovery Girl says she can fix me once I get a little rest!”

“They told me Shigaraki Tomura and Kurogiri were there, along with dozens of others!” his father said, sounding both angry and frustrated.

“They said they got a copy of the teacher’s schedules,” Izuku told him, trying to sound placating. He knew he should probably be more upset, but the worry for everyone else had put his worry for himself on hold. “They were after All Might. I don’t think they knew I was even going to be there.”

His dad turned to look back at Sir for confirmation.

“That does seem to be the case, though the investigation will take time to be as thorough as possible,” Sir said with a nod. “They brought some sort of manufactured… monster with them that they believed had the strength to defeat All Might. After the fight, they found the beast over a kilometer away, showing no sign of life after its exposed brain was severely damaged.”

Izuku and his dad both shuddered at the same time for different reasons.

“That, uh,” Izuku said meekly. “That was me. I punched it on the top of the head while All Might was fighting it.”

Sir didn’t look particularly surprised by this, but he did look guarded. His dad looked stunned. It hit Izuku then: the full implication of everything that had happened that day sank in, and his fear caught up with him. He had faced off against real villains, and in doing so had made a conscious decision to do what he felt was necessary to end things, no matter how brutal.

“I knew All Might was running out of time, and they seemed so sure that the nomu could kill him, and All Might was starting to do that thing with the steam before he changes, and I just knew I had to do something to end it quickly, because I couldn’t go near Sensei and Thirteen.” Izuku said in a rush, hardly drawing breath as he explained. “Did I-- Am I the one that killed it?”

More smoke wafted up from his dad’s nose and mouth, and Recovery Girl quickly opened a window and turned on a fan.

“I don’t know, Zu,” his father said, reaching out to rest a hand on Izuku’s head. “But if you did, it’s okay.”

Izuku’s eyes slid past his father, whose own eyes were brimming with tears, much like Izuku’s.

“It is?” Izuku asked in a shaky whisper.

“It is,” Sir said from behind his dad’s shoulder.

“Midoriya-kun,” Detective Tsukauchi said gently from beside Sir. “I’ve been getting reports and taken statements from the scene. That thing was attacking with intent to kill, and so were the other villains there. Anything you did in there was self-defense, and nothing more.”

“B-but heroes don’t kill.”

Izuku wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt so gutted by this, when he was fine up until this point. He had known at the time that punching anyone or anything in the brain at full force was likely to kill, and he’d done it with almost no hesitation. To save All Might. To save his friends and get his teachers help. But death…

He sat upright in bed so quickly he almost knocked heads with his father and shouted, “Holy shit!”

Everyone startled and Recovery Girl put a hand over her heart as if having a heart attack.

“If that nomu died, did I…”

The idea that he might have inherited anything from that monstrosity was enough to make him feel ill. His father literally belched out smoke as he realized what Izuku meant.

“I doubt it,” Sir said after only the briefest of pauses. “Reports say it had regeneration, and you’re still injured.”

“Oh. Thank goodness,” Izuku said, not realizing he’d turned transparent until he let the breath he was holding out.

“Why do you think that is?” his father asked, inhaling some of the smoke that had billowed out when Izuku had shouted.

“It could be any number of reasons,” Sir said. “The most logical would be that the nomu was too far away when his life completely ebbed away. It had enhanced regeneration and or healing, so it probably didn't die immediately. They found it over a kilometre away, and while Izuku’s quirk range isn’t very clearly known, it’s definitely not that far.”

“Okay,” Izuku said with a sigh, allowing his father to press him gently backward until his head was resting on the pillow again. “Okay. That makes sense.”

He was still torn about having killed-- someone? Something? But at least he hadn’t gained anything from it. As amazing as regeneration and shock absorption and whatever else could be, he would have felt...tainted, somehow.

“He’s going to need to see a counselor about this,” Recovery Girl announced.

Everyone, including Izuku, nodded. He would definitely need some time to work through all of the aspects of the day and what they meant. It had been a while since he’d been to counselling, but it was probably time to go again. Besides, Sir had told him once that almost all heroes saw counselors at one point or another in their careers, and some of them did it routinely. It made sense, if their whole lives were anything like today had been.

Recovery Girl started an IV with fluids, and added a little something to help Izuku sleep.

“Sleep now,.” his father said, ruffling his hair lightly. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Izuku closed his eyes and let the drowsiness carry him away.

As promised, Izuku woke to find his father sitting at his bedside, reading a book that looked like it was for pleasure reading instead of work, for a change. When he noticed Izuku shift, he dogeared the page and closed it without hesitation.

“How long was I out?”

“Only a couple of hours,” his dad said quietly.

Izuku looked at the next bed and saw that All Might was still fast asleep, but had turned on his side and pulled his knees up to fit better in the cramped space.

“Is he really going to be okay?” Izuku asked as Recovery Girl came over to check on him.

“As fine as he ever is,” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down. “Sasaki-san will be here to pick him up in a little while, and he’ll be back to his old self in a day or so.”

“What about me?” Izuku asked.

“You’ll be fine in just a few minutes,” she said briskly kissing him on the forehead.

Izuku felt a mild tingle in his arm, and his leg made an audible cracking noise as it repaired itself, but it didn’t hurt. The nurse nodded in satisfaction and began removing the splint on his arm. She only had to loosen the tape a little, and it slid right off like a glove, thanks to his slippery skin. The needle and plastic tube was removed from his arm and she held pressure on the tiny wound while she gave his hand another small smooch to close it.

“You’ve just woken up, but you’ll still be pretty tired,” she said. “It’s just as well school’s been cancelled until Monday. You can take that time to rest up.”

“They cancelled school? Why?” Izuku asked.

Both adults just stared at him.

“They have to conduct a thorough investigation and will need access to the entire campus,” Sir said as he entered. “Not just the USJ.”

Izuku nodded and began to mumble to himself about security systems, computer hacking, backup emergency generators and other things until his father cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” Izuku said sheepishly. “It’s a lot to consider.”

“It is,” Sir agreed. “And since you have a couple of days off of school, I’d like you to devote some of your time to reading this.”

“When To Put Yourself First,” Izuku read from the front cover. “Recognizing Your Own Needs in Stressful Situations.”

He looked at Sir Nighteye with a scowl, not sure if he was being teased.

“Izuku, this is the second time since school started less than two weeks ago that you’ve delayed your own medical treatment to put others first.”

“I know that, but the first time, Kacchan was a wreck! He needed the help way more! What if that head injury had been super serious and I made it worse by being there?” And then today, it was All Might! All. Might. There’s no way I’m more important than him!”

Sir sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses like he tended to do when he was frustrated. His father was shaking his head ruefully.

“Has it occurred to you that in a school full of heroes, there might be someone else able to render you first aid, or at least triage care while you waited for Recovery Girl?” Sir pointed out. “Or that Recovery Girl has been a Pro for more years than you’ve been alive and might know a thing or two about treating multiple patients at once?”

“Well, it makes sense when you say it like that, but…” Izuku spluttered, feeling a little flustered. “At the time it made perfect sense!”

Sir quirked a small smile and shook his head.

“Read the book.”

“Yes sir,” Izuku said with a sigh.

Izuku’s dad took that book and the one he’d been reading and slipped them into his jacket pockets.

“Good. We’ll discuss this more another day. For now, I’ve got to get Toshinori back home.”

Much to Izuku’s surprise, all it took to wake All Might was for Sir to call out, “Toshi! Emergency! Suit up!”

All Might was on his feet in an instant, looking awake and alert, though not in his muscular form.

“What? Huh? What’s the situation?” All Might demanded before realizing where he was.

‘“Time to go home,” Sir said briskly, holding up a very large bathrobe and a pair of slippers. “No need to get changed, the car is waiting at the door.”

The school at night wasn’t as creepy as Izuku thought it might be. The hallways were all still well-lit, and there were police and security bots patrolling the corridors as they walked out. Sir stood ready to support All Might, but the hero walked out on his own, head held high.

“I’m sorry I failed you today, young Midoriya,” he finally said as they reached the door of the school that led to the parking lot.

“What are you talking about?” Izuku asked. “You were amazing!”

“Not so! It was irresponsible of me to use up all of my energy so early in the day, when I knew there was an important training session planned. If I had been more willing to let other heroes take over, you never would have had to face that thing alone.”

“You can’t be everywhere, All Might!” Izuku said earnestly. “You’re the one who always says that we don’t get to pick and choose when we’ll be needed!”

All Might sighed and rested a hand gently on Izuku’s head.

“A hero also shows up when he promises to be somewhere. I learned more than one valuable lesson today, thanks to you. Now, go home and rest. I’ll do the same.”

Izuku wasn’t totally sure what All Might meant, but he nodded and thanked both heroes as he let his father lead him to his car.

Izuku woke up later than he had in years the following day. He supposed that his body had needed the extra rest after being asked to speed up the healing on a broken arm and whatever had been wrong with his leg. He wandered out to the living room and found his father sitting on the couch, reading the book that Sir had given Izuku the previous day.

“Good Morning,” he said as he came into the room.

“Good morning,” his dad said, looking up from the book. “How do you feel?”

“Good. I guess I was tired. I’m still feeling… I dunno. Tired isn’t the right word, but…”

“A lot happened yesterday. It’s a lot to take in,” his dad said quietly. “I’ve already heard from Sir Nighteye, and All Might is doing just fine. Thirteen and your teacher are also on their way to recovery, though it’ll take longer.”

“That’s good news,” Izuku said, feeling relief.

But there was still a weight on his chest he couldn’t quite describe.

“Sir gave me a recommendation for a couple of therapists that work with heroes and people who struggle with the implications of traumatic events,” his father said. “I think it’s a good idea for you to speak to someone sooner rather than later. I’m sure the school counselor is very good, but I want you to have the best.”

Izuku nodded, automatically trusting his words because the recommendation had come from Sir. If it was someone he thought was reliable, then it was good enough for Izuku.

“I’ve left a message, and hopefully we can get you in for an appointment soon.”

Izuku heard a soft buzzing sound coming from the dining area, and saw a phone vibrating enough to rattle against the wood.

“That’s your phone,” his father said, following his gaze. “It’s been doing that all morning. I heard it in your bag and took it out to charge it. I didn’t want to wake you, but someone seems eager to talk to you.”

Izuku padded over and examined the screen. He had eleven missed calls from Iida and four messages from him, as well. There were also four from Uraraka, two from Kirishima, one from Kaminari and one from Yaoyorozu.

“Yikes. I uh… I kind of forgot that I’m the class rep. I should have texted everyone yesterday.”

“Zu, they’re probably calling to check on how you’re doing, not because you’re class rep,” his father said, sounding slightly exasperated. “Sir was right, you need to learn to recognize where your priorities are and start seeing yourself as others see you.”

Izuku made a groaning noise. Now he was going to be lectured by Sir AND his father? Great.

“Well. I’d better at least call Iida before he blows a gasket,” Izuku said with an embarrassed shrug.

Even as he finished saying it, the phone began buzzing in his hand. He quickly answered with, “Hey, Iida! Sorry, sorry! I just woke up.”

The next hour was spent on the phone with Iida, giving his version of events and hearing about what had happened after Izuku left USJ via the hole in the dome.

Iida had reached the school and burst into the principal’s office to let them know there had been an attack at the USJ, which had prompted All Might to go on ahead while Nezu rounded up all of the teachers. Iida had traveled with the teachers back to the facility, where Snipe had shot Shigaraki several times, but Kurogiri had managed to spirit him away before he could be taken into custody. The two villains had abandoned the rest of their comrades, who had been rounded up quickly and arrested.

Once the battle was over, All Might had been isolated by Cementos so they could prepare him for transport to get ‘checked out’ at a hospital. Of course, Izuku knew what had actually happened, but was glad to know what story had been fed to his classmates. The two other injured teachers were taken away in ambulances, and Izuku’s classmates had been treated for minor injuries by the medics on site. Everyone’s parents had been called before students were released, and the police were still investigating.

It all seemed so cut and dried now that it was over, but Izuku knew better. He praised Iida for his part in getting help and felt better knowing that he had been in touch with their other classmates to check on them and keep them informed. Iida was a far better class rep than Izuku. Tsukauchi made an appearance to take a statement not much later, and then Izuku was finally free to just sit and think. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

That night, his sleep was plagued with nightmares.

Monstrous creatures were swarming the school; nomu. They were grabbing students and stuffing them into a huge, swimming pool-sized vat of green murky liquid. There was chaos as the teachers tried to fight, but there were too many of the behemoths, and Shigaraki Tomura was standing on the sidelines, grabbing kids, too. Only the kids that Shigaraki grabbed turned to ash instead of being thrown into the vat, but dream-Izuku knew that they were the lucky ones.

Dream Izuku was strapped to an exam table, unable to use any of his quirks. He had tubes in each of his arms and legs that were attached to the top of the vat full of students, and dripping blood onto them. Each one his blood touched transformed into a nomu identical to the others. Their skulls melted away to expose their brains as their faces stretched into sharp-toothed beaks. They rose as mindless monsters from the tank to join in the attack on the other students. All Izuku could do was scream and thrash in an attempt to get free while a disembodied voice promised him:

“You won’t even remember this in a few minutes.”

Izuku screamed as one of the Nomu creatures appeared in front of him and grabbed his arm.

“I’M SORRY!”

Izuku’s own voice is what woke him as it bounced off the walls of his room. That, and his father gripping his shoulders and shaking him, begging him to wake up.

Izuku could just barely hear his own ragged breathing over the sound of his thunderous heartbeat, roaring in his ears. His father had a vague cloud of smoke over his head, probably from exhaling it while trying to wake his son. Izuku’s eyes were wide as he tried to comprehend that he was now awake. He faded in and out of transparency as his breath hitched once. Twice. Three times. Then a sob escaped and he gripped his father in a tight, soothing hug as the tears began to flow.

His father’s warm hands rubbed his back as he Izuku purged the poison of his dreams from the reality of the moment. Soft words of comfort that Izuku couldn’t really hear, but still understood were murmured into his hair, and when he had finally exhausted the tears, and the trembling had stopped, he sat back feeling embarrassed.

“Sorry,” Izuku apologized awkwardly. “That was a crazy dream.”

“There’s no need to be sorry,” his father assured him, reaching for the box of tissues on the desk and offering it to his son. “It sounds like everything you’ve been bottling up is starting to leak out while you sleep.”

“I guess,” Izuku said, feeling thirsty.

He blew his nose and took a couple more deep breaths to steady himself.

“Do you want to talk about it?” his dad asked.

“That’s okay. I didn’t mean to wake you up, and…”

“Stop that,” his father said firmly, yet not angrily. “You did not wake me up, and even if you had, making sure you’re okay is way more important.”

“What time is it?” Izuku asked, looking around for his phone.

“It’s only 11:30,” his father said. “You’ve barely been asleep an hour.”

Izuku was startled to hear this. It had seemed like he’d been trapped in that horrorscape for hours!

“Tell me about your dream,” his father said. “Maybe saying it out loud will help make it seem less daunting in your mind.”

Izuku doubted that, but gave it a try. He described everything that had happened in his dream, trying to detach his feelings from those of his dream-self. His father listened with an inscrutable expression, but the wisps of smoke curling from his nostrils gave away the turmoil he was feeling.

“Zu,” his father said after a moment of silence. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that your subconscious is doing this to you, and that there are experiences you’ve had that have fueled that kind of nightmare. One thing seems obvious, though: you’re blaming yourself for something that is not your fault.”

Izuku nodded. He knew in his mind that it was true, but he also felt a sense of guilt that he couldn’t seem to suppress, knowing that something that was taken from him was used to hurt others.

“You’ll be glad to know that I heard back from the therapist that Sir Nighteye recommended,” his father said at last. “You have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. I’m pretty sure he and All Might pulled some strings to get you in that quickly, but I’m not complaining. Is that okay with you?”

Izuku nodded again, still in a slight daze from reliving the dream out loud. “Yeah. I think it might be a good idea.”

He didn’t want to burden his father with such ugly imagery after all, and a professional might actually have some advice or fresh perspective to help keep the nightmares at bay.

His father finally left him alone when Izuku assured him he was alright, but he didn’t sleep again that night.

Chapter 27

Summary:

Izuku gets started on therapy, and finds the Sports Festival is just around the corner.

Notes:

Super random thought of the day: If Bakugou and Kendo (from 1-B) had babies, think of the HUGE explosions the baby could make! Sorry - I’ll stop now (that's a lie).

The therapist was nice.

It was a man named Fujimori Aoki with literal flowers for hair, and it looked almost like he was wearing a very fancy swimming cap. The flowers appeared to be similar to lavender with it’s spiky peaks, it had a fragrance that was calming and not as feminine as one might expect. He had a sense of humor about his appearance too (saying he hoped Izuku didn’t have seasonal allergies), which Iuzku appreciated. Izuku kind of wanted to ask if the flowers ever wilted when the man was dehydrated, or if he was bald in the winter. Maybe another time.

The office was in a tall apartment building, on the very top floor, which served as both the man’s home and his office. Izuku’s father waited in a small nook with comfortable chairs and a variety of magazines, walled off from the residential portion of the penthouse. The office itself was just a plain room, with a desk with two chairs in front of it, a few plants, and a spectacular view that overlooked the city and a little bit of the ocean in the distance. There were four chairs, set up like a small square with each chair facing it’s diagonal partner. They all had a slightly different design to accommodate those who liked to sit up straight, those who preferred to lounge a bit, one that reclined, and one that cupped the person sitting in it, almost like an egg.

Izuku wondered if it was a sort of test or indicator to what his personality was like depending on which chair he chose. He tried to wait for Dr. Fujimori to take a seat first, so he could just sit opposite, but that didn’t work.

“Take a seat anywhere that you find comfortable,” he said.

Izuku took a seat in the egg shaped chair, which encouraged him to lean backward, which felt too casual. He stood almost immediately and went to the recliner, but didn’t recline it. Fujimori seemed slightly amused but said nothing about the change of seat. Once Izuku seemed settled, Fujimori took a seat opposite in the one Izuku thought would be for people like Iida, who would sit straight up. He was holding a file folder under a clipboard, but rested them on his lap and simply looked at Izuku calmly.

“Today is going to be for getting to know each other a little better. Sometimes the first therapist you meet with isn’t always the best one for you. It’s important that you feel comfortable to speak freely and let go of some of your tension while you’re here. “

The next hour was a bit awkward at first, but by the time Izuku left, he felt like he had made a start in addressing some of the things on his mind. He’d talked a lot, anyway. His father made an appointment for him for the next week, and then appointments would be weekly or as needed after that. On the drive home, the only thing his father asked about his appointment was what his first impressions of Fujimori were and whether he felt comfortable there. Izuku appreciated the privacy and the concern.

“I think I’m going to like him,” Izuku said. “But I guess I won’t know for sure right away.”

Izuku didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be okay with Fujimori, but he hadn’t seen any reason not to trust Granny Ito, either. He had loved her and she had loved him, but in the end the center of their relationship had been betrayal. The only close friend he’d ever had was Kacchan, and Izuku had felt betrayed by him as well. He hadn’t allowed himself to form any true, close friendships for most of his life because he just didn’t trust people beyond a surface level. He believed that most people were good, but maybe he was afraid that he’d find out they weren’t?

“He said I should keep a journal,” Izuku said, willing to share that much about his appointment. “So I can write down things that bother me, or things I can’t stop thinking about and stuff. He said it would help us use the time during our sessions to our best advantage.”

“That makes sense,” his father said. “Do we need to stop and buy one, or do you already have something you want to use?”

And just like that, Izuku knew that not not everyone would betray him. Not his father. Not All Might, or Sir. There were people out there he could trust; he just needed to take the time and have the courage to try to let people in.

Iida and Uraraka messaged him regularly during the school closure.

Iida was incredibly efficient, and had put together binders for himself and Izuku to help them with their class rep duties. His messages were usually something regarding school, though he did often express concern for Izuku’s well-being, since he’d been the most injured at the USJ.

Uraraka’s messages tended to be more cheerful, in a getting-to-know-a-new-friend kind of way. Through their brief messages, which Izuku got flustered over, because talking to a girl outside of a school setting was out of his scope of knowledge, Izuku learned a lot about her. She lived in a tiny apartment not far from the school, because her parents lived in Mei Prefecture, several hours away. She ate a lot of ramen, but when Izuku asked if that was her favorite, she had said, “not really,” which Izuku took to mean that she ate it because it was inexpensive.

He gave them surprisingly little information about himself. Some things were unavoidable, like his quirks, his love of all things All Might, and things having to do with school. Habit kept him from sharing personal details about where he lived or what he did outside of school. They seemed content with that for now, but he wondered how long it would be before they thought it was weird. He should probably talk to his father and All Might about what it was okay to say and what wasn’t, since the most innocent of conversations could have disastrous results. They’d learned that the hard way with his dad’s assistant.

Still, there was nothing stopping him from being friendly and appreciative of their concern and interest. He’d just proceed with caution.

When school reopened on Monday, Izuku was surprised to see Uraraka as well as Iida when he arrived twenty five minutes before the bell. Asui (call me ‘Tsuyu’) showed up not long after, then Yaoyorozu. Everyone seemed relieved to see each other in person after the USJ scare, and were looking for answers that hadn’t been answered with the back and forth messaging they’d done over the extended weekend. More students arrived early on this day than any before, and it seemed strange that school had only been in session for a couple of weeks.

“How did they know who you were, Midoriya?” Sero asked, ignoring Iida’s complaint that he was sitting on the desk.

“I’ve sort of run into them before, I guess?” he answered cautiously.

“You guess?” Tsuyu pressed. “You’re not sure?”

“Well, it’s a long story, but I met the guy with white hair and the warp gate guy before, but the meeting was kind of erased from my mind by their boss, so I didn’t find out until later.”

“That’s crazy, man!” Kirishima exclaimed, sounding excited.

“Tell me about it,” Izuku agreed.

Then, not feeling comfortable with all of the attention on him, Izuku decided a change of subject was in order.

“I’m glad everyone is okay,” he said, “and I’m sorry I didn’t think to message all of you. I’m not turning out to be a very good class rep. I was thinking it might be a good idea to make up a group chat for our class, so everyone can check in with each other.”

“That’s an excellent suggestion!” Iida approved.

“I’ll do it!” Kaminari offered, pulling out his phone.

“No, I’ll do it,” Ashido insisted

“I think we should wait until our break to set it up,” Izuku said. “Class is about to start.”

That set Iida off on one of his tangents, waving his arms and urging everyone to get into their seats. He blushed furiously when Ashido pointed out that he was the only not in his seat, and quickly slid into his chair while they all laughed.

“I wonder who we’ll get as a teacher until sensei gets back!” Uraraka whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear.

“Whoever it is, we will give them our utmost respect!” Iida said, just as the door slid open.

“Good morning.”

Every jaw in the room dropped when Aizawa sensei walked somewhat unsteadily into the room. It appeared he was covered head to toe in bandages, but was still wearing his hero costume. Both of his arms were wrapped and in slings, making Izuku wonder how he had even managed to open the door. His eyes were just barely visible through slits in the bandages, but what he could see was as bloodshot as usual.

“I’m glad you’re doing well, sir!” Iida said loudly as their teacher stood behind the desk.

“You call that ‘well’?” Uraraka asked incredulously.

“Sensei, are you sure you should be here?” Tsuyu asked.

“You don’t need to concern yourselves with me,” Aizawa said tiredly. “You all aren’t through fighting.”

“You mean…” Izuku wondered if they were going to jump right into battle training again.

“Not more villains!” Mineta wailed from behind Izuku.

“Not more villains,” Aizawa said. “Worse. UA’s Sports Festival is approaching. You’ll be competing against other students in this school, including each other.”

Izuku drew a breath of relief, though he wondered why Aizawa would consider that worse than villains.

“They’re still going to allow it to take place after the attack on the school?” Yaoyorozu asked, sounding concerned.

Izuku shared the sentiment, but the UA Sports Festival was huge. It was an event that drew national attention in, the way that the Olympics used to before quirks began manifesting all over the world.

“Apparently the thinking behind this decision is that UA needs to show the world that it’s safety and crisis management protocols are sound. There will be five times the police presence than usual to ease concerns, but that’s not your biggest problem.”

Izuku had figured that tightening security would have happened even without the festival, so that wasn’t a big revelation. He only hoped the villains didn’t see it as a challenge.

“This is one of the biggest opportunities you'll be given. However, it’s not only you that’s getting the opportunity; competition will be fierce school-wide. It’s not something that will be cancelled because a few villains gave one class some trouble on a remote corner of campus.”

“You sure about that?” Mineta asked, sounding spooked.

Izuku wondered exactly what Mineta had endured at the USJ. He wasn’t sure anyone had filled him in on that.

“Mineta, haven’t you ever seen the past Sports Festivals? They’re huge and take tons of planning and--”

“Of course I have!” Mineta said, sounding almost offended. “That’s not what I mean!”

“The entire country gets whipped into a frenzy over this,” Aizawa pointed out. “It’s a huge undertaking that not only the hero departments participate in. “

“The nation’s top heroes will be watching,” Yaoyorozu pointed out. “Most of them as scouts.”

That started a quiet murmuring among a lot of the students, who were excited by the prospect of getting noticed this early in their high school career.

“They’ll be looking for potential sidekicks!” Kaminari enthused.

“Yeah, but some get picked up and stay sidekicks, never going pro. That’ll probably be you, drooly boy,” Jiro told him, sounding annoyed.

“Hey! What’d I ever do to you?” Kaminari asked plaintively.

Izuku observed this with raised eyebrows, reminding himself to keep an eye out for Jiro’s sharp tongue.

“It goes without saying what valuable experience and training, as well as popularity you’ll get if you get picked up by a big-name hero. This is a chance that happens once a year, so you get three Sports Festivals to make an impression. It’s time to show them what you’re made of, and earn futures for yourselves,” Aizawa told them with more zeal than he usually put into his speeches. “If you’re hoping to be heroes, this is an event you can’t afford to screw up.”

Present Mic launched himself through the door at that point and said in English:

“Gooooood Morning class!”

He wasn’t as loud as usual, and his eyes seemed to have dark smudges under them, but Izuku could tell he was doing his best to be cheerful. He also didn’t miss that Present Mic put a hand briefly on Aizawa’s shoulder and asked how he was feeling. From some of the gossip he’d heard in the cafeteria, it appeared that Aizawa and Mic had been students at UA at the same time, and were old friends. It seemed like a strange pairing to Izuku, but they did often say that opposites attract.

The morning classes dragged by, with everyone’s minds on the announcement of the Sports Festival instead of English, math and modern literature. As soon as the door closed behind Cementos, the room burst into excited chatter.

“I’m so freakin’ pumped about this!” Kirishima declared, hardening his hands and pounding his fists together. “If we show what we’re about, it’s a big step toward going pro!”

They all moved toward the door to head for the cafeteria.

“Everyone’s sure excited!” Izuku said to Iida as they followed the crowd.

“Aren’t you?” Iida demanded, seeming more uptight than ever. “This is an excellent opportunity to earn a spot among the ranks of heroes! Of course we’d be in high spirits!”

Uraraka was even more charged up than Iida, or even Kirishima.

“Let’s go all out on this!” she said fervently, her face carved into hard lines of determination.

The others are turned to stare at her uncharacteristic mood swing.

“Everyone, I’m gonna crush this!” she declared, sounding almost angry about it.

Her hands were fisted and she pumped the air, encouraging the others to join in.

“PLUS ULTRA!”

“So,” Izuku asked, hoping he sounded casual as they fell into step with Iida and Uraraka. “What made you guys decide to be heroes?”

“Money,” Uraraka said without hesitation.

“Money?” both Izuku and Iida asked in unison.

“I know, I know,” Uraraka said, looking embarrassed. “It’s super crass. It’s just… my parents run a construction company that hasn’t been doing so well for a really long time, so money’s always been tight. They’ve worked so hard and don’t have anything to show for it, you know? I want to give them a more comfortable life, and live comfortably myself, too.”

Izuku felt ashamed at his initial reaction of outrage to her reason for becoming a hero. He had already suspected that she was living as cheaply as possible from the messages they’d exchanged. There was nothing wrong with wanting a better life for yourself, and that went double for wanting it for others. That was a kind of heroism in itself, wasn’t it?

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Iida said reasonably. “Though I think you’ll work harder to achieve your goal than in most other jobs, it will likely happen faster with hero work.”

“Thanks. I’m not sure about Midoriya, but I’m pretty sure you grew up as a rich boy, didn’t you, Iida?”

Izuku had the same suspicion, and even a reason besides the obvious because of his fascination with heroes. He nodded at Uraraka’s supposition, even as Iida’s shoulders slumped.

“Ah. I have tried to change my formal way of speaking, but I’m afraid I have slipped far too many times to be convincing.”

Izuku smothered a grin at the idea that Iida had actually been trying to be more casual. If he truly was making an effort, what had he been like before? Either way, he had failed miserably, and Izuku found that hilarious.

“Your family is the one that founded the Idaten agency, isn’t it?” Izuku asked.

“You knew?” Iida asked, straightening again, as if the slumped shoulders were too much of an effort to maintain.

“I do now,” Izuku grinned. “Your hero costume kind of gives it away.”

“Oooh!” Uraraka said, sounding very impressed.

“Yes! The Iida family have been in the hero business for generations!” he said proudly, puffing out his chest. “The Turbo Hero: Ingenium is my elder brother, Tensei! I hope to one day follow in his footsteps!”

“Whoa! Ingenium is really cool! His engines are in his arms and his mobility is insane! He’s a very popular hero with at least sixty sidekicks under him at Idaten!” Izuku said, impressed that they were brothers, since there was definitely a wide age gap, there.

Iida seemed to soak in the praise, a wide, proud smile on his face.

“What about you, Midoriya?” Uraraka asked. “What makes you want to be a hero? Is it because you have so many quirks that are good for it?”

“It does seem like a natural choice,” Iida agreed.

“Well, I lost my mom in a villain attack when I was little, and I just want to save people and scare the bad guys away from committing crimes, just like All Might does,” Izuku said sheepishly. “I know I’ve got a long way to go, and All Might is the best in the world, but…”

“A very worthy goal!” Iida approved.

“I’m so sorry about your mom!” Uraraka said, covering her mouth in horror.

“Thank you,” Izuku said sincerely. “Hers was the first quirk I inherited. She was protecting me when she died.”

“It sounds like she was quite a hero herself,” Iida said softly. “I’m sorry you lost her.”

Izuku nodded, sorry to have made things awkward. Instead, he resumed walking toward the cafeteria. Uraraka started to change the subject, when Kacchan appeared and said he wanted to talk to ‘Deku’ alone. Iida and Uraraka stepped in front of Izuku to block the other boy, but Izuku stopped them from doing anything further.

“It’s okay, guys. You go on ahead and I’ll try to catch up.”

“If you’re sure,” Iida said, managing to sound like he suspected Kacchan of plotting murder.

“It’s fine! Really!” Izuku assured them.

“Get lost four eyes!” Kacchan growled, making Izuku sigh.

“What is it?” Izuku asked once his friends had moved into the cafeteria.

“What really went down at the USJ?” he demanded without preamble. “There’s all sorts of rumors flying around, but they aren’t telling anyone anything.”

“If they aren’t telling, then maybe they don’t want you to know?” Izuku asked, knowing he was being petty, but not managing to care.

“Look, I’m going to be taking my place back in that class next week, and I have a right to know what I’m missing out on,” Kacchan said boldly.

“Then I’ll fill you in when you’re back in class,” Izuku said coolly. “IF you’re back in class.”

It didn’t really seem like Kacchan’s attitude had changed much in the short amount of time he’d been relegated to the general studies course.

“I’ll be back, all right. I’ve been training my ass off,” Kacchan claimed.

“You do get that this was never about your skills right? Please tell me you understand that much,” Izuku pleaded, unable to believe Kacchan was that dense.

“I know that,” Kacchan growled with a huff. “But that isn’t going to help me win the Sports Festival, is it?”

Izuku hoped he meant that. He’d looked into the rules about it, and the situation the loophole was designed for was for kids who didn’t perform well in the entrance exams for some reason, but who still made it to one of the other courses. If they wanted to get ‘moved up’ to the hero course, it was a possibility to be so impressive that they couldn’t deny that you deserved a spot. Izuku wasn’t sure how performing well in the Sports Festival was going to teach Kacchan anything he needed to know about being a decent human being.

“Well. Good luck, then,” Izuku said awkwardly. “See you around.”

“You’re seriously not going to tell me about the USJ?”

“Not right now,” Izuku said.

“Is everything alright, boys?” All Might asked, peering around a corner at them.

“Fine, All Might!” Izuku assured him with a little wave. “Just talking.”

“I’d like to have a talk with you myself, when you’re finished chatting with Bakugou-kun, if you wouldn’t mind?” All Might asked.

“We’re done here, I guess,” Kacchan said.

He turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowded cafeteria, leaving Izuku alone with All Might waiting.

“Should I grab my lunch first?” Izuku asked him.

“No worries! I’ll feed you! The teachers get a special menu!” All Might said cheerfully.

Izuku shrugged and followed All Might to a small lounge, where he instantly deflated into his skinnier form. True to his word, there was a tray on the coffee table in the middle of a grouping of seats, and All Might gestured for Izuku to sit and eat.

“What is this about, All Might?” Izuku asked, accepting the cup of tea he was handed.

“Mostly, it’s about the Sports Festival,” All Might said, nudging the tray when Izuku didn’t immediately start eating.

“I can’t believe it’s already here!” Izuku said, picking up a bowl of rice with sliced beef layered on top.

“Yes, well, it’s a good thing, in spite of the security risk,” All Might said. “The amount of time that I can hold my hero form is down to about fifty minutes.”

“FIFTY MINUTES!” Izuku practically shouted in disbelief. “But it was just three hours, before…”

“Before I fought that nomu,” All Might supplied. “Yes.”

“I’m sor--”

Izuku started to apologize, looking at his knees in shame.

“Don’t apologize!” All might interrupted,

He had a small coughing fit that left flecks of blood in his chin.

“You’re so much like me, in that regard,” All Might told him. “But this isn’t your fault. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later, and this just sped the process up. That’s why I passed One for All to you. You’re my successor!”

“If I was better at using it, maybe I could have beat that nomu, and you wouldn’t have had to fight it at all,” Izuku said glumly.

“There’s no time for maybe right now,” All Might told him firmly. “To be honest, you probably saved my life. If you hadn’t joined the fight when you did, I’m not sure I could have taken him out. I was in real trouble, there.”

Izuku didn’t like to think about it, since it was likely his blow that had killed the monstrous nomu.

“What I want to talk about right now is the Sports Festival. Do you have a plan?”

“Not really, besides trying to win,” Izuku admitted. “It’s hard to plan for something when you don’t know what’s coming.”

“That’s true,” All Might said, “But I have faith in you. I’m not sure what they have planned, but I wouldn’t tell you, even if I did. You have to earn this by yourself.”

Izuku nodded as he ate and listened.

“It wouldn’t hurt to see if you could find some footage of previous festivals to get an idea of what it might be like. It’s usually set up in a three or four part series of events designed to weed out the weakest competitors, first. By the end, it’s usually the kids in the hero course left for the final round, but not always. This year, young Bakugou will be looking to make a name for himself so that he can reenter the hero course. There could be others with the same aim.”

Izuku knew he was right. He’d watched almost all of the previous Sports Festivals on television for as long as he could remember. Surely there were at least a few blogs that talked about them or made predictions about what this upcoming one might contain. It could be worth looking into.

“The important thing is that my time as a hero and the Symbol of Peace is running short, and there are some criminals and villains out there who are beginning to see that. As my successor, it’s time for you to start standing out! You need to tell the world, ‘I AM HERE!’ so that they get used to the idea that I am not the only one villains need to fear. The Sports Festival is an excellent chance for your name to start becoming known to the world.”

As pep talks went, it would have been a great one, if Izuku didn’t feel the weight of its importance resting on his shoulders. They talked some more, and Izuku had muttered his way through an entire conversation with himself before the bell rang, signalling the end of lunchtime.

He went back to class with a lot to think about, and very little time to prepare for the battle of a lifetime. Everyone seemed stoked about it, planning how they would spend the next two weeks training until the Sports Festival. When classes were dismissed for the day, they were stopped short at the door to their classroom by a crowd of students who all seemed to be waiting for them.

“What’s going on?” Uraraka asked in surprise.

“Looks like they’re here to size up their competition,” Yaoyorozu surmised. “We are the class that survived a villain attack, after all.”

“It does make sense that they would want a look before the Sports Festival,” Iida agreed. “Though blocking the hallway is not the way to conduct oneself at such a--”

“It’s true,” a boy from the back piped up, pushing his way to the front of the crowd.

He had fluffed up, bluish-purple hair and dark shadows around his eyes.

“We came to get a look at the competition, but you don’t look that impressive to me. You look just like the rest of us.”

“Hey!” Kirishima objected. “Rude!”

“I’m just saying what everyone else is thinking,” the outspoken kid said. “Those of us that didn’t make the hero course got diverted into General Studies or other tracks. There are a lot of us, did you know?”

Izuku did know, though he wouldn’t have, if Kacchan hadn’t been ‘demoted’.

“And depending on the results of the Sports Festival, they might consider transferring one of us into the hero course.”

“What? Really?” Mineta asked in surprise.

Izuku found himself nodding in confirmation, until the boy said something Izuku hadn’t known.

“I’ve heard the opposite is also true, too. If you bomb at the festival, you could get booted out to make room for someone who performed better. In fact, I heard there’s already an available seat in 1-A.”

“That seat’s MINE eyebags!”

Izuku actually winced when he heard Kacchan’s voice from near the door. It only took a moment for him to also push his way forward to confront the other kid.

“That’s not what it looks like from here, Sparky,” Purple Hair said, sounding bored.

“I’m taking that seat back. I didn’t get sent to General Studies because I lack skills, and there’s no way you’ll beat me in a contest of quirks,” Kacchan declared.

“So it was your charming personality?” the other boy said with a smile. “Imagine being such a dick that even your powerful quirk couldn’t keep you from being kicked out of heroics. And I’ve met some really grouchy and unapproachable pros, so that’s saying something.”

Izuku bit his lip. The kid had a point, but it seemed cruel to point it out in a crowd.

“He really does know Bakugou,” Sero muttered to no one in particular.

Just as Kacchan’s temper was about to explode through his palms, the door to the classroom next door burst open.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” a kid with silvery hair and crazy-long, silver eyelashes said, seeing everyone gathered. “I heard you guys fought some villains and I came out to find out more, but all I see is this arrogant jerk? You’d better not be making the hero department look bad!”

“Wait a minute, Tetsu-kun!” came another loud voice.

It wasn’t hard to see who was speaking, since he was so tall. Izuku grinned when he saw Yoarashi looking over the tops of most people’s heads.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the kid that got kicked outta 1-A,” Yoarashi said bluntly. “And there’s Midoriya! He’ll tell us about the villains!”

Izuku mentally sighed as all eyes turned to him for a moment. Thankfully, Sekijiro sensei (also known as pro hero Vlad King) came out to see what the fuss was about.

“Everyone needs to clear outta here,” he said loudly. “Unless you all want detention deep cleanin’ the sweat outta the mats in the gymnasium.”

That was enough to get most of the students to make a hasty departure. Izuku quickly wrote his email address and phone number down and passed it to Yoarashi when they met in the hall. Then he said goodbye to his friends and went to catch a ride home with All Might.

Chapter 28

Summary:

The lead up to the Sports Festival!

Notes:

Sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to the comments from the last chapter, but I'll get to them in the next couple of days. Today is my birthday, and I am currently at the Grand Canyon! It's unbelievably beautiful here! There's no reception in the park, so I've just taken a bit of time that I'm at my hotel to post this! Enjoy!

The first thing Izuku did when he got home was search for footage of past Sports Festivals. He was still poring over them, making notes an hour and a half later, when his phone pinged and he saw he had a message. It was from Yoarashi, and simply said: ‘Let’s have lunch together tomorrow.’

Izuku smiled to himself and shot back a: ‘Sounds good!’

As if that call had opened a floodgate, Iida messaged next to ask if, as class reps, they should be doing anything to help the class prepare for the Sports Festival. Next came a message from Uraraka about their English homework, then the class chat got busy until Izuku pointed out that there were videos online about past Sports Festivals, and things quieted down again. Then everyone started sharing links to different sites and videos, and it was Very Late by the time Izuku finally got to sleep that night.

Lunch with Yoarashi was interesting. They met at the entrance to the cafeteria and got trays (Yoarashi ate enough for three people) and took them to a table, where they were joined by Iida and Uraraka, as well as Tetsutetsu and Honenuki, who Izuku had met before at the exam for the recommended students. Tetsutetsu reminded Izuku strongly of Kirishima in both attitude and quirk, and wondered if they knew each other or were somehow related. Introductions were made and, instead of small talk to get to know one another, they immediately started discussing what had happened at the USJ and what they thought might happen at the Sports Festival.

Izuku briefly made eye contact with Kacchan, who was watching their little group with narrowed eyes, but Izuku blinked and turned his head away, to break the contact. He was under no obligation to go out of his way to keep the other boy up to date on what happened in the hero class right now. Maybe if he saw him later, he could suggest the videos of past festivals as a way to prepare, but he told himself he wouldn’t go out of his way to do so.

“I heard that the other courses could use support items to help them, if they want. It’s supposed to even out the playing field, since they aren’t getting the physical training the hero course gets.” Honenuki said.

“Some of the support students are crazy talented, too!” Yoarashi said. “There’s one girl who blows up the support classrooms and studios almost every day, and they can’t even get that mad, because she comes up with so many brilliant ideas!”

“We’d better be ready to face some formidable opponents, then!” Iida declared. “And not only from our own classes!”

“That one boy with the purple hair sure seemed to want to get into the hero course,” Uraraka said. “I wonder if he’ll use some kind of tool or gadget to help him.”

“Anything is possible at this point!” Izuku said, feeling excited by the prospect of a challenge. “We should try to be ready for anything.”

“I’m not going to go easy on you guys!” Yoarashi warned, sounding cheerful about it. “I’m in it to win it!”

“Me too!” Tetsutetsu said enthusiastically.

“So am I!” Uraraka announced, not wanting to be left out.

By the time lunch was over, they were in high spirits, and training that afternoon was both fun and challenging as they worked hard to keep up with each other in a game of tag in an area that looked a lot like the landslide zone of the USJ.

“The guys in 1-B don’t seem too bad,” Uraraka told Izuku as they headed back to class after training. “That Yoarashi guy’s loud, though.”

Izuku laughed at that.

“He is, but he’s a good guy; just passionate. About pretty much everything. All the time.”

“I don’t think we talked about what our quirks are,” Iida said as he joined them. “What does Yoarashi do?”

“Hmmm. I guess there’s no harm in telling,” Izuku said. “He manipulates wind, and he’s really, really good at it.”

“That sounds like a really useful quirk!” Uraraka said.

“Do you know anything about Tetsutetsu-kun or Honenuki-kun?” Iida asked.

“I’m pretty sure that Tetsutetsu is similar to Kirishima,” Izuku said. “I think I heard that he can turn to steel or silver or something like that. Super sturdy. Honenuki’s is called Softening and he can soften any non-living thing he touches, and it’s amazing! He can turn the ground to quicksand, or rocks into clay...that sort of thing.”

“Whoa!” Uraraka said. “Another super useful quirk!”

“He was one of the recommended students that ended up taking the entrance exam. He came in second to Todoroki, followed by Kacchan… I mean, Bakugou. We’ve got some crazy strong quirks among the first years.”

Speaking of Kacchan...

At the end of the day, Izuku looked out of his classroom window and made a decision. With a sigh, he broke a few school rules by hopping out of a second floor window and landing on the grass in front of the school, then heading to the front gate, where he managed to head off Kacchan before he left the grounds.

“What do you want, nerd?” Kacchan asked him without much rancor.

“I just wanted to give you this,” Izuku said. “I’d probably get in trouble for it if sensei found out, but as class rep, it my respon--”

“You’re class rep?” Kacchan interrupted to ask.

“Yep. Iida’s deputy class rep. Anyway, as class rep it’s my job to make sure everyone has everything they need, like handouts and stuff. If you’re so sure you’re coming back to 1-A, you should probably keep up, so this is all the notes I took about the hero training we’ve done and the assignments we were given since you’ve been gone.”

Kacchan looked suspicious as he slowly reached out and took the thick folder from Izuku’s hand.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” Izuku said. “I just think you should have a fair chance, and if you’re really reflecting on why you got suspended from the hero course, you’re going to need to be up to speed when you come back. If not, I won’t bother keeping notes and stuff for you, anymore. It’s up to you, now.”

Izuku turned and dashed off without waiting for a reply. He had said what he needed to, and had added a note telling Kacchan about the videos he could watch of the previous Sports Festivals, even though he probably already knew about them. He hoped he didn’t get in trouble for it, but he was training to be a hero, after all. It was his job to try and save people.

The rest of the two weeks seemed to go by in a blur. There was a lot of activity around campus as stalls were erected along the lane leading to the Sports Festival Arena. Tons of security and police were roaming around, making sure everything was extra secure. Izuku and his friends took their afternoon hero training extra seriously and spent less time in the class chat than they had when it was first set up, since everyone was spending every extra moment they could practicing moves and preparing as best they could.

Izuku didn’t go to Might Tower for extra training, not wanting to have an unfair advantage this close to the competition. He suspected that if he had asked if he could, Sir would have been disappointed in him, and he definitely did not want that. His father had gotten him a set of hyper dense dumbbells after he’d received One for All, and he’d been using those, along with the stairwell of his apartment building for home exercise.

He pored over his notebooks, going over the strengths and weaknesses of the other students that he knew of, memorizing the best countermoves and ways to take them down without injury or humiliation, if possible. He had gotten special permission to wear his gloves during the competition if he wished, as long as they didn’t have any gadgets or other special attributes to them.

On the day of the Festival, Izuku was a bundle of nerves and excitement, practically vibrating in his seat as his father drove him to the school, and then went to find his own seat in the stadium. He’d been lucky to get a seat, and Izuku suspected that Gran had given up his own ticket so that his father could attend.

Izuku navigated his way to the waiting room assigned to his classroom, where he found Iida pacing back and forth like a soldier on guard duty.

“Midoriya.” he greeted stiffly.

“Hey, Iida! You’re the first one here like always!” Izuku said, feeling like his voice was a little too loud and too chipper.

“Today is a very important day!” Iida said with an air chop. “This is an incredibly important step in making a name for ourselves! My whole family will be watching and they have high expectations!”

“It is a lot of pressure,” Izuku agreed. “But you’ve worked hard, and you’ve had the added benefit of being brought up by heroes, yourself! You’ll be amazing!”

“I-- thank you, Midoriya. That’s very kind of you to say.”

Izuku smiled at him, hoping that some of his own nerves would dissipate if he helped to calm others’. Ojiro arrived at the same time as Hagakure, then Yaoyorozu, then Kaminari. Each of their classmates trickled in, some louder and more boisterous than usual, others more quiet. Everyone had their own way of dealing with stress. When everyone had arrived, Izuku cleared his throat and raised his voice.

“Okay everyone, as your class rep I just want to say that I’ve seen how hard everyone has been working! I know we haven’t been at this school for long, but our training started a long time before that, when we first knew that we wanted to come to UA to become heroes. Keep a cool head when you’re facing hard situations and remember your goals. You’re all going to do great. Plus Ultra!”

“PLUS ULTRA!” the loudest of them repeated.

The others still raised their fists in the air in salute when the loud ones shouted, so Izuku felt comforted that his little speech hadn’t been a total dud.

The door opened a moment later, and Cementos leaned in to tell them that they would be headed into the stadium in five minutes’ time. The tension returned to the room, with Kirishima doing a little last minute stretching, Uraraka appearing to meditate, and a few others just sitting silently. Izuku was surprised when Todoroki approached him with his usual stoic expression.

“I just wanted to let you know that I think that I’m stronger than you.”

Kaminari nearly fell out of his seat. “Duuude! A declaration of war?”

“Anyone wanna take bets on who’ll place highest?” Mineta asked.

“Maybe you are,” Izuku said, unsure of where this was coming from. “But strength isn’t everything.”

“There are going to be a lot of eyes on you, since you helped All Might beat that Nomu at the USJ, but no matter who is watching, I’m going to beat you.” Todoroki said flatly.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Kirishima said, hopping up from the floor to mediate. “What are you trying to pick a fight for? Especially now?”

Todoroki shrugged off the redhead’s placating hand.

“We’re not here to play at being friends,” he said. “So that doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t know why you’ve suddenly decided to single me out as a threat, but there are a ton of students here that have their future’s hanging by a thread. They're all going to be aiming for the top, trying to beat anyone in their way. That includes me.”

“Yeah,” Todoroki said, the he turned on his heel and left the room, leaving everyone staring after him.

“Look at it this way, man,” Kirishima said, smacking Izuku on the bad companionably. “He’s one of the best in the class, and he thinks you’re his main rival. In a way, it’s a huge compliment.”

“I guess,” Izuku said with a shrug. “Let’s get out there and show them what we’ve got!”

Everyone stood and filed out of the room, heading toward the entrance to the field. Izuku made sure everyone was accounted for as he followed them all, but he was wondering the whole time what exactly Todoroki had on the line in this competition. Was it just pressure put on him by his hero father, or was there something more?

Before he had time to worry about it any more, the Sports Festival got underway. With Present Mic and Aizawa commentating for the first year classes, they made an interesting pair: one over the top with volume and enthusiasm, the other quiet and apathetic sounding. Izuku knew that Aizawa cared about his students, but didn’t seem like the type to seek out attention in any way.

By the time everyone was gathered by the entrance, Present Mic had the crowd whipped into a frenzy of excitement, heaping praise upon class 1-A for their performance at the USJ. The other classes got good intros, but even Izuku thought he went overboard, making 1-A out to be much higher than the others. It was going to make them a target, if they weren’t already. He could hear some of the other classes muttering about being there to serve as a foil to make the hero course look good.

Once all of the classes were gathered, Midnight took over, and announced the athlete’s pledge, while many of the audience members howled and shouted for the R-rated teacher and hero. Izuku remembered reading about her as he was researching her quirk, and she was apparently the reason that the Hero Association now had a dress code, of sorts.

“Todoroki Shouto! Please come forward!”

“Todoroki’s going to do the pledge?” Mineta asked in surprise. “It’s probably just because he’s so good looking.”

“It’s because he scored the highest in the entrance exam,” Izuku told him.

“Highest in the hero course,” one of the girls from General Studies sniped.

“Highest in the school, actually,” Yaoyorozu corrected her coolly. “He just barely missed out on getting in on recommendation.”

“Whoa! Really? Looks and brains and an amazing quirk?” Kaminari said in amazement. “Life’s just not fair, sometimes!”

Todoroki ignored them all and climbed the short staircase to the stage, where a microphone was set up.

“I pledge to do my best to win,” he said stoically. “You should all do the same.”

There was silence for a few heartbeats as everyone tried to figure out if he was being arrogant or sincere. His intonation was so flat that it was impossible to tell, so Midnight began to clap, and others followed suit. Soon the crowd was roaring again as Todoroki rejoined the class, looking uninterested in the curious or baffled looks he had garnered.

“Let’s get right to the first challenge, then!” Midnight called out with a snap of her leather whip for emphasis. “What’ll it be?”

The large electronic screens that were mounted to give everyone an optimal view of events showed a slot machine-like effect, whirling until it settled on two words that took some of the wind out of Izuku’s sails.

DUNGEON CRAWL

Some of the students looked disappointed, some excited, but most were baffled.

“What does that mean?” Hagakure asked.

“In video game terms, it’s an underground labyrinth full of dead ends, hidden passageways, pitfalls, monsters to fight and puzzles to solve,” Izuku said off-handedly while his mind whirled with possibilities.

Then he began to mutter.

”if there are twenty students in each class, and there are eleven first year classes, that’s two hundred twenty kids competing, but the business classes generally don’t compete since the festival is an optional event and their work is…”

“Snap out of it, man!” Kirishima told him, shaking his arm. “We’re getting ready to move!”

He was right. While Izuku had been figuring out logistics and statistics, the rest of the group was herding toward a large metal square in the ground, that was presumably the entrance to the ‘dungeon.’

There was no indicator as to which side would open first, or whether it would simply raise into the air or flip open, or slide. Everyone stood around the area, but left enough space for the door to go in any direction, not wanting to be crushed or pushed by it when it did move.

“The first student who makes their way through is the winner of the first round!” Midnight announced to students and the cheering crowd alike. “READY? GO!”

The metal plate in the ground suddenly fell downward, dropping into inky blackness that was impossible to see the bottom of. They heard a distant WHUMP of the metal plate hitting the bottom, sounding as if it had landed on dirt or something soft.

The first test had begun.

Notes:

I just thought of another thing: If Aizawa is there to erase a person’s quirk as they’re dying, would Izuku NOT inherit it? It’s my story, and even I don’t know!

Chapter 29

Summary:

First round of the Sports Festival! Woo!

Notes:

I'm tired from a long day of traveling, but wanted to get this chapter up, to thank everyone for being so awesome! Thanks for all the birthday wishes and comments! I'll get around to replying tomorrow, if I can!

Most of them hesitated, but not Kacchan. Izuku watched as the explosive blonde dropped gleefully into the pit and out of sight before anyone had time to even register it. Yoarashi and Todoroki weren’t far behind, and Izuku knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Any longer, and he’d be fallen on by the rest of the group as they decided to jump. He used a leap with his levitation to get above the crowd and over the pit, then allowed himself to drop.

There was hardly any light from above when he landed with a stinging concussion to his legs and feet, but he hurriedly moved against a wall, in case anyone else dropped from above. A moment of groping found the entrance to a tunnel, and a brief flicker of light. There was the echo of a crackling sound, and Izuku knew that must be Kacchan, using sparks from his quirk to light the passageway. It could also be Todoroki, but he didn’t often use his fire. Stubbornly so. Judging by how far ahead the light seemed, it stood to reason that there wasn’t much ahead of him until a little way down. He put his left hand against the wall and noted that they were generally smooth, as if cut by machinery, and used the wall as a guide to advance as fast as he dared. He could hear more people behind him, and knew he couldn’t afford to waste a moment, so he broke into a run, seeing the faintest hint of light as he rounded what seemed like a curve in the wall.

There were lights on the floor at regular intervals on either side of a large cavern, with columns of rock or cement jutting up from the floor like a dense forest. The light didn’t reach the ceiling, nor could the far wall be seen from where he stood. There was no sound of explosions, so Izuku surmised that Kacchan wasn’t blasting his way through, probably to keep anyone else from getting through easily and catching up to him. Izuku paused for a moment to listen, trying to hear over his own pounding heartbeat and breathlessness. There. A groan of effort? Pain? Someone was still making their way through!

Izuku activated his levitation quirk once more and rose to see if the ceiling was near enough. Was there a reason the lights only shed light a couple of meters off the floor? His hand touched the rough rock of the ceiling, and he crawled forward along it, discovering that the pillars weren’t as tall as they seemed from the floor. He crawled straight ahead, keeping focused on the far side, where the light grew dim again. A few of the pillars were tall enough for him to push off with his hands or feet, and that gave him some speed.

It became obvious that the passage narrowed again to another corridor, which in the dim light seemed to be only about two meters wide. He allowed himself to drop to the ground once he passed the pillars and entered the corridor, with his left hand on the wall again. Suddenly, he ran full speed into a dead end, and had to curve around back the way he came to find another way. He made it down an estimated fifty meters before he came to a T, branching off in two directions. Damn.

Which way to go? He stood at the center of the corridor and stepped into the one that bisected it, then clapped his hands loudly. One direction only echoed a single time, while the other echoed several, so that was the path he chose. His heartbeat seemed to echo his steps as he moved forward as fast as he dared. There was another sharp turn, and he ran through a curtain of some kind, straight into a brightly lit room that blinded him for a few precious seconds. It was sheer luck that had him skidding to a stop at the mouth of a deep pitfall that he couldn’t see the bottom of. The other side was about ten meters across, and there were three thin wires stretching across the expanse, and three nylon cords dangling from the ceiling. The ceiling appeared to be covered in needle sharp bristles, similar to porcupine quills.

“The wires it is,” he muttered to himself, bending down to see how taut the one nearest him was.

A moment later, he was thanking all the gods and powers that drove the universe for his balance quirk, because the first wire was an illusion. The second one, too. The only one that was real was the one on the far left, and it seemed to sag a bit, but held fast when he tested his strength against it. He took a deep breath and began to walk across. His balance and agility came in handy again, and he made it to the other side relatively quickly, only to be forced down onto his hands and knees to get through the next passage. A true crawl.

One moment, he was crawling as quickly as he could, and the next, a trap door on a hinge caved downward and dumped him into a strange environment.

“A ball pit?” he asked aloud at first.

But he was wrong. These weren’t just balls, they were bubbles. Tough enough to withstand him landing on them, but rubbery and slightly luminescent. When he gained his feet, he trudged forward, surprised at how much the bubbles resisted him. They came up to his shoulders, but there was only about a half a meter over his head, so he didn’t know if levitating and crawling on the ceiling would work. He tried anyway, and was surprised when the bubbles followed him, clinging to his clothes and to each other, causing him to drag them. He spotted a rope ladder hanging down from a hole in the ceiling, and assumed that was his way out. Then he spotted another in the other shadowy corner. It was kind of like trying to navigate a dark space by candlelight. He couldn’t tell if there were other ladders to exit by in other areas, so he went with the one closest to him.

The struggle to reach the ladder was costing him time, and he was sweating, now. He reached the ladder and pulled himself up into the hole, causing one of the bubbles to pinch between his body and the edge of the hole. It popped surprisingly loudly.

“GAH!” Izuku cried out.

Then he clamped his eyes and mouth shut for a moment as his senses were assailed by the most putrid smell imaginable. A green mist was spreading below him and sinking around the other bubbles when Izuku opened his eyes again. His eyes streamed with tears, and his mouth tasted like sweaty feet as he forced himself upward, only to hit a ceiling. There was no latch or seams. A dead end.

“Damn it!” he swore, and let himself drop down the floor, intending to try the other ladder. He could hear indistinct voices now, getting closer. He hurried as much as he could, sticking close to the wall until he was under the other ladder. He jumped with a touch of One For All, keeping his hands extended above his head in case it was another dead end. More bubbles burst, but Izuku was through the hole and into the next chamber before he got a whiff of whatever had been unleashed. He felt sorry for the people who hadn’t made it this far, yet.

It was worrying that he hadn’t run into Kacchan, Yoarashi or Todoroki yet, but there was nothing he could do but soldier on and hope that there were other passages that led through the maze.

The next surprise was the floor suddenly sloping down, and Izuku finding himself skidding on loose gravel and sinking ankle deep in what he hoped was water. There was zero light. He reached his hands upward so he could levitate and find the ceiling, but the ceiling was closer than an arm’s length above his head. Still, he could crawl just above the pool of...whatever and avoid getting soaked in questionable liquid. He allowed his body to levitate until he was horizontal, and began to advance, only to find the the ceiling had been greased. There was no traction. Great.

He lowered himself back down to the ground and ran a few meters back down the corridor the way he’d come, counting his steps as he went. With a running head start, he levitated back up at the last possible second with a boost in this launch from One For All. He skidded across the greasy ceiling, grunting when he hit uneven patches, until his hands touched a wall. He released his levitation and slid down the far side of the tunnel, landing back into the liquid at ankle depth again. He had no idea how deep it had been, or if anything had been at the bottom, but he wasn’t going to worry about it now that it was behind him. He noted that there were rope lights on the floor of the narrow passage again, leading him onward, and he followed. It wasn’t until he got a breath of what smelled like fresh air that he felt like he might have actually made it to the end.

He could see daylight ahead and sprinted forward, his heart picking up pace as he ran. He could hear cheering crowds from the arena and could make out the shape of a door… then came to a stop at what could only be called a portcullis of heavy steel barring the way. He took a deep breath and charged up One For All. The verdant sparks crackled around him and he drew back his fist, punching the wall next to the gate, making the cement wall holding it in place explode outward.

He climbed through the hole and sprinted for the corridor that he could see led to the arena. Above him, Yoarashi was riding a whirlwind at great speed. An explosion later, and Kacchan was right on his heels, as well. Todoroki was right beside Kacchan, and they seemed to be smacking at each other with explosions of ice and fire, each trying to slow the other down. Yoarashi could see what was happening, and sent a gust of wind that sent the two boys tumbling, and almost did the same to Izuku, but Izuku kept his balance and charged after him.

The entrance to the arena forced Yoarashi to leave the air to make it through the gate, and Izuku burst across the finish line without knowing if he had beaten Yoarashi or not. He just let his body tumble across the cool grass and stared at the bright blue sky while his chest heaved, trying to suck in enough air.

“Holy crap, man,” Yoarashi said, leaning over Izuku with a wild grin, “Where did you even come from?”

Izuku looked up at Yoarashi and burst out laughing. Mostly it was out of relief, but also partly because the other boy was covered from head to toe in neon colored splotches of paint.

“I take it there were multiple exits,” Izuku heard a female voice say. Possibly Yaoyorozu.

Yoarashi was grinning at Izuku’s hilarity and Kacchan and Todoroki were shouting at each other, and Izuku finally struggled to sit up.

“Who won?” he asked, looking around at students still pouring through the gate.

“The judges are watching the replay, because it was so close!” Midnight told him, a huge grin on her face.

Present Mic was going crazy in the MC booth, and the crowd was a thunderous roar that Izuku had been basically tuning out all this time, but it flooded back when he looked at the giant screen above him that read: PLEASE STAND BY

“That close?” Izuku asked no one in particular.

Yoarashi sat down beside Izuku in the grass while they waited, and they compared a couple notes with each other about some of the obstacles.

“That explains why you stink so bad,” Yoarashi said cheerfully.

“And why you look like a rainbow threw up on you,” Izuku countered.

“You know, it probably wouldn’t have been so close, if you had stopped to use the key for that last gate.” he pointed out.

“There was a key?” Izuku asked with a puzzled look.

That made Yoarashi bark out a laugh that had all eyes turning to them. Izuku laughed at his laughter, and it began to spread to a few others as if contagious. A few seconds later, Present Mic’s face appeared on the screen.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! We have a decision from the judges! The preliminary elimination round winner is A TIE! Yoarashi Inasa of class 1-B and Midoriya Izuku of class 1-A!”

“YES!” Yoarashi shouted in triumph.

He jumped to his feet and hauled Izuku up with him, lifting Izuku off his feet in a crushing hug. A hug which left Izuku with splatters of neon paint on his gym uniform and grease all over Yoarashi’s arms. Kacchan was cursing up a blue streak and Todoroki simply walked off the field to a water cooler to get himself a drink.

The two victors were surrounded by friends and classmates congratulating them, and Izuku’s eyes scanned the crowd, looking for the box his father should be sitting in. Instead, he saw All Might in his ‘true form’ smiling broadly at him, and Sir Nighteye looking very pleased and applauding along with the crowd. Wondering where his father had gone, he let himself be buffeted by the crowd of students while they waited for further instructions.

“Those with minor injuries, please go to the first aid tent to be seen,” Midnight directed, pointing to a white tent with a red cross on it with her flogger.

“The rest of you will go back to the waiting rooms, where there will be refreshments and replacement clothing, if needed,” Cementos told the kids who didn’t need any medical attention.

He seemed to be looking straight at Yaoyorozu, who was wearing a tube top and black biker-type shorts instead of her gym uniform, for some reason. All of the girls were glaring at Mineta, and Izuku wondered if he even wanted to know what had happened with that.

“Staff will be freeing those students who were unable to escape from the maze, and we will resume the festivities in thirty minutes, where the first fifty finishers from the preliminary round will advance!” Present Mic told the audience. “Feel free to visit the concessions stands or stretch your legs while you wait!”

Izuku was surprised to hear that there were some who got trapped, but supposed it made sense. It was supposed to be an elimination round, after all. For now, he wanted to at least air out his stinky clothes or change them, and rest for a few minutes.

“Zu!”

Izuku turned around to scan the crowd at the sound of his father’s voice. He finally caught sight of his father’s green curls, and waited for him to catch up.

“Zu, you were amazing!” his dad said, slightly out of breath. “I’m so proud of you!”

Izuku ducked before his father could ruffle his hair.

“I’m not sure what might be in there,” Izuku warned. “Even with the teflon, there was some pretty gross stuff.”

“I saw that! There were dozens of screens showing all of the passage ways! There were lots of different ways out, but even more ways to get lost or trapped. It was brilliant!” his dad gushed.

“I don’t have to ask if this is your father,” Iida said, approaching with Uraraka and Yaoyorozu close behind.

“Yep!” Izuku said with a grin, knowing how closely they resembled each other. “Everyone, this is my dad! Dad, this is…”

“We’re his friends!” Uraraka chimed in with a little wave. “I’m Uraraka Ochako!”

“I’m Iida Tenya,” the speedster introduced with a stiff bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Yaoyorozu Momo,” she said politely. “Please forgive my unconventional appearance.”

“Young lady, I admire the way you handled that situation. You would have been justified in clobbering him instead of just tossing a net over him,” his dad said, making Izuku do a double take back at Mineta, who was being shouted at by Jiro, Ashido and Hagakure.

“Time was of the essence,” Yaoyorozu pointed out wryly. “I hate to be rude, but I must excuse myself to go and change.”

Izuku’s dad nodded and waved as she trotted away, giving Mineta a wide berth. Izuku made a mental note to find out what had happened, and see if something needed to be done about the sticky-haired boy. Izuku was class rep, after all.

“I didn’t mean to take time away from everything,” his dad apologized to Izuku and his friends. “I just got so excited that you won that I couldn’t help it!”

Izuku grinned widely, pleased that his father was having a good time. Uraraka looked like she wanted to pat his father’s head, and Iida looked amused.

“The two of you were amazing, too! Your quirks are so cool!” his dad told them.

“We should get to the waiting room,” Izuku said, when the screens overhead began to show students being pulled from pits or unstuck from giant spider webs.

His father dashed away then, and Izuku let the chatter of the other kids flow around him as he considered what the next round might be. The waiting room had a small changing area for each gender, and Izuku grabbed a new uniform from the row of lockers with his number on it and rid himself of the foul-smelling one. He splashed some water over his hair and wasn’t surprised to see some dirt wash down the drain. The bright side of having a teflon like coating was that it only took a few moments to towel his hair dry.

“Did everyone in our class make it through the first round?” Izuku asked as he came back to the main waiting area.

“No,” Uraraka said, looking sad. “Aoyama fell into a pitfall and couldn’t make it out, and no one’s seen Koda, yet.”

Izuku bit his lip in worry. “I guess there aren’t any animals in an underground labyrinth to help. I hope he’s okay.”

“He’ll be retrieved, regardless,” Yaoyorozu said, freshly clad in a new uniform. “The judges keep track of all individuals, in case they need help.”

Izuku nodded. That made sense. He looked around the room and saw Mineta crouched in a corner, looking traumatized.

“What happened there?” he asked quietly.

“That little pervert tried to use his hair balls to get a free ride on Yaomomo’s back!” Mina said indignantly. And she had to shed her jacket and pants to get him off!”

While creepy, it was a viable strategy, Izuku supposed. He was going to ask why everyone was so angry when Uraraka picked up the explanation.

“Then he got all ‘excited’ and tried to jump on her again, saying he hoped this time she’d end up naked!”

Izuku’s lip curled in disgust. When Uraraka said the word ‘excited’, she had pointed to her own crotch, and Izuku got her meaning immediately. He had the urge to haul Mineta out into the hall for a little ‘talk’ himself. Iida, however, was already on it, and had gone to give the diminutive pervert a long lecture that was probably worse than any beating.

“I fended him off with a weighted net,” Yaoyorozu said, hugging her middle. “But it cost me some time.”

“I’ll make sure to give a report to sensei about it,” Izuku promised. “That’s just wrong, and he should face consequences.”

“So what do you think the next event is going to be?” Kaminari asked, joining the conversation and changing the subject. “That underground thing was insane! Did anyone else get stuck in that room with the stink bubbles?”

They discussed some of the things they’d faced in the maze and speculated on what was to come until it was time to regroup on the field.

“Whoa!” Kirishima breathed.

They emerged to find floating stages filling the center of the arena. There were at least a dozen, all of them at varying heights and widths from the ground. They were all different sizes, and had different features, like the rooftop of a city high rise, or a grassy field with a pond, one a parking lot complete with cars. They each looked like they had been taken from somewhere else and dropped into the air to float over the school’s arena floor, which was covered in a fine layer of red powder.

“This looks like something out of Super Smash Bros!” Sero observed with wide eyes. “That’s freaking awesome!”

“So it’s going to be a melee battle?” Uraraka asked, sounding both worried and excited.

“That’s what it looks like,” Izuku said. “I’m sure they’ll tell us!”

They didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Chapter 30

Summary:

The second event of the Sport Festival!

“LADIES AND GENTLEMAN!” Midnight called out.

The cameras focused on her perch on the lowest stage, where she was sitting on a pipe tube that was straight out of a video game. This stage was only about two meters off the ground.

“Welcome to the second elimination round! In this round, our contestants will be attempting to knock each other from these stages, any way they can, including using these!”

She reached down into the pipe to pull out a long pole with padding on both ends that made it look a lot like a giant cotton swab.

“Don’t be fooled by it’s benign appearance!” she warned when the crowd started to grumble. “Each of these babies packs a punch, with a spring loaded tip on one end…”

She dropped the pole on one end, and the impact against the stage caused it to trigger and bounce about three meters into the air. When it came tumbling back down, she caught it deftly and gave it a twirl like a long baton. She pressed the sprung end on the floor to reset it before twirling it again.

“The other end…”

She smacked it against the pipe and there was a bright flash and a SNAP of electricity. The crowd roared in approval as Midnight’s hair showed distinct signs of static.

“...will give whomever it hits a short jolt of electricity. Not enough to injure, but possibly enough to incapacitate for a second or two. Each weapon is designed to allow for five charged hits before it simply becomes a battering ram.”

Kaminari was rubbing his hands together in glee, and Izuku made a mental note to steer clear of him, if possible.

“Can we use our quirks, too?” Kacchan called out loudly enough to be heard by Midnight.

“Of course!” she said with a purr into her microphone. “It’s more fun when it’s rough!”

The men in the audience shouted and applauded even louder at the double entendre as Kacchan grinned with satisfaction.

“You are also allowed to move from stage to stage if you’re able!” she added with a smile. “But beware! If any part of you touches the ground at all, you’re out of the competition! The red powder you see on the ground will stick to you and be an indicator of whether you touched, but it is also a shock absorbing substance that will help cushion anyone who falls from an unsafe height.”

Several students shuffled backward to ensure they wouldn’t touch any red before they even started.

“To begin, there can only be four contestants on each stage, maximum. The ten students who finished first will have three minutes to choose a stage to start from, the next ten will then get a chance, then the remaining thirty will take their places in the remaining spots. There are lighted circles on each stage to indicate starting points, and that is where you will pick up your weapon. When the lights turn green, the battle begins! The contest ends when forty students have been eliminated. The last ten will advance to the final round!”

Once Midnight had finished her explanation, a ramp lowered down from the first stage to the edge of the grass. Ladders on tiers above then dropped down from one stage to the next, which overlapped or came close to the next tier down so that it resembled a giant, hollow wedding cake in shape. There was one small stage at the top with barely enough room for two people, then three stages on approximately the same level with each other in a triangular pattern around the top, but about three meters down. Those looked like they could hold three people, but it would be a close combat situation. Below those, was six more stages of varying sizes in an offset circle, and then six long, narrow stages at the bottom in another triangular setup. The bottom ones were the ones that would be easiest to be forced off of, because they were only about two and a half meters wide.

“This could be tough,” one of the kids from 1-B muttered, looking concerned.

Izuku wondered what his quirk was. Anyone with decent reflexes and physical fitness at least stood a chance of getting a place in the final round. The biggest threats were going to be Yoarashi with his wind, Kacchan with his explosions, and Todoroki with his ice. If he could avoid those three, he felt like he had a good chance, but was there any chance that Kacchan wouldn’t come after him to eliminate him? Not good.

“Those of you who placed in the top ten, choose your starting place!” Midnight said.

In an instant there was a series of explosions as Kacchan headed straight for the top stage. Yoarashi gathered a whirlwind to lift himself up to one of the topmost stages, as well. Izuku ran up the ramp and then levitated, choosing a spot in the upper six-stage tier, planning on facing off against some of the students who had finished lower in the rank of the first round. Avoiding the strongest was a valid strategy here, if he could eliminate enough to whittle down the numbers. HIs levitation could help him avoid touching the ground, as long as he didn’t get caught in a wind.

This stage had quite a few columns and poles jutting up from the floor. There were bars similar to those he’d used in gymnastics class, something that resembled a pommel horse, but without the handles, and pairs of rings hanging staggered in a row, like monkey bars, almost. A parkour setting, perhaps? There was no padding on the floor though, and no place to land softly. The entire stage was about five meters, and a ragged circle shaped as if it had been ripped out of an urban park or something. He tightened the straps on his gloves as he searched for where he should stand.

He found one of the four lighted circles and stood in it, where it blinked once and made a quiet chime to indicate it had been chosen. He picked up the padded staff, which was heftier than he expected it to be. There was a tiny lightning bolt painted on the handle under one of the pads, and a spring pictogram under the other. Easy enough. None of the first ten chose the same stage as him, and three minutes after the first, the next ten were allowed to take their places. Again, none of them chose his stage. The final thirty were allowed to move then, and that was when two other contestants took places near him, each a few meters away. He heard the chimes as their rings accepted them, but then heard a third, though no one seemed to be standing on it.

Malfunction? Or Hagakure? Hmmm. The weapon didn’t move, and Izuku kept his eye on that spot while the countdown began to wind down. The size of the platforms meant that not all of the circles would be occupied, so it was possible that it was just an indicator that all contestants were in place and everything was locked down to start.

As soon as his ring turned green, Izuku took no chances and lunged for the empty ring and felt something solid. He got a grip on what felt like an arm and spun in a fast circle.

“Ow!” a girl’s voice complained as one of the contestants advanced on Izuku and got hit by an invisible girl for their trouble. While the attacker was reeling back from the blow, Izuku flung Hagakure toward the edge of the platform, hearing her shriek as she went over the edge. If luck was on her side, she’d manage to hit a stage below and continue her fight. If luck was favoring Izuku, she’d miss and tumble to the ground.

Izuku didn’t have time to contemplate on it, because the other two who were on the platform were engaged with each other at the moment. He could barely hear Present Mic’s shouting out the numbers of those who were out as he quickly retrieved his own weapon, and Hagakure’s. He flipped them so that the lightning bolt on each was facing forward and swung his arms out wide, bringing them together to hit the other two fighters in the backs of the legs taking them by surprise and stunning them. He flipped one of the staffs and jabbed one of the fighters in the chest while his legs were buckling, causing the spring to engage, giving him a hefty shove over the edge of the stage and out of sight.

The second boy he’d hit with the jolt of electricity was faster to recover, and advanced on Izuku with his own staff. Izuku danced on the balls of his feet and waited for his attacker to charge. He waited until the boy’s weapon was in range, then used the spring end of his remaining pole to launch himself in the air. On his downward drop, he slammed the staff onto the boy’s arms, making him drop his own weapon. Izuku dropped his staff and wrapped his arms around his opponent, holding his torso immobile. The boy kicked at his shins and even tried head butting Izuku, but it didn’t do him any good. Izuku simply heaved the boy off of his feet and walked to the edge of the stage. He flung the boy outward and saw him land on the stage below, which wasn’t that far of a drop.

Before Izuku could decide whether to go down or up, two more fighters dropped from stages above, and another sprung up from below. The one who had sprung up was Tsuyu, but she seemed intent on travelling upward past this stage, so Izuku didn’t pursue her. The two that had fallen immediately tried to climb back up to where they had fallen from. Izuku waited until one was half way up the rope ladder on one side, then just pulled with One For All on the rope until it snapped. He had intended to use the ladder as a sling to throw her off the stage, but she got tangled in it and fell down. A quick glance told Izuku that she hadn’t been lucky enough to land on a stage below.

“No you don’t!”

Izuku spun to find Uraraka behind him, and nearly levitated to get out of her reach, but she had slapped the hand of the second person who had fallen. He had been trying to sneak up on Izuku, and Uraraka had sent him floating. Izuku grinned and leaped up to give the floating boy a hard volleyball-type slap that sent him out past any stage. Uraraka released her hold and let him drop into the sea of red below.

“Thanks!” Izuku said. “You saved me!”

“Ten of us can make it to the final round,” she said. “It’d be cool if they could all be from 1-A!”

“Yeah!” Izuku said. “Wanna pair up for the rest of this?”

“Nah, I’m on my way to the top,” she said with determination. “Wanna give me a boost?”

Izuku crouched so that Uraraka could put her foot in his threaded fingers and then use her quirk on herself. A moment later, she was soaring upward to the next level of stages.

Izuku was suddenly inundated with a large group of contestants from the lower and adjacent stages, and was considering ‘abandoning ship’ to another stage when he had a thought. He
Backed up to the edge of the stage he was on, leaving a couple of meters to be safe. He had fighters approaching from every direction, though most of them were distracted by each other as they sought to unbalance those around them. Izuku took the opportunity to really charge up One For All. He added a little levitation until he was about three meters up, his head almost brushing the underside of a stage above.

“Hey, why’s he glowing?” one of the girls on the stage asked warily as the green sparks flared.

Izuku balled his fists and let himself drop like a rock, slamming his fists onto the floor of the stage in the process. As he had hoped, the stage listed down under the pressure of his blow, and the other end shot up like the bow of a sinking ship. His arms stung as bodies came tumbling past Izuku, who had to quickly levitate again to keep anyone from trying to take him down with them. He knocked his head on the underside of the stage above again, but it wasn’t hard enough to injure him.

He watched in amazement as the end of the stage he had hit dipped to knock two of the lower stages off balance (had they been rotating?), sending several kids over the edges. A couple had to leap to keep from being crushed. The end that had hit the stage above had also caused a few to fall. Izuku ran up the slope his stage now created and used it to jump onto one of the stable ones. Maybe he could unbalance another the same way? Just then, he realized that he was facing Kacchan, who had come down a level, and that Yoarashi was on the other stable stage slightly below, but adjacent. Todoroki stood on the remaining stage, which he had iced over, with glistening icicles hanging from the edges. Craaaap.

Kacchan was just about to attack when a loud horn sounded and the crowd broke into a deafening cheer.

“We have our ten finalists!” Present Mic shouted frantically. “Can you believe it? These ten powerhouses took down twenty-nine of forty classmates in just thirty seven minutes!”

Izuku could hear the rumble of Aizawa’s voice making a reply, but couldn’t make out what was being said. He’d made it! He had a feeling that most of the tougher opponents had been taken out by the others, but that didn’t matter in the long run. He turned to look at one of the screens, which was practically at eye level, and saw the names and pictures of top ten finishers.

Yoarashi Inasa Class 1-B (8 students eliminated)
Midoriya Izuku Class 1-A (8 students eliminated)
Todoroki Shouto Class 1-A (3 Students Eliminated)
Shinso Histoshi Class 1-C (3 Students Eliminated)
Bakugou Katsuki Class 1-C (3 Students Eliminated)
Asui Tsuyu Class 1-A (2 students Eliminated)
Uraraka Ochako Class 1-A (1 Students Eliminated)
Kirishima Eijiro Class 1-A (1 students Eliminated)
Sero Hanta Class 1-A (0 students Eliminated)
Shiozaki Ibara Class 1-B (0 Students Eliminated)

“Dang! I thought I got a lot more!” Uraraka pouted as the stages lowered closer to the ground for easier dismounting.

“I would have gotten more if I’d started at the bottom,” Yoarashi reflected.

“I’m pretty sure the stages were moving around,” Kirishima said as they reached the grass. “Just because the area below was clear one minute, didn’t mean there wasn’t another stage there the next.”

“I think you’re right,” Izuku said with a nod. “We might have tossed a lot off our stage, but then they landed safely or were able to climb back up and someone else knocked them off later.”

“Someone else?” Sero asked incredulously. “You took out, like, four of the stages with one hit!”

Izuku blushed and scratched the back of his head. “Sorry?”

“Don’t be sorry!” Kirishima said, wrapping a companionable arm around his shoulders. “That was cool as hell!”

A few of them were scraped up, but none of them were seriously injured, thank goodness. Izuku hoped that none of the competitors who had fallen or been thrown off had been injured, either. There was one girl there with what looked like thorny vines for hair, and he wondered if she was able to control them. That might explain how she kept herself from falling off any of the stages. The other finisher looked familiar to Izuku, and it took him a moment to realize that he had been one of the kids who had come to the 1-A classroom to pick a fight.

“We’ll be taking an hour break for lunch and such while the field is cleaned up! Please feel free to enjoy some of the field games or rest and relax until the final round,” Midnight told them once they were all on firm ground. You’re allowed to go to Lunch Rush for food or hit the concession stands, but you must be back here in one hour, or forfeit your spot. Got it?”

“Yes!” they all answered in unison.

“I’m going to go find my dad,” Izuku told the others. “See you after lunch!”

Izuku waved to the others and darted around a group of reporters before they could close in on him. An hour wasn’t all that long, and Izuku wanted to be sure to get a bite to eat before the final round to keep his energy up. He fought his way through the surging crowd, many of whom tried to stop him to congratulate him on his performance. Many wanted to know exactly what his quirk was, but he just smiled and shrugged. He finally spotted his father, who was looking at the signs on the walls saying where the participant’s waiting rooms were.

“Dad!” he called over the heads of the crowd.

His dad squinted into the sea of people who basically dwarfed his son, but finally spotted him and waved. Izuku reached him a few moments later, and led the way to the waiting room for 1-A. It was unsurprisingly empty, since most of the others were off getting lunch or playing on the field. His father was holding a shopping bag that was full of festival food, and he set it down on the table and started handing his son containers of yakisoba, okonomiyaki, and all sorts of other snacks.

“Not the healthiest, I know, but I knew you’d be hungry. You didn’t manage to eat much for breakfast.”

It was true. Izuku had been far too nervous to eat more than a few mouthfuls of rice and some miso soup. Now he was ravenous and dug into the greasy food with gusto. While he ate, his father described how the latest event had looked to bystanders.

“When you hit that stage and made it go almost vertical, every screen in the arena focused on you,” his father said with obvious glee. “You looked so badass with the green sparks flying around you! Everyone was asking who you were and where you’d come from! It was amazing!”

Izuku grinned at his father’s enthusiasm and wondered if All Might and Sir were just as impressed by Izuku’s performance, or if they saw the flaws in his thinking or movements. He knew that he would likely have to go over his performance with them, and with Aizawa and his class to critique it, but for now it was nice to have his father’s appreciation and attention.

“Look, Zu,” his dad said as Izuku plowed through the food like a starving man, “I know you feel a lot of pressure to perform well today, and you have been, but… I want you to know that even if you don’t win, you’ve done incredibly well. I’m really proud of you.”

“Thanks, dad.” Izuku said, getting a little choked up by how sentimental his dad was being.

“Your mom would have been very proud, too. She was always telling me how you pretended to play as All Might save people from the clutches of evil. Now you’re actually training to do just that.”

“I wish I could have saved her,” Izuku said quietly, hanging his head.

“She was a hero, too,” his dad told him, dabbing at his eyes with a napkin. “And the reason you get to be here today.”

“Then I’d better do my best to make sure I deserve that,” Izuku said with determination.

They cleaned up the remnants of the meal, and Izuku walked with his dad back to the entrance of the field where they parted ways.

There was some sort of scavenger hunt going on as he went out to the field, and the floating stages and red powder were now (mostly) gone. For some reason, the girls in his class were dressed as cheerleaders, and beating on Kaminari and Mineta with their pompoms. Izuku pinched the bridge of his nose as he had often seen Sir Nighteye do when he was feeling ‘tested’ by the nonsense happening around him and finally understood why. He had a feeling that some of the boys in his class were a little too focused on the female anatomy for their own good. He might have to have sensei intervene before one of the girls seriously maimed one of the boys.

One of the Support students won the scavenger hunt, and everyone cheered as she was given a large bag full of Sports Festival swag as a prize. The girls had finished delivering their punishment on Kaminari and Mineta and had disappeared, presumably to change clothes before the final event. There was some sort of entertainment in the middle of the field that was keeping the crowd entertained, but Izuku was too nervous to pay attention. The last event would have him facing off against the strongest students in first year, two of which he didn’t know the quirks of.

“Are you ready for this Midoriya?” Uraraka asked as she appeared behind him a short while later.

She was back in her normal gym clothes, and looked as nervous as Izuku felt.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Any idea what quirks Shinso or Shiozaki have?”

“Shiozaki has vine ropes for hair, and she can make them grow or retract at will, and whip them around like crazy. I got swiped with one of them, and it scratched my arm up pretty bad. Recovery Girl fixed it super fast, though. Shinsou, I don’t know about.”

“He’s the guy with the hair, right?” Sero asked, coming up behind them.

He mimicked an explosion around his head to describe Shinsou’s hair, and Izuku nodded.

“No idea what he does. He doesn’t look very intimidating, but he outlasted all those others, so he must be able to do something interesting,” Sero guessed. “Maybe Bakugou knows! They’re in the same class, aren’t they?”

“I don’t think he’d tell us, even if he does know,” Izuku said doubtfully. “Right now, we’re rivals, and his spot in the hero class is on the line.”

“That’s true,” Sero realized thoughtfully. “You think he’ll make it?”

“Maybe,” Izuku said. “He’s definitely strong enough, and his quirk control is amazing. That’s pretty much what he’s being judged on today, so he has a fair chance. I don’t know how many people he’s been up against who’re as good as he is, but Yoarashi is no joke, and neither is anyone in our class.”

“Do you want him to come back?” Uraraka asked.

“I don’t know,” Izuku said thoughtfully. “I guess that depends on if he’s learned what he needed to, so he could satisfy Aizawa. I think it’s ultimately up to him. He must think Kacchan’s got the potential, or he wouldn’t have given him this chance.”

“I guess…” she said, though she didn’t sound convinced.

“Have you seen Iida?” Izuku asked, trying to remember when he’d last seen the deputy class rep. “I know he made it through the first event, and I’m pretty sure he ranked high enough for the second, but I haven’t seen him.”

“He left,” Kirishima said, walking up to the small group.

“He left?” Izuku and Uraraka both said together. “Why?”

Izuku wondered if Iida had been ashamed of not making it to the final event and had left to lick his wounds.That didn’t seem like his style, though.

“I dunno. He got a phone call just after the first event and took off. Said something about a family emergency.”

“Oh, no!” Uraraka said, putting a hand to her mouth. “I hope everyone’s okay! Only something really bad would make him miss out on the Sports Festival, right?”

Izuku was afraid she was right. He was about to reach for his own phone when Present Mic started shouting for the final ten contestants to take their places in the middle of the field. There was a raised circle about forty meters across. It wasn’t raised much; less than a meter, but there was nothing besides a white chalk line to mark the edge of it. There was a small set of steps leading up to it, but most of the competitors ignored them and simply hopped up onto the dirt circle and met Midnight in the center.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Midnight announced to the roaring crowd. “Our final event today is called…”

The screens around the arena did the slot machine effect again until it stopped on the words.

“FLAG TAG!”

Chapter 31

Summary:

The third event in the Sports Festival has an unexpected twist at the end.

Izuku looked at the other contestants to see that they were also somewhat confused. Flag tag? That was a game they used to play in P.E. in primary school, where you pulled other kids’ flags from a belt, and then if you got yours pulled, you had to go do five jumping jacks to get back in the game. There was no winner or loser, really.

“I’ll explain!” Midnight announced.

She pulled a belt from a box at her feet that had three flags attached to it by velcro. Each flag was about forty-five centimeters long and the belt and its flags were a bright, neon orange.

“Each player will wear one of these, with all flags visible and accessible at all times. Each player will have different colored or patterned flags. The first player to get one each of all ten different flags will take first place, then the second and then the third. Game play does not stop until there are three winners. A winner will immediately leave the ring once recognized by the judge. Anyone who steps outside of the ring for any other reason is automatically out. If a person still possesses all of their own flags when they get out, the number required to win will decrease by one per person. No one may destroy any of the flags or throw them out of the ring or they will be disqualified.. Quirk use is allowed and encouraged!”

While she spoke, there was a simple cartoon being displayed on the screens, giving a demonstration of how it would all work for the audience.

Izuku thought this was going to be way harder than anyone in the audience could imagine. There were only three of any given color and one player had to get one of each of them to win? He would have to protect his own as well as seek out others’. He couldn’t really use levitate much, because both Uraraka and Yoarashi could both also do basically the same things with their quirks. Yoarashi could easily blow them all out of the ring, if they weren’t careful.

He could try to pound the ground again, like he had with the floating stages to see if he could knock people out of the ring, but his arms still ached from the first time, and he knew there was some bruising that would make its way to the surface before long. He couldn't camouflage his clothing because they weren’t made of plastic, and there wasn’t really anywhere to hide, anyway. Knowing that Sero wanted banana milk wasn’t going to help him, either.

Each of the competitors were directed to stand on small platforms that rose from the ground, equidistant from each other at the edges of the circle. Izuku could see Cementos crouched, with his hands on the ground beside the ring, creating the short pillars. Each was barely as tall as a shoebox, but marked very clearly where they should start from.

Izuku looked to his right to see Sero, who gave him a little wave and said, “No hard feelings when I win, right?”

Izuku rolled his eyes and looked to his left to see Uraraka. Both of them were a threat, but Izuku deemed Sero to be the most threatening of the two in this instance. Sero would need to be taken out quickly. He might regret the choice later, but for now, he wanted to reduce the number of flags he needed to collect.

He charged up One For All, and when the horn sounded for them to start, Izuku leapt at Sero. He went in low and swept Sero’s feet out from under him, ducking under the line of tape that the other boy shot at him. He rolled Sero over his shoulder and tumbled him out of the ring. Sero yelped and tried to use his tape to grab onto Izuku, but it slid right off of his arms thanks to teflon. His balance kept him from tumbling out of the ring too, and he launched himself backward in a handspring just as a figure tried to ram him out of the ring, as well.

Izuku barely heard Present Mic shouting that Sero and Uraraka were already out. It seemed that Kirishima had blindsided Uraraka at the start. Izuku was busy balancing on Kirishima’s back, where he’d landed after the redhead had tried to bulldoze him a second time. It took a bit of maneuvering, since Kirishima was trying to shake him off. Izuku kept one gloved hand twisted in the back of the other boy’s shirt as he reached down and snagged one of the flags from the redhead’s belt. He used levitation to jump off without getting caught, and slapped Kirishima’s flag beside his other...two?

Someone had gotten one of his flags without his even noticing? How?

Now that the initial rush of first moves was over, everyone had paused to take a look around and try to plan their next move. That was a mistake. The ground under everyone’s feet suddenly erupted into ice and Izuku wasn’t the only one to freeze up to his ankles or mid calves. Izuku punched the ice to free himself, cutting up his knuckles in the process, then began to quickly snatch flags from those trapped and attach them to his own belt, just as Todoroki was doing. Kacchan blasted himself free and took advantage of the same opportunity, as did Shiozaki, even though she was still trapped. She sent her vines to snag flags free and return them to her.

Izuku waited until Todoroki was trying to get close to Kacchan without getting a face full of explosives before using pull. There was a series of ripping sounds as several flags came flying at Izuku from all directions. He reached out to try to catch as many as possible but Yoarashi, who was up to his knees in thick ice, caused a whirlwind that caught most of them up and blew them straight toward his waiting hands. Izuku tried pull again with limited success. Then Kacchan, angry about having all of his pilfered flags --and his own-- stolen from him, charged Izuku, breaking his concentration.

Izuku managed to dodge repeated explosions by hopping around the field, careful with his backward leaps to stay in bounds and out of reach of the others while doing his best not to fall on the ice. There was a lot of twisting, flipping and dodging as they wove around, each trying to out-perform the other. Kacchan had gotten scarily good at maneuvering around with his quirk, and it was all Izuku could do to keep ahead of him.

“Shiozaki from 1-B is out of bounds!” Present Mic said excitedly. “This is crazy! She just handed all of her flags to Shinsou from General Studies and walked right off the field! Maybe the pressure was too much for her!”

Izuku wondered what that was about, but was more worried about getting away from Kacchan, who seemed to be trying to get him both out of the ring and take the flags. He was saved from whatever Kacchan had planned by Kirishima, who was blown into Kacchan from the side by a gale force wind. They both went tumbling over the dirt and ice, and Kirishima didn’t quite stop himself in time; his foot crossed the line at the edge. Izuku quickly used pull to steal the flags on Kirishima’s belt as Present Mic announced he was out. The air was full of blowing dust and flying chunks of ice, making it hard to see. Izuku was taken completely by surprise when there was a sudden slab of jagged ice holding him from neck to toes.

Todoroki was using his earlier trick of trapping opponents to steal their flags, but there was a flaw in the plan - if that was his plan - because Izuku’s flags were frozen with him. Since no one could steal from him without breaking him out of the ice, Izuku took a moment to see what was happening. Todoroki was fending off Kacchan at the moment, and Yoarashi seemed to be shouting something at Shinsou. Then something weird happened.

Yoarashi pulled all of the flags from his own belt and was holding them out toward Shinsou! What the heck? Shivering, Izuku burst out of the ice with One For All’s strength. He ran forward and put a little One For All into his pull, to wrest the flags from Yoarashi’s grip and into his own. Yoarashi cried out, and Izuku knew he’d probably caused a friction burn on the poor guy’s hand, but this was a contest. He slapped the flags onto his belt and turned to face Shinsou, only to have Present Mic stop him in his tracks.

“We have our first winner! Midoriya Izuku from 1-A has all seven flags! Midoriya, please step out of the ring and proceed to the waiting room!

Midoriya moved on automatic, stunned to hear his name. He pulled off his belt and saw that while it had a couple of doubles (how would they fix that?), he had at least one of each. Kacchan and Yoarashi were both shouting something, but the crowd was too loud for Izuku to hear what they were saying. At the edge of the field, Midnight stood smiling at him.

“Good job. I’ll double check your belt and make sure the extras get back into play,” she said, putting her head close so he could hear over the din.

He wasn’t sure how that would happen, but was sort of in a daze of surreality as he was guided by Cementos toward the corridor. Izuku felt himself being pounded on the back, and people shouting congratulations at him. He was still processing everything that had just happened. Had he really just won the Sports Festival? Seriously? He half expected someone to jump out and say it was all a joke! He could feel a smile creeping over his face as he pictured his dad, going wild in the stands over this.

He made it easily to the waiting room, since there were very few people not watching the final four battle over second and third place. The corridors were completely empty except for the heroes on duty. Their eyes were on the screens, though, caught up in the excitement themselves. He opened the door, surprised to find that it was pitch black inside - then a hand reached out of the darkness and dragged him into it.

“Looks like my fishing trip was a success!” Shigaraki Tomura crowed, holding Izuku’s upper arm, carefully not using his pinky finger, but squeezing with a punishing grip.

A cloth with a stinging, yet sweet smell was pressed to Izuku’s face.

“Just breathe, little hero,” Tomura told him, “or I’ll disintegrate your arm off!”

Izuku knew he could pull free if he really tried hard enough, but could he do it before he lost an arm? He wasn’t sure. The adrenaline of the situation was making him take fast shallow breaths as he tried to stave off panic and think.

“Kurogiri, summon the doc--”

Izuku didn’t hear any more as the blackness of sedation washed over him. He revived slowly, wondering how much time had passed. He could hear a door slamming and footsteps approaching as he opened his eyes and struggled to sit up.

“Ha! He’s already awake!”

Izuku was still groggy and Tomura grabbed his arm in another vice-like grip and forced him to his feet. He was slightly unsteady, but became more and more alert by the second.

“Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri said sternly. “I agree with him, and I must repeat my earlier warning that this is not advisable!”

“Shut your warp hole,” Tomura told the man, who was standing nearby. “I’m sick of the old man going on and on about this brat!”

Izuku had turned transparent, but neither of the villains seemed to notice or care. They simply continued to argue back and forth until finally Izuku realized that they were talking about him. He heard a door open nearby, and some sort of strange, high pitched noise blaring. The door slammed and the noise muted to nothing again.

“What’s so great about him? So he has a bunch of quirks! So what? So does Sensei! He doesn’t need this NPC!”

He shook Izuku as he said it, sounding a bit crazed. This did not seem like something the villains had exactly planned out. Izuku’s teeth rattled as his head bobbled, but he stayed as still as possible, knowing that Tomura’s quirk was quite deadly. He was working to puzzle out what was going on. How long had he been out?

There was a sound of static then, and a flickering light in the dimly lit room.

“Tomura, what have you done?” came a low voice through a fuzzy television screen near...the bar? The voice was vaguely… familiar, and behind it, the high pitched noise returned, only through the screen instead of the open door.

Izuku began to breathe again, simply because his lungs were screaming for oxygen. He looked around to see if Dr. Tsubasa was also nearby, but all he saw was a run-down bar, with a few tables and chairs, and stools lined up in front of the serving counter.

“I brought you a present, Sensei! Midoriya Izuku! Since he’s all you seem to talk about lately, I knew you’d be so glad to have him here! Why not give him a few more quirks, even though I only have ONE!” Tomura raged. “I’ll bring him down to you, and you never have to…”

“No!” the television voice was harsh, sounding labored, and it triggered something inside of Izuku.

It was All For One. He was alive. He hadn’t died facing All Might! He was… where was he? Shigaraki had just said ‘down’. What did that mean? Was this bar on an upper floor, or was it a more general term, like ‘downtown’? Izuku's heart began to thunder and his whole body began to tremble with something indefinable that made him feel like he was going to explode! Fear? Yes! Confusion? Yes! And So. Much. Rage.

“But first,” Tomura was rasping, “I’ll make him pay a bit for what All Might did to you. You can’t really need all of him, can you…”

“Tomura! Get that boy out of here!” All For One was ordering. Commanding. Desperate? “You’re not using your head. Think about what…”

“Why? All you do is talk about what a great asset he is, and how fortunate it is that you found him! ’Let’s see how he handles this quirk! Oh! So impressive! If only he was more malleable!’ Well? Now he’s here!” Tomura said in a mocking, sing-song tone. “Isn’t it wonderful? He has it! You said for yourself that All Might gave it to him! Take it back! Then you can give it to me!”

“You fool! Kurogiri, remove that boy at once!” All For One grated out, sounding hoarse and out of breath.

“NO!” Tomura shouted, gripping Izuku’s arm tighter. “Not fair! Not fair! NOT FAIR!”

Izuku felt warm all over, and the green sparks of One For All began to web over his skin. There was suddenly a burning pain where Tomura was gripping him, so Izuku jerked away, and punched Tomura once, twice in the face with lightning speed before using his free arm to slam into Tomura’s forearm to knock it away. There was a loud snap! and Tomura’s arm was broken and hanging at an unnatural angle. Izuku jumped back from the man who had been gripping his arm, seeing that his own was dripping blood everywhere from Shigaraki’s quirk.

There was shouting from Kurogiri and possibly All For One, and screaming from Tomura, but Izuku couldn't focus, because the pain in his arm and the pressure building inside of him were reaching a crescendo. Just as Izuku thought he might lose consciousness, there was an explosion that radiated from inside of him that seemed to throw out tendrils of blackness like shrapnel. It blew Tomura and Kurogiri back across the grimy floor. Tables and chairs splintered and tumbled back into the walls. The television fell from the cabinet it had been sitting on and the screen went blank. The door of the place splintered and blew outward, leaving an exit that Izuku needed to take, but was too stunned to.

“Get out!” Kurogiri said. “Go!”

A warp gate opened in the floor, and Izuku didn’t even question where it would take him. He simply jumped into it and let himself fall; almost anywhere would be better than here. He’d figure out what he would do if he ended up somewhere awful once he got away from this awful place.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from the experience; maybe a short time in the void of space between here and there? Instead, he fell through a curtain of blackness into the brightness of sunlight.

The landing could have been worse, all things considered. Izuku dropped into the grass from where the warp gate opened, about a meter above the ground. The tear in the air vanished as soon as Izuku was expelled from it, and left him gasping on the ground, clutching his wound, which stung intensely, like a burn.

There was a scream from nearby, and then pandemonium broke out as Izuku was surrounded on all sides by people.

“Where have you been?”

Was that Ashido shouting at him?

“He’s hurt, get Recovery Girl!”

That sounded like Kirishima, but his eyes were still adjusting to the brightness. Was he really back at UA?

“How long was I gone?” Izuku asked, blinking repeatedly and getting to his feet with the help of many gentle hands helping lift him off the ground.

“He’s here!” a voice shouted.

“He’s hurt!”

“He came out of nowhere!”

“Midoriya! Thank the gods!” Aizawa said, still wrapped like a mummy, but managing to look concerned, anyway. “Where’s all this blood coming from?”

“You’ve been missing for at least an hour!”

More people were arriving, and he was being guided from the competition field where he had apparently been dumped, to the corridor inside the arena walls. Pounding footsteps had Izuku turning to look behind him, and he saw his father and Sir running toward them, their eyes full of relief and worry.

“ZU!” his father shouted, actual flames flying from his nose and mouth in spurts. “What happened?”

“Kurogiri,” Izuku ground out over the pain.

That set off a burst of conversation, shouted orders and telephone and radio calls from the adults around them, while the other students looked confused and scared.

“Kurogiri! Isn’t that the creepy guy from the USJ?” one of the kids asked.

“How did you escape?” Sir asked him, briskly stepping forward and lifting Izuku firmly into her arms as if he weighed nothing.

He began to stride purposefully through the corridor toward the exit, with Aizawa in the lead, growling at people to quit gawking and move out of the way. His classmates were trailing behind, all looking worried and baffled.

“I didn’t,” he told Sir, knowing everyone was listening, despite the chaos around them. “Kurogiri opened a warp gate thing for me and told me to get out of there.”

Sir looked at him sharply, and his father looked bewildered.

“He aided your escape?” Sir asked.

“The important thing is to get that arm tended,” Aizawa told him.

He pulled the door to the school open with bandaged hands and held it with his back so Sir could carry Izuku through and his father could pass. Then he blocked the door with his body.

“The rest of you should go home for now.”

Izuku heard him, and the other students' immediate protests as he was taken down the hallway to Recovery Girl’s office, probably leaving a trail of blood in their wake. He tried not to wince too much as every stride caused a jolt of pain. She urged Sir to put him on a waiting bed, and Izuku gaped at the amount of blood covering Sir’s suit once he’d done so. He realized that Sir had been using his own body to keep pressure on the wound while he carried Izuku inside.

“What happened?” Recovery Girl demanded as she pressed a clean towel to Izuku’s arm and quickly bound it in place.

“I got touched by a guy with a disintegration quirk,” Izuku said, relaxing when she gave him a shot of something that eased the pain almost immediately.

Izuku’s father was literally breathing fire at this point, gripping his son’s other hand so tightly, Izuku thought the bones might crack. He looked at his dad with the best smile he could muster. His voice was still shaky as he tried to reassure him, knowing that the worst part still needed to be revealed.

“It’s okay, now.”

“It’s not,” his dad denied, shaking his head, but managing to bank the flames down to puffs of smoke. “How did this happen? How could it?”

“When I opened the door to the waiting room after I got the flags, there was a warp gate waiting on the other side. I thought the room was just really dark, but then a hand grabbed me and dragged me in. By the time I realized it, it was too late.”

“Where were you taken?” Sir asked.

“I’m not sure,” Izuku answered, trying to picture the place in his mind. “A bar of some kind. It looked old and dirty. There weren’t any windows, and there wasn’t anything on the walls… no pictures or posters or anything.”

The door flew open then, and All Might in his ‘true form’ burst into the room looking frantic until he spotted Izuku. Sir, his dad, Aizawa and Recovery Girl all turned to see who had come in. Aizawa’s capture weapon had started to float into the air, but fell back to his shoulders when he recognized the newcomer. Detective Tsukauchi entered a couple of moments later at a more sedate pace, also looking relieved to see Izuku. He shut the door behind them.

“Let me get the boy settled before you start pestering him. Part of his arm is just… gone,” Recovery Girl said brusquely. “Then I’ll heal him as much as I can, but he's going to be asleep almost immediately after, for a good long while.”

Izuku tried not to focus on the ‘as much as I can’ part of that as she hooked him to an IV drip to hydrate him and added a hefty dose of B vitamins to it to help him start generating more blood cells, or something. She explained it all as she handed him a bottle of orange juice and told him to try drinking it while she cleaned him up a bit. The blood mostly just wiped off his skin easily, but that meant that it went everywhere else, instead. She cut off his jacket and undershirt so it wouldn’t disturb his arm, before telling the men in the room to ask their questions quickly.

“I’m giving you ten minutes,” she said sternly, turning away to type on her computer.

“Tell us what you can, Izuku,” Sir prompted.

Izuku did. He replayed as much of the scene in his mind as possible, and told them everything he remembered. Sir and All Might both looked extremely shaken by the realization the All For One was still alive, and his father began spitting flames again. Aizawa was silent, simply observing everything going on, as if he was a fly on the wall.

“The fact that there was such urgency to get Izuku away says that All For One was very nearby and that he’s in very bad health,” Sir surmised. “Do you have your phone, Midoriya?”

He didn’t. He patted his pockets, but they were empty.

“They must have taken it.”

“Excellent,” Sir said. We can track it, even if it’s not turned on.

“Your time is up,” Recovery Girl announced, shooing the heroes and the detective out of the way. She didn’t wait to see if anyone had any protests, and stepped forward and kissed Izuku’s shoulder. A wave of tingles traveled up and down his arm, but it wasn’t unpleasant. The sleepiness was actually welcome, as exhausted as Izuku was from such a long, exciting day.

“I’ll be right here,” his dad told him as he started to drift.

“Rest well, young Midoriya,” he heard All Might say, feeling a soft ruffle of his hair.

Then his eyes were too heavy to hold open anymore, and he allowed himself to be swallowed by the embrace of healing sleep.

Notes:

I'm super tired, so this might not be as funny as I think, but the spell check keeps advising me to change Kurogiri to "urologist". That's all. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Chapter 32

Summary:

What comes after getting kidnapped? Recovery and a long talk

Izuku woke up warm, comfortable and really, really needing the bathroom.

He opened his eyes to see that he was in his own bed, in his own room, with no recollection of ever being moved there. He threw back his blankets to find he was clad only in his boxer shorts. He slid his feet into slippers and shuffled down the hall to the toilet, then realized as he was washing his hands that his arm was working properly.

His elbow felt stiff and a bit weak, and there was a neoprene like brace on it that had slid down his arm in his sleep to reveal bright pink skin where his arm had been destroyed by Tomura. Izuku tugged the brace all the way down to examine the damage in the mirror. It actually wasn’t as bad as he imagined it would be. The pink area was centered on his upper arm, extending almost to his shoulder and down to just under his elbow, and wrapped all the way around his arm, but obviously hadn’t penetrated all the way through, or he’d be looking at a stump instead of a scar. Maybe being punched in the face had made Shigaraki loosen at least one of his fingers, to stop the progression of the deterioration.

“Zu? Are you awake?” his dad called from the direction of the living room.

“Almost,” Izuku called back. “Need to get dressed.”

“Feeling okay?” his dad allied back.

“Pretty good!” Izuku called, “Hungry!”

He shuffled into his room and slipped on sweatpants and a t-shirt before emerging again. He found his dad in the kitchen, attempting to cook something. The rice cooker was open, and there was a bowl of warm rice next to it, waiting.

“It’s not much,” his dad said when he heard Izuku come into the room, “but I can at least get you some vegetables and rice.”

“Thanks, dad,” Izuku smiled fondly.

What his father knew about cooking could fill about a half a page. Even with all of the times Izuku and Granny Ito had tried to coach him, his mind was always somewhere else, and he ended up burning whatever he tried to make. The fact that he was even trying was a testament to how worried he had been.

Izuku kept a careful eye on the vegetables in the pot, which were probably just about done, and fetched an egg from the refrigerator. He cracked the egg over his rice and stirred it in, then sprinkled some furikake on it for extra flavor. His dad successfully tipped the vegetables into a bowl and brought it to the table for his son, and sat across from him while Izuku dug in.

“Sir was able to track your phone, but it didn’t lead to a bar - it had been smashed and tossed in a dumpster.”

Izuku scowled. He’d liked that phone.

“He salvaged the chip or whatever from it, and he said he would have a replacement for you by this evening.”

Izuku nodded and managed a thank you around a mouthful of rice.

“There is some good news,” his father said. “They were able to tell where your phone had been, and they found the general area you were taken to. They did find the bar, but by the time they got there, it had been recently abandoned. There was a cellar there that looked like it had been a storage room that was converted into some sort of hospital room. There were some things left behind that suggest it, anyway. It’s possible that All For One had been there, and that he was in bad shape. It would explain why he seemed so desperate to get you out of there. You might have been inadvertently draining him just by being in the same building.”

“Then why would Shigaraki take me there? Is he trying to kill All For One?” Izuku asked, puzzled.

“Who knows? From what you told us Saturday, he doesn’t exactly sound well adjusted and sane, does he?””

“Wait. Saturday? What day is it now?” Izuku asked, casting his eyes around for a clue to what the date was.

“It’s Monday,” his dad said with a shrug. “Recovery Girl said you might sleep for a couple of days, since your arm was so damaged. She fixed you enough to get everything under control, then let you rest for a while, then she had to do a little surgery - nothing extreme! It was just to make sure the bones and muscles were reconstructing themselves properly. Then she healed you again to speed up the recovery for that. The sleep was just your body recharging after being sped up to heal so quickly.”

“Well, I feel good now! What time is it? I could still make it to school!”

“Not today. After what happened, the school cancelled for today, to put more security measures in place.”

Izuku sighed and sat back in his chair. “That can’t be good. I mean, first villains attack the USJ, then they manage to get into the school -- sort of -- during the Sports Festival? That could have been a disaster; what if they’d wanted to plant bombs or something like that? All of those people, so many of them important heroes…”

“Believe me, you’re not the only one worried about that. The press has been having a field day with it.”

Izuku’s heart sank. He hated knowing that the trouble that followed him everywhere he went was tarnishing the reputation of the school. It wasn’t really their fault that one of the most evil villains to ever live was interested in him, and now they were facing a whole load of trouble for it. He wished he had his phone, so he could check the headlines immediately. His classmates were probably freaking out, too. Would the school see him as too big of a liability and ask him to withdraw?

“Is there anything else I need to know?” he asked, thoughts spiraling in all directions. “I should probably check in with my class and Sir and All Might, too. Also, was there any sign of nomu there with All For One?”

“I’ve been in touch with Sir and All Might,” his dad said. “They’ve been checking in regularly to see how you’re doing, but they’re also busy trying to follow any tiny little clue about that bar you were taken to, and where they might have gone. No sign of nomu that anyone told me about.”

Izuku nodded. “I hope they find something good.”

“Me, too.” His father agreed. “You go ahead and contact your classmates; I’ve got work to keep me busy.”

He pointed to his folded laptop and a briefcase on one of the kitchen chairs.

Izuku retreated to his room, flexing his arm up and down as he attempted to ease some of the stiffness in his elbow. The brace he’d slid back on kept making a slow descent toward his wrist, and he wondered if the support people who had designed his costume could figure out a way to make something that could stick to him. Otherwise, he’d have to rig up some sort of over the shoulder strap to hold it up.

He opened his laptop and logged into the group chat, which blew up the second his username popped up.

Midoriya @freckles has joined the Class 1-A chat.

Uraraka @zero_geez Midoriya!

Sero @stickman Midoriya!

Ashido @acidtrip Midoriya!

Tokoyami @darkness_x_2 Midoriya.

Mineta @stickyballs Midoriya!

Aoyama @sparkles Mon ami!

Kaminari @zip_zap Dude!

Kirishima @rocksolid What the heck, man!

Hagakure @behind_you Midoriya!

Midoriya @freckles Who changed my name to Freckles?

Uraraka @zero_geez Nevermind that! What happened to you?

Midoriya @Freckles Lots of stuff. Got snatched by a villain. I’m fine now.

Uraraka @zero_geez Midoriya!

Sero @stickman Midoriya!

Ashido @acidtrip Midoriya!

Tokoyami @darkness_x_2 Midoriya.

Mineta @stickyballs What?

Aoyama @sparkles don’t joke!

Kaminari @zip_zap wtf?!!1?!

Hagakure @behind_you spill it, broccoli boy!

Ashido @acidtrip has changed Midoriya @freckles to Midoriya @broccoli_boi

Midoriya @broccoli_boi seriously?

Ashido @acidtrip srsly. now dish. what happened? One secnd you had won the sprots fest the next you were gone! The set up the winner pedestals and you didnt com out nd evryone freaked!

Midoriya @broccoli_boi long story short, the villains from the USJ opened a warp gate in the waiting room, and pulled me in. the white hair guy didn’t plan it too well and when things started to turn out bad they sent me back.

Kaminari @zip_zap started to go bad how?

Mineta @stickyballs did you kick their buttz?

Midoriya @broccoli_boi kind of. Something weird happened, and there was an explosion or somethign. Not sure, but they freaked and let me go in case I did it again.

Now that he thought of it, Izuku had no idea what had caused the explosion that had blown Kurogiri and Shigaraki back and wrecked the bar. It was like his emotions had just blown up out of him in a shock wave or something. He would have to talk to his dad about it.

He chatted with his classmates for a while longer, being as vague as possible with explanations about what had happened to him. He asked about Iida, but no one had been able to reach him. That was unlike him, and Izuku quickly did an internet search, but didn’t find any news about the Iida family. Whatever had happened hadn’t made the news… or hadn’t made the news, yet. He felt uneasy about it, and wondered if All Might or Sir might have any insider info they could share.

He heard the door buzzer sound and hopped up to see who it was, so his father could keep working, but his dad beat him to it. Sir’s face was displayed on the screen, and his dad pressed the button to let him come up to the apartment.

“Everything alright with your friends?” his father asked as they waited for their guest.

“I guess,” Izuku shrugged. “They changed my name to freckles in the chat, and then to broccoli boi. It’s what I get for letting Ashido be in charge of setting it up. As an admin, she can do what she wants, I guess.”

His father laughed at that, and it was a good sound to hear. It seemed like a long time since either of them had really laughed.

“You do kind of need a haircut,” his father said ruefully, ruffling his son’s hair. “You haven’t had a chance to go out and do normal things like that in way too long.”

“Maybe there’s someone at school who can do it,” Izuku pondered. “Ashido seems like the type who likes to do makeovers and stuff. If they screw it up, I can always just cut it really short. My hair grows fast.”

In fact now that he thought of it, it was so long that he could probably grab a handful of hair and put it into a stubby ponytail, if a rubber band would hold it.

“You’re a braver man than me,” his father joked.

There was a light knock on the door at that point, and Izuku opened the door and welcomed Sir and All Might into the apartment. Niceties were quickly disposed of as they all moved to the living room to sit down.

“How are you feeling, my boy?” All Might asked Izuku as he settled into an armchair.

“Practically as good as new,” Izuku assured him. “My arm’s a bit stiff, and I’ll probably need to work the muscles back up again, but it could’ve been worse.”

All Might looked pained at that last part, but nodded. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Izuku said with a shrug. “I mean, I don’t think anyone could have predicted what happened.”

It was Sir’s turn to look pained. He coughed into his hand to clear his throat.

“I didn’t mean--!” Izuku felt horrified by his own insensitivity.

“It’s fine,” Sir said. “I understand. The truth is, I considered looking into All Might’s future for the festival, just to make sure nothing would go amiss, but I felt like it would be a sort of cheating if I actually saw the results. The security was increased to five times its normal level, and I personally looked over the plans for ensuring your safety.”

“So there was no reason for you to expect any danger,” Izuku reasoned. “I mean, who’d be crazy enough to stage an attack at an event full of pro heroes, right?”

“I won’t be making that mistake again,” Sir said firmly. “I will be using foresight to check any large events you’re involved with. That goes for planned field trips, too. I won’t try to interfere if I look in the future and see you’re fine, but if you aren’t, I don’t care about my quirk’s track record. We’ll move Heaven and Earth to change the cards to favor us.”

Izuku didn’t put up an argument. It was hard hearing that there would be even more restrictions put on him, but he understood why it was necessary. He was also incredibly touched that Sir and All Might were willing to fight fate itself for his sake.

“I think our main focus should be in finding and incarcerating Kurogiri,” All Might said, looking grim. “If we have him in custody, we take away All For One’s key mode of transportation and sneaking around. Once he’s taken out of the equation, young Midoriya could have a semi-normal life without worrying about being taken at any given moment.”

“Agreed,” Sir said.

“Until he’s caught,” his father added, “You don’t go anywhere alone when you’re away from home. Always take someone with you. An Adult.”

“Also, always carry this,” Sir added, taking a new phone from his pocket. It was the newest model of his previous phone, and looked far more sturdy than Izuku’s last phone. “It has an improved tracker in it, and it has a military grade case: waterproof, shock resistant, and will stand up to intense heat or cold.”

Izuku took the phone and noted that it was definitely heavier and bulkier than his last phone, but not unmanageable.

“I’ve already had your information transferred from the remains of your old phone as much as possible, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble making the switch,” Sir said. “I won’t spy on you with it, but it is one of the best tools for us to use to find you, if something happens again. The old one could only give us the general area, this tracker has much better accuracy. I don’t think All For One will dare to try to take you again, but there’s no telling what Shigaraki will do.”

Izuku had learned that first hand.

“Any questions?”

“Only about a dozen,” Izuku said dryly.

“Such as?” Sir asked patiently.

“What about the nomu? Was there any sign of any more at the bar or hideout or whatever it was? Do you think they have more of them? What even are they? If they have more, where are they keeping them?”

“Ah. Well, in all of the commotion, I see we failed to tell you what we’ve learned about the nomu,” Sir said.

All Might seemed to shift uncomfortably in his seat, making Izuku feel uneasy as well.

“From the examination of the remains of the Nomu from the USJ we learned some disturbing truths,” Sir told them, adjusting his glasses before continuing. “It seems it is something like a version of Frankenstein’s monster.”

Izuku tried to think of what he knew of that story, and shuddered. “Dr. Frankenstein used pieces of corpses to build it.”

“Precisely. It seems that on the whole, it was once a man who was experimented on - either before or after his death - and had the DNA of four different people inside of one host. They’re unsure if the nomu developed quirks as the result of the experimentation, but it’s more likely that All For One stripped them of their quirks before the doctor began his genetic manipulation, then reintroduced the quirks he believed would aid them in their cause. It was an artificially created life form that was essentially brain dead unless given a direct order from the person in command of them. It had no autonomy, no emotion and no idea of any difference between right and wrong. A nomu, literally translated, is no-brain.”

Izuku felt slightly sick at the thought of anyone being experimented on that way. He was only slightly comforted by the fact that it apparently had no sense of self, and that whatever had made it what it was, was absent. He’d basically killed it, after all. Did it make him a bad person if he saw it as a mercy to it, that it was now completely dead?

Everyone in the room seemed to be staring at Izuku, gauging his reaction to this information.

“I’m not sure what to think about all of that,” he admitted. “I have a lot of conflicting feelings about it. What… how… why…”

“As long as none of those feelings is guilt,” All Might told him, “we’re probably on the same page. Even if, as Shigaraki implied, they used you in some way to achieve its creation, you are in no way at fault.”

Izuku nodded slowly. He understood that. He did. It was just hard to accept.

“Those whose DNA we identified were all criminals of one kind or another, likely lured in by All For One with promises of strength or wealth or other kinds of power. There’s no way to be sure they weren’t willing participants in the project. It’s horrifying, no matter how you look at it, but just reinforces how imperative it is that All For One and his followers be stopped.”

Izuku noticed that his father had tiny tendrils of smoke beginning to form from his nostrils and sighed. This was so hard on him, and he tried so hard to be supportive all the time.

“What about the school?” Izuku asked in an attempt to shift the subject and calm his father. “My dad says they’re taking a beating by the press.”

“That’s to be expected,” All Might said with a sigh. “It’s what the press does. Let those in charge of that handle the public relations and put their spin on it. You’ll likely be in the spotlight because it’s obvious that you were the one who was taken. We’ll do our best to keep you from having to face anyone from the press directly.”

“Are you sure the school doesn’t want to cut it’s losses and kick me out?” Izuku asked, holding his breath (and turning transparent) as he waited for the answer.

All three men looked shocked at the very idea. Izuku released the breath in relief.

“Absolutely not! The fact the villains are so afraid of you shows us we’re on the right track in training you to be a hero!” All Might said firmly. “It’s their duty to see you safely through, not throw you to the wolves at every sign of trouble.”

Izuku nodded again, knowing he’d be thinking about it for a long time.

“Are there any other questions you need answered before we move on?” Sir asked.

“Oh! Yes! Did they finish the last event of the Sports Festival, or did I ruin everything?” Izuku asked as an afterthought. He was amazed none of his friends had brought it up.

They all stared at him for a moment before nodding.

“We didn’t discover you were gone until it was time to award the medals,” All might said. “Yoarashi won second place, and Bakugou won third.”

Third? There was no way Kacchan took that well. And Todoroki didn’t place in the top three? That wasn’t good. Especially after he’d made a big show confronting Izuku about beating him with his superior strength.

“So… do you think that means Kacchan’ll get to come back to the hero course?” Izuku asked.

“That will be up to Aizawa and Principal Nezu,” All Might said. “I think they’ll judge his overall performance and attitude since he was sent to general studies and make an assessment based on that.”

“What about Shinsou? He said that he was aiming for a spot in the Hero course, and that those who didn’t perform well in the Sports Festival could be moved out to make room for general studies students who excelled there.”

“I’m not sure of the rules on that,” Sir said. “But he is certainly an interesting young man. His quirk is very subtle, and could be an incredible asset in hero work.”

“I never did find out what his quirk is,” Izuku said with interest.

“From my observation, it seems to be some sort of mind control,” Sir said with a small smile. “I’ll be looking into it to find out more.

Chapter 33

Summary:

Class 1-A chooses their hero names!

Notes:

Another HUGE apology to those of you who were confused before I had a chance to edit the last chapter! While I was proofreading I got mixed up on the timeline (because I write so far ahead of what I am actually posting.). Hosu is upcoming in a couple/few chapters!! Sorry if I spoiled a little bit of it by getting things out of order!

Mind control? Izuku had so many questions!

“That’s a matter for later. I would like to know what exactly exploded when you were being held by Shigaraki? There was strange damage to the bar, but no evidence left behind to explain it,” Sir said. “Before you were healed by Recovery Girl, you said something about an explosion, but it didn’t make a lot of sense. We didn’t ask for further details because of your condition, and your need for rest, but now we’d like you to clarify.”

“I’m not really sure I can,” Iuzku confessed, thinking back to the incredible pressure that had built up inside of him. “I remember being scared, and really, really angry and in so much pain that I couldn’t think. I punched Shigaraki a couple of times to get him to let go of my arm, and I hit his arm to keep him from grabbing me again. I’m pretty sure I broke his arm. One For All was crackling around me, even though I don’t remember deciding to use it.”

“That makes sense so far,” All Might encouraged with a nod.

Izuku's father put a hand on his son’s shoulder to ground him in the present while Izuku relived it in his memory.

“That’s when it happened. I felt like I was going to pass out, or throw up, or both. Everything inside me was just boiling. All For One being alive, the shouting and the pain and the confusion and the blood all felt like they were all causing pressure to build up inside of me, and when it got to be too much, it just went …BOOM!”

“Boom?” Sir asked with raised eyebrows.

“Boom,” Izuku confirmed. “There was just this kind of pulse that pushed out of me in every direction, and there were black streaks shooting everywhere, but I couldn’t tell what it was, and it disappeared right away. Maybe I imagined them? The force of it blew out the door, wrecked the tables, and knocked back Kurogiri and Shigaraki. That’s when Kurogiri opened up the hole in the floor and told me to go.”

“Very strange,” Sir mused. “I wonder if it’s some kind of new quirk we’ve never learned about, because you’ve never been in a situation dire enough to trigger it.”

“Um… the USJ was pretty dire,” Izuku pointed out.

“Yes, but those were slightly different circumstances. There were others there to help, and you had some modicum of control over the outcome of things, at the time,” Sir pointed out.

“Well if having part of my body disintegrated is what it takes to trigger it, then I hope I never have to use it again,” Izuku said with a huff.

“There’s not really any way to find out for sure without a duplication of the event, is there?” All Might asked.

“We’re not doing that!” Izuku’s dad said with finality.

“No we are not,” Sir agreed fervently. “At this point, it’s just a theory, anyway. Unless something similar happens again, then we can look at it more closely. It’s puzzling, but not a high priority. Right now, we need to focus on finding out where they’ve taken All For One, and locating and capturing Kurogiri.”

“Do you have any other questions for us?” All Might asked.

“Just one,” Izuku said. “What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?”

All Might and his father looked completely baffled by the sudden change of subject.”

Sir simply smiled serenely, knowing that this was Izuku’s way of letting him know that he really was going to be fine.

“What?” his father finally asked, sounding as though he didn't want to ask.

“A stick!” Izuku said with a weak grin.

His father rolled his eyes, and All Might looked at Sir as if to say, ‘I blame you for this.’

Sir and All MIght left shortly afterward, and Izuku cooked himself and his father a large meal for dinner and went to bed early. Thankfully his night was free of nightmares. The following day ended up being gray and rainy, and Izuku was surprised when Iida was just passing through the gate when his father dropped him off in front of the school.

Iida was covered in a rain poncho, with galoshes large enough to accommodate his extra large calves. Izuku wondered if it was to avoid getting water in his engines, but missed the opportunity to ask when Iida greeted him. He lifted his umbrella over his head and called out to Iida.

“Good morning, Midoriya! You’re here earlier than usual! One should always give oneself extra time for their commute on days with inclement weather! There are bound to be delays in transit on days like today!”

Iida’s voice sounded as robust and chipper as usual, but there was something missing about him. It wasn’t anything he could really pinpoint, but he seemed a little too ...Iida. LIke, over the top, even for him. Izuku fell into step beside him, having to jog a bit to keep up with the other boy’s longer strides.

“Yeah,” Izuku said, eyeing him warily. “That, and Recovery Girl wants to see me before class starts to give me a check up.”

He didn’t mention that if the press had been waiting, his father had been prepared to drive him around back to the staff entrance. Perhaps the early arrival, mixed with the bad weather had been a blessing.

Iida paused briefly. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Izuku said, waving it away, then speeding up as Iida resumed walking. “I’m more worried about you.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, here!” Iida said, slicing the air in a way that called to mind an umpire calling a runner as safe.

“Iida, you left the Sports Festival before the second event, even though you could have advanced! Then you didn’t answer anyone’s texts or join the group chat.”

“Ah. Yes. There was a family emergency. My brother was injured while on duty and in the hospital. I rushed to be with my family, but he’s out of danger, now. I hear congratulations are in order! You won the Sports Festival! What a splendid --”

“That’s not important!” Izuku insisted as they reached the school and paused in the entryway to hang their wet things on the hooks there. “Your brother was injured? I didn’t see anything on the news! I looked, because I was worried when someone said you had a family emergency!”

The fact that Iida seemed to know that Izuku won, but not that he’s been kidnapped set off alarm bells. Iida was usually the best informed of anyone when it came to news having to do with the school. If he brother was truly all right, would he be so out of the loop?

“Your concern is very touching,” Iida said, actually looking like he meant it. “My family asked that it be kept quiet for a couple of days, so we could determine how serious his injuries are and prepare for the onslaught of media attention. They’ll likely make an announcement later today.”

“But you say he’s out of danger?” Izuku pressed.

“Yes, of course! I wouldn’t be here, otherwise!” Iida said, not sounding as convincing this time. “Didn’t you say you needed to see Recovery Girl?”

“I do, but… are you sure you’re okay? That’s really scary to go through! If you want to talk about it, I have some experience in scary things… and I’m a good listener.” Izuku asked, not able to shake off the idea that something was still bothering Iida.

“I really do appreciate it, Midoriya,” Iida said, “I’ll let you know if I decide I want to talk about it.”

“It doesn’t have to be me,” Izuku said. “But I’m here.”

“Thank you. Now, please don’t neglect your own health to worry about me! I’ll see you in class. Try not to be late! As class rep, it's up to you to set the example for the rest of the class!”

Izuku smiled, because it seemed like Iida wanted him to, and nodded. “I’ll try.”

He watched Iida stride stiffly toward the stairwell, and didn’t go to Recovery Girl’s office until Iida was out of sight.

“This will scar, unfortunately,” Recovery Girl told him. “It will probably fade over time, but for now, this is as good as it’s going to get.”

“I’ll take a scar over a stump, any day,” Izuku said with feeling.

He’d explained to her about the brace on his arm slipping down, and she promised to look into it, but in the meantime she pinned a piece of gauze to the top of one side of the tube of neoprene and looped it over his opposite shoulder before pinning the other end of the gauze to the back of the tube. It didn’t look great, but it was at least effective at keeping it up, like a pair of suspenders might hold up pants. Once he put his shirt back on, it wasn’t even visible, though it did feel weird. She advised him that long sleeves with the brace over it was probably the best answer for short term.

Once he got a clean bill of health and instructions to wear the brace, especially when exercising, he went back to class with time to spare. Most of the students had arrived early to check on Izuku and Iida, and since Izuku hadn’t been there when they arrived, they’d crowded around Iida to find out what had happened. Izuku could see he was in the midst of telling the rest of the class the same story he’d told Iuzku. He was interested when he saw that Uraraka didn’t look convinced by his upbeat attitude, either.

Once Aizawa arrived, they settled down, especially when everyone noticed that he had Kacchan with him.

To the casual observer, he looked defiant and unapproachable, with his slouch and having his hands jammed in the pockets of his sagging pants, and his trademark sneer. To Izuku’s trained eye, he looked slightly embarrassed and uncertain as he came into the room, his eyes darting around to try to gauge everyone’s reaction.

“Starting today, Bakugou is restarting the hero course,” Aizawa said blandly.

“Welcome back, Kacchan,” Izuku told him loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I’ve got the notes for anything you missed.”

Kacchan locked eyes with Izuku and nodded almost imperceptibly. He moved to take his seat, and Kirishima spoke up, too. His voice wasn’t it’s usual loud and enthusiastic tone, but it wasn’t mocking or unkind, either.

“Welcome back, man. Nice job at the Sports Festival.”

“Welcome back,” a couple of others muttered, possibly a little grudgingly.

“You should join the class group chat,” Mina whispered to him, even though there were two rows of seats between them.

“Settle down,” Aizawa said with disinterest. “First things, first. Midoriya, since you missed the medal presentation, I have your medal for safe keeping. You can see me after class to collect it.”

Iuzku nodded, somewhat surprised when Bakugou turned in his seat to look at him inquiringly. “Where were you, anyway?”

“Got snatched by villains,” Izuku said. “I’ll fill you in later.”

Kacchan’s eyes widened at that, but he turned back around in his seat and paid attention when Aizawa started talking again. Izuku glanced back to where Iida sat and saw him looking confused, maybe about the news of Izuku missing the medal presentation.

“Today you’ll be doing something very important,” Aizawa announced.

The door slid open instantly, as if Midnight had been waiting outside for her cue.

“Choosing your hero names!” she cried out as she came in.

The class broke into excited cheers at this news.

“Consider your hero name carefully, because while it can be changed later, some names will stick and you’ll be stuck with them. Right, Eraser?”

The class’s eyes shifted to their teacher, who was stepping into his puffy, yellow sleeping bag. He paused, as if thinking about something, then shrugged.

“I’m terrible at this sort of thing, so I’ll leave you in Midnight’s capable hands. She’ll help you decide if what you choose is appropriate.”

”This is who they chose to decide appropriateness?” Izuku whispered to himself in disbelief.

Next to him, Sero snickered.

Midnight handed them all whiteboards and dry erase markers to write with, then returned to the front of the room.

“Your hero name should be something personal, that inspires you and tells others what kind of hero you want to be,” she told them. “I’m sure most of you have been thinking about this, at least since you got accepted into UA.”

Izuku’s mind went into panic mode. With all of the training and pushing himself to get this far, he hadn’t really thought about what his hero name should be. At least, not since he was a little kid, back when his mother was still alive. He had vague recollections of playing heroes with her and thinking up all sorts of variations of “All Might” so he could be just like his favorite hero. That seemed a little… childish and unrealistic, now. His mother had even called him “Small Might” a few times as a hero name when they played, but there was no way he could go with that, even to honor her.

He cast his eyes around the room, feeling increasingly nervous, but then noticed that not as many people were as busy scribbling out their answer as he expected. Iida was staring blankly at his whiteboard, lost in thought, and so were a couple of others. There was some low talking around the room, as others discussed it.

“Does anyone want to go first?”

It was silent for a few moments before Aoyama stood and made his way to the front with a flamboyance and self-assurance that Izuku found both odd and was somewhat envious of.

Then he flipped his white board for everyone to see, and Izuku’s mouth dropped open. He could hear quiet murmurs around the room as they all read what he had written:

I Cannot Stop Twinkling

He’d even embellished it with doodles of stars with rays of light around them.

”What the hell is that about?” Kacchan said quietly to himself.

Izuku could only agree. It wasn’t a name, it was a sentence!

“Hmmm," Midnight said, apparently unphased. “I see what you’re going for here, but…”

She took the white board and began erasing and rewriting as she spoke,

“If you remove this, and change this to a contraction by putting an apostrophe here… there! That’s better!”

She turned the sign back toward the class and showed them that it now read:

Can’t Stop Twinkling

How was that any better? Still Izuku supposed he had at least thought of something. The rest of the class seemed as incredulous as he felt, staring in disbelief.

Ashido jumped up next and bounced her way to the front.

“I’m the acid shooting hero: Alien Queen!”

Izuku didn’t mean to facepalm so hard that others could hear the slap, but he couldn’t help it.

“Like the American horror movie? Too grotesque. Try again!” Midnight told her brusquely.

Ashido’s lower lip jutted out in a disappointed pout as she went back to her seat.

“May I go next?” Tsuyu asked politely.

Surely she wouldn’t choose something bizarre, Izuku thought. The girl with the frog-like quirk had always seemed very pragmatic and outspoken.

“This is a name I picked out when I was younger, but I’ve always liked it!”

She turned her card, which read:

Rainy Day Hero: Froppy

The class as a whole breathed a sigh of relief.

“That’s perfect! Friendly and approachable sounding!” Midnight approved.

Tsuyu took her seat, looking pleased and relieved.

After that, others seemed to find their courage or think of names they liked, because they strode to the front one after the other.

Shouji was “Tentacole.”

Jirou decided on “Earphone Jack.”

Ashido tried again and got approval for “Pinky.”

Then Kacchan got up and strode to the front, slamming down his card to show everyone. Izuku facepalmed again, dragging his gloved hand down his face to cover his mouth.

King Explosion Murder

Even the handwriting looked violent. Izuku sighed.

“That’s not going to work,” Midnight said flatly.

“What?” Kacchan groused. Then: “Fine!”

He flipped the board around and erased something, then flipped it show:

LORD Explosion Murder

“No.” Midnight said in immediate rejection.

“Why?” Kacchan demanded angrily.

“Because it has the word murder in it?” Izuku finally suggested, breaking the disbelieving silence.

“Yeah! That’s a villain's name,” Kirishima ventured. “Go with something fun! Like Blasty!”

“Shut up, weird hair!” Kacchan told him rudely.

Kirishima just grinned.

“McSplodey!” Kaminari teased.

There were a couple of other teasing suggestions, just because it was funny, then Midnight sent him back to his seat to re-think.

Kirishima was the next to reveal his, which Midnight recognized immediately as paying homage to the pro hero Crimson Riot: “Red Riot”

Kaminari seemed confident in his choice of “Chargebolt,” which Izuku thought was pretty cool.

Todoroki seemed to be completely apathetic when he held up his sign to show them his.

Shouto

Izuku was getting a headache.

Uraraka was extra pink-cheeked when she revealed her hero name, “Uravity” which Izuku thought was both clever and cute, which matched her personality.

Ojiro followed with the apt “Tailman” and then Tokoyami revealed his, “Tsukuyomi”, both of which Izuku approved.

When Iida finally went up to the front, he was excited and interested to hear what name he’d come up with, but Iida looked stoic as he flipped his car and it simply said, “Tenya” on it.

“Another one?” Midnight asked as if in complaint. “I think those of you using your actual names are going to end up regretting it. Luckily, this isn’t necessarily a permanent choice, so there’s still time for you to change it.”

Yaoyorozu chose “Creati” for her name, which was well received, and Hagakure’s “Invisible Girl” was predictable, but adequate. Mineta earned approval with “Grape Juice” even though it sounded a bit weird to Izuku. He remembered then that he meant to talk to Aizawa about Mineta’s behavior at the Sports Festival.

The very shy Koda seemed extremely relieved when everyone liked “Anima” and Sato went with “Sugar Man” which was cool, since his power relied on the strength that sugar gave him.

Once Sero chose “Cellophane,” they were almost finished.

“Just two left, now!”

Midnight said, sounding expectant. Izuku cringed as all eyes turned to him, and also Kacchan, who was rethinking a name that didn’t include the word murder.

“Uh… I haven’t really been able to decide,” Izuku demurred, “but I’ve narrowed it down a bit.

“Come on up and show me what you’ve got,” Midnight suggested. “Maybe we can help you decide.”

“Just go with Broccoli Boi!” Kaminari called out as Izuku made his way up to the front.

Almost everyone laughed, including Kacchan, who had gotten his share of teasing earlier. Even Midnight gave a little chuckle and the good natured ‘encouragement’.

Izuku nervously showed Midnight his board, which had three names written on it in tiny letters.

“Hmmm,” she said as she read them silently. Then she pointed to the middle one and said, “None of them are bad, but I think the meaning of this one might confuse people.”

Izuku used his marker to strike out the name: Tribune

“This one is also good...so good that it’s already taken by another hero, though he lives in the United States, and not japan. You could still use it, especially since he’s not super well known.”

Izuku studied that one, not quite ready to strike it off, yet.

“What about the last one?”

“I like it. It’s powerful sounding and forthright. That one gets my vote.”

Izuku nodded, still not completely sure, but comforted by the fact that it didn’t have to be his permanent hero name. It could just be a placeholder, for now.

With a deep breath and wiped Tribune and Beacon from the board, then turned it to face the class before he could change his mind.

“Vanguard?” Sato read out loud.

“Vanguard!” Uraraka repeated, testing the feel of saying it. “I like it!”

“Good one, Midoriya!” Jirou said approvingly.

Izuku shot a glance over to Kacchan, who for once didn’t look derisive. He looked… impressed?

There was a first time for everything, Izuku supposed.

Notes:

So what are everyone's thoughts on Izuku's hero name? I almost went with "Beacon" but it just didn't flow well for me, I guess. It was harder than I thought it would be to choose something. I also toyed around with "Valiant", but I read that in a different fic, and didn't want to 'steal' it -- especially since the tone of the other fic was so different and I didn't want to be constantly thinking about it while I was writing.

 

 

Random question - Mineta’s hair balls: do they degrade? I was thinking about the training arc where he was popping them off of his head at a crazy pace (to try to get to the point where his scalp didn’t bleed from overuse). What did they do with them all? I can’t imagine that would be good for the wildlife or plants in the forest. The idea of just a huge pile of Mineta hairballs is just… creepy.

Chapter 34

Summary:

Stories are told - some more believable than others.

Notes:

Thanks to everyone who was happy with Izuku’s hero name, and thank you to those who thought I could do better and gave some awesome suggestions about it! That may or may not remain his hero name, but it’s what I’m going with for the time being (I don’t have much choice, LOL). Either way, I appreciate that you took the time to let me know what you think about it! It’s really nice that when I get criticism, it’s (almost) always well thought out and constructive and respectful. I can't express how truly helpful it is, even when it frustrates me-- often because I missed an angle, or my line of thinking when in a different direction! You’re all amazing!

“Bakugou,” Midnight said as Izuku took his seat after his hero name reveal. “You’re the last one. Have you come up with something?”

“I need more time,” he said, sounding sullen.

“That’s fine, but don’t wait too long, or the press might give you a name of their own for lack of anything else to call you on the news,” Midnight warned.

Kacchan nodded with a slight scowl that seemed to be more directed at himself than anything.

“All right, kiddos!” Midnight said with a smile and a wave. “My job here is done!”

Aizawa stepped out of his sleeping bag and gathered his papers.

“I know you’re all excited about being back after the Sports Festival, but you still have your regular classes to get through, as well.”

The door opened again, and Present Mic stepped into the room with a cheerful smile. “Good Morning, listeners!”

The rest of the morning was spent going over English, Math, History and other subjects required for them to pass as a high school. Izuku dutifully took notes on everything, including everyone’s chosen hero names. It felt good to write his own, but he wondered what All Might would think of it. Would he think that Izuku should have consulted him first? Had All Might chosen his own name, or had the previous holder of One For All helped him decide? He supposed he’d find out soon enough.

When the time came to go to lunch, Izuku stood and stepped up to Kacchan’s desk, offering him a packet of papers.

“What’s this?” Kacchan asked, taking them with a frown.

“The notes from last week, and a rundown of the attack on the USJ,” Izuku told him simply.

The stack had Izuku’s and Iida’s cell phone numbers, and information about the group chat hand-written at the top.

“Let me know if you have any questions.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, instead hurrying off to join Uraraka and Iida for lunch. They were Joined there by Yoarashi and Tetsutetsu. A few minutes later, Tsuyu joined them as well.

Kacchan settled at a table next to theirs, blatantly listening in. Kirishima and Kaminari dragged Ashido over to join Kacchan’s table and while he looked somewhat annoyed, he didn’t protest.

The main topic of discussion, of course, was Izuku’s disappearance after he finished the final event of the Sports Festival. Izuku gave them a slightly edited and abbreviated rundown of what had happened, and tried to downplay how utterly terrified he had been. He made it sound like an unknown explosion had taken place that the villains had blamed on him and that was what made them want to be rid of him. It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but he did his best to make it sound like he had no idea where the explosion had originated.

“That’s way different than what they reported on the news I saw!” Yoarashi said excitedly. “They just said you mysteriously disappeared, and that police had been called in to investigate! There were rumors that you’d been kidnapped and stuff, but none of it came close to what really happened. They were saying you were being held for ransom!”

“Let’s try to keep it as vague as possible,” Izuku said. “The school doesn’t need any more bad press.”

Izuku winced at a sudden sharp pain as something smacked into his head, just behind the ear, and turned to see a kid from 1-B smirking and holding a cafeteria tray. The corner of the tray must have been what hit him, and Izuku rubbed the spot more in annoyance than pain.

“Can’t Class 1-A do anything without causing drama for everyone around them?” the boy asked with a loud voice.

“Ugh. Monoma, don’t you have better places to be?” Tetsutetsu asked his classmate.

“What’s your problem?” Uraraka demanded.

Kaminari had gotten to his feet.

“You all think you’re high and mighty because you got to fight villains, and your golden boy won the Sports Festival,” Monoma said, “And you couldn’t even finish the festival without attracting villains and inconveniencing everyone and disrupting everything!”

He had obviously been eavesdropping at least a little. Izuku was wondering if he was supposed to feel intimidated by this obnoxious newcomer.

“And?” Izuku asked with a raised eyebrow.

Monoma looked confused. “What do you mean, ’and’?”

“I assume you’re going somewhere with this?” Izuku prompted, turning to face the boy. “What’s your point? Villains caused trouble. That’s what they do. They especially tend to cause trouble for me, in particular. So I’m here in the hero course to get stronger and learn how to defend myself and others. Why are you here?”

“Buuuuuurn!” Kaminari said gleefully, proving they had an audience beyond their table.

“But you’re putting others in danger!” Monoma argued.

“Uh...no,” Uraraka countered. “The villains are doing that. Not only that, but no one but Midoriya was in any danger from those villains at the festival. Are you suggesting that every single hero there, including All Might could have failed to keep us safe if the villains had done anything more than take one student?”

“A student that messed them up so bad that they sent him back to get away from him?” Ashido chimed in.

“Wait, what?” Monoma asked, looking confused. “The news just said that the student was returned safely. I thought a hero had--”

“Do you really think any hero out there wouldn’t take credit for getting a kidnapped student back? Their name and face would be all over the news! That would mean a serious paycheck, too.”

Izuku was stunned that Kacchan was the one to point that out.

“But--”

“Monoma, just quit while you’re behind and go eat your lunch,” a redheaded girl said from behind him, holding up a stiff hand, sort of like Iida tended to do.

Izuku recognized her as 1-B’s Kendo, who was their class rep. Her quirk enabled her to make her hands huge, and it was really cool. Izuku hadn’t talked to her much, but she seemed very capable and nice.

Monoma startled when he heard her voice, and when he noticed her hand he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “I was just…”

“Causing trouble for 1-A,” she finished sternly. “You’re being ridiculous. Go.”

Monoma scurried off as if the devil was nipping at his heels.

“Sorry about him,” she apologized. “Vlad sensei has been bent out of shape that your class has been getting tons of attention, and Monoma gets riled up on his behalf. The rest of us know you’re not trying to show off.”

“Thanks...I guess,” Izuku said.

She smiled and walked away and Yoarashi shuddered. “She’s scary.”

Tetsutetsu nodded.

The casual chatter resumed, as people realized the show was over and went back to their lunches.

“Scary how?” Tsuyu asked.

Before either of them could answer, Yaoyorozu spoke up from a table behind theirs.

“Iida! I just heard about your brother! I’m so sorry! Is there anything you need that I can help with?”

Izuku could swear Iida’s shoulders sagged just a bit, and defeat flashed in his eyes for just the briefest of moments before he straightened again and put on a mask of normalcy.

“Thank you Yaoyorozu, but I am fine. My family is dealing with this… setback as best we can, and have called in the finest experts to see to everything.”

“But they said…'' Yaoyorozu began uncertainly.

“Yes, I know what they’re saying,” Iida interrupted, softening his tone when he realized he’d snapped a little. “We’re working to remain optimistic, and I must do my part by not worrying them any further with truancy or endangered grades.”

“Of course,” Yaoyorozu said with a nod, though her eyes were full of concern.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ve finished my lunch, and need to see to something.”

Iida left the cafeteria with a ramrod straight back and his head held high, but looking very stiff.

Izuku met Yaoyorozu’s eyes and mirrored her worry. Uraraka looked sad, as well.

“What happened to his brother?” Yoarashi asked in a tone that was quiet-- for him.

“I just checked the news, and Ingenium was attacked by the hero killer: Stain,” Yaoyorozu said, turning around in her seat to face the others.

Jirou, who had been sitting beside her, did the same. “If they hadn’t found him when they did he would have died.”

Everyone got quiet at the news of how serious it really was.

“That’s probably why he left the Sports Festival early,” Kirishima murmured.

There were quiet murmurs of agreement.

“There’s more,” Yaoyorozu said. “The news is saying that his spine was severed, and he’s lost all feeling from the chest down.”

“Damn,” Kaminari said sadly. “That seriously sucks.”

Izuku’s heart had jumped to his throat, then sank to his feet. Iida had given no indication that his brother had been in such serious condition. Izuku had just assumed that he would be in recovery for a long time. This… this was something permanent. Life changing. Iida hadn’t chosen a hero name earlier, and it made Izuku wonder if he was having second thoughts about becoming one himself. The Iida family had been in the hero business for generations, but this might put an end to that. He hoped he was wrong; Iida was an amazing person with a strong quirk, perfect for heroics.

Iida was back in his usual seat, looking composed as he waited for everyone to return from lunch. Izuku, as class rep, made sure everyone was accounted for and that the board was erased and ready for its next use. He slipped into his chair just as Aizawa entered.

“Today’s Basic Hero Training class will be spent discussing the Sports Festival,” he told them. “But first, I have the lists of offers for your student internships. “There are several of you who have offers from very prestigious agencies. It will be up to you to decide the pros and cons of each opportunity and choose one. For those of you who didn’t receive any offers, there is a list of forty contracted agencies or heroes that will accept students for you to choose from. Again, research them and choose one that best suits your goals. You have until the end of the week to decide. Remember that internships last one week, so take that into consideration, as well.”

Izuku and Iida helped distribute everyone’s lists, while Aizawa wrote on the board, showing that Izuku, Kacchan and Todoroki had the highest number of offers of the class, and the numbers dropped off sharply to double or single digits after that. Yaoyorozu got the highest double digit number, and Uraraka and Tsuyu weren’t too shabby in that department, either. They all had a lot of decisions to make.

Izuku wasn’t surprised to see the Might Agency at the top of his list and wondered how many others from the school had been offered an opportunity to learn under Sir and All Might. There were also quite a few others that interested him.

From there, they went over footage from the Sports Festival. The footage had been edited so that they watched how students cleared each major obstacle, instead of following individual students through the complicated maze of tunnels and caverns and oubliettes. Once everyone had cleared the first major obstacle, the footage switched to another until all who had encountered it had gone through. Then it would switch to the next. Aizawa stopped the footage after each section so they could discuss observations about their own performance and how they could have improved. If anyone had done anything particularly clever or horrendously wrong, they pointed that out, too.

It was interesting to see how it had been filmed with night vision cameras in the darkened tunnels, and how many passageways all of them had missed by sticking to one side of a tunnel or another. The parts where Mineta had tried to hitch a ride on Yaoyorozu’s back had been captured as well, making all of the girls in the room scowl.

It had been a well-lit, tall and narrow cavern with lots of obstacles that Yaoyorozu could easily climb over with her superior height and creation quirk to produce tools to help her. Mineta, who was basically half the height of the tallest person in the class, would have had a much more difficult time, and decided to make others do the work for him. There had been a lengthy discussion about that one, even though many of the students (like Tsuyu and Kacchan) had cleared the area quite easily. It was pointed out that Mineta could have easily gotten over the obstacles by using his hair balls to create handholds that only he could use. He could have even trapped those who tried to use them after him, since they would stick to them.

“Your perversion probably cost you a better placement in the final finish of the event!” Jirou told him.

“She’s not wrong,” Aizawa told Mineta with a piercing gaze. “I’m sure we’ll find time to discuss it one on one very soon.”

Mineta looked cowed by this and began to bite his nails.

That cavern had been a path that many of the students had found themselves in, and Izuku wasn’t sure exactly how he’d missed it, but suspected it had something to do with putting his left hand against the wall to guide him instead of his right. There had been a pitfall into a deep, slick-sided hole almost as soon as a competitor had cleared the cavern, right after the light completely faded and left them in the dark. That was where most of the students who got stuck ended up. There was a small ledge at the bottom that allowed them to stand under an overhang, so that any other falling students wouldn’t fall on top of them. Clever.

That had been where Aoyama had ended up, after successfully using a short burst from his navel laser to rocket across the room. It seemed that he’d used up so much energy for that, that he hadn’t wanted to risk it again just to light up a dark tunnel. That mistake had cost him his place in the competition for the rest of the day. It had cost a total seven students their place by the end.

Most of the others hadn’t encountered the bubble room, it seemed. It had been an off-shoot room that was on the opposite side than most of them had chosen. Enough fell in to make it entertaining, though. The look of revulsion of each face as a bubble popped and released the stench was comical, seen again and again. Though Izuku had been tricked by the dead end at the top of the first ladder, most of the others hadn’t. It was the overwhelming odor that had done many of them in, causing them to lose their grip on the ladder. One student even passed out there, having a quirk that enhanced his sense of smell.

They didn’t have nearly enough time to get through all of the footage in one sitting, so they stopped for the day after discussing an area that featured a section of water that had been dyed pink and rigged with bubblers to make it seem like it was boiling. Competitors had to immerse themselves completely and swim about three meters to another branch of the maze. It had been dimly lit, and there had been a staff member inside a compartment that hung over the underwater tunnel, ready to assist anyone who began to drown. One person had to be rescued, because they’d been startled by another student who had entered the water immediately after her.

Once class was over, everyone was full of chatter. Izuku found himself being asked if he wanted to hang out, since Kirishima and Kaminari and a couple of others were considering stopping at a family restaurant for a snack after school. He turned them down, and was surprised to feel real regret to have to do so. It would have been a novel experience, and a good chance to get to know them better, but knew it wouldn’t be allowed.

They all accepted his ‘wanted man’ excuse with the villains still on the loose, and Izuku trotted off to find All Might. He was surprised to find Sir in the teacher’s lounge, sitting on the shabby sofa there, talking to All Might and Aizawa.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Izuku said awkwardly. “I can wait in the hall.”

“No need, my boy!” All Might said with a smile. “I didn’t bring a car today, and so Mirai came to be a chauffeur this afternoon.

“How was your day?” Sir asked.

“Did you hear about the kidnapping?” Izuku asked, arranging his face into a mask of excitement.

All three men instantly looked shocked.

“It’s okay. She woke up.”

Aizawa wasn’t looking at him, but the smack that Izuku felt on the back of his head had definitely been caused by his teacher’s capture weapon. All Might looked relieved, and Sir looked...proud? Izuku chalked it up a win and grinned widely.

“I hear you chose hero names today, but Shota here wouldn’t tell us what you chose,” All Might said.

It was weird to hear his teacher referred to by his first name.

“I thought you’d want to tell them yourself,” Aizawa said, getting to his feet. “See you.”

He left the room without another word, and Izuku shifted on his feet and fidgeted a bit.

“I wasn’t really prepared when they told us it was time for our hero names,” he stalled. “And I know I should have though of it before, and I did when I was a kid, but...everything I thought up as a little kid sounded dumb, and I didn’t know if I should try and wait until I had time to talk to you both about it, and…”

“Kid. It’s just a name,” All Might said, cutting off his nervous rambling. “And it’s yours, not ours. What did you choose?”

“Anything you chose is fine, Izuku,” Sir assured him. “You can always change it later, if you decide it’s not the right one for you.”

“I chose… Vanguard.”

Both men were silent long enough that Izuku had to fight the urge to apologize and start rambling again, but managed to wait it out.

“Vanguard,” All Might said quietly, testing it out. “It’s a strong name. A good name.”

“A vanguard is someone who leads the way for others to follow in their footsteps. Someone who is a beacon to others,” Sir said. “Very well chosen I’d say, but you’ll have to work hard to live up to it..”

Izuku sagged with relief.

Chapter 35

Summary:

Izuku makes a decision on where to intern.

Izuku’s father was equally excited by his son’s choice of hero name.

“That’s a great choice! From everything I’ve gathered, the main problem Japan is facing is that All Might has been the biggest load bearing pillar holding up our society. When he steps down, it’s going to take an army of others to stand up and lead the way into the future. That’s what a vanguard does. He leads an army!”

“That was what I was thinking, but then I wondered if it sounded too… arrogant? I want to inspire people, but I’m not there, yet.”

“I think you’re wrong about that,” he said. “You inspire me, every day. I’m sure there are a lot of others who see you in the same light, and you just don’t recognize it. Now that you’ve chosen a name, make it your goal, and before you know it, people will be looking to you to lead the way.”

Izuku knew he’d be discussing this with his therapist, who he really liked now that he’d gotten to know the man. Dr. Fujimori was a good listener, had a keen sense of humor and didn’t tell Izuku how he should feel about anything, just guided him through sorting out his feelings and determining what was causing some of them. However, the longer Izuku thought about the name, the more he wanted to make his own in every way. He was determined to step up his game and become someone dependable and admirable by the time he became a real pro hero.

“I got a call from Sir Nighteye today,” his father said as they washed the evening dishes together. “He said that the Might Agency had offered you a real student internship, but that you’d likely also received a lot of other offers.”

“Oh yeah!” Izuku said, drying his hands and going to his room to get the list he’d been given in class.

He handed it to his father, who had been drying the dishes and already had dry hands.

“Take a look! There are some good ones on there!” Izuku told him. “I”ll finish up these.”

There were only a couple of pans left to wash, anyway.

“Izuku, this is amazing! You have offers from six of the top ten heroes!”

“I know! It’s crazy! At first I was thinking I’d just go back with All Might and Sir, but I think it might be good to look into some of the others and see if any of them might be able to teach me something new. You know, step out of my comfort zone. I want to talk to Sir and All Might and see what they think.”

Izuku finished the dishes and wiped down the counters while his father stood staring at the list intently, mouth moving slightly as he read the list of agency names. There were five pages to the list, and two columns on each one. It was a lot to look over.

“I had honestly expected you to just accept All Might’s offer immediately,” his father said. “But this list… there are a lot of options to consider. I don’t know if you could do better than the Might Agency, but at the same time, you always have access to All Might and Sir, even outside of school.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Do you think they’d be upset if I went somewhere else?”

Izuku couldn’t imagine they’d be angry, but enduring their disappointment might be even worse.

“No. They want what’s best for you, and they’ll know if an agency you’re considering would be a good fit or a challenge for you, I’ll bet. Talk it over with them.”

Izuku nodded and retreated to his room. He had to make a choice by the end of the week, and the week was already nearly half over already, thanks to the school shut down. He messaged All Might to see if it was a good time to talk, and his phone rang immediately.

“Midoriya, my boy! I was wondering when I’d hear from you!”

Izuku immediately relaxed just hearing his mentor’s friendly voice. He explained his thinking about the internships, and All MIght didn’t seem upset at all at the idea of Izuku going elsewhere. In fact, he thought it might be a good thing, considering that the villains would expect Izuku to go to Might Agency, and part of the internship would include going out in public. It might be too tempting for the seemingly unhinged Shigaraki to resist attempting another attack.

“Will you and Sir take a look at my list and give me some advice?” Izuku asked. “I have a couple that I’m leaning toward, and want to know what you think.”

“Of course! Of course! How about tomorrow after school, you come back to Might Tower with me, and we can take a look?”

Izuku felt a lot better after talking it over with All Might, and better still the next day when Sir agreed with the notion of Izuku doing his student internship elsewhere.

“I have extended a few offers to students in second and third year at UA, and I believe that they need far more instruction than you do. Some of them have phenomenal quirks, but need some rather specialized training to really make the most of them. Obviously, since All Might can only appear for an hour each day, the main mentoring would fall to me and the sidekicks to handle.”

All Might looked a little deflated by this, but they all understood it was not a complaint, but a simple statement.

“Actually,” Izuku said sheepishly. “I know it’s not my place, but…”

Both men looked at him with interest.

“Go ahead and speak your mind, young man,” All Might urged.

“I was going to ask if you might consider possibly… maybe… making an offer to… Kacchan?” Izuku said, afraid to look at them to see their reaction.

“You’re speaking of Bakugou Katsuki?” Sir clarified, even though Izuku knew full well that he knew who was being talked about. “The boy who bullied you for much of your formative years and attempted to seriously injure you during your first battle training class?”

Sir’s expression was calm, as was his voice, but it was obvious that he was holding a grudge over Kacchan and Izuku’s past interactions. All Might looked stunned at the request as well.

“He’s got an amazing quirk, and I think that if he really tried to get his ego under control, he’d make an amazing hero. I don’t expect miracles, but all of those lessons and discussions about morals and ethics and everything I got would probably be good for him, and help him understand better what hero work is really about. He’s never been in a situation before where he wasn’t told that he’s great or where he didn’t excel at everything he did. He needs help.”

Izuku realized he’d been talking non-stop and blushed.

“I’m not trying to tell you what you should do. I just think that if anyone could teach him how to be a decent human being, it would be the two of you. He already idolizes All Might.”

“Thank you for the suggestion,” Sir said slowly. “I can only promise that I’ll give it the attention it deserves.”

Izuku nodded, feeling that he’d at least tried. He wasn’t even sure why he thought it would make a difference, just that he knew he needed to try.

“Is there anyone else you think might benefit from our infinite wisdom?” Sir asked with an arched eyebrow that held a hint of teasing amusement.

“Um...maybe? Todoroki Shouto?”

“Endeavor’s son?” All Might asked with surprise.

“Yeah. He seems… off. I think maybe he doesn’t have a sense of humor, or something.”

“You mean he’s broken?” Sir asked with a furrowed brow.

“Maybe? He doesn’t really show much emotion, but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He’s just… flat, I guess. His quirk is Half-Hot, Half-Cold, but he only uses the cold side. I’ve never seen him do more with his hot side than melt his ice.”

“Perhaps the cold side is more powerful? Having two opposite elemental quirks in one body is pretty volatile sounding. It might be too much for his system.”

“Maybe. I guess I can try to ask him about it.”

Izuku didn’t think that would be a comfortable conversation, but it might help the other boy to talk to someone about it.

“Anything else?” Sir asked.

“Nope. I’m done interfering!” Izuku said with a cheeky grin.

“No corny joke this time?” Sir asked.

“Nah. I had a construction one, but I’m still working on it.” Izuku deadpanned.

All Might groaned.

“Let’s have a look at your options and decide from there where you want to go,” Sir said with a small grin.

The meeting that followed involved a lot of notes, a list of goals, pros, cons, safety issues involving Izuku’s need for extra security and location all played a part in the process. After a lot of consideration, Izuku made his choice, and All Might promised to do what he could to ensure that he would be safe during the week he was learning from a different mentor.

The next day at school, Izuku turned in the form that his father had signed and handed it in to Aizawa, who was there extra early for a change. He looked at the form and raised an eyebrow, but said only one thing.

“Interesting choice. They only extended one other offer this year, which is two more than they usually do. I’ll send your acceptance notification so they know to expect you.”

Izuku was surprised to hear this, and wondered why they’d made two exceptions this year, if they normally never took any. He also wondered who would be interning with him.

“Ooh! Midoriya! Did you just hand in your internship papers?” Uraraka asked with a glint of excitement in her eyes.

“Yep! How about you?”

I turned mine in just before I left school yesterday!” she said. “I’m going to Gunhead’s agency! I was so happy to get some good offers after how bad I failed in the last event. I really want to learn some hand-to-hand combat skills!”

She made a few air punches to punctuate her announcement.

“Where did you decide on?” she asked.

A few others in class paused to hear his answer.

“Oh! Uh...I’m going with Endeavor’s agency,” he said, feeling embarrassed for some reason.

“Seriously?” Kaminari asked, sounding impressed. “He’s the number two! I bet All Might’s agency only takes kids from third year.”

“He probably wouldn’t take first years, especially since he’s our teacher right now, and it might look like favoritism,” Kirishima guessed.

“Congratulations, Midoriya-kun,” Yaoyorozu said with a smile. “I’m sure you’ll learn a lot!”

The conversation revolved around where everyone was going to intern, but Kacchan sat at his desk, hunched over, seemingly lost in thought.

“Hey, Bakugou, have you decided where you’re going, man?” Kirishima called across the room.

“I’m still narrowing it down,” he said, sounding grouchy.

“Your list was pretty long,” Mineta said with a sage nod. “I’ll bet it’s not an easy choice.”

“I think it’s easier this way than it would be if we had to apply to places and risk having to wait for rejection,” Sero said. “At least we know that we’ll automatically get accepted to the one we choose.”

Class started shortly after, with Todoroki just barely making it in time. Izuku thought he looked more sullen than usual as he slid into his seat and sat back with his arms crossed across his chest. He did not make eye contact with anyone, even when Yaoyorozu attempted to greet him.

The day’s announcements basically had to do with expected behavior while at their internships, things they could expect to encounter, and the fact that their mentor would be giving them an evaluation at the end of the week that would help determine their grade at the end of the semester.

In hero training, they went over the second event of the Sports Festival, where Mineta got excited that Midoriya had grabbed Hagakure right away, and that she had obviously been naked when he did so. Midoriya blushed to the roots of his hair, making everyone tease him a bit, while the girls made it known how disgusting it was that Hagakure’s stealthy quirk was reduced to her being ‘a naked girl’ in Mineta’s estimation.

Aizawa let the conversation go for only a few seconds before making eye contact with Mineta and saying, “Strike one.”

Mineta visibly paled, and he started to stammer. “But...but… why do they think it’s cute that Midoriya--”

“Because he obviously wasn’t copping a feel!” Ashido told him sternly. “He was treating her like a threat and an equal. Like. He. Should.”

Even the boys were nodding along, though Kaminari looked as though he could sympathize with Mineta. Izuku was still blushing, and muttered an apology to Hagakure, just in case he’d touched her anywhere inappropriate. She laughed, and he felt her pat his head in a friendly gesture to let him know there were no hard feelings.

Izuku wasn’t sure what ’strike one’ meant in this situation, but he could make a good guess. He didn’t know what would happen if Mineta ever reached ’strike three’, but he hoped for the other boy’s sake that he never had to find out. Aizawa didn’t seem like the type to mess around.

It was interesting to see the others battling to push or throw other participants off of the different stages. Some used clever strategies, while others were opportunistic hunters. Yoarashi had taken one of the top tiers for himself, but the way the stages rotated and revolved around the uppermost platform, he had limited success with his winds. He was still the one to knock the most people off, but as he’d realized that day, he should have started at the bottom, where the highest concentration of bodies ended up at the beginning. He could have used his whirlwinds to pretty much sweep them clean of anyone who didn’t have a seriously good grip on something solid. In fact, if he’d used strong enough winds, he might have been able to move the stages, as well. Izuku wasn’t sure if he was capable of that, though.

Kacchan had been a come-and-get-me kind of fighter, using his strength and explosions to knock people off of the top-most stage and cause havoc on the ones below. He probably would have had a lot more students removed if his stage had been a bit lower, but that wasn’t necessarily the point. If his strategy was to stand his ground and simply wait for the others to take out the weakest opponents, then he had been very successful. Anyone who faced him got thrown or blasted to a lower stage, even if they weren’t eliminated from the game entirely. Izuku even said as much while the class discussed what caught their eye. No one disagreed with that assessment, and they continued watching, observing a lot of foolish mistakes as those with less situational awareness got eliminated from the game.

They made note of how many students had quickly abandoned their provided weapons, and fell back to relying on their quirks to fight. Izuku remembered using two simultaneously at the beginning, but then dropping them to improve his mobility. They also commented on the cooperation between a few students, including Uraraka and Izuku, and how it had worked in their favor.

They also applauded the way Todoroki kept most attackers at bay by icing up his stage to make it super slippery, and then using the spring end of the weapon to fend off anyone who managed to get in it’s range. Then he used his ice to create a ramp that slid anyone besides him off the stages completely.

The moment when Izuku brought his fists down on the stage, the others in the class all made noises of dismay or astonishment.

“Didn’t that hurt?” Sato asked him as they watched the end of the stage that Izuku had been standing on dip dangerously low.

“Yes,” Izuku said with a nod as he thought back. “Yes it did.”

Laughter from the others made him grin in embarrassment. It was nice to be in a group of people laughing at him without it being mean or goading. This was good natured, and easy to laugh along with.

The end of the event was signaled soon thereafter, and the timing was perfect, because it was nearly time for dismissal. They could finish tomorrow with the flag tag, and Izuku would finally be able to see for himself how it ended.

They were all gathering their bags and getting ready for the bell to ring when there was a knock on the door. It slid slowly open a moment later to reveal Principal Nezu, who looked as neat and unruffled as ever as he strode into the room.

“Please pardon my interruption,” he said as he approached Aizawa. “But I just received a rather impressive offer for one of your students, and I thought it should be delivered with utmost haste.”

Aizawa took the folded sheet of paper and his eyebrows shot up in a rare show of surprise.

“Bakugou,” he said, getting everyone’s attention. “You’ve got an offer here from the Might Agency.”

Notes:

Okay, since so many of you are enjoying the stupid jokes, here's one I was going to use, but decided against. A kid at the school where I work told it to me.

Did you hear about the Mexican magician? He told his audience that he would vanish on the count of three.

"Uno! Dos!"

 

*POOF!*

 

He disappeared without a tres!

Badum tss*

Chapter 36

Summary:

Izuku needs a haircut. Naturally, this requires four people to accomplish.

Notes:

This is more of a lighthearted, nothing happens kind of chapter before things get a bit heavy, again.

The class turned into a madhouse as everyone lost their collective mind. Even Izuku was surprised, since Sir had made it sound as though he wasn’t going to be even considering the idea. The most surprised of all was Kacchan who, for once in his life, was rendered completely speechless. As the excitement died down, everyone started to congratulate him and gather around his desk.

“You’re gonna take it, right?” Kirishima asked.

“Uh…” Kacchan answered, seeming stunned. “Of course I am.”

But he didn’t sound as excited as everyone else, and Izuku suspected he was in shock.

“Guys, give him some room!” Ashido told everyone. “You okay, Bakugou?”

Bakugou’s lips slowly stretched into a smile that, for once, had no trace of sneer in them.

“Yeah,” he answered as the reality sunk in. “Hell yeah! YES!”

He fist pumped the air, and everyone got excited and started cheering again.

Nezu cleared his throat and everyone suddenly remembered he was there and settled down.

“Bakugou-kun, please remember that this internship is a huge opportunity, but also a huge responsibility. You’ll be representing our school as you work with a very prestigious agency. Act accordingly.”

“Yes, sir!” Bakugou answered, still smiling.

Izuku thought he might faint at the sight of a completely un-sarcastic, genuinely respectful and truly happy Kacchan. It was so out of character.

“Who are you and what have you done with Bakugou?” Jiro asked him with teasing, narrowed eyes.

He flipped her the finger with a smirk, and Izuku nodded. There it was. That was better. For a few moments, the world had tilted wildly on its axis and nothing made sense. He should have known that a cheerful Kacchan couldn’t last that long. Still, it had been nice to see he was capable of it. Maybe he was on the path to recovery from a lifetime of being an asshole.

As everyone started to file out of the room, Izuku remembered that he had meant to ask Ashido a favor.

“Ashido!” he called out.

“You can call me Mina if you want. Most people do,” she said easily. “What’s up?”

“I uh… I was wondering if you knew anyone here at the school who knows how to cut hair?”

Her eyes widened and took on a gleam that made Izuku vaguely nervous. He actually startled when Hagakure managed to sneak up on him.

“I do! I do!” she said excitedly. “Do you want me to cut your hair? My mom is actually a hair stylist, and she taught me the basics!”

“Really? You mean we get to give Broccoli Boi and makeover?” Ashido asked excitedly.

“Makeover?” Izuku asked.

His gulp was probably audible all the way down the hall as both girls started running their fingers through his mop of wavy curls.

“Oh my God!” Hagakure squealed, “It’s so soft and slippery! Why does it look so fluffy when it should seem oily?”

“No idea,” Izuku said, blushing furiously.

Uraraka came over to find out why the other girls were fondling Izuku’s head.

“Do you want me to come to your place tonight to do it?” Hagakure asked excitedly.

“Um…” Izuku wasn’t sure if that would be allowed, though he couldn’t think of any real reason why not. “Let me check really quick.”

He pulled out his phone and sent off a message to Sir, who would probably be the fastest to reply. Within a few moments, he got an okay, as long as whoever was on watch escorted them up.

While he was waiting for a reply, Mina had chimed in that if Hagakure got to go, then she was coming, too. Then she hooked an arm through Uraraka’s arm and included her, as well.

“Hey,” Kirishima said. “You’re all going to Midoriya’s?”

Izuku wondered exactly when he had lost control of this situation.

“I just need a haircut,” he said.

“This is going to be so much fun!” Mina announced.

Hagakure hopped up and down (or seemed like it with the way her uniform bobbed).

“I’ll get a cape and shears and everything and come by in an hour! Give me your address so I can use my maps app to find it.”

Izuku sighed and messaged her the address, and let her know about security.

“Is it really okay if we come, too?” Kirishima asked.

“You want to come see me get a haircut?” Izuku asked, truly baffled by this turn of events.

“Sure, why not?” he asked. “If she’s up for it, Hagakure could give me a trim, too!”

The girls were entirely too excited by the prospect, but Izuku just sighed. There wasn’t any harm in it, and it seemed like they really wanted to.

“I guess,” Izuku finally said. “Why don’t you all just stay for dinner? We can work on homework, if you want.”

Pretty much everyone else had gone, except for Todoroki, who was watching them with a flat expression. Izuku felt bad for leaving him out.

“You’re welcome to come, too,” he offered the bi-colored boy. “I don’t expect it to be all that exciting, but…”

“I can’t,” Todoroki said shortly. “I have training.”

He got up and left without another word, leaving Izuku feeling like maybe he’d missed something.

“He’s lucky,” Kirishima said once Todoroki was out of earshot. “He gets to train with the number two hero whenever he wants.”

They all separated, and Izuku had to ask All Might to stop at a grocery store on the way home, so he could get ingredients for dinner to feed four extra people. He had three bulging bags and a cake box by the time he got home, and had been extra-grateful for the ride.

He got to work on meal prep, intending to make katsudon, since it was a large enough group to make it worth all the effort. It wasn’t a complicated dish, but it could get a bit messy, so he didn’t make it often. He had barely had time to finish tenderizing the pork before the door buzzer sounded.

Bubble girl’s cheerful face filled the screen as she told him that he had visitors and would be bringing them up. He quickly washed his hands and slipped on his gloves, and made sure everything was tidy. He felt oddly nervous, never having had guests over before, and wasn’t sure how formal he should act. Before he could decide on anything, Bubble girl knocked on the door, and then left the four classmates in his care.

“Hey Midoriya! You live in such a fancy place!” Hagakure said, keeping her bag with her after she removed her shoes.

Izuku smiled, feeling relieved when Uraraka, Mina and Kirishima all stepped out of their shoes and made themselves at home. It wasn’t so daunting after all. He gave them a brief tour of the apartment, which Uraraka described as ‘roomy’ and they marveled at his All Might collection, most of which had been signed by the man himself.

He told an abridged story of Granny Ito, and how he had first met All Might and that he’d signed all of his stuff in one go at that time. He made it seem like a one time encounter that had happened many years ago, They all sounded impressed, and didn’t tease him too much about being such a huge fanboy.

“So, should I cut your hair before dinner, or after?” Hagakure asked. “We could get our homework started before we eat, then do the haircuts after?”

The girls decided that it was a good plan, Kirishima was laid back enough to let them run the show, and Izuku just let them do what they wanted; he was kind of out of his depth. They got out their school work and began with math, with Kirishima asking for a lot of help along the way. They finished relatively quickly, since they worked together and compared answers. Then they breezed through a history worksheet, an English worksheet that Izuku was able to help them all finish in record time since, if someone read the paragraph out loud to him, he could easily tell which parts needed correcting. When Izuku’s father came home, it was to find them all bent over their notes about the sports festival’s second event, each writing short essay on their observations,

“I’m home!” his father said, sounding somewhat surprised.

“Welcome home! Sorry! I forgot to let you know I had some from friends coming over. Hagakure’s going to cut my and Kirishima’s hair, so I invited them all for dinner!”

“I see! Well then, welcome! Please continue taking care of Izuku! You’re in for a treat! He’s a great cook!” his father said.

“You’re cooking?” Uraraka asked in surprise.

“Yep! In fact, now that my dad’s home, I should get started! I lost track of time!”

He made a quick introduction of his father to his friends before his father retreated to his bedroom. Izuku moved to the kitchen, and there was scrambling as all of them packed up their school supplies and crowded around the counter to watch Izuku cook

“Um… what are you doing?” he asked, seeing them all watching with avid interest as he whisked the egg and put breadcrumbs in a pan for breading the pork.

“I can’t believe you can cook!” Uraraka said enviously. “I could burn rice...if I had a rice cooker!”

Izuku laughed at that.

“Same,” Kirishima admitted.

“I can cook eggs and rice, and that’s pretty much it,” Mina said. “My mom says I'm too hyper to have in the kitchen.”

“I can cook,” Hagakure said easily, “but it freaks my mom out when I do. I get my invisibility from my dad. He doesn’t cook, so she’s not used to seeing an invisible person at work in the kitchen and gets nervous about colliding with me.”

“Your mom is visible, then?” Izuku asked as he dredged the pork in flour before moving it to the egg.

“Yep! They actually expected me to get her quirk when I was little, because my skin was already blue like hers.”

“You have blue skin?” Kirishima asked curiously.

“If it was visible, it would be,” she affirmed. “My mom can hold her breath for a really, really long time. Like, almost an hour, without any ill effects.”

‘That’s amazing!” Izuku said, slipping the first breaded cutlet into the hot oil. “I guess I just assumed you were born invisible!”

“Me too!” Kirishima said.

“So did I,” Uraraka admitted.

“Nope. I just gradually disappeared around the time I turned three,” Hagakure said. “My mother was so sad about it, saying she wouldn’t get to see her baby girl grow up.”

“Aw! That’s so sweet!” Mina gushed.

“Every once in a while, she’ll dust me with powder, just so she can check to make sure everything’s okay,” Hagakure said with a laugh. “Especially when she cuts my hair, though I don’t know why it matters if it’s a bad cut. It’s not like anyone’ll know!”

Izuku listened while he cooked and the others peppered Hagakure with questions about her childhood.

“Midoriya,” Kirishima suddenly said loudly. “What is this?”

Izuku looked up to see him holding a picture frame and the girls all saying, “Oooh!”

The picture in question was a good one. Izuku was wearing a competition shirt (leotard) and stirrups in a typical gymnast’s style, and was in the middle of a routine. He was doing a split with his arms raised over his head, and a broad smile on his face. He remembered the moment well, because his dad had been at that particular event and cheering on the sidelines while he took pictures.

“Ah. That was taken a couple of years ago during one of my gymnastics exhibitions. I wasn’t allowed to compete because of my quirks, but I still did a few exhibitions here and there.”

“Wow.”

He wasn’t sure who said it, but they all seemed impressed.

“Can you still do the splits like that?” Mina asked excitedly.

“Yeah, it’s been a while since I did an actual gymnastics routine, but I still practice the basics as part of my workout at home, since I can’t exactly go to the gym with all the restrictions on me.”

He continued cooking as he talked, and the conversation finally moved on to other subjects. When he finally assembled all of the meals, they were all hungry and it was a lively group that sat down to eat. Izuku’s father declined to join them, saying he would eat a little later, and made an excuse about work to give his son some time with his friends.

Everyone was impressed with the food, though Izuku insisted that something was missing from the flavor, though he couldn’t pinpoint it. It didn’t stop everyone from enjoying the meal, and a piece of the cake that followed. They all helped with dishes so that the kitchen was clean and tidy in no time.

Then it was time for haircuts. Hagakure made Kirishima go wash his hair, since it was full of gel and styling products to make the spikes stand up like they did. While he did that, the girls put towels down on the floor to catch the hair and got Hagakure's ‘equipment’. Soon there were a couple of different pairs of scissors, combs, a brush, a water bottle, electric hair clippers and hair clips lined up on the counter.

Izuku’s hair just needed to be spritzed with water, which didn’t do much to keep it wet. He sat nervously on a kitchen stool with a cape fastened around his neck. The girls had apparently already consulted with each other on what was about to happen, and it was hard not to fidget when Mina had an almost manic gleam in her eye. Hagakure seemed to know what she was doing, though! She sectioned his hair and twisted it so that the clips could hold it as she worked.

Kirishima reappeared with damp hair and a towel around his neck just as the buzzzzzz of the electric clippers filled the room.

“You look so different with your hair down, Kirishima!” Uraraka said.

It almost distracted Izuku from that fact that he could hear the soft pattering of clumps of hair falling to the towels on the ground. Kirishima looked sheepish as he nodded.

“Not very intimidating, is it?” he said ruefully. “That’s why I wear it spiked. Looks more heroic that way.”

Izuku thought he had a point, but it looked good either way.

“That might be a good thing, when you’re a pro,” Izuku said, turning his head obediently when Hagakure told him to. “You’ll be able to disguise yourself better when you’re out in public if you’re off duty.”

“I guess so!” Kirishima said, sounding as if he’d never considered it before. “I could maybe even do undercover work with it down.”

“The red might give it away,” Mina pointed out. “But maybe not.”

More clumps of green hair slid down the front of the cape around Izuku’s shoulders and then onto the floor.

“You’re leaving me at least a little hair, right?” Izuku asked, only partly joking.

“You’ve got a ton of hair,” Hagakure told him. “It’s a bit fine, but there’s a lot of it!”

“It’s looking good, man,” Kirishima told him reassuringly.

“It really is,” Uraraka told him with a nod. “You already look older, without all the bulk and fluffiness around the sides.”

“You do have a bit of baby face,” Mina told him. “But I think this will fix that problem!”

The electric clippers were turned off after a few minutes, and Hagakure went to work with the scissors. More hair than Izuku even thought he had began to fall down from his head and slide off the cape. Only the fact that no one was gasping or giggling at what was going on helped him relax. Finally, there was no more cutting, and only fingers running through the strands on his head, rearranging it this way and that for a couple more minutes before Hagakure declared him finished and unfastened the cape.

Izuku put his hand to the back of his head and was somewhat stunned to find it so short that it felt like the bristles of a soft toothbrush under his hand. Mina produced a large hand mirror with a flourish and held it up for him.

“That looks… amazing, Hagakure! Thank you so much!”

Izuku was beyond pleased. She had given him a very short undercut almost to the crown of his head, and done a decent job of blending it into longer curls on the top that revealed more of a forehead than he’d seen in years. They had been right; he did look older.

Uraraka and Mina had come forward to run their fingers over it, making him blush. Kirishima gave him a thumbs up.

“Since you went first, I know I can trust Hagakure with my hair!” he joked. “But I just want a trim. My spikes are getting a little too heavy to stand up straight, and it’s taking forever for my hair to set in the morning.”

Izuku took a seat with Mina and Uraraka and watched while Kirishima got his hair cut. It wasn’t as dramatic a difference as Izuku’s hair, but she did thin it out with weird looking shears and cut about two centimetres off of the length. It was a much faster cut for the redhead than it had been for Izuku. After that, Izuku gathered up the towels and shook them gently over the trash, then put them in the washer. His friends gathered their belongings and he saw them to the door, where there were cheerful goodbyes before they went.

The apartment felt almost unnaturally quiet after they had gone.

“Those are some good friends you’ve made,” his father said, finally making an appearance.

“Yeah,” Izuku said, feeling some surprise that he actually thought of them as friends, now. “Yeah, they are.”

Chapter 37

Summary:

Izuku begins his internship and gets a small taste of what Endeavor is like.

Notes:

So, I made up a couple of characters to fill things in, and took liberties with some of the existing sidekicks at Endeavor's agency that don't have much information about them in canon. Enjoy!

“Are you sure you have everything?” Izuku’s father asked for the third time as Izuku slipped on his shoes.

“I’m sure,” he answered for the third time.

“I know you’re going to be just across the city, but you can never be too careful,” his father continued, even as they left the apartment together, Izuku holding a duffel bag in addition to his school bag. “Endeavor’s been told everything he needs to know, and you’ll be staying in a dormitory full of sidekicks and…”

Izuku let his father ramble, aware that he was saying these things to reassure himself more than his son. Endeavor’s agency was second only to Might Tower as far as security went, and Izuku had no doubt that he’d be perfectly fine while he was there. All Might and Sir had given him similar speeches about safety protocols and what to do in an emergency. It was a wonder that Izuku didn’t feel more apprehensive than he did with all of the warnings and lectures he’d endured from nearly every adult in his life over the past couple of days.

At the school, they had all met in the classroom to get their hero costume cases, and then Aizawa saw them to the train station and gave them final instructions. Todoroki had been strangely silent about Midoriya going to Endeavor Agency, even though Izuku knew that his classmate was also going to be joining him for the next week.

Izuku went to stand beside him, but suddenly realized that Iida had not said anything to their classmates about behaving in a way that demonstrated that the meritorious reputation of the school was not unfairly earned, or something. In fact, the deputy class rep had been uncharacteristically quiet for the past week, though that could be because of the heavy emotional toll of having his brother so gravely injured. It had been revealed that Ingenium had suffered irreparable spinal damage, and would almost certainly never walk again. Izuku shouldn’t let him go to his internship without at least a word of moral support or encouragement.

“Iida!” he called out, jogging after him before the taller boy had a chance to disappear into the crowd.

“Iida!” Uraraka was suddenly there beside Izuku, obviously for the same reason.

She shared a look with Izuku when Iida stopped, but did not immediately turn around. When he did face them, his face was composed into a fake, bright and cheerful expression.

“Ah yes! Good luck on your internships, you two! I’m sure you’ll learn a lot in the coming--”

“Iida,” Uraraka said. “We’re worried about you.”

Izuku nodded in agreement, and was concerned when he saw Iida’s shoulders sag, as if they’d just added a weight to them.

“You haven’t been yourself,” Izuku said quietly. “We’ve noticed, and we’ve been giving you space to deal with your personal stuff, but we still want you to know we care.”

“Yeah,” Uraraka added. “I know we’ve all been crazy busy and excited about the internships, but we’re never too busy if you need someone to talk to.”

“I…” Iida looked glossy eyed for a moment before his backbone straightened and his expression turned determined. “I very much appreciate the sentiment, but I’m afraid that I’m the only one who can deal with what I need to deal with right now. Please don’t worry about me. I’ll want to hear all about everything you’ve learned when I see you next week.”

“O-okay,” Uraraka said, not sounding convinced at all. “You have our numbers.”

“I do. Thank you.” Iida said.

Then he was gone, swallowed by the crowd of commuters. Izuku and Uraraka went back to the group together, feeling a lot less jubilant than before.

Uraraka’s train arrived, and she dashed off with a little wave, and Todoroki simply said, “The train we need will be on the other side of the platform.”

Izuku followed him curiously, and stood waiting for Todoroki to say something else. When he remained silent, Izuku tried to make conversation.

“What made you decide to go to your father’s agency? I’m sure you had a ton of other top heroes to pick from.”

“I didn’t. It was decided for me,” Todoroki said with what passed for a scowl in his perpetually stoic face. “I got offers, but wasn’t allowed to pick from them.”

“Weren’t allowed? Doesn’t that mean your father really wants to mentor you?” Izuku guessed.

Todoroki just looked at him as if that was an adequate answer.

“Maybe he’s just excited to be able to take you on your first official patrol?” Izuku suggested.

After saying that, he wondered if All Might or Sir had been disappointed that Izuku would have his first patrol with another hero.

Todoroki huffed out a humorless laugh at that. “Maybe you’re right. Nothing about me excites him more than controlling my every action.”

Izuku blinked at that, not sure what to make of it.

“Do you not get along with your father?”

“In a word? No.” Todoroki said. “But still, he’s the number two for a reason. He should be able to at least teach me something during this internship.”

“Have you not trained with him before?” Izuku asked, feeling bad for having made that assumption. Not everyone got the same advantages, after all. Todoroki had refused the offer to go to Izuku’s place the other day because he had to train, but that didn’t mean it had been with his father.

“Oh, I train with him all the time,” Todoroki assured him. “But neither of us enjoy it; let’s just leave it at that. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”

Their train arrived shortly thereafter, and they boarded for the trip to the other side of the city. The ride would only be about fifteen or twenty minutes, so they had plenty of time to get there when their agenda said they should. Todoroki didn’t seem all that inclined to chat during the ride, so they sat in silence, and Izuku observed all of the different commuters; especially those with visible quirks. He spotted Rapidfire at the end of the car, looking like a college student with a backpack slung over one shoulder. He didn’t acknowledge Izuku in any way, and Izuku pretended not to see him. He was supposed to be there to monitor the train after all. He would likely follow Izuku and Todoroki all the way to Endeavor Agency before returning to whatever else he regularly did for the Might Agency.

From the train, they walked two blocks to a high rise building that was very modern looking, with a large, stylized E on the front entrance. When they went inside, a receptionist was waiting for them with badges on retractable lanyards.

“These will allow you access to most of the department doors, and are keyed to your dormitory rooms, so be sure to keep track of them. They’re not easy to replace,” she told them. “Endeavor wants you to drop off your things in your rooms, and get changed into your costumes. You’ll have fifteen minutes to meet him in his office on the seventeenth floor.”

Izuku and Todoroki took the packet of papers she offered each of them, then directed them to take the elevator to the fourth floor. Izuku was in room 411 and Todoroki was in room 414. Izuku quickly changed into his costume and met Todoroki in the central common area that all of the rooms faced. Instead of the white costume that was half ice that he had worn before, Todoroki wore a dark blue jumpsuit with white boots, a leather belt with small pouches and five tube compartments hanging around it, which Izuku assumed held tools of some sort for hero or rescue work. There were interconnected plates of some kind looped over each shoulder, which fit snugly against Todoroki’s body, but Izuku couldn’t figure out if they were practical or decorative. As far as costumes went, it was pretty plain, but still looked much better than his previous one.

“I hope you’re up for this,” Todoroki said as they rode up the elevator together. “My father isn’t exactly a friendly man.”

Izuku could have countered that Aizawa wasn’t particularly a ball of cuddles either, but was certainly respected and a good teacher. He kept his opinion to himself, reserving judgement until after he’d actually met the man. The further up the elevator went, the deeper the lines carved between Todoroki’s eyebrows became. When the elevator pinged and the doors slid open, Izuku noticed that the other boy had to take a moment to visibly relax his muscles and unclench his jaw. Within a few seconds, he looked sullen, but not tense.

“Endeavor is expecting you,” said a woman at a desk outside of a tall, black-lacquered door. “Go right in.”

Izuku stepped up the doors and opened the one on the right. He stepped through into a large space that took up at least half of the floor, but the only furniture was a dark, imposing desk with a lamp on it and a low table with a leather couch and two matching chairs on either side of it. The only decor was a large painting of a pastoral scene, and the largest Persian rug Izuku had ever seen in his life under it all. It was… boring and stark. Despite the earthy tones and huge chandelier and the imposing man wreathed in flames standing behind the desk… the room felt cold.

Izuku immediately bowed in respect and gave his greeting.

“I’m Midoriya Izuku, in your care this week! Please allow me to learn from you!”

Endeavor nodded and looked over to his son, as if expecting a similar greeting. If so, he was disappointed.

“I’m here, just like you wanted,” Todoroki said instead.

Izuku looked between them, and could almost hear the tension vibrating through the room. Endeavor’s glare went from Todoroki to Izuku after a moment.

“I invited you to intern here in the hopes that you would be able to be a worthy opponent for my obstinate son,” Endeavor told Izuku. “He has fire powerful enough to rival, or even surpass mine, but stubbornly refuses to use it, insisting that ice is enough for him to surpass me.”

Izuku’s eyes widened. Todoroki’s fire was that strong? And he didn’t use it? Maybe it was the cause of the burn scar over his eye? He could understand being afraid to use a power that had the potential to hurt you like that.

“I see,” Izuku said, keeping his tone noncommittal, even though he really didn’t understand at all.

“I’ll have you facing off against each other and many of my sidekicks while you’re here, as well as myself. You’ll join the sidekicks for morning workouts, then breakfast, training, and we’ll patrol this afternoon after lunch. If you perform well, you will be allowed to accompany sidekicks on patrols.”

His eyes shifted to Todoroki, who looked bored and impatient.

“Try not to embarrass me.”

He pressed a button on the phone on his desk and said, “Send in Burnin’.”

The door opened, and a young woman with flames for hair strode in with a grin.

“Newbies!” she said in a cheerful voice. “I’m Burnin’! Come with me, and I’ll show you the ropes around here!”

Burnin’ wore a costume that looked a bit like an old bellboy or doorman uniform; at least on top. The bottom was very short, with stockings that had visible garter straps holding them up. She was also masked, and appeared to have a medium sized fire extinguisher strapped to the small of her back, as well.

Endeavor had already taken a seat at this desk directing his attention elsewhere, so Izuku followed the peppy woman back to the foyer. Todoroki followed, his manner shifting to calm and even slightly cordial as he nodded at the sidekick in greeting.

“What are your names?” Burnin’ asked as they waited for the elevator.

“Shouto,” Todoroki said.

Izuku had almost forgotten that he’d gone with his first name for a hero mo`niker.

“Needs work,” Burnin’ declared boldly. “Don’t worry, one’ll come to ya!”

“I’m Vanguard,” Izuku told her, using his hero name in an introduction for the first time.

It felt… good. Right.

“Ooh! Good one,” Burnin’ approved with a grin. “Maybe you could give Shouto some pointers!”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what Endeavor wants,” Todoroki said cryptically.

If Burnin’ was aware that Shouto was Endeavor’s son, she gave no sign of it. She jabbed at a button on the elevator panel and took them to a floor that looked very much like an expanded version of All Might’s personal gym. There were treadmills, stationary bikes and stair climbers lining one wall, another wall had tons of free weights as well as weight machines. There were places to stretch and do calisthenics, too. There were only about a dozen people currently using the room.

“This is where we do morning workout,” Burnin’ told them. “From six in the morning to seven every day, this is where you’ll be expected to be, building up muscle and endurance. Unless you’re on duty, that is. The night shift has a different schedule.”

“From seven-thirty to nine, there will be training for you two. There’ll be a schedule for that in the packet you were given when you got here this morning, but for today, you’ll be working with me and Kido. We’ll give you a half an hour with each of us before we switch, then for the second hour you’ll battle us together. After that there’s a half hour break. You should come to the bullpen and meet some more of the Flaming Sidekickers and see how things work on a normal day. After that, more training for an hour, and then there’s the briefing room.”

She pointed to a clock on the wall that said it was nearly a quarter after seven.

“Go ahead and use the next fifteen minutes to stretch and warm up. We’ll grab some breakfast, and we can get to know each other before we start.

Izuku immediately went over to a padded area of the floor next to a wall that had a barre for stretching. There were also yoga balls, medicine balls, resistance bands and a stretching apparatus. He went through a series of stretches, ending by grabbing the bottoms of his feet and resting his head against his legs.

Shouto was also stretching, but didn’t have the flexibility that Izuku had. That was okay, since he probably didn’t have a background in gymnastics, either. Once he finished stretching, Izuku decided to get onto the elliptical machine, since that would get his heart rate going faster than a treadmill. He wondered if he would be allowed to come to this area earlier than six, or else be allowed to run up and down the stairwells during his off time. He had missed regular workouts over the past week, because heroics class had been mostly discussions and observations about the Sports Festival. He wanted to move, and was thrilled that he’d be getting intense workouts starting today.

They went to a cafeteria on the first floor for breakfast, where the heroes were able to purchase their meals for very inexpensively. Izuku was glad that his meal plan was part of his internship, since he hadn’t brought any money in his costume pockets. He supposed he should remember to keep a few hundred yen in there for emergencies.

Shouto got a traditional Japanese breakfast set meal, and Izuku followed suit, simply because it was easier. He took his tray and followed Burnin’ to a table with empty seats, where a couple of other heroes were sitting.

“New sidekicks?” one of them asked.

“Interns,” Burnin’ told him. “So don’t ask ‘em what their quirks are. I’m training with them after this, and it’s going to be part of my demonstration to come at them not knowing.”

“So…” the hero said with raised eyebrows. “We’re pretending that we don’t know that that kid is Endeavor’s son?”

“Yep. He’s an intern. No special treatment,” Burnin’ confirmed.

“Got it,” the other hero said with an easy smile. “Well, welcome to the agency! My name’s Cinder. I can turn rocks into flaming projectiles. You’ll find that a lot of the Burning Sikekickers have flame based quirks, but not all of us.”

“Nice you meet you!” Izuku said with a wide smile. “My name’s Vanguard.”

“Shouto.” Todoroki said with a nod.

He wasn’t unfriendly exactly, but he definitely didn’t show the enthusiasm that Izuku was feeling.

“You’re both from UA?” Cinder asked as he ate a huge portion of omurice.

Cinder was a burly man with close cropped white hair, and his costume was basically just...orange pants and combat boots. Even so, he appeared to have a light sheen of sweat covering his body. Maybe because he ran hot inside? Izuku knew his own father had a much higher core temperature than normal.

“Yes, sir!” Izuku said. “Shouto and I are classmates.”

“First years?” another hero at the table asked.

This hero had mostly been paying attention to the television screen mounted near the ceiling by the door while they had been talking.

“Yes!” Izuku confirmed.

“Wait,” the woman said after really looking at Izuku. “You were the winner of the Sports Festival, but you didn’t show up for the award ceremony because you got kidnapped!”

“True,” he said, trying hard not to blush in embarrassment. It hadn’t really been his fault he’d been taken like that.

“Vanguard, Shouto, this is Hot Spot." Burnin’ introduced.

Both boys nodded to her.

“Things are getting crazy out there, recently. A kid gets taken from the middle of the UA campus, a hero killer’s on the loose, and crime is just generally on the rise. All Might’s been teaching, and now all of the scum think it’s okay to show their faces in public.”

“That Stain guy is the most worrying, if you ask me,” Cinder said. “Guy’s as crazy as a… well, he’s crazy. Endeavor really wants to be the one to take him down!”

Izuku had a feeling the man had censored his speech because of him and Shouto. He absently handed the pepper shaker on the table to Burnin’ and the soy sauce over to Cinder. They both just looked at him for a moment before taking the offered items to season their food.

“Ingenium is our classmate’s brother. His family is taking it pretty hard, from all accounts,” Izuku said, thinking of how strangely Iida had been acting.

All of the heroes at the table winced and looked sad.

“He was a great hero,” Cinder lamented. “And a really nice guy.”

“He’s not dead,” Izuku pointed out, finally getting started on his breakfast. “He’s still a great guy, and his quirk is in his arms, so his hero career doesn’t really have to be over, does it?”

“He can’t feel his legs, kid. I appreciate that you don’t wanna believe--”

“He’s right,” Todoroki said quietly, making everyone in the table look at him. “Once he recovers as much as possible, he could still do hero work. It would just have to be a different kind.”

Izuku nodded and shot Todoroki a grateful look.

“Exactly!” Izuku insisted. “The engines in his arms could still move a vehicle; even a specialized wheelchair! Anyway, I wouldn’t count him out just yet.”

“Huh. I guess I just assumed he was done.” Cinder admitted.

“Would you give up like that, if it happened to you?” Burnin’ asked him.

“Hell, no!” Cinder declared. “I’d rig up a wheelchair to have pouches full of rocks for me!”

Izuku looked pleased that his point had been understood. He didn’t believe a serious hero could just give it up when things got really rough. There had to be a part of Ingenium that was impatient and longing to get back out there, making a difference. If not, it wasn’t because he couldn’t physically adapt, but because he’d had enough for other reasons.

They finished breakfast and were led to a pair of training rooms on another floor. Todoroki was sent to meet a hero named Kido in one room, while Izuku went with Burnin’ to one just down the hall.

The room they entered was a simple empty square, with windows along one wall. There didn’t seem to be any cabinets or equipment; just a bare concrete floor and plain walls.

“Don’t worry,” Burnin’ told him as she walked to the center of the room. “Everything around here is fireproof or fire retardant.”

Izuku nodded, wondering if that was confirmation that she’d be wielding fire in some way, or if she expected him to.

“Okay, Vanguard,” she told him with a smile. “I thought we’d start off with a little sparring. I want to see how you move and react. I’ll come at you, both using my quirk and my skill, and your job is to try to evade me or incapacitate me by pinning me or getting me in a hold I can’t break out of. Use your quirk or any skills you have, too.”

“Sounds fair,” Izuku said, taking quick stock of his surroundings.

He knew that super strength was a bad idea indoors, especially in the upper floors of such a tall building. He would have to dial it down, if he needed it. Other than that, he didn’t see any of his other quirks hampering his success.

“Let’s begin,” she said with a gleeful grin.

Chapter 38

Summary:

Izuku does some training with a couple of Burning Sidekickers

Burnin’ hadn’t been kidding when she said she would come at him.

One second she was smiling at him, and the next, she was hurling flames at him by gripping the ends of her flaming hair and using them as weapons.

Izuku dodged the first volley of attacks with some simple gymnastics. He was thankful for the fire retardant qualities of his costume though, when she landed a hit to his leg. The impact made the flame seem to splash, almost like a liquid, and he feared for a moment that the flames might actually be lava or some sort of flammable liquid. The flames extinguished themselves, and he breathed a sigh of relief even as he was forced to keep dodging.

The speed of her attack was impressive, and she advanced on him as if she wanted to drive him into a corner. When dodging and trying to advance on her didn’t get him anywhere, he levitated to the ceiling and crawled over the tiles, glad they were reinforced to withstand the pressure he put on them. He scrambled to get over her head, but she proved to be quick on her feet, as well.

“You can float, huh?” she said with a smile. “Pretty useful quirk. I thought it was super strength.”

He could see how she might think that, due to his performance at the sports festival. But if she didn’t know about his levitation, what else didn’t she know about him? Not that she would be impressed by his transparency or knowing that she really wanted to have a cupcake for a snack. He simply had to keep trying things until he found something that worked.

He finally let himself drop to the floor again, and charged up One For All, green sparks webbing around him.

“Interesting trick,” Burnin’ said, staying on the balls of her feet and keeping her eyes glued to Izuku. “Is that for distraction?”

Before she could blink, Izuku had already thrown her over his shoulder onto the floor and was holding her immobile with his own body. He easily forced her to flip over and put her wrists together behind her. He held them in place with one gloved hand while he used pull to summon restraints from a pouch on his hip. From there, he was able to secure her, leaving her unable to reach her hair while he also secured her ankles.

“Hold on! You have two quirks? Three?” she squawked indignantly.

“Thirteen, actually,” Izuku said with a grin at the flabbergasted look on her face.

“Thirteen! That’s crazy! No one has that many quirks!” she said, squirming against her bonds.

“I do,” he corrected. “So, does this round go to me?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, grumpily. “You win. This time.”

Izuku took a moment to release Burnin’, who rubbed her wrists and scowled before hopping to her feet.

“What the heck, kid? Your moves are crazy good!”

Izuku grinned before admitting, “I trained with pro heroes off and on since I was ten.”

The temperature in the room was noticeably colder now than it had been before, and now they could see their breaths on the frigid air.

“Seems like Shouto’s usin’ his ice next door,” Burnin’ observed.

Izuku raised his eyebrows at that. These walls were undoubtedly thick. How much ice would Shouto have to be putting out to chill adjacent rooms to his extent?

Burnin’s hair seemed to become fuller around her head and burn a little brighter, possibly to compensate for the temperature change. Izuku was about to question her further, but there was a loud beeping coming from the closed door. Burnin’ strode over and unlocked the door, which slid open to reveal Shouto and a man wrapped in bandages everywhere there might have been exposed skin. He wore a flak jacket and gloves, and Izuku surmised that this must be Kido, who Burnin’ had mentioned earlier.

“Change of plans,” Kido said as he moved into the room. “The other room is now an ice cube, so I was thinking it would be a good idea to combine into one group.”

Shouto didn’t show the slightest bit of emotion when all eyes turned to him at the words ‘ice cube’. He simply followed Kido into the room and looked around.

“Fine by me,” Burnin’ said. “It’s a little early, but we were plannin’ on doing that anyway.”

Izuku soon learned that Shouto found it harder to maneuver his ice when there was another person he had to avoid freezing. The power behind his ice quirk was incredibly strong but Shouto didn’t have the finesse to craft anything with it. He could control how much he produced, and he could produce it incredibly quickly, but he couldn’t make it do much else.

Izuku tried to stay out of Shouto’s way, but Kido had a quirk that allowed him to change the direction of anything in motion - including people. It was harder to stay still while Burnin’ threw flames at them with lightning speed, but it was even harder to move, when they kept getting whipped around in odd directions, often into the path of flames, ice or each other.

“You cover me from Burnin’ for a minute,” Izuku told Shouto after the second time they’d collided with each other.

They’d been getting led around by the nose for at least a half an hour by this time, and he was getting worn down.

Shouto nodded and focused his attention on Burnin', who kept herself in motion and difficult to freeze. Izuku allowed himself to levitate to the ceiling, ignoring the way he skidded across the ceiling tiles as Kido directed his motion like a conductor directed a symphony. When friction did its job and Izuku came to a stop, he braced his feet and back before charging up One For All and using pull on Kido.

Not knowing how well it would work, Izuku put as much power as he could into it and was rewarded with a very undignified shriek as both Burnin’ and Kido shot toward Izuku. This was tricky, because he needed to avoid pulling Shouto as well. Before they could reach him, he let go of the pull and let them drop.

“Shouto! Now!” Izuku called out as the two were falling.

Shouto stepped forward and sent ice out to catch their opponents, encasing them. Izuku crab walked sideways to avoid the ice jutting up below him before he dropped down to the floor and walked over to the captives.

“Nice work,” Izuku told Todoroki with a small smile.

Both boys were a little worse for wear, with scrapes and bruises that would surely surface soon from all of their collisions with the walls, floor and each other. Not to mention the burns.

“You too,” Todoroki said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand to find his lip was bleeding.

There was a hissing sound as steam began to erupt from the top of the ice, and Izuku could see a yellow-green glow around Burnin’s head. She was using the flames on her head to free herself. They would have needed to be freed anyway, since Todoroki didn’t have the capability to wrap the ice in a bubble with air enough to stay stuck for a while without suffocation. It was interesting that there were enough air bubbles in there for her hair to stay lit or reignite.

“Nice try, but as long as I have my flames, I can still fight!” Burnin’ said as soon as her head was free. Her hair burned brighter as she emerged more from the ice, and Kido’s head was also becoming unstuck and he took a huge gasp of air as Burnin’s boosted her flames even more. Izuku counted the pouches on his belt until he found the sixth one and pulled a pellet about the size of a marble from inside and flicked it at Burnin’s head. The pellet expanded and then seemed to sublimate, snuffing out the flames and leaving a powdery residue behind.

Shouto actually let out a snort at that, surprising Izuku.

“What was that?” She demanded.

“First, are we the winners?” he asked, just to be sure.

She looked like she was concentrating on something, maybe trying to reignite her hair, before Kido spoke up.

“You win! Just get me outta this ice! I’m gonna freeze to death!”

Izuku nodded in acceptance and slammed the heel of his hand against the ice, causing it to shatter and fall away in chunks.

Both heroes were visibly shivering, and Shouto walked over to raise a hand and radiate heat to warm and dry them a bit.

“That stings!” Kido complained, shaking his hands and jogging in place to increase circulation.

“What did you do to my hair?” Burnin’ demanded again.

“Quicksnuff pellet,” Izuku said, holding up another for her examine. “When it comes in contact with intense heat, it’ll explode into a fire extinguishing powder. At this size, it’ll put a normal sized human out if they’re on fire, or a small blaze of any other kind. Since I found out that one of my classmates had a fire quirk, I decided it would be worth it to keep a supply on hand.”

“So… It’ll wash out?” she asked, sounding more annoyed than worried.

“It should. If it doesn’t, let me know and I’ll ask the person who gave them to me,” Izuku answered.

He guessed he should have asked Sir about that to begin with, but would be happy to report how well they’d worked the next time they met. For now, he was sure that Sir had his hands full with the three interns he’d taken on this year.

“Well, I'd say that even though this training session didn’t go as planned, the end result was good. You two discovered that making a plan and working together is the best way to tackle a problem that’s too big for a single person,” Burnin’ said, sounding satisfied.

“And we learned not to underestimate interns, just because you’re only first years,” Kido said, still shivering. “Burnin’ and I need to hit the showers, so you two have some free time until your next round of training. You should take the opportunity to check out the facilities and find your way to the bullpen on the second floor. That’s where calls come in requesting heroes, and we get dispatched based on what’s needed.”

Shouto nodded and turned to walk away. Izuku paused to thank Burnin’ and Kido for their training and then jogged to catch up with Todoroki.

“Have you spent a lot of time here before?” as Izuku followed him into the elevator.

“Not really,” Todoroki answered. “My father likes it when I show any kind of interest in learning how this place works, so I tend to avoid it.”

Izuku just stared at him, trying to figure out why he’d shoot himself in the foot like that.

“Um… I know you don’t get along with your father, but that’s kind of…” he paused to change his wording, because he wanted to say dumb, “counterintuitive? “

“You wouldn’t understand,” Todoroki said flatly.

“Maybe not the part about your father, but… do you really want to be a hero, or is it like your dad’s making you?”

Todoroki thought about that for so long that Izuku was almost sure he was just going to ignore the question. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the second floor before he finally answered.

“I guess it’s both.”

“Okay, so why not take what you can from this experience? I mean, he’s still the number two and knows a lot about the business and how to run an agency. That’s valuable knowledge, no matter who you learn it from, right?”

Izuku shrugged when Todoroki just looked at him for a moment and then continued walking through a set of double doors across the hall from the elevator.

The room they entered was a hive of activity. There were people walking around in a hurry and coming in and going out - sometimes even through an open window, for those who could fly. There was a small seating area with a few heroes sitting and discussing things to one side, and a wide aisle down the middle of rows of desks pushed together that seemed to make up work spaces for all of the heroes to do their paperwork or await assignment. There was office equipment as well, and aside from the brightly colored costumes and the sometimes loud conversations, it seemed like any other busy office space.

“Hey! Aren’t you the newbies who were supposed to be training with Burnin’ and Kido this morning?” someone asked when they were spotted.

“We finished early,” Izuku told the man.

This hero was tall and thin, and had bushy gray hair. His hero costume was white with gray accents, and he had aviator type goggles perched on his forehead.

“That’s odd,” the man said with a frown. “Is one of you injured? We have an infirmary.”

“Huh? Is someone hurt, Momonga?” another hero asked, looking up with concern.

This hero's skin was so dark brown it was nearly black, which was a startling contrast to his yellow eyes. His costume was a one piece that was bright yellow at the bottom and gradually turned to orange near his waist and then red at the shoulders. He walked over to Izuku and Shouto, also looking concerned.

“You’re Endeavor’s kid,” he said in recognition.

Shouto sighed quietly. “We’re interning this week.”

“Ah! Well, that explains it! Welcome to the Bullpen!” he said, his manner turning friendly in an instant. “I’m Rocket!”

Momonga frowned and looked at Rocket. “They were supposed to be training with Burnin’ and Kido, but said they finished early.”

“Early? Did they have to leave on a call? I didn’t hear anything about it,” Rocket said.

“They both needed to shower,” Izuku said sheepishly. “I kind of put out Burnin’s hair, and Kido was frozen in a block of ice.”

“Twice,” Shouto added.

Rocket and Momonga burst out laughing.

“You put out Burnin’s hair!” Momonga wheezed. “She’s gotta be pretty pissed.”

Izuku suddenly wondered if he was in trouble. She hadn’t seemed super mad, but maybe she hid it well?

“Should I be worried?” Izuku asked.

“Well, if she didn’t strangle you on the spot, I think you’ll be okay,” Rocket said with a grin. “But she’s a spitfire, so be on your toes!”

“Noted.”

“Anyway, let me show you around a bit,” Rocket offered. “What are your names?”

“I’m Vanguard!” Izuku said enthusiastically.

“Shouto,” Todoroki supplied.

“You might want something a little more… private,” Rocket warned Shouto. “You’re bound to become relatively famous because of your roots, if nothing else. Using your first name as a hero name could strip you of a lot of privacy in the future.”

Shouto blinked slowly and finally nodded when it seemed like Rocket was expecting a response.

“Okay, Vanguard and Shouto,” he said, “I’m Rocket, as you heard from Momonga, here.”

Momonga waved, then turned back to his desk as his phone rang.

“This is the main work and dispatch area for the Flaming Sidekickers,” he spread his arms out to encompass the entire area proudly. “Everyone had their own desk, since there’s a lot of paperwork - well, computer work anyway. Once you get your hero license in a year or two, you’ll learn really quickly that bureaucrats love everyone to fill out tons of forms.”

Rocket moved further into the space and pointed to an area in the far corner.

“There’s a main switchboard that most calls come through, kind of like police dispatch. Sometimes we’re just given an assignment and head out immediately, and other times we take calls to determine what’s going on and how we can help.”

He went on to explain about the different types of jobs they could be called out on, and what they might be likely to run into while on patrol. It was very clear that they were all proud of their work and their status as Burning Sidekickers. This building wasn’t just a place they worked for many of them, but their home, as well. The dormitory housed at least two thirds of the sidekicks in Endeavor’s employ, and many had been with the agency for years.

Izuku found it a fascinating concept, and wondered if the new sidekicks and interns were also living in Might Tower. He would have to remember to ask, since it didn’t seem likely that he’d be having a nice little chat with Kacchan about it once they got back to school. By the time Rocket was showing them the ‘leader board’ by the switchboard, Burnin’ returned with her hair alight as bright as it had been when Izuku had met her earlier.

“Sorry about your hair,” Izuku apologized when he saw her.

“Never be sorry about an honest victory,” she told him.

Still, there was a glint in her eye when Rocket looked at her in surprise.

“The newbie beat you in a fight?”

That turned heads and there was some murmuring from those nearby. Burnin’ straightened to her full height and glared.

“Wait until it’s your turn to train with them,” she said. “These two are no joke. Shouto’s been trained by Endeavor, and Vanguard has moves I certainly didn’t have as a first year student--maybe even as a first year rookie. They’re good, and they’re only going to get better.”

Izuku tried not to swell too much with pride and excitement. She could be laying it on thick to save her ego, after all.

Burnin’ had Izuku and Todoroki hang around the switchboard for a while to get a feel for how frequently calls came in, and what types. Then she told them to wander around and observe what everyone was doing with their time, and to feel free to ask any questions that they had.

Izuku went back to talk to Momonga, since he was wondering if his quirk had any relation to his name, which was a type of flying squirrel native to Japan. It turned out that it did, and that the hero was able to manifest ‘wings’ similar to the flying squirrel made out of flame between the wrist and ankle on each side of his body. They had been talking about it for a few minutes when Endeavor strode into the room.

Every person in the room stood and bowed politely until he nodded and they all went back to what they were doing. He made eye contact with Izuku and gestured for him to follow, then did the same to Shouto.

“You’ll be training with me for the next hour,” he said as flatly as his son often spoke. “We’ll go to my personal dojo.”

Chapter 39

Summary:

Training with Endeavor is ...educational.

Shouto seemed to stiffen at the words private dojo, but didn’t object as they followed Endeavor to the elevator. It turned out that the space they’d be training in looked like a traditional Japanese dojo with tatami mats covering the floors and the floor to ceiling windows treated to look like shouji with dark wooden lattice work to complete the illusion. Tall wooden pillars at even intervals around the room were simply well disguised support beams, and the room had an overall calming effect when they entered.

“What sort of martial arts do you practice?” Izuku asked as he surveyed the space with appreciation.

“My own,” Endeavor said. “I’ve taken aspects of all of the ones I excel most at and have added them to my training regimen.”

Mixed martial arts then, Izuku guessed. Something he himself should probably look into learning more about. This could be an excellent opportunity.

Shouto made a quiet scoffing noise, and Izuku glanced at him. “Do you practice martial arts, too?”

“He’s supposed to,” Endeavor answered for him, “But he’s stubborn. Have you been trained?”

“I did some judo in primary school, and had some private instruction from mentors, but nothing really extensive as far as a particular martial art other than boxing,” Izuku said. “I’m ready to learn anything you can teach me.”

“Hopefully that attitude will rub off on Shouto,” Endeavor said, pointedly looking at his son as he said it instead of Izuku.

Izuku wondered what the problem was between the two, but understood that it would be prying into things that were none of his business if he brought it up. Now was not the time, either. Still, he had a feeling that the best way for Endeavor to endear himself to his son might be to not constantly compare him to others.

“Well then, let’s begin. Shouto, you will stand aside and observe for the moment. Vanguard, you will do your best to block my attacks.”

“Should I be trying to take you down?” Izuku asked, shaking his limbs to loosen up a bit.

That earned an incredulous look from Shouto, and a sharp bark of laughter from Endeavor. “You can try.”

Izuku had no doubt that he’d fail at attempting to take down the Flame Hero, but it seemed wrong not to try. If All Might and Sir had taught him anything, it was that failures taught a person much more than success did, and he was here to learn.

“I assume your suit is at least flame resistant?” Endeavor asked as he moved to the center of the room. “You don’t seem to be singed or burned from your earlier training with Burnin’ and Kido.”

Izuku did have a couple of spots on his skin, especially his cheeks, that stung from earlier. He wasn’t going to complain about a few first degree burns though, when he was being given an opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business. He made sure to palm a couple of the quicksnuff pellets as he took his place across from his opponent; possibly to use on himself.

From the moment the match began, Izuku was constantly on the move. He had a feeling that if Hagakure hadn’t trimmed his hair so short on top, he’d have had the excess burned off by the time they were a minute into the fight. Dodging and blocking the flurry of punches and kicks was keeping him busy enough, but there were also jets of flame shot his way at the same time. He mentally thanked every teacher he’d ever had for the lessons in footwork in a fight. Even then, he took several glancing blows that he was given no time to recover from.

The heat was making Izuku sweat even more than the exertion, and it seriously seemed that Endeavor was toying with him the entire time. The hero didn’t even seem to be concentrating all that hard, and kept making offhand remarks to Shouto about a move Izuku had made or what Shouto should have done in the same situation. It felt like he was using Izuku as an object lesson, which wasn’t bad, per se, but it was frustrating to know he was working so hard against someone who didn’t seem to even be trying.

Izuku didn’t have time to look at where Shouto was standing to see if he was even paying attention. He continued to use acrobatics, speed and levitation to keep from being pummeled or burned, looking for any openings or patterns to Endeavor’s movements. There didn’t seem to be any. Even when the match spread out into the room instead of being centered in one spot like a normal spar, Izuku was given no quarter. He dodged, flipped, leapt and spun, and used the huge pillars around the room for cover for a few seconds to regroup and catch his breath. He needed a strategy.

Izuku began to change the colors of the accessories on his costume each time he was out of Endeavor’s line of sight for a moment. If the fiery hero noticed, he didn’t mention it, but Izuku knew he was no fool. First one shoe, then the other. Belt. Gloves, Headgear. On one final dodge behind a pillar, he changed the base suit of his costume, so (as much as possible) he was the same color as the wood he was hiding behind. Then he levitated to the ceiling and held his breath to add transparency to the mix. He could hear his heart thundering as he pulled in as tightly as he could and turned himself upside down with his legs bent and his feet against the ceiling, coiled like a spring.

He strained his hearing to try to sense Endeavor, to see if and when he’d approach. This was the longest he’d let Izuku out of his sight since the bout began, and Izuku wondered if he’d called it quits, or if he was waiting for Izuku to beg for mercy. Izuku deliberately didn’t charge up one for all, not wanting the verdant sparks to give away his location, and knew he’d have to really strain to use what he could call forth past his normal level in the few seconds he had for his plan.

“I’m not finished with you, kid,” Endeavor said, sounding as though he was just on the other side of the pillar. “Enough stalling.”

When Izuku still didn’t budge, even though he was straining with the effort to hold his breath, Endeavor rounded the pillar with a spurt of flame, but from a short distance. Izuku didn’t wait to see if Endeavor was confused when he didn’t find Izuku where he should have been, but thrust his legs straight and shot out toward his opponent. The pellets of quicksnuff were flung out, one from each hand, and Endeavor managed to smack one away before it exploded, while the other hit and dispersed near his shoulder. The resultant cloud of powder extinguishing his flames was enough of a distraction for Izuku to get in close enough to try to tackle Endeavor, but it didn’t quite happen that way.

Hitting the hero was like smacking into a brick wall. Izuku let out and an audible oof as he collided with the huge form, then yelped when he felt a scorching heat envelop him before he could recover from the impact and roll away. The situation wasn’t helped by Endeavor, who shoved him backward hard enough for him to smack his back against the pillar he’d just launched from. He was dazed for a moment, but managed to dodge when Endeavor reached for him, and crouched into a fighting stance.

“Stop and let me check you for burns,” Endeavor commanded sternly.

It took Izuku a moment to register that Endeavor had extinguished his usually perpetual flames and was scowling at him. Izuku snapped out of fight mode and stood up straight, breathing heavily. He looked over at Shouto, who was staring at him with his mouth hanging open.

“Is it bad?” Izuku asked, feeling suddenly concerned by the look on both of their faces.

Endeavor looked Izuku over without touching him for a moment and then asked, “Pain?”

Izuku took stock of himself before shaking his head. “Sore, but nothing out of the ordinary for a pretty intense sparring match. My face stings.”

“It should be blistered, or even charred,” Endeavor said cautiously. “Whatever you threw at me was hard to burn off, so I used flashfire for a couple of seconds.”

“Huh,” was all Izuku could think to say. He assumed that flashfire was especially hot.

He raised his hand and touched his cheek with his exposed index finger and hissed. His skin felt as hot as it might if he had a bad sunburn.

“Good to know that the quicksnuff will only buy me a couple of seconds if the fire’s hot enough,” Izuku noted.

“That’s enough one-on-one for you for now,” Endeavor decided. “If you don’t need to visit our infirmary, take a seat over there and watch.”

He motioned to shoo Izuku over to where Shouto was standing with his arms crossed and a calculating expression on his face.

“Shouto!” Endeavor barked as Izuku walked over to the wall and sat down.

Shouto walked over to where his father was waiting, defiance written in every line of his body.

‘You’ll have the same goal as Vanguard,” Endeavor told him. “With one exception.”

Izuku watched as the hero waited for his son to make eye contact with him.

“No ice.”

Todoroki’s scowl intensified as he stared down his father.

“You’ve become too dependent on it,” Endeavor told him. “If you won’t use your flame, then at least learn to fight without your ice as well. It could save you in a fight. This will be a no quirk fight for both of us.”

This made perfect sense to Izuku, who had been taught not to rely too heavily on anything but his own resourcefulness and skill. Quirks were absolutely great tools, but in the end it was your intelligence and ability to think clearly in tense moments that would serve best. Still, he had been hoping that ice filling up some of the room would help cool his burned face. He noticed that little flecks of ash fell from his hair, and he realized that it was pretty singed, after all.

The fight that followed was brutal, and Izuku wondered if Endeavor had been going easy on him as he watched father and son face off. Neither of them pulled any punches, though surprisingly few hits actually landed solidly. Shouto didn’t actually land any hits, but Endeavor only got a couple in, either. They were both excellent at blocking and their kicks and punches were powerful. Endeavor had the advantage of reach because of his superior height, but Shouto was not as inadequate as he’d been made out to be. Even without his ice, Shouto was a formidable opponent, which was why it was even more puzzling when Endeavor kept taunting his son.

“You’re weak, Shouto! You’re never going to surpass me, let alone All Might, at the rate you’re going!”

Shouto merely grunted as he continued to block, but he was beginning to lose ground.

“At least Vanguard made an attempt at a plan! You don’t even have that!”

A sudden vicious kick to his leg had Shouto falling to the ground, but he immediately sprang back up and dodged another of the same. It was clear that the constant berating and barrage of hits that were making more and more frequent contact were beginning to anger Shouto. He was getting sloppy with his strikes and his breathing was far more ragged than it should be, even with how long they’d been at it. He needed to take a break and calm down, but it was clear that Endeavor was not going to let that happen. Maybe Endeavor was trying to goad Shouto into using flame, even though the match was supposed to be without quirks?

The fight lasted another five minutes, but by the end, it was more one sided that Izuku was comfortable with. Endeavor was basically just delivering a beating and Izuku was on his feet and about to intervene when a wall of ice sprang up between father and son.

“TCH! Weak,” Endeavor spat angrily. “Get yourselves cleaned up and get to the briefing room. Patrol starts immediately after lunch.”

Izuku gave a hasty bow as Endeavor strode past looking disgusted, then rushed over to Shouto.

“Are you okay?” he asked, crouching beside the bi-colored boy who was looking defeated and angry as he sat on the ground and caught his breath.

“Yeah,” he said with a gravelly voice, wrapping an arm around his middle. “This isn’t really anything new.”

Still, he winced when he got to his feet. Izuku’s eyebrows rose at the statement, but stood back to give Todoroki room.

“You might need a trip to the infirmary,” Izuku suggested.

“No. Like I said, this is nothing new.”

Izuku didn’t like the sound of that. He decided to try a new tack.

“Well, okay, but… could you show me where it is? I’d like to see if they have some ointment to cool my skin. I think I might be a bit more toasted than I thought.”

He must have looked and sounded convincing, because after only a short pause where Todoroki studied him, he nodded and gestured for Izuku to follow him.

“You spar with your father like that a lot?” Izuku asked while they rode the elevator down to the third floor.

“Pretty much daily,” he said without emotion. “Some days he goes a little ‘extra’ to prove a point, like today. Seems he likes having an audience.”

Izuku hoped that that it didn’t get more ‘extra’ than this.

“So, he was going easy on me?” Izuku guessed as they exited the elevator.

They passed a Sidekicker on the way who took one look at them and winced in sympathy.

“You think he was going easy on you,” Shouto repeated, stopping in his tracks. “Easy?”

“Well, I’m not saying I found it easy,” Izuku said with a shrug, “I just think that he definitely had the power to take me down a lot faster than he did. He’s crazy strong. It seemed like he was harder on you.”

“But he didn’t take you down,” Shouto told him. “He stopped the fight because he thought he’d nearly killed you.”

“But it was just a matter of time,” Izuku insisted. “He won, either way.”

“I don’t think you get it,” Shouto said, resuming walking. “I’ve never landed a hit on him before.”

“Never?” Izuku asked, falling into step with him again. “I mean, I technically never hit him, either, but I’ll bet you’ve trapped him with your ice.”

“Not for more than a half a second, and probably only because he wanted to teach me a lesson. His fire’s too much.” Shouto said. “You saw how he burned through the quicksnuff.”

They reached a door with the red cross sign on it and Izuku followed Shouto in.

“Yo!” a voice said, as a man on a rolling stool propelled himself into sight with a little spin. “Yikes. Were you in a wreck?”

The man got to his feet and walked over to Shouto, which is what Izuku had hoped would happen.

“You really took a beating,” the man said with a nasally sounding voice.

The nametag on his white lab coat said, “Doc” on it. He seemed to have a cold or allergies, and his nose was clogged

“Something like that,” Shouto said. “I’m fine. He’s the one who needs to be looked at.”

“Nice try, but you look way worse than he does. I’ll give you both a once over. You two are new here?”

“Interns,” Izuku told him. “Training was a bit…”

“Ah! Well, don’t feel bad, our Burning Sidekickers are strong and intense. They take their jobs seriously!” Doc told them with a sniffle.

“You’re right,” Izuku told him. “They’re amazing!”

He wasn’t sure why he didn’t just tell the man that Endeavor was the one responsible for their injuries, but Shouto didn’t say anything, either. It was something to think about, that Endeavor had told Izuku that Shouto had fire to rival his own.

“Still,” Doc said. “Looks like they really went all out. I should tell them to take it easy before they break something. My quirk can only handle so much, you know?”

“I was just hoping for something to sooth the burns,” Izuku told him.

He pulled off his headgear and revealed much harsher burns where the straps touching his face had been. It seemed the plastic had held up under the intense heat, but had also stored it and transferred through to Izuku’s skin. He might do well to ask for a silicone coating for it in the future.

“Why didn’t you take that off right away?” Doc asked him, examining his face.

“I didn’t think it was any worse under there. I thought maybe my sweat was just making it sting more.” Izuku told him. “I kind of hand other things on my mind at the time.”

“Okay,” doc said, blowing his nose into a neat white handkerchief. “I can handle this, at least. Close your eyes.”

A moment later, Izuku could hear water or liquid sloshing and feel damp cloth on his face, including his eyelids. The burning instantly receded, leaving a nice, cool tingling in its place. The cloth rubbed a few more times with Doc murmuring about how the moisture just beaded up.

“That should do it,” Doc told him after a minute. “You can open your eyes.”

Izuku did, and saw that Todoroki had a look of revulsion on his face. The doctor tossed the cloth he had used on Izuku’s face into a hamper for towels and smiled as he looked Izuku over once more.

“Looks like your fingers got toasted, too,” Doc said, grabbing Izuku’s wrists. “Hold up your hands.”

Izuku obediently held up his hands, noting that his index fingers, which his gloves left bare, were red. Doc produced another white handkerchief and blew his nose, then dipped the handkerchief into a beaker of water, then used that handkerchief to wipe down Izuku’s fingers.

Ah. That explained the revulsion of Shouto’s face. Izuku suddenly felt very ...soiled.

“Um. Thanks?” Izuku said, trying not to sound ungrateful as the man wiped his hands on a towel from his pocket.

The redness and burning was gone, at least.

“Don’t mention it. Sink’s over there,” he pointed to the counter against the wall. “You can rinse your hands and face. Your skin’s a bit weird, though...”

Rinse? No. Wash. With soap. Lots of soap. He was super glad for his teflon quirk at the moment, knowing that there couldn’t be much residue left behind.

Izuku’s face and hands stung for a different reason after he was done scrubbing his skin, and didn’t blame Shouto one bit for stepping back away from Doc and insisting that he was fine.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Doc told him. “My snot quirk only heals burns, anyway. You only get ice packs and bandages.”

That seemed to mollify Todoroki enough to let Doc wrap his ribs with stretchy bandages and clean up his abrasions. He produced his own ice.

“Do you need anything else?” Doc asked, making notes on his computer.

“Where’s the briefing room?” Izuku asked, tugging his gloves back on.

A moment later, they were on their way, Izuku feeling much better, but also much worse. He wondered if he’d have time for a shower before their patrol after lunch. Todoroki looked okay, but Izuku knew he had to have some bruising in his future. Did he really go through this sort of thing that often?

The briefing room took up half of the ninth floor, with rows of chairs facing one end of the room, where there was a table and a lectern set up, and large screens for sharing computer images or videos on. Burnin’ saw them and waved them over to sit near her.

“Glad you made it! Almost everyone who’s available is strongly encouraged to come to the daily briefing session. It’s where we find out the latest on what’s happening in our area, things we should be keeping an eye out for, where crime has been highest recently and that sort of thing. There are increased patrols in the afternoons through to morning, when crime tends to be the most common,” she explained as the room filled up.

Izuku saw some heroes with notebooks or tablets, and pulled a small notepad and pen from his pocket, just in case there was anything he thought was important, and settled in to listen. Still, he kept thinking about Shouto’s match with Endeavor, and what he was missing between them.

Chapter 40

Summary:

Izuku and Shouto have an interesting conversation, then they face day two of the internship.

Notes:

A couple of more OC sidekicks with fun quirks! Enjoy! I've got a lighter work schedule during spring break week (one job per day, so only 7.5 hours per day instead of 9), so hopefully that will translate into more writing time!

Lunch was a lively affair, when they heard that Izuku had gotten the ‘snot treatment’ and everyone had a good laugh over their revulsion. They regaled Izuku and Shouto with accounts of times when Doc had tried making himself sneeze on burns to heal them, then realizing that there wasn’t enough mucus to do the job, and having to go the other route. Izuku didn’t eat much after hearing about it, but was good natured about it. Shouto didn’t eat much either, and Izuku wondered if it was because he was in too much pain.

After lunch, they were directed to meet Endeavor at the front entrance, and patrol began. It was different than Izuku had expected, but he still paid close attention, making mental notes of everything he experienced.

Unlike when All Might or any of the other heroes Izuku had observed outside of fighting villains, no one really approached Endeavor. There were excited whispers and pointing and even people shouting greetings to him from doorways of businesses, but he didn’t really interact beyond raising a hand in acknowledgement every once in a while. Shouto and Izuku trailed slightly behind the Flame Hero, but didn’t chat with each other, or speak at all, really.

It was kind of boring.

There weren’t many criminals or villains that would dare to commit a crime with Endeavor patrolling the street. Apparently there were not many law abiding citizens who weren’t cowed by him, either. Izuku found this to be disappointing, but understandable. At the end of the hours-long patrol, the biggest excitement that they’d had was when Izuku had levitated up to help a store keeper hang a banner over their shop window, and Shouto had helped an old lady carry her too-heavy grocery bags.

Endeavor left them after their patrol with a satisfied smirk, telling them that when you cut an imposing figure, the streets were safe, and patrols were practically unnecessary. He told them that they were finished for the day and that they should get some dinner and get a good night’s rest.

“Typical,” Shouto grumbled as Endeavor walked away.

Izuku looked at him inquiringly.

“Did you learn anything from that patrol? Anything at all?” Shouto asked.

“Not much,” Izuku confessed. “Except that Endeavor is intimidating to pretty much everyone.”

“Exactly.”

Shouto walked away then, heading for the elevators, and Izuku followed. He was tired, but not sleepy, and decided that he should change out of his costume and wash up, then get food. Shouto didn’t say anything beyond, “See you,” before disappearing into his own dorm room.

He’d washed and gotten some food inside of him, (word had spread about Izuku’s multiple quirks and he’d been surrounded by Burning Sidekickers who had dozens of questions for him). Feeling better after a meal, Izuku took out the notebook he’d bought especially for this internship and went to sit in the common area outside of the dorm rooms. There was a television that some off-duty heroes were sitting around watching, and another on the adjacent wall where a few were playing video games. The seating areas were grouped so that several people could sit and visit with each other, and a few smaller places where anyone who wanted to be alone or talk with another person in relative privacy could go. It was a nice open space that felt comfortable and homey.

Izuku didn’t want to seem too antisocial, but at the same time he wanted to observe more than he wanted to talk. He chose a comfy armchair that was situated off to the side next to another, unoccupied one. If someone wanted to seek him out to chat, it was available, but he busied himself with his notebook to kind of discourage it at the same time.

He didn’t realize how long he’d been engrossed in making notes about Burnin’, Kido and Momonga until Todoroki flopped into the chair beside him and he looked up to find the room nearly empty.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Todoroki asked.

“I, uh, “ Izuku hedged. “I haven’t tried, yet.”

Todoroki raised an eyebrow, and Izuku wondered exactly how late it was.

“I guess I was so busy with this that I lost track of time,” Izuku confessed. “You’re having trouble sleeping?”

“I’m used to sleeping in a futon,” he said simply. “What are you working on?”

“Ah. I have a habit of making notes about all of the heroes I meet. Analyzing quirks is sort of my hobby,” Izuku told him, feeling slightly embarrassed.

“Can I see?” Todoroki asked, holding out his hand.

“It’s not very good,” Izuku said automatically, feeling protective over the notebook, but not really having an excuse to hide it from anyone.

He handed it over, and Todoroki took it and thumbed through the pages.

“You did all of this just today?” he asked, studying the page about Momonga.

The page included a rough sketch, what little he knew about the quirk and its mechanics, and a list of questions he had about it. There was also a small section on possible ways to counter any attacks by the hero.

“Yeah,” Izuku said, fidgeting to avoid making grabby hands to ask for his book back.

“There isn’t a page about Endeavor,” Todoroki observed, flipping through the blank pages at the back, just to check that he hadn’t missed anything.

“He has pages in another book,” Izuku said, not missing the fact that he hadn’t referred to him as his dad or father.

“Is there a page on me, or do you only do heroes?” Todoroki asked, closing the notebook and passing it back.

Izuku blushed in embarrassment.

“I, uh, I have a notebook full of pages about everyone in our class,” he admitted. “Including you.”

“Hmm,” Todoroki said.

Izuku was just glad his classmate wasn’t creeped out or offended by the idea.

“Which reminds me,” Izuku said. “I know you have your ice, and once you use it, it has to melt or be melted to go away, but what about your fire? Can you like, suck fire in like a vacuum? Say, a car is on fire and there are people inside; could you make the fire go out, or redirect it?”

“I… don’t know.” Todoroki admitted, seeming like he was considering the matter. “I’ve never tried. Is that one of the questions from your pages about me?”

Izuku nodded.

“I’ve been making notebooks like this for as long as I can remember. Quirks are so different and fascinating! Of course, even though no one really knows exactly what his quirk is, All Might was my first entry,” Iuzku said, feeling the sudden need to fill the silence. “Since he’s always been my idol.”

“Mine, too,” Todoroki said.

Izuku looked over to see if Todoroki was teasing him, but his face was as stoic as ever.

“Really? Even with your dad being a hero?”

“You didn’t grow up with him,” Todoroki said, looking as if he’d smelled something unpleasant. “He’s a great hero, but he's not a particularly good man.”

Izuku felt awkward hearing such a thing, but he was curious. His own father was a good man, and in many ways, Izuku saw him as a hero, too.

“Is that why you don’t use your fire? Because you don’t want to be like him?”

“Sort of,” Shouto said with a sigh. “Have you ever heard of quirk marriages?

It took a moment for Izuku to switch gears and search his memory banks for the answer.

“Isn’t that when two people with really good quirks get married, so they can have kids with even better-- oh.”

“Yes. Oh.” Todoroki nodded slightly, sounding bitter. “Except my mother wasn’t exactly a willing participant. It was an arranged marriage; her family had status, but not wealth. My father had both. He expected her to produce one or more children with both of their quirks, so he could train them up to surpass both him and All Might, to create this great legacy. My earliest memories are of my mother trying to protect me from him and his so-called training. He was obsessed with training me, and ignored the others. I was never allowed to play or spend time with my brothers or sister. I don’t have a lot of memories of my mother where she’s not crying because of him. He drove her into a corner, and she finally snapped one day and poured boiling water on the half of my face that looked most like him. When she realized what she’d done, she tried to use her quirk to stop the burn, but that only made it scar more.”

Todoroki pointed to the scar over his left eye. Izuku had always assumed that his scar had been the result of an accident with his quirk. It wasn’t that unusual for kids to be injured when they first manifested, though it was rarely so severe.

“Um… that’s really…” Izuku had a whole slew of words he could use to describe how he felt about what he’d just heard, but none of them seemed very polite.

“Disgusting? Unreasonable? Abusive? Appalling?” Todoroki suggested, drawing his feet up onto the seat cushion and resting his chin on his knees. “Any of those would work. I’m the youngest of four, and the only one who got both quirks equally balanced. He likes to call me his masterpiece.”

The expression on Izuku’s face must have betrayed his horror, because Todoroki nodded, as if in agreement. It was hard to imagine growing up in a family where the only reason you were born was because your father wanted to force his child to succeed beyond what he had been able to.

“But I still don’t understand… you’re not using your fire, just because it’s what he wants you to do?”

“Exactly. I refuse to become a pawn, using his power to attain his goals. I’m going to become strong using only my own power, and I’m going to surpass All Might, like my father never could!”

“But…” Izuku said, his brain whirring at light speed. “All Might is like… old, at least for an active hero. He’s going to retire soon, I’ll bet. There won’t be anything to surpass, except maybe the number of people you save? It’s not like you’re ever going to face off against him in a one on one fight to prove you were better. By the time you ever hit number one, he’d probably have stepped down already.”

Todoroki stared at him as if he hadn’t really considered that part. It was easy to overlook, because All Might was larger than life, and it was almost impossible to imagine a world without him always in the spotlight. Izuku knew that time was coming faster than anyone probably realized, but it was still a logical conclusion even with his insider knowledge.

“And if you’re aiming to surpass the number of people saved, you’re cheating yourself and doubling your workload by only using half of your power,” Izuku pointed out. “Think of how many more people you could save, or villains you could take down…”

“I told you, I won’t use my father’s quirk to--”

“But it’s not his. It’s yours,” Izuku said simply. “Does your ice quirk belong to your mother, or do you think of it as yours? You have twice the power he does--he even said so, and in a few years everyone will know it, if you work hard and don’t cripple yourself.”

Shouto looked unhappy to be told that.

“Look,” Izuku persisted. “ I don’t know what kind of people my quirks came from, except my mom. For all I know, they could have been villains. All I have control of is how I use them, now that they’re mine, and use them to be the best person, the best hero, I can be.”

“I can get by fine with my ice,” Todoroki said stubbornly.

“I’m sure you can,” Izuku said with a level gaze. “But only half as fast, and there are others out there giving one hundred percent of everything we’ve got trying to be the best hero we can. If you think half-assing it is going to get you where you want to be, I think you might be in for disappointment. Just like at the Sports Festival. you’re not the only one that wants that number one spot.”

Izuku got to his feet and stretched, feeling the sore muscles from his earlier training. He felt bad throwing the Sports Festival in his face, but it was still true. He imagined that Endeavor had been deeply unhappy about Shouto’s performance, too. Maybe that was where all of his aggression with training his son today was coming from?

“Anyway, that’s just what I think. It might be worth looking at it from a different point of view. Good night.”

Izuku left Todoroki there in the common area and retreated to his room, hoping he hadn’t overstepped his boundaries too much. He still had six days left with Todoroki and Endeavor, and didn’t want to make them hell for himself. Todoroki didn’t seem angry, but he didn’t look like Izuku’s little speech had helped him reach an epiphany, either.

The next day, Shouto acted as he usually did. They worked out with the Burning Sidekickers in the morning, and Izuku got a lot of attention for the amount of weight he could bench press, even without One For All. The heroes they had been scheduled to train with after the morning workout got called out for work, and Izuku and Todoroki were allowed to stay in the gym and continue their workout.

“Can I ask you a question?” Todoroki asked Izuku as they washed up after their workout. “You said last night that you have your mother’s quirk?”

Of all the things that Shouto could have taken away from their talk, was surprised that it was that small detail that had stuck with him.

“Yes. When I was four, we were in a train wreck together. It was caused by a villain rampaging, and she didn’t make it. Right after that, we realized that I had Pull, and thought I’d just manifested a quirk like hers, but then I got other quirks and it became obvious a bit after that that it was literally her quirk.”

“Oh.”

Todoroki seemed to need time to process that for whatever reason, and didn’t ask about anything else.

Later, they trained with two different heroes than the day before, and Izuku was intrigued by Vertigo’s quirk. She could put people within a three meter radius off balance by making them dizzy. This was especially interesting, because one of Izuku’s quirks was a balance and agility combination. They sort of cancelled each other out; though Izuku did still feel the effects of the dizziness, he retained his ability to stay on his feet, even though his aim was off. Added to this was the fact that she was an excellent fighter, and nearly as agile as Izuku.

“I’ll bet we could put together an amazing acrobatic team, if we wanted to,” she said with a grin as they almost literally danced around each other as they sparred. In the end, it was Izuku’s stomach that lost him the match; nearly vomiting all over his opponent in the process. His equilibrium was tossed around for too long as they learned the ins and outs of each other’s style, and his stomach couldn’t stand it. He surrendered, and lurched to the nearest wall to put his head between his knees. This must be how Uraraka felt when she overused her quirk.

Vertigo pulled an ‘airsick’ bag from a pocket in her costume (which was black and white, and basically one of those spirals that gave the illusion of movement when stationary) and offered it to him.

“You gave me a run for my money,” she told him with a grin, breathing as heavily as he was.

Izuku took the bag, but managed to wrestle his nausea back down, even though his mouth had been watering the way it often did before he was sick.

After he recovered, it was time to switch partners, and this time Shouto was sweating. There was steam expelling from his mouth and nose with every breath, and Izuku guessed he was working to regulate his body temperature. Something about his training session must have kept him from strong arming through with his ice. He glanced at Izuku and looked warily at his green complexion before turning his eyes to Vertigo.

“You’re with me, now!” she told him. “Hope you didn’t have too big of a breakfast!”

Izuku handed Shouto the airsick bag as he passed and murmured, “Might want to keep that handy.”

The man that had accompanied Shouto to the room smiled and gestured for Izuku to follow him, so Izuku took a steadying breath and exited the room he’d been in with Vertigo.

“Her quirk is wild, isn’t it?” the man asked. “It’s usually a hurl fest when someone trains with her for as long as you did!”

Izuku knew from the schedule he’d looked over that this hero’s name was Fugu, which made Izuku very curious about his quirk. Did he blow up like a puffer fish? He was about to find out!

Introductions were made, and Fugu immediately asked about his quirk - then had a dozen or more questions when he learned about Inheritance and the resulting quirks Izuku had.

“How are you going to handle being around scenes where people are dying without being overwhelmed with new quirks?”

“I’m still working on that one,” Izuku admitted.

“You’ll want to make it a priority,” Fugu warned. “Our job is to save everyone we can, but it’s not always the reality. You will see people die, sooner or later. In disaster zones, we’re usually called out after the main chaos is over, but you can’t count on it.”

Izuku nodded, swallowing hard. He had been getting increasingly worried about this fact, and needed to ask All Might and Sir if there was anything more he could be doing.

“Alright, enough talking about things you can’t do anything about right now. We’re here to train,” Fugu said. “You’ve got some great quirks, but I don’t know how much good they’ll do you when you’re fighting me. Your job is to find a way to capture me without destroying the room; a lot of the fights you’ll be in are going to be indoors, in enclosed spaces. You need to take into account how sound the building’s structure is, if there are any other occupants that are innocent or unaware of what’s going on, and a dozen other little things. Sometimes a quirk that you really rely on will only end up hindering you, and you’ll have to deal with it the best way you can.”

“Am I allowed to ask about your quirk before we get started?” Izuku asked, glad the nausea had passed and his mind was clear.

“Nope!” the man told him cheerfully. “For this session, I’m the villain, and you’re trying to subdue me without injuring the hostages.”

“Hostages?” Izuku asked, looking around the brightly-lit, but empty room.

Fugu pressed a button on what looked like a car’s key fob, and a panel in the wall sprang open to reveal a small storage space. Inside was a pair of chairs with cloth dummies tied to them, back to back. One wore a bubblegum pink wig and a flowery dress, and the other wore a business suit and had a goatee painted on its face. Fugu dragged them over to the side of the room, near the windows and grinned.

“Meet Meiko and Takashi.” he said. “They’re made of cloth, because many of us need to train in being careful not to accidentally burn bystanders or hostages.”

Izuku nodded, already trying to formulate a plan, even though he didn’t know what the man’s quirk was. Green sparks began to crackle around him as he charged up One For All.

“Begin!” Fugu said.

Izuku was moving before Fugu had even finished speaking, zipping to the hostages and lifting them over his head, chairs and all. He zipped back to the door on the other side of the room as Fugu was still turning to see where he had gone.

“Quick, aren’t you?” Fugu commented, beginning to charge toward Izuku and the hostages.

Izuku opened the door and shoved the hostages out before closing himself back in the room with Fugu.

“Oh ho!” Fugu said with what sounded like glee. “A hero who uses his head! Let’s see what you’ve got!”

With these words, a force field of some sort expanded around Fugu, tinged with swirling yellow and red. There were small spikes poking out of it, that did indeed resemble the shape of an angry puffer fish. Izuku was entranced for a split second before Fugu punched one of the spikes from his side of the bubble of...whatever it was and the spike came flying toward him as if it was an arrow shot from a bow! Izuku dodged, and reached for a quicksnuff pellet, not sure if it would work, but willing to test it out by process of elimination, at least.

Green sparks crackling around him, he leapt over the force field, landing on the side of the room near the windows. The arrows kept coming, and seemed to replace themselves instantly once launched. They also stuck into whatever surface they hit, leaving a spike sticking out that added a new obstacle to the room with each impact. The room’s temperature didn’t seem to be any different from the time he’d stepped into it than after the force field had formed, and Izuku didn’t hold out much hope when he flicked the quicksnuff at Fugu. Sure enough, the pellet bounced off harmlessly and landed intact on the floor. Izuku used pull to retrieve it and tuck it away again - his supply was running low, and he didn’t want to exhaust it on the second day of his internship.

“What will you do, now, Vanguard? You saved the hostages, but how will you save yourself?” Fugu asked with a manic grin.

He continued to punch projectiles as Izuku dodged, and Izuku appreciated the fact that the hero was hamming it up to make the little scenario seem more real. Izuku tried to use the same mindset, and envisioned Fugu as an actual villain who had endangered innocent people. He considered his options. Breaking out the windows in any way was a danger to anyone below, so that should be avoided at all costs. Using his strength quirk on the floor or walls was out for the same reason. Maybe it was time to take a risk? He allowed his leg to brush one of the arrows that was protruding from the floor, and noted that nothing harmful really happened. He timed his dodges to allow him to position himself directly in front of Fugu, a willing target.

The next arrow that came toward him would have hit Izuku dead in the chest if he hadn’t dodged. But instead of jumping or tumbling out of the way, he treated the arrow like an attacker and waited for the right moment to lean to the side and reach up to snatch it out of the air. The force behind it was no joke, but Izuku had One For All Charged up and the strength and speed helped him keep his grip. The spike vibrated in his hand and sent a humming all the way up his arm that didn’t dissipate once it stopped flying, but there was no pain. That gave him options.

Fugu was so surprised by Izuku’s catch that he stopped punching out spikes for a moment, but then resumed at an even more furious pace. Izuku tried to catch as many as he could, letting them fall to the floor. Fugu advanced on him, and the force field advanced with its owner, but Izuku stood his ground. If the arrows didn’t cause pain (unless he got stabbed); would the force field? He let the bubble approach with Fugu inside, and continued to swat and kick the arrows out of the way, using his balance and agility to hop from the tops of the embedded spikes when he needed to. His shoes didn’t melt or spark or anything when they came in contact with them, and he deemed them safe enough. So he waited until he was close enough to touch the bubble. It had the same strange vibration, only stronger, and sent a zing up Izuku’s arm that bordered on pain. Excellent.

Izuku drew back his arm and punched the force field with a decent bit of One For All behind it, and found it to have an almost rubbery, elastic surface tension, but it also forced Fugu backward a few steps. It definitely had some impact absorption qualities, if the punch hadn’t sent him flying. It seemed that Fugu was at the center of the bubble and if the bubble moved, then so did Fugu. Interesting. One of the arrows got past Izuku and left him with a stinging gash across his left cheekbone, and he had to remind himself that he was fighting a villain intent on hurting him. The arrows weren’t harmless, and he needed to take them seriously. He took an arrow to his hip, but his suit held up the way it was supposed to, and didn’t tear or puncture. He was sure he would have a spectacular bruise later, but there was nothing broken. He needed to find a way to end things before he got too tired.

Izuku backed away again and scooped up two of the discarded spikes from the floor, then grunted when he was hit in the shoulder. The multiple hits meant he was getting sloppy-tired. Aiming carefully, Izuku threw the spike back at Fugu, not to strike him, but to test his theory. Sure enough, the spike pierced the force field and came out the other side, burying itself in the wall behind.

“Nice,” Izuku said aloud, his lips stretching into a grin.

Fugu had a moment to look wary before he was also being forced to dodge his own spikes. The room was full of obstacles at this point, and as Fugu moved around the room, the spikes implanted in the floor and walls hampered him just as much as his opponent. Soon, Izuku had reached a stalemate of sorts, with plenty of ammo bristling out of the walls and floor like porcupine quills. Finally, Izuku made up his mind to force the issue and took several direct hits to get in close again, using one spike in each hand to come at Fugu from two angles. He had backed the man up into a corner and was now pressed as far into the force field as he could get, the point of each spike up under his chin. Fugu froze.

“Well played,” the hero said, leaning back as much as he was able. “I concede.”

Izuku breathed out a sigh of relief and stepped backward. Fugu let his force field drop, making all of the spikes flicker and disappear along with it. The only sound for a few moments was their heavy breathing as they settled down.

“You took quite a few hits, kid! You’ve gotta be hurting!” Fugu finally said.

“Well, it doesn’t feel good,” Izuku agreed. “But that was a fun fight!”

Fugu laughed.

“Would it have been as much fun if you’d lost?” he asked, wiping sweat off of his brow.

“Maybe not, but I did learn a lot!”

Izuku was still grinning as he stretched his shoulder and winced. It was painful, but it was manageable. He’d likely take an over the counter pain reliever before patrol, though.

Chapter 41

Summary:

Izuku finds his second day of patrolling more enjoyable. The third day of his internship is something else altogether.

Shouto had been a no-show at the briefing meeting, and he was later getting to the cafeteria than Izuku. He sat across from Izuku, but was most definitely not eating anything and looked like he might throw up at any second.

“She beat you, too?” Izuku asked upon seeing him.

He noted that no one else was sitting with Shouto today, probably worried about being in the ‘splash zone’ based on his appearance.

“Ugh.”

“Right?” Izuku agreed, interpreting the groan as queasy affirmation. “My balance quirk kind of worked against her quirk, but it was still super hard!”

Izuku took a huge bite of the egg sando that he’d chosen from the cafeteria menu. Shouto averted his eyes in revulsion, and Izuku wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t like eggs, or if he just felt that sick.

“The effects didn’t take that long to pass, so if you still feel sick before patrol, you should see Doc about something to help.”

“I saw him,” Shouto said quietly, as if afraid to open his mouth too widely. “He gave me a couple of pills and had me lie down. I’m still waiting for them to kick in.”

“Gotcha,” Izuku said, looking at him with sympathy. “Looks like it hit you harder than me. Sorry.”

Shouto waved off his concern.

“The schedule said we would be patrolling with Onima and Burnin’ today,” Izuku said. “I wonder if we’ll learn something new!”

“I hope so,” Shouto said, seeming to get some color back to his pale face, “Yesterday’s was crap.”

Izuku hummed in agreement and continued to devour his sandwich. He still had a salad and soup on his tray, and offered Shouto the soup, but the boy shook his head. Apparently he still wasn’t feeling up to it.

The afternoon patrol was a lot more interesting and engaging than the one they’d endured with Endeavor. Onima was a large man with headgear that featured two short horns above each eye, and an “X” harness across his chest that reminded Izuku of Kacchan’s hero costume in a way. He had a serious disposition and was intimidating looking--until he smiled. When he smiled, he appeared friendly and approachable.

They headed out into their district with a much lighter attitude than Endeavor had displayed, and Izuku noticed immediately that the public was familiar with them, and liked seeing them. There was lots of waving, and Izuku and Shouto were introduced to shop owners, and chatted with children and their parents. These two heroes had obviously made an effort to get to know their community and become a part of it. No request or job was too small, from tying a schoolboy’s shoes for him to lifting a cat from the branches of a tree. Everyone was treated with kindness and respect, and Izuku really enjoyed watching everyone’s relaxed attitude. He also didn’t miss that the heroes still kept a sharp eye on their surroundings, prepared for any trouble that might arise.

Shouto even smiled a little when a baby in a stroller wordlessly offered him a half-eaten cookie. He didn’t take the cookie and pretend to eat it, but he did smile and refuse with a quiet, “That’s yours.”

By the end of the patrol, even though nothing big had happened beyond getting to stop a motorbike that a new rider had lost control of, Izuku felt a sense of accomplishment. It had been a good day. At the end of it, he spontaneously took a selfie with Burnin’ and Shouto, though Shouto didn’t seem to care one way or the other about being in it. He sent it to his dad, All Might and Sir to show them with his grin that he was doing okay. He also sent it to the group chat, which wasn’t very busy beyond a couple of comments about being in pain or exhausted by Kaminari, Sero and Mineta.

Izuku and Shouto both washed and sank into the communal bath, glad to have a chance to soak their sore muscles after a busy day. Shouto didn’t say a word about all of the bruises decorating Izuku’s body, possibly because he himself didn’t look too much different. The bath was huge, and there were a couple of other heroes soaking, as well. Izuku put his towel on his head and leaned back against the side, telling himself he shouldn’t fall asleep, or he’d drown.

“You…” Shouto began to say, then stopped and considered before saying, “Your strength quirk.”

Izuku opened his eyes, not even realizing that he’d closed them, and looked at Todoroki in question.

“When you use it, you get these green lights, kind of like in a plasma ball. The kind where you touch the glass ball and little lightning bolts get attracted to your hand?”

Izuku knew what he was talking about; he’d had one as a child, but it had fallen off of his desk and shattered. He nodded and waited to see if there was a question attached to the observation.

“That kind of gives away that you’re about to do something big,” Shouto said.

“I don’t make the sparks on purpose,” Izuku told him with a slight smile. “They just show up when I charge up that quirk.”

“Why does it have to be charged up?” Shouto asked, sounding curious, but exhausted at the same time. “Does it run out of power or something, so you have to turn it on and off? Like a light switch?”

Izuku opened his mouth to answer, then paused. That was a very good question. All Might didn’t have to charge up before he used his strength, did he? He didn’t have any dancing webs of light telegraphing his moves, either. So… why did Izuku?

“I don’t know,” he admitted, brow furrowing as he considered it. “I get tired like anyone else who exerts energy, but it doesn’t drain me or anything. It’s just what came naturally to me, I guess.”

“You’re strong all the time, but you seem to draw on this well of extra strength sometimes. I guess I just wondered why it’s not always there, like my ice is always there.”

“That’s something I never considered,” Izuku said, wondering why he’d never thought of it.

It seemed like the most obvious thing in the world! He was always using at least a small percentage of One For All in everything he did, wasn’t he? But the green sparks weren’t always there. Did All Might and Sir wonder the same thing? Had they been watching him, waiting for him to figure it out for himself? This was definitely worth exploring; he just needed to figure out how to go about it.

“Thank you, Todoroki!” Izuku said, standing and starting to leave the tub. “I want to go try it out and see if I can do it!”

“Aren’t you tired?” Shouto asked, his tone seemed to say, ‘I am!’

“I was almost asleep when you started talking,” Izuku confessed.

“You might want to get some dinner, get some sleep, and maybe try it out in the morning.”

Izuku knew he was right, but didn’t want to admit it. Instead he sank back into the water with something akin to a pout. He would probably need to consider how to go about keeping One For All switched on all the time, anyway. Would he have to walk around all the time with green lightning webbing around him? All Might didn’t.

“You’re funny,” Todoroki told him suddenly.

“I wasn’t trying to be,” Izuku said, wondering what he meant.

“You were telling me that I was half-assing it by only using half my power, but you’re doing the same thing, aren’t you?”

“Not intentionally,” Izuku pointed out. “It’s different for me, since I’m not refusing to use it, and I’m willing to try to fix that as soon as possible. I just have to figure out how.”

“Hmmm,” Todoroki said noncommittally.

Izuku didn’t push him any father about it, because he was suddenly a lot more awake, and his brain was whirring with new possibilities. He had a lot to think about. Was it too late to text All Might or Sir?

Izuku’s sleep that night was so deep that he felt like he had barely closed his eyes before his alarm was waking him. He had spent part of the night seeing just how far he could charge up One For All in his dark room without the green glow showing up, and seeing if he could extend it. He hoped that maybe whoever he trained with during the morning session could give him some advice, but he couldn’t count on it, since it seemed to be a pretty unique problem.

“Morning, Burnin’!” he greeted her when he saw her in the gym that morning.

There seemed to be more activity this morning, and the vibe of the room was tense.

“Change of plans for today!” she said as Shouto also entered the room and stood beside Izuku. “We’re going to go to Hosu this afternoon!”

“Hosu?” Izuku asked.

His first thought was that he was pretty sure that was where Iida had chosen to intern with Manual.

“He’s going after the Hero Killer,” Shouto said.

It wasn’t a question.

“Someone’s gotta bring him down,” Burnin’ said philosophically. “You two are coming with us. Endeavor wants you to watch him work.”

“You mean he wants us to watch him show off,” Shouto grumbled.

“I’ll bet that even if he’s showing off, we can learn a lot,” Izuku said.

Shouto made no comment, and they began their morning workout with a sense of excitement.

Izuku knew that it probably wasn’t going to be as exciting as it sounded. If Stain was in the area, he wasn’t exactly going to advertise it, and Hosu was a huge place to search. There was probably going to be a lot of walking involved, like a huge game of hide and seek, where everyone was it, and they weren’t sure the hider was even playing at the same time.

The training for the morning was more interesting for Izuku. He spent time with a hero named Torchlight who had a background in judo, and who was happy to give him some refresher lessons and offer suggestions on how to better utilize some moves to work in tandem with his quirks. The schedule had been amended because of the afternoon’s ‘outing’. (Izuku had shuddered when he’d heard one of the Flaming Sidekickers call it a field trip.) He got to spend an entire hour with Torchlight, who could light his fists on fire during a fight.

Izuku explained his problem about his strength quirk charging up, and asked for any advice, but there wasn’t much his mentor could offer.

“If it was me, I think I would try to envision it as a rheostat switch, like they have for lights. Try to determine what the strongest setting is, and figure out what percentage of power you’re currently using without turning the dial. After that, just nudge it up a little at a time, until it’s always at full? Not sure it can work that way, but you could try it.”

Izuku nodded, thinking it was as good of advice as any, and promised to give it a try. It wasn’t all that different from what he’d been trying last night.

Once their hour was up, Izuku moved to the training room where Shouto had been working with Flamewhip. Shouto nodded to Izuku as they passed in the hallway, but he didn’t seem to be injured at all, so the training probably went well? The room was almost oven-hot when he entered, but it seemed to cool quickly with the door open.

Izuku was surprised to see all sorts of obstacles bolted to the floor in this room, representing walls and pillars of varying height, poles and just random shapes. He introduced himself to the hero, who was tall and thin, with skin as pale as an albino. Maybe he was albino, his hair was concealed by a snug hood, and his eyes were covered by reflective goggles.

“Today, we’re going to play a game,” Flamewhip said with a smile. “The floor is lava, and the ceiling is out of bounds; we’ll play tag using only our quirks, skills, and the obstacles around us.”

“The walls?” Izuku asked to clarify.

“Fair game,” Flamewhip decided after a moment of consideration.

“Can I assume your name is the same as your quirk?” Izuku asked.

Flamewhip laughed and nodded.

“So… if you tag me with your whip, am I ‘it’ or do you have to actually tag me with your hands?” Izuku pressed, wanting to be sure he had the rules clear.

This sounded like a fun and challenging game, and a good exercise in physical and situational awareness, not unlike some of the training they’d done at UA.

“Getting tagged by my whip counts as a regular tag. If you have anything similar in your quirk arsenal or support gear, that counts too.”

Izuku nodded with a grin and hopped up onto a cement ball, and Flamewhip hopped up on a low wall. What followed could only be described as chaotic fun. The burning whips that shot around the room had real tensile strength to them, and could be used to wrap around the poles and pillars and swing by. Izuku used his gymnastic skills to flip, handspring and ping pong around the room, bouncing off of obstacles and walls, and spinning around poles as the two of them took turns being ‘it’. In the end, it was a draw for the number of times each got tagged, though secretly Izuku felt that he had won, because he’d gotten in close and used his hands, and Flamewhip had gotten his tags in from a distance. Still, the precision he had with his quirk was amazing, and not to be discounted.

After that, was the briefing room, and it was packed. Izuku sat hip to hip with Shouto, as everyone squeezed into the room, and Endeavor took the place up front. He announced their destination, the team ups, and the orders he wanted them to follow. There was a large map of Hosu broken up into sections that he wanted everyone to scour, and made it clear that he wanted to be alerted at any sign of the Stain.

Shouto and Izuku would be assigned to patrol with Endeavor’s team, with Torchlight and Momonga there to keep the interns under closer supervision, in case Endeavor had to engage in battle. The meeting went on for well over an hour, with every angle being covered and tons of questions being answered. From there, they were all given box lunches and loaded into vans, then onto a bullet train that would take them to Hosu City.

Two and a half hours later, they were at their destination. Izuku was impressed with how quickly and smoothly the teams divided up and spread out, disappearing into the streets and getting to work. Izuku and Shouto stood by while Endeavor directed everything and everyone into place. Torchlight and Momonga stuck close to the pair of interns, but didn’t seem particularly tense.

“We’ve got a while before sunset, and that’s when crime usually picks up,” Momonga told them.

“We’re not here for just any crime,” Endeavor said when he heard him. “Stain sticks to back allies and blind turns, so that’s where we’ll be searching. Leave no stone unturned. He’ll still be in the area; he always hits the same city four times before moving on.”

Izuku nodded along with the others.

“Shouto, you stick close to me and pay attention,” he ordered, pointing to his side. “Vanguard, you make sure you’re always in sight of Momonga and Torchlight; do not wander off. We’ll steer clear of hospitals like I promised in your contract. I wouldn’t expect Stain to attack near anywhere his victims could readily get help, anyway.”

With those clipped words, Endeavor strode forward, ignoring the surprised expressions of the citizens that saw him, wondering aloud why he was in their district. He slipped into the first alley they came to beside a karaoke bar and led the way through a maze of back allies and dead ends that every city is made of, but few people ever see. He only ever paused if Shouto dared to fall behind a step or two, and kept up a quiet commentary for his son about what to look for, smell for, and how to approach different situations, like closed dumpsters or boxes large enough to hide anything larger than a dog inside. He grilled him with questions about how he would go about investigating in various situations and growled at him if he didn’t answer satisfactorily. He mostly ignored Izuku, and it was not lost on any of them that Shouto was getting preferential treatment in the training department. Neither sidekick tried to educate Izuku in the same manner, since it might mean speaking over Endeavor.

Izuku caught the looks that Momonga and Torchlight threw at each other behind Endeavor’s back, as if they thought he was being unfair to Vanguard, but he didn’t care. Even if he wasn’t being catered to the way Shouto was, he could still hear everything Endeavor was saying and file it away in his mental notes if it was anything worth noting. They had already learned a lot of what he was saying at school, and All Might and Sir had also taught him plenty. Shouto also seemed to dislike the special attention, scowling and saying, “I already know that,” over and over. It wasn’t that Endeavor didn’t have wisdom to impart, it was that he was being overbearing about it and not taking his own turn to listen. He came across as almost dangerously arrogant, except that Izuku had seen him fight and knew that he could back up the arrogance with action.

Nothing much happened for the first hour, except scaring the crap out of a couple of vagrants getting high behind a conbini, and flushing out quite a few stray cats and a couple of raccoons scavenging for a meal along the way. Then they started hearing strange sounds. Screeches that were definitely not human, though could have been caused by a quirk. Then, there were sounds of shouting and screaming, along with crashing sounds. Through a narrow gap between two buildings they could glimpse a fire burning not too far away. Sirens began.

Endeavor began to run toward the nearest outlet onto the main road with everyone else following along. Izuku’s heartbeat began to pick up speed as he noted the chaos beginning to erupt on the main street.

“What on Earth is that?” Endeavor asked, obviously a rhetorical question.

Shouto answered anyway, and Izuku stared with wide eyes at the scene in front of them.

“That looks like the nomu from the USJ, but different.”

Izuku felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; if there was a Nomu, there was probably also Shigaraki and Kurogiri. He stepped up beside Shouto, taking in the scene of a creature similar in style to the nomu from the USJ, but not as bulky. It still had the exposed brain, but this had multiple eyes and pale, gray skin over its muscular form. It was only Torchlight grabbing his arm that kept Izuku from charging in to fight the thing as it raised whipcord arms and slammed it’s fists onto the hood of an occupied car.

Endeavor raised a single hand and shot a concentrated blast of fire from his palm, punching into the Nomu from over ten meters away. It screeched and loped away, but another hero appeared on the scene and smashed into it hard enough to send it flying toward the elevated train tracks that ran by the city. Endeavor was about to pursue, when another nomu swooped out of the air, grabbing at random people as it flapped huge, leathery bat wings. This one had yellowish skin and the talon-like feet of a raptor. It’s brain had a smaller exposure area, and it’s face looked like it was covered in something that looked like a gas mask.

“There’s two of them?” Shouto observed, taking in the mayhem that their presence was causing.

“Maybe more,” Momonga pointed out, seeing small explosions going off deeper in the city center.

“Shouto, you come with me. Momonga, you go after the flying one. Call for backup if you need it. Torchlight, take Izuku and get him as far away from the main disaster as possible, help fleeing citizens find shelter.”

Momonga took to the air on his fiery wings, running to get the lift he needed, like a kite taking to the breeze. Endeavor was only a few steps away, when Izuku shouted after him,

“I can fight! I’ve fought them before!”

Endeavor simply looked at Torchlight and bellowed, “Take him! I don't have time for this!”

Torchlight grabbed Izuku’s arm and pulled him down the sidewalk while Endeavor and Shouto took off running toward the explosions in the distance.

“C’mon kid, don’t fight me on this. I want to be out there as much as you do but this is the boss's orders. You don’t even have a provisional license!”

He finally let go of Izuku’s arm when he felt his charge fall into step with him instead of pulling away. Izuku pulled his phone out of his pocket and quickly sent a message to All Might and Sir.

at lst 2 Nomu in Hosu City makin trble. I m safe.

He pocketed his phone again as they found a group of confused citizens. Torchlight approached them and let them know there were villains at large and advised them to take shelter immediately in a nearby business. They continued down the street, clearing people as best they could and keeping an eye out for signs of trouble. They passed an alleyway, and Torchlight backtracked and motioned for Izuku to be quiet.

“I heard something down there, and I think I can see...someone down?” the hero said softly. ”Stay here while I check it out. Can I trust you not to run off?”

Izuku nodded, wanting to follow him.

”Good. As soon as it’s clear, I’ll either come back or call for you,”

Torchlight hurried stealthily down the dark passageway and disappeared into the gathering gloom. Izuku waited and listened, but after a full three minutes (he counted), there was still no sign of anyone. He gave it another few seconds before he levitated himself to the top of the two story building and raced to the back side, looking down at the scene below.

The visibility was terrible and it was hard to see in the ambient light of windows and insufficient security lighting, but there were three people lying on the ground and one standing. Izuku recognized Iida’s hero suit instantly, and Torchlight was not far from him, also down. The third man was slumped against the wall, and looked like he might be unconscious. There were rumbling voices, but they were too muffled to hear, and Izuku’s heart was thundering too loudly.

Izuku prayed that none of them were dying as he pulled out his phone again and dropped a pin on a map, sending it to Shouto’s phone, then after a moment, to Sir and All Might’s. Then he texted a quick help. torchlight down. to Shouto as an afterthought. Then he started quickly tapping on his suit to turn it dark gray to match the dim lighting. He ran out of time when the only man standing below lifted a large sword above his head, aiming it straight for Iida’s back.

He took a leap of faith.

Notes:

Here we go! Hopefully some questions I've been getting will be answered in the next chapter!

Chapter 42

Summary:

Stain has to be dealt with.

He shouted as he fell, not from fear (though there was plenty of that), but as a distraction. He landed near the man slumped against the wall and crouched.

“Where did you come from?” the man with the sword demanded. “So many interruptions!”

“Get out of here, kid!” the man on the wall told him without moving. “That’s the Hero Killer! He cut me and now I can’t move!”

He recognized this man as the hero called Native. Aside from apparent paralysis, he seemed relatively unharmed. There was a small gash in his arm, and no other visible wounds.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.”

Izuku eyed the man called Stain and noted the spikes on the tips of his boots were stained red with blood, and the armor over ida’s right arm looked crushed. He also had a lot of weapons strapped to his body. The villain was dressed shabbily, with ragged scarves around his neck and a mask with long trailing cloth tails. His face beneath his mask was oddly flat, as if his nose was crushed or absent altogether. His tongue hung from his mouth much like Tsuyu’s tended to do, but was pointed and bumpy and grotesque.

“Midoriya?” Iida cried out in dismay. “What… How… Get out of here! This has nothing to do with you?”

“Shut up, Iida,” Izuku said harshly, “If all you’re going to spout is nonsense. I’m going to save you. I’m going to save all of you.”

“You will, will you?” Stain asked silkily.

At the same time, Torchlight shouted, “Run, kid! Find a hero!”

“I AM a hero,” Izuku told him. “A hero doesn’t leave people in danger to save himself.”

“Well, well, well!” Stain said, sounding pleased. “Finally someone with his head in the game! Why do you want to be a hero, kid? Tell me, and I might let you live!”

Izuku shifted, wondering how much he could charge up One For All before he started glowing. If he could keep this guy talking, it might give Shouto time to muster up some help and get here before this got very, very ugly.

“The same reason as anyone else,” Izuku said firmly. “To save people in trouble. Right now, that includes these three men.”

“If you could follow through on that, you’d be famous all over Japan,” Stain fairly crooned. “Wouldn’t you?”

“How would I know?” Iuzku asked in bewilderment. “What does it matter? Is that why you’ve been attacking heroes? To make a name for yourself? Are you working with Shigaraki, now? Is that why the nomu are destroying the city?”

“Such an inquisitive boy,” Stain said with a smile. “I’m not with that idiot, though I’ll have to deal with him soon. No, I’m ridding the world of all of these false idols! These heroes who only save people so they can have power over others, or money or fame! Fakes! All of them!”

“How are you any different?” Izuku asked, starting to sweat as more and more time went by without any sign of help. “You’re sowing terror in people’s lives and killing heroes based on what? Their desires? You’re ridding the world of people willing to put their lives on the line every day! No matter why they do it, it still gets done, and people are safer for it! All Might…”

“All Might is the only true hero out there!” Stain declared, cutting Izuku off. “Only he has the purity of heart and mind to call himself a true hero, and he is the only one I will allow to bring me down!”

“That’s crazy!” Izuku said, moving toward the side of the alley that would keep the downed heroes safe from Stain’s attention. “Sure All Might is the greatest, but there are a lot of fine…”

“Fine isn’t good enough!” Stain growled. “Maybe you don’t understand yet, because you’re too pure yourself to understand the underlying greed in the hero community. That one, there?”

He pointed to Native slumped against the wall, who Izuku had already checked on.

“He was telling me about the fat paycheck he’d earn for taking me down.”

Izuku glanced at the hero, who was still not moving.

“And that one!” he jabbed his sword in the direction of Iida’s prone form. “Came here for vengeance! To make me pay for hurting his brother. Another wanna be hero with a complex, looking for power over others! And that one - sidekick to Endeavor, the most insufferable of them all! I’m doing the world a favor by dispatching them! You should cut your losses and get out of here!”

Izuku straightened, his fists balled tightly, and green lightning began to crackle faintly over his form.

“Then I wouldn’t be able to call myself a hero.”

“Pity,” Stain said.

His movement was so fast, Izuku never even saw it; a dagger grazed his cheek, right beside his eye, and buried itself in the bricks behind him. A trickle of blood seeped out of the wound, and he didn’t wait to see if he would become paralyzed like the others; he just moved. He began to run, but only got a meter away before he felt the jolt of all of his muscles seizing. He fell to the ground like a ragdoll, landing in a heap and unable to move any of his limbs. Shit. Stain was standing near the wall, holding the dagger he’d thrown at Izuku.

“Don’t feel too bad, kid. I’m gonna let you live - you might actually end up being a decent hero one day,” Stain told him. “But these others are lost causes.”

Oh good! A serial killer has taken a liking to me! Izuku thought wildly. Aloud, he shouted for the villain to stop. He pleaded with him to spare the others, talking about how Iida was just a student and needed time to learn how to be a proper hero. Izuku kept trying desperately to get the man to monologue again, to buy time, but even though he couldn’t see what the villain was doing he could hear him just fine. His heavy boots on the concrete, and the chains hanging somewhere on his clothes rattling faintly.

“I’ll make their deaths swift, as my gift to you, starting with your friend.” Stain told him. “But if you disappoint me, you will not find me merciful when your time comes.”

“NOOOOOOO!” Izuku shouted himself hoarse as waited helplessly for the sound of a blade piercing Iida’s armor.

Just as he was about to fall into the depths of despair, an icy blast tore through the alley, and Izuku felt the ice forming under his body, lifting up slightly, and sliding him in the direction he knew Stain was standing. A bright light, along with a FWOOSH sound filled the air for a second, and Izuku could see flames as he tumbled along the ice.

Had Endeavor arrived with Shouto? Was he really that lucky?

Well, he was half that lucky. Shouto stood above him as Izuku slid to a stop at his feet. Stain had retreated backward, away from the flames and ice, facing the newest person on the scene. Izuku strained to look around him to get his bearings, and saw part of Native’s costume in his periphery, and could hear Iida close by his head.

“Todoroki?” Iida was saying.

“Shouto!” Izuku said. “Both sides at once?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Shouto said quietly. “I’m still not sure…”

“You two shouldn’t be here!” Iida all but screamed at them, desperate tears in his eyes. “I’m the one who has to do this! I inherited my brother’s name! I’m Ingenium, now!”

“I never saw the Ingenium I know make a face like that,” Todoroki told him coldly.

“You have to do what? Die in an alley? You think he’d want that?” Izuku yelled at him, even though he couldn’t see him.

Then Stain was charging toward them again and Shouto put up a huge wall of jagged ice to keep him at bay.

“Shouto, I think Stain has to ingest your blood to paralyze you!” Izuku said. “He cut my face, but I didn’t get paralyzed instantly. It has something to do with the blood!”

“He licked the knife after he cut me,” Native confirmed.

“That explains all the blades,” Shouto grunted, as two of them sliced away at the ice wall. “I’ll have to keep my distance.”

Even as he said it, a blade whizzed by, slicing Shouto’s cheek open just below the scar around his eye. Shouto quickly put a ball of ice around the knife, so any blood on it was enveloped.

Izuku could only stay where he had ended up, straining to move any part of his body while he listened to Shouto and Stain fight. Shouto tried to keep him talking, but Stain seemed to be ready, willing and able to talk while he wielded his blades.

“Another one who thinks of saving people before themselves,” Stain was saying to Shouto. “Though your father… can the apple fall far from the tree?”

“I’m nothing like my father!” Shouto snarled.

The air was filled with the chill and sounds of crackling ice being formed and cut down.

“Close one,” Shouto breathed, barely loud enough for Izuku to hear.

“Maybe now that they’ve got All Might teaching the next generation, there’s some hope, after all!” Stain said. “But this one had his chance and didn’t take it.”

The sound of boots on crunching ice sent dread through Izuku like an electric shock, making him strain even harder.

“Obstructing your own view during a fight with an opponent who’s faster than you is a terrible strategy, by the way,” Stain criticized.

“You think so?”

There was more light, and the sound of more ice, and it was maddening not to be able to see what was going on. Izuku strained as hard as he could against the invisible bonds holding him, letting his fury grow. His helplessness, the anger at Iida for being so stupid, everything else he’d ever been angry about became fuel for the fire he tried to build up inside of him, and suddenly, he could move again! He shot forward like a bullet from a gun and used the walls on either side to ping pong upward faster than his levitation could have managed.

He slammed into Stain from the side as the villain was falling downward above Shouto, getting a fistful of scarf and shirt as he dragged the villain away from his friends and the two helpless heroes.

“Mido - Vanguard!” Shouto shouted after him.

“I can suddenly move just fine!” Izuku shouted back.

“Time limit?” Shouto called.

Izuku didn’t think so, since he had been the last to get dropped, and Native, Torchlight and Iida were still down. Looking back to check that his friends were still safe cost him, and Izuku took a sharp elbow jab from Stain in his back. The villain twisted in Izuku’s grip and got himself free, leaving Izuku to topple to the ground as Stain skidded to a stop a few meters away.

“Get out of there!” Shouto called to him.

Izuku was now facing Stain, halfway between the villain and Shouto. Stain was eyeing him warily, and slowly reached to draw a very large weapon from somewhere behind his back. Izuku used pull as Stain twirled the blade into position, and the enormous serrated bowie knife flew to Izuku, who didn’t dare try to catch it in his hand. He leaned and let it drop behind him, and heard a SHHKT that told Izuku that Shouto had encased it in ice.

“Interesting,” Stain said, keeping a firm grip on the next knife he drew.

“Seriously, how many knives does this guy have on him?” Native asked loudly enough for Izuku to hear.

The answer to that was ‘too many’ as Izuku ducked multiple small blades that were flung past him while he’d been watching the larger one in Stain’s other hand. He heard Shouto gasp, but didn’t dare tear his eyes away from his opponent.

“Are you okay?” Izuku asked.

He was worried about the answer, but he was also trying to figure out a way to get to the other side of Stain, so they’d have him surrounded.

“Fine,” Shouto grated out. “Got nicked.”

“Hey,” Izuku said to Shouto. “I’m gonna try something. Be right back!”

“Wait! What?” Shouto asked in surprise.

Izuku didn’t wait to explain, since it would give away his plan, anyway. He simply engaged his levitation in combination with bouncing from wall to wall until he was on the roof of the building they were fighting behind. From there, he bolted to the building next door and dropped down to the ground behind Stain, boxing him in the way Izuku wanted. He could hear Shouto telling Iida that if he wanted to help, then he needed to stand up and remember the kind of hero he wanted to be.

Izuku had just enough time for Stain to turn and stare at him in calculating surprise when he charged forward at him, aiming low in an attempt to get his feet out from under him. From there, Shouto should be able to freeze him in place, giving them time to get Iida and the two heroes to safety.

The best laid plans can go awry though, and as Izuku was charging for Stain’s legs, Iida broke free from his confinement and rocketed forward, taking Stain from behind. The result was Stain being swept off his feet, but getting slammed backward onto Izuku’s back by Iida’s tackle. Shouto did take the opportunity to freeze Stain in a block of ice, but he also caught Izuku in the process. Once again, Izuku was rendered immobile.

Izuku couldn’t hear more than muffled sounds, as if from under water, and his eyes were closed. Even if his eyes were open, he had a feeling that he wouldn't be able to see anything, Shouto’s ice was seldom clear. He thought the muffled sounds were coming from Stain, who was struggling to get free; he could feel the villain’s muscles bunching against his back. A moment later, Izuku could breathe a little as a narrow hole formed around the area of his mouth, allowing air to get in. He gulped what air he could before attempting to speak.

“Stain, too! He’ll suffocate!”

He wasn’t sure he was sufficiently loud or if his words were decipherable, but he had to at least try. They weren’t murderers. They weren’t villains. They weren’t like Stain. They couldn’t afford to be.

It seemed like an eternity that Izuku was frozen there with Stain at his back, and it was an extremely unsettling experience. The other man was clearly still conscious and struggling, and as long as that was true, Izuku was stuck there. He was shivering at first, and the cold became painful before long. His breathing was labored because his ribs and chest were encased in ice, with only a little give where he was back-to-back with Stain. It was becoming slightly easier as the ice around him melted from body heat generated by two people still caught in an adrenaline rush. Eventually, after a series of strange hissing and rumbling sounds, Stain went still above him. Izuku worried that he might be dead, and wondered if there was a corpse stuck in ice with him. He tried very hard not to have a panic attack as he tried to shout to get someone to tell him what was happening.

Finally, Izuku could feel the ice melting around him at a rapid rate, and the weight of Stain’s body being lifted off of him from above.

“Midoriya!” Iida shouted at him.

“Vanguard!” a couple of other voices cried.

Izuku concentrated on drawing sufficient air into his lungs and trying to stop his teeth from chattering against each other as the shivering wracked his entire body.

“He’s bleeding!” a voice said. “Get a first aid kit!”

Izuku fumbled for his belt, but his fingers didn’t want to cooperate to get his first aid kit from his pouch.

“I can warm him up,” Shouto said from close by.

“No! Warming him up too quickly will be painful!” Torchlight warned.

“Is e-e-e-e-every o-o-o-o-one s-s-s-s-safe?” Izuku managed to get out.

He looked around and saw everyone on their feet again, with the addition of Endeavor now being present.

“We’re safe. Stain is restrained and being disarmed right now,” Native told him.

A plastic, metallic emergency blanket was wrapped around Izuku in an effort to get his body to warm up gradually with his own body heat. At the same time, someone was pressing a thick wad of gauze against his ear and jawline, and wrapping it around his head from multiple directions. They kept muttering about the bandages sliding off his head. Izuku realized that his headgear was gone at that point, and wondered when that had happened.

“Th-th-th-the n-n-n-nomus?” Izuku asked.

“Still being contained,” Endeavor told him. “One’s dead, but the other two are still out there. I got a call from Sir Nighteye about your situation, and came looking for you.”

“G-g-g-go!” Izuku told him, pointing to the entrance of the alley. “G-g-g-get them!”

He noted that Stain was lying on the ground face down, with restraining cords binding his hands and feet. He wasn’t moving as Torchlight and Iida pulled blade after blade from his outfit.

“There are other heroes working on that,” Native told him. “You should rest. We’ll get you to a hospital…”

“N-n-n-” Izuku tried to say.

“No!” Endeavor, Shouto and Iida said in unison over Izuku’s voice.

At least that much was going right.

Notes:

Whew! I hope this chapter didn't disappoint! Next chapter will be the aftermath, since Stain isn't the only trouble in Hosu City!

Chapter 43

Summary:

Stain was apprehended, but they still need to get out of Hosu!

It took a few minutes for Izuku to stop shivering. He walked a little behind, and a little to the side of Endeavor for the warmth he emitted, but it was also a warm night and his skin was no longer feeling as if he was being bitten by fire ants all over his body. His teeth still chattered every few seconds and he was sure his lips were probably blue, but he was returning to a normal temperature. Besides, Endeavor was dragging Stain behind him by the back of the villain’s shirt, and Izuku didn’t want to be anywhere near that.

Native and Onima (who had been standing at the mouth of the alley to keep watch) supported Iida, whose arm and shoulder were injured, along with his leg, which had been stabbed at least once somewhere along the line. Shouto had a wrapped forearm on his right side, but he waved away Izuku’s concern when asked about it. Torchlight had a slice across his chest, but it wasn’t deep enough for stitches, and had merely bled a lot.

They had all been very, very lucky.

There were a lot fewer people on the street than there had been, and Izuku wondered exactly how long they’d been in that alley, from the time Izuku had dropped in to now. There was still a lot going on around the town, as evidenced by the smoke rising up from place to place and the sirens from emergency vehicles.

“What h-happened to Stain? Did we h-hit him that h-hard?” Izuku asked Shouto, who was walking next to him. “He was still conscious while we were in the i-ice.”

“He’s sedated,” Shouto told him. Glancing at the form being dragged. “Native had a blow dart tranquilizer in his kit. I melted a hole to his leg and we knocked him out. Sorry it took so long.”

Izuku shrugged. He had honestly thought they were all done for, being encapsulated in ice for a while seemed a small price to pay.

Speaking of paying a price, Izuku turned and looked at Iida, who had been weeping quietly since everything was resolved. His face was a mottled red and tears and snot ran freely. He kept murmuring apologies and self-deprecating remarks to himself, his brother, and to Izuku and Shouto.

“Iida, what can we do for you?” Izuku asked him, pausing to let the men supporting Iida catch up. “You’re in the worst shape of all of us.”

“I don’t deserve your pity or your help,” Iida told him with a sniffle. “I”m the one who should have been helping with the nomus or the evacuation, but I was...blinded.”

He pulled his arms free of the two men with a wince of pain and stood on his own to bow at the waist in a stiff, perfect ninety degree angle..

“I beg you to forgive me for putting you in such grave danger. I have no excuse.”

“Yeah,” Shouto said evenly. “That was pretty stupid. You shouldn’t do that again.”

Izuku had an inappropriate urge to laugh at Shouto’s calm remark, but what more could anyone really say at this moment? It was clear that Iida understood the gravity of everything that had just happened, and was busy punishing himself mentally. What would happen to him later when he had to face legal ramifications and his mentor were also probably going to be pretty harsh. Izuku understood what had driven Iida to behave the way he had, and couldn’t judge him for something I might have also tried to do, if he was put in a similar situation.

Endeavor was barking into a phone that he had the Hero Killer in custody and needed transport for him immediately, and there was a paramedic truck visible about a block away that they seemed to be headed toward. Izuku breathed a sigh of relief as their group made their way to safety, and he hoped they would soon be heading back to the agency where Izuku intended to take a hot, hour-long shower and sleep for as long as they would allow.

He paused then, remembering the message he’d sent to Sir and All Might. Endeavor had said they’d contacted him. He pulled out his phone to let them know he was safe doubting that anyone else had thought to do it, either. Everyone kept trudging on, though Shouto stopped when he noticed that Izuku wasn’t keeping up.

Izuku flicked his phone screen on and opened this message app, then the world fell away from under him. It was a strange sensation to feel strong bands around his left arm as he watched his group get smaller, and further away by the second. His brain couldn't parse what was happening, until he twisted enough to see that the winged nomu had a hold of him and was carrying him away, flapping its leathery wings. It was not a smooth ride, as spouts of flame rushed past that had the creature swerving and screeching in protest. Endeavor looked livid as he shot into the air after them, using his flames as jet fuel to give him lift.

What was he thinking? Unless he had some serious precision, he could easily cook Izuku in his attempt to take down the monster. Was he banking on the fact that Izuku hadn’t really been injured by his flashfire when they trained? That was a risky assumption at best!

Izuku engaged his levitation to try to help alleviate the strain on his arm, which was burning from being jerked around with all of his weight hanging on it. The nomu flew even higher in his attempt to get away from the flames, and Izuku’s levitation made that escape easier. The Flame Hero was unable to keep up, or realized the danger of further attacking while the monster was holding Izuku like that. Izuku gripped the talons holding him in their tight grip, and swung and kicked upward trying to make contact with the thing’s legs, releasing his levitation quirk to make himself heavier. When that didn’t work, he used One For All to increase his grip strength and peeled the toes from around his arm, probably breaking the bones and leaving Izuku dangling from the creature’s ankles.

Then he let go.

The drop was terrifying, but Izuku knew it was his best chance. The nomu turned and dove toward him, but Izuku straightened his body to fall faster. The nomu did the same, and it didn’t take long before Izuku was smacked to the side, and pinned to the wall of a skyscraper by the talons he’d just freed himself from. He used as much strength as he could muster, and punched the nomu in the chest, then slammed down his fists on its legs. It dropped Izuku then, and he had just enough time as he began to tumble downward to push himself off of the face of the building into free air.

The nomu was flapping around, circling in his descent, trying to angle so it could grab its prey from behind with its hands; its legs now injured. Izuku kept an eye on the ground and let himself continue to fall.

It wasn’t until he could make out the features on the faces of the people below that he began to levitate. It took several meters before he slowed, and even more before he stopped and began to rise again. The nomu caught up with him, but before it could make a grab for him, a thin pillar of flame shot up from below and wrapped itself around one of the nomu’s wings like a lasso. Was Flamewhip on the scene, now?

The nomu let out an ear piercing screech that made Izuku cringe as it flapped in vain, unable to escape the flame that was now looping around in the air like a giant floating flame basket. In it’s struggle, the fire burned through one of its wings with a sickening smell and hissing sound, and the creature plummeted to the ground. Izuku was slower, letting himself drop, then levitate, then drop, then levitate until he got close enough to feel comfortable dropping the rest of the way. There was a team of heroes piling on top of the thrashing nomu, wrestling it into suppression bands.

Endeavor seemed to be having some sort of fit shouting Shouto’s name, and it was hard to make sense of it all. Had Shouto been injured? Was he okay? Izuku was surrounded by heroes, paramedics and police as he got shakily to his feet.

“Today officially sucks,” he grumbled, wrapping an arm around his now very sore ribs.

“Did you see that?” Endeavor was shouting at Onima with a manic looking grin. “Did you see what he just did! That was beyond all of my expectations! This changes everything!”

“What did I do?” Izuku asked Iida, who was looking very shaken.

“Not you,” Iida said. “Him.”

He pointed over to where Shouto was standing with his hands on his knees, looking winded and scowling in his father’s direction.

“He’s the one that used that...that fire rope to capture the nomu!” Iida specified, sounding like his nerves were just barely hanging by a thread.

“We just got word that the third nomu was taken down on the other side of town,” Onima said, putting his phone in his pocket. “It’s all clean up from here.”

Only a few minutes later, Izuku found himself in the middle of a group of heroes and police all standing guard as the three UA interns got their wounds looked at by a paramedic.

“Damn, kid,” the uniformed medic said as he looked at Izuku’s unwrapped head. “Your ear’s just barely attached to your head! It’s like a scalpel was used on it!”

“Uh… what?” Izuku asked, automatically reaching up to check the veracity of the statement.

“Don’t touch it! I’m gonna carefully put it where it should go and wrap it up tight. Doctors can fix you up with some stitches, I’m sure.”

Izuku didn’t like the way that the man’s cheerful attitude didn’t match the worried expression on his face. Still, he sat stiffly while his head was tightly wrapped.

Shouto and Iida were nearby, also being treated for their injuries.

It seemed like Iida had the worst out of all them, with a knife wound that went straight through his shoulder and out the other side, an arm with several puncture wounds from where Stain had kicked him repeatedly with his spiked boots, and another through the back of his hand that had exited his palm through his glove from a dagger. Izuku wasn’t sure if they’d given him some sort of sedative or painkiller, but he was certainly much calmer now than he had been earlier.

Shouto had taken two throwing knives in his left forearm that he had pulled out himself during their fight with Stain. Izuku wondered if they had happened at the time Shouto had claimed that he’d been ‘nicked’ after Izuku dodged. Izuku didn’t know if he could have been that calm about having two knives buried in his arm, but Shouto’s face was passive as they checked and re-wrapped his arm.

Izuku, besides his ear, had a few scratches and scrapes, and definitely a few bruises, but had come out of it miraculously in one piece. His ribs hurt from the nomu slamming him into the building, and his arm and shoulder hurt like hell, but it could have been so much worse.

Endeavor was dealing with the authorities and the press, and Izuku wondered what happened next. They had taken the bullet train to get to Hosu; would those who didn’t need to go to the hospital (or couldn’t, in his case) get back the same way?

As if in answer to his question, the beating sound of a helicopter drew nearer. Izuku assumed it was just a news station reporting on the situation in Hosu; this was bound to be news all over Japan. Instead, it landed on a patch of road intersection where traffic had been cleared for it. Of all the people that Izuku might expect to see emerging from it, the last one would have been Gran Torino - yet there he was, cape being buffeted around by the winds created by the propeller above. He made his way over, carrying his walking stick to where the students were being treated, and waved.

“Thank you for your services!” he shouted loudly at the paramedics. “I’ll be taking the boys from here.”

Endeavor had made his way over by then, and Izuku expected him to intervene, but instead he nodded in greeting.

“All the arrangements are made?” he asked Gran.

“Everything’s in order, Todoroki,” he said. “The location’s been sent to your phone.”

Then he turned and looked at Izuku and said, “What are you waiting for, kid? Hurry and get in before someone dies around here! We’ll be lucky if you get outta here without a new quirk or three!”

Izuku didn’t need a second prompt, and scuttled to the helicopter, climbing inside and buckling into a seat near the window. He’d never flown in a helicopter before, so that was something, at least. It did send a sense of urgency through him that he probably should have been feeling all along though, and he waved to his classmates to join him. Shouto didn’t hesitate, and grabbed Iida’s uninjured arm to drag him along, even as he was bowing to the medics in thanks.

Before long, they were airborne and heading away from the city into the night.

“Where are we going?” Izuku shouted over the noise.

Gran only hesitated a moment before saying, “Recovery Girl is waiting for you at Might Tower.”

“Why not the school?” Iida asked, raising his voice, as well.

“Cause we know that Kurogiri and Shigaraki can find him there,” Gran said, gesturing to Izuku. “Those nomu seem to belong to Shigaraki, and if those two are around, Izuku shouldn’t be.”

Everyone fell silent at that. Todoroki was staring at his left hand as if he’d never seen it before, and Iida looked like he might be praying, with his hands clasped together and his head bowed.

Izuku leaned his head back and closed his eyes as they flew, letting the rhythmic white noise of the copter lull him into an uneasy sleep.

Izuku was jarred by a cold hand tapping his cheek lightly, and blinked blearily awake. Out of the window was the roof of Might Tower, opposite the brightly lit, iconic globe that rested on top of it. Izuku had run laps around this roof enough times to know that there was plenty of room for a helicopter to land, and nodded to Todoroki, who had woken him.

“All Might and Sir have sent the interns out on patrol,” Gran told them all as the helicopter set down. “Those kids have no idea you’re going to be here, and we’re going to keep it that way!”

He hopped out of the aircraft when the door slid open and strode toward the elevator that would take them to the private elevator. Izuku lifted a hand to the ID pad, and nearly leaned in for the retinal scan when he realized that normal students wouldn’t have access to a pro hero’s private residence, or know how to use the security protocols. He stepped aside, hoping no one had noticed, and let Gran do the honors.

They traveled down four floors before the doors slid open again, revealing a lobby area and doors that seemed to lead to different conference rooms. Toward the end of the corridor, there was a room with the double doors open, and a faint haze of smoke drifting out into the hall. Izuku knew what that meant.

“Crap. You called my dad,” he said.

Gran snorted. “Like there was a choice.”

Iida and Shouto said nothing as Izuku picked up his pace and hurried forward. If his dad was smoking that bad, he was imagining the worst possible scenario and getting worked up about it.

Sure enough, the window on the far side of the room had a vent window open, and Izuku found his father smoking from his mouth and nose like a chimney, tapping his foot impatiently. Once he caught sight of his son he lunged, pulling him into a tight hug that had Izuku patting his back comfortingly.

“The Hero Killer and Nomu? At the same time?” his father practically shouted, holding Izuku at arms length to look at him.

“More like one right after the other?” Izuku said sheepishly.

“That man was supposed to keep you safe! That’s the only reason we agreed to let you go there!”

“I am safe, dad!” Izuku insisted, leading his father back toward the window so the smoke alarms didn’t sound. “I had backup, and communicated and listened to directions! Look! I’m fine!”

His father raked his hands through his hair and blew out a stream of smoke, obviously trying to get a grip on his emotions.

“Let her be the judge of that,” he said finally, pointing to where Recovery Girl was gently extracting Iida from what was left of his upper armor.

“I will!” Izuku said. “Iida’s injuries are more important right now. Let her do what she needs to do. I can wait a few minutes.”

“Izuku, your head is wrapped in bandages!” his father pointed out slowly, as if Izuku was brain-addled.

“Oh. Yeah. That’s just because my ear got sliced pretty bad,” Izuku explained, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal. “You know how hard it is to get anything to stick on me. They had to use a lot of bandages, ‘cause it kept sliding off!”

His father looked as if this was at least a reasonable explanation, and calmed a little. “You look like The Invisible Man.”

Izuku smiled at the joke, knowing that it was his father’s way of coping.

“Maybe I should try wrapping up Hagakure, some time.”

“If Midoriya was a few centimetres taller, I’d swear you were twins from across the room,” Shouto said, studying their interaction.

Izuku nodded knowingly. Everyone said that.

Izuku made the introductions between his father and his classmates. It was a good distraction as Recovery Girl prodded Iida into one of the three beds that was set up in the room, with a conference table and chairs pushed to the other side.

She gave Iida multiple kisses on his forehead, and he was asleep almost instantly. She turned to Izuku, then.

His dad helped him peel away his costume, and heard him hiss at the sight of whatever bruises he had.

“What on Earth have you been up to?” he asked.

It was a good sign that his smoking had mostly stopped, though.

“Some of that might be from training, too,” Izuku said, meaning to sound reassuring.

“They beat you up in training?” his father asked indignantly.

Izuku couldn’t help but laugh. “What do you think training is, dad? We fight and try out new stuff and learn new moves! Of course we’ll get banged up! There’s no super-awesome Recovery Girl there to heal us up, either!”

The woman in question was busily unwrapping Izuku’s head, but she did nod in agreement. It was then that Izuku nearly panicked at what his dad would do if he saw the condition his ear was in.

“You know, dad, I’m dying of thirst! Is there any way you could see if there’s a water cooler on this floor?”

Gran made a sudden (very unhelpful) appearance at that point, holding bottles of water for everyone. Izuku sighed.

“There was a healer at the agency,” Shouto suddenly said, drawing their attention.

“Then why does Izuku look like he was stuffed into a giant rock tumbler?” Izuku’s dad said.

“Because Doc can only heal burns,” Shouto supplied, eyes flicking over to where Recovery Girl was inspecting Izuku’s very sore ear. “And he does it with his own mucus.”

“Dear gods,” Recovery Girl muttered as she quickly held Izuku’s ear in place and kissed his temple.

“His mucus?” Izuku heard his father say in disbelief, as he bent down to let Recovery Girl clean up the dried blood in the shell of his reattached ear. “Gross!”

“Really gross,” Shouto agreed.

Izuku shot Shouto a grateful smile for helping keep his father from seeing just how bad the wound on his ear had been.

“He blows his nose in a handkerchief, then gets it wet and smears it on,” Izuku explained, wanting to keep his father from further freak outs.

“They let him practice such and unsanitary quirk on other people?” Recovery Girl demanded, sounding outraged.

“I don’t know,” Izuku said. “I didn’t know what the treatment was when he did on me, but it sure did make my burn better.”

That seemed the wrong thing to say, because that set his father off on another rant. “You got burned, too? What is that man thinking, letting people shoot fire at high school students?”

“He’s been shooting it at me since I was four,” Shouto said unhelpfully.

Izuku wasn’t sure whose side Shouto was on at this point, and sighed. He was beginning to feel tired, anyway. He didn’t argue when Recovery Girl gave him some UA pajamas and shoved him toward the bed beside Iida’s.

“That’s even worse!” Izuku heard his dad saying.

That’s when his dad’s mumbling started, and Izuku took comfort in the fact that his father was past his worry and had moved on to righteous indignation for the time being. He tugged on the pajama bottoms and slid into bed shirtless, relaxing into the pillows with a sigh.

“That ear was cut with something incredibly sharp, which was very lucky. You might have a bit of a scar where your skin is knitted together, but the cut by your eye looks like it’s going to leave a mark,” Recovery Girl told him quietly. “Nothing too noticeable, but I do wish you’d be more careful with your face.”

She gently touched the faint scar from when he was in the train wreck the day his mother died. He hadn’t really thought about that scar in years; it was just a part of face and nothing worth thinking about.

He nodded his understanding, and watched as she turned to Todoroki to treat his arm. Once he was also ensconced in a bed, she disposed of the bandages and gathered her bag.

“Stay out of trouble for a few days, will you?” she told them all.

Iida replied with a faint snuffle in his sleep, and Izuku and Todoroki merely looked at her as if to say, ‘trouble finds us.’

After she left, Izuku’s dad shuffled his feet and finally said. “I guess there’s nothing for me to do here. Unless you want me to stay?”

Izuku felt a little bad for telling him to go home when his father so clearly was looking for an excuse to hang around, but he did it. He was sure they would all be sleeping through the rest of the night, and probably well into the next day.

Gran said he’d escort him out, and told Izuku and Todoroki to stay put.

“There’s a toilet down the hall, and one of the sidekicks will be wandering around in case of trouble. Don’t try to go anywhere else.”

Izuku agreed around a huge yawn, and Shouto simply nodded. It had been a long day and all Izuku wanted was to put it behind him.

Once Gran left, pulling the doors closed behind him, the only light was from an exit sign above the door and city lights on the other side of the windows. Izuku closed his eyes, intending to sleep until he heard Shouto attempting to get comfortable.

“Your dad has a fire quirk?” Shouto asked into the quiet.

“He can breathe fire, but it gives him heartburn,” Izuku answered. “Mostly it’s just smoke that erupts when he gets upset. You used your fire. It was pretty amazing.”

“Hmm,” was the answer.

“You pretty much saved my life. Thanks,” Izuku told him.

“I… I’m still thinking about if I want to really use my fire,” Todoroki confessed quietly. “But I’m glad I could help.”

After that, the room stayed quiet, and everyone slept.

Chapter 44

Summary:

It's the next day... time to find out how much trouble they're in!

In the morning, Bubble Girl came into their room with a cart that had trays of food for them.

Izuku had just barely woken and returned from the bathroom, and Iida and Todoroki were still sleeping.

“Hey there, Vanguard,” Bubble Girl said with a grin as she brought him a tray for his lap.

There was an American style breakfast with fried eggs and toast and bacon, but there was still rice and a small container of natto, as well. There was a large bottle of orange juice, tea and milk on the cart, but Izuku still had the water that Gran had brought him the night before.

“Uh… hey,” he answered slowly, wondering why she had stressed his hero name.

“Kind of a busy night for you,” she said, dragging a chair from the other side of the room over to sit in near his bed.

“That pretty much sums it up,” he agreed, picking up a piece of toast to nibble on.

“I don’t think you understand how huge this is,” she insisted.

Todoroki suddenly sat straight up in bed, threw off his blanket and left the room. Presumably to visit the bathroom. Bubble Girl hopped up and went to the door, watching where Todoroki was going, then shrugged and returned to her chair.

“The media is going absolutely nuts over everything! Three high school kids were involved in bringing down the Hero Killer? Endeavor’s agency is overrun by reporters right now, and so is UA.”

“That would be another excellent reason for them to not take us there,” Iida said from his own bed.

Izuku glanced over at him, relieved that he hadn’t been so injured that he needed to sleep for days. He was Very Unhappy with Iida’s poor life choices lately, but he was still a friend.

“Good Morning,” Izuku said quietly, trying to sound as unemotional as possible.

There was no need to hash this out in front of Bubble Girl, and the wait would ensure that Izuku had time to think over what he wanted to say before he needed to say it.

“Good morning,” Iida greeted, sounding wary.

“G’morning” Bubble Girl said cheerfully. “I was telling Izuku how the press got wind of how you three UA interns took down the most wanted serial killer in Japan! Want some breakfast?”

Iida blinked at her, then sat up with, “Yes, please.”

Once he had a tray and large glass of orange juice, and Todoroki had come back to the room, Bubble Girl filled them all in.

There had been a sighting of Shigaraki and Kurogiri - from the USJ attack- on a rooftop in Hosu City by a news helicopter, but after that, nothing. It seemed like they had simply set the nomu loose and disappeared. Based on what Shouto had relayed to his father last night, the press were reporting that Stain had been working independently from “The League of Villains” and that Stain had implied that the League were also his enemies. The press also knew that Stain had deliberately spared the student hero “Vanguard” because he believed him to have the makings of a ‘true hero like All Might.”

“Shit,” Izuku whispered at hearing that.

Had Torchlight been talking to the press? How else would they have learned that tidbit? Native, maybe?

Todoroki looked at him with a raised eyebrow, as if questioning why that part in particular upset him more than the other stuff. Izuku stayed silent, taking another bite of breakfast.

“So!” Bubble Girl told them, stealing one of Izuku’s pieces of toast and biting in, “You three are Headline News all over Japan! Everyone’s freaking out because you vanished with some old guy in a helicopter, and no one knows where you went.”

“I see,” Iida said, having eaten very little.

“What about my old man?” Todoroki asked.

“Oh, he’s here somewhere!” Bubble Girl said cheerfully. “Midoriya’s dad actually spit literal fire when he heard that Endeavor had left his son to deal with a serial killer on his own! Sir and All Might had to talk him down and promised to have a ’very long talk’ with Endeavor about it. They’ve been holed up in All MIght’s office for over an hour, now. If you ask me, they should have let Midoriya-san read him the riot act.”

Todoroki’s lips actually twitched at hearing that.

“Anyway, that’s the latest news. I have to go make some rounds and check on some things. Someone will come down and let you know what happens from here on out in a little while.”

She got to her feet then, ruffled Izuku’s hair, and headed out of the room.

“That was… a lot,” Izuku said into the silence she left in her wake.

“I don’t deserve the credit for helping apprehend him.” Iida said, sounding miserable. “It’s my fault any of you were in the situation to begin with.”

“True,” Shouto said bluntly.

Izuku stared at him for a moment to see if he was going to further elaborate, but when Todoroki just picked up his chopsticks and began to eat, shook his head.

“Iida, what were you doing there in the first place? Native isn’t with Manual’s agency, is he?” Izuku asked.

“No, he isn’t,” Iida confirmed. “I… abandoned my post at Manual’s side to go looking for Stain. I wanted revenge for what he did to my brother. I wanted…”

He fisted his hands in the sheets of his bed and fought to master the emotional tidal wave that was trying to crash over him.

“Why didn’t you talk to someone about it?” Izuku asked.

He knew he hadn't been the best friend to Iida. Even though both he and Uraraka had offered a listening ear, was there really any reason he would have confided in them? Did they know each other well enough for him to trust them that way? Izuku came to the painful conclusion that if their positions had been reversed, Iida would not have been the first person he sought out to talk about it. He probably wouldn’t even have been the first of his peers, though he liked Iida and was beginning to consider him a good friend.

“I couldn’t,” Iida said simply. “I was just filled with too much rage; revenge was all I could think about. It made me reckless and blind.”

“True,” Shouto agreed. “You really didn’t think it through.”

Izuku made a mental note to find out how to introduce Todoroki to some tact at some point, but Iida simply nodded.

“Getting credit for it is too much,” Iida said. “I should feel lucky I haven’t been arrested for vigilantism.”

“The day’s not over yet,” Gran said from the doorway.

Iida looked nonplussed by the statement, but nodded. “It would be no more than I deserved.”

Gran grunted at that, but strode in and stared at them all.

“Who are you, anyway?” Shouto asked.

“Oh! That’s Gran Torino!” Izuku said brightly. “He helped train All Might when he was at UA!”

“Your knowledge of heroes is certainly outstanding, Midoriya,” Iida said approvingly. “Such an obscure fact probably isn’t even common knowledge, and yet you’ve managed to ferret it out!”

“Oh!” Izuku hedged, scratching the back of his head in consternation. “Yeah. I’m a real fanboy, all right. Haha!”

He hoped the excuse would be enough to stave off suspicion. He kept forgetting that his classmates didn’t know about his connection to All Might past having met him once as a kid.

“You kids are gonna have a visitor a little later,” Gran told them without preamble. “The Chief of Police for Hosu City wants to talk to you about Stain, and he would like it to be a photo op/press conference. The Hero Public Safety Commission, in their infinite wisdom, thinks it would be a good idea, since it shines a positive light on UA after the sh--debacle that went down at the USJ.”

“Won’t it look weird that we’re in Might Tower for that?” Shouto asked.

“That’s why you’re not gonna be here. You’re gonna get dressed and be taken to UA, where they’re already setting up for it. Someone’s gonna drop off uniforms for you, shortly,” Gran explained.

“What should we say?” Izuku asked uneasily.

“You shouldn’t have to say much,” he said. “They’ll probably read a statement and spin it however they want, and you kids will just stand there looking perfectly healthy, sane, and unharmed. If they ask you questions you don’t know how to answer, toss them back at one of your teachers or the police chief. Got it?”

He looked at each of them in turn until they nodded.

“I’m too old for this crap,” Gran muttered as he turned to go.

They watched him head for the door, but he turned and pointed at Iida. “Keep your trap shut to the press about revenge. If you wanna spill your guts to the authorities after that, do what you want.”

Iida’s jaw tightened and he gave a resolute nod.

Shouto finished eating his breakfast as if he hadn’t a care in the world, while Iida pushed his mostly unfinished tray away and left for the bathroom. Izuku decided he should eat, even though he didn’t feel all that hungry, because the day was bound to be a long one.

“How about Ice Blaze?” Izuku said suddenly, looking at Todoroki.

Todoroki just looked at him blankly.

“For a hero name! I’ve been trying to think of something that matches your quirk,” Izuku clarified.

It was true. Izuku had been idly thinking of names that would suit Todoroki, Kacchan and Iida, since they hadn’t chosen, yet. Iida had said something about taking his brother’s name, but Izuku wondered if that was a good idea. If Ingenium wanted to get back into hero work eventually, wouldn’t that be weird?

“Ice Blaze,” Todoroki repeated, seeming to test it out to see how it felt. “I’m not so sure.”

“You could also go with Axis, since that’s a line that something rotates around, like your powers having a line between them,” Izuku suggested. “Or Paragon, since you’re looking to be a better example than your father?

Iida returned at that point and sat in the chair that Bubble Girl had vacated.

“I like Axis,” he said, tossing his opinion out. “Paragon sounds a bit arrogant, I think.”

“Ooh! How about Tempest?” Izuku said. “Because when hot and cold combine in nature, you get a storm!”

“That’s a good one,” Iida agreed. “It sounds formidable and just...cool.”

“Tempest.” Todoroki said slowly. “Tempest.”

“I like it!” declared a new voice.

Izuku and Iida shouted and jumped to their feet at the sight of a face sticking out of the wall. Todoroki stared blankly at it as if this sort of thing happened every day.

“Sorry! Sorry!” the new voice said.

The face in the wall emerged further into the room, followed by a body. He had blonde hair and simple features, and was wearing a hero costume. It had a white top and boots and blue pants, He wore a red cape too, and had the number 1000000 in yellow on the front, right under his cape fastening.

“Who are you?” Izuku asked, even though he had a strong suspicion that he already knew.

“Togata Mirio!” he said cheerfully, giving them a little salute. “Also known as Lemillion!”

“Why are you here?” Izuku asked. “No one was supposed to know about us being here.”

“Whoops! Sorry. Everyone was acting a little weird, so I decided to poke around and see if I could figure out why!” Togata said, sounding at least a little bit chagrined. “Do All Might and Sir know you’re down here?”

“Lemillion!” came a sharp voice from the doorway.

Izuku’s eyes widened at the sight of Sir Nighteye looking angry, which didn’t happen all that often. Togata seemed to realize he was in trouble, too.

“Sir! I was just checking out the…”

“Enough. I told you to stay on the upper floors,” Sir told him sternly.

“Well, in the grand scheme of things, this is part of the upper floors, isn’t it?” Togata tried, sounding hopeful.

Izuku saw a telltale lip twitch on Sir’s face before he schooled his features.

“You’re to forget you were here and that they were here,” Sir told Togata sternly.

“Already done!”

Togata disappeared back the way he came, leaving the three boys staring at the blank wall.

“I apologize for the intrusion of my intern,” Sir told them, straightening his glasses.

“He’s from UA?” Izuku asked.

“A third year,” Sir confirmed. “With a remarkable quirk and a mischievous streak.”

Izuku remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be too familiar with Sir, so he simply nodded and settled back on his bed. Many people knew about All Might’s sidekick, so it shouldn’t be too unusual to be a little more forward.

“He certainly took us by surprise!” Iida said. “Are you sure he’s trustworthy?”

“Quite,” Sir said with a nod. “He may be a little rambunctious, but he knows the importance of discretion. Your school uniforms will be delivered within the next half hour. I’m sorry there’s no access to bathing facilities on this floor, but they will also deliver basic grooming and hygiene supplies as well.”

They all nodded.

“Thank you, Sir,” Izuku said.

“No thanks needed. You three likely saved a lot of lives last night. Accommodating you for a few hours is the least he can do,” Sir answered. Then he looked straight at Izuku and said, “Stay out of trouble.”

“He makes it sound like I’m always in trouble,” Izuku murmured as Sir left.

“Aren’t you?” Shouto asked.

“No!” Izuku denied. “Well… not always, anyway.”

“Seems like you put yourself in the middle of things a lot,” Shouto said with a shrug.

“You do tend to be in the center of whatever’s going on,” Iida agreed.

“Really?” Izuku asked, mildly surprised. “I mean, things have been crazy lately, but…”

“Do you realize that the two times I’ve seen you encounter villains, they both knew you by name?” Iiida asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Really?” Izuku couldn't’ really deny it.

“Shigaraki when we were in the USJ, and last night with Stain,” Shouto supplied.

Izuku sighed and wondered if his therapist gave group discounts. He had a feeling his entire class could probably benefit from it.

Their uniforms arrived and the boys got dressed. They were herded down the elevator to a parking garage, where a large, dark windowed van was waiting. When they got to UA, they were escorted inside. As expected, Endeavor was there, as was Manual, the Chief of Police, Principal Nezu and Aizawa. Izuku was mildly surprised to see Aizawa in an actual suit. Less expected were Midoriya’s father (who always wore a suit) and Iida's parents. Izuku didn’t need an introduction to tell who they were; his friend bore a striking resemblance to his father, who had engines in his shoulders, if the bulk of his suit jacket was any indication.

“You boys have had quite the adventure!” Nezu told them, his gaze lingering on Iida. “I’m pleased to see you’re all safe and able to stand here with us today. “

All three bowed with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“This press conference may seem a bit intense, but it’s the best way to deal with the situation and get all of the questions out of the way for the moment. If anyone asks you a direct question about what happened, you can simply say that the matter is still under police investigation and you’re not at liberty to talk about it. You may answer any other kinds of questions, or not. The choice is yours. Remaining silent hardly ever hurts with things like this.”

Again, his gaze lingered on Iida, who nodded in understanding that he was not to jeopardize the reputation of the school in any way,

The Chief of Police approached then, and Izuku vaguely recognized him from the news. He had the head of a Beagle, and tended to pepper his speech occasionally with a growl or a soft barking noise. He wondered if, like Hound Dog, he lost his faculty for human speech when he became overly upset or angry. He also vaguely wondered (inappropriately and apropos of nothing) what he’d look like if Izuku patted his head.

“Good afternoon! I’m Chief Tsuragamae, from the Hosu City Police,” the man said. “I owe you three boys a debt that cannot be repaid for helping to keep my city safe.”

All three boys bowed again.

“I understand that Stain’s take down was highly unconventional (woof). It’s also my understanding, from eyewitness accounts and your mentors’ testimony, that in the chaos and confusion of the three monsters that were rampaging, you became separated from your supervisors. Mr. Iida, You were the first to stumble upon the scene, is that correct?”

Iida looked stricken at the question, but gulped audibly and said, “No sir, Native was first on the scene.”

“Yes, yes (woof),” Tsuragamae said with a nod. “Normally, you would not have been allowed to use your quirk in confronting a criminal to save a victim without your supervisor there (woof). But since you became separated from him in the confusion and stumbled onto the scene, then quickly turned into a case of self-defense, it’s entirely excusable. “

Iida swallowed audibly again, but the chief simply stared at him for a long, meaningful moment and moved on. Izuku had a very strong feeling that the Chief knew exactly what had really happened and was feeding Iida the story he was to repeat to anyone who asked.

“Next on the scene was Torchlight, who noticed something awry in the alley and went to investigate (woof) leaving Midoriya to wait for his clearance, correct?”

Izuku nodded and gave a quick, “Yes sir! I only went to check on him when he didn’t come back. That’s when I found out what was going on.”

“Again, in normal circumstances, you should have run for help instead of engaging the villain,” he said sternly, “But being as most other heroes were elsewhere dealing with a different catastrophe (woof), and Torchlight had been put in charge of you by your mentor (woof), we can concede that you technically had proper hero supervision in the use of your quirk. Torchlight confirms that without your intervention, there would most certainly have been fatalities.”

Izuku didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded and looked at his shoes.

“Todoroki (woof), you received a plea for help from Midoriya,” the chief continued. “Since Midoriya did not have a way to directly contact Endeavor - which is inexcusable (woof) - he chose the next best option and used his phone (woof) to contact you, who was being directly supervised by Endeavor. Why is it that you chose to go to his aid alone?”

“Endeavor was directly engaging with one of the nomu,” Shouto said. “Momonga had already left to pursue a different one. There was nothing I could do there but get in the way, so I went to see if I could help Vanguard.”

“I see (woof), I suppose that the blanket of protection there can be spread to you as well, since Torchlight was present to supervise.”

Shouto simply nodded with a shrug as if to say, ‘sure, why not.’

“No matter the circumstances that led to all of you being in that alley, I am deeply grateful that you were able to work together to apprehend one of the most dangerous men in Japan. Thank you.”

With these words, Chief Tsuragamae bent and the waist, bowing to them.

After that awkward moment, when Izuku noticed his father tearing up, they were all directed to follow the principal out to a grassy area where a small stage had been erected. There were two rows of chairs for the interns, their mentors and their families, and a small dais with a half dozen microphones attached to it.

Everything at the press conference went exactly has they’d been told it would, except for Izuku and his friends being surprised to receive an official commendation from Chief Tsuragamae. Izuku’s dad smiled through misty eyes when Izuku was handed a creamy piece of expensive parchment with the printed award on it.

Then things took a strange turn.

Chapter 45

Summary:

Someone may have spilled the beans about Izuku's quirk to the press.

Principal Nezu opened up the press conference up for questions, and a frenzy began among reporters. Questions were shouted over each other, and it was impossible to pick out who was asking what. It was Chief Tsuragamae who finally got them to settle down and take turns by pointing to one particular reporter and letting them state their question.

Most of the questions had to do with Stain, what would be done with him, the extent of his injuries, and specifics about the confrontation. Most of these were easily answered by saying that they couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation. After that, one of the reporters asked,

“Midoriya Izuku! You were specifically singled out and carried off by one of the creatures rampaging through Hosu, weren’t you?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to him, and the chief motioned for him to come to the microphones. Izuku had the urge to levitate out of there, but knew that would only cause a bigger fuss.

“Uh, I don’t know if I was singled out, or if I was just an easy target,” he said. “Those things seemed to be attacking people at random.”

A bunch of reporters clamored to expand on that, but the original one was loudest.

“So it did attack you?”

“It grabbed me by the arm and tried to fly away with me. Luckily, Todoroki-kun was able to bring it down, and the others got it contained.”

He didn’t have to give them details, right? He felt bad sending the focus over to Todoroki, but they didn’t seem interested in him. Instead, another reporter piped in, “The handout we were given says you have multiple quirks because of the one you were born with! Is that true?”

Ah, crap.

“Yes?” Maybe brevity was best?

“Can you explain how that works?” one of them shouted.

Izuku looked around at his father and teacher, but they were just looking at him as if to convey that it was entirely up to him.

“I don’t really see how that has anything to do with Stain or the nomu attack,” he hedged.

“We can just look it up with the quirk registry and draw our own conclusions,” one of them said.

Could they? Was that public information, or were they trying to trick him into sharing more than he wanted?

“”No you can’t,” Aizawa said, stepping up to the microphone beside his student. “The Privacy of Minors Act keeps those records sealed until a person is twenty years old. You all know that.”

“Is it a big secret?” one of them asked. “Are you hiding something from us?”

“A villain who’s unaware of your quirk is easier to fight,” Aizawa told them blandly. “That’s only logical.”

“We saw at the Sports Festival that Midoriya has super strength, and can at least levitate. Some say he used telekinesis, too! How many quirks does he have? How did he get them?”

Izuku didn’t understand how this had gotten to be about him and his quirks, and was feeling out of his depth.

“The rumor among other students interviewed is that you can take people’s quirks when they die!” one of the press shouted.

“That’s ridiculous,” another reporter said crossly. “Get serious!”

Izuku’s eyes had gone wide at hearing this, and simply said, “Excuse me.”

He went and sat down abruptly, and his father put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Other students had been interviewed? About him? Why? Because he won the Sports Festival?

“If there are no more questions about the Stain incident,” Chief Tsuragamae said into the microphone as Aizawa also slouched off. “We’ll thank you for coming. You’ll be expected to vacate UA grounds within thirty minutes for security reasons. Anyone still on the grounds after that time will be escorted out, and have any future opportunities to gain access denied.”

Everyone on stage was directed back into the building while the reporters continued to clamor, and Izuku tried not to seem like he was hurrying, even though he was totally hurrying. A handful of reporters tried to keep pace with the group, still asking all kinds of questions, which Izuku and the others all ignored as they slipped inside.

“So, what happens now?” Izuku asked as Aizawa shut the school door in the reporters' faces. “Do I go back to Endeavor Agency to finish my internship?”

“No, your internship is being cut short,” Aizawa told him. “Endeavor failed to give you proper supervision and a way to directly contact him in an emergency. He will face censure from the Hero Commissioner's office. Shouto and Iida are finished, as well.”

Iida was currently having a conversation across the hall with Manual that involved a lot of bowing on Iida and his parents’ parts. He wondered if Manual was also going to be reprimanded for losing track of his charge, and winced inwardly.

“Should I go to class, then?” Izuku asked Aizawa.

“Not until Monday, when everyone else returns,” he said, sounding tired. “Feel free to get a head start on an essay about what you expected your internship to be like as opposed to what it was actually like, and whether it turned out to be better or worse than your expectations.”

Izuku nodded. He actually enjoyed writing essays; they helped him sort out his thoughts. Aizawa must have noticed the eagerness in his expression because he sighed and rubbed his eyes.

‘Try to keep it under five pages, okay? I have to grade twenty of those.”

“Right. I’ll try,” Izuku said with a small smile. “Can I still come to the school to use the gyms and stuff? I can’t exactly get out and exercise.”

“Sorry kid, not without adult supervision,” Aizawa said. “You’ve been snatched from here before.”

He even actually looked a little bit sorry.

“Oh yeah,” Izuku said, as if he’d forgotten (which he had, for just a moment). “I guess that would put the brakes on a plan like that.”

In the end, Izuku ended up going with his father, who had to go back to work after making sure his son was safely home.

Izuku kept getting notifications, so he opened up the class chat to see that Uraraka had recently been posting, and Izuku cringed. He hadn’t texted her at all in the past couple of days, and he felt bad that she was hearing about Stain from someone other than him.

Uraraka @zero_geez I just saw on the news that midoriya, todoroki and iida were all in hosu does anyone know if those 3 are ok? I know it was them! there was ambulances everyehere!

Tokoyami @darkness_x_2 hawks sensei says they captured stain.

Uraraka @zero_geez ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!!1!

Tokoyami @darkness_x_2 I am not.

Ashido @acidtrip wtf? are theyok??

Tokoyami @darkness_x_2 according to hawks they left in a helicopter

Uraraka @zero_geez they waht? how? Why?

Izuku sighed and started typing, and before he could post anything, Uraraka was already ‘shouting’ at him.

Uraraka @zero_geez MIDORIYA! WHAT’S GOING ON? R U OK??

Midoriya @broccoli_boi Hey guys! i’m fine. things were crazy last night but we’re all ok. they made us go to a press confrence and i just got hom they cut my internshp short

His phone started ringing almost immediately, and he picked it up and held it between his ear and shoulder while he continued to read the chat.

“Midoriya! I need answers!” Uraraka said abruptly. “Tokoyami said that you and Iida and Todoroki caught Stain! STAIN! The Hero Killer!”

She emphasized that name as if she expected Izuku to be unclear about who Stain was.

“Kind of?” he said, typing on this keyboard at the same time. “It’s a long story, and the press conference should pretty much be on the news any second, if it isn’t already. I’m not sure how much more I’m allowed to say about it.”

“Did you really leave in a helicopter?” she demanded, as if that was the most important thing.

“Oh. Yeah. They arranged for that because they were afraid that I’d pick up more quirks if anyone died.”

That seemed to be the magic phrase, because she calmed down.

“Did you? Get any?”

“Not that I know of,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. “I hope not. I don’t know if it’s just that no one died, or if they did they were too far away from me, or I just haven’t met the conditions to trigger whatever it might be.”

“That’s good, then. Listen, I just wanted to check on you, because I kept getting news notifications on my phone, and I was worried. You’re really okay?”

“I’m really okay,” he said.

“Alright then, I’ve gotta go. Gunhead’s taking me on patrol!” she said, excitement obvious in her tone.

“Be careful out there,” Izuku told her before hanging up.

Having friends was kind of odd, but comforting at the same time. Was it supposed to be like that?

Izuku thought he’d be better off ignoring news outlets for a while, and was about to make some lunch when the door buzzer sounded. Stifling a feeling of dread that tried to form before he could even see who it was, Izuku was surprised when Todoroki’s face showed up on the screen.

Izuku pressed the button to allow him to come up, and Todoroki walked out of sight. A couple of minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door. Todoroki was standing beside Centipeder, who must have been on guard duty.

“He says he’s your classmate,” Centipeder said politely.

“He is! It’s totally okay!” Izuku assured him, standing back so that Todoroki could enter.

Centipeder nodded and left as Todoroki slipped off his shoes.

“Excuse the intrusion.”

“I was just about to make lunch,” Izuku told him, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Shouto said.

Izuku laughed at that and waved for Todoroki to follow him in.

“Is omurice okay? I have some leftovers I need to use up,” Izuku said easily.

“You cook?” Shouto actually sounded somewhat interested.

“A bit,” Izuku said, getting ingredients out of the fridge. “Enough so we don’t starve, anyway. What brings you here?”

“I didn’t want to be at home, and they said I couldn’t stay at school.”

“Yeah, I asked if I could stay at school, too. They said no,” Izuku said, setting the cutting board out. “You can have a seat, if you want. You don’t have to stand there and watch me cook.”

“This is fine,” Shouto said, leaning on the counter in the dining area to watch what Izuku was doing in the kitchen. “Is your dad here?”

“No, he had to go into work.”

Izuku chatted while he tossed leftover rice, diced chicken and veggies in a frying pan with some ketchup and soy sauce.

“Did your dad get in a lot of trouble for what happened last night?” Izuku asked.

Todoroki shrugged. “I’m not sure. He’s been in a good mood and it was starting to freak me out.”

Despite claiming to be freaked out, he didn’t have a very expressive tone.

“Because you used your fire,” Izuku nodded.

It wasn’t really a question.

“Yeah. He won’t shut up about it.”

“I don’t know how you feel about it, but I have to say it was pretty amazing. You lassoed that nomu with a fire rope like it was a rodeo. It looked a little bit like Flamewhip’s quirk.”

Todoroki nodded at that. “I asked him to give me some pointers. I didn’t know before that I could do that; I thought I could just… burn stuff.”

“Are you excited about it?” Izuku asked, making little mounds of the fried rice on two plates.

“I’m ...not sure,” he answered slowly. “The fire helped against Stain and the nomu, but.”

He seemed to be thinking of how to word what he wanted to say, so Izuku let him be while he cracked the eggs into a bowl. When Todoroki didn’t seem like he was going to continue, Izuku gave him a verbal nudge.

“But?”

“It makes my father happy,” Todoroki finally finished. “And I don’t like doing that.”

Izuku tried, and failed, not to laugh a bit.

“Sorry, it’s just ...you’re so devoted to making your father mad. It’s almost impressive.”

Todoroki’s lips tilted up in a suggestion of a smile at that.

Izuku whisked the eggs and added a splash of water before pouring it into the oiled pan. Todoroki watched with interest, and remained silent until Izuku handed him a plate and a spoon, then they went to the table and Izuku offered him the ketchup. Izuku waited for Todoroki to take his first bite before digging into his own.

“It’s good,” Todoroki said flatly.

Izuku took him at his word, since he didn’t seem the type to flatter anyone.

They ate in silence for a couple of moments, before Todoroki looked at Izuku and said, “How do you really know All Might?”

Izuku inhaled and aspirated rice, coughing painfully for a moment before he got it under control.

“What do you mean?”

“Some things don’t add up,” Todoroki said, not sounding upset at all. “I think you know him a lot better than you let people think.”

“What makes you say that?” Izuku asked, starting to worry a little.

“Just a feeling before today, but now I’ve got to wonder. If you and your father didn’t look so much alike, I would have thought that Sir Nighteye was your dad. He’s got green hair like you, and it would explain you being more familiar with All Might, since Sir Nighteye is his sidekick.”

“What makes you think I’m that familiar with All Might?” Izuku asked, taking a long drink of the tea he’d poured them both.

“Well for starters, some guy that trained All Might that no one’s ever heard of before showed up in a helicopter to pick you up from Hosu,” Shouto said, pointing with his spoon. “You didn’t seem all that surprised, and just got in the thing when he told you, with no introductions at all.”

Damn. he hadn’t thought Shouto was that observant, but he had been one of the recommended kids.

“Then, you didn’t even blink when we landed at Might Tower, even though you’re a huge fanboy. There’s no way you wouldn’t have asked a million questions about it, with the way I’ve heard you go on and on about the smallest hero details. It was pretty obvious you’d been there before.”

Izuku set his spoon down, now that he had a huge lump in his throat. Todoroki seemed unfazed, and continued eating as he laid out all of his observations.

“Then you acted like you were going to open the door with your palm print on the scanner. You might have just been leaning on the wall, but I don’t think so,” Shouto said thoughtfully. “Then this morning, Bubble Girl pulled a chair right up to your bed and patted your head as if you had known each other a while. It all just points to you knowing All Might.”

Izuku sighed and wondered how much he could evade while still telling the truth.

“You’re right,” Izuku finally admitted, picking up his spoon again. “When I was younger, a villain tried to kidnap me using my babysitter to lure me. It turned out that the villain was an old enemy of All Might’s, so he got called in on the case. After that all got resolved, All Might and Sir NIghteye thought my quirk was too dangerous to let me grow up without good role models and stuff, so when they found out I wanted to be a hero some day, they let me become a ‘junior intern’ at Might Tower. Since then, I’ve spent a little time there, training on how to use my different quirks. It was All Might and Sir who filed to have me considered as a recommended student at UA.”

Shouto listened quietly, continuing to finish his meal as Izuku talked.

“So, what’s the big deal? Why hide it?”

“I don’t want people treating me differently because of it,” Izuku hedged. “It would start a lot of talk if people found out that All Might sponsored me, then turned up as my teacher. There’s no way they would be complaining about favoritism or whatever.”

That sounded close enough to the truth that it covered everything Todoroki was suspicious about. Right?

“Are you getting special treatment?” Shouto asked.

He didn’t sound accusatory, but Todoroki was hard to read at the best of times.

“No!” Izuku denied. “Well… not much. When someone tried to get to me here, Sir and All Might arranged for their sidekicks to take turns monitoring my building. That’s why Bubble Girl knows me so well. The one that brought you up here is one of their sidekicks, too. Plus, I get a ride home from school instead of taking the train. It doesn’t feel like special treatment when I can’t even visit the combini without an escort.”

Shouto seemed to be thinking this over.

“On top of that, if people found out I spent time with All Might, it’d probably make me a bigger target for villains than I already am,” Izuku pointed out. “Doesn’t your family worry about you being targeted because you’re Endeavor’s son?”

Shouto shrugged. “I think my father expects me to be able to fend off any attackers.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely strong enough to do that in most cases,” Izuku allowed.

Then again, so was he.

“Probably,” Shouto said. “Why don’t they let you do that? It seems like you’re being held prisoner over something that might not even happen.”

“It’s a long story, but you remember Kurogiri from the USJ?”

Shouto nodded. “The one one with the warp gate.”

“That’s him,” Izuku confirmed. “It seems like he works for or with Shigaraki. Shigaraki has a ...mentor I guess you’d call him? Anyway, he’s named All For One, and that’s the villain that’s been after me since I was a little kid. It seems like Kurogiri can only make warp gates to places he has exact coordinates for or something. I’m not sure, but they’re afraid he’ll snatch me off the street, somehow.”

Shouto’s brow furrowed for a moment while he considered it.

“They let you do the internship, though.”

“True,” Izuku said. “But I guess there was a ton of negotiation about my security and stuff while I was in your father’s care, and Shigaraki didn’t know where I’d be, even if he wanted to try taking on your father.”

“You have a very ...complicated life.”

That earned a real laugh out of Izuku.

“You’re not wrong!”

Izuku cleared away the plates and offered Todoroki some of the strawberry daifuku his dad had left in the fridge while he washed the dishes.

Izuku wasn’t sure what to make of Todoroki, with his stoic expression and father issues, but felt that there was definitely a person worth knowing under it all. They spent the rest of the afternoon simply sitting in the Midoriya living room, chatting about inconsequential things until Todoroki decided it was time to leave.

“You can come over whenever you want, if you need a break from your dad,” izuku told him as he showed him to the door.

“Thanks,” came the flat answer. “I might do that.”

Izuku hoped it was true.

Chapter 46

Summary:

Izuku learns what the public thinks of his quirk and faces a difficult decision.

Izuku avoided watching news reports about his press conference or his involvement in the capture of Stain. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to avoid his classmates, who were all too happy to talk about it. Constantly.

Mina sent him links to articles about it.

Uraraka made a virtual scrapbook about it, thinking he’d want to commemorate his first big villain apprehension.

Kaminari and Mineta suggested he use his newfound fame to get girls to date him.

Even Kacchan went into the group chat to demand answers and say how much better he could have done, if he’d been there. (He got dragged for that by Sato, Sero and Hagakure.)

The problem was, Izuku didn’t really feel like he deserved all of the credit he was getting. Without the others, he probably wouldn’t have survived the encounter; or at least not unscathed. Stain might have said he was worth keeping alive, but at the same time, he hadn’t been about to let Izuku thwart his plans to kill the others. It had been mostly luck and good timing that had saved them all, and if anyone deserved the credit, it was probably Todoroki. He’d been the one who’d finally decided to just freeze both Izuku and Stain together, mostly because Stain had gotten so close to Izuku that he’d thought it the only option to avoid serious bloodshed. He had undoubtedly been right.

The news should have been focusing on so many other things; the nomus, Stain’s ideology leading him to murder, the League of Villains and the threat they posed! What many of them had decided was more important, was a high school student with (depending on who you asked) a creepy, villainous, amazing or astonishing quirk that allowed him to take the quirks of the dying.

Apparently there were a few students in the school who hadn’t felt any compunction about spreading gossip or giving out personal information about schoolmates. The articles always claimed it was an anonymous informant or some garbage. They touted the rumors as fact, and when school resumed on Monday, there were tons of reporters camped out in front of the school, even as early as Izuku got there. Staff was waiting when he arrived, and escorted him past as they shouted questions or even insensitive thoughts at him (‘You’re pretty powerful! Have you ever killed anyone to get their quirk?’) It gave him a headache.

His history teacher walked him to class, though he tried to pretend he was just walking in the same direction as Izuku, and then turned back the way he’d come when they reached 1-A.

Iida was already there, of course, looking stiff as usual but also very sober. His usual morning greeting was subdued and lacking in any hand chopping when Izuku arrived. Izuku dropped his bag at his desk and went to sit backward in Tsuyu’s chair to talk to him.

“What did you finally decide about everything?” Izuku asked quietly, when Iida didn’t seem inclined to talk.

“I was advised by my family to let the record stand as it was. They said that it was obvious that those in authority had already realized the truth, and that I should respect their decision on how to proceed,” Iida said, sounding like he disagreed. “I burned the commendation they gave me; I didn’t deserve it. If I hadn’t been so foolhardy I--”

“If you hadn’t been there, Native would be dead,” Izuku told him. “The reasons you went there were a million kinds of wrong, but it also ended up saving a life. Maybe more. I don’t have to tell you what you did was dumb; you know that, and I think you’re punishing yourself more than anyone else could. But. Maybe things happen for a reason.”

Iida gave a humorless laugh.

“That’s what Tensei said when he was done yelling and lecturing me.”

“Tensei is your brother? Ingenium?” Izuku clarified.

“He said that he wanted me to take on the Ingenium name,” Iida said with a nod. “But I feel too soiled for it now.”

“Why would he want you to take his hero name?” Izuku asked.

“Exactly.”

“No… won’t he need it later, when he gets better?” Izuku corrected.

“Midoriya, he won’t be getting better,” Iida said, sounding surprised he would ask. “He can’t feel his legs.”

Izuku waved that away.

“I know that,” he said with a shake of his head. “I meant that his quirk isn’t in his legs, right? His engines are in his arms. I thought he’d be getting as healed as he’s going to get and then building on it from there. I would think a wheelchair powered by an engine on each side would be pretty badass, but… maybe he’s too traumatized? Sorry, I didn’t think of the emotional toll this probably took on him. He’s already in his late twenties or early thirties, so maybe he wouldn’t want to learn how to be a hero all over again.”

Izuku was bordering on mumbling at this point, but Iida was staring at him with open mouthed shock.

“Midoriya!”

“Hmmm?” Izuku released the lip he’d been pinching while thinking of all of the pros and cons of Tensei remaining a hero or not.

“Thank you!” Iida said fervently, putting a hand on the arm that Izuku had put on his desk. “It never occurred to any of us that he could rebound from this! I mean… yes, we want him to get stronger and adapt, but we all just assumed that hero work was a thing of the past for him!”

“Hey, I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know if it’s possible, but it would be cool if he could pull it off,” Izuku said as a disclaimer. “I’m sure he would have thought of it sooner or later.”

Iida was shaking his head, his eyes bright with unshed tears.

“No, you don’t understand the gloom that’s settled over my family. It’s like they’ve been mourning him while he’s still alive, and he’s agreeing with them! I must talk to him! I have to make him see that there’s a possibility…”

His eyes had a glassy sheen to them, like he might cry.

“Are you going to ditch school?” Izuku asked when Iida jumped to his feet. “You’d better hurry, before anyone else sees you.”

“Too late!” Uraraka said, entering the room. “I’ve seen you! What’s going on?”

“Iida’s thinking about ditching class today,” Izuku said.

Iida looked scandalized.

“I would never!”

Izuku grinned and Uraraka laughed.

“What would make the straight laced Iida want to ditch?” she asked curiously.

“I told you, I’m not ditching!” Iida spluttered.

“Not now that you’ve been caught, sure,” Izuku teased.

It seemed a good idea to lighten the mood a little, since things would probably end up being crazy once everyone arrived with stories about their adventures in interning.

Shouto arrived then, seeming lost in thought and vaguely surprised that he’d already arrived in class. When he saw the others, he detoured and came to join them.

“Good morning, Todoroki-kun!” Iida greeted, sounding much more like his usual self.

“Morning,” was the reply, flat as always.

Their classmates began trickling in; a steady stream with most of them exuberant and chatty as they clustered to talk. It was noisy and everyone was trying to talk over the cacophony, which only added to it. Izuku glanced at his watch and saw that there was only a few seconds until homeroom started, and put his fingers to his lips, letting out a shrill whistle.

“Could everyone get in their seats, please?” he asked when everyone stopped to stare. “Aizawa will be here any second.”

Everyone continued to talk, finishing what they were saying even as they slid into their assigned chairs. Izuku was the last one to settle down when Aizawa entered the room.

“Welcome back,” he told everyone as he took his place at the lectern.

Izuku would have thought that having a week away from his students would have made him look at least a little less tired, but their teacher looked just as exhausted as ever. He wondered if that was because of him and Todoroki and Iida, and felt bad. He wondered if Aizawa had ever actually gotten enough sleep in his whole life. All he could tell is that his teacher really, really wanted a steamed pork bun with extra hoisin sauce. Izuku wondered if that was something Lunch Rush would provide later in the day, then told himself to focus.

Aizawa was giving them the school announcements and notices, and he needed to take notes in the class log about it. He was still class rep, after all.

It was kind of odd, but comforting being back in class and returning to a routine. He’d had an extra long session with his therapist over the weekend, and felt ready to face all of the residual consequences of being involved in a major news story recently.

Just before Present Mic was due to burst into the room for their English lesson, Aizawa asked if there were any questions. Todoroki raised his hand, which was strange, because he rarely did so.

“Do I have to go through any particular process to change my hero name?”

Izuku grinned at the question, his eyes lighting up.

“I just write it in your file, for now,” Aizawa said. “What did you come up with?”

“Tempest.”

Izuku’s grin nearly split his face in half, especially since the rest of the class seemed enthusiastic about it.

“Very fitting, Todoroki-san,” Yaoyorozu praised.

It could have been a figment of Izuku’s imagination, but he could have sworn that there was a bit of a smile on Aizawa’s face when he nodded.

“Noted.”

Kacchan scowled.

Basic Hero Training was a fun class that day, as everyone raced to show off the skills they’d learned at their internship. Izuku had improved a little, but the change in the others was even more remarkable, and Izuku’s hands itched for his notebook to make addendums to his friends’ pages. The one most changed in terms of movement might have been Tokoyami, who had learned how to cloak himself in Dark Shadow and let his inner companion transport his body, much like flying. Ashido also showed incredible skill with her acid, melting finger holes into the sides of structures she wanted to climb; her upper body strength must be seriously impressive! Izuku won the contest, but not by much! Kacchan and Sero and Tokoyami had been within seconds of his time.

Izuku was aware that the exercise hadn’t been as well suited to some of the improvements his classmates had made in the past week. He looked forward to seeing what Uraraka had picked up as far as combat skills went, and what (if anything) Kacchan had learned from his time with All Might and Sir. Todoroki hadn’t had a chance to show off his new fire manipulation, either!

After class, they went to the locker room, where Mineta found a hole in the wall that peeked into the girl’s locker room, and tried to entice Izuku and the others to have a look. Iida, ever the voice of propriety, had scolded him loudly. That volume may have been what tipped off the girls, because a moment later, Jiro’s earphone jack stabbed through the hole and straight into Mineta’s eye, causing him to scream in pain while the others laughed at his karmic punishment. Of all of his classmates, Izuku was the least inclined to seek out Mineta’s company for anything. He just seemed a bit immature and gross. His quirk was interesting, but the boy wasn't.

After class, Aizawa told Izuku that he needed to stay behind, and he waved to his friends without concern as they filed out.

“Principal Nezu would like to have a meeting with you,” Aizawa told him. “I’ll take you to his office.”

Nerves struck then, and he Izuku stammered out, “Am I in trouble for something?”

“Did you do anything you want to fess up to before we get there?” Aizawa asked, his tone as inscrutable as ever.

“No?” Izuku answered, running the day through his head to see if he could remember anything.

“Then don’t worry about it until you hear what he has to say,” Aizawa recommended.

Izuku realized that Aizawa had both been fishing for any transgressions on Izuku’s part and avoiding a real answer at the same time. He walked beside his teacher, trying not to feel guilty of some imaginary, unknown crime. When they arrived at the Principal’s office, it was to find not only Nezu, but All MIght and Sir Nighteye waiting for him. Aizawa raised an eyebrow at this, but nodded when Nezu thanked him in a dismissive tone.

“Midoriya-kun!” Nezu greeted him cheerfully. “Thank you for coming to meet with us! Please, have a seat!”

Izuku nervously came further into the room and took a chair beside All Might, who was seated in one of three chairs ranged in front of Nezu’s desk. He gave Sir and All Might a little wave of acknowledgement before looking to Nezu for some clue as to why he was called in.

“Midoriya-kun, this past week has been an eventful one for you! Through no fault of your own, you’ve been involved in several events that have had an impact on you and your educational experience,” Nezu said, not sounding angry at all. “I want you to know that I have already spoken to your father about the discussion we’re about to have, and you can discuss it further with him this evening. He wanted to be here, but had a meeting he could not postpone, and suggested that Sir Nighteye and All Might were suitable proxies. Is that agreeable?”

“Oh! Of course!” Izuku said, feeling flustered.

He wasn’t sure exactly how much Nezu knew about his relationship with his teacher and Sir. Wouldn’t it seem weird to have them sitting in, in place of his father? What was this about? Was it a matter than required a hero to handle it?

‘’Relax, Izuku,” Sir told him quietly, “Principal Nezu is aware that we’ve been working closely with you and your father since your housekeeper informed us of what All For One was planning.”

“Oh!” Izuku said, calming down now that he knew what it was okay to and not to say. “Right! Good!”

“Since All Might was the one who recommended you for UA, it’s not all that much of a surprise,” Nezu said pleasantly. “You’re a very lucky young man to have Japan’s top hero vouching for you.”

“Yes!” Izuku agreed. “I think I’m the luckiest person in Japan!”

The three men chuckled at the unbridled enthusiasm packed into that statement.

“Well, you might think otherwise in a moment, I’m afraid,” Nezu said, sounding rueful. “You see, the news reports about your encounter with Stain, and more particularly the ones that mention your quirks, have roused strong sentiments in some people.”

“Ah,” Izuku said, wilting. “I get it.”

“Do you?” Nezu asked with a hint of surprise.

“Well, my quirk is what a lot of people have called, ‘creepy’ or ‘villainous’ or things like that,” he said, thinking specifically of Kacchan, but also vaguely of others over the years. “And you just said I might not think I was lucky anymore, so…”

“Yes,” Nezu said with a nod. “There have been quite a few letters sent to the school demanding your expulsion, and even a few threats.”

“Which would explain why All Might and Sir need to be here,” Izuku said gloomily.

“Don’t jump to conclusions just yet, Izuku,” Sir told him quietly.

Nezu nodded as he stood up on the stool he’d been seated on behind his desk, then stepped onto the surface of his desk to gesture to a small basket about the size of a shoe box.

“Not all of the letters we received were threatening or uncomplimentary; far from it,” Nezu told him. Picking up a neat stack of letters banded by rubber bands.

“I did ask for your father’s permission to open the letters addressed specifically to you, in care of UA,” Nezu assured him. “For security reasons, we couldn’t just hand them over directly to you, of course. We’ve weeded out the unhelpful ones and contacted the authorities to investigate the handful of threatening ones. You’ll be relieved to know that none of them were specific, but general threats about confronting you if they ever saw you on the street and that sort of nonsense.”

Izuku’s heart skipped a beat at that. It wasn’t as if he’d done anything terrible with any of his quirks, and he had helped take a wanted killer off of the streets. Why were they so angry? HIs expression must have spoken volumes, because All Might put a hand on his shoulder with a comforting smile.

“All heroes get that sort of thing sometimes, young man. Even Me. No matter how much good you do, there will always be those who will find a way to be unhappy about it for one reason or another.”

“Very true!” Nezu added. “People weren’t very keen on having an animal with an intelligence quirk as the principal of Japan’s premiere hero program and high school, and there was some very nasy backlash involved. But still, here we are, still moving forward and achieving excellence year after year.”

That actually did comfort Izuku somewhat.

“So, did you call me here because of the threats?” Izuku asked. “I’m already being super careful about--”

“No, no,” Nezu cut him off. “We’re quite confident that not only are you being sufficiently monitored and protected, but that you’re fully capable of protecting yourself in most situations.”

“It’s about the other letters,” Sir told him, obviously feeling they should get to the point. “The positive ones.”

“It’s really nice that people would take the time to send positive letters,” Izuku said, “But I don’t get why that would need a meeting with all of you.”

“Midoriya-kun,” Nezu said, taking a set on the edge of his desk with his feet hanging over the edge. “Some of the letters we received contain… requests.”

“Someone wants my help?” Izuku asked, feeling confused.

“Yes and no,” Nezu said. “A few people who heard about your quirk want to give you theirs… or a loved one is dying and they are offering you the quirk of the soon-to-be deceased.”

Izuku just sat there for a moment, his brain having stalled. He couldn’t process what he was hearing right away and needed some time to come to terms with what he was hearing.

“There are people who want to give me their quirks,” he repeated, just to be sure.

“That’s the gist of it, yes,” Nezu said. “Our first inclination was to dispose of the letters, but then we decided that the choice had to be yours. Another factor in that decision was that Sir Nighteye felt that one of the letters in particular might help you solve a particular and persistent drawback of your own quirk.”

Izuku looked at Sir, wondering what exactly he was thinking.

“The man in question has a moderately useful healing quirk,” Sir told him, carefully keeping anything out of his voice that would make anyone feel he was trying to persuade Izuku in any way.

“Healing is an amazing quirk to have,” Izuku admitted. “But why do you think it would help… oh.”

If Izuku had a healing quirk, it might cancel out his own quirk’s tendency to cause others to die faster in his presence? Or maybe he could heal the person that was close to dying enough to wait for help ro arrive without Izuku making it worse? That was a lot to consider.

“His letter is quite eloquent,” Nezu said gently. “If you’d like to read it. Mostly he says that he’s grown very old and is in the final stages of cancer. His quirk only works on others, not on himself, and wouldn’t have been strong enough to cure him in any case. He heard about your quirk from the nurses caring for him, and wanted to reach out to you to offer it.”

All Might cleared his throat, but his voice sounded thick with emotion as he added his own thoughts.

“He spent his life helping others, even though his quirk can only heal minor wounds. He said he’d be honored to pass it to a hero who could continue to use it to help others, so that it won’t go to waste when he dies.”

“How... how long does he have until…” Izuku asked, hoping he didn’t sound insensitive.

“According to his letter, they estimate he has weeks to days left,” Nezu said.

The room was so silent that the gulp of Izuku’s throat as he swallowed was clearly audible.

“But… my being there will make him… die faster.”

“Yes,” Sir said with a nod. “If you decide to accept his offer, we would have to tell him about that aspect of your quirk and let him decide if he still wants to keep his offer open. We could also attempt to time it to when his condition deteriorates to the point where death is iminent, but there is a chance that the opportunity to pass his quirk would be missed if the timing was off, even by a few seconds.”

“Waiting until he’s almost gone to swoop in to collect…” Izuku said around the huge lump forming in his throat. “It seems very… predatory. I know he’s offering and everything, but he should understand exactly how it works before he makes up his mind.”

“So you think this is something you want to do?” Nezu asked without judgement.

“I don’t think want is the right word, but… I think it’s the best solution for both of our situations, if that’s really the man’s final wish.” Izuku said. “Unless any of you can think of a reason why I shouldn’t?”

“How do you mean?” All Might asked.

“I don’t know… you two have always sort of been my moral compass. If I don’t know if I should do something, I ask myself if you guys would be disappointed in me if I did. It seems like it’s the right thing to do, but I want to be sure I’m not missing something I should consider.”

“If you’re concerned about morality,” Sir finally said after a moment of silence, “I think you’re well within the bounds of where you should be. I understand that it can seem wrong to benefit from the death of another person, but at the same time, this man is offering you a gift, and it’s not something that anyone else will lose out on if you take it.”

“In fact, many people could potentially benefit from it in the future,” All Might added. “It would be wrong to, say, hang out in disaster zones in the hopes that someone with a strong and useful quirk dies. This isn't what’s happening here, and we would be the first to question the ethics of a decision like that.”

Izuku nodded and sat still for another full minute, pinching his bottom lip as he considered. He didn’t realize there was a tear crawling in a small track down his cheek as he took a deep breath and straightened.

“I think I should do it,” he finally decided. “Should I… do I need to call him, or?”

“I think it would be best if Nezu or myself made the call and explained the particulars of your quirk and how it works,” Sir said calmly. “If he is still willing and wants to go through with it, we’ll see to the arrangements and let you know, one way or the other.”

“Do I need to do anything about the other letters?” Izuku asked, feeling a little light headed at the idea of willingly taking someone’s offered quirk.

“Not at the moment,” Nezu said quietly. “I think you’ve got enough on your plate right now. Take some time to gather your thoughts and prepare for everything that this decision might entail. Rest. We can talk about the other letters tomorrow or even the next day.”

Everyone stood, and All Might politely lifted Nezu from his desk to the ground. Izuku politely bowed to all of them, and turned to leave the room, with All Might following behind.

“Sir isn’t coming?” he asked as the door closed behind All Might.

“He’s going to stay and help Nezu coordinate the details,” All Might told him.

Izuku nodded and turned to walk, then stopped when All Might placed a comforting hand on Izuku’s shoulder.

“I believe you made the right choice,” he said solemnly.

“Then why do I feel like crying?” Izuku asked with a wobbly chin.

“Because you’ve got a hero’s heart, young man,” was the simple answer. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Notes:

So this is the first quirk that Izuku actually gets a say in receiving. I'm interested in knowing everyone's thoughts on whether this would count as assisted suicide? I have it all written already, so I know how it's going to go down, but I had a lot of mixed feelings while writing it.

 

 

As usual, thank you all SO MUCH for your kudos and comments! They mean the world to me, and if I ever don't reply to a comment it's simply because I sometimes get overwhelmed. I often read them when they pop up in my email notifications, then lose them when I go to reply to them later.

Chapter 47

Summary:

Izuku gains a new quirk.

Notes:

WARNING: this chapter portrays the natural (non graphic) death of a human being that some might find distressing or triggering. If you have issues with this sort of subject matter, I would suggest that you give this chapter a miss. I tried to be a sensitive as possible, but death affects others in different ways, so I want to be sure not to traumatize anyone.

Izuku spent a lot of time in his head that night. He’d told his father about his decision, and even had a phone conference with his therapist about it, but it was still… a lot. Willingly accepting a quirk from someone was somehow different from accidentally acquiring one, and he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it.

On the one hand, a healing quirk, no matter how minor, was always useful. It was relatively rare in any form, and if one had just suddenly appeared in his repertoire one day, he would have thought it was fantastic! Actually making a conscious decision to basically hasten someone’s death to get the same quirk? A little less so. Even if the man who was offering it in the first place was on board with the idea, wasn’t he basically killing someone? He knew the answer to that was basically no, but it was still a squirmy little bug of doubt that was fluttering in his chest. Maybe once the man realized that Izuku’s presence would speed his demise, he’d change his mind? Izuku wasn’t sure if he hoped that was what would happen or not, and that made him feel guilty.

In the end, he called Iida, who was the one of his peers who he knew would advise him in the best course of action as he saw it, which was usually on the straight and narrow path. Iida had listened and sympathized with his plight, and Izuku felt better to hear his friend confirm the conclusion that he had already come to. The benefits outweighed any amount of guilt he may feel, as long as the dying man was wholly aware of what would happen. Iida promised not to tell anyone, and not to judge him for whatever choice he decided to make.

Izuku went to bed that night exhausted from emotional overload, and thankfully didn’t experience any nightmares like the ones that had become all too common of late. In the morning, as he was getting ready for school, his father came out only half dressed.

“Sir Nighteye just called,” he said, watching his son closely for any signs of panic or anxiety. “The man with the healing quirk was very relieved to hear from him, and asked him to come as soon as possible. He… he wants to meet you in person, and for you to be there when it happens.”

Izuku paused in cutting the tamagoyaki and then nodded.

“When?”

“Sir is coming to pick you up right now. You have about a half an hour until he arrives,” his dad said. “Are you okay with all of that?”

Izuku took a deep breath before he nodded. The wriggling bug in his chest finally quieted and stilled.

“I’m glad he wants to meet me,” he finally said, feeling calm for the first time since the decision was made. “It seems right. I think I was worried that I would just be hanging around in another room like a vulture or something. I think that’s what felt wrong about all of it.”

His father nodded, but couldn’t quite inhale the tiny tendril of smoke that drifted from one nostril for a moment.

“Do you want me to take the day off and go with you? It’s bound to be a difficult day,” his father offered.

“Thanks dad, but I can handle it,” Izuku said. “Sir will be with me, if not All Might, too. I really appreciate that you’d do that but I think I can handle it.”

“If you’re sure…” his dad said, looking uncertain.

Izuku nodded firmly, suddenly feeling a confidence in his decision that had been missing before he knew he would be meeting the man. His father lingered over breakfast, staying until his son left with his mentors without seeming to be in distress.

That was how Izuku came to be sitting on a bullet train less than an hour later, with All Might (in his true form) and Sir, headed to Fukushima. All Might was in an aisle seat, and Izuku was next to the window; Sir across the aisle from All Might, working on a laptop. They had explained how the quirk worked on the way to the train station, and that it seemed very suitable for Izuku’s situation.

“You realize that even though this man’s healing quirk is relatively minor, One For All may give it a little power boost?” All MIght asked Izuku.

“I thought of that,” Izuku admitted, “but it seems like if that happens, it can only be a good thing, right?”

“It would certainly seem so,” All Might agreed. “I’m told that Suoh-san is a good man who has spent his life as a doctor, then after retirement, simply as a volunteer at a children’s hospital, doing what he could to ease their suffering when they were hurt.”

“That’s a big legacy to live up to,” Izuku said. “I’ll have to work hard to make sure not to waste it.”

Izuku watched the scenery fly past the window outside contentedly, feeling like he was doing the right thing, and at peace with that. He was letting his mind wander to what his classmates would be doing in class today, when All Might spoke tentatively again.

“Midoriya-shonen,” All Might said after a few minutes. “Do you… you realize that you’re going to be present when this man dies, don’t you?”

“I do understand,” Izuku said with a nod, meeting All Might's uncomfortable gaze with a steady one of his own. “I know it’s going to be hard, but I owe him that much; if he wants me to be there. Even though I’ll be getting his quirk, the first part isn’t about me. This man has reached the end of his life, and he’s choosing to spend it with a stranger, just so he can help me out and leave something of himself behind. The least I can do is sit with him.”

All Might nodded slowly at the answer, seeming satisfied with Izuku’s response.

“Can you tell me what other kinds of people wrote to me about quirks they want me to have? I mean, I’m not really keen on doing this more than this once unless you and Sir think it’s necessary, but I just don’t understand why people would do that.”

“Death is scary for a lot of people,” All MIght said thoughtfully. “The idea of having a part of you live on in someone else must hold appeal for some. Part of me will live on in you, just like you carry part of all of the previous holders of One For All, so I suppose I can understand their reasoning.”

“I guess,” Izuku said dubiously. “But you took the time to get to know me and decide if I was really the one you wanted to pass it along to. These people just found out about me a couple of days ago. Couldn’t they just be organ donors or something?”

Izuku’s words seemed to amuse All Might, and brought the somewhat somber mood some much needed cheer.

“That’s true,” he said with a wry grin. “There’s always that. I don’t have a lot of organs left, though.”

Izuku actually laughed at that, and he’d never, ever thought it would be one of the things he’d have a sense of humor about. Sir looked away from the laptop computer he’d been working on to see what they were so animated about, and gave a small smile when he noticed that they seemed happy.

“To be honest, most of the quirks that people wanted you to have ranged on the spectrum from redundant because they were close to ones you already have, to just plain weird. One was a man who lives in a temple and wants to see if you could inherit the giant ram’s horns of the current, elderly head priest.”

“Ram’s horns?” Izuku asked in surprise, trying to imagine himself that way. The idea was strange, and he thought of how difficult it would be to find a good position for sleep with a physical feature like that. “Do you think that’s even possible? Taking on such a major physical attribute like that?”

“Your quirk is a bit of a mystery, so I don’t think you could rule it out,” All Might considered. “Your teflon quirk is sort of a mutant type, even if it doesn’t change your appearance.”

“I guess so,” Izuku said. “I guess I’m extra lucky that the winged nomu wasn’t killed near me. I might have ended up with bat wings and who knows what else.”

The very idea repulsed him.

“Thank the gods,” All MIght agreed. “The priest who wanted you to inherit the horns also wanted you to become a fixture or an acolyte priest at their temple if the quirk was truly transferable, and I don’t think you’d want to abandon your pursuit of becoming a hero for that.”

“Definitely not.”

“There were some that were just hopeful that they could be of use after death, but there was nothing so compelling that it would be worth the emotional and possible physical experience required to obtain them. One was even from a reformed villain, who was hoping to use you to make up for some of his past sins by committing seppuku and passing his quirk to you to use for good deeds.The one you’re receiving today was the only one we felt was remotely worth truly considering. If you had decided not to, we never would have mentioned it again.”

Izuku nodded, wondering if they had known what his decision would be before they even asked him. He suspected that they knew him well enough to have guessed.

The ride to Fukushima only took about ninety minutes, and when they arrived, All Might excused himself to change into his hero form in private. When he reappeared, there were the usual fans and commotion that often gave away his presence. There was an older man in a suit just outside the station, and he was holding a sign with Izuku’s name on it. He looked surprised to see All Might was one of the people he was picking up, but hid his schock quickly and escorted them to a waiting vehicle.

“Suoh-san lives not too far from here,” Sir told Izuku as they settled into the van. “He’s chosen to return home from the hospice for his final days. There will be no danger of anyone else in poor health being nearby.”

Izuku nodded, a surge of nerves swelling up inside of him.

“He is very much looking forward to your visit,” the driver told them, obviously aware of why they were there. “He wanted me to tell you that he is more than ready, and to please don’t worry about this.”

Sir nodded, and Izuku followed along.

“Has his condition deteriorated since we spoke?” Sir asked the man.

“It’s hard to tell,” the man said with a respectful air. “But he’s been getting weaker every day. The medicine keeps him comfortable to a point, but there’s only so much it can do without rendering him unable to communicate, and he refuses to allow that.”

Sir nodded. Izuku wondered how much pain the man was really in, to be ready to die before his time was technically completely up. Not too much, he hoped.

It only took minutes to reach the house, which was an unassuming single family home like a million others all over Japan. Izuku wasn’t sure if his quirk was already activated, causing a ‘tug’ inside the man like All Might has described before. He hurriedly followed the other men into the house and down a hallway to a small room, aware that the metaphorical hourglass had been flipped the moment Izuku had come in range.

It had probably been a living room at some point, but had been converted into a bedroom; possibly because it was on the ground floor of a two story house. It was probably too hard to manage stairs when you were as sick as this man was. Izuku had almost expected a hospital bed, somehow. There was the slighted niggling of a memory long forgotten of a woman in a hospital bed in an empty room…

“I’ve brought him,” the man who had driven them said, moving to the old man’s side.

Suoh-san was propped up against a mountain of pillows, gazing out of a window at a bird feeder that was attached to the glass on the other side. The kind made to make bird watching easy as they landed to take advantage of a quick meal. The room was light and airy feeling, with a peaceful aura to it that was comforting and homey.

“I know,” Suoh-san said with a faint smile.

He turned his head and smiled at Midoriya, holding out a frail hand toward him. Izuku didn’t hesitate to stride forward and take the offered hand, not sure how long the man now had.

“Thank you for coming,” the man said, squeezing Iuzku’s fingers.

His hands were thin and paper dry, mottled with age spots, but neatly manicured. His eyes were rheumy and the whites were yellowish, but his wispy hair was neatly combed, and he had the general appearance of someone who was being very well cared for.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Midoriya told him sincerely. “I hear you’ve lived a heroic life, helping people.”

The old man’s wrinkled face stretched into a grin and he wheezed in a way that told Izuku that he was laughing as best he could.

“Because of you,” he said in a reedy voice, just barely audible, “part of me can keep on doing that.”

“You’re a true hero, sir,” All Might told him in a quiet, deep voice.

“All Might!” the man said with some surprise, as if he’d just noticed the giant of a man standing in his room. “What an amazing day this is.”

Izuku waited for the man to say more, still holding the hand he’d been offered, when he felt it. A vibration, much like a shiver, skated over his body, raising every hair on his arms and legs.

“I think he’s gone,” Izuku said, tears welling in his eyes. “It happened so fast, I didn’t get to tell him thank you, or anything.”

“No thanks are necessary,” the man in the suit told him quietly, wiping his own damp eyes on a handkerchief. “My father was so happy when he found out that you were willing to come here today. You made his last moments happy and peaceful.”

His father. Izuku felt the tears spill and gently set Suoh-san’s hand down on the bed before he rose and bowed deeply to his son.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said immediately. “I should have realized that you’d want to be by his side when he--”

“No,” the man said gently, smiling through his tears. “My father was a very good man, and he knew this was coming for a long time. We have had much time to come to terms with this and have said everything we needed to say before your arrival. Knowing that a part of him will be out in the world still is a great comfort to me, and one I would have missed out on, if not for you.”

The man bent and double checked his father’s pulse in his neck and checked his watch with a small nod.

“Thank you.”

Izuku wasn’t sure if he was thanking him, his father, or the universe, but it was heartfelt and Izuku felt more tears spill.

A nurse arrived not long after and nodded quietly at a simple hand gesture from the younger Suoh-san. Izuku was aware that Sir and All MIght were paying their condolences and expressing thanks. Izuku stood focusing on a picture on the bedside table of a young man in a doctor’s lab coat, grinning at the camera beside a young boy in a sailor suit hugging his leg and smiling up at the doctor adoringly. He assumed it was the two Suoh men, many years ago. It reminded him of a similar photograph of him and his father when Izuku was young, and something tugged at his heartstrings to see it.

A warm hand landed on his shoulder, and Izuku looked up to see Sir looking back at him with a slight smile.

“It’s time to go,” he said quietly.

The ride back to the city was quiet, but not as somber as Izuku had expected. All Might explained in more detail what he’d been told about how the healing quirk worked, but until it was time to use it, they wouldn’t really know how strong it was. If he had to use a word to describe the overall mood of the trio, it would be reflective. They were each lost in their own thoughts and were comfortably silent until they arrived back where they had started from that morning.

“Is it okay if I go to school for the rest of the day?” Izuku asked after sending a quick message to his father to let him know he’d gotten back safely. “If I get there soon, I can still make it to Basic Hero Training class. I feel like I need to move around and get some pent up energy out.”

All Might eyed him for a moment, as if to judge his mental state, then nodded.

“I’ll drive you.”

Chapter 48

Summary:

Aizawa doesn't get paid enough for this.

Izuku didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity to use his new quirk.

His classmates had been pleasantly surprised to see him arrive at school just after lunch, and Aizawa had simply nodded and continued on with his instructions. Once they were dismissed to get changed into their gear, Izuku was pelted with questions about his earlier absence.

He just said he had an appointment, but Iida’s eyes met his and he gave a barely perceptible nod. Iida nodded in return.

The day’s lesson was taught by a guest, who was a local hero from Hokkaido known as “The Bear.” While not as tall as All Might, the man was still massive, and hands that strongly resembled those of a grizzly bear paw. He had shaggy brown hair on his head and longer than usual canine teeth, but otherwise didn’t resemble a bear all that much. Still, he had agreed to come and teach the students while he was in town visiting family. His specialty was restraint techniques, and he demonstrated how to effectively disable an average humanoid shaped person, and even gave them some tips on other types, like shapeshifters.

For demonstration purposes, he called forward a couple of the students and asked them to fight against being subdued by him, using whatever method they could think of. In short order, he’d managed to pin or restrain Kirishima, Jiro and even Sato, who had consumed a handful of sugar cubes, first. The last person he chose was Kacchan, and he gave the biggest fight by far, setting off explosions and bucking his body furiously in an attempt to be the one to prevail. In the end, The Bear managed to wrangle him and eventually Kacchan found himself with his face smashed into the ground and his arms unable to do more than fire into open air uselessly.

Izuku thought for sure that Kacchan’s anger over this would cause a tantrum of some sort, but he’d merely scowled and dusted himself off before falling back into the ranks of the class when he was released. Izuku could tell he was running it through his head, wondering what he could have done differently and how to avoid what had gotten him trapped. If Izuku knew Kacchan like he thought he did, he would learn from this and use it to his advantage.

They were broken into pairs; they would take turns trying to restrain each other without either of the participants using their quirks. Izuku heard The Bear comment to Kacchan that he liked his tenacity, and gave him some pointers for how to avoid the situation he’d just been in.

“Those explosions of yours are somethin’ else, kid! Work hard, and you could make it to the top!” Bear told him.

Izuku saw that The Bear’s arm had a burn mark where at least one of Kacchan’s blasts had hit its mark. He stepped forward as Kacchan walked away, Jiro following along, since she was Izuku’s partner for the exercise.

“Excuse me,” Izuku said almost apologetically. “I was wondering if you’d mind letting me try one of my quirks on you?”

“You’re that kid!” The Bear said with a grin. “I read about you. You really have thirteen quirks?”

Izuku fought down a blush before saying timidly, “Fourteen, now.”

This caught Aizawa’s attention and he looked at Izuku sharply.

“Igotanewquirkthismorningandit’shealingandI’dliketotryitonyou!”

The Bear and Aizawa both Blinked.

“You got a new quirk this morning?” Jiro asked, as if she had clearly understood the jumble of words that Izuku had just vomited out in a flood.

Luckily her voice didn’t carry, and everyone else was busy working on the exercise.

Izuku nodded.

“A healing one?” Jiro asked with interest.

Izuku nodded again. “Yeah. It’s supposed to be a minor one, so mostly surface wounds and stuff, but I haven’t used it yet, so I’m not sure. I saw the burns and thought it might be a good place to start.”

Aizawa sighed and rubbed his eyes with the same aggrieved attitude that Sir used when he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“We’re going to have a conversation after class, Midoriya,” he said tiredly.

Izuku nodded, wondering if he was in trouble. His teacher didn’t seem mad, so much as worn down.

“Sure kid, why not?” The Bear said with a shrug.

“Hold it,” Aizawa said, holding up a hand before anyone could do anything. “Midoriya, do you even know how it works?”

Izuku nodded. “I’ve been told that all I have to do is touch the person and think about the wound and the quirk will do the rest. They said I might feel a little tired afterward, but that would depend on how serious the wound was. I thought that since it was such a light burn…”

How do you know this?” Aizawa asked in a neutral tone.

“The...deceased’s son explained it,” Izuku said cautiously.

Aizawa nodded and gave the go ahead, but watched very carefully. Izuku was sure that if anything went wrong, Izuku would find that his quirk had been turned off pretty quickly.

“Hold up!” Jiro said.

She fished out her phone and opened her camera. Once it was set to record video, she nodded.

Izuku only paused a moment before placing a hand on The Bear’s arm and concentrating on the patch of red skin he’d noticed earlier. The bare skin of his exposed forefinger made contact with The Bear’s arm. To his relief, no hair sprouted, and the red faded away relatively quickly, leaving behind only a light dusting of singed arm hair to show that anything had happened to it at all.

“Nice work, kid!” The Bear said appreciatively. “Didn’t feel a thing.”

“Nothing?” Izuku asked.

“Nope. It was stinging a bit, and it just faded to nothing, like the red did.”

“Cool,” Izuku breathed.

“How do you feel?” Aizawa asked Izuku.

Izuku took a moment to take personal stock of himself.

“Fine,” he declared with relief. “Completely fine.”

“Alright, you’ve had your experiment. You and Jiro go do the assignment.”

Izuku nodded, feeling exuberant, and Jiro held her fist out expectantly. Izuku bumped his fist to hers with a small smile.

Izuku and Jiro worked well together, and Izuku learned that Jiro was surprisingly strong for someone as slim as she was. Once the class had practiced for a while, they switched partners and started all over and then switched again and again. When class was over they were all sweaty and experiencing various levels of triumph or frustration by what they’d learned and practiced.

“So,” Jiro asked him quietly just before they got back to the classroom, “Should I be keeping quiet about… you know?”

Izuku shook his head with a grateful smile.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal if anyone finds out. I just… wanted to see how it worked, you know?”

She smiled back at him a little sadly. She patted his shoulder and asked gently, “Did you see him die? I mean… the guy with the healing quirk? You said their son told you.”

Izuku nodded, and some of the emotion he’d felt came rushing back. “Yeah. It was… he went peacefully.”

“Was it someone you knew?” she asked gently, as if she expected him to begin crying.

“It was someone I wish I’d gotten to know better,” he said truthfully, feeling slightly choked up. “I don’t really feel like I can talk about it, yet.”

She nodded and gave his arm a comforting squeeze before she left him to go inside. Izuku was about to follow after her when he felt someone yank him backward roughly.

“Are you interested in Jiro?” a voice hissed in his ear.

Muscle memory had Izuku spinning, grabbing the speaker and sweeping out his leg automatically. He was looking down at Kaminari’s surprised face for a few seconds before he realized he wasn’t in danger. He was safe at UA.

He offered a hand and hauled Kaminari to his feet with a chagrined, “Sorry. You surprised me. What do you mean, interested?”

“Don’t play dumb! Are.You. Interested. In. Jiro?” Kaminari demanded, looking...worried?

He didn’t even seem to have registered that he’d just been thrown to the floor, but that could be because they’d just spent a whole training session doing that.

“You mean like...as a girl?” Izuku asked awkwardly.

“What else would I mean?” Kaminari hissed in a whisper-shout.

“Well I don’t know,” Izuku drawled while rolling his eyes. “She’s really cool and has a really interesting quirk, and is going to be an awesome hero? She’s also cute and nice.”

“That’s why I’m asking!” Kaminari said, becoming more agitated.

“The nerd ain’t interested in your crush, Dunce Face,” Kacchan said, coming back out into the hall and staring at them. “You wanna ask her out, just man up and do it.”

He didn’t bother to keep his voice down. Kaminari looked panicked.

“You’re not?” he asked Izuku.

Izuku shook his head.

“Not right now? I mean… we’re here to work on becoming heroes, not trying to get girls.”

“By the way,” Kacchan told them conversationally. “Aizawa’s probably going to skin you both alive in about two seconds.”

Izuku let out a very undignified shriek and jumped into the room, sprinting for his chair. When he got there (with Iida shouting at him not to run, and Uraraka teasing him not to shout) , it was to see that everyone was staring at him. Aizawa was nowhere to be seen. Thanks, Kacchan.

Izuku let out his breath in a whoosh of relief to know he hadn’t been keeping the class waiting on him. Now that the surge of panic had passed, it was probable that Aizawa was probably seeing their guest out and thanking him.

“I think you might be getting more see through than before,” Uraraka said from across the room.

“Really?” he asked, looking down at himself as if he was still transparent from his sudden spurt of breathlessness..

She nodded, and so did Ashido and Sero and possibly Hagakure, who had a barrette in her hair that bobbed up and down.

“Huh.”

Maybe One For All was giving it a little boost.

Kaminari and Bakugou came into the room not a second too soon, since Aizawa was right behind them. They slid into their seats (Kacchan with a smirk) as Aizawa took his place at the lectern.

“Before you go home, be aware that finals are coming up,” he said, staring straight at Kaminari, Kirishima and Ashido in turn.

There was a collective groan, and even a panicked sounding squeak mixed in with it.

“Summer is rapidly approaching, and because it would be illogical and self-sabotaging for any of you to take a whole month off of school…”

Every student leaned forward in their seat at least a little, hanging on their teacher’s every word.

“We’ve arranged a summer training camp.”

Many of the kids cheered joyfully, and even the more reserved ones like Iida, Yaoyorozu and Todoroki smiled and looked pleased. There were exclamations of excitement as ideas like campfires, tests of courage, outdoor baths and fireworks were suggested as possibilities. Even Izuku imagined hikes in nature and playing capture the flag in the woods.

“Those of you who do not pass your finals,” Aizawa cut in. “Will endure a hellish month here, getting remedial training to catch you up to the rest of the class!”

“WHAT?” at least four voices cried out in unison.

Izuku winced in sympathy.

“So study hard,” Aizawa told them in closing. “Dismissed.”

Izuku waved his friends ahead when they looked at him inquiringly, and stayed seated. He knew he owed Aizawa-sensei some sort of explanation for today, and he deserved to know what was going on. He wondered if it was okay to talk to him about the letters and stuff, but decided that since no one had specifically told him to keep it secret, it wouldn’t hurt anything.

“Okay, Problem Child,” Aizawa said once everyone was gone and the door closed. “Spill.”

He joined Izuku at his desk, straddling Bakugou’s chair backward and looking at his student expectantly.

“Sorry, sensei,” Izuku told him sincerely. “I guess I shouldn’t have just sprung that on you like that.”

“You guess?” Aizawa asked. “Did it occur to you that as your teacher, I need to know every tool at my disposal, including the quirks of my students, so I can make informed decisions when and if things get out of hand?”

Izuku thought about the USJ and how much his new quirk might have changed some things. He nodded now, knowing his teacher was correct.

“You knew before you even used this new quirk what it was,” Aizawa observed. “I thought that you didn’t know what they were until they showed up.”

“Normally that would be true, but that meeting with the Principal yesterday got… complicated.”

Izuku went on to explain his connection with All Might and Sir Nighteye as it had been explained to Nezu. Then he explained about the news reports from Hosu giving a few people a lot of different ideas. He told him about the hate mail, the approving, encouraging ones, and then about the ones from people offering their quirks.”

“They offered…” Aizwawa began, then trailed off, thinking about it. “I guess that makes sense, in a morbid kind of way.”

Izuku nodded and went on to explain about Dr. Suoh, how close he’d been to his final days, and how they believed that a healing quirk might help with the aspect of the inheritance quirk that made people die faster. Then he talked about taking the train this morning to Fukushima and meeting the man in his dying moments.

Aizawa listened intently until Izuku finished, and then stayed silent for almost a full minute more before he spoke.

“You’ve set a dangerous precedent, Midoriya. When people find out that you’ve willingly accepted a quirk--”

“They won’t find out,” Izuku assured him quickly. “That was part of the agreement with Dr. Suoh’s son. Only the two of them knew what was going on, and his son promised not to tell anyone. I don’t plan on doing it again without a very, very good reason. This time it seemed kind of like the perfect solution to a couple of different problems, and even then, everyone let it be completely my decision.”

Aizawa was silent for another moment before he shook his head.

“Why do I feel like this year is going to seem like a decade?” he muttered.

Izuku smiled sheepishly.

“To be on the safe side, I’m going to see if Recovery Girl would be willing to fit in a couple of training sessions with you either before or after school, to give you some pointers and make sure you’re being safe about it. From the sound of it, it draws energy from you, instead of the injured?

Something like that,” Izuku agreed.

“When you’re here at school, you’re not to use it without a teacher’s supervision, except in extreme emergencies.At least, not until you’ve gotten some training with it. Got it?”

“Yes sir,” Izuku said obediently.

“Fine. For now. All Might’s probably wondering where you are,” Aizawa said by way of dismissal.

Izuku nodded and grabbed his bag. As he opened the door, Present Mic was entering.

“Hey there, listener! Is Aizawa giving you a hard time?”

“Nope,” Izuku grinned at him, recognizing that they were speaking English. “He’s just being a good teacher.”

Just before the door closed again, Izuku could have sworn he heard Aizawa ask Mic if it was too early for whiskey.

Chapter 49

Summary:

Studying for finals begins, and Izuku learns that not all criminals are masterminds.

Notes:

*Sneaks in during lunch break to post new chapter* Enjoy!

Izuku was surprised to find Uraraka, Hagakure, Koda, Ashido and, even more strangely, Yoarashi standing in the lobby of his apartment building when he arrived home. Rapidfire was leaning against the wall by the entrance to the stairwell chatting with them amiably until Izuku came in.

“Hey, Midoriya!” Inasa said loudly, waving.

“Hey, everyone! What are you doing here?”

“We came to see you!” Hagakure announced, the apparent spokesperson for the group. “And beg for your help!”

“And your cooking!” Uraraka added, eyeing the grocery bags dangling from his arms.

He laughed at that and they all took the elevator up to the fifteen floor, where Rapidfire checked everything out before leaving them alone.

“So what do you need help with?” Izuku asked, taking his grocery bags to the fridge.

He’d asked All Might to stop at the store on the way home, because they were dangerously low on almost everything.

“English!” the girls all said in unison while Koda nodded in agreement.

Inasa was busy looking through the grocery bags before Izuku could even start unpacking them.

“Got any snacks?”

Izuku shooed him away before pulling a box of senbei and a bag of chips from the cabinet and handing them over.

“So you guys are here for a study group?” he asked, putting away groceries while he talked.

“Yes, please!” Uraraka said, crunching on a cracker.

Izuku remembered his chats with her, and how he’d come to the conclusion that she didn’t have a lot of money budgeted for food. He decided to make something more substantial for them to eat and smiled cheerfully.

“I don’t know how good of a teacher I can be, but if you show me what you’re having trouble with?”

Since there were only four chairs at the table, everyone spread out in the living room. Izuku put a ton of rice in the rice cooker before going to join them for a few minutes, then went back and forth between the kitchen and living room to help them study for finals. WIthin a half an hour, everyone had access to some dishes of edamame and small grilled rice balls to help keep their minds off their hunger while they worked.

Izuku began to become worried about Inasa and Mina actually passing their finals about halfway through their study session. It wasn’t that they weren’t smart, they didn't grasp this particular subject well, and their attention spans were all over the place. Inasa seemed easily distracted by everything around him, asking random questions about pictures on the wall or if Koda (who seemed almost terrified of Inasa’s loud and overly-enthusiastic attitude) could talk to fish. Mina had a similar problem in that she got bored easily with things she didn’t understand and her mind wandered to things she was more interested in. Both were capable in their own way, but learning in the traditional way from books wasn’t working for them.

Uraraka was just a generally average student who wanted to do better. She understood the material and did adequately, but tended to rely on mnemonics to help her remember key facts. Unfortunately there were only so many of those she could use, and English was a crazy language where one word could have multiple spellings and similar meanings. Izuku had had a similar problem before he became a polyglot, and if he hadn’t gotten some groundwork done on English before that to help him, he’d need more help himself.

Koda was a funny one. He didn’t seem to necessarily need much help, though he did act appreciative of the tips and tricks Uraraka used to memorize some things. Maybe he just wanted to be included? Maybe one of the others had invited him so firmly that he felt he couldn't say no? He listened attentively, but for a while when they first met, Izuku almost thought he was mute and that maybe he might talk to animals telepathically because he almost never talked. Maybe it was because he was shy? It was just odd that he’d shown up with such a boisterous group, and not sought out quieter companions like Ojiro, Yaoyorozu, Tokoyami or Shoji. Still, he was polite and smiled often enough that Izuku didn’t feel like he was out of place, either.

By the time his friends left, it was starting to get dark outside, and since it was summertime, that meant it was later than Izuku had thought. He got a message from his father saying he was having dinner with coworkers, so he didn’t have to worry about preparing a meal, either. It was the type of evening that made him wish he was free to go out to a ramen shop, or even just the combini by himself, or explore the neighborhood, or go visit the beach he’d helped clean up and see how it was doing. Stupid League of Villains. He was tired of always being under surveillance by someone. He was really looking forward to training camp!

The next morning, Izuku was more determined than ever to help his friends pass the subjects they were having trouble in, so they could all go to camp together and have fun. His father (who had been extra sleepy this morning because of a late night) dropped him off at the curb in front of UA a little later than usual, and with a tired wave, and drove away. Izuku stopped to tie his shoe when another car came screeching to a halt behind him.

“Get in the car!” a menacing voice growled at him from the window.

He was pointing some kind of weapon at Izuku that looked like it could be a gun with a handkerchief draped over it. Maybe to hide the fact that he was pointing a gun at a kid.

“Don’t try anything funny! No one has to get hurt, here.” the man told him as Iuzku raised his hands in front of himself to show that he was unarmed and ‘helpless’. “Get in!”

Both the driver and a passenger were wearing luchador type masks to hide their faces.

Izuku slowly nodded and stepped forward toward the back door. He reached for the door handle and opened the door carefully, then as the man was telling him again to hurry and get in, he forced One For All to the surface. In a huge rush of power, he tore the car’s door completely off its hinges with a groan of twisted metal and tossed it behind him. There was a great deal of shouting, then.

“What the hell?” the driver bellowed.

“Shit!” The passenger yelled, “Floor it!”

Oh no, they weren’t getting away! Izuku bent and grabbed the underside ledge of where the door used to be, and turned the car over on it’s side. Almost at the same time, a body came flying up from behind Izuku and landed on the driver’s door.

“DIE SHITTY VILLAINS!” Kacchan roared, setting off twin explosions into the back seat area of the car through the hole the missing door had left.

The windows of the vehicle blew out in all directions, scattering tiny bits of gummy safety glass in all directions. Kacchan leaped backward onto the sidewalk at the same time he set off his explosions, and Izuku reached out a hand to steady him as he landed and stumbled backward on the curb. Both boys watched as the car rocked on its side for a few seconds before falling back on its tires, which were already spinning. With a scream of burning rubber, the vehicle lurched forward, only to suddenly sink into the ground up to its now-absent windows, where the road had turned to mush.

Honenuki was crouched near the curb with his hands flat on the road.

The would-be kidnappers scrambled to escape, and suddenly Kaminari was there, letting loose on the hood of the vehicle with an incomprehensible amount of electricity that made it look as though multiple lightning bolts had struck the car at once. The men inside didn’t move after that.

Kaminari’s face had gone completely slack, and he gave Izuku and Kacchan a drunken-looking double thumbs up while a string of drool began to leak out of the corner of his mouth. Kacchan snorted out a laugh.

“Nice job, Dunceface,” he said as Kaminari wobbled over.

“Yay!” Kaminari answered.

There was a crowd by now, and teachers were running toward them from every direction. Within a matter of minutes, the suspects were dragged out of the car and bound, police were en route, and Izuku, Kacchan, Honenuki and Kaminari were explaining to their teachers what had happened. Kaminari wasn’t much help, until Izuku had an idea, took off his glove and grabbed Kaminari’s hand. There wasn’t really an injury to focus on, so he just pictured his classmate as he normally was and tried to mentally push that memory into Kaminari though their linked hands. It kind of felt like static in Izuku’s mind, that cleared to a crisp image of the regular Kaminari. It took a few seconds, but the blond boy blinked a few times and shook his head, apparently back to his old self.

“What just happened?” he asked.

Kacchan looked at Kaminari, then at Izuku, then back to Kaminari and sighed.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Izuku looked sheepish as he shrugged. Aizawa sighed. Everyone else looked confused.

“Hey kid,” one of the recently arrived policemen asked. “Can you do that to these guys so we can ask them some questions?”

Izuku looked to Aizawa for permission, and his teacher nodded tiredly. Izuku repeated what he’d done with Kaminari, even though he didn’t have a clear image of what these men were normally like. At first, they didn’t respond, but when Izuku added a little more One For All than what he usually used constantly to it. The first man was shocked awake so quickly that Izuku shouted in surprise - mostly because the man came to and screamed. The second man jolted back to consciousness equally quickly, but with less noise. They were both extremely disoriented and surprised to find themself in the custody of the police.

“All of you go to class for now,” Principal Nezu said, arriving on the scene in a tiny golf cart. “Your teachers and I will get to the bottom of this. If the police need you to make a statement, we’ll call for you.”

Aizawa shoved a wadded up sheet of paper at Izuku as they turned to obey.

“Take over, Class Rep,” he said.

Izuku fell into step with Kaminari, Honenuki and Kacchan as they hurried through the school gates. The paper Aizawa had given him was basically a list of the morning announcements, so Izuku assumed he was tasked with delivering them to the class. While they walked, Kaminari was busily chattering to a semi-annoyed Kacchan about the wild start to the morning, and Honenuki was joining in. Izuku paused before they split into their different rooms to thank all of them for their help.

“Don’t worry about it,” Honenuki told him easily, hands in his pockets. “All I did was save you a little time. You had it handled.”

Izuku grinned. “Thanks, anyway.”

Honenuki went into class, and Izuku caught up with Kacchan and Kaminari.

“Thanks for your help, guys!” he said, not sure what to expect.

“Tch. Whatever,” Kacchan said. “I love blowin’ shit up.”

That was as good as any ’your welcome that Izuku was bound to get, and he nodded.

“I’m still not sure what the hell happened, but okay, I guess!” Kaminari said easily.

The rest of the class was in a state of excitement, because most of them had seen the commotion in front of the gates, but no one knew what had happened. When their three missing classmates arrived without their teacher, the room erupted into questions.

“Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to try and snatch the nerd, again” Kacchan said as if it was an everyday occurrence. “In front of a hero school.”

You could have heard a pin drop for all of five seconds before there was shouting and more questions. Izuku walked over and stood at the lectern and waved his hands for everyone’s attention. Everyone quieted and waited expectantly for an explanation.

“Everything’s fine. Kacchan and Kaminari and Honenuki from 1-B helped catch them, and police were arresting them. No one was hurt, and Aizawa asked me to take care of the morning announcements.”

“But what happened?” Mina asked. “Like...details! I need details!”

“Can we save that for after the announcements?” Izuku asked hopefully.

The answer to that was apparently no. Questions started up again, this time directed at Kacchan and Kaminari, since Izuku was being a stick in the mud. Iida was trying valiantly (and failing) to get everyone to settle down and listen, but it was just adding to the noise. Izuku sighed and picked up a stack of blank papers from under the lectern. He counted out twenty of them, then tugged off his glove and used his copy quirk to make a page with the announcements for each student. As they all talked about what had happened outside, Izuku set five copies of the announcements on the first desk in each row and told them to take one and hand it back. He slipped into his seat with only about a minute until Present Mic was due to arrive for English.

“Midoriya,” Tokoyami said from the desk diagonally behind them. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” he answered automatically. “Not a scratch!”

“That’s not really what I meant,” Tokoyami said. “Someone just tried to kidnap you.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Izuku said with a nod. “I see what you mean. I haven’t really had time to think about it, yet. I guess it depends on who it was and why they did it, before I get too upset about it. They really weren’t very good at their job.”

“Hmmm,” was Tokoyami’s only answer.

Izuku turned back around in his seat to see Kacchan looking at him.

“Did you need something, Kacchan?”

“Dumbass,” Kacchan said, turning back around and facing forward.

Izuku wondered what that was about, but a moment later Present Mic hurried into the room, seeming a little winded.

“Sorry listeners!” He told them with chagrin, “It’s been a bit of a crazy morning!”

That was an understatement if he’d ever heard one.

WIthin the next thirty minutes, Izuku received three messages, his phone buzzing in his pocket during class. He had finished the written assignment pretty quickly, so Present Mic bent and whispered in English that he could use his phone to answer the messages just this once, since it was probably his father checking in.

Sure enough, there was a panicked message apologizing for not making sure he was safe before driving away that morning. He answered immediately that he was fine and that it wasn’t his father’s fault. He knew his father would probably still blame himself, but that wasn't a problem that Izuku could tackle at the moment.

There was another message from All Might that simply read: ‘not LoV. Which Izuku translated as, ;not league of villains. He must have been monitoring the questioning of the men who had tried to grab Izuku. There was surely a lot more to the story than that, but All Might was probably busy.

There was a third message from Sir that was simply a question mark, to which Izuku replied that he was fine, nothing to worry about. He assumed that if Sir was contacting him during school, it was because he already knew the basics of what had happened, or at least knew there’d been some sort of incident.

Knowing that the League of Villains wasn’t behind the botched attempt at kidnapping was both a relief and a concern. He was wondering when he would learn more, but supposed that with the police involved there would be all kinds of red tape to go through before they told him. Izuku was daydreaming about what sort of restrictions he would likely have put on him now, when he was pelted in the head by a whiteboard eraser.

“Pay attention, Midoriya!” The Badger barked at him from the front of the room.

“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!” Izuku yelped, jumping to his feet and giving an apologetic bow while most of the class laughed at his expense.

“Yeah, yeah,” the teacher said, waving a careless hand and turning back to his notes. “This place is always a damned zoo.”

Izuku sat back down, his cheeks hot with embarrassment. The rebuke was enough to snap Izuku out of his daydream and make him focus on the class for the rest of the morning.

He avoided the third degree interrogation by his classmates at lunchtime, because he was called to Principal Nezu’s office. From there, he was taken to a small conference room where Detective Tsukauchi, All Might and Aizawa were waiting for them. There was a bento for Izuku from Lunch Rush, and he was encouraged to eat as they discussed the morning’s villain apprehension.

“The two men that were arrested were working alone,” Detective Tsukauchi informed Izuku with a friendly smile. “They weren’t even using real guns, thank goodness. They were water pistols that looked like the real thing, but not dangerous at all.”

“That’s good,” Izuku said around a mouthful of rice. “But what did they want to grab me for?”

“Apparently those two Einsteins were upset about you taking down Stain, and said that having so many quirks was cheating,” Aizawa said in disgust.

“So...what did they plan to do?” Izuku asked. “I mean, not to be a jerk or anything, but they didn’t seem very prepared.”

Aizawa actually snorted a short laught hearing that. “That much was obvious from the start.”

“Their plan was to scare you into breaking Stain out of prison so that you could fight him, and I quote, ‘fair and square’,” Tsukauchi said, looking at his notepad.

Izuku stopped chewing and just stared.

“Seriously? If they thought I was good enough to take down Stain, were they counting on me being afraid of a gun to make me do what they said?”

“Apparently,” Principal Nezu said with a nod. “These men are habitual criminals who claim to follow the credo of Robin Hood, by stealing from the rich to give to the poor. In this case, the poor were themselves.”

“The point is, Midoriya-shounen, that these men were just petty criminals who had not been hired or coerced into trying to take you hostage,” All Might said.

“That’s a refreshing change, I guess?” Izuku mused.

He speared an octopus weenie with the little pick provided and nibbled on its tentacles.

“Does this mean I don’t need any extra special protection? I mean… I was right in front of the school, and all.”

“From now on, a staff member will be at the gate when you arrive to see you get through safely, but no other changes will be made,” Nezu confirmed.

“And the others won’t get in trouble for helping me?” he asked, just to be sure.

Kaminari and Honnenuki hadn’t really done anything wrong, technically. Kaminari had used his quirk on the vehicle and had not aimed it at the occupants (or that is what could be construed), and Honenuki had simply softened a patch of asphalt and the criminals had driven right into it. Kacchan, on the other hand...

“That will be on record as the use of a quirk in self-defense,” Tsukauchi assured him.

Izuku wasn’t sure that had really been what happened, but it was as good a spin as any if it kept them all out of trouble.

Once the principal had left to see the detective out, Izuku was left with Aizawa and All Might while he worked on finishing his lunch.

Aizawa only waited a beat before asking, “So what’s really going on around here?”

Izuku wasn’t surprised by the question when Aizawa asked it. Instead of answering, he took a large bite of fried chicken and looked at All Might while he chewed as if to say, ’Go ahead, I’ll follow your lead.’

“What do you mean?” All Might asked, managing to sound politely confused.

“Cut the crap, Yagi,” Aizawa said. “Most of my job as a hero is detective work. Something here doesn’t add up.”

Izuku swallowed his mouthful and took a long swig from the bottle of tea beside his bento. If he kept his mouth busy until lunch period was over, he might be able to escape.

Aizawa pointed at Izuku, who became very interested in the little cherry tomatoes that had been cut to look like flowers in his lunch.

“That kid has more than a dozen quirks, and I get that he’s different. He’s talented and intelligent, even. That doesn’t explain why you’ve got such a personal stake in all of this. So personal, in fact, that you and Sasaki are Midoriya’s proxy guardians.”

“He was attacked as a child by my greatest enemy,” All Might said easily. “We were brought in on the case and I took a shine to the boy.”

All Might smiled at Izuku as he said it, and it didn’t look forced at all. Aizawa didn’t look as though he thought that was a good enough answer and just stared expectantly.

“His babysitter for many years had been used to get to the boy, so he was left without a caretaker while his father was at work every day, and he was too young to stay on his own,” All Might explained patiently. “It’s understandable that they wouldn’t want to trust anyone else to look after him, after the caretaker they’d trusted for so long turned out to have been lying to them the whole time. So, MIrai suggested that we help out by taking the boy during the day as a sort of junior intern.”

Aizawa didn’t look impressed.

“Right,” he drawled, his tone fairly dripping with sarcasm, “You decided to take on a young boy as a daily responsibility right after you took down All For One and got so injured that you couldn’t hold your hero form anymore. Nothing says: ‘I need to rest and recover’ quite like taking on a babysitting gig.”

Both All Might and Izuku blinked in surprise. Aizawa had obviously done his homework and checked the timeline of events.

“Right after your battle with All For One, you were in the hospital for a while, then a rehab, then you started doing hero work again, on a limited basis,” Aizawa said, reciting facts they were all already aware of. “Not that many people knew that. They assumed you were on vacation or something. I didn’t really expect you to jump right back in, but then it stayed limited. You weren’t popping up in every damned place, saving the day like always. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

Izuku was sure there was more to it than that, but said nothing.

“For you to be unable to take on more hero work or hold your hero form for more than a few hours at a time, and take on a brat to train? What am I missing?” Aizawa demanded.

“Hey!” Izuku objected around a mouthful of food.

Aizawa spared him a dry glance and rolled his eyes a bit before continuing.

“This kid then got a super strength quirk not too much later, now that I think of it. I checked his quirk registry records on the school files. Then someone attempts to get to him in his own home and it’s your agency, not the police, who respond and set up protection. He gets into UA on your recommendation, and then he gets taken from right under our noses during the Sports Festival. Then he just happens to take down freaking Stain during his internship, and then picks up a shiny new quirk, and someone tries to kidnap him again.”

“When you put it like that…” All Might begins.

Izuku finishes his tea and glances at his watch.

“Look at the time! Lunch is just about over, so I’m just gonna head to class! Basic Hero Training is next, you know!”

“Have everyone suit up and gather at training field zeta,” Aizawa said.

He never broke eye contact with All Might as he said it.

“All Might and I still have things to discuss.”

Izuku deflated a bit and then gathered his trash before fleeing the room.

Chapter 50

Summary:

The 1-A kids get ready for finals!

At Basic Hero Training, Cementos turned a large field into a parkour course and changed it randomly while they were running through it. It was fun, even though a few of them got bruised up when the ground dropped out from under them, or a pillar slammed into them out of nowhere. Izuku had been pummeled by questions from his classmates when he demonstrated his new healing quirk on Sero, whose elbow had a dark bruise and was abraded enough to begin dripping blood. That led into the story they’d decided to tell others about being on the train, and stopping near a nursing home when the train had to make a brief unscheduled stop to wait for another train to move on ahead. Simple and easy to remember.

His new quirk almost made everyone forget that he’d been involved in the attempted kidnapping just that morning. Almost. In the locker room, trading their costumes for uniforms, Mineta reminded them all.

“Did you find out who tried to kidnap you, Midoriya?” he called across the room to him.

“Just a couple of psychos,” Izuku said with a bit of a self conscious laugh. “They were mad because Stain was their idol or something.”

“Only you, nerd,” Kacchan said with an eye roll.

Izuku paused. Kacchan seemed like he was making a real effort not to be a complete asshole, but he was still Kacchan. Izuku decided he could try to at least keep a civil attitude, and meet him halfway.

“I do seem to attract a lot of trouble,” he said ruefully. “Maybe it’s actually a quirk I picked up somewhere.”

Almost everyone laughed or at least smiled, including Kacchan. It was a nice feeling. On the walk back to class, Iida and Todoroki fell into step with him.

“What did the police have to say?” Iida asked quietly.

Izuku told them about how the two men had wanted him to break Stain out of prison, and Todoroki made a derisive sound.

“They have no idea how secure Tartarus really is,” Todoroki said.

Iida nodded in agreement, but still looked concerned.

“Stain’s influence in the crime world is no joke, and a lot of regular people have been putting him on a pedestal as well,” he said with a hand chop. “I’ve seen merchandise being sold to children; plastic knives and swords, the mask and scarf he wore. The people seem to disagree with his killing, but admire his ardent beliefs and dedication to them.”

Izuku nodded, though he hadn’t been out enough to see any merchandise. He could see why people might feel drawn to a philosophy of completely philanthropic heroism. He agreed with it himself, up to a point. He found the idea of becoming a hero just for fame and glory to be personally distasteful, but as long as they did their jobs when push came to shove, did the why of it really matter?

Aizawa was in the classroom when they arrived, and he only made the briefest of eye contact with Izuku before everyone settled for the last few minutes of the day. Aizawa asked Izuku to make copies of the study guide for everyone, so he passed out a blank paper to everyone before taking off his glove and touching the original. He walked up and down the row touching each blank paper until everyone had a copy while his teacher continued to talk.

“This is just a brief summary of what you can expect on the written portion of the exam. If you’ve taken sufficient notes and paid attention like you should, there’s no reason all of you shouldn’t be able to pass.”

Several students moaned in despair.

Once Aizawa had left the room (Izuku was relieved he hadn’t stayed behind and asked for a chat), the students worried about passing threw themselves on the mercy of the kids with the best grades, begging for help. Study sessions were hurriedly planned, with Yaoyorozu thrilled to have interest in her help, Iida agreed to host a group in the library after school, and somehow, Izuku was volunteered to tutor anyone who wanted to show up at his place after school. He didn’t really mind, but he was never quite sure how it happened.

“This time, we’ll bring the snacks!” Hagakure told Izuku as they shuffled out. “That should give you time to get home, yourself.”

Izuku caught up with All Might at the door to the parking lot and explained that his classmates were coming over to study.

“You’ve made some good friends,” he said with a fond smile as they drove.

“I guess so,” Izuku mused.

He wasn’t sure quite when it happened, but there were definitely three or four classmates he now considered good friends. People he felt he could talk to about everyday kinds of problems and joke with. The kind that felt comfortable coming to his apartment, even though he had a guard all the time and could never go out and do extra curricular stuff with them. On the topic of talking to friends…

“Did you and Aizawa sensei settle everything?” Izuku asked.

All Might blew out a breath that set his bangs fluttering.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “We came to an understanding. Basically, I decided that it could only be in your best interest if I brought him in on the secret of One For All.”

Izuku could feel his eyes stretch wide when he heard that.

“He’s your teacher, and can serve you better by knowing anything about your quirks that he can. He’s a good man, a great hero and imminently trustworthy, so you don ‘t have to worry about him ever betraying your secret.”

“What if they hurt him to find out about me?” Izuku asked grimly.

“I don’t think he’d talk. He takes his position extremely seriously.”

“No, I mean, what if someone hurts him because of me?”

All Might was silent for a moment to collect his thoughts.

“Midoriya-shonen, there really isn’t any way to determine if that would ever happen, but of all the people I could have trusted with this secret outside of the people that already know? He’s the one I think would be most prepared to face any threats and come out on top. He can erase quirks for a time, and he’s an incredibly capable fighter. Keep in mind that his quirk is erasure, and nothing else. Everything else he does is pure skill.”

Izuku considered this, and eventually nodded.

“I guess you’re right. He’s pretty incredible.”

“It never hurts to have another ally you don’t have to hide things from,” All Might said. “The nature of One For All means that that number will be a small one, but it's invaluable. I’m not going to be around forever; that’s just life.”

Izuku didn’t like to think about that, though he knew it was true. After all, if All Might could live forever, he’d hardly need a successor, would he?

“Thanks,” Izuku said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to teach me better if he knows what to watch for.”

All Might nodded with a smile.

“That’s the spirit!”

They reached his apartment, and Izuku hopped out, with Centipeder meeting at the door to the van and walking with him into the building.

“I heard you had a brush with some villains this morning,” the hero said as they headed to the stairwell.

Centipeder liked climbing the stairs with Izuku when he was on duty, and they often chatted about inconsequential things on the way. Today was really no different. The apartment was checked and Izuku let him know that he had some classmates that would be coming over to study, and that it was okay to bring them up.

He quickly changed into casual clothes and tidied up the random clutter here and there, then checked the fridge to make sure there were enough drinks for everyone. Then he settled down and sorted through his notes until the door buzzer sounded.

Uraraka came in first, bringing Sato with her. While Izuku was getting them settled, the buzzer sounded again. Then again. In no time at all Centipeder had brought up Sero, Todoroki, Ashido and Hagakure (bearing bags of snacks) and, to Izuku’s enormous surprise, Kacchan and Kirishima. The apartment felt very small, all of a sudden, but no one seemed to mind. Neither Izuku nor Kacchan said anything beyond polite greetings, and they basically stayed on the opposite sides of the room. Kacchan agreed to go over some math with Krisihima, Ashido and Sato, while Todoroki just seemed to be there to relax. Izuku worked with Uraraka and Hagakure on both English and Japanese.

Snacks were passed around, subjects discussed, and things went more smoothly than Izuku could have imagined. He was constantly aware of Kacchan on the other side of the room, but there was no drama. Sure, he shouted at Kirishima and Ashido when they didn’t understand something, and he whacked Kirisima over the head with his own notebook a few times, but that just seemed to make them laugh. Sato was the first to head out, Then Sero and Hagakure left, saying they’d be back tomorrow (which was a surprise to Izuku). Ashido and Kirishima apparently lived relatively close to one another and left together so they could ride the same train. Todoroki, Kacchan and Uraraka were still there, with Kacchan attempting to explain why the mathematical formula Uraraka had been using to solve an equation was wrong. Todoroki was simply relaxing and scrolling on his phone.

“I’m home!” Izuku’s father called out as he entered. “I hear we have guests!”

“Welcome home, dad!” Izuku said, hopping up to greet him. “Sorry I didn’t warn you.”

“It’s fine,” his dad said easily. “Finals are pretty soon! Studying?”

“Yep!” Izuku led his dad over to the living room area and smiled.

Introductions were made, his dad remembering Uraraka from the Sports Festival and her earlier visit. He knew about Todoroki because of the internship and the mess that followed, and gave him a little wave. Though his eyebrows shot up under his bangs when he saw Kacchan, he merely nodded and said that it was good to see him looking so well. Kacchan shoved his hands deep into his pockets and nodded.

“Same.”

He didn’t seem to know what to say after that, so he settled for making an excuse.

“I gotta go. The old hag’ll worry herself half to death if I’m too late.”

“Please tell your mother I’ll contact her soon,” Izuku was surprised to hear his dad say. “I was always sorry we were forced to cut off contact so suddenly.”

Kacchan looked like he might say more, but merely nodded.

“Got it.”

He grabbed his bag and left with a brusque, “Later, losers.”

“I think we’ve imposed on the Midoriyas for long enough,” Uraraka said, also getting to her feet. “Come on, Todoroki!”

Todoroki obediently got to his feet and pocketed his phone.

“Todoroki, could you make sure Uraraka gets to her train safely? She lives alone,” Izuku asked him as they gathered their things.

“You do?” Todoroki asked her with interest. “That sounds nice.”

Izuku was sure it did, to someone who was always under his father’s thumb.

“Tomorrow, you should plan on staying for dinner,” Izuku’s dad told them. “I’ve got to go out after work, but I’ll make sure Izuku has enough to have something delivered for everyone. Thanks for taking care of him!”

“It’s the other way around! You don’t have to--” Uraraka began.

“Thank you,” Todoroki said over her. “That would be nice.”

Once they were gone, Izuku’s dad laughed.

“You’ve got some interesting friends, Zu. I almost had a heart attack when I saw Katsuki-kun here. I thought maybe hell had frozen over.”

“I’m not sure it hasn’t,” Izuku said with a smile. “He just showed up with everyone else, but he wasn’t rude - or very rude, anyway, and actually helped everyone study.”

“I’ll be damned. I really should get in touch with Mitsuki and Masaru.”

The rest of the week was much the same, with everyone scrambling to cram in as much knowledge as they could in the time allotted. On the week the exams started, they had two exams each day, and as soon as those were out of the way, they crammed for the next day of torture. Izuku made sure his friends were well-fed (and made sure Uraraka took home leftovers) as they worked hard at studying. By the time the day for the last finals came, if any of them failed it wouldn’t be because they hadn’t tried, at least. Izuku was worried about Kirishima and Ashido, but the others would likely pass with little problem. Even Kacchan remained civil (except for his outbursts of frustration at Kirishima or Ashido) and continued to come to the study sessions all week.

Aizawa actually stayed awake while they all bent over their test papers, and occasionally walked around the room (possibly to keep himself from falling asleep). Izuku finished his tests in good time, and noticed that Kacchan finished even before he did, most of the time. By the time Aizawa called for pencils down, Ashido, Kaminari and Kirishima were all still writing frantically, trying to get a few more answers down for pretty much every test.

When they were dismissed for lunch, there were definitely two separate groups of students: those who felt they'd done well, and those who were very, very worried. Izuku was kind of surprised to see that Yoarashi was in the latter group, seeing as how he’d passed the written exam for the recommendation students. Maybe the written part had been the same for both recommended and entrance exam students? In that case, the others who had trouble this time had also passed last time.

“What do you think the practical is going to be like?” Uraraka asked.

“I heard from Kendo that an older student said we’d be fighting robots, like in the entrance exam!” Yoarashi told them. “Most of the others in class say that it should be pretty easy!”

Everyone seemed relieved by this, and the students who had been picking at their food after a less than stellar performance began to eat with more enthusiasm.

Izuku wasn’t so sure they’d make it that easy, and since it seemed counterproductive to have them repeat the test they’d given most students before they’d even become students. Maybe they would compare their scores to last time? He didn’t voice his misgivings; he didn’t want to cause any unnecessary stress when he didn’t have any concrete evidence. They would find out soon enough.

They were told to change into their hero gear for the practical test, and to meet in front of the school. There was excited chatter as they arrived to find a shuttle bus similar to the one they had taken to the USJ, and Kirishima voiced what many were thinking: they would be taken to one of the sites where they’d fought the robots. However, the shuttle stopped at one of the training cityscapes, but they weren’t directed to get off. Instead, Aizawa called Kaminari and Ashido and let them off the bus. Izuku could see that Principal Nezu was there waiting for them. There were a couple of men in suits, as well, but Iuzku couldn’t figure out who they were.

The next time the bus stopped, it was at the training field where they had played capture the flag as a class before. Power Loader was waiting with two men in suits when Aizawa told Iida and Ojiro to get off the bus. Each time they stopped, another pair of students met one of the hero staff members, who was accompanied by two men or women in suits. In the end, Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Kacchan and Izuku were the only ones left in the shuttle. They stopped at another city scape, and Aizawa called Izuku and Kacchan’s names. Izuku looked out the window to see All Might, in full hero gear and form, waiting for them with his trademark smile. A man and a woman, each wearing suits stood alongside him. As Izuku and Kacchan went to leave the bus, Aizawa stopped Kacchan.

“Remember that this is more than just a final exam; it’s the deciding factor of your probationary period.”

Kacchan nodded, then stepped off the bus behind Izuku. At his questioning look, Kacchan simply said,

 

“Let’s go crush this, nerd.”

Chapter 51

Summary:

Kacchan and Izuku vs. All Might

Notes:

Here you go! Hope it doesn't disappoint!

“Welcome to the practical portion of your final exam!” All Might greeted them with his usual booming voice and a broad smile. “These two fine people are from the school board and are here to observe your performance and will have a say in the grade you receive in the end, since I may not be able to see you at all times. They are also here to intervene if anything goes wrong.”

He gestured to the pair in suits, and they gave a polite bow, which the boys returned.

“Why wouldn’t you be able to see us, All MIght?” Izuku asked, looking around for any sign of robots or anything else they’d be facing.

“Because your final exam is to best me in a two on one encounter!” All MIght told him cheerfully.

Both boys’ jaws dropped.

Kacchan started to say, “We’re fu--”

“Let me explain,” All Might interrupted as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on them. “This doorway behind me is the only way in or out of this training ground, for the purposes of the exam. It’s the escape gate. Once one or both of you pass through it, the exam is over, and you win… unless the 30 minute time limit is reached before then. If that happens, you both fail. I’ll be doing my best to stop you from achieving that goal. You can also defeat me by getting a pair of handcuffs on me!”

He tossed them each a set of cuffs to use. They caught them, but Kacchan threw his hands into the air as if to say, ’a fat lot of good these will do us!’

“Um…” Izuku said, when all Kacchan seemed able to do was scowl. “You’re ALL MIGHT. All. Might. How the heck are we supposed to fight you?”

“Ah. I knew I was forgetting something!” All Might told them. “I’ve got these!”

He clamped metal cuffs around his wrists with a smile.

“These hyperdense wrist weights will give me a slight disadvantage! They increase my current weight threefold! You’ll still have your work cut out of you, though! I’m the villain in this scenario, and collateral damage means nothing to me. You’ll have to work together to get out of this one in one piece! You get a five minute head start, beginning now!”

When Izuku didn’t immediately move, Kacchan grabbed his arm and dragged him forward through the gate. Izuku jolted out of his panic mode and began to run alongside, finally following Kacchan around a corner about a block away.

“This is crazy! How are we supposed to do this?” Izuku asks, mostly talking to himself. “We need a plan!”

“No shit!” Kacchan said, looking a little wild.

“Do you have one?” Izuku asked. “I mean, we can’t beat him in a fight…”

“Not head on,” Kacchan agreed. “Maybe we can trick him? One of us can be the bait while the other sneaks up and cuffs him?”

“ Do you know how fast he is? We don’t have to cuff him if we can just escape,” Izuku pointed out.

“Just...run away?” Kacchan asked, looking thunderous. “What kind of hero…”

“It’s a valid tactic!” Izuku insisted. “Live to fight another day, sort of thing! If we split up, he can’t deal with us both at the same time. If we fight him, one or both of us is going to get the beating of a lifetime and we’re going to fail. Your idea about bait is good, but one of us should lead him further into the city, maybe try to trap him for a bit, while the other goes for the gate!”

“I don’t like it. Whoever's bait could get the shit beat out of them, and somehow I just know you’re going to volunteer!”

Izuku blushed slightly, because he absolutely had been about to do just that.

“I’ve got more riding on this than just a grade,” Kacchan said seriously. “What’s it going to look like if I waltz out of here without a scratch, and leave you to get mauled by All Might? I don’t think he’d go that easy on us, especially if we attack him. Plus, when am I ever going to get another chance to try to go up against him?”

“But that’s just it! He’d never expect you to be the one to go for the escape gate! He’d be waiting for you to show up and ambush him!” Izuku knew they had to settle this fast. “I have a better chance of hiding! I can levitate up to the roof of one of these buildings, and change my costume to blend in. I can lure him away, then hide!”

Izuku knew their time was almost up, and started tapping the components of his costume to turn gray to match the building they were currently crouching behind.

“Don’t make me regret this, nerd,” Kacchan growled.

Izuku beamed at him, truly stunned that Kacchan would trust him with this.

“Toss me up on the roof,” Kacchan told him, looking up at the five story building looming over them. I can’t use my explosions to travel… it’ll give me away so I have to go on foot. Also, take this…”

He handed Izuku a small grenade from his belt.

“It’s full of my sweat. You can use the explosion as a distraction if you need to.”

“Head west. If I use the grenade, I’ll throw it east, if I can.”

Izuku clutched the grenade like a prize and nodded before attaching it to his belt. Then he crouched down and threaded his fingers together. Kacchan planted his boot in Izuku’s hands and stiffened his body, shooting upward when Izuku heaved him toward the sky. The throw was a little short, but Kacchan caught the edge of the roof and clambered up, just as he heard the sound of concrete being smashed very close to their location. All Might had joined them and was getting into his role as villain.

Izuku paused just long enough to be sure Kacchan was on his way, and then darted off. He headed around the side of the building as he heard All MIght’s footsteps, and made sure to drag his feet just a little bit for the noise before levitating up to a window sill. All Might spotted him pretty quickly and punched the side of the building, making the whole structure tremble as if it were in an earthquake. Izuku leaped from the ledge to a similar one on the other side of the street, and began his retreat, heading east. He didn’t dare go even a little slowly now that All Might had caught sight of him.

All Might hadn’t lost much speed, hyperdense weights or not, and Izuku not only had to stay ahead of him. He had to dodge flying cars and telephone poles and other things that All Might was hurling at him as they raced in a desperate game of tag. Izuku hoped his youth and more compact build gave him the edge in this, allowing him to maneuver more tightly around corners and squeeze down very narrow allies.

He ricocheted off of buildings with All Might on his tail, and just barely had time to toss Kacchan’s grenade down a street opposite of the way he was travelling when All Might was briefly out of sight as he rounded a corner. Izuku was also making his way toward the escape gate, only by a roundabout route, to buy Kacchan time. It would be bad if they got there at the same time and had to face All Might in battle, after all. At the same time, if there were any nasty surprises that kept Kacchan from getting there, he wanted to be close enough to try for it himself.

The grenade exploded, and All Might paused to look in the other direction, likely expecting Kacchan to explode out of hiding to attack. Izuku took the opportunity to dart into a building through a window. Sure, he broke the window, but once he was inside he could race for the roof. If he was lucky, All Might would suspect a trap or ambush of some kind and be a little more cautious about his pursuit.

That was Izuku’s first mistake.

Instead of following Izuku inside, All Might simply punched the outside of the building. The whole floor heaved and tilted, making Izuku stumble as he made for the door on the other side of the room. There was no furniture of any kind; these buildings were basically just props. Izuku wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them were completely hollow inside, with no stairs or rooms at all, just placed to make it look more urban for the sake of realism. Another hit made Izuku wonder if All Might intended to bring the building down. He had told them from the start that he was playing a villain with no regard for collateral damage, after all.

What was taking Kacchan so long? It seemed like forever since they’d parted ways! They hadn’t been that far from the gate to begin with! Had All Might just knocked him unconscious on his way to deal with Izuku?

Izuku made his way drunkenly through the building as it swayed on its foundation. He managed to make it to the other side and found a window that had been broken out by the violent shaking. He leaped from the window to the building next to it, and used his levitation to scale it quickly and climb onto its roof. The roof was unimpressive and stark. There were a couple of antennas that likely didn’t hook up to anything, and low wall around the perimeter, but little else. Izuku quickly got low and tapped his suit to turn it white to match the color of the roof. He found the shaded side, where the low wall left a stripe of shadow and rolled as far against the wall as he could manage. He quickly retrieved a plastic shower cap that he’d stowed in one of his pouches, and turned it white, too. He jammed it over his hair, then shielded as much of his head as he could in his arms. All Might wouldn’t be fooled for long, and even as the building he’d just fled crumbled to the ground in a plume of smoke, dust and small bits of debris, All MIght landed on the roof where Izuku hid with a with a heavy THUD.

Izuku held his breath and hoped he was virtually invisible.

All Might seemed to be using the height of the roof to get a better vantage point over the area, and Izuku wondered if he would be able to see Kacchan from up here. He couldn't let that happen. He watched through a gap in his arms as All Might got closer, practically standing on top of Izuku as he searched the alleyways below from the edge of the roof. Would it count if Izuku could get the cuffs on All Might’s ankles? He didn’t see why not!

That was when he made his second mistake.

Moving as stealthily as he could, Izuku reached for the cuffs at his belt and tried to reach into a position that would allow him to get the cuffs on All Might. Faster than his mind had time to process, All Might had him by the arm and was holding him up in the air by the wrist, tightly enough that he wouldn’t be able to pull loose, even with One For All-- not without breaking his arm, anyway. The cuffs clattered to the ground, useless.

“Nice try,” All Might told him with a sneer. “But not nearly good enough! Now that I’ve got you, I can go after Bakugou before he gets through that gate! Better hurry!”

With that, All Might leaped off of the roof, still holding tight to Izuku’s arm, dragging him behind like a flag in the wind. He had to think of something, fast!

Swinging as much as he could with the force of the wind buffeting him around, Izuku managed to hook a leg over All Might’s arm, and then the other, It took a bit of contortion, but he used as much strength as he could to kick at All Might’s head, trying to distract him or make him lose his grip.

“Gotcha!” All Might suddenly exclaimed.

Izuku looked ahead of them as they soared toward the ground and saw Kacchan making an all-out sprint for the gate, which showed that only ten minutes of their thirty minute window had elapsed. How was that even possible? It felt like it had been an hour since he and Kacchan had parted ways. Izuku had just enough time to register that Kacchan wasn’t moving quite fast enough, when he felt All Might grab the back of his costume and rip him off of his arm like a person might roughly extricate himself from a feisty cat’s claws. A moment later, Izuku was being thrown. Hard. He barely had time to realize he was right on target to collide with Kacchan, and shouted.

“DUCK!”

Izuku relied on his gymnastics training and balance quirk as he rocketed through the air toward Kacchan. He turned in mid-flight so that his feet were facing forward, just in case, then used One For All on his levitation quirk. The speed he was traveling at was too much for the levitation to negate, but he did manage to veer upward, and barely avoid hitting Kacchan. Izuku let himself drop right next to the gate, and used pull as hard as he could on Kacchan (who was already up and running again, using his explosions to speed him along), dragging him to the gate even faster. Kacchan collided with him, and they both cartwheeled through the escape gate in a tangle of arms and legs just as All Might landed with a crash just inside of it, cracking the ground under his feet with the force of it.

The Escape gate played a little blare of trumpets as they tumbled through, and the man and the woman in suits stepped forward with smiles on their faces. Nezu’s voice was emitting from the gate, where a little cutout picture of the principal was waving mechanically and repeating, “You Pass!” over and over.

“Well done, both of you!” All Might told them, dusting himself off as he passed through the gate and removed the cuffs on his wrists. “I must say I was surprised that it took young Bakugou as long as it did to make it to the gate!”

“I was bein’ followed by a drone,” Bakugou said, getting his breath back after detangling himself from Izuku and getting to his feet. “It was hard to shake off. I didn’t know if it was weaponized or anything.”

Kacchan had scrapes on his cheeks and shoulders, but was otherwise unhurt. Izuku was a bit more beat up, but nothing worse than he might receive in training. Had All Might gone easy on them?

“Ah,” The man in the suit said. “I’m afraid we failed to inform you both that we would be monitoring you via drones during your exam. You did an impressive job of hiding from us.”

Izuku looked at All Might somewhat accusingly.

“Sorry,” All Might said contritely. “I forgot about that bit.”

“I never noticed any drones,” Izuku admitted, feeling a little ashamed about that.

“Oh, the one following you was up pretty high, since you were engaging with All Might. We were afraid any resulting conflicts would damage it or buffet it off course, so we kept it at a much higher elevation.”

The woman nodded.

“You were both moving so quickly around the city that we would have needed to take it higher just to track the both of you, anyway.”

Izuku felt slightly mollified by that, so he let it go.

“So… we pass?”

“You pass!” All MIght agreed with a grin. “I have no reason to hesitate to report that you worked well to formulate a plan together and executed it quite satisfactorily.”

Both boys seemed to sag a little with relief. Izuku held up a hand to Kacchan, and after the barest hesitation, Kacchan returned the high-five.

They got a ride back to the school with the pair in suits, where they found a handful of their classmates waiting for them. The rest were still out at whichever locations they had been left at.

Hagakure and Shouji were there, as well as Jiro and Koda, though both of them seemed quite shaken. Izuku noticed that Jiro had blood around at least one of her ears, and wondered if she’d been cut. As they were gathering to talk about their experiences, a car pulled up with Uraraka and Aoyama inside, and they immediately announced their success, though Uraraka was acting fidgety and embarrassed, somehow. Izuku decided she was probably still keyed up from her exam. She had been paired with Aoyama against Thirteen, who was pretty formidable.

Tokoyami and Tsuyu had passed against Ectoplasm, and Izuku couldn’t wait to hear how they had managed that, since Ectoplasm seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of clones to fight with. Iida and Ojiro both passed against Powerloader, which had to have been pretty tough, since the man was a veritable powerhouse when in his element, which he had been. Todoroki and Yaoyorozu came back with Aizawa on the shuttle they had all ridden earlier to declare that they had passed against the sensei, but it had been close. Everyone had been impressed and amazed that they’d passed against All Might.

The last students to arrive back were the ones who looked the most dejected. Kirishima and Sato had run out of time against Cementos, and Kaminari and Ashido had been trapped for the full thirty minutes by Principal Nezu. Mineta had somehow passed against Midnight, while Sero said he failed, even though they were teammates. There was definitely a story behind that, Izuku was sure.

“Okay everyone - hit the showers, see Recovery Girl if you need to, and meet me back in the classroom in twenty,” Aizawa told them.

After everyone was assembled again, Aizawa stood in front of them and simply said, “You all passed the written tests.”

There were cheers and sighs of relief from all directions. Even those who had done the tutoring were glad to know their efforts hadn’t been a total waste. Aizawa passed out their papers and Izuku was pleased to see that he’d scored a 97% on the English portion, and nothing below a 92 on any of his other subjects.

“Now, I seem to recall telling you that you had to pass all of your tests to be eligible to go to the summer training camp,” Aizawa reminded them. “And five of you failed the practical.”

Five heads drooped, and Ashido even got a little teary eyed.

“You guys had better take lots of pictures and stuff for me!” she said with a sniffle.

“You’re all going to training camp,” Aizawa told them just as flatly as ever. “It was a logical ruse to make you perform well. There’s no staff available to put you through hell here, so you’ll be going through remedial hell, AFTER training camp hell each day you’re there.”

Despite this forbidding sounding announcement, the class broke into cheers. Everyone except Izuku, anyway. He had a decision to make and stayed seated after the bell rang.

“I don’t think I should go to camp,” Izuku told Aizawa without preamble after the class had filed out.

He had waved off his friends and left them to make plans to go shopping for camping supplies and that sort of thing.

“You’re thinking about how you got taken from the Sports Festival?” Aizawa asked, as if Iuzku’s declaration didn’t surprise him at all.

“Mostly,” Izuku admitted. “It’s just… I seem to be a target for all kinds of crazy people, and being at a camp away from school would just make everyone else around me a target, too. The thing at the USJ… they were fine with killing a few of us just to flush out All Might. Do you really think they’d change their minds about that, if they wanted to come after me?”

“The last time they took you turned out really badly for them, though,” Aizawa pointed out. “Why would they try again?”

Aizawa was watching Izuku intently, as if trying to urge him wordlessly to think critically.

“Shigaraki isn’t exactly stable, you know?” Izuku said, blowing out his cheeks so that it ruffled his bangs. “Maybe he just wants me dead, now? Before All Might fought All For One, Granny Ito said that they were going to take me and not give me back the next time she took me to them. Do you know about Granny Ito?”

“I’ve been filled in,” Aizawa said with a nod.

“Well, that’s when she told us what she’d been doing the whole time; taking me to All For One for… things. Then they told her that she should bring me, and then they wouldn’t need her anymore. Then All Might went to fight All For One, and we all thought he was dead, right up until the Sports Festival… but Shigaraki was still watching me, even after that. I guess now it makes more sense, since All For One wasn’t really dead.”

Aizawa still didn’t make any comment, just letting Izuku say what he felt he needed to say, though he raised an eyebrow when Izuku said that Shigaraki had been watching him.

“But Dr. Tsubasa isn’t dead, and if he was the one experimenting on me, then maybe he stayed working with Shigaraki. Maybe they still want me for more experiments. Maybe they need me in order to make more nomu.”

Izuku’s voice was getting thicker as a lump worked its way into his throat. It was beyond disturbing to him that any part of him had helped create those monsters.

“My point is, they obviously don’t have a problem hurting anyone to get what they want. Isn’t it just asking for trouble to make ourselves a great big target with me in the center?”

Aizawa must have figured that Izuku was finished and said, “All of that is true, except for one thing. No one knows where we’re going for training camp. It's not a UA owned property, and absolutely nothing about it has been recorded in any computer. Only a small handful of people know about it and the only way to phone in or out of the area we’ll be in is a satellite phone that will be locked away except in emergency. You can even ask Sir Nighteye to look into the future to make sure, if you want.”

Izuku sighed in frustration.

“That’s great and all, But Sir says that the things he foresees always come true. Always. It doesn’t matter what he sees, because there’s no stopping it, even if I know it’s coming.”

If nothing was going to happen, his mind could rest at ease, but if something was, he’d be dreading it the entire time and be helpless to stop it.

“Well, I happen to believe that’s just bull,” Aizawa said, “But I see your point. But consider this: If Shigaraki somehow learns about the camp and decides to attack you there, what do you think he’ll do if you’re not there? Just shrug and head out? Is that what happened when All Might failed to be at the USJ when he attacked?”

Izuku pinched his lip as he considered that point.

“What if we made it obvious that I wasn’t there? Like...I go out shopping with Sir or something while camp is going on?”

“So you’d rather endanger strangers in a packed city than friends that have a better chance of defending themselves in a remote location? Because anyone who’s out in public while you’re throwing him off the scent by being seen out and about is going to be in danger. That’s the reason you’ve been so confined at home and guarded whenever you leave it.”

“You really think I should go to camp, then?” Izuku asked uncertainly.

“You’ve got at least one incredibly volatile quirk that needs taming before it hurts you, and the rest could be strengthened, too,” Aizawa said. “I think it’s probably the safest place for you.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Izuku said.

“Believe me kid, that much is obvious.”

Chapter 52

Summary:

Training Camp arc begins! The beginning will seem familiar, but just wait...

Notes:

Gah! It was a hard week y’all! My fridge went out and had to be replaced, that THAT fridge stopped working. It was a whole saga, and I’m glad it’s over. Also, work has been kicking my ass! Some of you were disappointed that the last chapter was too much like canon, so hopefully this upcoming arc won’t disappoint too much. Some things are the same (especially to start with) but there will be a twist, so hang on, okay?

Izuku was stunned when his father agreed with Aizawa.

“You’re a target, and need all of the training you can get,” he said over dinner that night. “And a location that only the teachers that will be there with you know, that isn’t in any computer connected to the school seems to be about as safe as anyone can get. Some time out in the fresh air with friends wouldn’t do you any harm, either. I feel bad that you’re always cooped up at home and school.”

“I thought for sure you’d want me to stay as far away from camp as possible,” Iuzku said. “I was prepared for you to forbid it.”

“Are you disappointed that I didn’t? I thought you liked school, and wanted to train more.”

“I do! Of course I do! I just don’t want to put anyone else in danger,” Izuku said.

He related what Aizawa had told him, and his father nodded in agreement.

“It sounds like they have all of the bases covered,” his dad said. “You should go. Do you need any supplies? We can order anything you need online and probably get it delivered in plenty of time. You’ve got a couple of days, right? If you order stuff tonight, it should be fine with two day shipping.”

And that was how Izuku came to be standing in front of UA with his fellow classmates, waiting to board a bus to an unknown location for a week-long training camp. According to Sir Nighteye (who had looked two weeks into his future - not sooner, not later), he’d seen Izuku alive and well. That was something, at least.

Once everyone was on the bus and accounted for, Aizawa told them that they had originally been scheduled to use a campground owned by UA for the week, but recent events had made that inadvisable. Instead, they were headed in the opposite direction, and they would stop in about an hour for a break before traveling the rest of their way to their destination. Everyone had settled in and started to pass around snacks and chat happily, content in the idea that they’d be on the road a while. The only dim spot was a moment when, just as they were getting on the bus, Mineta began talking about how the girls from both class A and B would be at the camp, and he could ‘have his pick’ of a ‘buffet of beauties’ that would be available, practically drooling as he said it.

“Yaoyorozu isn’t the only one built like a goddess,” Mineta said dreamily.

Kirishima had told him to knock it off, but Aizawa had simply cut off that sort of talk.

“Strike two.”

Mineta looked stunned. “I didn’t even do anything!”

Aizawa stared him into a cowed silence before saying quietly, “Word or deed, were my exact words, I believe.”

Mineta threw himself into a seat toward the back of the bus, as far from Aizawa as he could get.
Izuku settled into a seat about halfway down by the window, and Iida sat beside him. After Aizawa had finished talking, Izuku promptly fell asleep. He hadn’t gotten much rest the previous night, because he was too nervous and excited about the upcoming trip.

He only woke as the bus came to a stop. His phone told him that they’d only been on the road for about an hour, which was exactly what Aizawa had told them would happen. The bus pulled over onto a lookout over a green, forested valley with a mountain in the distance. It was pretty, and Izuku clambered off of the bus with everyone else, stretching his arms over his head and trying to shake off the sleepiness that still clung to him.

“Oh my gosh!” Uraraka said, suddenly gripping Izuku’s shirt.

He startled at her excitement at first, half expecting trouble, but then saw where she was looking and felt his own excitement bloom.

“The Wild, Wild Pussycats!” Izuku gushed.

“Two of them, anyway!” Uraraka agreed.“They’re so awesome!”

Izuku noted that there was a boy with them, around five or six years old, and he looked decidedly unhappy to be there. That was overshadowed by the fact that the two women were introducing themselves with enthusiasm and theatrics. Some of his classmates seemed to know who they were, but a couple were confused.

“Mandalay and Pixie-Bob!” Izuku couldn’t help but blurt out for his classmates. “They’re half of a four person team formed over a decade ago that specialize in mountain rescue! This is their twelfth year--”

Izuku suddenly had a very large cat’s paw covering his face, and the only thing that kept him from topping over backward in surprise was his balance quirk.

“We’re EIGHTEEN at heart!” Pixie-Bob told him fiercely.

Clearly, he’d stepped on one of her personal landmines.

“At heart?” she prompted expectantly.

“You’re eighteen!” Izuku supplied obediently.

“I wonder where Tiger and Ragdoll are?” Uraraka said.

“They’re greeting Class 1-B at another site!” Pixie-Bob told them. “All of this forest, all the way to the base of the mountain and a little beyond is a nature reserve where you’ll be training your quirks all week!”

She pointed to a mountain that looked like it was still quite a few kilometers away.

“It’s not that far away,” Kirishima said. “Why did we stop here?”

“It’s 9:30 right now, so if you’re fast, maybe by noon…” Mandalay told them with a glint in her eye.

Sato was already shaking his head. “No way.”

“Could this mean?” Tsuyu asked, looking concerned.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this!” Kaminari said.

“I think we should get back to the bus…” Sero said warily.

Many of his classmates turned and tried to make a run for it, but it was already too late.

“Your training starts now,” Aizawa told them.

PIxie-Bob was suddenly blocking the way to the bus, making everyone who was running in that direction skid to a halt. She crouched and put her paws on the ground. Without further warning, the ground heaved and formed a huge wave of rocks and dirt that sent nearly everyone tumbling over the guardrail and into the valley below.

Izuku saw what was happening and activated his levitation, but couldn’t hold it for too long without floating away. He had a rhythm that he’d worked out where he’d allow himself to get some height, then drop a few centimetres before activating his quirk again. It sort of let him hover, but it was clumsy and took a certain amount of concentration..

“Midoriya,” Aizawa drawled when he saw his student had evaded the initial expulsion. “Get down there with the others.”

“Do I have to?” he asked with a grin. “It didn’t look very fun.”

He should have expected it when Aizawa erased his levitation quirk and let him drop to the ground, but he still felt a little shocked when his butt hit the ground. It didn’t stop him from laughing. When his teacher looked as though he would pick Izuku up and toss him bodily over the side, Izuku jumped to his feet.

“Okay, okay! I’ll go!” Izuku relented.

Before the ground could heave again, Izuku vaulted over the railing and let himself drop, albeit a little less violently than some of his friends had just done.

“What the hell was that?” Sero asked, dangling from a tree branch he had shot his tape onto to slow his descent.

“Pixie-Bob’s quirk is Earth Flow,” Izuku told him as he landed on his feet amidst his classmates. “You can probably guess why.”

Many of them had managed to right themselves as they were falling, landing more or less safely at the bottom, though most of them got pelted by dirt and small rocks. Aoyama had wrenched his wrist pretty badly, though it didn’t seem broken. Izuku tried to be surreptitious about it when he went over and used his newest quirk to heal it.

“All you have to do is make it through the Beast’s Forest to the base camp at the foot of the mountain! You have three hours! It’s private land, so you can use your quirks freely!” Mandalay called down to them as Izuku repaired Aoyama’s arm. “If you're not there by lunchtime, you don’t eat!”

“We’re supposed to walk all that way by lunchtime?” Jiro asked no one in particular.

Izuku thought the terrain was a little rough, but not really unmanageable. They could probably jog that far with a break or two and make it in a couple of hours.

“Quit squawkin’ about it and start walkin’!” Kacchan said with annoyance. “A little walk in the woods ain’t gonna kill you.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth though, than a huge ‘beast’ appeared in front of them. If Izuku had to compare it to something, he’d say it resembled a troll from a nightmarish fairy tale.

Koda rushed forward and yelled as loud as Izuku had ever heard him for it to be calm and stand down, but it didn’t listen to him at all. It towered over all of them menacingly, causing several of them to panic. The rest dove in and worked together to take it down. Kacchan’s explosions ripped through it’s head while Izuku punched one of it’s legs off, revealing the dirt, rock and wood it was made from.

Almost immediately another three smaller creatures replaced it, lumbering toward them with seemingly malicious intent.

“These things aren’t alive!” Yaoyorozu shouted. “No need to hold back!”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it!” Kacchan said, letting loose with more explosions.

Shouji and Jiro used their quirks to detect beasts that were headed their way, and the rest worked to take them down. The creatures were stubborn and hard to take down, but mostly the class’s biggest challenge wasn’t the monsters, it was just being exhausted. They were forced to fight almost nonstop as they attempted to make headway toward the base of the mountain.

They developed a kind of rhythm in their movements and quickly learned how to work as a team, or break into multiple teams to take on their obstacles. When there was a break in the appearance of monsters, they all dropped to the loamy ground gratefully for a rest. Todoroki made each of them a chunk of ice to help with thirst and the oppressive heat and humidity, even in the shade of the trees.

“How much farther?” Kaminari whined when Iida said they should get moving again.

The truth was that many of them could have already made it to camp with their quirks, but stuck around to make sure the others made it safely. Izuku levitated up over the trees to try to get an idea of how much further they needed to go and to be sure they were still on track. He caught sight of the base of the mountain and sighed with relief.

“Looks like maybe another kilometre or so. We definitely missed lunch.”

“No kidding,” Sato said sadly. “I’m starving, and I’m also out of sugar cubes.”

Kirishima just smiled ruefully when his stomach let out a mournful sounding gurgle of emptiness.

Izuku noted that Yaoyorozu looked markedly thinner than she had that morning, and knew that she’d been producing weapons and replacing them for classmates whose quirks weren’t suited for fighting against rock and dirt. Uraraka’s cheeks were even rosier than usual, and all of them were covered in sweat and grime.He’d used his healing quirk a couple of times on the way when Ashido had sliced her arm on a sharp piece of flying rock and Hagakure got slammed in the face with a thick branch that snapped back at her after a rock creature had passed it. Izuku was drained, and super glad that no one else needed serious first aid.

When they finally made it through the break in the trees and into the clearing where the base camp was, they didn’t even have the energy to cheer. The sun was actually starting to get lower in the sky, and it was hours past lunchtime. Aizawa and Mandalay were standing, waiting for them, with the little boy from earlier staring daggers at them from behind them.

“Well! Looks like you all got well acquainted with the Beast’s Forest! Mandalay said cheekily. “Welcome back!”

“THREE HOURS?” Sato asked in exasperation.

“Well, that’s how long it would have taken us! Sorry!” was her unrepentant-sounding answer.

A moment later, Pixie-Bob came out of the building carrying a large crate, which she set down when she saw that the students were back. She gushed over how strong and impressive Midoriya, Kacchan, Todoroki and Iida were for a while before Aizawa reigned her in.

Izuku heard Mandalay tell Aizawa that Pixie-Bob’s biological clock was ticking, but it was still kinda weird that she was eyeing high school boys.

“Um… Who’s the kid?” Hagakure asked, startling Kaminari, who seemed to have not noticed her beside him. “Is he one of yours?”

“This is Kota,” Mandalay introduced. “He’s my cousin’s child, who lives with us now. Say hello, Kota.”

Kota just glared angrily.

“Hey Kota,” Izuku tried, using a friendly voice and stepping closer. “I’m Midoriya Izuku. It’s nice to… whoa!”

Izuku was taken by surprise when the boy’s arm shot out, obviously intent on punching him in the crotch. Only Izuku’s training had him blocking, and diverting the fist away with a gentle hand.

“I hate you!” Kota shouted, trying to kick Izuku in the leg, instead.

Izuku easily stepped out of the way, and Kota lost his balance and fell as a result.

“I hate you all!” Kota shouted hoarsely. He got to his feet, ignoring Izuku’s offered hand up, and balled his hands into fists at his sides. “I hate heroes! You’re all just wasting your time!”

He stamped his foot angrily before turning and running off into the trees.

Mandalay sighed and shook her head.

“Sorry about that. His parents died two years ago, and he’s angry at the whole world,” she said sadly. “We were hoping he’d warm up over time, but so far he’s resisted.”

Aizawa merely said, “Your things are still on the bus, go get them and get washed up for dinner in the cafeteria. After that you’ll bathe and get some sleep. The real training starts first thing tomorrow.”

Izuku didn’t think he had a lot more energy left, but the mention of food sparked a reserve somewhere inside, and had him hurrying with the rest of the class into the building.

The cafeteria was an outdoor seating area with several long picnic tables. There was a veritable feast waiting for them, and they wasted no time in digging in. Talk was lively and gratitude expressed from every direction as they ate their fill.

“Well. this is the last time we’ll be doing this for you, so enjoy it while you can,” Pixie-Bob told them.

They shouted as collective, “Thank you!” in reply. Izuku noticed that Kota slipped away during the meal, disappearing into the forest without a backward glance.

After dinner, they all scrubbed themselves clean and headed for the large outdoor hot spring to soak their sore muscles. There was a tall bamboo wall that divided the girls’ side from the boys’, and Izuku was disgusted to see Mineta standing beside it, looking up at the top with a calculating look on his face. Did he not remember Aizawa’s warning of Strike Two just that morning?

Apparently not.

“You know of all of the things man needs to survive, food and water and sleep are at the bottom of the list. None of that matters without women!” Mineta said, never taking his eyes off the partition. “The girls are right on the other side of this! Soaking their soft skin in the hot water, without a stitch of clothing on!”

“You should be soaking your own soft skin, asshole,” Kacchan growled at him from nearby.

Kacchan was leaning against the edge of the pool, a towel folded over his eyes, sounding annoyed. Iida was standing, chopping the air, scolding Mineta for ‘unseemly behavior’ and several of the boys were just ignoring him in embarrassment. A few seemed to be intrigued by the idea of their naked classmates so close, but none were about to give voice to it.

With a sigh, Izuku stood with the intention of having a private word with Mineta, but the other boy had reached a decision of his own. Popping the balls from his head, Mineta began to scale the partition incredibly quickly by creating hand and footholds with incredible speed.

“Really?” Izuku muttered.

He tried levitation, but the water dragged him down too much, so he waded to the edge and hopped out. Instead of levitating, he began to scale the wall, finding that his teflon quirk kept him from sticking to the balls, which were squishy and felt kind of gross.

“Before trying to be a hero, why don’t you try being a decent human being?”

Izuku looked upward to see Kota at the top of the wall, seconds before he kicked Mineta in the face, knocking him off of the make-shift ladder and sending him tumbling backward.

“Thanks Kota!” came Ashido’s voice from the other side.

Kota looked backward and gave them a smirk and a thumbs up, which seemed odd to Izuku, since the boy had said earlier how much he hated all of them. Maybe it was just males he hated? Izuku reached out and snagged Mineta from the air by the ankle. Mineta’s flailing caused his towel to fall off, and Izuku curled his lip at that view before he tossed the boy backward into the water and a softer landing than hitting the concrete. Once he was sure Mineta was safe, he hopped down to the ground himself.

Mineta came up spluttering and cursing as he swam toward the side. “That damned brat could have killed me!”

“You’ll be lucky if the girls don’t kill you first, dumbass,” Sero told him without sympathy. “Did you really think you wouldn’t get caught?”

Iida took over from there, and took Mineta by the arm and escorted him back to the changing room, lecturing the whole way. He came back a few minutes later, saying he wouldn't be bothering the girls again that evening.

“Thanks, Iida!” Uraraka called out, loudly enough for them to hear.

“Of- of course!” Iida stammered, a slight blush on his cheeks that had nothing to do with the hot summer air or steam from the bath.

Izuku had gone back to soaking in the water, disgruntled that he would now have to have a talk with Aizawa about it as the class rep before he could get any rest that night.

“You didn’t stick to his hair balls,” Shouji commented from where he was submerged nearby. He currently had mostly eyes on the ends of his tentacles, but the one nearest Izuku had a mouth.

“I suspected I wouldn’t,” Izuku said. “One of my quirks doesn’t let stuff stick to me. I still need to ask Ashido to hit me with her acid one of these days, to see if that would do anything to me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a strange person,” Shouji said.

Izuku laughed.

He only soaked for a few more minutes, then dressed in a robe and went to find Aizawa.

The door to the staff’s room in the lodge slid open, and Izuku saw that Mineta was already there, though he couldn’t see the other boy’s face. He was sitting in a chair, with only the purple bumps of his hair visible over the back of it.

“Ah. I was coming to give you a report about Mineta, but…”

“Come in.”

Aizawa stepped aside and Izuku felt uncomfortable as he entered the room. The door closed, and his teacher led the way around the chair Mineta was in, and gestured for Izuku to take another chair next to him. Aizawa remained standing.

“Mineta came to me to file a complaint against Izumi Kota; the boy from earlier. He says the boy kicked him in the face, causing him to fall from a height. Is that true?”

Izuku looked incredulously at Mineta, but nodded. “Yes sir. That much is true.”

“That much?” Aizawa prompted.

“Yes sir.”

“My question, that Mineta was just about to answer, is where exactly this took place, since everyone was supposed to be in the baths at this time.”

Izuku looked at Mineta, so was looking back at him, looking somewhat panicked, but mostly defiant.

“Yes, sir. We were all at the baths.” Izuku said when Mineta didn’t seem inclined to speak.

Aizawa arched an eyebrow, but didn’t look the least bit surprised to hear it.

“How did you get kicked from high up, if you were in the baths?” he asked Mineta.

Izuku was pretty sure their teacher already knew the answer, but was deliberately making Mineta squirm.

Mineta sealed his lips closed, as if realizing that he’d just placed the final nail in his own coffin, and Aizawa was holding a big hammer.

“Thank you, Midoriya,” Aizawa finally said. “Go get some sleep. You’ll be up at sunrise.”

“Yes sir.”

Mineta didn’t say a word as Midoriya gave him a pitying look and left the room. He didn’t know what would happen to the other boy now, but it wasn’t likely to be something he’d enjoy.

Chapter 53

Summary:

Training camp begins for real.

It didn’t take very long for everyone to settle down that night. A few of the boys asked what had happened to Mineta, but all Izuku could tell them was that he was in a meeting with Aizawa. After that, the mood sobered and everyone eventually dropped off to sleep.

When a hand shook Izuku’s shoulder, he groaned but blinked his eyes open and was halfway to his feet before he realized that his alarm hadn’t gone off, and it was still dark. He looked around and noted that all of the other boys were still asleep, then his eyes landed on Aizawa, who motioned for him to be quiet and follow him. Izuku picked his way through sprawling bodies scattered on futons and stepped out into the hallway. Aizawa led him all the way to the entrance of the lodge building before he spoke.

“One if the students in 1-B has an injury of some kind, and we could use your help.”

Izuku’s eyes widened and he nodded. “Of course! Where are they?”

Aizawa led Izuku outside to a golf cart with all terrain tires on it and they set off down a trail that curved around the base of the mountain.

“How did they get injured this late at night?” Izuku asked.

“They didn’t. The injury happened earlier and they didn’t think it was that serious, so they didn’t tell anyone about it. After they went to bed, the pain became worse, their leg got swollen, and now they can’t bear any weight on it.”

Izuku nodded. Sometimes injuries could do that. It might have started out as something minor, then become worse over time.

After just a couple of minutes they rounded a bend, and another lodge came into view, it’s lights blazing in one half. Izuku hurried after Aizawa and went to a small room where a boy with dark hair, his face etched with pain, waited. Izuku winced at the sight of his leg, which had the pajama pant leg rolled up to expose a swollen, red limb that was much larger than it should have been.

“I don’t know how much help I can be,” Izuku said, “But I’ll do my best.”

“Sir Nighteye said that your healing quirk can be boosted by other people,” Aizawa said.

“Sort of. It takes energy away from me to speed up the healing, but if I don’t have enough energy, I’m supposed to be able to draw it out of other people who are touching me.” Izuku said.

He hadn’t really needed to try it out, so he wasn't exactly sure.

“Who’re you?” the boy asked Izuku through gritted teeth.

His face was sweaty, and Izuku wondered if he was running a fever from the infection that seemed to have taken over his leg.

“Midoriya Izuku,” he supplied, trying to sound friendly. “I have a healing quirk, and I’m going to try to help you feel better.”

The boy nodded tersely. “Kaibara Sen.”

Izuku went over and gingerly put his fingertips against the injured leg, furrowing his brow at how hot it was. He closed his eyes and thought about how the leg should look, and somehow instantly knew what was wrong.

“It’s a spider bite,” he said to Aizawa and Vlad King, who were standing by, talking quietly about contingency plans. “Something venomous.”

Izuku concentrated hard, keeping his eyes closed and willing the leg to go back to normal. He didn’t realize that he was starting to droop on his own feet until he felt a steadying hand on his arm. Then another hand on his other arm. He felt a surge of energy at the contact and understood what was happening; his quirk was taking energy from his teacher to use to heal Kaibara. There was an audible sigh of relief from Kaibara, and Izuku could sense that the leg was better and opened his eyes. He let his hands drop away, and saw that the leg looked completely healed and felt a lot cooler to the touch.

He was tired, but not completely exhausted. He looked to his right and saw that Vlad King had been gripping one of his arms, and on the left, Aizawa had the other.

“Thanks,” Izuku told them both. “That really helped!”

“You’re the one that helped, kid. Now we won’t have to drive all the way to the hospital or call a helicopter to get him help,” Vlad King said gruffly. “You okay, Kaibara?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Tired.”

“I’ll bet,” Izuku said. “Glad I could help.”

Aizawa nodded in satisfaction and turned to go. “Both of you boys need to go to bed. Let’s go, Midoriya.”

Izuku waved tiredly to Kaibara and went back out to the golf cart for the ride back to 1-A’s accommodations. Aizawa didn’t say much of anything, and Izuku almost fell asleep on the short trip.

“Good work,” Aizawa told him as they came to a stop in front of the lodge. “Get some sleep.”

Izuku nodded and stumbled back to his room, falling asleep again almost immediately.

If Izuku had expected to be allowed to sleep a little later due to his late night outing, he would have been disappointed. At five-thirty, he was outside with his classmates, yawning and stretching, most of them with bedhead and droopy eyes.

“You’ve been at school for three months, now,” Aizawa told them. “You’ve been through a lot, trained your bodies, and gotten stronger.”

They all nodded in agreement. Aizawa produced a familiar looking ball and tossed it to Kacchan.

“The ball from the test on the first day of school.” he said, glancing at it thoughtfully.

“Throw that. Give it everything you’ve got.”

Kacchan did. With a cry of, “GO TO HELL!” he used an explosion to propel the ball off into the distance. To everyone’s dismay, the ball only traveled about five meters more than it had three months earlier.

“I thought there would be a lot more improvement,” Kacchan said, sounding surly.

“Your bodies have gotten stronger. Building muscle comes from tearing down existing muscle and building it back up even stronger than before. That’s what you’ve been doing up to now, and you’re making progress. Quirks are the same; you have to use them. You have to reach a breaking point and push yourself past your limits to expand them and make them grow.”

“But we all have different quirks,” Iida pointed out. “How can we all train separately and still be effective?”

“That’s where the--”

Aizawa was cut off by the sudden appearance of four figures who were way too energetic for this early in the morning.

“Rock on with these sparkling gazes! We've come to lend a paw and help!!! Coming out of nowhere... Stingingly cute and catlike! Wild, Wild Pussycats!!! - Full version!”

A woman with bright, long, emerald hair waved at them all cheerfully.

“Hi! I’m Ragdoll! My quirk is Search! I can monitor up to 100 individuals and their locations at any given time, and I can also tell what their weaknesses are!”

“I’m Tiger, and I’m here to beat you into shape!” The man who said this was huge and muscular, but still wore the cat themed costume, complete with skirt.

Izuku knew that Tiger’s quirk was ’Pliabody’, and that he was a melee style fighter when fighting was needed.

“I’m Mandalay, and we met yesterday!” the woman with short auburn hair told them. “My quirk is ’Telepath’, and I can relay one-way messages.straight into people’s minds! I can work with Ragdoll to send messages about your weaknesses!”

“You know all about me!” Pixie-Bob added, bouncing on the balls of her feet, making her long blonde hair sway. “My quirk is called ’Earthflow’ and I’ll be using it to help you train this week! Look forward to it!”

Within minutes, they had been divided into four groups and taken by an adult leader to various areas to train. Tiger called Izuku’s name, but Aizawa put up a hand.

“I need a word with Midoriya, first. I’ll send him over in a minute.”

Izuku waited while his teacher set up Yaoyorozu and Sato up at a table piled high with sweets and fatty foods. He explained to them that they were to eat constantly; Sato while lifting hyperdense dumbbells and Yaoyorozu while constantly creating items of some sort. This was supposed to help them with endurance, somehow. When Izuku saw the first few matryoshka figures pop from Yaoyorozu's arm, he picked one up and examined it. It was impressive, with elaborate decoration, and each one had three other figures nested inside of it.

“Ugh! I can’t stand these things! They’re so full of themselves!”

Sato didn’t get the joke, but Yaoyorozu just stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing, nearly choking on the cake she was supposed to be consuming. Aizawa had a long-suffering air about him when he led Kirishima and Ojiro to an open clearing and told them that Ojiro was to use his tail to attack Kirishima, who would be blocking with his hardened skin. From there, He put Uraraka in a giant plastic hamster ball that had an inflatable cushion inside, with a smaller, ball-shaped space inside. She almost looked like those pictures Izuku had seen of a baby floating in the womb. Aizawa explained that he was going to be sending her rolling around, and she had to resist the urge to vomit while her equilibrium was being thrown off.

Once all of his other charges were set up for their training for the moment, Aizawa turned his attention to Izuku.

“You’ve got a lot of quirks to work on,” he said, keeping an eye on the kids he’s just started on their tasks. “I think the most important one for you to focus on right now is One For All. I’ve discussed it with All Might, and he said you’re wasting time charging it up almost every time you need to use it. “

“I’ve been trying to practice ramping up my percentage and holding it indefinitely, but I don’t think I’m doing so well. It’s hard to gauge when I’m only increasing it one percent at at time. I have been able to force a wave of it to the surface in a split second, but it’s tiring.”

“Exactly,” Aizawa said. “That’s why I want you to charge it all the way up to your limit and train with Tiger until you can’t possibly hold it a moment longer, then keep going. We’ll add more of your quirks to it in a day or two.”

Izuku wasn’t sure that was a great idea, but it would be interesting to see how long he could actually hold it. The answer was… not as long as he’d hoped.

Tiger put him through a brutal course of intense exercises, and Izuku was tired, but still keeping One For All at a full 35 percent an hour later. Class 1-B had arrived to begin their own training and Tiger left him to go do the Wild, Wild, Pussycat greeting. Once that was done, Tiger returned with two other boys, and suddenly told Izuku to punch him. Izuku tried, but Tiger was too fast, and he ended up kicking Izuku hard enough to send him flying a few feet until he hit the trunk of a small tree. He lost his grip on One For All at that point, and was almost too tired to charge it up again.

“Plus Ultra, Midoriya!” Iida shouted at him as he sped by, running laps around the campground as fast as he could..

Izuku took a brief moment to take a glance around at how hard everyone else was working and dug deep inside to force One For All to full power. Now that he thought about it, it was a good thing that he hadn’t punched Tiger with One For All engaged. There hadn’t been much of a breeze from his missed punch, so Izuku knew he probably wasn’t at One For All’s full power, but as much of it as he could hold at the moment without hurting himself somehow. He pushed on through the morning, wondering how Todoroki was doing, now that they were making him use both his fire and ice to keep the water he was submerged in at a constant temperature. He could just make him out across the clearing, where he had plenty of room to create both elements as needed without harming the surrounding trees. He knew this was only the first step for Todoroki, now that he’d shown he could manipulate his fire.

Kacchan was only a few meters away, and the teachers didn’t even try to keep him from swearing as he plunged his hands in boiling water in an effort to expand his sweat glands to make him able to sweat more. More sweat meant bigger explosions, but making an explosion straight out of the water was pretty difficult. Izuku would probably be swearing up a storm, too.

At lunch they were given simple pre-packaged food and fruit to eat while they all sat around in the grass or dirt. A couple of kids dropped off to sleep. Yoarashi made an appearance to get some food, but his usual loud and boisterous attitude was pretty subdued. When Izuku quietly asked him if he was okay, Yoarashi said that they had shut him in a small closet-sized space with very little space to move, or air to flow. He was supposed to be forcing the air to do his bidding and break him out, but the pressure needed to do that was incredible, and he hadn’t managed it, yet.

“Hey,” Kaminari said as he tiredly ripped open a packaged onigiri with his teeth. “Has anyone seen Mineta? I don’t remember if I saw him this morning.”

Izuku looked around, but didn’t see the classmate in question.

“His stunt at the baths last night earned him his third strike,” Aizawa said from where he was passing out bottles of water to waiting hands. “I can’t teach someone who refuses to learn.”

Class 1-B looked confused, but everyone in class 1-A either got very quiet or looked relieved.

“Oh crap,” Kaminari said quietly. “That idiot.”

“Can I have his share of lunch?” Kacchan asked, sounding unconcerned.

A few people looked at him as if he’d asked if could eat a puppy, but Izuku sort of understood. He’d paid the price for his own screw-ups, and had chosen to take the advice and warnings he was given to heart. He didn’t have any time or sympathy for anyone who was given similar chances and threw them away.

After lunch, some of the activities switched up, but it was still very tiring and Izuku wondered if he would just be allowed to drop and sleep where he was at the end, until they began again the next day. By the time they headed back to the outdoor cafeteria, all of them were dragging and looking forward to dinner.

“Remember yesterday, when we told you that we wouldn’t be doing stuff for you after that?” Pixie Bob said energetically.

“At least cook your own food!” Ragdoll told them, waving her giant paw mittens. “Tonight, it’s curry!”

She waved a box of curry roux excitedly, and gestured to huge mounds of onions, carrots and potatoes.

“Yes sir…” the collective groaned.

“You all look so tired," Ragdoll said with a laughing glee. “But don’t think that means you can just throw any old cat food together!”

Iida seemed to perk up at her words and consider.

“She’s right! Rescue work also often involves feeding people and lifting their spirits as best you can! Victims who have been through an ordeal need kindness and care!”

Izuku knew he was right, and that as class rep he should share that enthusiasm, but it was hard. So. Hard. Still…

“Iida is right! This is part of our training, too. Let’s work together to try to make the best meal possible in the conditions we have,” he told them all, trying to inject some sense of energy into his words. “We can break up into teams to get everything done quickly, and we’ll be eating in no time.”

“Plus Ultra!” Pixie-Bob shouted, throwing a cat fist into the air.

“Plus Ultra.”

Everyone’s answering ‘cheer’ lacked any kind of liveliness, but at least they were listening.

“We need wood in the stoves, and then fires. Carrot choppers, Onion choppers, Potato choppers and meat cutters! We need someone who knows how to make rice in a clay pot! Make sure one pot of curry doesn't have meat for the vegetarians among us!” Iida said,

Izuku was more grateful than he could convey that Iida seemed happy to take the lead on this chore. Before long everyone had a job and was working industriously to prepare a meal. When they finally all sat down, they ate like starving people. The group got a lot more lively as they filled their stomachs with mediocre curry

“Hey Midoriya!” Sato called to him from down the table. “What was with that joke earlier today? I didn’t get it until Yaoyorozu explained it.”

“He told a joke?” Uraraka asked.

Izuku didn’t know why everyone was so surprised to hear it, though he did tend to save them for Sir, it wasn’t like he didn’t have a sense of humor. Yaoyorozu explained it to everyone, and after the punchline, most of them groaned though Tiger, who was eating curry standing up nearby, laughed.

“Don’t encourage him,” Aizawa told him. “His jokes are the worst.”

“You’ve heard his jokes before?” Kirishima asked the teacher.

Izuku was both embarrassed and proud when Aizawa answered.

“Unfortunately.”

“Tell us one!” Kaminari demanded.

Izuku tried to think of one on the spot, one that his teacher might actually laugh at. Maybe something a bit dark? Sort of an anti-joke? While he was considering it, he saw Kota lurking in the shadows by the sinks.

“What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?” Several of them rolled their eyes, obviously thinking it was the dumb , ’where’s my tractor?‘ punchline. It was nice that they didn’t ruin it by blurting that out, though.

“I don’t know,” Kaminari said gamely, “What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?”

“I have a gambling problem,” Izuku deadpanned.

There was absolute silence for a few moments before Izuku swore he heard Aizawa whisper, “Holy shit, kid.”

Then Tiger literally roared with laughter. Several students startled at the sound, and then they were laughing, too. Most of them were probably laughing at Tiger’s laughter, but that was okay. It wasn’t a bad way for them to end a hard day.

Izuku turned to check on Aizawa to see if he'd at least cracked a smile, and noticed that Kota had a grin on his face as he crept away into the woods.

The boy wasn’t old enough to get that kind of joke, was he? Izuku doubted it. But regardless of why he was grinning, why had he disappeared into the woods after sundown? He walked over to the edge of brush where he’d last seen Kota and saw a faint trail, probably made by a child’s feet.

“He has a hide out or secret base or something out that way,” Mandalay said from behind him. “He spends a lot of time there.”

Izuku turned and saw that she looked sad, but not particularly concerned.

“Will he be okay in the dark?” Izuku asked.

“He’ll be fine. He has a pocket flashlight, and there’s even a sleeping bag he dragged out there but never brought back. I think he just needs to be alone sometimes. Being around all of us is hard on him. We try to include him by giving him things he can help with, but he’s just...bitter.”

“He said he hates heroes,” Izuku remembered.

“His parents were heroes,” she told him quietly. “But they were killed in the line of duty. Kota was too young to really understand that they couldn’t come back to him, and they were his whole world. Then all he kept hearing about how admirable it is that they died in the line of duty, doing what they loved. As heroes, we understand that sentiment, but a child doesn’t have that kind of perspective, and it’s made him angry and jaded. We’ve tried to get him counselling, but way out here, there’s not much like that, and most doctors tell me it will just take time.”

“I’m sorry,” Izuku said sincerely. “I guess I get how he feels. I lost my mom at about the same age as he lost his parents, and it was a villain responsible. It’s what made me determined to be a hero; though I wanted to be one before that, too. I can understand that hearing heroes say things so seemingly heartless might make him hate them.”

The moment was broken by Aizawa dragging away the remedial students to their classroom, and Izuku felt really bad for them, since they were all already so exhausted. He hoped their torture didn’t last too long.

Notes:

OMG - I was talking to my son about Mineta, and I made the comment that he could always try applying to another hero school next year, then laughed because Shiketsu makes all of its students wear those hats. My son said he should be forced to wear a tiny one on each of his hair balls! LMAO. The visual image made me snort.

Chapter 54

Summary:

Izuku endures another day at camp. Things could go more smoothly.

The next day was more of the same hell, just with different exercises. Izuku was tired and sore, but not as much as the students who had been made to endure remedial training until two in the morning! That left the five unfortunates with only about three hours of sleep before they had to start training again. That was pretty brutal. Izuku was dramatically slower today than yesterday, and he’d gotten a fair amount of sleep.

Aizawa gave them a speech about remembering why they’d been made to suffer and correcting the reasons that they'd failed. He admonished them to remember where they came from, and that struck a chord in Izuku that had him standing a bit straighter and feeling more determined, even if the words hadn’t been directed solely at him.

“Don’t be sad, little kitties!” Pixie-Bob told them all, “Tonight we’ll be having a test of courage with the two classes pitted against each other! When you work hard, you get to play hard! The carrot and the stick!”

That got varying reactions, but mostly they were all still too sleepy to muster up a lot of enthusiasm for it. Izuku was still tearing down muscle with Tiger watching over him, Kaibara and Shishida from 1-B, but then got called over by Vlad King, who was standing beside Izuku’s least favorite member of 1-B.

“Midoriya, this is Monoma,” Vlad said shortly.

“We’ve met,” Izuku said with a slight nod at the blonde boy. “Sort of.”

“1-A’s golden boy,” Monoma said in a seudo greeting.

“Midoriya, you have several quirks,” Vlad said, stating the obvious. “And Monoma has one that can copy most quirks.”

That caught Izuku’s attention. His eyebrows rose in interest as he studied the other boy with something more than caution.

“How many can you copy at a time?” Izuku asked.

“I can copy several, but I can only use one at a time,” Monoma answered. “I usually know instinctively how to use them as soon as I get them.”

Izuku nodded. The other boy looked exhausted, so maybe he wouldn’t have the energy to be an ass today. He could already see where this conversation was going, and Izuku was honestly curious enough to be a guinea pig for Monoma’s training.

“Can you pick and choose which ones you’ll take when someone has multiple quirks?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Monoma said with a shrug. “How many people do you meet that have more than one?”

“There are a few out there, like Todoroki,” Izuku pointed out.

“True,” Vlad said consideringly. “Maybe we should have pulled him, too.”

“Not today,” Aizawa said, approaching with his hands in his pockets. “Todoroki is still new to using his fire, and he’s going to be working on an aspect of it that he’s recently discovered. Midoriya has more than enough quirks for this.”

Izuku wondered if Aizawa meant the flame lasso that Todoroki had made in Hosu to force the nomu to the ground.

“MIdoriya, you’re not just a test subject in all of this. You need to be communicating with Monoma and seeing if there’s anything he can teach you about any of your quirks that you don’t already know.”

“Sensei, could I have a word in private?” Izuku asked Aizawa.

Aizawa led him a few steps away while Vlad and Monomas scowled.

“Sir, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to let him try to copy One For All. At one point, All MIght said that if someone who wasn’t prepared for it tried to use it, their limbs would explode,” Izuku told him in a low voice. “I’m not sure he was joking!”

“It should be fine,” Aizawa told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “From What All Might said about it, One For All can’t be forcibly taken.”

“Are you sure?” Izuku asked cautiously.

“Pretty sure,” Aizawa said with a nod.

“Won’t he be suspicious when he can’t access super strength?”

Aizawa shrugged.

“That sounds like a problem for him to puzzle out. Just act confused if he brings it up.”

Izuku wasn’t sure he trusted anything other than absolute certainty, but he also knew that Aizawa would never deliberately put any of them in true danger without reason.

They walked back over to Vlad and Monoma and Izuku nodded.

“How do you want to do this?”

“All I have to do is touch you, and I can copy your quirk. I think I should try to copy just one to start, and we can go from there.” Monoma said.

“Try levitation,” Izuku suggested. “That one’s not too dangerous.”

Vlad nodded, and Aizawa stood nearby, content to watch from a couple of meters away while keeping an eye on Uraraka, who was using her quirk to keep a 100kg boulder aloft without throwing up.

Izuku gave Monoma a rundown of all of his (known) quirks before he allowed him to make contact with his skin. He wanted the other boy to be as prepared as possible for what might happen. Making sure that Aizawa was not too far away, in case a quirk cancellation was needed, Izuku held out his hand toward Monoma, who reached forward confidently and touched it.

The scream that tore from Monoma wasn’t even the most frightening thing about the experience, though that had everyone in the vicinity startling and stopping to stare. The blonde’s eyes rolled up in his head, and blood began to pour from his nose. Then his eyes, in the form of bloody tears. Izuku scrambled backward as Monoma fell to the ground twitching horribly in some kind of seizure. Izuku turned and fled, to try to get enough distance between himself and Monoma, in case whatever happened was fatal. He knew that ordinarily he should try to use his healing quirk, but since Monoma’s quirk was touch based and so was Izuku’s healing quirk, it probably wasn’t a good idea. Whatever Izuku’s quirks had done to Monoma might be compounded by a second contact.

When he felt like he was far enough away, he paused and tried to calm his racing heart.

“What the hell did you do to him?” a voice demanded angrily.

Izuku startled badly when one of the 1-B students suddenly appeared, literally out of the shadows. His hair was a fluffy white, which was in stark contrast to his pitch black skin. He stood in a fighting stance in front of Izuku as if expecting to attack or be attacked.

“I didn’t do anything!” Izuku said.

“Why did you run when he started screaming?” the boy demanded.

“He was supposed to be copying one of my quirks!” Izuku exclaimed. “I don’t know what went wrong, I didn’t want to make it worse by sticking around! If he… if he died, I’d… I’d…”

Izuku's throat felt thick and he felt the panic rising. What if he’d actually killed Monoma?

“Whoa,” the boy said, standing normally, and no longer looking like he was prepared to fight. “You’re that kid that helped Sen with his leg. The one with all the quirks.”

Izuku nodded, not trusting his voice not to break.

“Monoma’s pretty arrogant. He probably tried to copy all of your quirks at once and got hit with backlash, or something,” he said bluntly. “I’m Kuroiro, by the way.”

“M-Midoriya,” Izuku managed, trying to focus.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” Kuroiro assured him, sounding confident. “1-B is made of stronger stuff than that.”

Izuku began to pace.

“Can you go back and see if he’s okay?” he asked. "I can’t go back unless I’m sure.”

Kuroiro nodded and headed back toward the training area.

It seemed like forever before Izuku heard Mandalay’s voice inside his head, telling him to come back, and that it was safe. In reality it had only been five minutes that he had been pacing back and forth in a semi-panic, from the time Monoma had touched him to the time Mandalay had called Izuku back. Izuku realized he was trembling as he made his way back to the clearing. Monoma was laying on the ground, breathing heavily, while Vlad held a handkerchief to his nose.

“Midoriya,” Aizawa said when he saw his student emerge hesitantly.

Everyone was still staring, and Izuku couldn’t help but feel like some of their gazes were accusing ones. He paused at the edge of the trees before seeing that his teacher was motioning for him to come closer.

“Do you think you can help him?” Aizawa asked quietly.

Izuku’s first instinct was to shake his head and back away again, but he stopped himself and took a good look at Monoma. The other boy was conscious and looked dazed.

“Can he stop himself from copying quirks if he wants to?”

Vlad nodded and looked down at his student. “He can.”

Izuku nodded and knelt on the ground next to the blonde. “I’ll try. Um… could I ask for some help? Like before?”

Vlad and Aizawa both nodded, and Vlad called Tiger over, too. All three of them crouched and put hands on some part of Izuku - one on each arm, and a hand on the back of his neck.

“What are they doing?” Kirishima asked as he watched.

“Beats me,” Ojiro said. “It could be anything; it’s Midoriya, after all.”

“Good point.”

Izuku might have laughed in other circumstances, but at the moment, he felt as though his heart might explode from how hard it was beating.

“Try not to copy,” Izuku told Monoma.

Monoma gritted his teeth and nodded.

“I’ll keep his quirk inactive,” Aizawa promised.

Izuku was surprised to find that One For All was already humming inside of him, and had been all along. The green sparks weren’t visible, but the power was most definitely there. It might not be at full strength, but it was there. He placed his hands on Monoma’s arm, and when nothing happened, he breathed out heavily in relief. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard on how Monoma usually looked and acted. In a flood of information, Izuku became aware that the source of Monoma’s pain was mostly in his head and so he concentrated on erasing the pain. He knew he was being successful when the tension began to drain away from Monoma’s whole body. To Izuku, it felt like Monoma was having some sort of sensory overload, or something like it. Izuku’s own tension began to ease, too.

When Izuku sensed that there was nothing more he could do for the other boy, he dropped his hands and sat back. The hands left his arms and neck, and Izuku looked up at the three men to see them looking… tired. Vlad Kind shook his head as if coming out of a fog, Aizawa immediately moved to put eyedrops in, and Tiger was a little bit slow in turning to all of the kids standing around and shouting at them to get back to work.

“But what happened?” Hagakure asked.

Izuku only knew it was her because he knew the sound of her voice. He was grateful she sounded more baffled than scared.

“I think my quirk tried to copy all of Midoriya’s quirks at the same time, and my brain didn’t like it,” Monoma said, rubbing at his nose with the handkerchief Vlad had let go of.

He sat up and put a hand to his head.

“We probably shouldn't try that again.” Izuku said

“That’s an understatement,” Bakugou muttered, sticking his hands back into the boiling water.

Now that Monoma seemed to be out of danger, everyone went back to their training.

“So,” Monoma said a little awkwardly. “You practically killed me, then you just… ran away?”

“Midoriya didn’t almost kill you,” Aizawa corrected. “Your quirk almost killed you. Midoriya left to get out of range, in case you died.”

“So my quirk’s not good enough for you?” Monoma demanded indignantly.

“Are you actually complaining that you didn’t die?” Izuku countered.

“I didn’t almost die,” Monoma said with an eye roll, completely contradicting what he’d just said. “I was awake the whole time, which was creepy as hell, by the way.”

“Sorry if it seemed like I was just leaving,” Izuku said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with your quirk not being good enough… though my quirk is kind of like yours, but on steroids.”

It was hard not to laugh at the look of utter disdain that settled on Monoma’s face at hearing Izuku comparing their quirks that way, and putting his own on top. Seeing the other boy disgruntled was comforting, because it showed Izuku that there didn’t seem to be any real harm done in the end.

“All right you two, it’s time to get back to work. Monoma, Vlad will have to find some other way for you to work on your quirk,” Aizawa said dryly.

He waited until the two walked away before studying Izuku for a moment.

“You did well,” he finally said. “I honestly didn’t expect that sort of reaction, and your retreat was completely warranted to avoid any further complications. How are you feeling?”

“I’m… okay? More shaken than anything; that really freaked me out,” Izuku said.

“Understandable. Do you think you can go back to your other training?”

“I think so? I’m still tired, but I was tired before. How do you feel? You and Tiger and Vlad-sensei all seemed a bit ...off for a little while after helping me with Monoma,” Izuku asked.

“I’m fine. I’m always tired, and Vlad and I were both up until very late with the supplemental classes and planning. We aren’t in peak condition at the moment, so it was a bit draining. Don’t worry about it. The important thing is that Monoma is alright and so are you. Go ahead and see what Tiger has for you.”

“Yes, sensei,” Izuku said, turning back to rejoin the others.

He couldn’t help but wonder how much energy he ‘borrowed’ from the three men. Aizawa and Vlad might have been tired, but Tiger had seemed like his vigorous, energetic self all morning before, and now he was yawning every few minutes, and he’d seemed just as affected as the others. Did his healing quirk really take up that much energy to use? It hadn’t seemed like it before with the smaller injuries he’d taken care of on his own. Or maybe Monoma had been much more badly damaged than it had seemed, and had needed a much more powerful healing? Izuku was using quite a bit more of One For All as a matter of course now.

“Midoriya, get moving!” Tiger demanded.

“Yes, sir!” Midoriya shouted, focusing more on the burpees he should be doing.

He noted that the green sparks weren’t in evidence, even though he knew that One For All was active inside of him. He concentrated on bringing out a little more until the sparks began to crackle lightly around him, and continued his training.

He dozed off at lunchtime after eating a couple of bananas and a boiled egg, simply because they were the easiest and fastest to consume. He wasn’t the only one to take a short siesta, either; the remedial kids practically passed out.

“Has anyone seen Shiozaki?” Kendo asked.

Izuku woke to see the class 1-B rep looking for one of their classmates.

“She was having really bad cramps,” one of the girls from the class said. “She went back to the lodge. She’s been having them since we left UA, but I guess today was super bad.”

Izuku blushed at the mention of cramps, not really wanting to be privy to the female functions of the girls he knew, though he felt bad that she was hurting. He wondered if his healing quirk would have any effect, but was hesitant, since he was so drained, and he’d drained the teachers as well. They were aware of his quirk, and he knew they would ask if they were truly worried. He thought the male teachers must have felt the same, because none of them said a word about her missing some of her training over it. Pixiebob and Mandalay looked sympathetic.

“Speaking of missing kids, when’s the last time anyone saw Kota?” Mandalay asked.

Izuku tried to remember if he’d seen him at all that morning.

“There he is!” Uraraka said, pointing at the boy coming from the port-a-potty.

Kota noticed them all looking at him and scowled, then disappeared down the same path Izuku had seen him take before to go to his hideout. Mandalay looked sad as she watched his back retreat into the trees.

Izuku felt bad for the boy. Izuku thought he remembered the incident that had taken Kota’s parents from him, and it hadn’t been pretty. The Water Hose duo had been a husband and wife team that specialized in putting out fires and rescuing people. They'd been killed by an especially brutal villain who had murdered them without mercy, and it had been sensationalized on the news for a week or two. He wondered if he should try to have a talk with the boy, to see if he could offer him any comfort, as someone who knew what it was like to lose a parent at about the same age.

“I hope you’re rested up from your nap!” Tiger told Izuku, interrupting his thoughts. “Because we’re moving on to flexibility training!”

Kaibara and Shishida were struggling with their wide straddle stretches. Izuku simply slid into a full straddle and lowered his chest to the ground with his arms behind him and his fingers laced. There was a loud thud from a couple of meters away, and they all turned their heads to see Uraraka, looking beet red with a large boulder at her feet. Her eyes locked on Izuku wildly for a moment before she squeaked and averted her eyes.

“Oops! Sorry!” she said. “I was just… sorry!”

Katsuki snorted from nearby where he was working up a sweat, so he could fill as many of his grenades as possible.. “Could you be a little more obvious, Round Face?”

If it was possible, Uraraka turned even redder.

She touched the boulder and it floated into the air again, and she guided it away to continue her training.

“Kacchan, be nice! Lifting a boulder like that has got to be hard, even with her quirk!”

Suddenly, Kaibara, Shishido and Kacchan were all looking at him in disbelief. Tiger looked amused by something. Izuku didn't get it.

“What?”

Kacchan made a noise of disgust and set off an especially large explosion into the air, as if letting off tension..

“Stupid nerd,” he muttered with a smirk. “One’s obvious, the other oblivious.”

Tiger barked out a laugh and then pinned Izuku with his gaze.

“Since you seem to have the flexibility down you can work on handstand push ups! GO! PLUS ULTRA!”

Izuku obeyed, still wondering why Kacchan and Tiger thought something was funny.

Chapter 55

Summary:

The test of courage turns into a test of endurance.

Notes:

I am totally NOT posting this right now because I'm procrastinating a huge pile of laundry. Enjoy!

By the time the group was deemed finished for the day, the sun was beginning to set. The group worked together to make huge pots of beef stew. Before they were about to sit down, Kendo came back from her lodge to report that Shiozaki wasn’t in their lodge, and there was no sign that she’d been sleeping or resting in the girl’s room.

“If she doesn’t show up by the time dinner’s over, we’ll all go look for her,” Vlad said.

He didn’t seem p more than mildly concerned, and neither did any of the other adults.

“She wouldn't miss the test of courage,” one of the other girls said. “She’ll at least come out to help us scare 1-A.”

Izuku remembered Shiozaki from the Sports Festival as the girl from the final ten who had vines for hair. Chances were that she had just gone for a walk or something. Kota hadn’t made a reappearance since lunchtime, either. He never seemed to have his meals with the group, though, so that wasn’t surprising.

They all dug into their meals with groans of appreciation and it was silent except for the clinking of spoons on bowls for a few minutes while they all sated their gnawing hunger.

“Hey Midoriya,” Kaibara finally asked as everyone began to loosen up and talk about the day. “How the heck did you get so flexible?”

“Gymnastics,” Izuku said easily. “I also have a quirk that gives me great balance and agility.”

At Izuku’s mention of his quirk, Kaibara asked, “How many quirks do you have?”

“Fourteen,” Izuku said, accepting another serving of rice. “That I know of.”

That led into a discussion of the discovery of his ‘telepathic phone line’ quirk t at the recommendation exam, and that he might have had it for years without realizing it. The usual talk resulted, with people telling about when they’d discovered their quirk for the first time, and everyone’s mood lifted as the food gave them energy.

“You have two quirks, right, Todoroki?” Mina asked him with her mouth full. “Which one manifested first?”

“Well, technically,” Todoroki said after swallowing his mouthful. “I like to pretend I have two, because I hated my fire so much, but it’s still just one quirk, with two sides. The cold came first.”

“Really?” Izuku asked with interest, wishing he had his notebook. “I assumed it was two because you pretty much have two sides, hot and cold, read and white. How long did it take for the fire side to show up?”

“Hoping you’re not the only freak around here, nerd?” Kacchan asked, stealing a piece of bread from Izuku’s hand.

His tone wasn’t harsh, so Izuku assumed he was just teasing.

“It’s always nice to know you’re not the only one,” he said with a smirk and a shrug, making a swipe to get the bread back (and failing).

“A few weeks,” Todoroki said. “That’s when my training started.”

Izuku knew that the memory wasn’t a particularly happy one for Todoroki, though he didn’t have all the details. He knew enough to not ask further questions or make any comments about it.

“Wait! So even if I train with you, it won’t be as effective!” Monoma said, sounding somewhat relieved.

Maybe his earlier experience with numerous quirks at once had scared him. It had scared Izuku, for sure.

“You should still do it,” Aizawa advised. “His fire manipulation is new, and you might be able to shed some light on anything else he can do.”

“I started oozing acid when I was two!” Mina said with a grin, getting the subject back on track. “It ate right through the bottom of my crib and I landed on the floor!”

Everyone laughed at that.

The meal was an interesting one for Izuku and he could hardly wait to make notes on all of the new details he’d learned.

“Shiozaki still hasn’t turned up,” Kendo finally said when all of the dishes had been cleared. “I don’t think she ate lunch either.”

Vlad frowned and had had a quiet conference with the other adults. Ragdoll closed her eyes in concentration, and Izuku saw her open them with a look of confusion and a shake of her head.

“She’s not anywhere within my range.”

“Would you be able to detect her if she was unconscious?” Vlad asked.

Almost everyone was listening with concern, now.

“Yes, as long as they’re alive, I should be able to find whoever I want within a couple of kilometers.”

Izuku felt a jolt at the words ’as long as they’re alive.’ Izuku hadn’t sprouted vines from his head, so if she had died, it wasn't anywhere around him… but this area was huge.

“We should split up and search for her,” Mandalay said. “I’ll stay here With Ragdoll so we can keep track of everyone and I can relay any messages.”

“Do you smell smoke?” Shisido, whose quirk was ’Beast’ asked.

A couple of them shook their heads, but then a few began to nod.

“There are intruders,” Ragdoll said.

Izuku’s heart gave a heavy thud in his chest as he imagined he fears about coming to camp coming to fruition. Then it began to race.

She concentrated and said, “Ten of them. Eight men and two women.”

Intruders, plus a missing student that Ragdoll couldn’t sense? Not. Good.

“All students should get inside. Everyone in one room or hallway, preferably without windows. Lights off,” Vlad told the students.

“Mandalay and Ragdoll should still stay here, to give us directions as needed,” Aizawa said. “And to protect the students. Pixie-Bob could stay here and use her earth beasts if needed.”

“If there’s a fire, I can use Earth Flow to help extinguish it or contain it,” Pixie-Bob argued.

The adults agreed, and Tiger, Vlad and Aizawa consulted with Ragdoll before heading off into the forest. Ragdoll and Mandalay were directing the kids to a storage cellar when Izuku realized something. He approached Mandalay and Ragdoll.

“Kota. I saw him leaving for his hideout earlier. Can you tell where he is now?”

Mandalay looked stricken, and Ragdoll did a quick search with her quirk. “He’s about five hundred meters to the northwest of here. High up...maybe in a tree or further up the mountain. There’s an unfamiliar male heading in his direction.”

“I’ll go find him,” Izuku said. “I can be fast! I’ll find him and carry him back. I’m probably faster than whoever is up there.”

“The male isn’t moving particularly quickly,” Ragdoll conceded.

“You should take someone with you,” Mandalay decided, looking torn. “Someone else who’s fast.”

Izuku immediately thought of Iida, but Kacchan stepped out of the doorway where he’d obviously been listening in.

“I’ll go. I can move fast with my quirk, and fight off any intruder, if I need to.”

“Do not engage in battle unless it’s life or death,” Ragdoll told them. The male is approaching from the opposite direction, so just stay on course and come right back the way you came. Hurry!”

With barely a glance and a nod at each other, Izuku and Kacchan raced into the woods.

“Your explosions might alert the intruder that we’re coming,” Izuku said as they sprinted.

“I’m fast without them, too,” Kacchan said. “But don’t wait on me. Get to the brat as fast as you can and I’ll catch up! Go!”

Izuku went. If he didn’t have such and urgent need to find the boy, he would have marvelled at Kacchan letting him go ahead.

In a burst of sparks that faded out almost immediately, the forest became a blur as he dodged trees and jumped over rocks. He came to the edge of a steep cliff that seemed to have a ledge about ten meters up. He looked at it briefly, and then engaged Levitate. He allowed himself to rise quickly, but stayed as close as he could to the rock face so that he could grab hold, if he needed. At the top he found a wide ledge that made an excellent overlook of the forest, with the lodge just in sight - or it would be if the lights hadn’t been extinguished. There was just enough glow from the recently set sun to show that there was a shallow cave, and not much else around. He headed for the cave, squinting in the dwindling light. There was a lump at the back of the cave (it was really more of an indent in the rock than a real cave) and Izuku felt around to see if it was Kota.

The lump was slick and soft; the sleeping bag that Mandalay had mentioned? He pulled it toward himself and something heavy seemed to fall out of it. Using his sense of feel, he quickly learned that it was small human hands tied together at the wrists. Warm, thank the gods.

“Kota?” he hissed quietly.

No answer.

He went back to the edge of the cliff and spotted Kacchan dimly at the bottom. He jumped down to land beside him, and after a quick discussion, Izuku laced his fingers together and heaved Kacchan up to the ledge when he stepped in. He overshot it slightly, but Kacchan used a light pop from his palms to propel him forward so that he landed on the ledge. Izuku joined him a moment later, and pointed to the cave. Kacchan had his phone in his pocket even though there was no service, and used the flashlight on it to help them see.

Kota’s face was still, but his breathing was even and untroubled. Like his wrists, his ankles were bound in nylon rope pulled cruelly tight.

“Probably drugged or some shit,” Bakugou said. “I don’t see any injuries on his head.”

Izuku nodded.

“Let’s get him back to camp,” he said. “I don’t know if my healing quirk will work on something like that, and I don’t want to waste time. He hates us and would probably fight us if we woke him up. Whoever’s coming probably isn’t up to any good.”

“Good point,” Kacchan said. Izuku lifted the boy into his arms and turned around to leave, only to find that there was a massive figure blocking the edge of the cliff. Kacchan growled in frustration and sparks and crackles started from his palms.

“Hoho!” the figure said. “I came up here to finish off the kid, and I get two hero wannabes as a bonus!”

“Dek--Vanguard,” Kacchan said tersely. “Take the kid and go.”

“Not happening, kid,” the figure said. “Especially that one.”

The figure pointed at Kota and Izuku.

“What do you want with him?” Izuku demanded.

“Not him, you.” the man said. “This mask is annoying as hell.”

Izuku hadn’t been able to tell he was wearing a mask in the darkness, since the man was wearing a cloak that covered his whole head and shadowed his face. He was backlit by an eerie blue glow from the trees that were apparently on fire. Now the man discarded both to reveal a massive man, nearly as tall at All Might, and possibly as muscular as the hero in his prime. His hair was blonde and cropped short, and one of his eyes was glowing slightly with an unnatural light of a prosthetic of some kind. Izuku knew who this man was. He knew what his quirk was and he knew that this was the man responsible for the death of Kota’s parents. He’d be damned if he’d let him be responsible for Kota’s, too.

“What do you want with me?” Izuku asked.

“Shigaraki said we should kill ya’!” the man said cheerfully. “All Might’s students, but you in particular. Some of the others wouldn’t commit to killin’ ya because Stain said you were all right, but I don’t care about nothin’ like that. I just like killin’. C’mon! Put up a fight! It’s more fun that way!”

“Let me put the boy down,” Izuku said slowly, catching Kacchan’s eye.

Kacchan looked surprised, but almost pleased that he was finally going to get his chance to fight a real villain. A feral grin spread over his face as Izuku gently put Kota on the ground. That made it all that much more of a betrayal when Izuku grabbed Kacchan by the arm and launched him into the air, over Muscular’s head and out over the trees shouting, “I’ll be right behind you! Get help!”

He heard the sound of Kacchan’s cursing, and the explosions he was being forced to use to keep from tumbling into the forest canopy. Izuku prayed that Kacchan was smart enough, and more importantly, trusting enough to do just what Izuku had told him. Izuku used his speed to grab Kota by the arm and jump almost vertically, with just enough angle to get higher away from Muscular’s reach.

“I love a good chase!” the villain yelled.

Izuku landed about five meters up and shifted Kota over his shoulder to get a better grip on him. He could see Muscular below changing shape, hear his clothing shredding as he rearranged his muscle structure. He needed to move. Now.

Izuku used the rocky face of the mountain to push off of, to the direction of the camp, gripping Kota’s legs tightly. Muscular was right behind him, having contorted his muscle fibers to give extra bulk to his legs, giving then superhuman strength. They both soared over the treetops, but Izuku knew that there was no way he could lead Muscular to the Lodge where all of his classmates were huddled as one large target. His levitate helped him stay aloft far longer than he would have been able to with just a One For All powered jump, even with the added weight of the child on his shoulder, and Muscular didn’t have that luxury. Even though he might be stronger than Izuku, he was also much heavier, and needed to land sooner.

When Izuku saw Muscular begin to lose momentum, he let himself drop into the trees, just shy of the lodge. Kacchan and Mandalay were arguing over something as Izuku burst through into the clearing with Kota over his shoulder. He quickly set the boy down and took a gulp of air.

“I’m being chased by a villain. I have to lead him away from here!” he said.

“No!” Mandalay shouted.

“Kacchan, come with me! Maybe we can keep him busy long enough to find Aizawa and get him to turn Muscular’s quirk off!” Izuku said, ignoring Mandalay direction.

“Muscular?” Mandalay said, turning pale. “Here?”

“Close behind!” Izuku said urgently.

They could hear crashing through the trees coming closer.

“Please get Ragdoll to look for Aizawa, and then you can tell us where he is with with telepath!”

“They took her!” Mandalay said angrily.

Izuku ground his teeth in frustration.

“You need to let everyone out to fight,” Izuku said. “You don’t have to send them looking for trouble, but they’re sitting ducks shut up inside.”

Muscular burst into the clearing and Izuku didn’t wait any longer. He took off running, then used his Levitate again as he had before. He heard Kacchan’s explosions and knew he was following. A quick look behind told him Muscular was following along on foot at incredible speed.

“Which direction did they go when they took Ragdoll?”

“She was gone by the time I got there. Thanks for tossing me off a mountain, shithead!”

“We can’t stay up in the air forever,” Izuku said, scanning the forest below. Muscular was felling trees with his fists as casually as one might swat a fly.

“No shit,” Kacchan answered. “Let’s land and kick his ass!”

“I don’t know if we could take him down!” Izuku admitted. “He’s crazy strong and has total control over his muscle fibers. He’s the one that killed Water Hose two years ago! They were Kota’s parents!”

“Son of a bitch!” Kacchan swore. “All the more reason!”

Izuku began to lose momentum again. Kacchan was getting further ahead, since he was using explosions to propel himself, and Izuku was slowing down.

“We’re going to have to face him, but don’t underestimate him,” Izuku said when he knew he had to let himself fall.

“Try to stay on opposite sides of him and go for sneak attacks,” Kacchan said. “He can’t watch both of us at once.”

Izuku nodded grimly and was grateful that the 1-B lodge was close. There was a clearing for Kacchan to land in. Izuku knew he wouldn't make it that far, and let go of his levitation in short bursts, dropping jerkily into the canopy. He managed to snag a tree branch and swung himself up to sit close to the trunk.

“That ain’t gonna save you, punk!”

Muscular was at the base of the tree almost immediately. He simply punched the trunk of the tree, and Izuku felt himself begin to slide sideways as the tall pine began to fall. He gripped the trunk as it went down and rode it to the bottom, charging One For All up to maximum power he could manage on the way, hoping Muscular wouldn’t be on top of him before he could reach the forest floor.

Izuku was in luck; he was able to hug the tree to his side as his feet found purchase, and he swung it like a baseball bat toward the villain. Unfortunately, that wasn’t as devastating a blow as he’d hoped. Muscular used his muscle fibers like tentacles to grab the tree on impact and hold it fast. Izuku tried pulling it, but the villain just laughed.

“Nice try, kid, but there’s no way you’re going to beat me like that!”

Izuku wasn’t sure where Kacchan was, but it seemed like far too long had passed since he’d last seen him. Had he run into trouble before he had a chance to help with Muscular, or was he working on a plan? Giving a tug on the tree to make sure it was still firmly in the villain’s grip, Izuku shifted his weight and pivoted, lifting the tree and Muscular off the ground in an arc, and slamming it down in the opposite direction. Not waiting to see if this had any affect on the villain, Izuku leapt back up over the canopy, trying to gauge where the clearing from the 1-B lodge was. If he was going to have to do this, with or without Kacchan, he wanted it to be out in the open, where he had plenty of room to maneuver.

He hadn’t been expecting to see a man melting into a puddle of goo while Kacchan pummeled him with his fits. The lodge was on fire with unnatural blue flames, and there was an odd, yellowish mist settled low to the ground in the forest just beyond.

Izuku didn’t have time to even question it when Kacchan turned from the puddle of muck and tackled him just in time to keep him from being trampled by Muscular. It looked like a fight was unavoidable, now.

Notes:

PEOPLE! I'm dying! UncaBob made fan art of Mineta wearing tiny Shiketsu hats, and it's glorious! I don't know how to post links, so I hope this works! https://archiveofourown.org/works/30732602

Chapter 56

Summary:

It would be fair to assume that this training camp was not a resounding success, in the strictest sense of the word.

Izuku tumbled across the ground with Kacchan, just as Muscular came thundering into the clearing like a charging rhino, a wide manic grin splitting his face.

“That’s a dead end for you,” he told them as they both hopped to their feet and adopted fighting stances. “That’s poison gas over there.”

The trees were shrouded in a thick, yellowish mist, hanging low, trapped by the canopy of the trees. It seemed to swirl, and creep closer to the clearing, but not quickly enough to be truly alarming.

The flames had caught easily on the wooden structure of the lodge and rose high into the night. Kacchan and Izuku startled when an explosion from behind the lodge sent up an orange plume of fire, then a cloud of white smoke. A propane tank used as fuel had apparently been unable to withstand the heat of the blue flames as they consumed the building. The remains of the propane tank rocketed off into the trees, and disappeared. The heat was making both boys perspire, which was a very good thing for Kacchan.

“If the fire and gas don’t get you, then I will,” Muscular said smugly. “All of you were supposed to be out in the woods having fun tonight! Never thought this would turn into a hunting trip instead! What fun!”

How did he know they were all supposed to be out in the woods? There had to be a traitor among them. The idea made Izuku’s already thundering heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

While Izuku was trying to figure out who the traitor might be, and what it might mean for the rest of the students, Kacchan was ready to act. With a twin burst of his explosions, he rocketed over Muscular’s head and landed behind him, putting himself and Izuku on opposite sides of the villain as he’d suggested earlier.

“ONE!” Kacchan shouted.

Izuku blinked and answered back.

“TWO!”

Then together, they acted on, “THREE!”

Kacchan let loose with a huge explosion at Muscular’s back, and Izuku let loose with his strongest punch aimed at the huge man’s gut. When the smoke cleared, Muscular laughed. Izuku hung from the man’s bulked up form by his right arm. He barely had time to register that he was caught in the fibers that had wrapped around him up to his shoulder before the man flexed and Izuku heard the CRUNCH a split second before he registered the pain.

A scream tore out of him as his bones broke, and no amount of attacks by Kacchan were making the villain release his hold. They had to think of something. Oddly, the situation reminded Izuku of a situation from a couple of years ago, and inspiration struck.

“Kacchan! Remember the sludge villain’s weakness!”

Kacchan had been trying to avoid being captured in the same way Izuku was by keeping his distance. It took a moment, but through the haze of pain, Izuku could see that Kacchan got his meaning. Using rocks picked up from the terrain around them, Kacchan began to use them as projectiles with his quirk making them reach punishing speeds in microseconds. He was aiming for the villain’s head, trying to blind him with a shot to the eyes.

Muscular flinched slightly at the blows, but they didn’t make him loosen his hold on Izuku. Until he serve a new purpose, that is. Izuku grunted his arm was released, and drooped uselessly to his side, but he had only been let go because Muscular wanted to grab Izuku’s other arm and pulled him forward to use as a human shield.

“Fuck!” Kacchan swore, redirecting one of his blasts at the last second to keep from hitting Izuku.

A moment later, a somewhat chubby boy stumbled out of the darkness and into the clearing, coughing and bleeding from a wound on his arm. Izuku vaguely recognized him as one of the 1-B students, but couldn’t think beyond that as his crushed arm was being flung around by Muscular’s actions.

“I’m gonna tear this scrawny kid in half while you watch,” Muscular taunted, ”then I’m gonna do the same to you!”

He swung Izuku like a rag doll and grabbed hold of his legs with one massive-muscle enhanced hand. With his arms in the other, and held him above his head. Izuku was desperately trying to summon up as much One For All as he could, trying to think of a way to get out of his position, even as he felt his torso beginning to stretch from being pulled in opposite directions. He felt his vertebrae pop and his ribs scream in protest, but nothing hurt as much as his crushed arm.

“Hit him again!” the chubby boy shouted at Kacchan. “I can help!”

Kacchan picked up another stone about the size of his fist and put an explosion behind it, aiming for the villain’s face. When the hit landed, it was near the throat, and Muscular made a slight choking noise, but just when it seemed it hadn’t been enough, he gasped and dropped to one knee. He was still holding Izuku’s legs, but his arms were free as Muscular clutched his throat, and his shoulders hit the ground with a thud.

“Again,” the boy said. “My quirk is Twin Impact!”

Kacchan began a barrage of stones with bursts of his quirk behind each one, and they seemed to be actually making a difference. Muscular was getting more and more enraged, and finally swung Izuku by the legs straight at Kacchan. Bracing himself for a painful impact, Izuku was surprised to find himself enclosed in a warm, soft space for a moment, then set down gently on the ground. The impact had still hurt, but not nearly as much as it could have.

“Nirengeki!”

It was Kendo from class 1-B. Her quirk was ’Big Fist’, and it seemed she’d arrived just in time to save Izuku from colliding with Kacchan. She was wearing a gas mask, oddly enough. Nirengeki must be the boy who’d helped them.

“He’s not down yet!” Kacchan pointed out.

Muscular seemed to have grown even larger than Izuku would have deemed possible and was seething with anger to the point that he was literally foaming at the mouth. The muscle fibers that weren’t adding to his bulk waved like malevolent tentacles around him as he advanced on the four students with murderous intent.

“Kacchan, Kendo, I need a distraction,” Izuku told them as they began to back away as a group.

The green crackling lightning was back, and Izuku still had a free arm. He looked to the boy from 1-B with a grim expression.

“If your quirk does what I think it does, please lend me your strength.”

The boy nodded with a determined expression. “Ready when you are.”

Izuku nodded and didn’t give himself time to think as Kendo and Kacchan broke from the group and ran in different directions to get behind Muscular.

“Nice try, but those little mosquitoes can’t do anything to me,” Muscular said. “You’re number one on the kill list, and I always get the job done.”

He lunged for Izuku just as Izuku lunged for him. Using his agility and flexibility to dodge the huge arms and waving muscle fibers, he brought his uninjured fist around as hard as he could, channeling as much of his strength as he could into it. His left fist hit the villain solidly in the side of the head, between his ear and good eye. The impact sent pain shooting up his arm like an electric shock, but Muscular’s momentum helped Izuku. Even as the huge arms wrapped around him, Muscular hit the ground with a crunch of bone. He didn’t move after that. That might have been aided by the fact that Kendo and Kacchan were both attacking the villain from the back, possibly with Twin Impact aiding their blows.

The last hit had happened in a matter of seconds, but had seemed dragged out into minutes. Everyone was silent for a moment before Kendo breathed a sigh of relief. She bent down to pick several items from the ground nearby, and held one out to Kacchan. It was a gas mask.

“Yaoyorozu made these and said to give them to everyone I see. There’s poison gas nearby.”

Kacchan took one, but didn’t immediately put it on. Instead, he walked around the heap of the defeated villain and checked on Izuku, who had his legs pinned by the fallen man. Both of his arms were now black, blue and purple and basically useless. He lay there panting with relief, honestly surprised that he wasn’t dead. Kendo used her quirk to help flip the villain over and Izuku scrambled backward as best he could, but at least one of his ankles was badly bruised at the very least, and his right arm was malformed and limp while the other still had some function.

At least he didn’t suddenly have muscle fibers waving all over the place. Muscular must still be alive.

“You need a hospital,” Nirengeki said fretfully.

“Why are you here? Mandalay…”

“Mandalay got knocked out,” Kendo said. “Villains showed up at the 1-A lodge right after she told us to come out. They knocked her out and chased everyone else into the woods. They snatched Monoma, too.”

“They said he and Aizawa sensei were ‘on the list;’ whatever that means,” Nirengeki said.

“Shit!” Kacchan said. “We need to rendezvous with everyone. Ragdoll said there were ten intruders before. Eight men and two women.”

“Honnenuki and Yanagi took down one of the women,” Nirengeki said. “She was carrying some kind of huge stone or magnet or something.”

“So there are at least eight others out there,” Kacchan said. “Let’s head back toward the cafeteria area, since that’s where the buses dropped us off. If we’re going to get out of here, that’s probably where we’ll find the quickest route to the road.”

Kendo helped Izuku onto Kacchan’s back to be carried as they trudged back into the woods, each clutching a gas mask.

“What about Kota?” Izuku asked.

“Who?” Kendo asked.

“The kid. The one with horns on his hat.”

“One of your people carried him off into the forest when everyone ran. Big guy with lots of arms,” Kendo said.

“Shouji,” Izuku surmised.

There was a lot of shouting to their left, and several figures exploded out onto the path. Izuku recognized Uraraka, Tsuyu from his own class, and Tokage plus two others from 1-B.

“Tokage! Kodai! Tsubaraba!” Kendo said, seeing her classmates.

“Midoriya! Bakugou!” Uraraka said in relief. “Thank goodness!”

“We’re all heading to the cafeteria area,” Nerigenki told the newcomers.

“Midoriya! What happened? Your arm!” Uraraka said when she got a closer look.

“Bakugou’s arms don’t look so good either! Kero!” Tsuyu observed.

Izuku jolted. Had something happened to Kacchan that he hadn’t noticed? He began to squirm and tried to get off of his back.

“Hold still, damn Deku!” Kacchan grated out.

It had been a while since he’d been called that, and he stilled, realizing he was probably hurting Kacchan’s arms more with his movements.

“Why are you carrying him?” Uraraka asked.

“Cause he can’t walk? That Muscular shithead fucked up his legs, too.”

“Midoriya,” Uraraka said gently. “Can’t you use your levitation? If one of us is holding onto you, you won’t float away. If not, I can float you.”

Izuku felt like an idiot for not thinking of it himself, and apparently Kacchan felt the same, because he let go of Izuku immediately. He didn’t try to toss him off, but he did drop his arms and leave Izuku free to hover away from him. Tsuyu used her tongue to wrap around Izuku’s middle, which was super weird, but it worked. Izuku pushed aside his pain and tried to concentrate on the situation. Uraraka was disheveled and bleeding from her leg, but didn’t seem to have a limp. Tsuyu seemed fine. Tokage, Kodai and Tsubaraba all looked a little rough, but uninjured.

“Have any of you run into anyone else?” Izuku asked.

“I saw Yaoyorozu earlier. Someone was down because of the poison gas, but I couldn’t see who it was. I offered to carry them, but she said that she had already put a mask on them. She made a bunch more and told me to give them to people,” Kendo said.

“I was with Yoarashi for a bit, but he said he heard a scream and flew off to look for who it was,” Neringeki said.

They traveled a bit faster now that Izuku wasn’t weighing Kacchan down, and reached the clearing for the cafeteria within minutes. Shouji was there, with a weeping Kota on his lap and an unconscious Mandalay laying on the table in front of them. There was an open first aid kit, and her head had been bandaged. Tsuyu helped Midoriya down to a table, and he settled on the surface, not daring to try to maneuver onto a seat. Kota scrambled over to the table and looked at Izuku with more tears welling in his eyes.

Tsubaraba grabbed the first aid kit and made a makeshift sling for Izuku’s useless arm, then binding the arm to his side as best he could. While Tsubaraba and Kodai worked to wrap Izuku’s good arm, and both of Kacchan’s (without blocking his palms), Kota spoke.

“I’m sorry I was mean to you!” he said in a stuffy sounding voice. “They said you saved me from the villains and kept me safe from the man that killed my mama and papa!”

“It’s okay,” Izuku told him as gently as he could. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“He said that after dinner on the first day at camp, a girl with long, green hair followed him to his hideout and tied him up. Then she stabbed him with a big needle and drank some of his blood,” Shouji supplied.

Izuku felt his stomach twist at the thought of how terrified Kota must have been. Long green hair sounded like Shiozaki, but why would she do such a thing?

“She turned into me!” Kota said. “She looked like my twin! Then she stabbed me with another needle and it made me go to sleep.”

“A shape shifter that needs blood to copy people?” Kendo surmised. “One that looked like Shiozaki?”

“That’s what it sounds like,” Shouji agreed.

“Sounds like the crazy girl Tsuyu and I fought with,” Uraraka said angrily. “She stabbed me in the leg with that huge needle, too. She was blonde and had some school uniform on.”

Neither Izuku nor Kacchan mentioned that Muscular had gone there to kill the boy because the villains didn’t need him any more.

“So now we gotta worry about there being two Round Faces runnin’ around, too?” Kacchan asked. “Great!”

“Wait…” Izuku said. “So, the Kota we saw other days was an imposter the whole time, but how did they find us to begin with?”

“My guess is Shiozaki,” Tokage said grimly. “She went missing just before all of this started.”

“Shiozaki is a spy?” Tsubaraba asked, taping up the bandages on Kacchan’s wrists. “That’s crazy!”

“Someone was probably pretending to be her all along,” Tsuya suggested. “Before we even left UA.”

There was noise from nearby, just behind the storage room, and everyone but Izuku jumped to their feet, ready to fight. Luckily, it turned out to be Vlad King, wearing a gas mask and carrying two students - one over each shoulder, who were also in masks. Yaoyorozu followed behind, holding a sword, of all things. Everyone scrambled to get the unconscious students onto tables .

“Tsunotori and Yosetsu,” Tokage said when they pulled the gas masks away from the faces of the downed students.

They learned that Yoarashi had cleared out the poison gas and the villain who created it had shot at him. The shot had missed and hit another villain who was nearby. The villain who was shot had fled, and Yoarashi used his wind to capture the gas-making one.

“The guy who was shot said something about it almost being time to get to a rendezvous point for extraction,” Vlad said.

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Tiger said, coming out of the trees dragging a body behind him that had been wrapped in tape like a mummy.

Sero and Kaminari followed Tiger into the clearing, Kaminari being led along by Sero, drooling a little and giving everyone a drunken sounding, “yay!” He’d definitely gone all in.

Tiger and Vlad hauled the mummified body to a pillar near the grills and told Sero to secure it to the pillar and to make sure whoever it was stayed knocked out.

There was a sound in the distance, but it was hard to hear over the sound of all of them talking and trying to decide what to do next. More than half of them were still missing, and at least two of their number had been taken.

“Shhhh!” Izuku tried shushing everyone, but there was too much commotion.

“Shut up!” Kacchan yelled.

It got quieter as everyone stopped to look at him.

“What is it, nerd?” Kacchan asked.

“Do you all hear that?” Izuku asked.

Everyone paused and listened.

A faint wailing sound off in the distance.

“Did you call for help?” Tokage asked Vlad King.

“Couldn’t. The satellite phone was in the lodge that burned,” he said.

“Maybe a forest fire warning siren?” Tsuyu suggested.

‘It’s a way off,” Vlad decided. “It’s been quiet here for a while, but we can’t count on it staying that way. Everyone settle down and keep alert.”

Many of the students went to the perimeter of the eating area and spread out, keeping watch. Mandalay groaned, then turned on her side and retched. The sound was gut churning, but Kota began to cry again and murmur, “Thank you God!” over and over.

“What’s happening?” Mandalay groaned as Tiger rushed to her side.

“Villains attacked. You rest, we’ve got help incoming.”

“Is... everyone… alright?” her words were strained and halting as she gripped her head in both paws.

“They will be,” Tiger said. “Everyone’s been showing up here at the cafeteria. We’re just waiting for all of them to get here.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“Is there any way you can use your quirk to broadcast to the others to come back here?” Vlad asked.

It sounded insensitive, but it would be the fastest, most efficient way to gather their people together.

Mandalay clenched her jaw and nodded. She was still gripping her head, and tears were slipping from the corners of her eyes, but she finally took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I think I reached everyone. I just said to meet back here immediately.”

This had been an unnecessary statement, since they’d all heard it inside their heads just now, but no one mentioned that. Izuku was beyond grateful for her efforts. He knew what it was like to try to think past intense pain in your head. His own pain had settled to a throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and he was grateful he was alive to feel anything. He prayed to any gods that were listening that that everyone else was alive, too.

The thin wail of sirens was getting closer, and now they could tell that there were several emergency vehicles on their way. Izuku used his levitation to get up higher to have a look, but it was impossible to judge how far away the red and white flashing lights were on the undoubtedly winding mountain road. He let himself drop back to earth and was grateful to Tsuyu for helping to guide him down again to avoid jarring his legs.

“I can see lights coming this way, but I can’t tell how far they are,” he said. “It looks like at least a dozen vehicles.”

At that moment, a man sauntered into the clearing. He had black hair, black clothes and extensive scarring on his face that was purple and black in the eerie blue glow of the flames dancing on his fingertips.

“How nice of you all to gather together in one big, burnable group!” he said. “Especially you, Midoriya Izuku.”

Tiger and Vlad were already racing toward the man, but he’d set fire to the trees by the time they reached him. He launched a fireball toward Izuku, but it fell short as the villain collapsed under the assault of two heroes intent on stopping him. Some of the others stamped out the flames from the failed fireball, smothering beneath their feet before it could spread. There was something unnatural about the blue flames.

One of the girls screamed and several other students shouted or gasped when the villain turned to sludge when the adults pummeled him with fists and feet. Kacchan had shot forward to aid in the attack, too, but Tsuyu had grabbed him in mid-air to keep him from hampering the teachers’ efforts. He was left snarling at her, but by the time she let him go, there was no one to fight.

“That’s the second time that asshole has turned into a puddle,” he growled. “What gives?”

“They’re duplicates of an original,” Aizawa said, jogging out of the trees a little way from the flames, carrying a student in his arms.

Several others followed, and Izuku saw that Aoyama had a long gash on his leg that had already been hastily wrapped in bandages as Aizawa set him down at a table.

“Kota, can you help?” Tiger asked the boy who stood trembling near Izuku, staring at the flames.

Izuku realized that, given who his parents were, Kota probably had a water quirk.

“It’s okay if you can’t,” Izuku assured him. “But it would be a huge help.”

Kota finally nodded, and Tiger used gentle hands to lift the boy onto his shoulders. Kota put his hands out in front of him and a thin spout of water emitted from them. Not nearly enough to douse the spreading flames, though.

“Think about how it looks when it comes out of a fire hose,” Aizawa told the boy. “Picture it drowning out the flames under a waterfall.”

“You can do it, Kota!” Izuku encouraged.

“You’re doing great!” Uraraka joined in.

She was making the tables float one at a time, so they could be pushed to a safer distance from the fire.

“You’ve got this!” Sero said.

Soon the students were cheering the boy on as the deluge of water grew stronger and stronger. The flames around the outdoor kitchen and tables were being beaten back enough to keep them from having to retreat to a different area.

As Kota’s water was beginning to wane, the area was suddenly covered in ice. The hissing and crackling was startling, but welcome as the blue gave way to steam, and Todoroki appeared, breathing hard.

“The villains are gone. They took Ragdoll and Monoma.”

Notes:

Hopefully the fight with Muscular didn't disappoint! I always worry when I write action scenes that what's in my head doesn't quite translate into my writing!

Chapter 57

Summary:

Camp comes to an abrupt end, but he danger hasn't passed.

Notes:

The next chapter might be a bit later than usual; I'm having surgery on my eye Monday morning and they said it would take about two days for recovery. It's not a big deal, the surgery should only take a few minutes, and I'm already mostly blind in that eye, anyway! I had the same surgery ten years ago, and I don't remember a lot of downtime with it, so hopefully things will be posted as usual. Just a heads up in case it takes longer.

“Damn it!” Tiger bellowed, making several of them jump.

Vlad King was grinding his teeth hard enough for them all to hear.

Everyone was silent for a moment before Aizawa took control.

“I’m counting thirty-six. There should be forty-three, not counting the two who were taken. We need to find the remaining seven.”

“I’ll go,” Tiger said. “I know this forest best. I’ll send anyone who can walk back here. Everyone else get ready to get out of here. Just leave all of your things, don’t worry about anything but getting out of here.”

Before he could disappear into the darkness, four of the missing seven came out of the woods on the opposite side from the fire. Kirishima had the arm of a girl from 1-B over his shoulder and was supporting her while she limped along, and a boy with a green mohawk and mandibles was supporting Mina, who looked like a zombie, barely able to stand.

“Pixie-Bob, Yoarashi and Shishida are still missing,” Kendo supplied after taking a headcount.

Almost as soon as she had said it, the wind picked up, and Yoarashi landed in the clearing and brought Pixie-Bob and Shishida with him. Both were unconscious. Tiger, Vlad and Aizawa rushed forward to help. The sirens were quite loud now, and the lights were casting a red glow on the road.

“That’s everyone,” Aizawa said, counting again, just to be sure.

“How do we know everyone is who they say they are?” Kirishima asked.

A few students looked around uneasily at each other, but it was a fair point. There was a girl who could apparently drink blood and copy someone, and other villains had turned out to be clones of some kind that turned to glop if they took damage. What were they going to do; punch everyone in the face as they got on the bus?

“There was a girl that looked like Uraraka, but then sort of melted into some blond. She said she had fun playing with everyone just before she jumped into that black hole thing,” Yoarashi said.

Uraraka shuddered. “Ew.”

A police car skidded to a halt in the clearing, followed by other vehicles that crowded in or parked along the narrow dirt road. Emergency workers grabbed their gear and started attending to the wounded. Suddenly the area was very, very crowded. Izuku kept off to the side of the table he was sitting on to give the medics room to work on the unconscious people, until a small, squeaky voice piped up beside him.

“You need to be seen immediately,” Nezu told him.

Aizawa appeared and finally saw the condition his troublesome student was in. Izuku ducked his head.

“I told you I should have stayed home.”

Aizawa sighed and put a hand on Izuku’s head.

“This was not your fault. We’ll discuss it later, but from what I’ve been able to tell, this was going to happen whether you were here or not.”

He didn’t give Izuku time to reply before snagging a passing paramedic by the arm and pointing at Izuku. He figured he must look pretty terrible, because the man’s eyes widened and he yelled for a gurney, stat.

“How are you still conscious, kid?” the mad asked incredulously as he carefully cut away the bandages and Izuku’s shirt (that said ’summer camp shirt' on it) and saw the extent of his wounds.

“Beats me,” Izuku massively understated. “I’m really tired.”

Kacchan was trying to swat away another medic who was trying to look at his arms, while Kirishima tried to calm him down.

“Everyone who doesn’t need immediate medical attention, head for the buses. They’re parked further back down the road. Class 1-A on one and 1-B on the other,” Vlad told them all loudly. “I’ll come do a headcount as soon as I can. No one is to leave the bus once they get on, for any reason.”

Kendo began herding her classmates up the road and out of sight. Izuku counted them as they walked away to try to keep his mind off what the medic was doing, and frowned when he only counted sixteen. Three were unconscious and Monoma had been taken. Monoma, who could hold several quirks at once - at least temporarily. Izuku could guess what sort of things All For One had in store for someone like that. Ragdoll, too. Who wouldn’t want a quirk like hers? Being able to locate and keep track of up to a hundred people, plus know their weakness? In the hands of a villain, he could only imagine how many terrible things could happen.

“Midoriya,” Iida said, approaching with a slight limp.

“Hey, Iida. Looks like I won’t be able to do my duty as class rep at the moment,” Izuku said lamely.

“I’ll handle it,” Iida promised firmly. “I just wanted to say that I’m glad you’re okay. Those villains were… they said they were here to…”

“Kill me,” Izuku said with a solemn nod. “Yeah. I’m glad I’m okay, too.”

“You call that okay?” Jiro asked as she came to get Iida.

“Better than dead,” Izuku said. “It was kinda close there, for a few seconds. Do NOT tell my dad.”

Aizawa called for Iida and Jiro to hurry up, and Izuku gave them a slightly wobbly smile as he realized how very, very lucky they were that no one had been killed. He didn’t know what his classmates had faced out in the woods, but if it was anywhere near as harrowing as what he’d been through… He swallowed hard as a lump grew larger in this throat, and his eyes stung.

All of this, because a villain was after him.

“Okay, that’s as much as I can do with what I’ve got. We can’t get a helicopter in here with the fire still burning back there. We’ll load you in the ambulance and get some pain relief for you.”

“I can’t be taken to a hospital,” Izuku told him.

“Don’t worry about that, we’ve got it taken care of.” the medic said.

After that, Izuku lost track of everything. He was put into the back of an ambulance and the man who had been working on him before handed him off to another man who started an IV in his hand, since his arms were kind of a mess. His hands weren’t much better, but there wasn’t much of a choice. Izuku could only really see his own reflection in the windows on the doors of the ambulance as they left the campground behind them. Another moment more, and a needle was being put into the port on his IV. The medic smiled comfortingly at Izuku as he slowly pushed the plunger on the syringe.

“Good night, kid.”

When Izuku woke up, he found his father asleep in an uncomfortable looking chair beside the bed, mouth hanging open and suit jacket twisted weirdly. Even in his sleep, there was a faint tendril of smoke trailing upward toward the ceiling from both his mouth and nose. It still seemed to be night outside, or early morning? All he really knew was that the room had a large window, and it was dark on the other side of it, except for ambient lights from other buildings. His mouth tasted gross and somehow metallic, and he was thirsty, but (not unexpectedly) both of his arms were encased in thick bandages and he couldn’t reach for the pitcher or cup on the rolling table by the bed.

“Dad?” he said quietly.

His voice was hoarse from disuse and he cleared it to try again, but his father blinked awake at the sound.

“You’re awake!”

His father straightened and immediately went to the door and opened it to tell someone that Izuku was awake.

“How do you feel?” his dad asked as he returned to his seat.

“Thirsty,” Izuku rasped.

He gratefully sipped at the water through the straw his father helped him with. A nurse came in and cautioned him not to drink too much at once while she checked the IV line and the machines and checked a clipboard in her hands. After making some notes, she simply said that she would let the doctor know he was awake, and that he would come and speak to them in the morning. She left them alone after promising to bring him a tray of food.

“I’m not in a hospital, am I?” Izuku belatedly thought to ask.

“No. You were very briefly, but then you were rerouted immediately to a private surgical center. Doctors were called in to handle your case, and once your surgery was finished you were in recovery for a few hours before you were airlifted here.”

“Where’s here?” Izuku asked.

The room didn’t quite seem like a hospital room, but it wasn’t far off, either. How long had he been out?

“Might Tower.”

That was unexpected. Did Might Tower have more than just a small infirmary for its employees? He couldn’t remember one from all of his days exploring the place over the years. That also explained why visiting hours didn’t apply to his father.

“What time is it?” Izuku asked as his dad stretched the kinks out of his back.

“About three in the morning,” his dad answered after checking his watch.

“I can’t believe they let you stay.”

“They kicked me out once, because I kept breathing fire,” his dad admitted. “Not compatible with the oxygen they were giving you.”

Izuku winced at the thought of what a catastrophe that could have been.

“I’m okay, though,” Izuku said comfortingly. “I mean, my arms are messed up, but I’m not…”

“I heard that was a close call,” his father said, looking frustrated.

Someone had snitched. Izuku remembered explicitly telling his friends not to tell his dad about that.

“I had a long conversation with your teacher,” his dad said. “He wanted me to know you might be blaming yourself for what happened.”

Izuku sighed. “Yeah, he already told me it isn’t my fault. It’s just kind of hard, because if I hadn’t decided to go to UA, the villains would probably never have bothered everyone else.”

His father nodded. “I can see he was right. You can’t control the evil that others do, Zu. If you hadn’t chosen UA, maybe they would have attacked you at a regular school, where there are kids that aren’t trained to defend themselves and protect others.”

He had a point.

“What we need to focus on right now is getting you back on your feet,” his father said. “You had some pretty extensive surgery the other day.”

“The other day?” Izuku asked with a jolt of surprise. “How long have I been here?”

“Two days, give or take a few hours,” his dad supplied.

“Days?” Izuku practically yelped. “How is everyone else?”

“Most of the kids exposed to the gas have recovered; one still has a cough. You had the worst injuries of anyone,” his father said. “Recovery Girl went yesterday and tended to most of the other students, but wanted to wait to see if you needed more surgery and let you rest before she healed you at all.”

“Yikes! That bad?” Izuku asked,.

“You fractured both of your ankles, too,” his dad said. “But your right arm was the worst, and had to be rebuilt by a specialist with some sort of quirk that glues bones together, somehow.”

“If my bones are all okay now, why do I look like a bloated mummy?”

“The bone glue thing was basically a temporary measure to put everything back where it was supposed to be. The way they described it, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle where everything's in place, but could fall back to pieces with a minor use of force. Recovery Girl will come in later today to use her quirk to seal it all up, or something. I need to get that woman a big gift… like a summer home in the tropics or something, for everything she’s done for you.”

“You should go home and get some sleep,” Izuku told his dad.

“I don’t think I can, even if I wanted to,” his father said with a wry smile. “I don’t think the control panels around here respond to me.”

So Izuku’s dad stayed the night and left early in the morning when a sidekick escorted him, to go home and get some proper rest.

Sir and All Might dropped in to see him just after his father left; All Might looked exhausted and Sir looked tense.

“We’re going after Monoma and Ragdoll tonight,” All Might told him.

“You know where they are?” Izuku asked in surprise.

“Yaoyorozu had the presence of mind to make a tracker and Awase was able to stick it to the nomu the villains had with them.

“There was a nomu?” Izuku would have shot straight up in bed if Sir hadn't caught his shoulder and guided him back down onto his pillows.

His heart rate monitor beeped angrily at him.

“A particularly nasty one,” All Might said. “It’s a miracle no one was more grievously injured. Tokoyami was able to use dark shadow to keep it from hurting anyone.”

“Holy shit,” Izuku whispered.

“Language,” Sir said automatically, without any real censure in his tone. “Several students were exposed to the gas, which wasn’t as deadly as everyone was led to believe. It did some surface damage to the respiratory tissues of the ones that were exposed, and it knocked them out for a concerning amount of time, but Recovery Girl was able to get it cleared up after they woke.”

“Young Bakugou had several micro-fractures and extensive bruising from using his quirk so strenuously without bracers on his wrists, but he’s good as new now,” All Might added.

“Do you… do you think…” Izuku tried to gather his courage and confront the thing he’d been avoiding thinking about. “Do you think that Ragdoll and Monoma are still…”

“There’s always hope,” All Might promised without making any promises.

Izuku closed his eyes as tears began to spill from them.

“I think they probably took Monoma because of his quirk," he said without looking at either of them. “He can copy quirks and hold more than one at once, at least for a limited time. They wanted to kill me, but tried to take him.”

“Then there’s reason to believe they want him alive,” Sir said grimly. “I believe they wanted you eliminated because of the danger you pose to All For One.”

Izuku just nodded, taking a gasping breath as he tried not to let his guilt and anger consume him.

“How many of the villains did they catch?”

“Three. Two of them were escaped prisoners and one who seems to be hardly older than you.”

“They got Muscular, right?” Izuku asked, finally opening his eyes and managing to pull himself together.

“Yes. He’s in rough shape, but in custody,” Sir assured him.

Izuku nodded. At least one thing had gone right.

“How did they find us, and how did the police know we were in trouble?”

“One of the villains was a shapeshifter named Toga Himiko,” All Might said. “She impersonated Shiozaki Ibara from class 1-B before anyone even arrived at the school to board the buses. The real Shiozaki was tied up in a motel room, barely alive. It’s their belief that she was left to die. The girl who impersonated her took her place on the bus, then claimed illness. From there, she kidnapped Mandalay’s cousin and alternated between the two personalities to keep everyone in the dark. She contacted Shigaraki at some point and gave them the location.”

“Is Shiozaki okay?” Izuku asked.

“They think she’ll make a full recovery, eventually,” Sir said. “But she lost a lot of blood, and was like that for a long time. A maid at the motel found her and called emergency services, but until she woke and told them what little she could, no one had any idea that she hadn’t been at the training camp all along. That’s when the school was alerted and police were called.”

Izuku sighed.

“I can’t believe no one was killed. Thank the gods.”

“Ten villains against 45 skilled fighters was a long shot for them. I think they mainly got what they wanted out of this attack,” Sir said. “The public is outraged at the school, parents are threatening to pull their children from the school, a hero and a student were kidnapped and most of them escaped capture. The media has turned rabid over it all and it is making things worse.”

“Public trust is a valuable thing,” All Might said with a nod. “All For One can only benefit from damaging it.”

“You should go and rest up for tonight,” Sir told All Might. “You’re going to need all of your strength.”

All MIght agreed and gave Izuku an encouraging smile before leaving the room. Sir waited a few moments, holding up a finger to forestall any further questions or comments, until he heard the elevator ping down the hall. Then he set his jaw and turned to face Izuku.

“Izuku, I have a very large, very irresponsible favor to ask of you,” he said without preamble. “I need you to be there tonight, when the raid happens.”

Izuku blinked in surprise. That was definitely not something he had expected.

“You need me to use One For All to help fight the villains? I’m kind of a mummy right now, and I don’t have a license...”

“No, you misunderstand. I don’t want you to fight at all. This is going to be very complicated, but I’m going to try to make it as simple as I can,” Sir said. “But it’s not One For All I need. It’s Inheritance.”

Izuku was already shaking his head. “I don’t want any more quirks, especially from villains…”

“No. Let me explain,” Sir quickly corrected him. “You can help All Might just by being nearby. Recovery Girl should have you in adequate shape in time. I’m almost certain that All Might is going to have to face All For One tonight, and if that happens, I need you to be close enough to weaken him, so Toshinori has a chance of beating him.”

Izuku understood immediately. The last time he had been in close proximity with All For One, it hadn’t gone well for the villain, and evidence had pointed to Inheritance being the cause of All For One’s apparent panic at the time. If he was to be in the vicinity when All Might had to fight him, it would give him an edge, and hopefully end the fight faster.

“Okay,” Izuku said once he took a moment to think about it. “He won’t be the only one there, right? Other heroes will be there to help him fight?”

Sir nodded and hung his head.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you,” he said heavily. “I feel I owe you some explanation; something you probably should have been told about before. Tosh didn’t want to scare you, so we didn’t share it with you, but I think it’s time you knew.”

Izuku didn’t like the sound of that.

“You saw something,” Izuku guessed. “Something bad is going to happen.”

“Yes and no,” Sir said, “I’m sure you remember when All Might was injured in his previous confrontation with All For One.”

“Of course,” Izuku said.

That had been the beginning of the end of his time as All Might; at least full time.

“At that time, while All Might was still in the hospital, I used my quirk on him and didn’t like what I saw.”

Izuku shifted uneasily. Sir had always said that the things he saw always came to pass. That he’d never been wrong. The fact that he was stalling made it even more ominous.

“The further into the future I look, the less certain the probable outcomes are. There are just too many variables for it to be able to be more precise. However, I looked ahead a few years, to determine if he could truly make a full recovery from those terrible injuries. I saw that if All Might continued on as a hero, refusing to retire, he would face off against a very strong villain, and he would die an unspeakable death.”

Izuku swallowed hard. He opened his mouth to say something, then realized he had no idea what to say.

“I couldn’t pinpoint the exact time period, but i believe we’re reaching the end of it,” Sir said. “You came along and the probable outcome shifted..”

“But he’s still doing hero work. He hasn’t really retired, yet.”

“Exactly. I came back to you after that vision and asked to look into your future, and I saw that Tosh had passed One For All onto you. I assumed at the time that this meant that he would take my warning seriously and work toward retirement.”

“Isn’t that what he’s been doing?” Izuku asked.

“It is,” Sir agreed. “But you were terribly young at that point, and we needed to wait. I wanted him to speed up his retirement once you started UA, and that’s one of the reasons he accepted the teaching position; it wouldn’t seem odd for him to step out of the limelight in such a way. He’s not a young man, anymore.”

“So… there’s a chance he could… not survive tonight.” Izuku said thickly.

“There is. I wish I could just lie and tell you it’s fine, but… I’m not sure, and he won’t let me look. He made me swear not to, in fact. That’s why I want to… cheat a little bit,” Sir admitted. “When I looked into your future just before camp, I jumped to a month later and saw you whole and seemingly healthy, so I didn’t probe further, and didn’t look for All Might being with you.”

“Couldn’t you just look into my future right now and see if All Might is there?” Izuku asked.

The idea that they could learn he wasn’t was terrifying beyond anything Izuku was willing to think about at the moment.

“You wouldn’t have to tell me what you see.”

“He made me swear not to do that, either,” Sir said, sounding frustrated. “He basically forbade me from using my quirk to determine the outcome ahead of time.”

Izuku sighed. That did seem like All Might.

“So, you just want me to be nearby, in case it comes down to a fight between All Might and All For One,” Izuku clarified. “But what if someone else dies? One of the villains or other heroes? What if All Might kills All For One?”

Izuku hated the idea of possessing quirks that had been forcibly taken from others.

“I want you to be stationed on the roof of an adjacent building,” Sir told him. “If it looks like the fight might turn deadly, you should get out of there as fast as you can. Just run away, far enough that a death won’t affect you. But if it’s just a fight between All Might and All For One, your presence could help tip the scales. It’s a risk, and it’s assuming that the fight will take place where I expect it to. All For One might sense your presence and flee. That would be the best possible outcome.”

“Is it okay for me to go out without a bodyguard?” Izuku asked. “I’m pretty sure my dad isn’t going to be okay with this, so I probably shouldn’t tell him.”

Sir adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

“Well, you won’t be left alone; I’ll be sending Bubble Girl with you, though she doesn’t know it, yet. I’m hesitant to ask you to be dishonest with your father about this, but at the same time…”

“I get it,” Izuku said. “I don’t like lying, and I know you always tell me that a lie by omission is still a lie, but in this case, it might be best. Like you said, I’ll have a bodyguard with me.”

“If you want to tell him, I’ll do my best to explain the reasons,” Sir told him. “But the fewer people who know the plan, the better.”

“As long as I’m not going there to fight, I think it should be okay not to tell him,” Izuku said after a moment of consideration.

“Thank you, Izuku,” Sir said solemnly. “Recovery Girl should be here within the hour to speed your healing, now that your bones are all back where they belong. You’ll probably sleep some more, so you should be refreshed by the time the rescue operation is about to start. I'll have Bubble Girl smuggle you out and take you to the warehouse we’ve tracked the nomu to.”

“Do you think that’s where they’re holding Monoma and Ragdoll?”

He had visions of the Doctor using Monoma for experiments with Nomu, and clenched his jaw.

“I think that’s where the confrontation will be,” Sir said with a nod. “I just want you to stay on the roof I send you to. No heroics. No rescue mission. Just stay there and wait. I know it will be hard to watch without joining in, but you have to let the pros handle this.”

Izuku nodded in agreement, but wondered if a group of heroes attacking was the best plan. Wouldn’t a smaller group of stealthy heroes have a better chance? All Might wouldn’t have to fight at all if someone else handled it. He knew it would be next to impossible to keep him out of it, though-- one of his students had been taken. Japan would be looking for All Might, who worked at the school, to be at the forefront of the operation.

He ate hungrily after Sir had left, and chatted with Togata senpai, who was a full-time intern at Might Tower, now. He felt foolish being fed by his senpai, but was too hungry to refuse. Izuku learned that he had interned with Best Jeanist before Sir had recruited him. He asked about his quirk, but before he could learn much about it, Recovery Girl arrived and looked him over.

She removed all of the bandages to reveal long lines of dozens of staples down his right arm, holding puckered skin together. Even his fingers had needed to be flayed open to fix the bones of his right hand. The skin itself was nearly black with bruising on both arms, though the left was less so, and hadn’t needed surgery even though it was broken in two places and fractured in a couple more. He had almost forgotten that both of his ankles had fractures until Recovery Girl flipped back the blankets to reveal the bandages wrapped around them.

“Geeze, Midoriya!” Togata said at the sight of even his legs needing help. “Are there any bones you didn’t break?”

“Not sure, at this point,” Izuku answered wryly.

Recovery Girl clicked her tongue at them and made a note on a chart, then kissed Izuku on his cheek a couple of times. He instantly felt relief he didn’t even know he craved, and instantly felt his eyes droop. Time to rest up, before his secret mission that night.

He woke to the feeling of being shaken gently by the shoulder. Bubble Girl stood over him, holding a bag. She was dressed in street clothes, mostly in black, but not looking like she was up to something shady.

“A change of clothes for you,” she said with a bright smile. “Your father just left, but he was here for a couple of hours. He was really glad to see you without your arms and legs all wrapped up. He brought you some clothes and other stuff and said he’d be back tomorrow.”

Izuku accepted the bag with hands that felt stiff and a bit weak, but working well. The staples were gone, though long scars remained on his right arm from shoulder to fingertips. His left arm looked normal, as did his legs.

“Get dressed,” Bubble Girl told him. “We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

Chapter 58

Summary:

The rescue operation begins and ends with trepidation.

Notes:

My surgery went well, and though my eye looks all gross and bloody, it's working fine. So, here's the new chapter!

Izuku scrambled to dress while Bubble Girl waited in the hall. The clothes were unfamiliar to him, and he guessed that Sir had arranged for them. They were nothing really special; just jeans, shirt and dark blue hoodie. He realized as he pulled on the tee shirt that his right arm was considerably thinner and weaker than the left. At least his gloves stillf fit properly. The damage done and the resulting surgery and healing had left him with a healthy arm, but one that hadn’t experienced years of strength training and muscle building. He was going to have to play catch-up, again. That was a problem for future him, though. Right now, he had an assignment to fulfill.

He was surprised when Bubble Girl led him down to the parking garage and straight to a sleek-looking motorcycle that was all clean lines and showy colors. She handed him a helmet and straddled the bike, then motioned for him to sit behind her. He’d never ridden on a motorcycle before, and was a bit nervous at first as she started the motor and the whole frame vibrated under him.

“Put your hands on my hips, and lean into any curves or turns on the way,” she told him over the noise.

She set the bike in motion without further warning, and Izuku’s hands shot out to grip her hips awkwardly. He didn’t think he’d ever been this close to a girl before when he wasn’t fighting her. It was a little less unnerving than it might have been, since she was fully clothed and not in her hero costume.

It only took about a half a block before he relaxed a little and began to enjoy the ride. The night air was cool, and the traffic wasn’t too heavy as they navigated the city. The warehouse Sir wanted him to position himself on looked abandoned as they rode past it. No light shone inside, and the only illumination was from street lamps on the sidewalk outside. Bubble Girl parked her bike several blocks away near an izakaya, and then they walked down the street as if on a date. As long as no one looked too closely, they would just seem like a couple strolling down the street.

Bubble girl didn’t say much until the amount of people surrounding them thinned out, and there were only a few others on the other side of the street.

“Okay,” she said quietly, moving at a leisurely pace. “All Might and the rest are probably all gathered at Police Headquarters right now, briefing everyone involved. There are two primary targets, so this is going to be a double strike on both locations. Right now, Best Jeanist, Gang Orca and Mt. Lady should be arriving near the warehouse we passed. That’s where the tracker on the nomu led investigators. They think it’s where they’ve been creating the nomu.”

“But we’re in the middle of the city!” Izuku said, looking around at the various storefronts that were now closed for the night.

“Yes; hiding in plain sight. Who would suspect?” she asked. “It’s not like they care if people get hurt, right?”

“I guess you’re right,” Izuku said.

But it was troubling. If a fight broke out around here, there could be a lot of casualties. Still, they were still blocks away from the warehouse.

“If they’re there, I take it All Might is at the other site?”

“Yes. The bulk of the heroes and police went to where they believe Monoma and Ragdoll are being held. One of the villains from the camp was spotted yesterday, and followed.”

Izuku wasn’t so sure that Monoma would be held at the villain’s hideout, especially if the nomu were being manufactured at the building next to the warehouse. If Izuku was correct about them wanting Monoma for his quirk, then wouldn’t it make sense for them to hold him where the nomu were being created? It had been Izuku’s blood and whatever else they’d taken from him that had made the Nomu possible, after all.

He reminded himself that he was not here to fight villains, and that he was not supposed to put himself in any danger that he could avoid. The pros were handling this. They had a plan.

Did the pros know about All For One, and possibility that he’d be making an appearance?

“Shouldn’t we be hurrying?” Izuku asked.

“No,” Bubble Girl said with a firm head shake. “Sir was very clear that he didn’t want you on that rooftop until we were sure that All Might was there. I was told to keep you at least a block away until we had confirmation so if All For One is there, he won’t be tipped off beforehand.”

“Wait… they’re flushing him out on purpose? So that All Might can fight him tonight?” Izuku asked, feeling a sense of panic set in.

“That’s secondary to rescuing the captives,” she said. “But it would be a nice bonus to rid ourselves the entire lot in one fell swoop.”

This was bad. Izuku didn’t think she had any idea about All Might’s time limit, or his true form. It was easy to be casual about the possibility of this upcoming fight when you weren’t aware that All Might wasn’t at his best, anymore. No wonder Sir had been so desperate to get Izuku near the fight! It was possible that All For One was incredibly weakened by their previous encounter, and Izuku’s unwitting attack on him during the Sports Festival. He had supposedly ordered Shigaraki to kill him, just because he posed a threat, after all. Maybe All Might could beat him, but what about the nomu? Could he beat All For One and any nomu in that building?

“Okay, we’ll wait here,” Bubble Girl said, pulling Izuku from his spiraling thoughts. “Can you toss me up to the roof?”

Izuku looked upward and saw that the building they were standing by was five floors.

“It might be better for me to just carry you up on my back,” she said. “Can you hold on?”

She could. They moved into the alley between two buildings until they were swallowed by the shadows, so they wouldn’t be seen. It was a bit strange because she was slightly taller than him, but she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. He bent his legs and jumped, ricocheting between the two buildings a couple of times as he went. They made it to the roof in less than five seconds and looked around.

“From what Sir said, this should be far enough away from the warehouse for you to not be affected by any deaths. There aren’t many residential buildings around here, and no hospitals or nursing homes or anything like that.”

Izuku nodded and kept his eyes trained on the end of the block. He wasn’t exactly sure which building was the warehouse until Bubble Girl pointed it out by an antennae on the roof of the building beside it that resembled a cell phone tower. A few minutes went by before there was a huge crash, and a plume of dust billowed up in the air, making Izuku begin to move toward the commotion before Bubble Girl stopped him.

“That’s just the assigned team,” she said. “They’re the ones making the fuss.”

Izuku fidgeted, but saw Mt. Lady’s gigantic form stand before she shrank down out of sight. She wouldn’t shrink down if there was an impending threat, would she?

“Remember, you’re not here to fight,” Bubble Girl reminded him. “Don’t make me have to stun you.”

He glanced at her to see if she was serious, and saw that she was. His quirk didn’t really need him to be awake to work, did it?

They stood on the rooftop watching the dust settle, when there was another explosion.

“Uh…” Bubble Girl looked uncertain.

“None of the heroes you mentioned for this site makes explosions,” Izuku said with a frown. "I mean, Gang Orca could us his voice..."

Bubble Girl checked her phone and swore.

“The raid on the other hideout was a bust, and most of the villains were warped away. All Might should be on his way here right now,” she said. “We’re gonna wait about one minute before we move in.”

Izuku’s heart began to race. What was going on down there? That second explosion could have been anything. Before the minute was up, a blurred shape shot across the sky like a missile and Izuku knew that All Might had arrived on the scene. He moved to jump forward onto the next rooftop, and Bubble Girl didn’t stop him. It wasn’t until they were two buildings away that she grabbed him.

“Let me go and make sure All For One is even there,” she said. “I’ll wave you over if he is.”

Izuku reluctantly nodded.

It didn’t take her long to get to the warehouse and then she came back, looking conflicted.

“All three heroes are down,” she said. “Best Jeanist looks… really bad. Like, really, REALLY bad. I don’t know if you should get closer.”

“I have a healing quirk, now. I’ve been resting all day. If we can get to him, I should be able to at least keep him alive until help arrives,” Izuku said.

Bubble Girl bit her lip.

“All attention is on All Might right now, but there are people everywhere… most of them villains. I don’t know if they were inside the nomu factory all along, or what.”

Izuku didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“If I go over there, All For One might just leave to get away from me. If that happens, there won’t need to be a fight at all, and Best Jeanist could get help.”

Bubble Girl’s expression hardened.

“This is going to make me sound like a total bitch, but if I have to choose between the two, I want All Might to come out of this alive. Let’s go see what’s what.”

Izuku nodded, well aware that if he chose to try to heal Best Jeanist, it wouldn’t count against him. As long as he didn’t join the fight, he was within the law. Self Defense was another matter. Still, All Might didn’t know he was here, and wasn’t supposed to know; it would distract him for sure.

Izuku skidded to a halt at the edge of the warehouse roof and looked down at the half-destroyed building below. There was Best Jeanist, in the dim, yellow light of a security lamp, lying prone in a dark puddle. There was no one near him. Bubble Girl was beside him, also scanning the scene below.

All Might and All For One were focused on each other, and it seemed All Might had both given and taken a couple of hits. It was hard to hear what they were saying to each other, but that didn’t matter. Before Izuku could determine whether he was close enough to All For One to affect him, another form rocketed onto the scene.

“Gran Torino!” Izuku gasped.

He was in his hero gear, and didn’t hesitate to start kicking the other villains who tried to intervene. Izuku jolted when he noted that the scarred man who started the fires at the training camp was holding onto Monoma by the arm. Ragdoll was nowhere to be seen. Several nomu were lying scattered around, as well. They weren’t moving. He hoped by everything that was good in the universe that he wasn’t sucking up nomu quirks right then.

The truly terrifying thing about everything that was happening was that All For One seemed to be emitting… fear? The force of his presence was stifling, and whatever contraption he was wearing over his head and shoulders was alien looking and frightening. Was it a kind of weapon? Was it keeping Inheritance from affecting him?

“All For One doesn’t seem to be getting weaker,” Izuku said. “I think I should try to get closer.”

“No way,” Bubble Girl said. “No fighting.”

“I swear I’m not going to fight. I want to get to Best Jeanist before I end up with his quirk, and I want to get near enough to All For One that if he’s affected by me, it hits him hard! Going to Jeanist will accomplish both.”

He didn’t wait for her to agree or disagree, he simply hopped over the edge of the roof and used bursts of his levitation to ease him down to the ground. He stayed in the shadows, which wasn’t all that hard, and crouched low to the ground. He took a minute to get his bearings and belly crawled over to Best Jeanist. He didn’t hesitate to put his hands on the hero and envision the hole in his middle knitting itself back together like the textile threads the hero manipulated. He didn’t know how long he was there, sweating as he willed Best Jeanist to live and for the bleeding to stop. He envisioned Jeanist’s heartbeat as his own, which was strong and wild at the moment. The wound was so big and the damage was so extensive that Izuku knew he couldn’t heal it as much as it needed. Not like this.

He needed help.

As if in answer to his prayer, the sound of a motorcycle came roaring up. For a crazy moment, Izuku thought Bubble Girl had gone back for her bike, but it was Sir Nighteye, arriving to help All Might. That’s when he heard it.

All For One. Coughing.

Izuku thought it was All Might at first, having one of the coughing fits he sometimes had before losing his heroic form. But it wasn’t him. It was All For One.

“Midoriya Izuku!” All For One wheezed out, still loud for all he was suddenly struggling.

All Might spun, surprise and dread etched into his expression when he spotted Izuku on the ground, trying to heal Best Jeanist. Sir swore when he realized that Izuku was not on the rooftop where he was supposed to be.

“Finish this, All Might,” Sir told him. “I’ll protect the boy.”

“And who will protect you?” Shigaraki asked, beginning to sprint toward Sir.

Faster than Izuku could process, Sir had whipped out three of his hyper density seals and let them fly. Each one weighed five kilograms, and two of them hit their mark. One hit Shigaraki just above his eye, and the other hit him in the center of his chest. The third was too low and missed his leg by a mere centimeter. Izuku wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, because he was trying his best to keep Best Jeanist from dying, and he was losing energy quickly. He was aware of arguments among the villains, Gran Torino kicking serious ass, and then All For One used Kurogiri’s unconscious body somehow to force open a warp gate.

The villains were escaping! Sir backed up to Izuku and put a hand on his head.

“They're going to take Monoma!” Izuku cried out, even as he felt extra energy pour into him, then out into Best Jeanist.

“No they are not,” Sir said grimly.

Another seal flew from his hand, and struck the scarred man in the shoulder. He let go of Monoma as his arm went limp. Another villain, the creepy blonde girl from the camp, dove toward Monoma with a knife, but Monoma deftly blocked her and pushed her backward, causing her to scream. Suddenly there was blood everywhere, and the villains were forced into the portal. When the warp gate disappeared, Kurogiri was still on the ground, twitching slightly. Monoma had been left behind, and he ran toward the street, away from All For One, even as All Might pinned the villain to the ground delivering a punishing beating.

All For One seemed incapable of fighting back; he seemed to have spent his energy, and Izuku was probably draining him even more. He was still talking to All Might, but it was in a quiet voice that didn’t carry over the sounds of helicopters circling and screaming sirens filling the area. Finally All Might stood, bloody and breathing heavily. Izuku was choking on tears as he realized that he was no longer in his hero form, but in his true form, for everyone to see.

“I've given all I have,” All Might said, just barely loud enough to be heard. “It’s your turn, now.”

“Izuku,” Sir gasped, leaning heavily against the wall of the warehouse. “Go. Get out of here. Get as far away as you need to. Best Jeanist will make it now. Go.”

Izuku didn’t comprehend what he was saying as he just stared at All Might, skinny and bleeding and bruised, standing in the rubble and looking ready to topple, even as he raised his fist in the air.

“Let’s go!” Bubble Girl was there, pulling at Izuku’s arm. “Before that villain guy kicks the bucket!”

Izuku allowed himself to be pulled away from the scene. Police tried to stop them from leaving, but Bubble Girl just waved her hero license at them and pushed Izuku forward. He followed on autopilot and didn’t stop until they were at least a block away. Other heroes were arriving, mostly to aid any people who lived in the area in evacuation, and clean up after the battle, which had done more extensive damage than Izuku would have imagined.

His phone began buzzing insistently, but he just handed it to Bubble Girl. He heard her assure Sir that they were a safe distance away. When it buzzed again, she handed it back to him.

“It’s your father.”

Izuku winced, but wiped his face with his sleeve and put the phone to his ear.

“I’m safe,” he said before his dad could say a word. “Completely safe and unharmed.”

“Why were you even there?” his dad demanded. “You were supposed to be recuperating, and the next thing I know there’s breaking news and you’re there - unless there's another healer nearby, and All Might is…”

“I know,” Izuku couldn’t keep the obvious grief from his voice. “But he beat All For One.”

“Zu… come home,” his father said. “Do you have a rail pass? Money? Just come home.”

“I’ll get someone to bring me,” he promised. “I’ll see you soon.”

Bubble Girl looked immeasurably sad, and had tears in her eyes, too. She was looking at her own phone and Izuku could see that All Might in his true form was dominating the screen from a live news stream. The whole world would know, now. And what about Sir? How much of himself had he given to save Best Jeanist?

“Can you take me home, please?” he asked her quietly. “I’m really tired and I just… want to go home.”

She stared at her screen for a moment longer before she tore her eyes away and nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I can do that much.”

As they walked toward the parking lot where she’d left her motorcycle, they were both silent, even though there were more and more people on the street, excited and confused as they watched the broadcast footage on screens almost everywhere they looked. Izuku held onto Bubble Girl as she navigated through the city, and even leaned against her back in his exhaustion. He was almost asleep when she pulled up in front of his apartment building.

“What are you going to tell you father?” she asked.

“That I sneaked out when I found out that All Might was going to fight All For One,” Izuku said. “That I wanted to be nearby to try to weaken the bad guy so the good guy could win.”

“That’s not far from the truth,” she said with a nod.

“I’ll say that when I saw how bad Best Jeanist was, I couldn’t not help. Also true. There’s no reason to tell him that Sir asked me to be there. There’s no reason to tell All Might, either. Okay?”

Bubble Girl looked at him for a long moment before nodding.

“All Might’s going to have a lot to deal with already. Let’s not make it worse by getting him mad at Sir,” Izuku reiterated, wanting to be sure she understood.

“I promise,” she said. “I’ll tell Sir, too.”

Izuku nodded and wearily made his way inside to the elevator, and rode up to face the music with his father.

Chapter 59

Summary:

Things could have been worse, but change is constant.

Izuku was surprised to find that his father was much more understanding than he could have hoped for. He wasn’t happy that his son had taken such a huge and foolish risk, but he also knew that Izuku had a personal stake in making sure All For One was in custody. The fact that he was one of the only people who knew about All Might’s weakness had simply been too compelling to not try to help. Add to that the fact that another boy had been taken because of his quirk, and it was too much to expect Izuku not to take it very personally.

He also knew that his son’s huge heart would have compelled him to help a gravely injured hero, regardless of personal risk. Not to mention that it was the safest course of action to prevent a new quirk from being inherited, so if he’d had to be there, he’d chosen the best course of action. Izuku did not need the quirk of another top hero in his repertoire to complicate his life even further. No matter how excellent the quirk, there should be limits.

After a fair bit of pacing, breathing smoke and ranting, he’d calmed down and accepted that Izuku had chosen the path of a hero, which meant he would always be running headlong into dangerous situations.

All Might’s reaction to Izuku’s presence was another story. He was livid at first, and Izuku stood in Might Tower with his head bowed, listening to All Might scold him for his recklessness for twenty minutes before All Might noticed Izuku’s tears. He ran out of steam abruptly then, and pulled Izuku into a fierce hug instead, even with casts on both of his arms.

“I never wanted you to have to see All For One again,” All Might had murmured into his hair, sounding suspiciously teary, himself. “I never wanted you to have to face him, even if that seems to be the fate of all of One For All’s holders. I was sure I was probably going to die and didn’t want you to have to witness that first hand. I wanted you to have an easier path.”

“You know it’s not that simple,” Izuku told him sadly, returning the hug more gently.

“I know,” All Might admitted gruffly. “It never is.”

The media was in a frenzy over All Might’s true form and the epic battle that had taken place in Kamino. Mt. Lady and Gang Orca had been injured. Best Jeanist would be out of commission for a long time; maybe even permanently. It was reported that the only reason he even survived was because a UA student had happened to be nearby and had rushed in to use his healing quirk to stabilize his injuries. His quirk was intact, but Ragdoll’s wasn’t. Word spread quickly that she’d been rendered quirkless by the villain that All Might had defeated. It was a miracle that out of all of the injured civilians in the area and all of the damage that had been dealt, there had only been a couple of people who had succumbed to their injuries after being taken to hospitals.

The idea that there had been a villain out there forcibly stealing quirks sent the public into an uproar. Some were praising the heroes for getting such a terrifying man off of the streets, but others were furious that those heroes had known such a villain existed and had kept it from the public. This, on top of the fact that the first year students in the heroics course had been attacked less than a week earlier by many of the same villains at what was supposed to be a secure location, and it was another element adding to the perfect storm of public distrust that was brewing in Japan.

Many of the villains responsible for the events of Hosu, the training camp, and now the Kamino ward incident were still at large, and All Might was essentially retired, seemingly in an instant. The public was in a tailspin or doubt and worry and many were just plain frightened. Every adult in Izuku’s life was worried about it and brainstorming what could be done to help regain some of the confidence in UA and in heroes that had deteriorated.

It was something of a surprise to Izuku when Aizawa and All Might came to his apartment the very next day to discuss the idea of UA becoming a boarding school for the safety of the students. All students, regardless of which course they were in, would live in dormitories that were being erected at that very moment. Move in would begin in just three days. Any student who did not agree to live on campus had to file for an exemption, or transfer to a different school.

“I’m sorry, but…” Izuku’s dad said uneasily. “Shigaraki has gotten to Izuku while he was on campus before.”

Izuku couldn’t even think of any argument to that simple worry.

All Might nodded in understanding and stood, bowing deeply.

“I swore to you years ago that I would do everything in my power to keep Izuku safe, and I’ve failed more than once. I know it’s the height of arrogance to ask you to extend that trust to me yet again, but…”

Izuku didn’t miss the trail of smoke that escaped his father’s mouth for a couple of breaths as he became flustered. Even Aizawa looked somewhat stunned as he also stood and bowed.

“During the raid, Kurogiri was captured and taken into custody along with All For One, so the League of Villains has no way to enter the campus by means of teleportation. Kurogiri also divulged during the raid that he couldn’t transport anyone or anything that wasn’t in a known, fixed position,” All Might said, face still far too close to the floor.

“I have failed in keeping Izuku safe, as well. As his teacher, I’ve been negligent in focusing as much attention on his safety and whereabouts as I should, because I became complacent and let others handle what I should have been supervising personally. That won’t happen again. I will be moving into the dormitories as well, living within the 1-A building to watch over all of my students.”

Truly flustered now, Izuku’s father waved his hands in distress.

“Please, raise your heads,” he said. “If the two of you have been negligent, then I’ve been doubly so. As his father, I’ve come to understand that Izuku has needs and abilities and strengths far beyond anything I’ve ever felt equal to helping him with. I’ve relied on others to help me raise him, including both of you. While he’s been in danger more times than I can count, and done some reckless things, I don’t think any of us can deny the kind of person he’s turning out to be.”

Three pairs of eyes swung to fall on a very red-faced Izuku who wasn’t sure where all of this was going.

“He’s strong, brave and intelligent,” his father said, getting misty-eyed as he spoke. “But better than any of that, he’s a good person. I can’t take credit for more than a tiny fraction of that, so I can hardly complain, when I’m so very proud of him.”

Izuku was getting teary-eyed as his father took his turn to bow to his mentors.

“Please look after my son. I know he doesn’t always make it easy, but I know he’s worth the effort.”

Izuku quickly bowed, as well.

“I swear I’ll do my best!” Izuku promised all of them.

By the time All Might and Aizawa left, Izuku felt emotionally drained. He knew he only had three days to pack, but he honestly didn’t have the energy for it at the moment. Instead, he took a nap and felt better for it. He logged into the group chat, and saw that quite a few of his classmates were already online.

Uraraka @zero_geez hey midoriya. Did you hear the news?
Sero @stickman hi midoriya
Ashido @acidtrip hi
Tokoyami @darkness_x_2 midoriya
Kaminari @zip_zapsup dude
Kirishima @rocksolidbro!
Midoriya @broccoli_boi hey everyone which news?
Bakugou @Boom dorms nerd
Iida @gottagofast i believe uraraka was referring to the new on campus living arrangements
Jiro @deepdope my parents agreed to let me go
Ojiro @karate_kid mine too, but it was a fight
Asui @kerokero mine weren’t happy but will see how it goes
Shouji @tako I’ll be there
Midoriya @broccoli_boi my dad said okay
Uraraka @zero_geez my parents wanted me to come back home, but I refused
Asui @kerokero really? what did they say to that?
Ashido @acidtrip maybe i can use it
Uraraka @zero_geez i told them id run away and become a vigilante if they tried to make me
Bakugou @Boom damn round face. nice.

Everyone in the chat was equal parts nervous and excited for the move, and Ashido said her parents were ‘still thinking about it’ but that she’d convince them. After that, talk turned to the Kamino incident and how All Might was retired, now. It was Kacchan that made the connection between the skinny guy they kept seeing around school to All Might’s true form. Izuku pretended that it was news to him that All Might had apparently been living a double life between hero and that other form for a while now. Izuku didn’t volunteer any information about being there, and by some miracle he seemed to have been aided by the darkness of the night and hadn’t appeared on any of the news footage as more than a vague form in dark clothes. Any cameras in the area had been wholly focused on All Might’s battle, and anything else was just unimportant in comparison.

The following day, Izuku was surprised to get a letter, a large package, and a smaller one delivered to him by Rapidfire when he came on duty to watch the Midoriyas’ building.

The letter turned out to be from Kota. Izuku’s eyes got misty as he looked at the carefully written words in childish handwriting.

Thank you for saving me. Heroes are not dumb. You are my hero. Sorry I was mean. From, Kota

Along with the letter was a crayon drawing of Izuku standing next to Kota. It was really cute, and Izuku could tell it was him because of the scribbled, messy green hair and bright red shoes. Kota drew himself with his red hat with small horns on it that reminded him of Onima at Endeavor’s agency. He set it carefully aside to hang up later. He would have to see if he could find an address to write back to.

Izuku smiled when he found the larger package was several moving boxes ready for assembly, so he could pack his things to take to the dorms in two days. The smaller package was something else, entirely. Inside the box was a carefully folded All Might banner that he had coveted for many years. It had been an ultra special limited edition collectible tenth anniversary banner that had never been for sale to the public. On top of the banner, which had been wrapped in plastic, was a note.

Izuku,

There are no words that can express my gratitude to you for the role you played in saving All Might from a terrible fate. Please accept this token for a debt I can never repay.

Always,
Sir

Izuku thought he might actually faint. There had only been twenty-five of these banners ever produced! And he now owned one of them! When he had seen that there was one hanging in Might Tower, on the floor with all of the memorabilia, he’d fanboyed about it for an hour to Sir in one of their marathon geek sessions over all things All Might. When Izuku had learned that Sir actually owned nearly all of the items in that collection, Izuku had been in awe. He carefully put the banner in one of the boxes, the very first thing he packed to take with him to the dorms. Sir had even taken his advice and hung it in his office, instead of with everything else, so it was showcased as the extra special collectible it was.

The next three days were somewhat busy. His father hadn’t wanted Izuku to need to strip his room bare to move, and then not have a comfortable place to stay when he came home. New bedding, curtains, area rug and other items were ordered for him. The only things Izuku really needed to pack were his favorite All Might collectibles, and deciding what to take had taken a long time. He had them shipped ahead with his clothes, and only really needed a duffel bag for last minute things he couldn’t pack ahead.

On the day before move-in, Todoroki came to hang out. It was unexpected and unannounced, so Izuku assumed that his friend was just avoiding being home.

“You’re all done packing?” he asked his friend, who took a seat on his bed while Izuku sat on his desk chair.

“Yeah. My father wasn’t too happy about the dorms, but I can’t wait to get out of that house,” Todoroki said. “You could say that he didn’t take it well when All Might retired, and he was bumped up to number one without beating him in any way; just outlasting him.”

Izuku couldn’t blame Todoroki for not wanting to be home, if Endeavor was in a mood. He wasn’t sure he should ask about his mother, who Todoroki didn’t seem to blame for anything. Instead he tactfully asked.

“Do your brothers and sister still live at home?”

“My sister Fuyumi and my brother Natsuo do. Touya died when I was little. He had a fire quirk that ended up consuming him.”

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have asked!” Izuku said in mortification.

“It’s okay. I didn’t really know him all that well. I wasn’t allowed to be near my siblings, growing up.”

Izuku wasn’t sure what to make of that. Todoroki’s whole existence seemed like a daytime drama brought to life, and it was hard to wrap his head around it.

“Do you… are you allowed to be around them, now?”

“Yes, but I don’t really feel like we’re a real family, somehow. It’s hard to explain.”

Izuku nodded. He could see how it could be difficult to feel a connection with people who grew up in the same house, but were not allowed to be near each other. Todoroki didn’t seem like he was going to say anything further about it for a while. He fiddled with Izuku’s handheld video game, but it was obvious that he didn’t know how to work it.

“I was thinking about going to see my mother before we move into the dorms.”

“Going to see her? Did your parents divorce?” Izuku asked.

The death of a child, and an arranged marriage didn’t exactly make for a great combination to continue a married life with.

“No, I don’t think so,” Todoroki said. “I haven’t seen her since the night she burned me. My father had her admitted to a hospital, and she’s lived there ever since.”

Izuku felt an unpleasant jolt at hearing this.

“How old were you when it happened?”

“Almost six,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Ten years,” Izuku said, almost unable to believe it.

Did people really live in ‘hospitals’ for that long? Was she mentally unstable, still? He had so many questions that he didn’t dare to ask.

“You want to see her today, then?” Izuku clarified.

“I think so,” Todoroki said with a slight furrow between his eyebrows. “It’s hard.”

“Is it far away?” Izuku asked, not really sure what else to say.

“No. It’s only about twenty minutes by train. It’s actually not that far from Endeavor’s agency,” Todoroki said. “I just don’t know if she wants to see me.”

Izuku’s heart ached to hear that. He didn’t know all of the details and didn’t feel like it was his place to press for too many, but he couldn’t imagine her not wanting to see her kids.

“Do you want me to go with you?” he offered tentatively. “I don’t have to go in, but I could wait outside for you, for moral support.”

“You’re not supposed to leave here without a bodyguard,” Todoroki reminded him. “Or be near hospitals.”

Oh. Yeah. He’d kind of forgotten about the bodyguard thing. He somehow didn’t believe his mother was in the same kind of hospital as the ones he avoided. If it had been ten years, it was more than likely some sort of long term mental institution, right?

“We could bring whoever’s on duty right now,” Izuku proposed. “If you wanted someone to go with you. Or Iida would be happy to go, if not me.”

He had seen Iida and Todoroki together at school quite a bit, and the three of them often sat together at lunch, along with some others. After Hosu, Iida was probably the next closest person to Todoroki after Izuku.

“No,” Todoroki finally said, sitting straighter. “I can do it on my own. I’m just. Procrastinating.”

“Understandable,” Izuku sympathized.

“Thanks for offering.”

Todoroki left a short time later, and Iuzku hoped that things went well for him.

With nothing left to do, Izuku spent the rest of the day giving the house a deep cleaning and making a nice meal for the last dinner he would have with his dad for a while. He worried about what his dad would do for food and who would do the housework when Izuku wasn’t there, but knew that he’d survive. There were meal services that made fresh, healthy meals that would deliver, after all.

The following morning, his father dropped him off in front of the school with a teary wave, and Iuzku watched him drive away with both sadness and excitement. Iida was there in front of the appropriate dorm building of course, and Aizawa was standing with him, looking sleepy. Izuku set down his bag and stood with them, waiting for the others to arrive.

The fact that the dorms had been built and furnished in under a week was mind blowing. Each class had it’s own building, five stories tall and each labeled with a class number in huge signs on the front, and a low archway that read: ALLIANCE. There seemed to be two wings to each building, and Izuku was sure that it was probably to separate the boys’ from the girls’ living spaces.

“Don’t think I don’t know about what you were up to the other night,” Aizawa told Izuku when Iida jogged over to help Vlad King with something. “And why. We don’t have any other students with a healing quirk.”

Izuku looked at him with a gaze like a deer caught in headlights.

“You did an incredibly dangerous and foolhardy thing. I’ll expect you to follow the rules and set an example as the class representative while we’re all living together,” he said, keeping an eye on Iida. “Got that, problem child?”

Izuku nodded. “Understood.”

“Good. I’m only going to say this once, so listen up,” Aizawa said seriously, looking straight at Izuku. “If you’d joined in the fight, you’d have been expelled. You showed restraint and acted somewhat responsibly. Excellent work.”

Izuku blinked.

Aizawa yawned and raised a hand to Vlad King, who had waved in acknowledgement as Iida jogged back.

The students started arriving then, trickling in one at a time. Once they were all gathered, they got a tour, a list of the rules, and their room assignments. Then it was time to move in and make the dorms a home.

Chapter 60

Summary:

The gang moves into the dorms and Izuku gives a pep talk.

Everyone was awed by the new living arrangements. There was a kitchen area with plenty of seating, communal living space, bathing and laundry facilities and Aizawa’s quarters on the first floor. Aizawa’s quarters were at the very back, with the laundry room and a small storage space as a buffer between his rooms and the common areas. He made it clear they were not to disturb him except in an emergency.

They would be expected to prepare breakfast and dinner, and it was up to them to decide if they would work together for group meals, or fend for themselves. There was a small budget for necessities when it came to groceries, and they would be expected to stick to it, making an equitable list of items. Any luxury items like snacks or specific name brands had to come out of the students’ own pockets. Lunch could still be procured at Lunch Rush for the normal prices.

Uraraka was almost overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place, which was just another clue about how poor she had grown up. She confided to Izuku and Iida that not having to pay rent on her small place anymore and having most meals included was like a dream come true for her.

Once the tour was over and Aizawa disappeared to his own rooms, everyone separated to go and unpack. Izuku had requested a bed for his room, and the standard dresser that everyone was supplied. He’d had a desk delivered along with new bedding, curtains and area rug. Everything had a distinct All Might theme that couldn't be missed, even before he hung up his prized tenth anniversary super special limited edition banner right over his bed. He hung narrow shelves for his collectibles and was just starting to line up his action figures when his door flew open.

“Hey nerd, do you have a flat head… where in the sweet fuck did you get that?” Kacchan demanded, marching into the room and staring open mouthed at the banner above the bed.

“It was a gift,” Izuku said, a little nervously, but mostly proud.

“Holy shit! They only made twenty five of those! They weren’t even for sale! Who the hell’d just give one away to a nerd like you?”

“Uh…” Izuku hadn’t been prepared to answer a question like that. “A close friend of the family, who’s probably a bigger All Might fan than anyone else on the planet.”

“Why give it to you? They could sell that for serious bank!”

Kacchan didn’t seem mad. He seemed… envious?

“I did them a really big favor,” Izuku said with a shrug. “And they just sent it to me as thanks.”

“Did you give them a kidney or something? Damn!”

The question seemed to be rhetorical, so Izuku just hummed in agreement that it was an incredible gift.

“You needed something Kacch-- Bakugou?” Izuku asked to change the subject.

The other boy looked at him strangely and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Flat head screwdriver.”

“Yeah,” Izuku said, rummaging in his little Ikea toolkit and coming up with the tool. “Here.”

“You mad at me?” he asked as he accepted the screwdriver.

“No?” Izuku answered. “Should I be?”

“You don’t usually call me that.”

“It’s kind of your name,” Izuku said. “You hated when I called you Kacchan, and since you haven’t called me Deku in a while, I thought you might prefer Bakugou, instead.”

It was a kind of peace offering, and an acknowledgement that Izuku had seen that Bakugou had been making a real effort to be less abrasive toward him.

“Tch. Do what you want,” he said. “I don’t care either way. S’not like it was an insult.”

Izuku smiled at him, genuinely pleased that this conversation was going smoothly.

“Okay,” he said, trying not to sound smug. “Deal.”

Kacchan left and Izuku stood and stretched. The curtains needed to be hung still, and… he spotted Monoma outside of the neighboring building, carrying a box. Izuku opened the sliding door that led to the tiny balcony and called down.

“Monoma! Wait a second!”

He paused to grab a small colorful bag from the desk drawer, then hopped over the railing of the balcony to land in the grass below.

“Midoriya! Use the stairs!” Aizawa shouted at him.

Izuku looked to his right and saw his teacher a few meters away, talking to Present Mic by the hedgerow.

“Okay!” Izuku said. “Sorry, sensei!”

Then, just because he could, he turned and jumped back up to his balcony and into his room, then ran down the stairs and out the front door.

“Monoma! Wait up!” he called to the boy who was now nearly at the front door of his own dormitory.

Izuku grinned when he heard Present Mic guffawing as he dodged Aizawa’s capture weapon trying to flick him.

“What do you want?” Monnoma asked.

He looked tired.

“Just to talk for a minute.”

“Hang on a sec,” Monoma said.

He disappeared into the building, but came back less than a minute later, sans box. Izuku sat down on the porch and waited for Monoma to join him, then handed the other boy the small colorful bag he’d grabbed on his way out of his room with a small smile.

“Sorry they’re not all grape flavored,” he said, offering the bag of gummies. “I only had an assortment bag.”

“How did you know… never mind,” Monoma began to ask, then he sighed. “Did you come to throw my words back in my face from before about not being able to do anything without causing trouble for others?”

“Nah,” Izuku denied. “I was going to, but you look like crap.”

“Thanks.”

Monoma’s tone was dry as he tore open the bag and searched through the colorful candies for the green ones. He popped one in his mouth and chewed, staring off into the middle distance.

“I wanted to see if you were okay,” Izuku confessed. “I don’t really know what you went through after they took you, but I can wager a guess.”

Monoma visibly shuddered. “Mostly it’s what they said they were going to do when I told them they’d never recruit me.”

“Because of your quirk, huh?” Izuku said with a sage nod. “I know how creepy that is. I still have nightmares, and it’s been years since they started actually doing some of that to me. I don’t really remember it, because they altered my memory, but I guess my subconscious does.”

“Does it get easier?” Monoma asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Izuku said, accepting the bag of candy back now that the grape ones had been fished out. “But it helps to have someone to talk to.”

“I don’t even know you.”

Izuku smiled as he chose a candy at random and put it in his mouth. “I wasn’t talking about me. Just… someone. A friend, a parent, a therapist. The school has a counsellor you can make an appointment with.”

“Is that who you talk to?” Monoma wanted to know.

“I have a therapist I’ve been seeing for a while. I like him,” Izuku said without shame. “He just listens without judging, and helps me work through stuff; helps me see different perspectives, sometimes.”

“They talked about taking samples from me. They took some of my blood. A lot of it, actually.”

Izuku nodded again, not really looking at Monoma, knowing it could be easier to talk without someone staring at you.

“Yeah. I found out that they used the samples they took from me to help create the nomu so they can have multiple quirks,” Izuku confessed. “That really messes with my head, and I have nightmares about it.”

Monoma’s jaw dropped, and he swallowed audibly.

“Can...can those things take people’s quirks, too? Do the nomus kill people to get more quirks?”

Monoma’s voice sounded strangled.

“No!” Izuku assured him quickly. “No. But people aren’t meant to have more than one quirk. People like me are outliers, so when people like us who can hold multiple quirks at once without exploding or something, it kind of stands out to people like All For One and his creepy-ass doctor. Since they wanted those monsters to have multiple quirks, they needed to figure out a way for that to happen by studying someone who could do that without injury or self destruction.”

“This is so completely fucked up,” Monoma said, sounding more like himself.

“Yep.”

What more could he really say?

“They probably would have done more to me, but I copied all the quirks I could when they took me. Every time anyone got near me, I found a way to touch them.”

“That’s smart.”

Monoma looked relieved to hear it. “I copied that creepy hand-guy’s quirk, and I was going to use it on Dabi… the fire one, but he got hit and let me go. Then that crazy knife girl came at me and I used it on her.”

He shuddered.

“I wanted to use it on the man who was fighting All Might, but I just… couldn’t,” Monoma admitted. “I was paralyzed with terror. All I could do was run.”

“I’m not sure that radiating fear isn’t one of that bastard’s quirks, to be honest,” Izuku said with a scowl. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You did what you needed to do to defend yourself and you got out of the way so the heroes didn’t have to worry about you getting caught in the crossfire.”

Monoma looked at Izuku, then, as if trying to gauge his sincerity.

“You didn’t run.”

It was a confirmation that Monoma had known that Izuku had been the anonymous UA student on the scene.

“I wanted to,” Izuku said, not sure it was strictly true, but also knowing it was the right answer. “I had other things to worry about.”

“Like saving Best Jeanist?”

“Like making sure I didn’t suddenly have a new textile manipulation quirk,” Izuku said with a nod. “I know it’s easy for people to say how cool it would be to get all these great quirks, but… people have to die for that. I don’t know what my limit is, either, so every quirk I inherit could be the one that tips me over into the ‘too many’ category and destroys me.”

“Damn, I guess I never thought of it like that.”

“It’s pretty complicated,” Izuku agreed.

They were silent for a while, eating their gummies and contemplating life.

Finally Izuku stood and stretched.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he told Monoma. “It might not feel like it right now, but you are.”

Monoma stood, too. He took a fortifying breath and nodded.

“Thanks.”

Izuku just nodded and held up a hand to say goodbye before trotting back over to his own dormitory. Aizawa and Present Mic were nowhere to be seen now, so Izuku didn’t feel the need to be too cautious as he went back to finish decorating his room and unpacking.

At the end of the day, Izuku went down to the common area and found many of his classmates lounging around on the couches, looking tired.

“I’m starving,” Kirishima complained, sprawled with his legs extended out and his head back against the cushions. “Do you think they’ve got some cup noodles around here?”

“I thought there was food and stuff in the fridge,” Izuku said, wandering over to the kitchen area. The fridge was huge compared to the one at home, and the rice cooker looked like it could make enough for twenty people.

“There are ingredients,” Kaminari informed him. “Not food.”

Izuku laughed and found a huge bag of rice in one of the cabinets. He washed his hands in the sink and then started a huge pot of rice cooking while he surveyed what was available.

“Curry okay? It’s probably the easiest,” he called, pulling out big packages of chicken, carrots and onions.

“Dude! You’re gonna cook for us?” Jirou asked as she came down the stairs with Uraraka.

“I’m hungry, too,” Izuku said with a shrug. “We’ve all made curry together before, right? “

Had that really been less than two weeks ago?

“I’ll peel potatoes!” Iida volunteered, going to the sink.

“I can cut up the chicken,” Yaoyorozu offered.

“I’d cut the onions, but I always end up crying,” Kirishima said.

“The trick is to not form an emotional attachment,” Iuzku told him, making everyone laugh at the terrible joke.

Soon, four of them were working industriously to prepare ingredients, while two others found the dishes and spoons. Before they knew it, they were working together, or at least congregated in the kitchen and dining area. Within thirty minutes, they were sitting down to eat with shouts of, “Itadakimasu!”

Talk was lively, with everyone having something to say about their new rooms, the buildings or everything that had happened in the past week. It felt… homey. Aizawa came out to check on them while they were eating, and even accepted a plate of curry, but took it back to his rooms instead of joining them.

After they ate, those who hadn’t helped cook were put in charge of dishes and cleanup. While they handled that, the rest had a meeting of sorts to figure out who could cook, and work out some sort of schedule for it. A similar schedule was worked up for the bathrooms, since the bathing areas could only accommodate about six students at a time. That was fine for the girls, but the boys would have to bathe in shifts. There would be a lot of things to figure out as they all learned to live together under one roof, but it seemed almost like an adventure at the same time.

After the dining room and kitchen was cleaned up, and the schedules for other things were worked out (at least for now), they all relaxed.

“We should have a contest to see who has the best room!” Mina announced cheerfully.

The other girls agreed, but the boys didn’t really care one way or the other. Kacchan just rolled his eyes and said he was going to bed. Besides that, the whole group took a tour of the dormitory, now that they were basically moved in. They started in the boys’ wing, with the girls fawning over Koda’s pet rabbit, teasing Izuku about his All Might obsession, and delighting in Sato’s baking. Iida had at least a dozen spare pairs of glasses in this room that prompted many in the class to try them on and impersonate Iida. He was good natured about it.

The most surprising of all of the boys’ rooms was Todoroki’s; it was like he’d dropped a completely different room into the space where the dorm room had been. Tatami mats, folded futon, step drawers, shoji screens and a floor desk made the room look like something out of a traditional Japanese interior design magazine.

The girls’ rooms were as varied as the girls’ personalities themselves. Uraraka’s room was plain and basically unadorned. Hagakure’s was excessively cute, Mina’s was colorful and chaotic, Tsuyu’s was very green and had a large tank with pet frogs inside. Jiro’s was music themed and Yaoyorozu’s was opulent, with furniture far too large for the space.

In the end, the girls voted for Sato because he gave them all cake, and Izuku found it hard to argue with their logic.

“All right, everyone!” Izuku said once the voting was done. “We should all start getting ready to go to bed. We have classes tomorrow. If you have breakfast duty, remember to set your alarms for earlier!”

There were a few groans of complaint, but it had been a long day, and most of them were pretty tired. They all shuffled off to gather what they needed to bathe or whatever else they needed to do before sleep. As Izuku finally drifted off to sleep that night, it was with a feeling that maybe things would settle down, now. That would be nice.

Chapter 61

Summary:

Midoriya's injured arm proves to be a setback during the session to develop super movces.

Notes:

UGH! I've his a wall of writer's block, which means it's a good thing I'm so far ahead with my writing. I hate it when I know I need to erase a whole chapter and do a re-write! *sulks*

Their first day back at school was a little strange. Students filed from their dormitories and walked to the school at pretty much the same time, and it seemed more crowded than usual because of it, even though there were the same number (if not less) than before summer break had begun.

Jiro and Sato made breakfast and those who couldn’t cook had worked up a schedule of their own for who was on clean up duty and for when.

“Midoriya!” Yoarashi called across the hedge when he caught sight of 1-A.

Izuku waved and smiled, and Yoarashi jogged over to walk with him and Todoroki, who had been rather quiet, but not anti-social.

“Good morning!” Yoarashi said in his usually loud voice.

“Good morning,” Izuku answered.

“Hello,” Todoroki said, much more quietly.

“These new dorms are really nice,” Yoarashi said cheerfully. “I’m glad my parents didn’t freak out too much about everything.”

“Same,” Izuku said.

“That was crazy; the fight between All Might and and that creepy dude!” Yoarashi said, shaking his head while remembering it. "Do you think he’s still going to keep teaching here?”

“He will,” Todoroki said. “He came around with Aizawa when they were asking all the A-1 parents to let their kids come live here.”

Izuku nodded in agreement.

“Just because he doesn’t look huge and muscle bound anymore, doesn’t mean he can’t teach us a bunch of stuff from his personal experience.”

 

“You’re right!” Yoarashi said, as if just realizing it. “You guys are lucky you get him so often, Our class only really gets lessons with him a couple of times a week, if we’re lucky.”

“Maybe he’ll have more time now that he’s retiring from hero work,” Izuku suggested.

They reached the school, then and found that the other students were all staring at the first year heroics kids. It was no secret about what had happened at their summer camp, but it made sense that they’d want details that hadn’t been on the news or the official school brief. Izuku just kept his head down and didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

“Oh, man, Midoriya! Your arm! Was it really that bad?” Yoarashi asked, pointing to the the long scar down his arm and the ones on his fingers.

“Yeah,” Izuku confirmed, flexing his arm. “My bones were basically shattered and had to be put back together like a jigsaw puzzle.”

He hadn’t worn his elbow brace today, but it was in his bag. He was pretty sure Recovery Girl would send for him at some point to check on him.

“That’s wild! Looks like you’ve got some weight training to do, again!” Yoarashi said, sounding awed.

“For sure,” Izuku said. “Just doing my pushups this morning was sad.”

Too bad there wasn’t a quirk for that sort of thing; not that he’d want another one.

They separated when they got to their classrooms, but it was nice to see that Yoarashi had come out of the training camp basically unscathed.

Everyone took their seats before Aizawa arrived, looking as tired as usual.

“Because your training camp was cut short,” he told them without preamble, “You’re going to have some catching up to do during Basic Hero Training class.”

A few of them groaned, but Izuku was glad to hear it. With one arm in desperate need of muscle conditioning, he had twice as much work as anyone else at the moment. "Our goal is to have you ready for your Provisional Hero License Exam in September, which doesn’t give us a lot of time to get you up to speed.”

“I thought we wouldn’t be taking that exam until second or third year!” Ashido exclaimed.

“Normally, that would be true,” Aizawa told them, sounding slightly grim. “But recent developments have made the Hero Public Safety Commission Board nervous about the need for more qualified heroes to be ready to fill the gap left by not only All Might’s retirement, but the rise in crime that is bound to accelerate now that there’s a vacuum in the crime world, where the top villain used to operate. They anticipate clashes between other villains who want to carve out a territory for themselves, now that All For One has been taken into custody.”

Izuku nodded, and noticed that a Kacchan and a few others were, too. It was a valid concern.

“There won’t be a written exam beyond what you would normally have at school, and you all passed the final exam at the end of last term. The provisional exam will be a practical one, and it’s not easy at all to pass. The passing rate in the past has been fifty percent at a maximum.”

That set off a short spurt of exclamations and groans that Aizawa simply waited to die down.

“For now, you’re expected to keep up with your normal studies on top of preparing for your heroics lessons and practice. Be prepared to work hard.”

“But there’s still ten days of summer break left!” Kaminari groaned.

“We missed quite a few days of the last term due to security concerns, so we’re making up for lost time,” Aizawa said flatly. "The rest of the school will only have a half day of academics, but you lot will be making up for the missed days of camp, too.”

The Badger shuffled into the room at that point, and Aizawa paused before moving away from the teacher’s desk.

“Midorya and Iida, you’re expected in Recovery Girl’s office. Make sure you get the notes for history class from one of your classmates, later.”

Both boys stood and followed Aizawa out of the room, then made their way in the opposite direction as their teacher, to go see Recovery Girl.

“How’s your shoulder, Iida?” Izuku asked as they walked.

“A little stiff,” Iida confessed, rolling his arms a bit as if to check that it was still the case. “My hand is a little numb, as well. I’m glad I’ll be having it checked.”

Numbness didn’t seem like a good sign.

“If anyone can fix it, Recovery Girl can!” Izuku said with confidence.

“How about you?” Iida asked, eyeing Izuku’s arm with concern.

“Mostly okay, I think. It’s kind of discouraging to have to build up all that muscle again after all the training I did at camp to make gains.”

“I imagine so,” Iida said with an air chop. “If there is anything I can do to help you, all you have to do is say the word!”

They arrived at Recovery Girl’s office, and underwent a thorough examination and questioning. It seemed that Iida was likely suffering from some nerve damage, and surgery could be in his future to fix it. Izuku felt the bottom drop out of his stomach just thinking about it. It was a harsh lesson to learn for his foolish actions in Hosu.

Izuku, on the other hand, got even worse news. His plan for intensive workouts to get his right arm back in shape would be put on the slow track, instead.

“I’m arranging for an MRI and x-rays to be taken of both of your arms, but in the meantime, you should put your right one through as little stress as possible. The amount of damage sustained from your fight with Muscular, in addition to other injuries has severely weakened the integrity of your entire arm. I’m currently looking for facilities with the proper equipment that aren't connected to any hospitals or near any other type of healthcare facility that could have terminal patients.”

Izuku took a fortifying breath, but nodded. Without using his right arm, his fighting style would really need to change drastically. With the provisional licensing exams coming up soon, he needed to figure something out quickly, or he might not be allowed to participate.

“I’m so sorry, Midoriya,” Iida said, sounding as if he was giving condolences at a funeral.

“It might slow me down,” Izuku said, walking back to their classroom with a determined heart. “But it won’t stop me.”

From there, the academics portion of their day started, and it was strange, after everything that had happened, to get back into such mundane practices.

When they suited up for Basic Hero Training, it was to find Aizawa accompanied by Ectoplasm, Cementos and Midnight waiting for them in Gym Gamma. Gym Gamma was more like an empty warehouse, or even an airplane hangar, with lots of room to move in any direction. It had been dubbed the Training Kitchen Lab, or TKL for short, which sounded lame, but Izuku was past wondering why they named things the way they did.

“Today, you’ll be working on developing at least two ultimate moves,” Aizawa said. “The types of moves you pull out of your arsenal using everything you’ve got to end a battle decisively and quickly.”

Izuku felt a thrill of excitement course through him at the idea, but also a sense of concern. Could he come up with something worthy of being called an ultimate move?

“Ultimate moves are unique to each person’s quirk,” Ectoplasm said. “A finishing kind of move that only you can pull off.”

“Combat is all about using your own particular strengths to dominate your opponent. You need to work to make these moves as strong as they can be,” Cementos added.

“An ultimate move is like your signature in a fight,” Midnight told them all with a bright smile. “Something that tells the villain that they’re about to get their a--butts whipped.”

A few of the boys cheered at that, looking like they might explode from excitement from the very idea.

“I designed this facility myself,” Cementos said, kneeling to create a miniature series of concrete platforms in front of him. “This is where I cook up idea for landscapes that will best help each student train--hence the kitchen part of the name.”

“Please! I have a question!” Iida all but shouted, raising his hand stiffly in the air. “Why must we create ultimate moves? Is it a requirement of the Provisional Licence Exam?”

He was fairly vibrating with intensity as he asked it, as if it was the most important question in the world, and a couple of the students smirked or chuckled.

“Everything will be explained,” Aizawa said, “Calm down.”

“You will encounter every type of disaster conceivable,” Midnight said in all seriousness. “Sometimes caused by a villain, sometimes a natural disaster, sometimes an accident. As heroes, it’s our job to save people affected by these catastrophes and prevent further damage or injury as much as we’re able.”

“Your ability to adapt and adjust your reaction to any or all of these situations will be observed,” Aizawa said. “How well you communicate, your intelligence gathering skills, mobility, combat prowess, charisma. The test will take your measure of any or all of these and grade you on it.”

That was a lot, Izuku thought with a feeling of weight pressing down on him. Would they be ready for this? Would he? It seemed ludicrous to expect so much from students who had barely been in hero school for four months!

“All of those are important, but you’d better believe that combat prowess will be a huge priority for potential heroes looking for a license,” Midnight warned. “If you work hard and anticipate what’s coming, you should have nothing to worry about. These moves will help you prove that you’ve got what it takes to pass.”

“How will they judge combat prowess?” Jiro asked.

“Keeping a cool head in a heated situation, making well thought out and solid moves to achieve a goal is proof of a high level of combat prowess,” Cementos told her. “You’ve all already exhibited a penchant for it, and now you need to hone it.”

“There’s nothing in the rules that say that an ultimate move needs to be an attack, either,” Ectoplasm pointed out. “For example, Iida’s Recipro Burst that gives him a sudden spurt of unbelievable speed. That, on its own, is enough to intimidate an opponent and be considered an ultimate move.”

Izuku fought back a grin; every line of Iida’s body gave away how surprised and thrilled he was to hear this bit of praise. While he trembled in joy, others were nodding thoughtfully while they considered this.

“So it doesn’t have to be something really complicated,” Sato said. “Just something big that gives us the edge in a fight.”

“Exactly!” Midnight agreed. “You’ve all probably seen footage of Kamui Woods’ Lacquered Chain Prison!. That’s a perfect example of a textbook ultimate move. He immobilizes his opponents before they can react.”

“Summer Camp was cut short, but it was the beginning process of helping you all develop some ultimate moves. We’ll be using the remaining ten days of summer to continue to enhance your quirks and put together your ultimate moves,” Aizawa said.

Cementos then used his quirk to change the landscape of the room and make platforms for all of them, so they had plenty of space. Ectoplasm breathed out an army of duplicates of himself to help teach and combat those who needed it.

“As you’re working, be sure to think about whether or not you’ll need modifications to your hero costumes, or particular support item upgrades,” Aizawa said. “Use your plus ultra enthusiasm to push yourself past your limits and grow!”

There were a few shouts of “PLUS ULTRA!” as the students ran off to claim spots around the gym, but Izuku was at a bit of a loss. He watched as the room was suddenly filled with lasers, explosions, breaking rock and spurts of fire and ice.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Ectoplasm (or maybe one of his dupes?) asked. “Not sure what to do?”

Izuku nodded and held up his right arm ruefully.

“Recovery Girl said not to put any stress on my arm.”

“That is a problem,” Ectoplasm confirmed. “I would have said that stunt you pulled at the Sports Festival with the stage was worthy of being an ultimate move, if you could do it without injury, but now…”

“I was already supposed to be wearing a brace on my elbow all the time because of what happened to it when Shigaraki kidnapped me. This is the second time my arm has been basically destroyed and rebuilt; they aren’t sure how much more it can take.”

“For now, why don’t you see what you can accomplish with your other quirks,” he suggested. “Your levitation is extremely useful, and you have some powerful jumping skills. See if there’s something there you can work with.”

“Right,” Izuku said with a determined nod.

Izuku was trying to figure out if he could combine his speed and transparency for short spurts to make it seem like he was teleporting, or something similar, when he spotted All Might making his way around, having a word with each student as he surveyed their progress.

“Hey, All Might!” he greeted when it was his turn.

“Young Midoriya,” All Might smiled. “Having any luck?”

“Nothing worth mentioning, at the moment. I can’t really do any fighting with my arm like this, and Recovery Girl said I can’t do any strenuous exercise with it, yet.”

“You know that you don’t have to copy my fighting style, right?” All Might asked.

He patted Izuku on the shoulder in encouragement, but didn’t elaborate further.

Izuku watched as he offered some advice to Kirishima, but wasn’t really paying attention. Had he been trying to emulate All Might’s fighting style all this time? It made sense, didn’t it? He was the one who had trained him, for the most part, after all. Maybe it was time for him to develop his own like Endeavor had, taking the best parts of every fighting style he learned and turning them into something more fluid.

“If you’re worried about your arm, you could head over to the Development Studio and ask Power Loader if there was something he could do to lessen the strain on your arms,” Midnight told him. “Maybe he could find a way to incorporate a good brace into your costume.”

“That’s not a bad idea!” Izuku said with a grateful smile.

He left the gym and headed toward the school to see if there were support items that might protect his arms in the future.

Chapter 62

Summary:

Izuku get some costume upgrades and prepares for the Provisional License Exam.

The Development Studio was in the wing of the school where the support students did their studies. He walked through the halls, thinking of how quiet it was, but most students had already gone back to their dormitories. The hero course was the only one still using the school, for the most part.

He was about to reach for the handle to the door to the Development Studio when he heard Uraraka call out to him. He looked over to see her and Iida making their way in his direction and had just raised a hand to wave when he was blown off of his feet by an explosion.

There was more surprise than pain as he hit the floor, but something landed on top of him and pinned him down under its weight. When the dust settled enough to see, all Izuku could see for a moment was a set of boobs, and he wasn’t sure what to do or where to look. He could feel his face flushing as he realized that it was a girl lying on top of him, probably landing there as a result of the explosion.

“Hatsume! Again? Just because you spend most of your time here doesn’t mean you own the place! If you cause anymore havoc, I’ll ban you from the studio outside of class hours!” Power Loader threatened as he came to the door to survey the damage.

“Failure is the best way to learn!” she declared without fear.

“Your failures are wrecking this room! You can’t just go making whatever you want just because you had an idea! There’s a process to follow!”

“Who’re you?” Hatsume asked, looking down at Izuku, then over to the other two. “Hero students?”

“Yes!” Iida said promptly. “We’re here to…”

“Sorry, no time,” she said, getting to her feet and dusting off her pants. “I have work to do!”

Izuku had to move his hips quickly to keep from getting a knee in the groin as Hatsume stood up. There was something about her that was familiar. More familiar than just having possibly seen her around campus before. Something about her pink hair and unusual eyes...

“Wait!” he said as she turned to go. “You’re… Mei-chan?”

She tilted her head at him as if trying to think.

“You’re Mei-chan, right? I think we went to school together when we were little kids. Happy Apple school?”

“That’s where I went,” she said with a nod. “But I don’t remember you.”

She turned away dismissively, leaving Izuku at something of a loss. He only had the vaguest of memories of playing Lego with her at some point. He couldn't expect her to remember that. At least the foggy memories he had were positive, he guessed.

“Wait,” Iida said in consternation. “I need to speak to Power Loader about upgrading my costume…”

That got Hatsume’s attention.

“I need some revisions, too!” Izuku said.

“Costume remodeling?” Hatsume asked with a gleam in her eye. “Why didn’t you say so to begin with?”

“Because you blew up something and almost killed me?” Izuku said wryly.

“Pfft. I blow up stuff all the time! Don’t be such a baby!”

“Aizawa told me some of his kids might come by for costume adjustments,” Power Loader said. “Once you start on ultimate moves, lots of students find they need something more to help.”

Most of the man’s head was covered by what looked like a steam shovel bucket, but his shirtless form was wiry and muscled, without an ounce of fat to be seen. His fingertips were more like the teeth on a backhoe shovel, and he had a reputation for being faster than any machine at digging up the ground.

“Yes!” Iida told him.

“This place is amazing!” Izuku said, wishing he had his notebook handy. “Like a secret base!”

“What can I do for you?” Power Loader asked.

“My arms are in pretty bad shape, and Recovery Girl wants me to take it easy on them. I was wondering if there was a way to incorporate something into my suit to protect my bones and ligaments.”

“That’s right, you fight with your fists, for the most part,” Power Loader said with a nod. “I should be able to work something up in a day or so!”

“That’s great, Midoriya!” Uraraka said enthusiastically.

Iida came forward then and talked about a possible cooling system for his engines.

“Okay, I’ll need the blueprints and other specs and documents that came with your costumes,” Power Loader said. “Then tell me what you have in mind. I’ve got a license for small adjustments and additions, and we just have to report it to the design agency. For bigger stuff it gets more complicated.”

Izuku was having a hard time focusing on what the man was saying, because Hatusme was busy… touching him. She ran her hands over him as if he was a mannequin she was planning on dressing.

“Um...what are you doing?” Uraraka asked her, sounding both alarmed and a bit offended.

Izuku had been wondering the same thing, but was feeling flustered by her unabashed fondling of his torso.

“I’m checking out his body!” Hatsume said cheerfully. “He’s much more ripped than he looks! I have just the thing for you!”

The next thing Izuku knew, he was being jammed into an exo-suit that looked like something out of a space-themed anime.

“This baby is my 49th creation! It’s called The Power Suit! It senses muscle movement and contractions and responds automatically to help!”

“But I only really need help for my arms,” Izuku protested, turning to look at Hatsume.

The Power Suit let off a series of beeps, and was suddenly moving. And moving. And moving.

At first Izuku thought it was cool that it was doing it all on it’s own, but then continued to turn at the waist after he’d stopped moving his body. He began to feel the stretch, then his vertebrae popped like a chiropractor had him in his grip.

“OW! It’s breaking my spine!” Izuku shouted.

Hatsume was chuckling, and stopped it a split second before Izuku was about to use One For All to bust out of the thing. She released him, and he felt as though he wrestled a bear.

“I just came for something to help my arms, and I practically got ripped in half!” he complained a bit dramatically to Uraraka, who looked concerned.

“Speaking of arms!” Hatsume said, turning away from Izuku and closing in on Iida. “My 36th baby would be perfect for you!

Before Iida could process what was going on, Hatsume had clamped some sort of rocket powered gauntlet on his arms.

“This baby is the Super Cooler Electric Booster! It reduces heat output to a minimum!”

“That’s all well and good,” Iida protested, “but my quirk is in my legs!”

“With these babies, when your legs are overheated, you can just use your arms!” Mei told him confidently.

She flipped a switch, and Iida was thrust forcibly to the ceiling, ducking just in time to spare his head from a nasty hit.

Uraraka and Power Loader were both shouting but Izuku was busy having an epiphany.

“I have legs!” he suddenly exclaimed, mostly to himself.

Everyone paused for a moment to look at him like he should change his hero name to Captain Obvious.

“Iida! Can you help me with some moves?” he asked with sudden determination.

“Er,” Iida said. “Now really isn’t the time…”

Things were chaotic for a while when Hatsume tried to foist one of her inventions on Uraraka, but settled down when the support student got distracted with something and began to ignore them.

“Hatsume is a bit overly enthusiastic about her work,” Power Loader told them, “but if you’re smart, you’ll do your best to develop a good working relationship with her. She’s probably the best student I’ve ever seen come through his school, and the one who will be the most sought after when she graduates.”

He showed them a huge pile of what appeared to be junk in the corner and told them that those were all inventions of her own making, just since the school year had begun. It made Izuku glad to know that the girl who had been friends with him when they were in preschool was doing so well, now..

He discussed some of his thoughts with Power Loader about the idea he’d had for using his feet in place of fists, and then went back to the gym, feeling excited to get started. Maybe he could get Ojiro to give him some tips, too. His brain was teeming with ideas.

The next few days were tiring, but it was fun to see his classmates coming up with new ideas for how to use their quirks in a variety of ways. Izuku had the scans and x-rays that Recovery Girl ordered, and they confirmed what he’d already been warned about. His arms couldn’t take too much more abuse. He would have to be careful, and be sure to always use his arm braces.

On the fourth day, Izuku stopped by the Development Studio and tried out his new gear. Power Loader had gone above and beyond, and had even tossed in a couple of arm braces for everyday wear that wouldn’t slide on his teflon-like skin. More than pleased with the adjustments that had been made to his costume, he hurried on to the gym to try things out.

“Hey I like your suit upgrade!” Hagakure told him when she spotted him.

He was curious about what sort of special moves an invisible person could pull off, but wasn’t sure if it was polite to ask. She did run around naked an awful lot, after all.

“Thanks! I can’t wait to try them out!”

 

Just as Izuku was about to find a spot to try out his gear he heard a shout of alarm after one of Kacchan’s explosions. He looked over to see a large chunk of rock falling through the air with a trajectory that would make it hit All Might from above. In a split second, Izuku launched himself at the rock and swung his leg around the way Iida had taught him, obliterating the rock into tiny fragments that rained down harmlessly on the gym floor. He landed in a crouch, verdant sparks crackling around him.

“Watch yourself, All Might!” Kacchan called down once he saw that disaster had been avoided. He eyed Izuku for a long moment with a scowl on his face, but finally just nodded curtly and went back to his training.

“Are you okay, All Might?” Izuku asked, just to be sure.

“Yes!” All Might said, sounding impressed. “That was amazing, young Midoriya!”

“It’s my new Full Cowl, Shoot Style!” Izuku told him with a grin. “Iida’s been helping me with the kicks!”

“How did you not break your foot?” Aizawa asked him, coming over to have a look.

“Power Loader and Hatsume designed these clamp-on soles!” Izuku said, gesturing to his feet.

His boots looked bulkier than usual, and on close inspection, it was easy to see that there had been significant change. They were still red, but seemed to have an outer shell around them.

Kaminari and Kirishima noticed what had happened and came over to get a better look.

“Whoa! That was crazy!” Kaminari declared. “When did you start moving like that?”

“I thought Iida was the one with all the leg power!” Kirishima said. “Is that new gear?”

“They’re made of the hardest, lightest plastic on the planet!” Izuku told them with enthusiasm. “They’re superlight so I can still levitate if I need to, and they can also be removed really quickly if I need them to! They can take a real pounding, too!”

“Huh,” Aizawa said.

That was probably the closest he ever came to sounding impressed, so Izuku smiled.

“I know that plastic shoes don’t sound all that impressive, but they’ll protect my feet and have a spring loaded toe to give extra oomph to my kicks with the blow back! While my arm is getting built back up, I’ll have to rely on this, though it’s just a placeholder until I can come up with something worthy of being called an ultimate move!”

“No, I think it’s plenty good enough,” All Might corrected him. “It should serve you well in the Provisional License exam!”

“Really?” Izuku asked, sounding both excited and skeptical.

“Go practice, and you’ll see for yourself!” All Might told him, shoo-ing him off.

Izuku hurried over to a corner to try out not only his new soles, but also the long gloves that were designed to help to keep his arms supported with nano technology that reacted to his movements. They were made out of something quite similar to what Aizawa’s capture weapon was made of. It wasn’t a free ticket to go all out, but he should at least be able to work out a bit more and not worry about doing more damage to himself.

“Hey! Time’s up, 1-A!”

Izuku paused mid-kick and looked over to where Vlad King was standing in the doorway, his class crowded behind him.

“We’ve still got ten minutes left,” Aizawa told him blandly. “We plan to use every minute.”

“Hey! Have you heard? Only half of the people who take the exam pass!” Monoma told them all arrogantly. “I’ll bet all of 1-A fails!”

He gave a somewhat maniacal laugh and began to monolog about how he’d show them all. Izuku tuned him out when he realized that even though they’d had a bit of a heart-to-heart when they’d first moved to the dorms, he was still the same guy underneath it all, and was kind of an ass.

“What’s with his costume?” Kaminari asked Kendo, who was rolling her eyes at his behavior.

“He said that because he copied other people’s quirks, he didn’t need anything flashy or eccentric,” she said.

“He doesn’t think a tux with tails is eccentric?” Izuku asked as he joined them. “The watches on his belt make him look like a really paranoid butler.”

He felt bad almost immediately. He didn’t like to criticize other people that way, since he was plenty strange himself.

“As long as he’s happy with it, that’s what matters,” he amended.

“He’s not wrong, though,” Tokoyami said darkly. “For this test, we will be as beasts cast into the ring, destined to crush each other to survive.”

“It’s not going to be that dramatic,” Aizawa said. “Classes A and B are registered at two different testing sites. Other students from UA will be going to a third site at staggered times.”

“That’s right,” Vlad said. “To avoid putting classes from the same school in direct competition, they are usually scheduled for different times and locations. There are second years taking the test too, so we’ll be sending students to all three locations in several different time slots.”

Monoma let out an audible sigh of relief before beginning to lament that he wouldn't’ be able to personally show them a lesson ’with his own two hands’ . Kaminari wondered aloud if the other boy had a diagnosed condition of some sort, making several people snort in amusement.

“So we’ll be competing against other schools…” Sero said thoughtfully.

“And we’re pretty far ahead of the regular licensing schedule,” Izuku added.

“True. It’s a small number of students who ever get a license as first years. You’ll be going up against second and third year students with a lot more training than you, who have quirks you’ve never seen before,” Aizawa said, pulling their attention back. “Aside from UA, there are only a small handful of first years taking the exam at all. It’s going to be a tough fight, so you can’t afford to be complacent just because you have some experience with villains. Don’t psych yourself out either, though. We wouldn't even consider letting you take this test if we didn't believe that each and every one of you was capable of passing.”

For the rest of the days he had left to train, Izuku practiced his kicks and spins every spare second he had. In the gym, outside before curfew, in the little strip of grass beside the dormitory, even on the roof. By the time summer ‘break’ was over, Izuku felt confident that the entire class had improved their quirks along with their bodies. When the day of the Provisional Licensing Exam came around, he was feeling nervous, but as prepared as it was possible to be at this point in his education.

Chapter 63

Summary:

This chapter will have some heavily paraphrased or direct quotes, especially from the manga when they are having the exam(s) explained to them. (just fyi, it’s not mine and I’m just playing with it. I washed my hands first.)

Also, this chapter mirrors canon quite a bit, simply because I like the way it was handled in Canon, I didn't see any reason to change the first part up all that much. There are obviously going to be changes because of Izuku's multiple quirks and Inasa's absence and such, but bear with me-- this first chapter of the license arc may seem a bit repetitive since it's close to canon. Hopefully you won't be disappointed by the end.

The ride to the testing center was only about a half an hour away by bus. The group was unusually subdued as they traveled, each lost in thought about what was ahead of them. They filed off at the Takoba National Stadium and Izuku was a little surprised by how many other students were there, all streaming into the building wearing the uniforms of their schools, carrying the cases or bags with their hero costumes in them.

“That’s… a lot of competition,” Uraraka said, looking a little green.

“I’m really getting nervous, now,” Jirou said, looking up at the building.

“Don’t let them intimidate you,” Aizawa told her in what was, for him, a gentle tone. “Don’t ask yourself if you can do it, tell yourself that you will.”

“Right!” She said, visibly standing up taller.

Aizawa turned to the rest of his group and said loudly. “If you do your best today, you won’t be little eggs, incubating anymore. You’ll be hatchlings, ready to spread your wings and be reborn at semi-heroes.”

“Yeah! Let’s hatch!” Kaminari shouted.

“Time for our cheer!” Kirishima said enthusiastically.

”PLUS ULTRA!” they all cried out at once.

Even Izuku raised his voice to match Kirishima and Iida’s in volume as they all pumped their fists in the air.

After that, they had an unpleasant interaction with some students from Shiketsu High, which was the Heroics school from the west of Japan that was closest to being on par with UA. One of the students had called them ‘noisy and undignified’ after their cheer, which made Kacchan snarl, while even Kirishima wondered what their problem was. Izuku kept quiet, knowing that it might just be nerves making everyone act a bit out of character, but they also could just be jerks. Time would tell; Izuku was there to earn his license, and refused to let himself be psyched out by anyone trying to make them feel unworthy.

Another school approached them after Shiketsu had moved off, and Ketsubutsu had a completely different vibe. Their school uniform was much more casual than more exclusive schools. Where Shiketsu had sported a very militant look, Ketsubutsu wore gray polo shirts with trousers or skirts. They seemed friendlier as well… almost too friendly. Kacchan summed it up well by saying that the most boisterous of the group, a young man named Shindo, acted nice, but his expression didn’t match his words. Of course, since it was Kacchan saying it, he was a lot ruder about it.

Ketsubutsu’s gregariousness might have come from their homeroom teacher, the infamous Ms. Joke, who Izuku admired and was excited to meet.

Izuku raised his eyebrows in surprise when his teacher visibly paled and gritted his teeth when Ms. Joke called out to him with enthusiasm. Every aspect of his expression communicated the desire to be anywhere else. Izuku followed his gaze and grinned with surprised delight to see Ms. Joke jogging toward them, waving at sensei with a huge smile on her face. It seemed they knew each other well.

“Eraser!” she said when she came to a stop in front of them. “It’s been too long since we were last together! Let’s get married!”

Mina squealed with delight at a possible romance for her teacher and another hero, but it was soon crushed.

“No thanks,” Aizawa said flatly, sounding completely uninterested.

“No thanks? You should just say yes!” she told him with a joyous sounding laugh.

“You’re the same pain in my a---neck as always, Joke.” Aizawa said with resignation in his tone.

“Who is that?” Sato asked, looking confused.

“That’s Ms. Joke!” Izuku replied instantly, his knowledge of all things hero rising to the surface with enthusiasm. “Her quirk is called Outburst, and she uses it to force people to laugh! Villains laugh so hard that they can’t think clearly or move well, then she takes them down! It’s incredible!”

Ms. Joke went on to tease Aizawa, propose to him, and much to Mina’s glee, made hints that they’d once had a brewing romance.

Izuku wondered if his teacher was just fed up with the gag, or if they really had a failed romantic past of some kind. Either way, sensei seemed to be finished with the subject.

“You’re all wasting time. Go and get changed into your costumes. The info session is about to start!” Aizawa called out to them all.

“Yes, sir!” they all answered.

A few minutes later, they were standing in a very crowded space with the other hopefuls, waiting to find out what the day would bring.

“There must be at least a thousand people in here!” Mina said, looking around.

“More than that,” Iida told her from his better vantage point.

Uraraka looked a bit nervous, still. Izuku didn’t blame her. He stood next to her, feeling very small in comparison to many of the others, who were older and larger than him in most cases.

A physically exhausted looking man finally began to address them all from his place at the front of the large room. He leaned heavily on the large podium and looked like he might collapse at any moment.

“Oh. Right. The Provisional License Exam. That’s what we’re here for…” the man said, sounding as fatigued as he looked.

“This guy doesn’t exactly inspire confidence,” a student from another school said to his friend.

Izuku wondered if he should agree.

“My favorite type of sleep is non-REM sleep,” the man said. “All I want to do is sleep, but we’re severely understaffed and they’re working me to death.”

Izuku was starting to feel tired just listening to him. Poor guy.

“Where was I? Oh yes, the exam. That’s what you’re here for. Yeah. I’m Mera from the Heroes Public Safety Commission. Pleased to meet you all.”

Izuku felt like he’d finally found someone who got even less sleep than his teacher seemed to.

Mera went on to explain that there were 1,540 examinees in this session, and that they would all be battling at once in a ‘free-for-all’ type of exercise. Everyone seemed to relax at hearing this; since it wasn’t much different than things they’d done before, just on a much larger scale. Izuku could feel the tension in the room shift; everyone here felt confident enough in their abilities and if half of them were going to pass, it was a relatively easy task to seek out those whose quirks were weak to yours and take them out. Even if you had to be watching your back the whole time, it was doable.

Of course, it wouldn’t be that simple.

“Today’s society is saturated with heroes,” Mera told them all. “And since Stain’s capture, more and more of the public have begun to question if that’s a good thing. Many have embraced his ideology, if not his methods, and are calling for better heroes - not more heroes. Stain has convinced many that the title of Hero should not be given out so lightly, and that a true hero should not seek reward or recompense. The belief is that the title of Hero should be earned through tireless self-sacrifice.”

A few people around them were eying Izuku, Iida and Todoroki at the mention of stain. Some with speculation and others with blatant curiosity. Izuku tried to pretend he didn’t notice the attention and focused on Mera.

“That said,” Mera continued in a tired monotone, “Regardless of motivation, forcing heroes to risk their lives to save others and ask for nothing in return is simply too harsh in modern society. Even All Might has bills to pay, after all. So, regardless of motivation, whether it’s dedication to the cause or some other compensation, there is no shortage of heroes out there saving people and taking villains off the street.”

Izuku nodded slightly. How many heroes would there be if they couldn’t actually make a living at it? They would all have to have ordinary jobs and hero work would have to be a side-job if that were the case. Very few would be able to dedicate their lives to heroism full-time.

“The time it takes these days to resolve any given incident is incredibly short.Those of you who earn your Provisional License today will quickly learn that events like this unfold at a breakneck pace. Any of you who can’t keep up are doomed to fail,” Mera told them flatly. “Which is why you’re going to be tested on speed. Only the first one hundred examinees to meet the requirement will pass.”

It was as if an electric shock traveled like a wave through the room, and as the shock settled upon them the frantic whispering started. All of them were saying basically the same thing: this test was supposed to have a fifty percent pass rate! One hundred out of 1,540 wasn’t even close to half.

“Society is rarely kind,” Mera told them, unfazed by the outrage that swept the room. “There’s no relying on luck.”

Izuku nodded to himself. This was going to be a tough battle.

“Now,” Mera told them, holding up what appeared to be a ball and a small plate with a hoop on it. “The passing requirement involves these. Each examinee will get three targets. Place them anywhere you like on your body, as long as they’re exposed; no soles of the feet, armpits, or under clothing.”

Izuku immediately began thinking of places he could put his that would be the least easy to hit. He could see that others were doing the same.

“Each of you will also carry six balls. The targets are designed so that they will light up ONLY when struck by a ball. You’re disqualified the instant that all three of your targets are lit. Those with three lit targets are considered defeated. You’ll have to defeat two examinees to pass. Once one hundred of you have passed, the first portion of the exam is over and even if you did not get defeated, if you did not defeat three examinees, you are disqualified. That’s pretty much it for the rules.”

Izuku heard a lot of murmuring around him from other examinees about how tough this would be, whether they were supposed to steal or scavenge balls from other players if they ran out, and other worries about the difficulties of winning.

Mera tried unsuccessfully to smother a jaw-cracking yawn before he said, “Yes, so, we’ll be handing out balls and targets once this place opens up, and the exam will begin exactly one minute have the last person is equipped.”

“Opens up?” Todoroki asked no one in particular.

Izuku looked around the room, and was stunned then the corners of the room and the ceiling all began to whirr and rumble before coming apart like a giant cardboard box being disassembled. When all of the walls were laying flat on the ground, they could see that they were inside a huge area, no unlike the USJ in it’s setup. There was a cityscape, a factory or industrial type area, a small mountain area, typical looking neighborhood setting… they’d thought of it all.

“We put a lot of consideration into the types of environments we’ve provided. Time spent planning when I could have been sleeping,” Mera said, sounding regretful. “Find the one that suits you best. Good luck.”

Izuku stuck close to his classmates as he placed his targets: inner left knee, right side of his jaw guard, left shoulder.

“Early birds get the worm here,” he told them as they equipped themselves. “We should stick together as a group. They other schools aren’t going to be fighting each other, they’re going to team up to go after other schools.”

Everyone nodded. Then came the booming announcement:

“ONE MINUTE”

They all began to run to a rocky area with a lot of cover.

“The other schools we met earlier both mentioned the Sports Festival,” Izuku said as they moved.

“That means they know our quirks already. That gives them an incredible advantage,” Iida surmised.

“Exactly.”

“Alright losers, I’m out! I can’t let loose in a crowd,” Kacchan said. “Don’t screw this up, and I’ll see you at the finish.”

He took off running before anyone could stop him, and Kirishima and Kaminari followed, possibly attempting to bring him back to the group.

“Sorry, I need space, too,” Todoroki said as he took off in another direction.

Izuku would have sighed if he’d had time.

“They’re going to be targeting us first,” Izuku said with certainty. “We’re younger and less experienced, so they’ll think we’re easy targets. Watch each other’s backs and stay close.”

Everyone nodded as the final seconds ticked away.

”START!”

“Let’s see… the boy with multiple quirks,” Shido said from not far away, his friendly demeanor gone. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down first!”

It only took seconds for their class to be surrounded and for balls to start flying in their direction. Izuku could feel One For All amping up inside of him as if it was responding to his anticipation of battle. The first ball to come at him was fast and wiggled slightly in the air as it moved. He used pull to catch it and fling it back the way it came, while at the same time dodging three others that were close behind it. His classmates were all similarly evading.

Yaoyorozu had produced a light shield to hide behind. Tokoyami had Dark Shadow basically eating the balls thrown at him, while Mina was simply melting them with her acid. Sero was using tape to catch them and Iida was kicking the balls back at their owners. Izuku was proud of them.

“All Right, let’s move!” he called out.

After repelling the first volley, Izuku knew it was time to go on the offensive. Their targets were their weak spots, so they had to be constantly aware of them. Putting two of his own so close to his face was a bid to keep them where he would already be protecting.

Keeping an eye on their opponents, it was hard to miss one of the students from Ketsubutsu wind up and throw a handful of balls into the earth at his feet.

“Target locked!” he shouted.

He was saying more, but Izuku was more concerned with where those balls had gone.

“The balls are heading toward us underground!” he told everyone.

“This is my job!” Jiro said, going onto one knee and putting the backs of her hands on the ground.

Izuku could see that her ear jacks were plugged into the speakers on her gloves. The amplification of her accelerated heartbeat caused the ground to rumble and break apart in front of them, making the balls emerge from the ground. The balls kept advancing, but now they were visible, and Mina jumped forward and used he Acid Veil move to remove the threat.

Izuku was impressed with how far both of his classmates had come with their super moves. Unfortunately, none of them had a super move to counter what happened next. Shindo bent and placed his hands on the ground, and a moment later the earth began to move like it had for Jiro, but on a much larger scale. Izuku kicked up off of the ground, and so did Uraraka until she was forced to fall back down by a volley of balls. Izuku was able to repel any that got near him, but he was pretty high up, and it would take someone with an eyesight or targeting quirk to hit one of his targets from that far.

While he floated, he began to touch the components of his suit to change the color to match the terrain below. When the dust cleared. He tried to quickly scan the mess of debris below for signs of his classmates before he let himself drop. He landed with a clatter to a crouch and then moved in an erratic line to where he’d last seen any of his classmates.

He was surprised when a girl flipped over his head and struck the target on his shoulder with a ball as she passed. He skidded to a stop when he landed in front of her.

“You may be fast, but you can’t just run around without checking out your surroundings,” She told him almost conversationally. “It’s asking for trouble.”

Izuku eyed her, wondering if the rest of her classmates were around to back her up.

“You were amazing in the Sports Festival, by the way, “ she said.

A sound behind him had Izuku’s eyes flicking away for a moment, and when he turned back, she was gone.

“What the--” he began, but then suddenly she was behind him, reaching around to try to touch a ball to the target on his jaw guard.

“You thought I vanished, didn’t you?” she asked silkily, even as he hopped away from her. “But I was here the whole time.”

“How?” he asked, thinking that if he could keep her talking, he might be able to figure out how to get past her, or strike one of her targets.

“It’s all technique,” she said, trying to overbalance him and sweep his leg. “It’s about standing very still. They haven’t taught you about that at UA?”

“There he is!” someone shouted. “Crap, someone from Shiketsu is with him.”

“Who cares, just take ‘em both out!” another answered.

There was a whole gang of hero hopefuls surrounding them on one side, and Izuku silently cursed.

“Aight, I’m out!” the Shiketsu girl said.

She flipped with amazing strength and grace and made her exit in seconds, leaving Izuku with a bunch of eager looking opponents. He spun on his heel and dragged one leg out in front of him, sending up a cloud of dust around him. At the same time, he held his breath and moved closer to the rocks they’d been surrounded by. When the dust settled, he appeared to have escaped.

“Damn! Where did he go?” one of the students asked.

“Spread out! Find him!”

The kids moved off, and Izuku let out his breath. Maybe he really was turning more transparent when he held it? Good to know.

“Midoriya! Over here!” Uraraka shouted.

Izuku looked around, unable to believe that she would be so foolish as to give away her location like that. Was she panicking? He spotted Uraraka on top of a jutting rock not too far away, being forced backward by advancing students from other schools. Had she called out because she was trapped and needed help? He watched as she continued to slowly move backward away from the others who were advancing. When her foot found empty air and she fell backward, Izuku was there in an instant to catch her. He spun and kicked the outcropping of rock, letting the spring-loaded toe of his protective soles make a double impact, destroying the rock and sending many students tumbling. He managed to hit one of their targets as he retreated. With superior speed, he carried Uraraka to a more secluded spot and crouched down low.

While he was checking to make sure their location was secure, he could hear her creeping up behind him. He turned and made sure not to use too much force as he slapped her hand away as she reached to touch the ball in her hand to his knee target..

“So, who are you really?” he asked her, pulling all of the balls she was carrying to him and then batting them away.

Notes:

I'll try to get the next chapter up in good time, but work has been especially busy at both jobs.(I am having to complete the inventory of the school library's entire non-fiction section, and the end of the school year is literally a week away.) The good news is that I am freshly re-certified in CPR/AED/First Aide for adults, children and infants, passed my work evaluation with flying colors and will soon be re-certified in Autism Inclusion in Recreation Settings! So... a lot of things going on, on top all the normal stuff. Please be patient if my next chapter or so is a day or two late!

Chapter 64

Summary:

The licensing exam is proving to be a bit stranger than Izuku anticipated.

Notes:

While I am procrastinating All The Things, have a chapter earlier than I expected.

She blinked back at him with Uraraka’s face for a moment before she morphed into another person right in front of his eyes.

“Clever aren’t you?” she asked, appearing to be the heavy-lipped girl he’d seen earlier from Shiketsu.

“Uraraka would never have fallen. She can make herself float.” Izuku pointed out. “And she wouldn’t shout for help, if it meant one of her friends might get caught. Not without a plan.”

“Very good!” she wiped a hand across her mouth as she said it, then she began to change.

It was fairly horrifying to see Uraraka’s face melt, followed by her body. When the mud-like goo fell away, he was stunned to see the same girl from before; the one from Shiketsu, standing in front of him not wearing a stitch of clothing. He blushed hotly, but refused to be distracted.

“How many quirks do you have?” she asked him. “Which one is the strongest? Why do you want to be a hero? Is it true that Stain thought you were as noble as All Might? I want to know all about you!”

What was this girl about? Wouldn’t she be disqualified without her targets in place? Was this the time to be playing games and getting acquainted?

“For instance, if you knew I wasn’t your cute little friend, why did you save me?”

“Uraraka wouldn’t have been hurt in the fall, but you would have, unless you can float, too. I couldn’t take that risk.”

“I see. So that’s your reason,” she said, sounding thoughtful. “Will you save anyone at all? Even me? You have to let me get to know you even better!”

Izuku wasn’t sure what was going on when she approached him. It was obvious that she didn’t have any of the equipment she needed for his targets, but she was still advancing on him with bright eyes.

“Let’s chat!” she said.

When she got within an arm’s length of him, Izuku went to take a step backward, but she was fast. A knife appeared out of nowhere and was in her hand, slashing through the air toward him. If it hadn’t been for the resilient material of his costume, he would have gotten a slice in his arm.

“What the hell?” another voice shouted.

Something lightning fast and white shot past Izuku’s head and struck the knife, pulling it from the girl’s grip. By the time Izuku could register anything else, the girl was gone, Uraraka having pulled the girl away by her hair and used some of the martial arts training she’d learned from her internship. Unfortunately, the other girl was an even better fighter, and managed to twist and wriggle her way out of Uraraka’s hold before springing and flipping away from their sight.

“What the heck was that?” Sero asked in bewilderment. “A naked girl with a knife?”

He started to chase after her, but Izuku called him back.

“Stop! Something about her quirk let her strip away her clothes and targets. You won’t get any points off of her. She’s probably going to be disqualified, anyway.”

“Midoriya, are you okay?” Uraraka asked. “She tried to cut you with a knife!”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll explain later, but for now we need to finish this exam. We need a plan and we’re running out of time!”

Izuku began to think.

“The other schools are targeting us in particular, and they’ve got quirks we know nothing about. On top of that, they’re all moving around which is gonna make it really hard to hit their targets, especially while they’re also throwing balls at us. Our best chance is to capture people and then just tap their targets once we’ve got them tied up.”

“Tying people up is my specialty!” Sero said confidently.

“So we need to catch six people,” Uraraka said with determination.

“I think we should catch as many as possible. If we run into any more classmates, they can also pass, and if we don’t it will still give the others fewer people to worry about,” Izuku said.

“I think I have a plan,” Uraraka said to Izuku. “How do you feel about being bait?”

Izuku grinned.

With a large group from other schools intent on hunting down UA students, it wasn’t difficult to lure them toward Izuku, who was pretending to be injured up against a wall of rock. He’d even changed the colors of his costume to brighter colors to make himself more visible. He sat batting away the balls and attacks they threw at him, and tried his best to look desperate. Meanwhile, Uraraka was using her quirk to cleverly move tall boulders into position while Sero worked on his portion of the plan. It took some time, but their efforts paid off.

Once enough people had gathered, Izuku made his move, zipping past the surrounding predators and stopping on one of the boulders that Uraraka had positioned. There was a tunnel of huge rocks now, and Izuku crawled inside and quickly levitated to the top of the tunnel, scurrying through to the middle. The tunnel wasn’t very long - only a few meters - but it was just what they needed. Several students who were after Izuku crawled into the tunnel from each end, hoping to use a pincer move to catch him. The tape Sero had laid stuck to at least a dozen opponents in the dim light, who immediately struggled and became more stuck as opponents climbed over them and also became stuck. Izuku stayed safely above it all, flattened out against the boulders above. Sero quickly wrapped those who had followed, but hadn’t gone into the tunnel. They had likely been planning to pick off a couple of rivals as they came out into the bright sunlight. Uraraka used her quirk on each of those, sending them floating like balloons into the air.

The peculiar sight caught the attention of classmates who understood what the human balloons were. Tsuyu found them, then Koda and Mina and Ojiro also appeared. Uraraka let the human balloons drop, where they were caught by Izuku, Ojiro and Koda. Uraraka removed the boulders forming the top of the tunnel and revealed a collection of stuck hero hopefuls stuck to lines of tape that had been waiting for them, like bugs on a glue strip.

Some of the students that had been targeting them pleaded to be set free, saying that they were third years and that this was their last chance to earn their provisional licenses. Izuku felt bad for them, but he couldn’t afford to take the risk. He steeled his heart and tapped the targets he needed to take out two opponents. The others each did the same. All seven of them were startled for a moment when all of their own targets lit up, but then a recording told them that they had passed, and that they should proceed to the reception room quickly.

When they got there, they saw that there were at least fifty other kids inside. Todoroki was there, as was Yaoyorozu, Jiro, Shoji, and Hagakure.

“Who’s still missing?” Izuku asked.

“Bakugou, Kaminari, Kirishima,” Sero counted. “I haven’t seen Mina or Sato, either.”

“Sato’s here,” Shoji said. “He went to get food.”

One of his hands pointed to a line of tables that had a buffet set up so kids could refuel if they needed to. Yaoyorozu nodded and headed in that direction, as well.

“Iida’s missing,” Uraraka said worriedly. “And I don’t see Aoyama anywhere.”

“Tokoyami,” Ojiro said, pointing.

They all turned and saw Dark Shadow above the crowd and Tokoyami made his way into the room looking a bit battered. Mina came in a moment behind him, holding her arm and gritting her teeth. Izuku rushed over and guided her to a chair, and tried to look casual as he quickly healed a hairline fracture that he could sense with his quirk. He surreptitiously checked to make sure none of his other classmates needed healing before the second round of the test began.

Izuku saw the girl from Shiketsu again, this time wearing all of her clothes, and she gave him a friendly wave as if she hadn’t been acting like a total lunatic just a short time ago. She was standing with her classmates, being scolded by the one covered in hair for running off on her own during the test. How had she not been tossed out? How had she passed the exam at all?

Izuku went to get food to refuel, in case the minor healings he performed had drained him more than he thought. When Kacchan, Kirishima and Kaminari came in, Izuku watched with amusement as some of his friends celebrated with a silly dance. Still, he was worried. Iida couldn’t have been disqualified, could he? Aoyama might seem a bit ineffectual at times, but he was very capable, too. It would be heartbreaking if not everyone in their class passed, even though the odds were very strongly stacked against them. It wasn’t until the very last moment, when the last of the winners were trickling in, did Aoyama and Iida make it through the door. They both looked scraped up and tired.

Izuku went to check on them and was relieved to find that Iida and Aoyama were the final two to pass. Iida found a carafe of orange juice and proceeded to drink the entire thing in long gulps. Aoyama ran for the bathroom.

‘Now that the first portion of the test is over, please direct your attention to the monitors around the room,” Mera’s voice told them through a loudspeaker.

They all cast their eyes upward to watch as explosions detonated all over the testing ground, turning every section of the arena into a disaster zone. Izuku knew immediately what the next part of the test was going to entail, even before he noticed the flood of people entering the scene and disappearing into the rubble.

“The next scenario is the last part of your test! For this test, you’ll be acting as bystanders who will venture into the ruins to prove your acumen at rescuing innocent victims of a large-scale villain terrorist attack until emergency crews arrive,” Mera told them over the loudspeaker. ‘The victims you’ll be rescuing are trained professionals from the “Help Us Company” or “HUC” for short, and they will be scoring your performance based on a specific rubric of traits you will all need to be proficient in to be effective heroes.”

A wave of murmurs spread over the crowd of remaining students as they turned to their classmates to begin making a plan. Izuku gestured for his own class to gather around.

“Remember that these people are meant to be viewed as real victims,” he told them as they huddled. “They’ve been through an ordeal and need reassurance as well as medical assessment. Be nice.”

His eyes flicked to Kacchan, who sneered and flipped him off. Izuku rolled his eyes.

“We don’t have to stick together this time, since we’re supposed to be working as a team with other heroes. Go to areas where your quirk will be the most help; take the lead if you need to, and do your best!”

He didn’t have time to offer more encouragement, because by then all of the HUC members had taken their places, and they were beginning the second part of the exam. As soon as they left the anteroom where they’d been waiting, everyone rushed out into the disaster zone, pausing to take stock of what needed to be done. There were cries of help from all directions, smoke rising from several piles of rubble, and dust settling everywhere.

Many students from other schools immediately worked to set up a triage area, and Yaoyorozu went to see if she could provide first aid supplies with her quirk. Uraraka, Sato and Shouji went to try to help move rubble, and the rest of them went searching for victims. Izuku kicked off into the air and clumsily hovered a few meters above the ground, using his ears and eyes to spot victims.

“Tsuyu! There’s a small child in a crater about fifteen meters that way!” he called down, pointing in the direction of the crying child.

She hurried in that direction with Aoyama and Jiro, and Izuku turned his attention elsewhere. He directed others for a few minutes until he couldn’t see any victims in the near vicinity, and let himself drop to the ground. He considered going back to the first aid station to help with his healing quirk, but these weren’t real injuries, so he would just be pretending to help them. He didn’t know if that would be a good enough measure, to just put his hands on people and declare them healed. He decided against it, and moved to find other ways to help.

“You there! Hero!” Izuku heard as he jogged toward what was once a facsimile of a neighborhood.

He skidded to a halt and changed direction when he saw a man with a walker who looked shaky and seemed to be bleeding from a head wound.

“My wife! She was inside the building! Help her!” he demanded, sounding distressed.

‘Which building is she in, sir?” Izuku asked.

“That one, there!” he said, pointing to a fallen two story home. “She was cooking lunch, and I was just stepping outside for a smoke…”

“I’ll find her, sir. Are you feeling alright? No dizziness or double vision?” Izuku asked, doing a quick assessment for concussion.

“I’m fine!” the man said, swiping at Izuku to shoo him toward the building. “My wife isn’t!”

“Yessir, you press this to your wound and wait here while I find her and then I’ll get you both to a safer place.” Izuku said, satisfied that the man wasn’t exhibiting any danger signs as he handed him a bandage from his belt. “What’s your wife’s name?”

“Mariko,” he said, sounding as if was about to cry. “Inoue Mariko.”

Izuku nodded and hurried to the rubble and saw that the building was in bad shape, but that there were definite pockets of space where a person could shelter. He climbed in through a broken window, and proceeded with caution through the wreckage of furniture tossed around and falling drywall.

“Inoue-san!” he called out. “Can you hear me? I’m here to help!”

There wasn’t an answering voice, but there was a banging sound from the back of the house. He headed in that direction and picked his way to the kitchen while calling out reassurances that he was coming to help.

He found a small,elderly woman banging on a pot with a wooden spoon weakly, looking barely conscious. He went and knelt at her side and scanned her for injury. Her head was bloody, and there was a table on top of her legs. There was also a bright red mark on her hand and wrist.

“Inoue-san,” he said quietly. “I’m here to help you. Can you speak at all?”

The woman opened her eyes a bit and shook her head weakly.

“That’s okay,” he said, trying to keep calm by reminding himself that even if this was not a mock situation, he was equipped to handle this. “I want you to try to relax while I get you to safety. I have a healing quirk that can help, and then I’ll get you out of here. Your husband is just outside. He’s fine, but he’s worried about you, so we’re going to make sure you get to him quickly.”

Izuku knew it was kind of weird, but in a normal situation, he wouldn’t forego his healing quirk in this situation, so he placed his hands on her seemingly uninjured one and imagined her whole and healthy. With a twitch of surprise, the quirk ‘told’ him that while this woman didn’t have a recent injury, she did have a herniated disc in her back that was probably causing her a lot of discomfort, test or not. He imagined his quirk surrounding the vertebrae and infusing it with strength, and waited until it ‘told’ him it had done what it could.

“There you are,” he said with a gentle smile. “Good as new.”

He didn’t know if he was allowed to break cover to tell her about her fixed back, so he just smiled gently at her when her eyes fluttered open.

“What did you do?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“I used my healing quirk to fix your injuries,” he said patiently, not sure if she’d been able to feel the effects as they happened. “I’m going to move this table off of your legs, and then I’m going to help you out of here.”

She nodded at him, and he easily flipped the table away.

“Just in case there’s something I didn’t catch, I’d like to carry you out. Is that okay with you?” he asked.

“Thank you!” she said, seeming grateful.

He carefully scooped her up under her knees and back and navigated his way out of the house. Once outside, he gently set her on her feet to make sure she could walk and found that she could.

“That healing quirk is a blessing!” she told him. “Why aren’t you at the first aid station?”

“Ah. I also have other quirks that can be more useful. My healing one could tire me out very quickly and make me no good to help anyone, if I use it too much.”

“You’re that boy!” the man said, not sounding shaky or distressed in the slightest.

“Yes sir,” Izuku said. “I’m glad I was able to help. I’d be happy to escort you to a safer place, if you feel unable to walk there yourself. It’s about a half a kilometre from here.”

“I feel like I could run a marathon, young man!” the woman declared. “This was a job well done! You go save others. We’ll be fine!”

“You’ve been through a traumatic experience, so please be careful! Just follow the road that way,” he said, pointing the way to the first aid station.

They waved as he kicked off into the air to look for other victims, and he felt good about the interaction. All around them, people were working in harmony to help the victims, and it was really kind of inspiring to see. From afar, Izuku could see someone or something dangling from the side of a tall building in the cityscape ruins, and let himself drop to the ground so that he could make the long leap in that direction.

He saved a stranded, but uninjured, window washer next, and a little girl who had broken her arm inside a smashed conbini. The ‘little girl’ was a dressed up adult, but was convincing enough, otherwise. He used his speed to run her to the triage station, telling her silly jokes on the way to calm her.

“Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide!”

She giggled between sniffles appropriately, even if the adult actor probably thought the jokes were dumb. He assured her that there would be an area where her parents would go to find her as soon as they could, and that she was being very brave.

He was about to go back out in search of more victims where there was a sudden disturbance. It sounded like another explosion, and dust was rising up not too far away. Izuku’s first thought was that Kacchan was destroying some large obstacle, but that wasn’t the case.

“Another terrorist attack?” Izuku asked no one in particular.

For a moment he feared that it was something more sinister than the test; there were villains out for his blood on the loose, after all. Then he noticed Gang Orca coming through an enormous hole in the perimeter with a gang of identically dressed men in full body suits. They were indistinguishable from one another, and they were all holding some sort of devices strapped to their forearms. They were also wearing suppression gear, if Izuku’s knowledge of such things was accurate. Gang Orca himself had additions to his regular garb, which Izuku guess was so he didn’t actually hurt any of the examinees seriously in his role as a villain.

“Dealing with victims and enemies,” Gang Orca said as he surveyed the chaos. “Can you really handle both?

 

“Guys!” Izuku called to the triage team. “This is part of the test!”

“Seriously? Don’t we have enough to deal with?” one of the impromptu medics asked with a groan.

”Villains have arrived on the scene, and they’re on the move! You hero candidates on the scene will suppress the villain incursion while still continuing the rescue operation!”

”WHAT'S YOUR MOVE, HEROES?” Gang Orca demanded in a menacing tone.

“Move the civilians as far away from the villain’s point of entry as possible,” Yaoyorozu shouted to the triage team. “Anyone who isn’t needed here should fight to keep them at bay until the victims are safe!”

Other students were already moving to help victims retreat. Izuku charged forward, kicking into the air to take stock of the situation from above. The goons with the arm weapons used them like guns to shoot a sort of fast drying cement/glue compound and were charging the first aid station.

“You’re not getting any further!” Shindo from Shiketsu shouted as he crouched to the ground.

Izuku stayed in the air as Shindo began to vibrate the earth, causing it to start to heave, but Gang Orca simply scoffed.

“As if one little hero wannabe is enough to take me down!”

Then he let loose with his ultrasonic attack that had Shindo dropping to the ground, paralyzed. Izuku was lucky enough to be over the brunt of that attack, and quickly dropped down to scoop up Shindo and move him back to the medics. He noticed that Ojiro and some of the others from 1-A were on the scene and helping to evacuate the first aid station.

He left the downed hero in their care and turned to face the villains. The first volley goons headed toward him, and he dropped low, grabbing one of them by the leg and then tossing them with a spin. The man flew back out of the hole he’d entered through, and Izuku didn’t have time to make sure he didn’t come back in.

Luckily, Todoroki showed up, shooting fire and ice at the goons, eventually freezing them all in place and sealing the hole in the wall. When he turned to blast Gang Orca with a wall of flame, Izuku took the opportunity to hold his breath long enough to partly vanish and leap onto Gang Orca’s back, One For All crackling in green webs all around him. Grabbing his dorsal fin, Izuku’s bare forefinger made contact with the villain’s skin, and suddenly Gang Orca sprouted hair from his upper lip. He was part animal! Izuku watched in fascination as three or four thick, whiskery hairs sprouted from the corners of each side of his mouth. It was just enough of a distraction for Izuku to be able to get in a couple of good punches to the back of Gang Orca’s head, though he didn’t use full strength; he didn’t want to kill anyone.

Gang Orca tried his best to get a hold of Izuku, who was clinging to him like a bucking bronco at a rodeo. While he was doing that, Todoroki managed to form his fire into a rope that formed a spiral tube around both Villain and rider. Orca couldn’t move without walking into flames. Izuku was able to kick off from the villain’s back and levitate skyward enough to free himself from the snare. Izuku was nearly ready to celebrate, when Gang Orca shook his head and let off another ultrasonic attack, breaking up the flames and paralyzing Todoroki in the process.

The blast also broke many of the goons from their ice prisons, but luckily the student from Shiketsu who was covered in hair rushed in and was able to wrap them all up in hairy bindings. That gave Izuku an idea.

Izuku dropped down behind the villain and snagged a handful of the whiskers trailing from Gang Orca’s mouth, which were now several meters long. He put on a spurt of speed, running circles around the man while wrapping Gang Orca in his own facial hair. He kept low to the ground and concentrated on wrapping his legs. Feeling slightly dizzy, Izuku was relieved when Kacchan arrived like a rocket, crashing into Gang Orca and causing him to topple.

Izuku used one of the restraint techniques he’d learned from The Bear, and took control of the downed villain’s arm, twisting it into an uncomfortable position that would cause immense pain if the culprit struggled. Kacchan jumped on Gang Orca’s back and placed his gloved palm over the blowhole there. While he was doing that, Kirishima tackled the other arm and put it in a similar hold to the one Izuku was using.

“Move and we’ll find out what your insides look like on the outside.” Kacchan said in a threatening tone.

Many others from 1-A arrived about then, too, working to use capture tape to restrain the goons who’d been frozen as they freed them from the ice. Yaoyorozu showed up to tend to Todoroki just as a loud, shrill horn sounded.

”THAT'S IT! IT’S OVER!!” came Mera’s voice from all directions as he shouted through the loudspeakers.

Bakugou jumped off of Gang Orca, and Izuku let go of his arm, as did Kirishima. They all blew out a breath of relief to know their test was done. Izuku rushed over to check on Todoroki and Shindo, who were both still dazed looking. He used his quirk to help them recover, and Shindo grudgingly held up a hand in thanks.

“I guess you guys really are everything they claimed,” he said. “Thanks.”

Izuku grinned at him and nodded. He turned to follow the others back to the ante room, but was called back by Gang Orca, who was cutting his legs free.

“What did you do to my face, kid?” he asked.

Having the face of an orca and oddly patterned eyes, it was hard to judge the man’s expression, so Izuku wasn’t sure he wasn’t angry.

“Sorry about that. I have a quirk that makes hair grow on mammals, and some people with animalistic quirks. I didn’t even think about it until it happened, but since it did, I just went with it.”

“Orcas tend to lose their facial hairs when they’re very young. My own were gone by the time I was three or so,” he said, running his fingers along the trailing whiskers. “It was a good diversionary tactic on your part, and excellent impromptu use of a seemingly useless ability.”

“Thank you, sir!” Izuku said gratefully.

To be acknowledged by the number ten hero on the charts was exciting, and Izuku appreciated the praise, since it meant that he’d performed well in this aspect of the test, at least. Overall, he felt pretty good about his performance today. He met up with his classmates and they were all directed to go and change back into their school uniforms. Their results would be tabulated while they waited.

Chapter 65

Summary:

The results of the Provisional Hero License exam are out! Izuku has a decision to make!

“This waiting is killing me!” a girl from another school said nervously as they all waited in the arena after changing clothes.

“She’s right,” Jiro said, her body radiating doubt, “Waiting is the worst part.”

Izuku was amazed to see her looking so insecure, when just a couple of hours ago, she’d been fierce and formidable in battle.

“As long as you did your best, I’m sure you’ll pass,” Yaoyorozu told her sympathetically.

Izuku was about to tell them both that they were selling themselves short, when Mera came out and mounted a small stage with a large screen on it. He stood at the podium, leaning heavily on it, and addressed the group.

It’s been a long battle, boys and girls. Now it’s time for your results.”

Everyone seemed to collectively tense.

“But before that, let me explain the scoring system. We scored on a punitive system. Everyone present began the exam with one hundred points. We at the Hero Public Safety Commission and the members of HUC were deducting points on two issues as we watched you perform,” he said, “Essentially, we judged you on your efficiency and your ability to act flawlessly in a crisis. Anyone who did not manage to stay above fifty points was deemed a failure. That being said, please take a look.”

The screen behind him lit up and participants’ names were listed in alphabetical order. Izuku nervously strained his eyes, searching for the “Mi” portion of the list. When he saw his name listed, he felt his heart soar before scanning for the names of his friends, as well. Several shouted with joy before he could even find their names, and he grinned widely. All of them were there. Every. Single. One. The odds had been wildly against any one class of their size passing in its entirety, just based on statistics of the first portion of the test, alone. That they had all performed well enough of the second portion was nothing short of astounding.

“Are you crying?” Kirishima asked him, sounding amused but not condescending.

Izuku realized that he had fat tears welling up in his eyes and laughed. “I guess I’m just really, really happy!”

Kirishima patted him on the back and roughly messed up Izuku’s mop of hair. “Yeah. Me too!”

“YEAH! WE DID IT!” Kaminari shouted, launching himself onto Kirishima’s back and pumping his fist in the air. “WOOOO!”

Even Kacchan had a huge grin on his face that didn’t look predatory, which was a rarity on any occasion. Todoroki looked relieved. Uraraka and Mina were both crying happy tears, hugging each other tightly, and there were either cheers or groans of disappointment rippling through the crowd as everyone got their results. He wondered if Aizawa sensei already knew their results, and what he thought of their performance.

“By now, you’ve had a chance to find out if you’ve passed, so we will be handing out your individual scoring sheets. The scoring sheets are explained in detail, so please look them over carefully. On each scoresheet, you’ll find where points were deducted and why. It will give you an idea of areas where you need improvement.”

A few men in suits walked into the crowd holding stacks of papers. Izuku accepted his with a smile and scanned his result. He realized his hands were shaking as he read his overall score.

“Midoriya! What’d you get?” Uraraka asked him cheerfully. “I got an 78! They said I hesitated too much, and a couple of times I didn’t check for structural integrity before moving large pieces of rubble.”

“Um… I got...I got a 95%,” he said, feeling dazed.

“That’s amazing!” she gushed. “Congratulations!”

“What’s amazing?” Iida asked, coming to join them.

“Izuku got a 95!” Uraraka told him excitedly.

“Yaomomo got a 94!” Mina said, having heard Uraraka.

“As expected of our two recommendation students!” Iida said, sounding proud. “I’m afraid I have much work to do. I only scored 80 percent! I must dedicate myself to making better use of my quirk and resources at hand!”

Others compared their scores and discussed where they’d gotten points deducted. The points Izuku had lost were due to small issues like spending too much time extracting himself from people he’d already saved to go and save more. He needed to learn how to leave people behind instead of staying to comfort or encourage them in situations where more people were still in danger. Most of the class scored in the seventies and eighties, though there were a couple who were less than satisfied with lower scores.

Izuku looked around at his classmates to judge their reactions or body language as they looked over their results. Kacchan looked furious, and it was easy to overhear Sero teasing him about his score of 72, and Kaminari telling him that he really needed to work on his people skills. That sounded about right.

Todoroki showed Izuku his paper that had marked him lower because of his “flat personality” and “Seeming lack of compassion.” He still scored a 91 percent, but Izuku had a feeling that Todoroki would need some tips on how to be more charismatic, or something. Was that something that could be taught at a school? From his past interactions with Todoroki, Izuku wondered if his stoic personality came from trying hard not to attract his father’s attention in any way while growing up.

Mera went on to explain that the Provisional Hero License allowed them to act in emergency situations, even if there were no Pro Heroes there to give guidance. He cautioned them that every move they made came with a heavy responsibility and that society would never go easy on them if they abused the public’s trust in any way. Everything they did would be in the public eye from now on, and they could not afford to be rash or sloppy.

“Things have changed since All MIght was forced to retire,” Mera told them, sounding more awake than at any other point since their arrival. “Just his presence alone was enough to deter villains and keep crime at bay. Now that the Symbol of Peace is no longer holding them back, you can all be sure that more and more brazen villains and criminals will be rising up to make a name for themselves. The balance has shifted, and the world is about to change in big ways.”

Izuku knew his words were true, but they hurt his heart to hear them. All Might had always been a paragon of hope and legendary feats for Izuku; had given his entire life to heroism. To know that his time was done, and that it was his own turn to take over was daunting.

“You all are the next generation of heroes. You will be the next pillars of society and set the gold standard. It will be up to you to work both as individuals and as a whole to keep crime at bay and keep Japan safe. Still, bear in mind that these licenses are provisional only! You still have a long, hard road ahead of you before you earn your true professional licenses. Your future is still not guaranteed. Study hard at your respective schools and live up to the expectations we have for all of you!”

He went on to explain that those who didn’t make the cut in the second portion of the test still had a chance to earn their provisional licenses. They could take a three month long course and pass an individual test at the end of it. Izuku was glad that none of his classmates would be forced to walk that path, but was glad that there was still hope for those who had worked so hard.

Soon enough, they were all filed through a line to get their pictures taken and their Provisional Licenses printed. Izuku was handed a form that asked for the typical information for government forms: name, address, school affiliation, and hero name. He began to fill in Vanguard, but then paused. Ever since he’d met with Suoh-san and inherited his healing quirk, he’d been rethinking his hero name. He knew that whatever he wrote didn’t have to be permanent, but now his mind whirled with other, more suitable sounding names. He had a responsibility to use all of the quirks at his disposal to become the best possible hero he could be. Many people had worked to help him achieve as much as he had so far, even if some of them were no longer alive to know it. No matter how the previous quirk holders had chosen to live their lives or use their abilities, it was up to Izuku to pull them together and use them in the most cohesive way possible.

“Are you ready, Midoriya-kun?” one of the assistants asked.

Izuku quickly finished filling out his form and stepped up to the mark on the floor where they would take his photo. They didn’t warn him before they snapped the picture, and they didn’t do retakes, so it ended up looking like a mugshot of a deer caught in headlights. Within minutes he was staring with pride at his brand new Provisional Hero License.

“Are you okay, Midoriya?” Uraraka asked when he got misty eyed.

“Oh! Yeah! It’s just… so much has happened and so many people have worked so hard to help me get here. I’m sure I’ve caused a ton of trouble to all of them, and this is just proof that their support hasn’t been wasted, you know? It makes me really happy!”

Uraraka smiled at him and nodded, seeming to know exactly what he meant.

“I gotta show my dad! And All Might! And...everyone!”

He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of his new card. He sent it with a text thanking them all for everything they did to help him take this step.

“You changed your hero name?” Uraraka asked, peeking over his shoulder.

“Uh... yeah. I’m still not sure…” he stammered.

She took the card from his hand and studied it for a moment, smiling at the horrible image of him. At that point, Yaoyorozu and Iida joined them, holding their new cards.

“What does Gestalt mean?” Uraraka asked.

Yaoyorozu’s face lit up as she said brightly, “A gestalt is an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts. Very clever, Midoriya! Very fitting! Iida finally chose a proper name, as well!”

Izuku looked at his friend, who was blushing slightly as he stood up straighter and held up the card for them to see.

“Since I think my brother might still need his own hero name, I decided to go with this.”

He looked proud as he displayed the license with the hero name Recipro printed on it in large letters.

“I like it!” Uraraka told him with a smile. “Good job, Iida!”

Izuku was smiling, too. “I think that sounds great, right alongside your brother’s. Ingenium and Recipro! Very heroic sounding!”

Iida seemed very pleased to hear this, and pulled out his phone to snap a picture of his license.

Once the bulk of their class had gathered outside, Aizawa appeared to tell them to start loading onto their bus. The amount of traffic from other buses meant it would take a while for them to be able to move. Kacchan, Kaminari, Sero and Kirishima all walked up at that point, with Kacchan yelling at the others to shut up. The others didn’t seem the least bit intimidated, and kept badgering him.

“How about Nitro?” Sero suggested.

“Grenadier?” Kaminari asked.

“What’s going on?” Iida asked.

“Bakugou left his hero name blank!” Kirishima said. “So we’re trying to help him think up good names that don’t have the word murder in them!”

“Ah! Well, how about Blast Zone?” Iida said off the top of his head.

“I don’t need help from you losers!” Kacchan growled impatiently.

“Demolisher?” Yaoyorozu said with a sassy smirk. “Savage? Rampage?”

Kacchan actually seemed to consider those, possibly because Yaoyorozu was one of the smartest in the class, and usually had pretty interesting ideas when she let herself speak past her insecurities.

“Oooh! How about F-Bomb!” Kaminari said, making everyone but Kacchan crack up.

Kacchan flipped him off, unintentionally proving that the name was apt.

“There’s Bombardier, Howitzer, Ammo Can…” Izuku tossed in helpfully.

“All of you shut up! I’ll choose when I’m ready!” Kacchan said angrily.

Aizawa called them to board the bus again, and his tone told them he was not eager to tell them again. Izuku was about to start herding everyone in that direction when he caught sight of one of the Shiketsu students. That long shaggy hair was kind of hard to miss.

“I’ll be right back!” he told Iida, running off after the familiar looking hat.

“Hey! Hey! Can I ask you a question?” Izuku called after him.

“Hmmm? Oh, it’s you. Good work back there,” they said when they stopped to look.

“Thanks! You too! I was wondering if you could tell me exactly what’s involved in your training to mask your presence from others!” Izuku asked eagerly, notebook and pen at the ready.

“We don’t… have training like that?” they said, sounding confused.

“But that girl with the big lower lip said…” Izuku said, feeling equally confused. “She said she wanted to talk to me more. Maybe I could ask her?”

Maybe she wouldn’t be so creepy if her classmates were around, too. He was eager to know the secret of the technique, so he could use it alongside his transparency quirk.

“Camie? She wasn’t feeling well and left early. She took a cab about an hour ago,” they told him. “She’s been a bit off for the past three days, not acting like herself. I guess it finally caught up with her.”

“Oh. Okay,” Izuku said. “Sorry to bother you.”

He jogged back to the waiting bus feeling a bit disappointed and confused.

“Everything okay?” Aizawa asked him as Izuku boarded.

“I think so,” Izuku nodded. “Just weird. One of the students from Shiketsu with a crazy quirk was telling me about some training they did to cloak their presence by standing really still and clearing their minds, but her classmate said they don’t have training like that.”

“Maybe she was just messing with you to put you off your game,” Aizawa suggested.

“Yeah. That must be it,” Izuku agreed. “Too bad.”

He took his seat and was soon distracted by a flurry of congratulatory replies from his father, All Might and Sir. All of them commented on his new choice of name favorably, though his father lamented that Vanguard had been so cool. It occurred to Izuku that he probably should have told Aizawa, but when he looked toward the front of the bus, it seemed his teacher had already dozed off in his seat at the front. The poor man deserved a rest after the past few weeks.

Once back on campus, Aizawa actually gave them all a smile and told them they’d done well. Class 1-B’s bus arrived not long after that, and their jubilant attitude said that they had also done well.

When they returned to the dorms, the mood was festive and they ordered BBQ to be delivered to celebrate, everyone chipping in a bit of money to cover the cost. Somehow Kuroiro from 1-B showed up in their kitchen at one point and laughed as he ran off with a plate of food. Sato produced a huge cake he’d baked the evening before for dessert, and it was a happy group who gathered in the common area together that evening. After everyone was full and the dishes washed and put away, there was a debate on what movie they should all watch. Izuku was just wiping down all of the dining tables when Kacchan sought him out.

“Meet me out after curfew tonight,” he said flatly. “We need to have a talk.”

Notes:

Okay! So some of you may have noticed that this is now chapter 65 of 77. I feel like I have come to a good end point for this story after the Overhaul Arc, though I will need to go back and re-read the whole fic to make sure that I haven’t left anything super important left unfinished, plot-wise. I may or may not continue with a sequel (there’s a lot going on in canon that I would have to think about for that), but for now, I’m going to rest for a bit - six months to write 77 chapters that are seven to ten pages long each is a lot of work! I’ve enjoyed almost all of it, so I’m not complaining, but be aware that things will be winding to a close in the next dozen chapters or so!

Chapter 66

Summary:

Kacchan has some questions.

Izuku paused before he asked, “Why after curfew?”

“Because I don’t think either of us want this conversation overheard. Just be there, nerd.”

“I don’t want to get busted for being out after curfew. How about the roof, instead?”

“Whatever,” Kacchan said with a jerky shrug.

He walked away, and instead of joining the others around the television, he took the stairs up, presumably to his room, and Izuku was left to wonder what he wanted to talk about.

Izuku sat with his friends and watched a movie that he didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to before everyone’s exhaustion from the day caught up with them. They all started wandering off to bed or baths. Izuku went to his room and sent Sir and All MIght a photo of his test scores for the day, then perused some hero blogs, made up some place-holder notes about some of the quirks he’d seen from other schools’ students and generally just waited until just after the ten o’clock curfew.

When he opened the door onto the roof of the boy’s side of the dormitory, Kacchan was already there, sitting on the edge with his feet dangling over the side. Izuku went and joined him, pleasantly surprised to find that there was a slight breeze to the humid summer air.

They sat in silence for a little while, and Izuku thought that maybe Kacchan was gathering his thoughts. He was still wondering why they were having this conversation at all. Kacchan had been more civil, and even came to his rescue, but that didn’t make them friends.

“That night that you fought Stain,” he finally began. “After. Why did they bring your Might Tower?”

“How did you know…?” Izuku asked in surprise.

“I didn’t for sure. Do now,” he said with an arched eyebrow. “Besides, I’m not a moron. I notice stuff. It wasn’t hard to figure out that a helicopter landed on the roof, even if I was a few blocks away. Then the news blew up and no one knew where you three had disappeared to. It made sense. So why?”

“You know I can’t go to a hospital,” Izuku told him honestly. “And UA was out, because that would be one of the first places they’d look.”

“So? You could have gone to Endeavor’s agency, or UA’s security would have kept reporters out.”

“It wasn’t only reporters they were worried about,” Izuku said as if it should be obvious. “Kurogiri breached security here, before. If he can get into UA, why not Endeavor’s agency? We already know they have a shape shifter on their side. It had to be a place where no one was in danger of dying while I was there, and a place that even the League of Villains wouldn’t dare go.”

“That’s not all, though,” Kacchan said. “There’s something between you and All Might and Sir Nighteye.”

“Well, they did save me when I was ten,” Izuku said reasonably. “I don’t know if you really know everything that went down, but the babysitter that had been taking care of me for years was sort of working for All For One.”

That earned a sharp look from Kacchan.

“I heard you say somethin’ like that before, but I thought it was some bullshit one time thing,” he admitted.

Izuku took a deep breath and said, “Well, we don’t really talk, so I guess that makes sense. Let me lay it out for you.”

And he did. He told Kacchan about how Granny Ito had been blackmailed into delivering Izuku into All For One and Dr. Tsubasa’s hands on a regular basis. He explained about how she had finally decided to come clean because she was sure that they were going to just take Izuku the next time and not give him back. He told Kacchan all about how the police had been called, and the detective had realized that it was All For One and called in All Might and Sir to help with the case.

“After that, I didn’t have anyone to look after me anymore. I was still a little too young to be home alone all the time, especially with villains wanting to get to me. They offered me a sort of junior internship at Might Tower, since it was kind of important to them to keep me away from All For One and to make sure I didn’t misuse my quirk.”

“Like going to a hospital or disaster zone to get powered up,” Kacchan said with a nod, staring out into nothingness. “I used to wonder why you never did that when we were little. I would have.”

“Kids are dumb and selfish,” Izuku agreeed. “If it wasn’t for so many people keeping me safe, I might have done that, too. I always wanted to be as strong as All MIght, so it probably would have been pretty tempting. But absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

“I hated you so much,” Kacchan said bluntly. “You had everything I wanted.”

Izuku nodded. “I know. I didn’t at the time, but I get it, now. I felt the same about you for a while. Back then, I thought you were the coolest person on the planet, next to All Might, but then you turned on me. I thought maybe you were scared of me.”

Kacchan made a derisive sound. “As if.”

Izuku managed a small smile. “You used to tell people I was creepy and that I stole quirks. What else was I supposed to think? I never thought you, of all people, might be jealous. I mean, I got that you were jealous about your mom paying attention to me. It must have seemed like I was trying to steal her from you when we were that little. Maybe I was, a little. I missed my own mom.”

“She was nicer to you than she was to me,” Kacchan said with a shrug. “It pissed me off.”

“Yeah, that was pretty obvious,” Izuku agreed. “After that, I didn’t really trust anyone my own age. I spent all of my time with people older than me, in charge of me. So after All Might and Sir helped us out, it seemed like a dream come true to get to hang out in Might Tower for the whole summer, and learn how my quirks worked and stuff.”

“And?” Kacchan asked, seemingly expecting more than that.

“And what?”

“You’re really gonna make me drag it out of you,” Kacchan said. “I ain’t an idiot.”

“Can you be more specific?” Izuku asked.

He looked for holes in the story that would be unsatisfactory as an explanation. Everything he had told Kacchan was the absolute truth, just not the complete truth.

“There are pictures of you in Might Tower with All Might and Sir Nighteye at all different ages.”

“No there aren’t,” Izuku denied doubtfully.

“And how would you know, unless you’d spent time there recently?” Kacchan asked.

“Because there aren’t any pictures like that?” Izuku said with a fair amount of certainty.

Kacchan sighed.

“There’s a picture of you and those two framed in Sir’s office, on the credenza behind his desk, crammed right in there with all the limited edition All Might merch,” Kacchan said matter-of-factly. “You’re wearing a middle school uniform.”

“They didn’t forget I exist after the junior internship ended--”

“There’s another one of you and All Might working out together in his personal weight room, probably around the same time we were about to take the UA entrance exam. Hanging on the wall in All Might’s room.”

“What were you doing in All Might’s room?” Izuku asked.

“...I didn’t go in, I was just lookin’ around.”

“There’s also a file on Sir’s computer named Izuku.”

That sneaky little… Izuku was pretty sure that Sir had deliberately placed those pictures where they could be seen. What his intentions were remained to be seen, but Sir didn’t make mistakes that obvious, and Izuku didn’t remember ever seeing pictures like that in Might Tower before.

“Weird,” Izuku said, doing his best to look puzzled.

“Cut the crap!” Kacchan barked, before moderating his voice. “You obviously have some sort of relationship beyond whatever bullshit story you made up to fool people.”

“Nothing I told you was a lie,” Izuku said easily.

“Then you suddenly had super strength, but there was no news of anyone with that kind of power dying around here,and after that you started running off every day, cleaning up that beach,” Kacchan said. “And then you got a recommendation spot at UA. You gonna to tell me that All Might wasn’t your sponsor?”

Izuku didn’t answer at first, but then just shrugged.

“I fuckin’ knew it!” Kacchan said, sounding half angry, half arrogant that he’d figured it out. “You tried to make me think you weren’t takin’ the test, you fucker!”

“That wasn’t a lie, either,” Izuku said.

“Asshole,” Kacchan said without the heat that Izuku expected.

“So then I asked myself why you’d keep all this shit a secret,” Kacchan said. “Most people would be proud or whatever to have All Might backin’ ‘em.”

Izuku’s heart skipped a beat and picked up pace. Had Kacchan connected the dots the way Aizawa had?

“He’s… he's training you to take his place, isn’t he? You were there that night when he fought All For One to rescue that shithead in 1-B. He’s been training you for a while.

“You can understand why that would need to be kept confidential,” All Might said from behind them.

Both boys spun to find Aizawa and All Might had managed to get awfully close to them without either of them noticing.

“You knew about this, too?” Kacchan asked Aizawa, almost accusingly.

Aizawa merely arched an eyebrow. “You boys are out after curfew.”

Izuku spun to bring his legs over the low wall they were sitting on, and stood up.

“We were just talkin’,” Kacchan said petulantly. “S’not like we were sneakin’ around or anything.”

Aizawa sighed.

“All Might has asked me to let him handle this one, but you’re both still on the hook for some sort of detention,” Aizawa said. “Once you’re done here, go to bed.”

“Yes, sir,” Izuku said quickly.

“Tch,” Kacchan said. “Whatever.”

Aizawa narrowed his eyes at Kacchan.

“Okay! I got it!” Kacchan said when Aizawa waited expectantly.

Aizawa left, and All Might (Izuku just couldn’t call him Yagi--none of the kids could) sighed.

“You’re a smart kid, Bakugou-shonen.”

“So I’m right; you are training him to be the next Symbol of Peace,” Kacchan said, sounding oddly neutral. “You’ve been training since he was ten, haven’t you?”

“Yes and no,” All Might admitted.

Izuku stared in surprise that he would admit it, though he wasn’t sure it was avoidable at this point. How many others would put this all together, now? What was stopping All For One or Shigaraki from blabbing to the entire planet about the secret of One For All? Was he just living on borrowed time at this point?

“I didn’t decide that he was a worthy successor until just after the sludge villain attacked the both of you while you were in middle school,” All Might confessed. “When I saw that he’d risked his life to save someone who essentially bullied him for most of his childhood instead of waiting for better equipped, professional heroes to handle it, I somehow just knew that he has what it takes to be a great hero. Not long after that, he gained a super strength quirk very similar to my own, and that made it even more imperative for me to take a greater part in his training. He has suffered betrayal and abuse for much of his life and still became a bright, honest and forthright human being.”

Kacchan was silent, a scowl on his face as he absorbed this information.

“To be fair, I don’t really remember a lot of it,” Izuku said quietly. “I thought I had a great childhood with a loving caretaker. Even if I didn’t really have friends, I was happy enough just learning new things about my quirks and stuff.”

“You do realize that makes it even worse, right?” Kacchan asked. “Some villain fu-messed with your freaking memories! Someone who can give and take quirks from other people! How are you not too screwed in the head to think straight? How do you know they didn’t do anything else to you?”

Izuku shrugged and tried not to show how much that idea still worried him. “I had a lot of people helping me and keeping me safe, and then I got a really great therapist who helps me work through stuff.”

“Izuku has been incredibly focused on his goals, and has used those experiences to fuel the desire to grow into the hero he wants to become. He’s a bit like you in that respect,” All Might said easily. “Both of you have incredible talent and potential, but it’s ultimately up to you to live up to it.”

Izuku nodded; he’d known this for a while now, with Sir and All Might always saying it. He wondered if All Might’s words meant that Kacchan had also found a therapist to talk to. It might explain the shift in his outward behavior lately. They’d never really talked things out before, and maybe they never would have, if things hadn’t played out the way they did back when Kacchan got moved to General Studies for a while.

“Now that you’ve gotten your answers, I think it’s time you--” All Might began.

“If you knew about my past with the nerd, why did you offer me an internship after the Sports Festival?” Kacchan asked suddenly, cutting All Might off.

Izuku shook his head ever so slightly to indicate that he didn’t think it would be a good idea for Kacchan to know that Izuku had interceded on his behalf.

“We saw potential in you, but we also knew that if you didn’t get your temper under control and learn some restraint, you’d never reach all of it,” All Might said. “You made a start at it before the Sports Festival, but we wanted to cement it inside of you. It was kind of the same as when we decided that young Midoriya needed a guide to follow the path of a hero, instead of risking him making some choices that would ruin that potential.”

Kacchan didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“Bakugou, you have always been physically strong. You’ve got a keen sense of strategy and an impressive intellect; an irrepressible urge to win at any cost.” All Might said. “Midoriya is also physically strong, but he’s got this massive heart; compassion, empathy and desire to save people. The desire to win and the urge to save can both be great strengths, or your biggest weaknesses if they each aren’t tempered by the other. I never would have been so successful as a hero if I couldn’t balance both of those things.”

Izuku nodded slowly. It made perfect sense.

“We’ve always envied each other for what the other one had, because we knew we also needed it to get what we wanted,” Izuku said.

Kacchan was still scowling.

“You’re both learning to recognize those traits in yourself. Bakugou, you inspire Midoriya to work harder and sparks a desire to win; Midoriya, you have the sort of compassion that Bakugou needs to keep his fiery temper at bay in those times when a softer touch is needed. If you could put your differences aside and lift each other up, you could both be the ultimate heroes. You can win by saving and save by winning.”

Kacchan seemed to be letting that sink in. He eventually gave a grudging nod.

“Sorry about causing you trouble for being out late,” Izuku said to save Kacchan from having to respond further. It was a lot to take in.

“No harm done,” All Might said. “Though Aizawa might have something else to say about it.”

Izuku winced a little, but nodded. “Fair enough.”

Kacchan stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. He glared at them for a moment before muttering.

“Thanks. I won’t...say anything to anyone else about Small Might, there.”

Izuku smiled a bit as he watched the other boy stalk away and back inside.

“Thanks, All Might,” Izuku said. “I thought for sure he’d connected all the dots.”

“He connected enough,” All Might said thoughtfully. “But now that he knows our ultimate goal, He’s going to work even harder to try to surpass you.”

Izuku felt a thrill of determination flutter through him at the thought.

“Then I’ll just have to work even harder, too!”

Chapter 67

Summary:

Enter The Big Three

Notes:

Sorry, nothing too exciting this chapter, but I am setting things up for pretty big changes from canon as we begin the end.

Aizawa’s punishment wasn’t as bad as Izuku had been expecting. Both he and Kacchan were on cooking duty for both breakfast and dinner for a week, however they wanted to work that out between them. Since Izuku enjoyed cooking for such an appreciative crowd, it wasn’t too much of a bother. Kacchan didn’t enjoy cooking all that much, but was certainly more than capable of handling it. He had a feeling that Kacchan would find a way to make all of the meals he was in charge of very spicy, though.

In the morning, Izuku went for an extra long morning run before he started on breakfast preparation. He went with traditional fare, and enjoyed the process of chopping and stirring in the quiet kitchen. Once everything was done and his classmates were trickling in to eat, he went and prepared for the opening ceremony (assuming Aizawa even had them attend). While Iida was freaking out and made sure everyone was presentable and lined up properly for the first day back, Izuku was just finishing tying his tie (badly).

“Okay, everyone!” he finally said as Iida was beginning to straighten people’s clothing and getting agitated. “Let’s head out! Remember to stay in line. Nezu’s kinda famous for long winded speeches, so try to keep from falling asleep!”

A few of them chuckled, and Iida calmed down a little. They made their way across the grounds, and ran into Class 1-B on the way. Yoarashi shouted a greeting to them and waved frantically, as if they could fail to see or hear him. Izuku grinned and gave him a friendly wave.

“Oh! It’s class 1-A,” Monoma said with an air of great surprise. “1-B is catching up to you, you know.”

“Catching up?” Kirishima asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“All of us got our provisional licenses!” Monoma bragged.

“Is that supposed to surprise us?” Izuku asked slyly. “You’re all amazing!”

Monoma seemed to deflate at this.

“Besides, if all of us passed, and you were thinkin’ we were ahead of you before, doesn’t that just mean things kept the status quo?” Kacchan asked.

“Vlad King says we will have classes together with you soon! It will be much fun!” a girl enthused.

Izuku recognized the cute blonde girl with the big blue eyes as Tsunotori Poni, and despite her last name, it seemed she was American. She had hooves instead of feet and large horns, similar to a bull growing through her hair.

Kaminari grinned at her, and the others were nodding until Monoma whispered something in her ear. Then she turned back to them and said excitedly, “We will grind you into dust!”

Monoma roared with laughter, and even Jiro snorted and a couple of others chuckled. Kendo appeared out of nowhere a moment later and karate chopped Monoma on the back of the neck. Not enough to hurt, but it did shut him up.

“Don’t teach her weird things,” Kendo scolded.

“You’re all blocking off the hallway!” a voice from behind them said. “So lame!”

All of their heads turned to see Shinsou’s unmistakable hair and tired eyes.

“Oops! Sorry!” Izuku said. “Step aside everyone!”

Both classes stepped in opposite directions to make a path between them, and Shinsou led the General Studies students past.

“Hey, doesn’t he look like he’s bulked up a bit?” Kirishima asked.

“More than a bit,” Sero said with a nod. “He must have been working out since the Sports Festival.”

They eventually made their way to the field, where they stood in neat rows by class and course. Principal Nezu took the stage and immediately started talking about the state of his fur. Izuku looked up at the sky, where the sun was already blaring, and it seemed that it would be a hot day despite being so close to the beginning of autumn. He hoped they wouldn’t have to stand out here for long. Nezu was talking about the importance of vitamins and getting enough sleep in their new living situations. It wasn’t until he used that segue to talk about All Might that Izuku actually tuned fully into what was being said.

“The largest disruption to our lifestyles in recent weeks has been the loss of our Pillar. All Might’s retirement has sent shock waves through all of Japan, and the various effects that it is having are developing at a rate much faster than expected. Our society is facing an unparalleled hardship in our future. This applies especially to those of you in the Hero Course, including those second and third year students on work study.”

There was a slight shift in the first year classes, and Izuku saw that he wasn’t the only one who was confused by the term.

“The threats out there are growing, and you must be more aware than ever of your position, your abilities and your duties. And not only the Hero Course, but Business, Support and General Studies courses are impacted by this, too. It is all of you who have inherited this problem, and I’m afraid that it may be left to all of you to remedy it.”

Izuku pinched his lower lip as he considered the impact that All Might’s retirement would have on other heroes, aspiring heroes and the people who supported them. All of them would have a part to play in how heroes performed or were perceived by the public.

“I know that all of these recent events have put a cloud over us all, but we adults are working to keep things from becoming too dreary! We want to inspire you to achieve an industrious work ethic that will turn you all into pillars of our society that can be leaned on to lift up the whole!”

Having delivered his speech, he hopped away from the podium and off the small stage. From there, Vlad King stepped to the microphone and introduced the school counsellor, Hound Dog, who had a few reminders.

“We’re all getting used to living in dorms, but a curfew is a curfew! That means GRRRR! inside GRRRRR!the dorms! Not on the roofs, or porches! GRRRRRoooooooOOO!

“Well said! Well said,” Vlad King told him, patting him on the shoulder. “Everyone back to class, starting with the third years!”

Having been dismissed, everyone relaxed and went to their homeroom. Aizawa sensei, who hadn’t been at the opening ceremony, was waiting for them at the lectern looking bored.

“A lot has happened- too much, really--but now it’s time to get back to normal. Today we’ll have lecture…”

“After everything that happened, this is going to seem so boring,” Ashido whispered to Asui.

Unluckily for her, it was loud enough for everyone else to hear, including sensei.

“You have complaints?” he asked, looking menacing.

“Eep! No sensei!” Ashido squeaked.

“I do have a question, if you don’t mind,” Tsuyu said, raising her hand. “Principal Nezu mentioned a work study during his speech. Could you give us some more information about that?”

“I was wondering about that, too,” Tokoyami said.

“That was going to be a topic for a little later, but I don’t see the harm in talking about it now,” Aizawa agreed. “Work study is basically hero work outside of school, under the supervision of a licensed pro hero. It’s more immersive than internships, and you may also be paid a small percentage as a commission for any part you play in an operation that leads to preserving human life or apprehending criminals.”

Several of the students sat up straighter in their seats and leaned forward to listen eagerly.

“I didn’t know we got to do that sort of thing, “ Uraraka said, possibly thinking about being able to begin earning money from hero work already. “Wait! Why the heck did we have to work so hard at the Sports Festival for, then? I thought it was so we could be noticed by pros! You made it sound like it was the only chance we were going to get each year!”

She looked like she’d been betrayed and was devastated by this news. Izuku thought she had a good point, though. He remembered Aizawa specifically telling them that they couldn’t afford to miss the Sports Festival, and that each one was a chance to prove themselves.

“It does seem that getting scouted by a professional hero isn’t our only option, if work studies are available,” Iida said with a hand chop. “Was this another of your logical ruses?”

“Work studies have nothing to do with classes here. They don’t affect your grades, and it’s entirely up to each individual whether or not to participate in one. The fact of the matter is that first years almost never get provisional licenses, so this is unprecedented. Even second years rarely get to participate in work studies. Your experiences and the connections you made during the Sports Festival and consequent internships would normally be how you’d secure a work study.”

“Oh. That makes sense. Sorry for misinterpreting, sensei,” Uraraka said, calming down.

Sato, who had looked worried that she was going to have a panic attack a moment ago, handed her a wrapped piece of candy and now looked like he wanted to pat her on the head.

“Work studies used to be a lot more common practice, but problems arose with agencies competing to recruit from UA because of our excellent reputation. That’s why it’s up to individuals to secure their own work studies, and not the other way around. With the rise in villain activity lately, we’re still considering if it’s wise to send first years out at all, even if they do manage to find a sponsor. It will be considered on a case by case basis, depending on who the pro hero supervising would be.”

Izuku was already wondering if Endeavor took on work study cases, or if it would be too much favoritism to ask All Might for a chance to work at Might Tower in that capacity. He could see that others were also running possible options through their minds.

Aizawa didn’t seem like he was overly enthusiastic about the idea, but at the same time, he had been the one to tell them they could handle provisional licenses. Why rush to have them do that, if they weren’t going to be allowed out to use them? Others in class seemed to be thinking the same, and others were speculating aloud about their chances of their intern mentors allowing them back for work study.

The day’s classes seemed to drag by, and the teachers seemed to be stepping up their game, as well. New concepts were being introduced, and heavier workloads applied. It seemed that study groups might become a daily occurrence in the dorms, since they were all together and doing the same assignments, anyway. The next three days were both academic and hero training hell in that regard. It wasn’t until the third day after the provisional license exam that anything interesting happened.

In homeroom, Aizawa finished the morning announcements and then said, “As promised, today you’ll learn more about what work studies entail. Come on in.”

He turned to the door as he said it and everyone looked as it slid open to reveal three people.

“You!” Iida said, pointing at the group.

Kacchan uttered a quieter, “Togata senpai?”

Izuku realized why Iida was so surprised when he recognized the boy who had appeared in their room at Might Tower the day after they fought Stain. The boy who Sir had called A Million (or something close to that) was now standing in front of class 1-A, holding a finger over his mouth in a shushing gesture for a moment, winking at them all. Izuku looked to Todoroki, who looked as inscrutable as ever. There was no telling if he remembered their previous encounter.

The other two were a male and female. The girl had bright, curious eyes and long periwinkle colored hair. The boy had pointed ears and spiky hair, and looked like he was glaring at all of them angrily.

“We asked some students who have been out and experienced all that a work study has to offer to come and talk about it,” Aizawa told the class. “They’re taking time out of their very busy schedules to come and talk to you, so pay close attention. They are the top three ranking third years at UA and they’re referred to as The Big Three. They’re the best of the best.”

Everyone perked up excitedly, with murmurs of how many of them had heard rumors about The Big Three.

“Class, meet Togata Mirio, Amajiki Tamaki and Hado Nejire,” Aizawa said. “Which of you would like to go first? Amajiki?”

The boy with pointed ears glared even more harshly than before and seemed to be trembling. Was he angry?

“It’s no use, Mirio,” he finally said quietly. “No matter how much I try to see them as potatoes, they’re definitely people from the neck down! I can’t do this! I wanna leave!”

He abruptly turned to face the wall, refusing to look at any of them after that.

“For real?” Sero murmured.

“Stage fright?” Uraraka wondered.

Aizawa sighed. “Hado?”

The girl perked up and stepped forward.

“Pleased to meet you! I’m Hado Nejire and my quirk is… Hey you have a tail? Can you use it like a kangaroo to propel you forward?”

She bounced over to Ojiro and got into his personal space to have a look for herself. He blushed and began to say something, but she was already flitting over to Shouji, asking him why he kept his lower face covered, then over to Hagakure to see what she ‘felt’ like, making her yelp.

“Todoroki! I heard all about you! How’d you get that scar on your face?” Hado was asking.

Izuku became concerned when Aizawa switched from wanting black coffee to wanting whiskey within the span of a few seconds.

“She’s not the most rational person, is she?”

“Maybe I’d better be the spokesperson today,” Togata said. “I’m the star of this show, anyway!”

Everyone stared at him blankly.

“So! You guys got your provisional licenses as first years, so you must be real go-getters! You’ve already fought villains and everything, so you’re probably asking yourself why some third year is coming in here to talk to you about what it’s really like out there, right?

A couple of them nodded slightly, but most were just staring since the first two of the Big Three had been pretty much weirdos.

“Well, instead of telling you, why don’t I show you? I’ll take all of you on at the same time! How does that sound?” he asked excitedly.

You could have heard a cricket chirping in the silence that followed. It seemed all three of them were weirdos.

“What do you say, Eraserhead?” Togata asked their teacher, “Wouldn’t it be more rational for them to feel the full weight of our experiences, first hand?”

“Do as you like,” Aizawa told him, sounding uncaring.

“Hey, you interned with this guy,” Izuku said quietly to Kacchan as they all walked to the gym after changing. “Any tips on how to fight him?”

“This guy’s crazy strong and pops up like a freakin’ ghost. Your best bet is to stay airborne, but that’ll only buy you time. Just wait,” Kacchan told him in an uncharacteristic show of solidarity. “You’re all gonna get your asses kicked. He’s probably gonna make it into the top ten list as soon as he graduates.”

When they reached the gym, Kacchan stayed near Aizawa sensei, and said he’d had his ass kicked by Togata enough to last him a lifetime. The fact that he would admit to it said something about Togata’s skill and strength. Izuku watched warily as Togata stretched and kept a cheerful attitude, even as he prepared to fight nearly everyone in class 1-A single-handedly.

“Don’t hurt them too much, “ Hado told Togata from where she was busily tugging on Mina’s horns. “You don’t want to discourage them from becoming heroes, you know.”

“Can this guy really be that good?” Kaminari asked, looking pretty confident about winning this fight.

“He’s one of The Big Three,” Jiro said with a shrug. “He can probably back it up.”

Once everyone was ready, they faced each other, 1-A against a single opponent.

“Does anyone want to go first, or do you all want to rush me at once?” Togata asked them, as if it made no difference to him.

Izuku normally would have stepped forward, but Kacchan’s words made him uneasy. It was Kirishima who finally volunteered. He stepped up and hardened his skin, then took a swing, only to find it went right through Togata’s face. A quick strike or two that was almost impossible to see took Kirishima down, even with his hardened skin. From there, the others rushed in, and it only took minutes for most of the class to be defeated, lying on the ground, groaning. Part of the reason so many went down so quickly was that Togata’s gym uniform had slipped from his body when he activated his quirk. Jiro and Uraraka had been stunned, and Jiro had actually screamed and averted her eyes, making her an easy target, even as Togata apologized.

“My quirk takes a lot of fine tuning! My hero costume is made out of my own hair, so it phases through things with me, but my gym uniform doesn’t!”

As soon as Izuku had seen Togata slide into the ground, then come shooting back up to attack with such precision, he’d kicked off into the air. He stood on the ceiling for a bit, just observing, but knew that if he wanted to engage, he’d either have to go down, or wait for Togata to come and get him. Not even Hagakure had been safe from him, and that was a serious feat in and of itself. In just over five minutes, everyone except Izuku had ceded the match, and Togata was eyeing him from the ground.

“Have you figured it out, yet?” Togata asked him, hands on his hips.

“Jeeze, dude! Put on some pants!” Sero said as he crawled to his feet and moved to the side of the room.

Izuku wasn’t really bothered by the nudity, since he wasn’t being lewd about it. It was weird, but he could ignore it in this instance.

“You phase through things,” Izuku said, pinching his lower lip as he considered. “But there’s more to it than that. “You’re tangible when you hit your opponents or when you’re standing on the floor, but not all of you is tangible, so you must be able to pick which parts of you stay solid at any given time. Like when Kirishima tried to hit you; you were still standing on solid ground, but your head wasn’t solid.”

“Very good observation. Anything else?” Togata said approvingly.

“The speed you pop out of the ground with… it’s like you’re creating a paradox or something, where no two things can occupy a space at one time, so you get spit back out when you sink in?”

“Pretty close!” Togata said, sounding very impressed.

“To be able to control the angle and think quickly enough to know which parts to phase when is pretty amazing!” Izuku admired.

“Think you’re ready to face me in a fight?” Togata asked, sounding like he was trying to be tempting.

“Hmmm. Not really?” Izuku answered honestly. “But that’s probably the best way for me to learn.”

Izuku spun until he was right-side-up, but still near the ceiling.

“Can you reach me up here?”

“Maybe if I let myself sink down far enough?” Togata speculated. “You’d be expecting it, then. Good job finding one of my weaknesses!”

Izuku braced himself and allowed himself to drop to the ground.

“Ready?” Togata asked with an arched brow.

“I guess,” Izuku answered, taking a fighting stance.

“How about we go until one of us lands a solid hit?”

Izuku nodded in agreement, and they began.

The fight lasted longer than Izuku had thought it would, actually. Knowing the basics of Togata’s quirk helped him evade more efficiently, but he couldn’t land any hits at all. After about a minute and a half, Togata sucker punched him in the gut. It was disappointing, but not unexpected.

“You held out a long time!” Togata told him consolingly, offering him a hand up.

Izuku accepted the hand and levered himself to his feet while his classmates made impressed sounds.

“I’m going to figure out a way to get a hit on you one of these days,” Izuku promised.

“Maybe when you come to Might Tower for your work study, we can spar some more!” Togata told him conspiratorially. .

“Work study?” Izuku asked curiously.

“Uh… maybe I shouldn’t have said anything? I heard Sir talking about you and Bakugou coming for a work study, so I thought maybe it was a done deal.” Togata said, looking a bit flustered.

“Hmmm. Sir doesn’t usually let things slip around others. I’ll bet he meant for you to overhear,” Izuku said. “But I won’t say anything, just in case.”

Togata nodded and made a motion as if zipping his mouth closed.

Chapter 68

Summary:

An unexpected encounter with an unsatisfactory ending.

Notes:

I felt bad about how lackluster the last chapter is, so I decided to throw this one at you today as a bonus. I was hasty with my proofreading, so hopefully there aren't too many mistakes. I am currently re-reading and re-proofreading the whole thing from the beginning, so if I missed anything, hopefully I'll catch it when I get back to this point, again!

Izuku thought about whether Sir had dropped that tidbit of information within Togata’s hearing as a way to let Izuku know that he would not only be willing to accept him for work study, but expected him to apply for it. After Endeavor was censured for failing to properly supervise interns in his care, it was a good bet that he wouldn’t be allowed to go there again anytime soon. Still, sensei had made it seem like they weren’t going to let the first years participate, so his first step you be talking to Aizawa, before asking Sir or All Might.

The opportunity came that day after classes, when Aizawa asked him to stay after along with Kacchan. Maybe this problem would sort itself out?

Kacchan didn’t seem to have a clue why he had been asked to stay after, and was eyeing both Izuku and Aizawa somewhat apprehensively.

“I’ll get straight to the point. The two of you have been offered a work study at Might Tower,” Aizawa said. “It’s already been approved through Principal Nezu.”

Izuku broke out into a grin, and Kacchan looked a bit stunned.

“The nerd I can understand,” he finally said. “But I thought we would have to find our own placements.”

“The circumstances around this particular case are complicated,” Aizawa said. “I’m told you’re privy to the plan for All Might to train Midoriya? They seem to think that you will be able to teach each other a thing or two.”

His tone implied that he had serious doubts about the situation, but that it was out of his hands.

“There is one caveat,” their teacher warned. “If your school work suffers in any way, either academically or in hero studies, your permission will be revoked for the remainder of the school year. Work study is a challenging and stressful undertaking, and not everyone can handle both school and hero work simultaneously.”

Izuku was still grinning. Kacchan made a dismissive noise and allowed himself a grin, as well, though it looked more predatory.

“We won’t let our schooling suffer!” Izuku promised.

“You say that now,” Aizawa said dryly.

“If you ruin this for me, I’ll kill you,” Kacchan told Izuku in an almost friendly tone.

“Same,” Izuku shot back.

He kind of wasn’t kidding, even if he was being hyperbolic. Kacchan could bring out the best or the worst in people, and if he made Izuku look bad in front of All Might and Sir, he would be seriously upset.

Kacchan smirked at him, looking pleased.

“Both of you need to remember that even though your work study performance won’t affect your grades, it will still reflect on this school and on me as a teacher,” Aizawa cautioned. “The school’s reputation has taken a beating this year, and can’t take any more negative press. Got it?”

Izuku didn’t miss that Aizawa was looking more and Kacchan than at him. Kacchan didn’t miss it, either. He scowled.

“Got it,” Izuku said with a firm nod.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kacchan agreed.

“Togata, who you already know, will escort you to Might Tower tomorrow after classes to complete the paperwork and make a schedule.”

When Izuku and Kacchan left the classroom, they were both standing a bit taller, feeling proud of themselves. When they got back to the dorm, their classmates and friends were curious.

“You two didn’t get into trouble again, did you?” Iida demanded like a middle aged dad.

“Piss off, four eyes. We got scouted by the Might Agency for a word study,” Kacchan said with a smirk.

That elicited a reaction from everyone, who gathered around to hear all about it.

“Scouted? I thought we had to find our own work study gigs!” Jiro said, sounding surprised.

“Normally you do need to do that,” Izuku said placatingly, giving Kacchan a meaningful look. “But since Kacchan did so well at his internship, they made an exception for him.”

“Well what about you? You didn’t even intern with All Might!” Kaminari said in a voice bordering on a whine.

“Well, technically I did,” Izuku said, scratching his cheek while coming up with an explanation on the spot that wouldn’t sound too weird. “A long time ago, All Might and Sir Nighteye helped out my family, and I got to spend a summer when I was ten doing a junior internship with them. Mostly it was just a lot of physical training and lectures on ethics. Still, they really worked hard to make sure I didn’t do something stupid like hang out around hospitals to get more quirks and stuff, and promised me that when the time came, I could come back and work there some day. I guess this is their way of keeping that promise.”

“Some guys have all the luck!” Kirishima said enviously. “I wanna get out there and start workin’ too!”

A few of the others admitted that their former mentors weren’t taking on work study students, so they were basically out of luck in that area. Yaoyarozu pointed out that most first years couldn’t expect to find placement ahead of more experienced students, or even freshly graduated ones.

“Exactly,” Iida agreed. “Don’t you remember what they said at the provisional license exam? The industry is saturated with heroes right now, and that’s why they only passed a handful of applicants!”

There was some grumbling, but everyone knew it was true. Instead, they all found places at tables or on couches to get their homework done, and put that problem aside for the time being. As soon as they finished their assignments, Uraraka and Tsuyu left the dormitory, saying that they needed to talk to someone, and not long after that, Kirishima left as well. He said he was going for a run, but he wasn’t wearing running shoes; he was wearing crocs.

Izuku was keyed up all of the following day, full of extra energy throughout his classes and hero training. When it was finally time to head to Might Tower, he thought he’d be catching a ride with All Might, like he used to before they all moved into the dorms, but Togata-senpai met them in front of the dorms and said they’d be taking the train.

A small thrill shot through Izuku at the very thought of riding a train again after so long of having to be chauffeured everywhere. Sure, he’d ridden in with Todoroki for their internship, but somehow this was different. He’d almost expected something strange to happen, but it was a completely ordinary ride, where no one paid much attention to three high school kids in school uniforms. They arrived at Might Tower and Togata led them through the front doors and past the security guards without incident.

“Good Afternoon, Togata-kun!” the pretty receptionist greeted as they approached.

Her eyes widened a moment later when she spotted Izuku.

“Oh my! Is it really you, MIdoriya-kun? Look how much you’ve grown since I last saw you! You’re in high school already!”

“Mari-san!” Izuku said delightedly to the familiar face. “You’ve moved up from the mailroom! It’s so nice to see you!”

Izuku remembered exploring Might Tower when he was younger and visiting the mailroom often, because Mari-san always gave him sweets. It was nice to see she’d been promoted at least once since he’d last seen her.

She was all smiles as she made them badges with access to the top floors. As she handed Izuku his, she winked and also handed him a wrapped soda-flavored candy. Kacchan rolled his eyes and growled a little. If Togata-senpai was surprised that Izuku knew the receptionist, he didn't show it. That made sense if there were actually pictures of him and Sir and All Might hanging up in the offices somewhere; he was bound to have seen them.

They rode the elevator up to one of the top floors, which had recently been made into cubicles for sidekicks and a nice lounge area. It had a completely different vibe than the bullpen at Endeavor’s agency, with a more relaxed atmosphere, but no less energy. There were quite a few more sidekicks than Izuku had been aware of, and it seemed that since All Might had retired, they’d really stepped up in the department of providing support for the community this way.

Izuku recognized Bubble Girl, who waved cheerfully at him before turning back to a call she was on, and a couple of heroes Izuku didn’t recognize nodded at both Togata and Kacchan. It was a nice feeling. Sir was standing in front of a huge map of the city, examining the different colored push pins tacked all over it. Izuku knew that Sir’s meticulous nature would mean that every pin color had a significance, and that he had each one memorized, along with the details of whatever it was they were marking.

“I’ve brought them, Sir!” Togata said as they walked toward him.

“So I see,” Sir replied, turning to face them.

Izuku thought he looked tired. He was probably having to work a lot harder, now that All Might was retired and they were taking on so many new recruits.

Both Izuku and Kacchan bowed politely.

“Thank you for having us!” they both said at the same time.

“Bakugou,” Sir said with a nod. “Good to see you. I’ve been getting reports from All Might about your progress.”

What he thought of that progress, he didn’t say. Kacchan simply nodded, not seeming too concerned.

“And you, Izuku,” Sir added. “You’re looking well, despite everything you’ve recently experienced.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Izuku said, somewhat formally. “I’m hoping these experiences are making me stronger.”

“We’ll be finding out soon,” Sir assured him. “But for today, you should have paperwork from the school that needs my seal of approval on it, and we need to go over your schedule, and what you can expect as a provisional employee here.”

Togata left them to go and join a sidekick going out on patrol, and Sir took them to his office. Izuku noticed immediately that Sir had replaced the banner he had gifted to Izuku with an equally rare one from All Might’s days in America, just before he returned to Japan. Even though Kacchan had said there was a picture of Izuku on the credenza, there was no evidence of it now, and Izuku suspected that it had been put there in the first place to bait Kacchan. He’d possibly removed it for the same reason.

They filled out the pertinent paperwork, and then discussed schedules. To Izuku’s surprise, he and Kachhan would alternate days when they would work, with two overlapping days. Izuku would be working Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and Kacchan would be Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Not every day would have work during school hours, but rather after them, so they wouldn’t miss too much class, too often.

“Wednesdays, the two of you will patrol together in the company of myself or a capable sidekick. On Saturdays, we’ll be working primarily on developing your quirks and your teamwork with each other and others. You’ve already made a start at this, but you’ll be working to hone your skills”

Izuku couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face; the opportunity to learn from Sir again was an exciting prospect. If he’d helped Togata senpai to improve to the point he was at now, he might be able to push Izuku to even better mastery of his quirks.

“Before you get a tour of things around here, do either of you have any questions for me?” Sir asked.

“What’s the stupidest animal in the rainforest?” Izuku asked immediately.

The smallest of smiles tugged at Sir’s lips as he waited expectantly. Kacchan looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“A polar bear.”

Sir actually really smiled, though it might have been because he’d simply missed Izuku’s terrible jokes. Kacchan looked disgusted.

“I hate you,” the other boy said to Izuku without any real heat.

That only made Izuku grin wider as Sir walked them to his office door.

“Things have changed a bit around here,” Sir told them. “Even in the past few weeks. Go down to the bullpen and find Rapidfire, and he’ll give you a quick tour before you head back to school. Izuku, I’ll see you tomorrow. Bakugou, the day after.”

They nodded and bowed, then headed for the elevator. Izuku used his palm and the retinal scanner, pleased to see that they still worked for him. Kacchan stared at him for a moment before sneering and following him into the elevator car.

“What’s that look for?” Izuku asked.

“You’re keyed into the security system, nerd?” Kacchan asked incredulously. “You’re cozy with the receptionist, and Sir Nighteye likes your jokes?”

Izuku ducked his head in embarrassment. This really was kind of like coming home after a long time away.

“I told you I used to…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kacchan said, waving away any explanations. “I know what you told me.”

They went down a couple of floors to the bullpen and found Rapidfire staring at his computer screen with a scowl.

“Excuse me,” Izuku said politely.

“Hey, kid! Long time to see!” Rapidfire said to Izuku, then nodded to Kacchan. “And you’re back, too! Nice!”

“Sir said to come find you to get a tour of the place,” Izuku said.

“Yep, I was just reviewing a case while I was waiting for you. How’s your dad doing?” Rapidfire said, getting to his feet and shutting off his monitor.

Kacchan stared at Izuku again.

“Rapidfire was one of the people assigned to guard my apartment building after some guy tried to get in pretending to be a delivery person,” Izuku said defensively.

Rapidfire showed them the bullpen and the lounge area (which also had an infirmary for smaller medical concerns), then down a floor to a large gym and personal physical training level, then down another floor to where a living space and dormitories were situated for sidekicks who preferred to be in residence at all times, though there were also a couple of shared rooms for those who simply needed a nap while on call. This floor also had bathing facilities and a small kitchenette. The next floor down (where all of the All Might memorabilia used to be) had been converted into a series of training rooms, and below that were office spaces for the day to day running of the agency and All Might’s various interests, including merchandising, legal, charity and public relations.

“Wow!” Izuku said as he and Kacchan left an hour later. “There weren’t any sidekicks when I was a kid - just Sir and All Might.”

“Seems like there’s at least a dozen, now,” Kacchan said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they got to the street.

Izuku started to turn toward the train station, but Kacchan grabbed him by the back of the collar.

“I wanna stop at a store before we go back,” he said, dragging Izuku in the opposite direction.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to…” Izuku began, but then stopped.

They had their provisional licenses, and they were trusted enough to handle hero work. Could it really be that big of a deal to stop in at a conbini before heading back to the dorms? He could pick up some of his favorite snacks and a couple of magazines without having to order them online, or wait for a shopping day where everyone went as a group for supplies.

They only walked about a block away, and Kacchan turned into a Donki store. They really only spent about a half an hour choosing their purchases, and had just left when Kacchan stopped dead in his tracks, causing Izuku to plow into his shoulder.

“What gives?” Izuku asked, looking around to see what had caused Kacchan to stop.

“That’s the bastard that set the forest on fire at camp!” Kacchan said in a low voice. “Daii. Right there, across the street.”

Izuku’s heart jumped as he followed his gaze. It was kind of hard to miss such a ragged and scarred individual strolling down the sidewalk.

“That fucker…” Kacchan began to step forward, but Izuku stopped him.

“We can’t attack him,” Izuku said quietly. “Let’s follow him from a distance and call Sir to let him know we spotted him.”

Kacchan growled in frustration, but nodded in agreement. He slipped off his school shirt, so he was only wearing a white tee, and urged Izuku to do the same. Izuku had his phone out and pressed to his ear, and began relaying their location to Sir, who warned them not to engage, and to remain unseen. He was sending Lemillion and Psion to investigate, and that once they arrived, Izuku and Kacchan were to leave the area immediately. If they couldn’t make it to the train quickly, they should return to Might Tower.

“I’m just itchin’ to blast that asshole to Kingdom Come,” Kacchan said, keeping his voice down as they tried to be surreptitious, stopping to look in store windows so that they could keep the one called Dabi in their sights by watching his reflection.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes for Lemillion and Psion to arrive, walking with purpose from the same direction the boys had just come. As the two costumed heroes passed behind them, Lemillion spoke.

 

“Good work. We’ll handle it from here.”

They didn’t break stride as they disappeared down a side street, but when Izuku and Kacchan passed that street a moment later, neither hero was anywhere to be seen. Izuku’s phone vibrated, and he saw it was a message from Sir.

Get out of there. Lemillion and Psion will conduct the surveillance and collect information. Good work.

Izuku showed Kacchan who clicked his tongue, but wheeled around to head toward the train station.

Chapter 69

Summary:

Izuku has an eventful first day on the job!

Notes:

A note here that I have never been to Japan, and even if I had I would have ZERO idea of where anything is. I just made stuff up and hope it sounds legit. I found out from a wiki that Might Tower is in the Roppongi district, and I looked it up, but beyond that… I’m at a loss.

By the time they got back to the dorms, Kacchan was in a foul mood. Izuku understood, because it was frustrating to be that close to a known criminal that they had personally been affected by, and not been allowed to engage with. He also understood that it had been far too dangerous for that sort of engagement; he’d had no quicksnuff on him, and a quirk that powerful could have caused a lot of collateral damage and even loss of life for anyone nearby. Having heroes better equipped for surveillance and stealth handling the situation could lead to a much larger payoff in the long run. Maybe when Izuku went back to the agency tomorrow, he’d learn more and be allowed to have some sort of role in whatever was decided was the best course of action.

“What’s with him?” Kaminari asked when Kacchan stormed through, slamming the front door behind him.

Izuku filled them in on spotting Dabi and having to leave it alone. Kaminari winced in sympathy.

Yaoyorozu was curled up in an armchair nearby with a book in her lap and nodded.

“You did the right thing,” she said. “That could have been a disaster if you’d gone after him.”

“Did anything else happen while you were out?” Kaminari wanted to know.

“I spotted an albino dalmatian,” Izuku answered. “It was the least I could do for it.”

Kamanari looked confused, but Yaoyorozu rewarded him with a musical laugh that had others around the television looking their way. This led to a silly session of everyone telling their worst jokes, some of which Izuku made a mental note to slip into his conversations with Sir at some point.

Kacchan didn’t make an appearance when it was time for dinner to be started, so Izuku headed into the kitchen. Others lent a hand and a day that had looked like it was going to end with him feeling frustrated actually ended with him surrounded by friends.

The next day, while his classmates were getting ready for class, Izuku was collecting his hero costume and meeting Togata senpai by the school gates. Iida had promised to take over class rep duties and take notes on everything for him. Togata told him it was best if they didn’t discuss anything important having to do with work on the train, or in public. Instead, Togata wanted to know more about Izuku and his quirks, and how he’d come to meet All Might and Sir as a kid. Since there didn’t seem to be any reason not to tell him, he explained about Granny Ito and All For One, though he left out the bits about his blood and whatever else they had taken from him being used to make the nomu.

Once at the agency, both boys changed into their hero costumes, and reported to Sir.

“I know you’re going to ask about Dabi, so let’s get that out of the way, first,” he said, indicating that they should sit.

“We followed him to an alley and watched to see where he would go,” Togata said, filling Izuku in. “Obviously we were hoping that he’d lead us to the League of Villains' new hideout, since they vanished after Kamino Ward.”

“Did he?” Izuku asked.

“Not exactly,” Togata admitted. “He entered some sort of underground labyrinth. Someone we couldn’t identify opened a hidden door and let him in, but when we investigated, we couldn’t learn much. Psion could only get flashes from the door, and she’s been going through the criminal databases for the area to see if she can find a match for what she saw.”

At Izuku’s confused look, Sir interrupted.

“Psion’s quirk is Psychometry,” he explained. “She can tell things about an object’s history if she touches it with bare hands.”

“Right! Sorry!” Togata said. “It’s really useful in finding missing people, but the door they used didn’t seem to have a lot of history, which means it’s fairly new. I used my quirk to try to get a look inside, but the hallways had a ton of blind corners and just seemed like a huge maze. We decided it would be easier to wait outside for him to come out, but he never did.”

“So he’d either still be there, or there’s another exit,” Izuku surmised.

Both men nodded in agreement.

“Now that we know there’s an entrance there, we’re keeping more patrols in the area than usual, and we planted a hidden camera that will hopefully shed more light on what’s going on there. So far no one has come or gone from it,” Sir said.

“Is there anything in particular I should be keeping an eye out for when I’m out on patrol?” Izuku asked.

“Yes. There have been a series of attacks on small crime groups and yakuza in the area,” Sir said. “At the heart of them seems to be this man.”

He turned his computer monitor to show them a picture of a man wearing an ornate, steampunk inspired plague mask. His eyes were heavy-lidded and sharp, and his dark hair was quite short. In this image, he wore a black shirt with a white tie under an army green jacket with a furry purple collar. An eccentric looking ensemble, to say the least.

“His name is Chisaki Kai, but his colleagues call him ‘Overhaul’. He’s the second in command of a designated villain group called Shie Hassaikai, a remnant from the time where the yakuza held sway in the underground crime world, before quirks took over. The top players are easily identifiable by the plague doctor masks they all wear. Being a designated villain group means that they’re under police scrutiny almost constantly, but I’ve noticed that his movements have been erratic lately. He seems to be attempting to rebuild his group of followers.”

“Mmm,” Togata agreed. “We were hoping that since they’ve had contact with the League of Villains recently, Dabi might also lead us to Overhaul. Maybe he did, and we just don’t have the proof, yet.”

“I don’t have any proof that he’s planning anything illegal, so I can’t put out a call for more support from other hero agencies or even the police just yet, but he's a high priority for surveillance. If you see this man, do not engage him in any way. If it’s possible to follow him safely from a distance, you’re to do that while you call back here for backup.”

“Yes sir!” Izuku agreed.

“Izuku. It’s especially important for you to keep your distance from Chisaki,” Sir said seriously. “The name ‘Overhaul’ is also the name of his quirk. He can deconstruct and reconstruct anything his hands touch. This includes human beings.”

“Crap,” Izuku said, realizing at once what this meant.

“We don’t want you picking up anyone else’s quirks if Chisaki decides to use his quirk when you’re nearby.”

Togata’s eyes widened at the realization of what they meant.

“Leave the Shie Hassaikai case to others,” Sir said calmly. “There are plenty of other cases you can keep occupied with.”

“Yes sir,” Izuku agreed.

He couldn’t help but feel frustrated by the limitations he was already experiencing because of his quirk. This was only his first day of work study and he was already being excluded from some cases; this could end up being a huge problem in the future.

“Don’t let this discourage you!” Togata told him, reading his mood. “A hero never gives up!”

“Right!” Izuku said, appreciating his words.

From there, Izuku was assigned to accompany Togata and a sidekick named Twirl on patrol near the docks, where there had been some suspicious activity lately. They didn’t have a specific goal, other than for Izuku to become familiar with the area and make sure the public felt safe because of the presence of heroes in the vicinity to handle any problems.

“Oh! Right!” Togata said after he introduced Twirl. “I don’t think we’ve told each other our hero names! You’re Vanguard, right?”

“Er… no,” Izuku said sheepishly. “I changed it after the licensing exam. It’s Gestalt, now.”

“Nice!” Togata said admiringly. “Goes with your quirk!”

“Thanks! You’re A Million? I heard Sir call you that when you sneaked down to our…”

“Er… Close!” Togata said, sounding embarrassed as he cut off Izuku’s reminder of how they’d first met. “Lemillion! That’s because I want to save a minimum of a million people during my hero career!”

Twirl had been waiting patiently for them to sort this out, then smiled and offered her hand. “I’m Twirl. My quirk lets me spin like a top, which creates a force field around me like a shield that I can use for protection or offense.”

“Cool!” Izuku said admiringly.

Now that all of the introductions had been made, they set off toward the waterfront. Might Tower was in the Roppongi district, so they took a train for a short trip to the areas near the docks. Even being in costume, they didn’t get too much attention on the train, because they were pretty much unknowns. There was a thriving fish market and a couple of green grocers’ stalls, rentals for bikes and fishing equipment as well as the typical shops selling hardware or sundries or convenience items. There were water taxis and tour boats, but no real shipping yards or fishing vessels of any kind. Instead, there were long narrow docks where people could try their hand at casual urban fishing for fun.

That’s why it was strange to find a bunch of men in suits looking very nervous and furtive as they walked to the end of one of the docks and just stood there, one of them holding an armored briefcase.

“That doesn’t seem suspicious at all,” Twirl said dryly.

“Should we patrol down and see if they get more nervous?” Mirio asked, beginning to walk in that direction.

“Let’s watch them for a bit,” Twirl said, stepping back behind a magazine kiosk to hide from view. “This could be nothing, but we don’t want to risk scaring them away.”

Izuku fished out his phone and began recording video of the men, standing well back, so he wouldn’t be in the way. Lemillion had the hardest time seeming inconspicuous, since his costume featured such a bright cape, but stepped behind a colorful display of superhero merchandise that heavily featured All MIght.

The men waited for a couple of minutes, looking at their phones and watches every few seconds, when a car with dark tinted windows pulled up. Two very large men emerged, also wearing suits, though these men looked less like business men and more like bouncers at a host club. The newest arrivals walked to meet the other men, where it didn’t seem like many words were exchanged, but briefcases definitely were. The exchange made, the larger men went back to the car and it pulled away from the curb.

“Should I follow? I can use my levitation and jumps to follow from the rooftops,” Izuku asked, eagerly.

Twirl looked undecided for a moment before she said, “Do it. Keep in contact; don’t engage. Surveillance only.”

Izuku didn’t wait to hear more and made good on his word. He rose to the roof of the nearest building then launched himself through the air as he’d seen All Might do hundreds of times. He kept an eye on the vehicle as he went, changing the color of his costume to match the blueish gray of the sky, so he wouldn’t be spotted as easily, if anyone looked up. The car didn’t seem to be in any hurry, meandering through the city, taking seemingly random turns for almost an hour. His adrenaline was pumping as the thrill of soaring through the air coursed through him. He kept a continual stream of texts going to Lemillion every three or four minutes that simply kept him apprised of his direction. Eventually, the car turned into an automated parking garage, and Izuku landed on the roof as lightly as he could.

He watched the only exit out of the building from his perch on the roof while he texted his location back to Lemillion. A moment later, he got a text from Sir telling him to stay put unless there was a compelling reason to continue following, and that backup would be there shortly. Izuku texted back that he understood and settled down to wait. He could hear the humming and grinding sounds of the garage below him as it operated, and within a couple of minutes, the men he had been following walked out of the exit, but without the briefcase. Strange.

He texted this turn of events to both Togata and Sir, and even as he hit send he watched the two men approach a man in front of a combini almost directly across the street and hand him what looked like car keys. Izuku was careful to hold his breath as he stood and focused his phone’s camera on the men, taking pictures of them all as best he could. The men he had initially been following separated at that point and walked off in separate directions. The man they had handed off the keys to strolled into the conbini, and came out holding a magazine and a small bag. He lit a cigarette and strolled casually down the sidewalk until he came to a small coffee shop. He crushed out the cigarette and went inside. All three men were out of sight at this point, and Izuku was left to wait until his backup arrived.

It was only about a half an hour before Lemillion and Twirl arrived - sort of. They contacted Izuku and asked him to meet them about a block away, so anyone watching wouldn’t get suspicious of three heroes gathering right outside of a location where a suspected criminal had left a suspicious briefcase. Izuku took the rooftops to a small neighborhood park there, where Lemillion and Twirl were indulgently putting up with attention from a handful of children who had spotted heroes in their playground.

“Another one!” one of the boys shouted excitedly when Izuku arrived.

“Is something going on?” one of the mothers asked worriedly when she saw a third hero.

“Not at all, ma’am!” Lemillion assured her with a winning smile, even as he let two kids dangle from his biceps. “Gestalt here is a hero in training, out for his very first patrol! Isn’t that exciting?”

“Oh! I see!” she said, looking relieved. “Do your best!”

Izuku bowed and smiled. “I will! Thank you!”

He was impressed with how smoothly Lemillion dealt with the public, and hoped to be as polished and confident sounding, soon. They extracted themselves from the tangle of kids and moved on.

“We’ll walk back the way you just came, acting as if we’re just on a routine patrol. Don’t even look at the parking garage as we go by,” Twirl told Izuku. “Lemillion will use his quirk to gain access and have a look at what’s in the briefcase, and meet up with us at the end of the block.”

Izuku nodded as Lemillion slipped away down an alley. Twirl walked with Izuku down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street as the parking garage. They waved at shopkeepers and nodded to people they passed, smiling as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Izuku helped an elderly man get a two-wheeled cart of groceries over a tall curb, and Twirl rescued the shoe of a baby in a stroller for its harried mother. Nothing could have been less threatening.

When they got to the end of the block, Lemillion was in the narrow space between two buildings, looking grim. He was holding the briefcase.

“We need to go. Now.” he said. “Gestalt, can you find the agency from here?”

Izuku nodded warily as Lemillion handed him the briefcase. Take this to Sir and don’t stop for anything.

“It’s not a bomb, or something, right?” Izuku asked.

“It might as well be. We’ll be there as fast as we can. Hurry!”

Izuku nodded and levitated to the roof of the building, using the height to launch himself into the air. From there, it took him some time to reach the agency, but he finally managed it, feeling out of breath and exhilarated as he landed on the roof of Might Tower from the top of another tall building a couple of blocks away. Sir was waiting.

“Good work,” he said, taking the suitcase and leading him back inside. “Lemillion and Twirl are currently on the train, but they’re safe.”

“What’s in there?” Izuku asked as Sir examined the briefcase.

“If Lemillion is correct, it’s a cache of quirk enhancers,” Sir answered. “As soon as we shut down one avenue to smugglers, it seems two more replace it.”

Within minutes, Sir was being informed that the police had arrived. A detective, a man in plain clothes and two officers had come to investigate the briefcase as well. The case was opened, and inside was a well-padded, custom designed interior with five vials of a greenish fluid, and several syringes with a tiny amount of the same green in them, ready to be used, each in it’s own little nest of foam.

The man in plain clothes took one of the syringes and dispensed a tiny drop onto a glass slide that he produced from a jacket pocket. His hands were as steady as rocks as he expertly prepared a microscope slide. Instead of a microscope, though, he merely held it up to his eye, using the light from the window to illuminate it. Izuku noticed his eyes dilate to tiny points as he worked.

“Affirmative,” he said at last. “These look like especially pure samples, too.”

Twirl and Lemillion arrived as this determination was made and looked relieved that they’d acted prudently.

The contents of the cases were photographed before being packed away again. The detective questioned Izuku, Twirl and Lemillion about everything they saw, and were grateful when Izuku produced video footage and pictures of all of the men involved. After the police left, taking the drugs with them, Izuku learned the joys of paperwork and filing reports. He was actually surprised when All Might appeared by the desk Izuku was using, to congratulate him on his successful first day. He hadn’t realized it had gotten so late, and the hasty bowl of ramen from the agency cafeteria was long since eaten, and Izuku found he was starving.

By the time he and Lemillion arrived back to the row of dormitory buildings, it was nearly curfew. Izuku sighed happily as he kicked off his shoes at the door and discovered that his friends had left him a plate covered in plastic wrap from dinnertime. He blinked as he saw Kuroiro from next door stuffing a slice of cake into his mouth before vanishing into the shadows. Did he think Izuku didn't see him? He wondered how often the 1-B student actually stole their food, but he wasn't too concerned about it, as long as food was the only thing he was taking. He was too tired to think about it, for now.

It was quiet on the first floor, and Izuku didn’t even bother to heat up the pasta before eating it. It had been a good day.

Chapter 70

Notes:

I just realized I need to re-write/heavily edit the last three chapters of this story because I had an epiphany about how it needed to end, and now I have to adjust the whole Overhaul final battle scene. It’s going to be drastically different from canon, for sure. Chapters may be spaced a little farther apart than usual, simply because I want to make sure it’s as epic as I want - I don’t think you’ll all be disappointed with what I’ve come up with, but I have to get it written down, first! My work schedule has changed again, so I’m not sure how much writing time I’ll have, but I’m excited about the changes, so I’ll probably neglect sleep to finish ASAP. Stay tuned!

The following day, it was Kacchan’s turn to go to work at Might Tower. Izuku wondered what kind of day he’d have as he joined his classmates for class.

“Midoriya! How was your first day? Capture any villains?” Mina asked him, mostly jokingly as they waited for Aizawa to arrive.

“No, we did keep some drugs off the street, but we never squared off with the guys who were dealing it,” Izuku told them honestly. “There was a lot of paperwork.”

Some of the kids chuckled about the paperwork comment, and a couple were interested in the part about the drugs, but they lost their immediate opportunity to ask, because class was about to start.

Izuku marked Kacchan as an excused absence, but was surprised to note that Kirishima, Uraraka and Tsuyu were also out. Aizawa told everyone that all of the missing students were at their work studies or prospective work studies. Izuku felt bad that he’d been so absorbed in his own life, that he didn’t even know that his friends had managed to find placements, too. He would have to remember to congratulate them and get the details when they came back. Tomorrow, he would be gone for most of the day again, so he’d have to try to connect with them tonight.

It was strange, the way the dynamic of the class changed when four people were absent; especially two as loud as Kacchan and Kirishima. Hero Training was still interesting, because Todoroki was working on something Izuku had never seen him try before - actually manipulating his ice to do his bidding. It wasn’t going very well, and there was a lot of steam making the room humid as he tried using both his ice, and then his fire as a sort of sculpting tool. It seemed like frustrating work, but Todoroki kept a determined expression as he repeated the project again and again. He seemed to be trying to make a simple orb, but wasn’t having any luck producing it right off the bat, so was trying to melt the jagged bits.

“Why a ball?” Izuku asked, balancing on his hands and keeping a large cement slab supported on his feet. He was slowly doing pushups in this position.

“It seemed the simplest, so I thought it would be a good place to start.”

“Did you get Monoma to copy it and see if he could give you any pointers?” Izuku asked with a grunt as he extended his arms.

“Yeah,” he said with a scowl, pausing to look at Izuku. “He wasn’t much help. He just said that it can be done, but he couldn’t explain how.”

“That sucks,” Izuku sympathized.

He secretly wondered if Monoma was being deliberately unhelpful so that 1-A wouldn’t get ‘ahead’ of 1-B. He did seem the type.

“If it can be done, you’ll figure it out,” Izuku told him encouragingly. “Like when you needed your flame lasso, it just happened because you willed it, right?”

“I hate to admit it, but controlling my fire seems a lot more instinctive to me than manipulating my ice,” Todoroki confessed.

“That sounds frustrating,” Izuku said.

He now had sweat dripping from his chin, and began to spatter the ground as he strained to keep the concrete slab moving in a steady pace up and down. He’d lost count of the one hundred push ups he’d been aiming for, but his quivering arm muscles told him he was probably past that number. He turned in a slow circle, checking her surroundings to be safe, then pulled his legs in as tights as he could get them before shoving the concrete slab away, sending it hurtling a few meters before crashing down to the ground. The loss of weight almost made Izuku feel like he’d engaged his levitation, and the relief at holding only his own body up was huge. He bent his arms and shoved off the ground, giving his body a boost to get upright. He landed on his feet and reached for his water bottle and towel.

There was still some time left until the end of class, so Izuku left Todoroki to concentrate and went to the clear corner by the entrance of the gym to cool down. Mina and Yaoyorozu were working together nearby, with Yaoyorozu endeavoring to produce a substance that Mina couldn’t burn through with her acid. Mina was working on producing stronger acid.

Izuku sat in a straddle and raised his arms over his head in a simple extension that felt wonderful after being compressed by the weight he’d been working with for the past hour.

“Damn, Midoriya!” Mina said, stopping to watch him stretch. “You’re the most flexible person I know that doesn’t have it as part of a quirk!”

Izuku gave her an embarrassed smile as he twisted his torso and moved into a split.

“I really enjoyed gymnastics before I had to quit; it comes in handy in hero work!”

“Can you put your feet behind your head?” Mina asked.

“Yes?” he said, looking at her strangely. “I don’t really have a reason to, but I’m able to do it.”

“For real?” Sato asked, joining him on the ground to stretch. Sato was not as flexible, but had a pretty decent range.

“Do it now!” Mina urged.

“Do what?” Jiro asked, also joining the group.

“Izuku can put his feet behind his head,” Sato said.

Her eyebrows arched.

“Dooooo it!” Mina cajoled.

Izuku sighed and brought his legs out in front of him, then lifted his left leg and slotted his ankle over the back of his neck. He rolled his eyes when he noticed that Mina and Jiro were both taking pictures or video, no doubt to try to embarrass him with, later. His right leg went up behind his head to join his left. He hammed it up and gave double handed peace signs, relying on his quirk to keep him from tumbling over.

“Do I even want to know?” Aizawa asked as he appeared from somewhere behind the group. Aoyama, Koda and Ojiro were behind him, looking on with curiosity.

“Just goofing around,” Izuku said with a little embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“Everyone hit the showers and get back to class,” his teacher said without commenting on the spectacle.

“Oh! Sensei?” Izuku called to Aizawa’s retreating back. “What do you call a large pile of cats?”

Izuku saw, rather than heard the sigh in the slight droop of the man’s shoulders. He didn’t turn, but did pause in his walking.

“A meowntain!” Izuku delivered the punchline with enthusiasm, hoping for some sort of reaction, but Aizawa just began walking away again.

His classmates groaned.

“Dude, that was terrible,” Kaminari said, shaking his head.

“I know,” Izuku said with a smile, putting his legs down on the floor. “But I heard he likes cats, so I thought I’d try a themed one. I’ll have to keep trying.”

“I don’t know if he knows how to laugh, to be honest,” Sato said seriously.

“Nah, He’s definitely got a sense of humor,” Izuku insisted. “I just have to find the right angle.”

As they were approaching the classroom a little while later, Nezu was standing next to Aizawa outside the door, as if waiting for them. Nezu was holding a cell phone that looked more like a tablet in his tiny paws.

“Midoriya-kun! I was just asking if Aizawa would let me borrow you for a few minutes. I’m afraid I need an interpreter.”

“Of course,” Izuku said, looking at Aizawa, who gave him a nod as he herded the others inside. “I’d be happy to help.”

The call turned out to be not particularly interesting for Izuku, but he dutifully stood by on speaker phone with someone speaking Farsi, and relayed what they were saying to Nezu, and his replies back. The call didn’t take very long, and once Nezu had disconnected, he smiled. It was a little unnerving to see the principal bare his teeth that way.

“Excellent, excellent,” Nezu said to Izuku. “After your help here, I have no hesitation to go forward with the offer the Hero Public Safety Commision has put forward for you.”

“Offer, sir?” Izuku asked, wondering where this was going.

“Indeed! They wanted to know if you would be willing to occasionally act as an interpreter for them in events when they don’t have one with the skill set for certain matters. They assured me that such instances wouldn’t be common, but would be a great help to them. So much so, that they would be willing to compensate you for your time when circumstances called for your assistance.”

“Um… sure, I guess. I mean, I don’t see any reason to say no,” Izuku said.

“Excellent. I believe that they want to provide you with a cell phone that you would be required to keep on your person whenever possible, so you can be reached easily. Other than that, there isn’t much to it,” Nezu explained. “I explained this to your teacher, and he has agreed to excuse you if you’re needed during your lessons for any reason. If it begins to become a problem or to hamper your education or training in any way, you can always resign and return the phone.”

When Izuku went back to class, he was feeling a little bemused, but couldn’t think of any huge downside to making a little side money, sanctioned by the Hero Commission and his school.

That evening after dinner, he got caught up on Tsuyu, Uraraka and Kirishima’s work study placements. The girls would be going with Hado-senpai to the Ryukyu Agency, and they seemed really excited about the opportunity. Kirishima had taken on a position with Fat Gum’s agency after pestering Amajiki-senpai into introducing him. Iuzku was bemused by the idea of the perpetually extroverted and sunny Kirishima pairing with the severely anxious and introverted Amajiki. Still, it was a position that the others were pretty jealous of.

Kacchan got home later than anyone, though he claimed nothing interesting had happened beyond routine patrols and a stake out that was “a big waste of time.”

Izuku’s next work day ended up not being overly exciting, though he did get a chance to watch Sir Nighteye spar with Lemillion. Izuku rarely got to see his mentor in action, since he usually ran things behind the scenes, and he observed eagerly as Sir managed not only to dodge every one of Togata senpai’s attacks, but also land several strikes against him. Izuku was amazed by this, but also confused.

“How do you do that?” Izuku asked him, once they were finished sparring.

Lemillion had been sweaty and tired, while Sir didn’t seem to have broken a sweat.

“It isn’t that difficult,” Sir said, coming out into the hallway, where Izuku had been watching from. “I have my foresight that tells me where he’s going to be at any given moment, even second to second.”

“Yes, but…” Izuku said, pinching his lower lip in thought. “If you can see where he’s going to appear and avoid him, isn’t that kind of like changing the probable outcome?”

“How do you mean?” Sir asked, motioning for Izuku to follow him as they chatted.

“Well, if you’re seeing where he will be, and using that information to avoid being hit, then the probable outcome is supposed to be you being hit, isn’t it? The only reason you can dodge him is because you use the information to change the probable outcome,” Izuku said.

“I… suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” Sir said, sounding intrigued by the idea, or at least by Izuku’s thought process. “Though I also have remarkable deductive reasoning skills and am able to make split second decisions based on my surroundings and my knowledge of my opponents. My quirk is a tool, just like anyone else’s.”

“Hmmm,” Izuku said, still considering it. “It just seems like a bit of a paradox, if it’s impossible to change the future or whatever. I wonder if you’ve just never been faced with the right set of circumstances before.”

Izuku shook his head a bit. Things dealing with time and it’s manipulation in any form were always a headache to try to reason out.

“Do you think I’ll ever be able to win against Togata senpai in a sparring match?”

“I’m sure you could,” Sir told him without hesitation. “Look how far Mirio-kun has come in just three years. You’re just beginning your high school career, while he’s ending his. You have a much better grasp and skill with all of your quirks now than he did with his one quirk at the same level. It will just take practice and hard work, both of which you’re unafraid of.”

Izuku nodded. That was true enough. He remembered the first Sports Festival TOgata had participated in; he had watched it eagerly at home with his dad, taking notes and keeping a running commentary about all of the cool quirks that had been on display. Togata had only really been memorable in that he lost his clothing at the very beginning, and lost time having to redress. Izuku didn’t really have any memory of Amajiki or Hado at all, either. It just went to show the amount of growth that could be accomplished in such a short amount of time.

“I did want to speak with you about the man you helped apprehend this afternoon,” Sir told him as they entered the elevator. “Zia tells me that your Telepathic Telephone quirk helped authorities track down the criminal’s stash of stolen goods.”

Zia had been his mentor for the day’s patrol; she had the ability to turn vibrations into light. The stronger the vibration, the brighter the light. She used it to great effect by carrying a tuning fork and temporarily blinding her opponents to aid in capturing them.

“That’s true,” Izuku said. “I had almost forgotten about it until it happened. The suspect was cuffed and I was leading him to the policemen by the elbow, and Zia put a hand on my shoulder to get my attention.”

“You expressed concern that gaining information this way might not be strictly legal?” Sir asked.

“That’s right,” Izuku said with a nod. “We kind of...read his mind without permission. I wasn’t sure if that was like an unlawful search or something like that. The law isn’t exactly clear about it.”

“I’ll be looking into it, to be sure,” Sir assured him. “It could be extremely useful in the future, if it’s allowed. My own quirk does something similar, where I look into a person’s personal future for information; I don’t need a warrant for that. I’m sure prosecutors will have something to say about it one way or the other. Until then, try not to use it without a suspect’s consent.”

Izuku agreed, though it was interesting that a quirk he had dismissed as something silly had turned out to be pretty useful, after all.

Izuku got back to the dorms just in time for dinner that evening, then enjoyed getting caught up on everything that had happened at school. Apparently, Aoyama would be spending the night with Recovery Girl, having had an incident where his navel laser belt became damaged, and he’d lost control of his quirk.

“It was really gross!” Mina said with excitement as Izuku expressed concern. “You know how he gets sick to his stomach if he uses his laser for more than a few seconds? Well, his belt came off and ripped a hole right through the gym wall until Aizawa could nullify it! It was at least fifteen seconds! Aoyama was puking and screaming at the same time.”

“Recovery Girl kept her cool and had it handled in no time, but I really feel bad for Aoyama. I didn’t know his laser could be that destructive to his body. I thought it just, you know, gave him gas or something,” Sato said.

Koda, who hardly ever spoke up, sat stroking his pet rabbit and said, “It was really scary. I thought they’d be taking him to the hospital.”

“I’m glad they didn’t have to,” Izuku said, marveling at how soft the rabbit was when it hopped over and bumped Izuku’s hand with it’s head. A small patch of fur on top of it’s head grew longer when Izuku’s exposed index finger came in contact with it, and he gave an apologetic smile to Koda. “Oops.”

The rabbit didn’t seem to care, and hopped over to investigate Uraraka’s socks.

“Sorry about that,” Izuku told Koda.

“It’s okay,” Koda said with a soft smile. “It’s cute.”

“Out of all of the animals you can communicate with, what made you choose a rabbit for a pet?” Izuku asked.

Koda blushed slightly and said with a slight shrug, “They’re simple. They don’t have a lot to communicate beyond their own comfort or hunger.”

“I guess with the ability to understand animals, it’s probably pretty overwhelming to hear them all the time, when no one else registers that it means anything.”

“Exactly,” Koda said with a nod, looking relieved that his meaning was understood. “Rabbits are quiet and affectionate.”

“Ow! He bit my toe!” Uraraka said suddenly.

Izuku and Koda looked at each other and chuckled.

Chapter 71

Summary:

Kacchan has an extraordinary day and Izuku makes a new friend.

Notes:

AHAHA! So, I accidentally wrote TWO chapter 71s, and almost posted the wrong one (which should have been Chapter 72) I'm still in the process of re-writing the last handful of chapters, but this one is good to go. I apologize for being unclear about the re-writes, too! The ones I am editing have not been posted yet, so you don't have to worry about going back and figuring out what I've changed.

I apologize in advance for the huge amount of exposition in this chapter. In my efforts to keep this in Izuku’s POV, sometimes it’ll have to be second-hand information.

The following day was a Wednesday, which meant that Izuku and Kacchan would travel to the agency together for work study. Their first overlapping day since starting at Might Tower was slightly overcast, but the weather reporter swore there was no rain in the immediate future. They each held their cases with their hero costumes inside, and Izuku was quietly muttering to himself about how much it might cost to have a duplicate costume made, so he could keep one at school and the other at the agency. Surely when they went pro, they’d want one wherever they worked and one at wherever they lived, assuming they were different places. Plus, there was damage and wear and tear from battle to consider, so having extra support items for quick replacement was a good idea, as well...

“It’s too early for that crap, nerd,” Kacchan told him gruffly when Izuku continued to talk quietly to himself.

“Someone’s cranky this morning,” Togata said cheerfully from where he was standing between his two kohais.

“Hmm?” Izuku said, snapping out of his musings and looking at Kacchan. “He’s not cranky. He does look a little tired, though.”

“You really do know him well, don’t you?” Togata asked Izuku. “When I first met him, I thought he was just a super angry guy all the time, but that’s just his default setting.”

“He can come off that way,” Izuku agreed. “But he’s really observant and a great strategist. He also likes cats. Sometimes I think that he’s so short-fused because when his temper is riled, it makes him sweat more, which is great for using his quirk.”

“I’m standing right here,” Kacchan pointed out with a growl to his voice.

“Sorry, Kacchan,” Izuku said with a wry smile. “I can’t help it. Your quirk is so cool!”

“What about mine?” Togata asked, pretending to pout.

He may have been changing the subject because Kacchan really was getting annoyed by this point.

“Yours is a mystery I’m going to solve,” Izuku said firmly. “I swear I’m going to find a way to get a hit on you before the school year ends!”

“You’re welcome to try,” Togata said with a friendly rivalry in his tone. “But while you’re getting even stronger, I’ll be growing, too.”

Izuku smiled at the challenge. “I’ll figure it out.”

They got to the agency and got changed into their costumes. Izuku had been wondering if he would be patrolling with Kacchan; it would be interesting to watch him interacting with people around the city and see how he reacted to everything. Unfortunately, Izuku was assigned to watch the main residence of the Shie Hassaikai group, while Kacchan and Lemillion patrolled elsewhere.

It was a boring task, because Izuku wasn’t allowed to chat with Sir while they observed who came and went, and took note of people who passed by. They were situated in a small room of a building diagonally across the street that housed a handful of small businesses. There was an acupuncturist in an adjacent room on one side and a paralegal on the other, but the smaller one had been used for nothing but storage since the previous tenant had left. It was an adequate, discreet spot for a stake out, and deemed far enough away for Izuku to not be at risk of gaining any new quirks.. Izuku had asked why they didn’t just set up security cameras, but apparently there was some sort of signal jamming device or quirk that prevented them from doing so. Sir had a digital camera that he used periodically, capturing delivery men, license plates, and even the gardener that came to trim the hedges.

A soft, but insistent whir, whir, whir came from Sir’s pocket, and when he checked his phone, his eyebrows rose, then drew down into an unhappy glare.

“We’re going. Hurry,” he told Izuku as he pocketed his camera and stood.

He waited until they were further away, having exited out the back of the building before breaking into a jog, a concerned Izuku keeping pace.

“There’s been a situation. Bakugou and Lemillion had an encounter with Chisaki, and they’ve apparently taken a child into their custody that Chisaki claimed is his daughter.”

“They took his daughter?” Izuku asked in disbelief.

“No, Chisaki doesn’t have any children,” Sir said grimly. “That we’re aware of. We’re going to meet them now to get to the bottom of this.”

Sir then put his phone to his ear and called someone who Izuku assumed was a policeman or detective. The conversation was brief, and succinct, but Izuku expected that whomever he’d spoken to would also be meeting them at Might Tower. Trying not to attract too much attention, they caught a cab back to the agency with a gruff driver that looked very much like a llama from the neck up.

Once they arrived at Might Tower, Sir led Izuku to the infirmary, rather than his office, and there they saw the girl that Lemillion and Kachanhad brought, being looked over by a nurse. The girl looked to be about four; fragile in a dress that looked like a hospital gown, but without the ties in back. She had long, white hair and a small nub of what looked like a horn to one side of her head, right at the hairline. Her legs were wrapped in bandages, and there was a small pile of unwrapped ones on the table beside her that looked as though they might have been on her skinny arms very recently.

Her red eyes were wide and a little frantic looking as she turned them on Izuku and Sir when they entered. She seemed to curl in on herself, for lack of any place to really hide.

“Eri-chan,” Lemillion said gently, crouching a little so that he wasn’t towering over her. “This is who I was telling you about. This is Sir, and that guy over there is Gestalt. They’re friends.”

“Hello, Eri-chan,” Izuku said with what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

Kacchan was scowling deeply, but not at Eri. He just looked frustrated.

“You’re having an exciting day, huh?” Izuku asked her, trying to make her feel at ease. “I hope it wasn’t too scary. We want to help you, okay?”

He noticed that there were pale scars on her arms, signs of possible puncture wounds from something small and sharp. A needle, maybe? Had she been sick? She did look awfully pale and thin.

She tilted her head at him as if he were a puzzle she was trying to figure out, and Izuku just smiled warmly at her.

“They saved-ed me,” she said in a high, tremulous voice.

Her eyes flicked over Kacchan and then to Lemillion.

“That’s a hero’s job,” Izuku told her with a solemn nod. “We save people who need help.”

“He yelled a lot, and went boom,” she said, her eyes flitting back to Kacchan.

Kacchan looked back at her with a small smile that held a bit of pride in it. “You were really brave, kid.”

“I was?” she asked.

She seemed to be talking to Izuku, as if she didn’t quite believe Kacchan. Izuku nodded firmly and smiled again.

“If Kacchan said you were brave, then you really, really were,” she told her. “He yells a lot, and makes loud noises, but he’s one of the bravest heroes I know.”

“Kacchan?” she asked timidly.

“That’s what I call him, cause I’ve known him since we were your age,” Izuku said.

In a corner of the room, Lemillion had retreated to have a quiet word with Sir, and Izuku tried not to draw attention to them.

“How old are you, Eri-chan?” he asked her.

His chatter was keeping the girl’s attention while the nurse unwrapped her legs to reveal even more faint scarring, and a few fresh cuts.

“I’m… I think…” she looked almost confused by the question. “I think I’m five?”

“It’s okay if you don’t know for sure,” Izuku assured her. “It’s not really that important.”

Izuku wasn’t sure how much he should ask her, since she was in the middle of a somewhat traumatizing situation, and he didn’t want to trigger her in any way. Normally he would ask her about her parents or school, but if she didn’t even know how old she was, what were the chances she ever went to school or even knew if she had parents?

“What’s important is that we get you feeling better, and keep you safe,” he told her instead.

“I really don’t have to go back?” she asked timidly.

“Hell no,” Kacchan told her, speaking up for the first time.

“Kacchan, don’t swear in front of her,” Izuku scolded.

“You don’t ever have to go back,” Kacchan said, rolling his eyes at Izuku.

Eri looked relieved to hear this.

Sir stepped in then, and crouched in front of Eri.

“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to take these boys with me for a little while. Do you think you’ll be okay here with Nurse Hashimoto? She’s very nice, and she’ll keep you safe.”

Eri looked uncertain, but Nurse Hashimoto smiled warmly at her and nodded. Eri finally looked down at her lap and nodded meekly. Izuku felt bad about leaving her with a stranger, but they were all strangers to her. They left her in the care of the nurse and retreated to a conference room where Rapidfire, Twirl and a detective were waiting. Izuku wasn’t sure if he should be privy to what they would discuss, but his curiosity was too much to point that out to anyone, so he stayed quiet and tried not to draw attention to himself.

“Alright,” the detective said as they all took seats. “Can we start from the beginning? I’m aware of the Shie Hassaikai as a group, but they’ve kept under the radar for the most part, so I’m going to need some background for this to make sense.”

“Of course,” Sir told him cordially. “As you are aware, the Shie Hassaikai is a yakuza group that got pushed out of the spotlight with virtually all of the others as All Might rose to prominence in Japan. Their leader followed a sort of moral code and he kept his men in line, for the most part. An informant from within the group recently came forward to say that “the boss” was gravely ill, and appeared to be in a coma, though there are no medical records of him being admitted to any hospitals anywhere in the country.”

“Why would someone from inside the organization turn informant?” the detective asked. “Yakuza tend to be pretty tight knit, and would rather commit seppuku than betray the family.”

“It seems that many of the older members of the group don’t like the direction that Chisaki Kai, the new leader, is taking the group in, and many believe he’s responsible for the condition the old leader is in,” Sir explained. “Chisaki is an extreme germophobe and believes that quirks are a plague on society, hence the plague masks they now wear. He believes that quirks and the so-called ‘disease of heroism’ was what caused the downfall of the Yakuza, and sees it as his personal mission to raise the Yakuza back to their former glory.”

Izuku considered this idea, and thought that the concept wasn’t all that far off from the ideology of Stain, who wanted to get rid of the majority of heroes for his own twisted reasons.

“What is it that made you take an interest in him? It hardly seems the type of case the Might Agency would need to trouble themselves with,” the detective said, sounding suspicious and curious at the same time.

“Do you recall the bank robbery a few weeks ago? The perpetrators were arrested, but the money was assumed to have been burned up in the resulting chaos?” Sir asked.

Izuku wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so listened with interest for some insight into the start of the whole investigation.

“Of course,” the detective said. “That was a weird one. All of the perps were confused and said that they’d been ambushed, but all they could remember was feeling intense pain, then they were suddenly being taken into custody, feeling the best they’d ever felt in their lives. Even stuff like cavities and scars and things they’d had before were completely healed.”

“Yes. We believe that Chisaki was involved in that ambush, and that he used his quirk on them. We have no proof, but we’re working on the assumption that the Shie Hassaikai is now several million yen richer since that day,” Sir said. “We’ve been suspicious of their movements since then, and have been looking for concrete proof of criminal activity to make a case with.”

“How does that tie into your staff taking possession of a child?” the detective asked, taking notes every once in a while.

“Sir, if I may?” Lemillion said.

At Sir and the detective’s nod, Lemillion picked up the explanation.

“I was taking Bakugou out on a routine patrol of the area, and as we passed by a random alley, the girl ran out and collided with Bakugou. I helped her to her feet, and she threw herself at me, shaking like a leaf, clearly terrified. She was barefoot and her arms and legs were wrapped in bandages,” he said. “She asked for help, but before we could do more than ask if she was lost, Chisaki Kai showed up and claimed she was his daughter, and that she’d run away because he scolded her.”

Kacchan made a disdainful noise at that point, but didn’t interrupt further. Izuku kept quiet and listened to the unfolding story.

“Bakugou asked about her bandages, and Chisaki claimed that she’s a clumsy child, always falling down and getting hurt. It didn’t sound right, but I was trying to avoid making him suspicious of us, since I knew we were already keeping an eye on him. Chisaki called to her and told her to come back but she clung onto me and asked us not to leave. Bakugou asked her if he was really her dad, and she shook her head and said no.”

Izuku’s jaw clenched as he listened, knowing that he wouldn’t have been able to leave her there in a situation like that.

“Chisaki acted embarrassed by the attention we were drawing, and asked us if we would follow him off of the main street, so he could explain the situation, since it was a private matter. It was clear that he was planning something, you could just feel the bloodlust pouring off of him,but he was already walking back into the alley. I kept a hold of Eri, and we followed him a few steps, then the wall stretched behind us to close off the street we’d just stepped off of,” Togata said. “He was trying to trap us in with him, but Bakugou turned and blew out an opening, so we could get out of there. Chisaki tried to make a grab for me, but I used my quirk and we fled back to the main street. That’s when Twirl and Rapidfire showed up; they heard Bakugou’s explosions and came to investigate.”

The other two sidekicks nodded in confirmation.

“Chisaki had his gloves off,” Rapidfire said. “He’s never been seen in public without them because of his germophobia. I’m assuming he was prepared to use his quirk.”

“His quirk is called Overhaul,” Sir supplied for the detective, who was taking more complete notes by this time. “He has the ability to disassemble and then reassemble matter with his bare hands.”

“That would include people, I’m assuming?” the detective asked wearily. “Like bank robbers.”

“We believe so,” Sir confirmed.

“Chisaki promised to ‘cure’ us of our ‘disease’ and take back what’s his,” Twirl said, “Then he was literally just swallowed up by the wall and vanished. We took the kid and ran.”

“It’s probably safe to assume there was another of Chisaki’s subordinates nearby using a quirk to manipulate the walls,” the detective said grimly. “I can call social services to come and take custody of the child…”

“With all respect, I was wondering if we could make arrangements to keep the child here, for the time being,” Sir said seriously.

Izuku’s jaw dropped when he heard this.

“We don’t yet know who she is, or why Chisaki had her in his custody,” Sir pointed out. “I can’t think of a safer place for her right now, until we can learn more about her. At least one member of The League of Villains has been in contact with the Shie Hassaikai, so I can’t imagine a scenario that doesn’t put that child in danger elsewhere.”

“That isn’t really up to me,” the detective said with a shake of his head, “but I can put you in touch with the people who have the power to decide that. For now, I’ll report that she’s currently receiving medical care here, and that moving her could be detrimental to her well being. I’ll want to see any information you’ve gathered about Chisaki Kai and his whole organization so we can make sure we’re adequately covering our bases.”

Sir agreed easily.

“Does anyone else have anything to add?” the detective asked. “You?”

He looked directly at Izuku, who was the only one who hadn’t spoken during the meeting. Izuku shook his head ruefully, admitting that he hadn’t been there.

“Gestalt seemed to have an immediate rapport with the girl,” Sir said simply. “I’m hoping to utilize him to keep her calm while she’s examined and questioned.”

The detective simply nodded and made another small note before asking to speak to each of the others one at a time to clarify different points. Standard procedure. Izuku stood, feeling embarrassed at being caught attending a meeting he hadn’t strictly been invited to, and following the others out of the room. The detective would talk to Kacchan first, and the other three took seats in a small lounge area near the elevators to wait for their turns.

Sir motioned for Izuku to follow him.

“The fact that Chisaki had a child that he obviously didn’t want to lose custody of is a worrying prospect,” he told Izuku as they ascended to the floor that housed Sir’s office. “And that’s aside from the possibility that Chisaki is working with the League of Villains in some way. I’m afraid she’s been through a terrible amount of trauma, and I need to get a hold of my informant within the organization if possible, to find out more.”

Izuku was wondering why he was being allowed to be included in this investigation, since Sir had indicated that he should stay as far away from Chisaki Kai and the Shie Hassaikai case as possible. The answer to that was a little surprising.

“Mirio told me that Eri didn’t really speak much at all until you showed up and talked to her. For whatever reason, she seems to instinctively trust you, and that’s lucky for us. I want you to spend as much time with her as possible without upsetting her, and see if you can get any helpful information out of her. Make a list of things you think a little girl might enjoy and might make her feel more comfortable here, and I’ll see to it that someone outside of our organization obtains them.”

“I don't know a lot about little girls,” Izuku said nervously. “But… don’t they like bright colors and unicorns and sparkly stuff?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Sir said seriously. “I believe some of your friends are girls? Perhaps you could ask some of them. Just don’t tell them why you need to know.”

“Right! Good idea,” Izuku said. “So… should I just go back to the infirmary, for now?”

Sir nodded. “Depending on whether we’ll be allowed to keep her here in our custody for a while, we’ll need to set up a more comfortable atmosphere for her to live in. I don’t know what conditions she’s been living under until now, but I doubt it’s been pleasant.”

Izuku made his way down to the infirmary to see Eri, but found that she was curled up into a tight ball, fast asleep, with her small hands fisted into the blanket. She looked even smaller than he remembered from just an hour ago.

“Poor thing is just scared to death,” the nurse said quietly to Izuku when he retreated from the dimly lit room so he wouldn’t wake Eri.

“Did she say anything more about before she was brought here?” Izuku asked.

The nurse shook her head sadly. “She asked where you and the others had gone, but after that, she just sat there obediently and let me clean her up. As soon as I helped her into a different gown and into bed, she curled up and closed her eyes. It took her a few minutes, but she finally fell asleep.”

“I’m supposed to make a list of things she might need or like to have,” Izuku said. “But I’m kind of at a loss for anything to do with little girls. Could you help?”

The nurse smiled at this and nodded, leading Izuku back to her desk, where they put together a list of clothing, toiletries and toys that might help Eri adjust to her newfound freedom. Kacchan showed up just as Izuku was texting Sir a photo of the list, and asked how “the kid” was doing.

Once he was assured that she was safe, he and Izuku changed back into their school uniforms. They had been told that they had done enough work for the day, and could return to school for now. Kacchan would be back the next day for his regularly scheduled shift, but they also asked Izuku to return after his daily classes, to spend some time with Eri.

He was fine with that.

Chapter 72

Summary:

Some sweet Izuku and Eri interaction then the meeting of heroes to share info and figure out the best way to handle the Chie Hassaikai

Notes:

A bit of a longer chapter this time, since I had to divide up my second chapter 71 and tack half of it onto two chapters! Five chapters left after this one, so fasten your seatbelts!

Izuku’s sleep was plagued with nightmares that night for the first time in a while. He had vague memories when he woke, of bodies floating in murky fluid, needles full of blood, and people around him dying. His eyes felt grainy and his lids heavy as he went about his morning routine of getting ready for school. Thankfully it wasn’t his day to help with breakfast.

He slid into a chair just as Kacchan was leaving for his work study, and Izuku waved to him tiredly. Kacchan nodded in response, which was practically friendly behavior between them. As he was leaving, Kaminari came thundering in from the elevator waving his phone.

“Kirishima! Look!”

Kirishima was in the kitchen with an apron on, scooping rice into a bowl for Todoroki, who still looked mostly asleep.

“You’re in the news!” Kaminari shouted, getting everyone’s attention. “Newcomer Sidekick Red Riot Bursts Onto The Scene!”

“Uravity and Froppy got mentioned for their work, too!” Mina said, holding up her own phone.

Many of them gathered around to look at the articles, but Kirishima didn’t look as excited as Izuku would have thought he’d be by the news.

“Is everything okay?” Izuku asked him quietly.

Kirishima sighed. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about it, but Amajiki senpai got a bit hurt last night. I just wish I could have been faster.”

Izuku nodded in sympathy, and patted Kirishima’s shoulder. “It happens.”

Iida made an appearance at that point, looking well rested and energetic as he urged everyone to eat a healthy breakfast before the start of classes. Izuku felt bad for pushing off so many of the class rep duties onto his friend, but when he’d pointed it out, Iida simply said it was his job as second in command, as it were.

As more kids crowded into the dining area, Izuku began to feel closer to normal than he had since the previous day. The nightmares of the evening before faded away to nothing, and the rest of the school day was spent focusing on his studies.

During Basic Hero Training, Izuku worked with Uraraka, who had a day off from her own work study, and tried to teach her how to use her anti-gravity on herself to travel longer distances. She could already do a sort of moon-walk (not the dancing kind) to bound around, but it was slow and not as graceful as it could be. If he held her hand while they jumped, Uraraka could travel almost as well as Izuku could, being pulled along by his momentum. Izuku wondered if a support item to give her a little thrust as she jumped might be what she needed to really cover distance.

“It probably also wouldn’t hurt for me to start some serious leg workouts to make my jumps stronger,” she lamented.

He offered to help her with that too, before waving goodbye as she went to have a chat with Hatsume in the Development Studio. He hoped there was something they could do to help Uraraka with her jumps, since he knew first hand how useful it could be in a fight. The idea of pairing up with her for a super move or two held a lot of appeal, and he was already thinking of different ways they could plan strategies around it when class ended.

All MIght was waiting for Izuku at the bottom of the stairs as the students were filing out to go back to their dorms.

“I’ll be going back to Might Tower early today,” he said, “I’ll give you a lift.”

Izuku changed course amiably, wondering if this was a ploy to keep him from leaving the school grounds on his own to report for work. Either way, it was nice to spend some one-on-one time with All Might; it seemed like it had been ages since that had happened.

“I’m impressed with what I’ve been hearing about you this week,” All Might told him as they made their way through the city.

“I don’t feel like I’ve done all that much,” Izuku admitted. “But I’m learning a lot.”

“It might not seem like much, but the presence of mind to do small things like take photos of suspects, and keep in communication with your team is a valuable asset. Mirai said you’re good with children, too.”

“I don’t know about that,” Izuku said with a small smirk, thinking of the way Kota had tried to punch him in the crotch at their training camp. “But Eri is easy to relate to, I guess?”

“Mirai has learned a lot about that case since yesterday,” All Might said. “There will be a special meeting tomorrow with some other hero agencies to discuss it. You’ll be allowed to be there so that you know what’s going on, but we want you to keep in mind that you’re not to be anywhere near Chisaki Kai and his group if it’s decided that we need to take action.”

Ah. So that was the motive behind the ride to the agency, another reminder of how his quirk made him unfit for this type of mission. He deflated a little.

“I’m sorry, my boy,” All Might said, correctly reading Izuku’s body language. “As useful as some of these villain’s quirks may be…”

“I know,” Izuku said with a sigh. “We don’t know if I have any limits for how many quirks I can absorb, and I need to have better control over which ones I…”

“I know we sound like we’re stuck on repeat, but it’s important,” All Might commiserated. “Until we find a way to control or negate Inheritance, it’s the only way to be sure.”

“Too bad Monoma couldn’t choose which quirk to copy,” Izuku lamented. “He might have been able to tell me if there’s an ‘off’ switch for it.”

“It’s hard to believe my boy, but you’ve only been at UA a few months. Give it time! You’ve seen the pictures of my middle school days, haven’t you? Do they compare to where I was when I left UA three years later?”

Izuku snorted. “Definitely not.”

That was comforting, since Izuku was on the small side for the boys in his class. He didn’t come close to being the imposing figure he felt the public would look for in a crisis. What were the chances he’d get a bit taller before he was done growing? He knew the odds were against him, but he could always hope.

Eri seemed excited to see him, but still didn’t smile when he arrived. She didn’t seem to know how to smile, which made Izuku’s heart ache. He was pleased to see that instead of the boring hospital blankets she’d had before, she now had a fluffy, incredibly soft, purple comforter with stars and moons all over it in white and yellow. She had it wrapped around her even though it wasn’t cold in the room; a good sign that she liked it. There was a stack of children’s books at the foot of the bed, and a small television playing a cartoon about learning to get along with others. One book was open in her lap, about a rabbit apparently.

“Hello, Eri!” Izuku greeted her with a smile.

“Geslat!”

Izuku chuckled. “Close. It’s Gestalt. That’s just my hero name, though. My real name is Midoriya Izuku.”

“You have two names?” she asked. “I only have one.”

Izuku came in and sat down in the chair by her bed. “I’m learning to be a hero, and heroes get to have two names, if they want. Their hero name usually has something to do with their quirk, but not always.”

“What should I call you?” Eri asked him, sounding a bit confused.

“Well, when I’m in my hero costume, you should probably call me Gestalt, but since I’m dressed in my school uniform today, you can just call me Midoriya.”

“Midoriya. The bad men… some of them had two names, but they didn’t help people. They’re bad,” she said.

“Sometimes Villains like to pretend they’re important enough to get two names, too,” Izuku tried to explain. “Like the man who tried to pretend he’s your father.”

Eri twisted the ends of the blanket around her hands and her eyes darted around the room, as if she was afraid that talking about Chisaki would make him appear.

“They called him Overhaul,” she whispered.

It was said so softly that he almost didn’t hear her. He nodded solemnly and let her adjust to the idea that she could talk to him about it without anything bad happening.

“I know,” he finally said, when she seemed lost in a memory. “He’s definitely a villain. A villain is a bad guy, who hurts good people.”

“Like what he did to me,” Eri whispered, her eyes glossy.

“We won’t let him do that, anymore,” Izuku promised. “This building is full of heroes, and every single one of us wants to protect you and keep you safe.”

“It’s nice here,” Eri said cautiously.

“I’m glad you think so,” Izuku said. “Sir Nighteye was going to ask if you could stay here for a while. This is where All Might lives, you know!”

“All Might?” she asked. “The bad men don’t like him. I heard them say it.”

“I’m sure they don’t!” Izuku said with a smile. “He’s the best hero there ever was.”

“He’s a hero?” Eri asked.

“You don’t know who All Might is?” Izuku asked with a little surprise. “He’s my favorite hero ever!”

Izuku launched into a child-level explanation of who All Might was and why he was so great. He showed her pictures on his phone, and before they knew it, it was rapidly getting dark outside.

“You two seem to be getting along well,” came a voice from the doorway.

“Lemillion!”

Again, Eri seemed excited, but her face didn’t seem able to show happiness. Still, she sat up straighter and put all of her attention on him.

“Hello, Eri-chan! I came to check on you and let you know that your room is ready! Sir will be down in a couple of minutes to take you upstairs!”

Lemillion’s hair was a bit mussed, and there was mud on his boots. He must have just come back from a somewhat eventful patrol.

“My room?” she asked, twisting the blankets again.

“That’s right! If you’re going to be living here for a little while, you’ll want to have your own space, right?” Lemillion said cheerfully.

“It’s okay, Eri,” Izuku told her. “Might Tower is a really fun place. I think you’ll like it here.”

While the nurse put Eri’s new things into bags to be taken upstairs, Izuku and Lemillion tried to put her at ease about this change in her life.

“I’ve never been anywhere outside of the compound since my mommy left,” she confessed.

“The compound?” Lemillion guessed.

She nodded gravely.

“As soon as we get all the bad guys locked up, we’ll make sure you get outside as much as you like,” Lemillion told her.

Sir arrived a couple of minutes later, his face a mask of gentleness as he regarded Eri.

“Hello, Eri. Did Lemillion tell you that your room is ready?”

Eri nodded shyly, clinging to her blanket.

“Would you like to walk, or would you prefer to be carried, or ride in a wheelchair?” Sir asked her. “The choice is yours.”

Izuku knew she was perfectly capable of walking, physically. What felt safest to her was another matter.

“It’s okay, Eri,” Izuku told her when she didn’t answer or move for a few moments, “I’ll walk with you, and I won’t leave until you say it’s okay. What do you say?”

He held out his hand in an offer of support.

“Lemillion, too?” she asked.

“Lemillion, too!” the man in question answered.

Sir had gathered her books and another bag from the nurse that looked like it held clothing. Eri looked at each of them in turn, then scooted to the edge of the bed. Izuku gently lifted her and set her on the ground, where the nurse crouched to place a pair of pink fuzzy slippers on her feet in preparation for the short walk.

Eri clutched Izuku’s hand and stood close to him while Lemillion gathered her blanket, and they all made their way to the elevator. Eri was curious about everything she saw - it was evident in her eyes - but she didn’t ask any questions. She had a slight moment of panic when the elevator doors slid closed behind them, but Sir was quick to explain that it was like taking the stairs, and that they were traveling up to another part of the building. She relaxed when the doors slid open to reveal a spacious area that Izuku recognized as the floor that led to a separate elevator to reach the top floors, where Sir and All Might’s offices and living quarters were located.

Izuku saw that Eri was watching very closely as Sir used the retinal scanner to gain access to doors and elevators.

“That’s a special machine that won’t open unless the right person tells it to,” he explained to her. “You’ll be in the safest place in Japan.”

He wasn’t sure if she had a concept of what Japan even was, but the explanation seemed to satisfy her. She followed without demurring into the next elevator that took them to the very top floor.

“Here we are,” Sir said, spreading his hands to indicate the whole area. “This is where you’ll be living for the next little while.”

Eri looked around shyly, but squeezed Izuku’s hand even harder than before. He made a decision and scooped her into his arms, careful to watch for any signs that he was scaring her. When he saw none, he pasted a smile on his face that wasn’t even a little forced as he took her over to one of the wide windows looking over the city.

“Oh,” Eri breathed, looking out into darkness at all of the neon and colorful signs and other lights far below them. “It’s pretty.”

Lemillion grinned at that, too.

“We’re up very high,” Eri said, careful to grip Iuzku’s jacket, but not clinging to him in fear.

“We are,” Sir agreed. “I hope you’ll like it here. The boys can give you a tour while I arrange to have some dinner brought up for you. Is there anything you’d like to eat?”

“I like apples,” she answered at once, for once not shying away from Sir.

He smiled kindly at her and nodded. “I’ll make sure that they send one.”

From there, Izuku set Eri down and walked her around the space, showing her where the toilet was, the seating area, a small kitchen, a huge television set, the closed door to All Might’s quarters and the open door to Sir’s quarters. Each man had his own apartment on this floor, but Izuku had never had more than a glimpse inside of Sir’s before. He’d never had a reason.

Against the wall in the main area between apartments, under the television, there was a colorful bookshelf with a selection of books, a couple of stuffed animals, some building blocks and a few other toys that hadn’t been taken out of their packaging yet. There was also a child sized table with chairs that was obviously new, with a caddy full of crayons, pencils and markers. Sir had been busy, or at least he’d made someone else busy. There was even a smaller recliner-like chair among the other tall-adult-sized chairs that was just a bit too small to be meant for Gran’s use.

“Dinner will be up shortly,” Sir announced, coming back into the room.

Eri was looking at everything somewhat dispassionately, but she might have never been given such things before, or know what to do with them. Before anyone could comment further, the door ro All Might’s rooms opened, and the man himself stepped out. He had a box in his arms, and blinked when he saw the group assembled.

“Ah! Perfect timing,” he said with a smile. “You must be Eri!”

Eri nodded, but shrunk back behind Izuku’s legs, peeking out from behind them.

“I told you about All Might, remember?” Izuku told her gently. “I showed you pictures.”

She nodded slowly, but didn’t come out.

“I know I’m a bit scary looking,” All Might told her easily, sitting down on the floor with his box. “But I promise I’m one of the good guys. I have something here for you that young Bakugou went to the trouble of finding this afternoon.”

“Bako?” Eri asked. “He’s the one that went boom and made the wall crash down.”

“That’s right!” Lemillion said. “He’s a hero, too.”

“Kacchan got Eri a gift?” Izuku asked in surprise.

“He did. He thought it might help her feel less lonely,” All Might confirmed. “Would you like to have a look?”

Eri nodded hesitantly, and shuffled forward, which made Izuku shuffle forward as well. It wasn’t until they were right in front of the box that she stepped out to peek inside.

Inside was the puffiest, angriest looking kitten that Izuku had ever seen. It looked like a feline version of Kacchan, but with orange eyes and fur. It’s nose was smashed in and it’s whiskers corkscrewed in all directions, giving it a wild appearance. It’s ears were lying flat against it’s head, and… was it growling? No. Purring. Eri gasped at the sight, but Izuku held her back with his arm.

“Are you sure it’s safe? It looks kind of mean…” he cautioned.

Kacchan had picked it out, after all. He probably liked cats with a little ‘spirit’ to them.

“Perfectly safe,” All Might assured them. “She looks a bit rough, but it’s just the way she’s made. She’s actually quite playful and affectionate.”

Izuku noticed that All Might’s eyes were a bit red, and wondered if he was allergic.

“He said her name is Napalm, but I’m sure you can name her whatever you like,” All Might told Eri.

“Me?” she asked uncertainly.

“She’s going to be your pet, if you want her,” All Might told her. “It’s only right that you get to name her, if you want.”

Eri looked a little overwhelmed, but seemed drawn to the tiny furball. She carefully crouched down and regarded it solemnly.

“Would you like to hold her?” Izuku asked her, when she seemed hesitant.

“I shouldn’t touch her,” Eri said, shaking her head. “He said I was cursed.”

Sir’s brow furrowed and he kneeled down beside her slowly. “Why would anyone say that?”

“Because it’s true,” she said softly, still looking at the kitten. “I made my daddy disappear, and that’s why my mommy left. I ruin everything I touch.”

“That’s just not true,” Izuku told her. “You’ve touched me, and Lemillion and Kacchan, and we’re all fine.”

She seemed to think about this as she continued to regard the kitten.

“He said I was a cipentpete of his plans,” Eri said.

“Centipede?” All Might asked.

“Centerpiece,” Sir corrected.

Eri nodded gravely.

“He said my body can make bubbits to stop quirks,” Eri said.

“Bullets?” Lemillion asked, looking agitated.

Eri nodded again. “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes began to get glassy, as if she might cry, and Izuku quickly scooped up the surly looking cat in his gloved hand and put it in Eri’s lap. She gasped at first, but Izuku kept his hand there to keep it secure. It meowed a bit, but continued to purr.

“See? Nothing bad happened,” he told her.

She moved from a crouch to sit on the floor with her legs out in front of her, and the cat stayed where it was, seemingly content. Izuku gently took Eri by the wrist and guided her hand over the fur on it’s head and back, so she was petting it.

“It’s soft!” she exclaimed.

Still no smile, but at least intense interest and maybe fascination. The cat purred and rubbed it’s face on her hand for a while before it jumped from her lap and began to explore. All Might assured Sir that there was a proper litter box installed and plentiful amounts of food and toys.
Eri followed the kitten around, simply watching it, and they let her explore with it while they stood together to discuss what she’d told them about Overhaul.

“Tamaki was hit with a quirk canceling bullet on his last patrol down in the Kansai region,” Lemillion said urgently. “It wore off after a few hours, but the guy that shot him also used quirk enhancers on himself just after that.”

“He was experimenting on her,” Izuku said with gritted teeth and balled fists.

Green crackles began to spark around him, and Sir put a grounding hand on his arm to calm him.

“We don’t want to frighten the girl,” he said simply. “Knowing what he said about her body, it’s imperative that we discover what her quirk is, quickly. If she truly is the centerpiece of his plan, then he may become reckless in his attempts to get her back.”

Dinner was delivered on a cart by a sidekick a moment later, and Eri looked on with interest as food was spread out on the large table by the window at the back of the huge room. One of the seats was stacked with pillows to make it tall enough for Eri. There seemed to be a bit of everything, and Izuku guessed that Sir had asked for a variety, since he didn’t know what Eri liked to eat, besides apples. In fact, she was thrilled by the apple slices that had been cut to look like bunnies with cute little picks in to hold them by.

They all sat together to eat, and Eri seemed to not know what to think of it. It seemed that she didn’t ever join any group at mealtimes, and was instead just given a tray three times a day for her to eat or not. It turned out that she liked curry, so was content to sit with this strange group of men. Izuku and Lemillion kept up a steady stream of chatter about Might Tower and how nice it was that Eri would get to be there with them for a while. She kept a careful watch on the kitten if she could see it from her seat but otherwise sat like an overly obedient child, even when she was obviously finished eating.

“Are you ready to see your room, Eri?” Sir finally asked her, when she continued to sit stiffly in her chair.

She nodded, then looked at Izuku and Lemillion.

“We’re coming!” Lemillion promised.

“I want to see what it looks like, too!” Izuku told her, injecting excitement into his tone.

He had been trying hard not to focus on the idea that Overhaul and his goons had been using Eri for experiments or to make quirk canceling bullets. His jaw was sore from clenching his teeth so much. They got up from the table and went to Sir’s quarters, which had a modern japanese decor that was both elegant and comfortable. Off to the side, there was a small room that had probably been a very large closet/dressing room before yesterday, since there were racks of clothing hanging in front of the windows in Sir’s bedroom. The small space was perfect for a child-sized bed and wardrobe, painted in soft pastels. There was an All Might night light plugged into the wall, which would no doubt give off a bluish glow when the lights were turned off. Izuku had a similar one in his dorm room.

There was an assortment of stuffed animals and other toys within easy reach, and a large red button above the headboard, under a clear plastic bubble. It was labeled, Panic Switch. Izuku had to admire the work that had gone into keeping Eri truly safe in body and mind. Lemillion patted the mattress on the bed and pulled back the covers for Eri.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” he asked.

Eri nodded, and the suggestion of being tired made her yawn. Izuku felt himself needing to fight back a yawn, as well. Since Eri was already wearing pyjamas from earlier, no one insisted she change; they just smiled encouragingly as she climbed up and settled back on the pillows. All Might joined them at that point, carrying the purple blanket from earlier and the kitten in his hands.

Eri cuddled the blanket like one might hug a teddy bear, and watched as the kitten toddled up to make itself comfortable on the pillow beside her head.

“I’ll leave you to get some sleep,” Sir told her softly. “I'll just be in the next room. You may wake me at any time, for any reason.”

Eri didn’t seem to know how to react to this, so she simply nodded.

All MIght simply bid her a quiet good night, and retreated, leaving Lemillion and Izuku to finish tucking her in.

“Do you feel safe here, Eri?” Lemillion asked her, reaching over to stroke the purring kitten.

She thought about it for a moment before she nodded. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“Just for tonight,” Izuku told her quickly. “We live at our school, but we’ll be coming back here tomorrow, at least for a little while. Will you be okay?”

Eri bit her lip, as if she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to say what was on her mind.

“What’s the matter?” Lemillion asked her.

“Can you stay until I fall asleep?” she asked, sounding nervous.

“Of course!” Lemillion said with a smile. “You haven’t even had your bedtime story yet!”

“What’s that?” she asked with serious eyes.

“It’s part of the bedtime ritual! There should always be a story before bed!” Lemillion told her.

Izuku wondered if Sir was aware that Lemillion was setting him up to read to Eri nightly from now on. The idea was… cute.

Lemillion sat on the floor and reached over to the bedside table where there was a glass of water and a couple of books within easy reach of small hands. He chose one of the books without even checking what it was and opened it to the first page. Izuku kneeled on the floor, resting his arm on the bed so he could watch Eri enjoy the story. Lemillion did a good job, using different voices for each of the characters as he told the story of a kappa that kept getting tricked into bowing, causing the water to pour out of the dip in his head that gave him his strength. By the time Lemillion finished with a happy ending of the forest creatures sharing their meal with the hungry kappa, Eri’s face was slack, and her mouth hung open slightly as she slept.

The two boys tiptoed from the room and left the door cracked open for the little girl inside. True to his word, Sir was sitting up on his bed, reading a book so he wouldn’t be too far from Eri. He thanked the boys and bid them good night, and they went back to the dorms with a feeling of accomplishment, and determination to make sure Eri had a good life from now on.

The following morning, Izuku and Kacchan were surprised when Kirishima, Uraraka and Tsuyu all caught up with them as they left for the meeting at Might Tower. They said that their mentors had been asked to help collaborate and share information about a case at Might Tower, and that they were being allowed to attend, as well. They all rode the train together, chatting about what it could all mean, and though Izuku had a better idea than they did, he said nothing. Sir and All Might would tell them what they wanted the others to know.

When they got to the conference room on one of the lower floors of Might Tower, they found Togata, Hado and Amajiki all there already. On top of that, Aizawa sensei was present, and so was Gran Torino and many other heroes from all over Japan. Some even Izuku had never heard of, but was eager to hear about. All of All Might and Sir’s sidekicks were present, except for Twirl, but Gran told him in a low voice that she had been commandeered to watch Eri, since Twirl had two younger sisters.

The room was set up with several tables pushed end to end in a large rectangle to accommodate them all, and even then, some of them were left to stand or sit in chairs against the walls. Izuku didn’t feel like he deserved a place at the tables, since he wouldn’t be allowed to participate much in the case, so he stood behind his classmates, closer to the wall, to listen.

All Might was wearing a suit, which wasn’t too odd considering he was a teacher at UA, but it was well tailored to his tall form, and made him look livelier, somehow. It was nice to see him in clothes he didn’t swim in, even if it meant that the reason was because he no longer had access to his heroic form. Sir wore the same suit as always, and the two men stood at the head of the room, in front of a screen that could project their presentation, if needed.

“Thank you all for coming,” Sir told them all in a serious voice that carried through the room. We put out a call through the hero network, asking for volunteers and for particular skill sets and from certain regions, because a case we’ve been investigating has suddenly blown up, and we need both information and assistance.

“That’s great and all,” one of the heroes at the table spoke up, “But why are there a bunch of school kids here? UA students or not, Won’t they just slow us down?”

Izuku recognized the man as the hero Rock Lock, whose quirk Lockdown allowed him to touch objects and lock them into a fixed place, even the middle of the air.

Fat Gum took that opportunity to stand and point out that his two work study interns were essential to the investigation, and Izuku couldn’t help but notice that Kirishima looked baffled by this news.

“Suneater here took a bullet the other night, during Red Riot’s fantastic hero debut!” Fat Gum informed them all. “By the way, I’m seeing lots of unfamiliar faces, so I’ll introduce myself. I’m Fat Gum! Pleased to meetcha!”

“A bullet?” Tsuyu asked, alarmed. “Are you okay, senpai?”

“It wasn’t just any bullet!” Fat Gum announced loudly. “It was a bullet filled with a drug that destroys quirks!”

That got a big reaction as many made exclamations of disbelief or dread. Izuku’s fists were balled at his sides.

“I was able to use my quirk again after a good night’s sleep,” Amajiki told them, holding up a cow’s hoof where his right hand would normally be.

“So it’s temporary?” Rock Lock asked. “Not fatal, at least.”

“Tamaki was taken to the hospital,” Fat Gum said, “They did a battery of tests, and found that his quirk factor had been damaged. His normal healing ability will be enough to erase the damage completely over time, but I’m afraid this is only the beginning. The bullet that hit him and the gun used were destroyed, but Red Riot hardened in time and the other bullet bounced off of him, so we were able to have it analyzed.”

“Me? Really? I had no idea!”

Izuku marveled at the fact that Kirishima could fail to notice he’d been shot. Others congratulated him on it, but he just looked stunned.

Fat Gum looked as grim as it was possible for him to look.

“I’ve taken down more black market drug rings than I care to count,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “Mostly quirk enhancers from overseas. The ones from Asia only last a short time, but there are stronger ones from places like America that can last hours, or even days. But I’ve never seen anything like this before. This bullet was made with human cells and blood.”

Many eyes went to Aizawa, the only one they knew who was capable of turning off another person’s quirk temporarily.

“My quirk only disrupts a quirk holder’s ability to access their quirk; it doesn’t affect the quirk itself. I can’t affect any mutation quirk, like making a tail or fur disappear, but if they can manipulate the tail or fur in some way, I can block their ability to do that,” Aizawa explained.

“So they’re using someone with a quirk cancelling quirk to produce these bullets?” Ryukyu asked. “That’s barbaric...even if the person involved was complicit.”

“They weren’t,” Kacchan spat out, seeming unable to keep quiet.

Everyone in the room looked shocked. Izuku felt sick. Kacchan looked livid.

Sir nodded. “Bakugou is correct. Chisaki Kai, also known as Overhaul, was holding a young girl captive, claiming she’s his daughter. We have every reason to believe that they were experimenting on her and using her body to produce these bullets.”

Chapter 73

Summary:

A meeting of the minds goes awry...

Izuku could hear a grating sound, and it took him a moment to realize it was his own teeth, grinding in anger and frustration.

“You’re speaking in past tense,” one of the other heroes pointed out.

“Two of my men managed to rescue her after she made an attempt to escape captivity,” Sir said, nodding to Togata and Kacchan. “We currently have her in our custody, until we can shut down the Shie Hassaikai.”

“Is that why you called us all? To help you go after them?” Rock Lock asked.

“In due time,” All Might told them, speaking up for the first time. “We have to plan this especially carefully, making sure we have all of our ducks in a row. There is a very complicated supply chain for the importation and exportation of these drugs. Both the enhancers and the quirk cancelling ones. We want to cast our net wide with simultaneous strikes at each known location or each dealer and supplier.”

“There is a very real possibility that the temporary quirk destroyer is just the first step in a much larger plan. It’s common practice in drug dealing to offer a taste of what they could have before offering the real thing. These could be a teaser to amass money and gather a following before the release of something more permanent. Imagine a bullet that could permanently take away someone’s quirk. Now, imagine that there is only one supplier and one person might or might not have a cure.”

“So you think there’s a cure as well?” one of the heroes asked with interest.

“There’s no concrete evidence either way, but I would rather it not become an issue. We know that the Shie Hassaikai has people high up in the supply chain for the quirk enhancing drugs, and well placed to distribute or export their own products.”

A screen lit up behind All Might and Sir, showing a chart that had tons of branches cascading down with names and a map that corresponded with different known locations. The ones directly associated with the Shie Hassaikai were highlighted for them all to see.

“As you can see this is a huge undertaking that will involve as many heroes and police agencies as are available to help. We approached Endeavor and Hawks’ agencies, and are still waiting to find out their availability. Best Jeanist is making progress in his recovery but is still unable to return to duty. Edgeshot is already working on a different angle of the same case, and the rest of the top ten will lend a hand when we have more detailed plans. While this is going on, we can’t leave the rest of Japan unprotected from other threats,” All Might told them all. “We need support at every level, and any intel that can be gathered about any of the people on our suspect list. Many of you here today have already had dealings with some of these, which is why we requested you, in particular.”

Izuku wondered if he would be allowed to assist in any of the operations where there was no chance of his being near Overhaul, or if he would be benched because of the high probability of injury or death. How could he truly be All Might’s successor if he couldn’t even participate in raids?

The discussions continued as each hero asked questions and shared intel, and Izuku wished he had brought one of his notebooks to keep track of everything, even though he knew that everything was likely being recorded for later transcription. He startled when there was a light knock on the door of the conference room.

“We asked for bentos to be delivered at lunchtime,” Bubble Girl said as heads swiveled at the sound.

Izuku moved toward the door to let them in and lend a hand, surprised that it was already that late in the day. He opened the door, and wasn’t prepared to have a gun pointed at him, and to feel the punch of a projectile piercing his skin.

“Ambush!” he shouted, even as blood began to spread through his school shirt and onto his hand as he gripped his wound. “Get down!”

He felt One For All spring to life within him as more people forced their way into the room, all of them armed with handguns. The door splintered and was torn from its hinges as the assailants forced their way past it. Izuku acted on instinct and muscle memory as he disarmed the man who had shot him, and kicked out at another who was firing wildly into the crowd of heroes.

“How’s he still using his quirk?” one of them asked another. “He got hit point blank!”

“Damned faulty piece of shit,” one of them swore, before Izuku was in his face and taking him down.

The room was in pandemonium, and suddenly an alarm was blaring, and a loud rumble shook the whole building.

MIGHT TOWER IS NOW ON COMPLETE LOCK DOWN. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE THE BUILDING. DO NOT USE ELEVATORS. FIND SHELTER IMMEDIATELY AND REMAIN AS SILENT AS POSSIBLE. AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN ALERTED.

The recorded voice seemed to come from all directions, and though they all sounded like Japanese to Izuku, he could tell that the warnings were being delivered in other languages, as well.

Izuku tried to ignore the klaxon wailing and worked to subdue as many assailants as he could. Several of the heroes in the room were shouting that their quirks had been turned off, but all of them were fighting. Quirks were only a part of what qualified anyone to be a hero.

“Izuku! Mirio! Go to Eri! Protect her at all costs!” Sir shouted across the room.

“I can’t phase,” Mirio gritted out. “I got hit with one of those bullets!”

“I’ll go!” Izuku shouted back.

He dashed out to the darkened hallway, relieved to find that there were no other thugs waiting there. The wall where the windows should be were now shuttered; the sound of rumbling earlier must have been the lock down protocols closing the building up to keep anyone from entering or leaving. How sturdy were they? Izuku was still thinking about it when Sir appeared beside him.

“The stairwells will all be blocked off, though I can work to override that. The windows are all covered with bulletproof galvanized steel, on top of the heat-strengthened glass of the normal windows.”

“Can I get through? I can push my power up to thirty-five, maybe thirty-six percent,” Izuku asked, feeling a sense of urgency.

If the villains had waited for other comrades to position themselves throughout the building before entering the conference room, they could already be far too close to Eri.

“If not, there’s a weak spot in the floor and ceiling of each floor that should allow you to smash through, but…”

“That would also make a path for anyone who wanted to follow me,” Izuku finished angrily. “Who’s guarding Eri?”

“Twirl. Her force field should keep attackers at bay for a while,” Sir said.

He had hoped Eri would have more than one bodyguard, but they had never expected anything like this.

“Stand back,” Izuku told Sir.

Others had been coming out into the hall, and Sir spread his arms and signaled for them to step back

Izuku charged One For All until he felt like his bones would catch fire before he drew back his leg and kicked the window with as much strength as he could manage. The glass cracked, radiating out from the point of impact, and Izuku kicked again, causing large chunks to fall to the carpeted floor. His shoes weren’t equipped with the shell to give his kicks extra impact, and were definitely not designed to protect his feet from such abuse, but Izuku ignored the pain. The only thing he cared about was getting to Eri and keeping her safe.

“Once you reach the roof, the code to override the door into the living quarters is your birth date,” Sir told him as the metal creaked and bulged outward after a heavy punch.

“Let me through, damn it!”

Kacchan forced his way past the crowd at the door and shoved Izuku aside.

“Save your arms for fightin’,” he ordered Izuku.

In the next moment, there was a huge explosion from both of Kacchan’s hands, and a ragged hole in the steel rolling shutters.

“GO!”

The command came from Sir and Kacchan at the same time. Izuku didn’t hesitate to throw himself out and engage his levitation with as much One For All as he could force into it. He shot up like cork from a bottle, and didn’t let up until he was nearly to the top of the building. Only then did he engage his mother’s quirk. Because the building obviously couldn’t move to Izuku, Izuku was pulled to it, and he made it onto the roof in moments.

He ran to the retinal and palm scanner, and an automated voice accompanied a red flashing light on the palm pad.

”Lockdown in progress. Access denied. Enter code to override.”

A digital number pad appeared on the palm plate, and Izuku entered his birthdate on it.

”Access Granted. The door will re-lock in five, four, three…”

The steel security blinds retracted once access was granted, and Izuku quickly jerked the door open and rushed inside, stumbling down the steps in his haste. As soon as the door closed behind him, there was a solid sounding clack as the door re-locked and the shutters slid back into place. The space was dimly lit, since there was no sun coming through the huge windows; the entire building was basically a big metal cocoon at the moment.

“Eri? Twirl?” Izuku called out in a whisper yell as he advanced slowly.

The space was quiet and still, but something felt… off.

“Eri? Twirl?” he tried again, only louder. “It’s Midoriya… Gestalt.”

“Let’s kill him!” a voice nearly shouted from the other side of the living room.

The same voice then answered back, “No! Let’s buy him lunch!”

“Shhh!” another voice said. “We can’t kill him, Stainy said he’s good!”

Stainy?

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you more, Midoriya Izuku!” the same voice said, sounding excited.

Two figures stepped into the open from a shadowy corner, a man dressed in a black and gray one piece costume that Izuku recognized as Twice and a girl in a school uniform who he knew was Toga Himiko. The man could make scarily accurate doubles of people, right down to their quirk, but the doubles were relatively delicate and could be destroyed easily. The girl could also make doubles of others, but she morphed her own body by ingesting their blood.

“Where are Eri and Twirl?” Izuku asked them, standing in a stance that would allow him to move quickly.

“Hmmm,” Toga said, acting coy. “We came up here to find the girl, but she wasn’t here.”

“You’re Toga and Twice, with the League of Villains,” Izuku said, “What do you want with Eri?”

“You remember me! I knew it! I knew you were special! Well, I’m sure the girl will be useful, but the point isn’t what we want with her, it’s that we want to punish Overhaul,” Toga said, producing a knife from somewhere Izuku hadn’t noticed and waving it as if it was an extension of her hand. “He killed Magne-neesan.”

There was a glint of malice in her eyes as she said it, and Izuku thought she was probably telling the truth. He was pretty sure he knew which of the League Magne was from the reports after the training camp disaster, but he hadn’t heard about their death. Maybe it was recent?

“He’s gotta pay!” Twice declared. Then in a different tone: “But he’s scary!”

Izuku realized that he might be dealing with a split personality, and that was a little outside his skill set.

“If Eri is the most important person to him, then I don’t think he should get to have her, do you? Not after what he did to neesan!”

Izuku had to admit, he agreed on that, at least.

“Who are all of these guys in the Tower? Is the League that big?” Izuku asked, eyes flicking between the two League members.

The last intel he’d heard was that the League was a small, elite group of villains that were working to recruit new members and make a bigger name for themselves. He was also surprised to see Toga, who had been seriously injured the last time he’d seen her. Monoma had used Shigaraki’s quirk on her when he’d shoved her away at Kamino, but she appeared to be whole now.

“The League? Nah,” Twice said, waving a hand negligently. “Overhaul’s group wants to use us, so we were sent in to observe. These are all those dumb yakuza guys.”

Izuku wondered about how helpful they were being by telling him their plan.

“Buzz off!” Twice told Izuku immediately after that. “We ain’t tellin’ ya’ nothin’! It’s none of your business!”

“Shiggy said we should kill you if you showed up, but you don’t have to worry about us,” Toga told him in a syrupy voice. “If Stain said you’re a real hero, then we can’t do that. We can only kill the bad heroes!”

“Okay… but I can’t let you just come in here and take the girl,” Izuku told them. “It’s my job to protect her, and everyone else in this building. “

“Including us?” Twice asked in a hopeful voice. Then: “Of course not, stupid! We’re villains!”

“How’d you get in here?” Izuku asked, trying to ignore the pain of the wound in his side and the burgeoning headache forming from dealing with the crazy events that were unfolding.

“I can be anyone!” Toga said proudly. “With just a little drop of blood!”

She didn’t reveal who she had impersonated, but that was a secondary concern at the moment.

“But now the reason you came here is gone, so… shouldn’t you leave? Things are probably going to get pretty ugly very soon,” Izuku suggested.

At least one of them seemed to be of conflicting opinions, so maybe? It was a long shot, but these people weren’t exactly sane. If he could get them to just give up and leave, that would be a whole lot less to have to worry about.

“Or we could stay and help you!” Toga said brightly. “I’ve been wanting to spend more time with you! I know all about your quirk, Izuku-kun! You can get quirks from people you kill!”

“I don’t kill,” Izuku said, then he had a flash of Dr. Suoh, who he technically did kill. “If I can help it.”

She nodded sympathetically. “I know! It’s really too bad. But that’s what would make it so great for us to team up! I could kill ‘em for you!”

“It’s a win-win!” Twice agreed. “Don’t listen to her!”

“I don’t want anyone to die,” Izuku reiterated.

“But you could get their quirks!” Toga argued, as if it made perfect sense. “You could be the strongest ever! Maybe even more than Sensei!”

“I can do that without killing,” Izuku said, feeling gross even being compared to All For One.

He was wasting time. He had to find a way to subdue these two or convince them to leave. He had no idea where Eri was, and the bank of screens that normally showed video feeds of the city was only displaying static, so there were probably no transmissions getting in or out. Whether that was because of the lock down, or something the villains had done didn’t matter; the result was the same: no contact with anyone else.

“You want to help me, and punish Overhaul for what he did to your friend?” Izuku tried. “You could help by taking out as many of his men as you can. Not kill them, but maybe knock them out or something?”

“That sounds fun!” Twice said, clapping his hands. “No it doesn’t! Why should we do all the work?”

“I’ll be doing the same thing, too,” Izuku pointed out.

“Hmmm. We’re supposed to bring the girl to Shigaraki,” Toga said, sounding torn. “But your idea sounds like more fun! Think of all the blood I can collect! Let’s go Twice!”

Izuku blinked at her easy capitulation and watched as the two moved to the elevator doors that led down to the rest of the building.

“Isn’t that blocked off?” Izuku asked as he watched them pry open the doors.

He made a mental note to tell Sir that the elevator doors should also have rolling steel shutters in a lockdown.

“It was,” Twice said. “No it wasn’t!”

“Mimic made us a hole to move through!” Toga said. “See you soon, Izuku-kun!”

The two dropped into the elevator shaft, and Izuku hoped that would be the last he saw of them for a long, long time. Once they were gone, Izuku hurried to check the entire floor for signs of Eri and Twirl, becoming more and more frustrated when he couldn’t find them. Even the kitten was missing. Did Overhaul’s group already have Eri? Did Twirl manage to get her away to safety? Izuku fought off the feeling of panic trying to envelop her as he went back to the door.

He could use the override code to get back out, then let himself fall back down to the floor the meeting had been on. Sir and All Might would have a better idea of this building’s defenses, and what he should do next.

The override panel thankfully let Izuku out again, and he was surprised (though he probably shouldn’t have been) to see Kacchan on the roof. The bigger surprise was that he was holding a tearful Eri in his arms, who was clutching her purple blanket and her kitten.

“How?” Izuku asked. “Where’s…”

The grim look that Kacchan gave him, along with a sharp shake of his head told him that he shouldn’t ask about Twirl. At least, not in front of Eri. Izuku prayed he didn’t suddenly have a spinning force field quirk. Maybe Twirl had been too far out of range when she met her end?

“I followed you up here after helpin’ blast a hole in the floor for everyone to get through,” Kacchan said. “Eri was hidden up here inside one of those huge tractor tires All Might made us flip all over the roof. I heard the cat and found ‘em.”

“Ms. Twirl told me to stay there while she went to get help,” Eri said tremulously.

“You did good, Eri,” Izuku assured her. “We’re going to make sure you’re safe.”

The only others up here had been Toga and Twice. Had they been the ones to kill Twirl? How had they failed to find Eri?

“Best way to do that is to get her away from this building,” Kacchan said. “I can’t carry her and travel with my blasts at the same time.”

Izuku had an idea, and held out his arms for Eri. Kacchan passed her over immediately.

“Two of the League were inside,” he told Kacchan. “Twice, who makes copies of people, and Toga - the shape shifter. I kinda convinced them to take down as many of Overhaul’s men as they could, because they said they were supposed to be working with them, but they don’t like it. They jumped down the elevator shaft. No idea if they’ll actually do it.”

Kacchan opened his mouth as if to comment, then shut it again with an audible snap. “What’s your plan?”

“I’m going to take Eri somewhere they won’t think to look for her, then I’ll come back to help,” Izuku said. “She’s their main goal, so if they can’t get her, they lose. “

“Got it,” Kacchan said. “I’ll work on taking down the villains here. Don’t fu--mess this up, nerd.”

Izuku nodded with determination and settled Eri so that she was wrapped in her blanket and cradled in his arms. She held tight to the kitten as Izuku began to run for the edge of the roof. He hit the edge with a huge, One For All fuelled leap and launched himself out over the city. His foot protested, but didn’t fail him as pushed himself skyward.

He would have expected Eri to scream or squirm, but she simply buried her face against his chest and put all of her trust in him. It was humbling, and he hoped that his thundering heartbeat didn’t tip her off to how terrified he actually was. He cushioned the impact of his landings on rooftops as much as he could but knew they were still uncomfortable for Eri and her kitten. He crossed the city until he found the building that he wanted, and hurried inside. He rushed past the reception desk and took the elevator up to the seventeenth floor, murmuring comforting words to Eri the entire time. When the door slid open, the receptionist looked surprised.

“I need to see Midoriya Hisashi immediately! I’m his son, and it’s an emergency!”

The receptionist noted his bloodied shirt and the girl, then jumped up from her chair and hurriedly ushered him through a busy office. There was a woman at a desk outside the office who looked up and smiled before she realized the state Izuku was in.

“What’s…”

“Is my dad here?” Izuku demanded.

He didn’t wait for her to answer, but opened the door to the office. His dad was seated at this desk, bent over some paperwork.

“Zu?” he said when he looked up from his work.

“No time to really explain. Villains attacked Might Tower. The villains are after this little girl. Her name is Eri, and I need you to watch her and not tell ANYONE she’s here. I have to go tell the police about the attack and do what I can to help!”

He set Eri down on the floor and kneeled in front of her.

“This is my dad,” he said in his calmest, gentlest voice.

Eri looked up at the man who seemed to be an adult version of the hero in front of her. Her kitten seemed miraculously unfazed by it’s flight through the city, and hopped from her arms to investigate the new space.

“He’s great! You can trust him, okay? He’s going to make sure you’re safe while I'm going to make sure the bad guys go to jail,” Izuku told her firmly, but with enthusiasm.

His father looked stunned, but Izuku didn’t give him any time to question it.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can!” Izuku turned and ran out, even as his dad shouted after him.

“Why are you bleeding?”

“I’m fine!” he shouted back over his shoulder without stopping.

Instead of taking the elevator to the ground floor, he took it to the top, then found the door to the roof. It was locked, so he simply twisted the handle until it snapped off and hurried to leap off, bounding back to Might Tower in huge leaps. How long had it been, now? Twenty minutes? He wasn’t sure.

He pulled out his cell phone and sent a text to Iida and Todoroki to ask them to alert UA, and any other available heroes to help at Might Tower. He sent another to let Sir and All Might know that Eri was safely away from the villains and that reinforcements had been sent for. He didn’t know if it would reach them, but it was worth a try. When he got back to Might tower, it was to find the whole block surrounded by emergency vehicles and blocked off. Izuku saw that police were trying to find a way into the building without compromising the hostages’ safety. It was a hive of frustrated activity, since the villains apparently had no intention of communicating with the authorities

Izuku spotted Tsukauchi and filled him in on who the invaders were, and that they were after a little girl who Izuku had just taken to a remote location. Izuku had no idea if the Shie Hassaikai could hear him, so he didn’t say where he’d taken Eri.

“They won’t be able to achieve their main objective,” Izuku said. “We’ve already won.”

“Not yet we haven’t, “ Endeavor said as he arrived, literally dropping from the air to join them. “That building is still full of people. Do we have any idea how many villains are inside?”

Izuku felt chastened by the mild rebuke; Endeavor was right. He told him what he knew about Chisaki being the acting head, and the Eight Bullets working under him. Unfortunately what he knew wasn’t very much. He also told them about Twice and Toga and his strange conversation with them. Endeavor promised to help, and told Izuku to seek medical attention.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Endeavor told him flatly. “There could be fatalities.”

As he said that, a scream tore from a person falling from the building, apparently pushed or thrown from the hole that Izuku had used to escape the building to access the rooftop before. Izuku raced to catch them, but was just a split second too late, having been hampered by Endeavor moving to do the same and knocking into him. The person hit the ground with a sickening squelching sound, obviously dead on impact; eyes staring sightlessly at the sky.

A jolt of fear and regret hit Izuku like a brick wall...but that was all. No new quirk immediately made itself known. A split second later, a plague mask landed with a clatter beside the dead man, marking him as one of the villains. Izuku felt sick at the sight of blood pooling under the man’s head. Without the plague mask, he looked so… ordinary.

“Let’s get an I.D. on this guy,” Tsukauchi told his men, shaking his head in disgust.

Endeavor was watching Izuku carefully, but didn’t comment when Izuku stumbled to the curb and vomited in the gutter. Izuku felt better after emptying his stomach, which had been twisting with nerves since he’d opened the conference room door to chaos. He wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand and turned back to Endeavor.

“I can get you inside through the roof,” he said. “I can override the security lock there, but there’s a separate elevator to the lower floors from there, and we might be able to use that to travel down into the building.”

“There’s no ‘we’ in this,” Endeavor told him with a grunt. “Give me the code and then get back to school and have the old lady patch you up.”

“It requires my palm print along with the code. The door will relock itself after five seconds.”

“Damn it, don’t blame me if you end up with a bunch of quirks you don’t want or can’t handle,” Endeavor growled at him.

“Hold it,” Tsukauchi said. “Take a couple of my men with you. The more eyes we have on the inside, the better.”

He quickly called over two of his officers wearing swat gear and Endeavor scowled as he grabbed each of them by the back of their vests and ascended quickly toward the roof in a white hot burst of flame. Izuku kicked off of the ground and beat them there by only a second, and rushed over to the panel by the door.

”Final override access granted. The door will re-lock in five, four, three…”

“Final?” Izuku asked. “Crap.”

The shutters rolled away, and the door unlocked, allowing Endeavor to shove the two officers through before himself. Izuku managed to slide in, even though Endeavor tried halfheartedly to block him at the last second, and then they were closed in with an ominous sounding clank! as the door sealed itself, probably for the final time.

They did a quick sweep of the entire floor for intruders before going to the elevator shaft, which was still partially jammed open from Toga and Twice’s earlier descent.

“Keep in mind that there is a shape shifter and someone who can make duplicates of pretty much anyone loose in the tower, too,” Izuku told them as Endeavor forced the elevator doors wide and basically welded them open with his flames.

The two officers nodded, and began to descend the weirdly twisted elevator shaft with caution.

“One of their people can possess objects and manipulate them,” Izuku said when they exclaimed in dismay at the distorted space. “I don’t know how big of a space they can control. Or if they have to stay merged with it to keep it like this, or if there's a time limit, even.”

If he had to stay merged, then there was a real worry that they could distort again at any moment, or that they could see and hear pretty much anything going on.

“I could probably force my way through with my fists or feet,” Izuku said, “But we’d lose any element of surprise.”

“I’m here to do my job,” Endeavor told him coldly. “Not babysit. I’ll handle what I need to. You should do the same. Try not to get killed.”

With that, Endeavor dropped into the elevator shaft after the two officers, the glow of his flames casting strange shadows as he disappeared from sight.

Izuku waited a minute for them to make downward progress, then dropped into the hole himself. Keeping in mind what he knew about the Eight bullets, and what Sir had told him earlier about a weakness in the floor and ceiling of each floor, he went in search of a way to help free the hostages, knowing that Eri was safe, but no one else was.

Chapter 74

Summary:

Things have gone from bad to worse. The heroes need a plan.

Finding the bottom floors wasn’t all that hard. The elevator shaft was a strange maze of improbable angles and tight spaces but Izuku was small and agile, and had no problem slipping through. There were signs of Endeavor’s passage through in the temperature of the surfaces Izuku moved through, and the bits of metal that had been melted and bent to make small spaces large enough for his frame. It was also easy to see where he had decided he’d had enough of the elevator shaft and had half-forced, half-melted a hole in what had once been doors leading out to another floor. Izuku was careful not to get burned by the still-soft, heated metal as he moved through to the floor with the sidekicks’ dormitories on it. He wasn’t sure where Endeavor had gone from here...maybe the stairs? Sir had said he would work on getting access to the stairwells. Izuku was willing to bet there would be plenty of villains to face there, but not many civilians.

If there was a weakness in the floor and the ceiling of each floor, Izuku assumed it would be in a place that could easily be smashed through by someone of All Might’s caliber of strength, probably in a straight line from the top to the ground floor, so in an emergency, All Might could simply make his own way out (or through) the building. Since the elevator shaft could serve the same sort of purpose, it was logical to conclude that that pathway would be set on the opposite side of the building, in case the bank of elevators wasn’t a viable option. They would also be places in areas where it would be unlikely anyone would be injured if All MIght suddenly burst through the floor or ceiling on his way through. Izuku zipped around the floor, looking for any place that might serve that purpose, and finally found it. A small, tiled space on the floor, with a decorative table and a large potted plant taking up most of the space.

At first glance, it seemed like just an interior design element, giving some greenery to an otherwise mundane space, but the placement was a bit...strange. Izuku tried to think of other floors on the building, and whether or not there were similar areas on the other floors, and he thought there just might be. It was worth a try, and if he was wrong, he’d have to find a way to help pay for any damage he was about to cause. He moved the plant off of the tile, not wanting to kill it if it could be saved.

He let his levitation take him to the ceiling, where he braced his back against the tiles and extended his arms out. Grabbing the wrist of his left arm, he locked his elbow and braced as he prepared to use his Air Force move. Using his thumb and middle finger to flick with all of the 35% of One For All he could put behind it. He felt the tiles under his back cave as the impact of the wind hit the floor, causing it to cave downward. True to his suspicion, there were no steel beams or load bearing columns to impede the way, and the tiled area crashed down through the next floor’s ceiling, causing a plume of chalky dust.

Izuku waited a moment to see if anyone would shout, or shoot or otherwise come up through the hole he’d just made. Nothing happened, so Izuku dropped through the hole he’d made and searched the floor for any sign of trouble or civilians. He found neither, though a few of the doors were locked. He called through the doors that if there was anyone in there, they should stay put and stay safe until the danger was passed.

Then he repeated the same thing again and again. Each floor he broke through, using Air Force or Shoot Style or just straight up punches. It wasn’t easy on his body, since he wasn’t in his hero costume, but it was manageable. When he found civilians, he told them to stay locked up where they were until the danger was passed. It wasn’t until he’d searched seven floors that he actually ran into any type of resistance.

Izuku skidded to a stop as he came face to face with a man with a burlap sack over his head. There was a mouth stitched into a smile, and round eye holes cut into it to fashion a mask, and though his clothing was completely normal, the whole effect was unsettling.

“So hungry!” the figure said after spotting Izuku,

“I can tell,” Izuku told him, eyeing him warily, spooked at how the food quirk was jangling inside of him, unable to pinpoint any one food the man wanted to eat. Normally his quirk would have told him exactly what this man was hungry for, but there was some indefinable air about him that said he’d be happy to eat literally anything. It didn’t even matter if it was supposed to be food.

“Are you one of Overhaul’s men?” he tried, hoping the man felt talkative.

“So, so hungry!” the man moaned, heading toward Izuku with his arms stretched out as if to make a grab for him. “Eat! Eat! EAT!”

His speed was impressive, but no match for Izuku’s own. Every time the man lunged for him, Izuku evaded easily, and they played a brief game of cat and mouse until Izuku used his Air Force move to send the man flying backward into a wall. It should have been enough to knock the man out, but he was getting to his feet as Izuku prepared to rush the man and try to knock him unconscious. He was just beginning to lunge when a white blur streaked past, and the scarecrow-like visage was suddenly wrapped in… Aizawa’s capture weapon. The cloth straps were wound with precise placement to keep clear of the suspect’s mouth, but still incapacitate him.

“Sorry, this one got past me while I was dealing with another one. Suneater took care of two others in the stairwell,” his teacher said. “Why aren’t you with Eri?”

“How do I know you’re not Toga or a copy Twice made?” Izuku asked in the way of an answer.

Izuku stared at Aizawa with suspicion. Had they mentioned Eri’s name in the meeting?

“I know about One For All,” Aizawa told him, sounding approving.

That was good enough for Izuku.

“I took her someplace else,” Izuku said vaguely. “She isn’t in Might Tower anymore.”

Aizawa nodded.

“There’s a situation further down and I’m going to need to get down there. How are you feeling?” Aizawa said. “There have been some...casualties.”

“I know,” Izuku said, thinking of Twirl and the Shie Hassaikai man who’d fallen to his death outside. “So far, I’m fine. If I picked up any new quirks, I don’t know what they are, yet. I feel normal.”

“Your arms are black and blue, and I’m pretty sure you’ve got some broken fingers,” Aizawa told him after a quick observation. “Plus you’re soaked in blood. Is that someone else’s?”

Izuku looked down at his shirt.

“No, it’s mine. When they broke into the conference room one of them shot at me. I think they were trying to shoot me with one of those quirk cancelling ones they shot Suneater with the other day, but all of my quirks are… oh.”

“Maybe the bullet you got hit with only erased your base quirk,” Aizawa said thoughtfully. “Which means that until it wears off, you won’t inherit any new quirks.”

That idea was sort of… liberating. Izuku didn’t have to worry for at least a few hours about gaining any unwanted quirks.

Aizawa looked over at the man he’d been holding captive and saw that he was no longer struggling. He seemed to have passed out, possibly from lack of air. Izuku helped his teacher secure the man that Aizawa called Tabe. They made sure he was tied to a chair, since the man could apparently chew through and consume almost any substance.

“What’s going on down below?” Izuku asked as Aizawa headed back toward the stairwell. “The upper floors are clear as far as I can tell. Some employees following lock down protocol, but no villains.”

“Hostage situation,” Aizawa said grimly. “Overhaul says he’ll kill one person every five minutes until Eri is brought to him.”

“Holy shit! It’s been at least an hour since they first…” Izuku said, feeling panic surge.

“Calm Down. He’s only killed two so far,” Aizawa said in a hard voice. “That was before the heroes knew what was going on. There are people down there with quirks to keep Overhaul from touching anyone, and as long as they hold out, this whole thing is at a standoff. From what I hear, even if he changes the landscape, the hostages are safe.”

“Is there a plan?” Izuku asked, noting that the stairwells seemed to be clear, now.

“We’ve been whittling down Overhaul’s men. We’ve taken down at least three of the Eight Bullets, and at least a dozen of their underlings,” Aizawa reported.

“One of the Eight got tossed out of the fifth floor window and died on impact,” Izuku said, “Slim build, light hair, black plague mask.”

He wrestled with the fresh mental image and forced himself to stay calm and objective. There would be time to fall apart later. Hopefully.

“That would have been Setsuna Toya,” Aizawa informed him. “I don’t know who took him out, though. So that makes four of the eight. Overhaul is keeping Chronostasis and Nemoto Shin close to him, down with the hostages. Fat Gum, Red Riot and Suneater were all fighting their way up the stairwell ahead of me, trying to reach Eri. Lemillion got hit with a quirk canceling bullet, but still went with them. Several others are also searching the building from different directions. Maybe they’ll run into the other three.”

“Why aren’t you down there, using your quirk on Overhaul?” Izuku asked curiously.

“I can’t stare at him for hours without blinking,” he said with a shrug. “I can be more useful up here, for now.”

“Have you run into Endeavor?” Izuku asked.

“He’s down with the hostages, helping keep Overhaul at bay,” Aizawa said.

“All Might and Sir?” Izuku asked as they traveled downward.

“They were working on a way to get all of the employees who aren’t active hostages out of the building. The Eight Bullets’ job was apparently to gather up as many people as they could and bring them down to the first floor to be held as ransom for Eri. The rest of us are working to keep that from happening. Rock Lock has the stairway to the first floor sealed off from the upper floors with desks and tables he locked to the walls and floor.”

“I can help get people out,” Izuku said immediately. “There are hundreds of employees that work here! They’re going to need lots of help.”

“Go ahead, kid,” he told his student. “Mimic’s been taken down, so the walls shouldn’t be changing around anymore, unless Overhaul lets loose.”

Izuku nodded, and sprinted ahead, jumping down flights of stairs where he could to reach the second floor. He knew immediately when he reached the right place, because it was packed with people. Most were sitting quietly on the floor, leaving paths to walk down hallways. There were open office doors that Izuku could see were filled with frightened people as he walked through.

“All Might?” he asked when he spotted Centipeder moving around, patrolling the area and offering bottles of water and quiet words of comfort.

Centipeder pointed to the end of the hallway, in the direction that Izuku was already moving. Izuku nodded his thanks and kept moving. At the end of the hall was a small conference room, where Sir, All Might, Bubble Girl and a couple of the heroes that had been injured by quirk cancelling bullets in the initial attack were holed up. Ryukyu had a bandage around her arm, and Uraraka and Tsuyu were standing nearby, watching events unfold. Kacchan was there as well, looking angry and arguing that they should just let him blow a hole in the wall and get the civilians out that way.

“I’ve already told you a dozen times, that will attract too much attention. We can’t afford to draw attention to this many people basically over their heads. It would be a simple matter for Overhaul to rebuild this portion of the building. There’s no way to get this many people out quickly enough to escape notice.”

Izuku could see the frustration in Kacchan’s expression.

“Gestalt,” Sir said when he spotted Izuku. “What can you report?”

“I took Eri to another part of the city and left her with someone I trust,” Izuku said, knowing that Kacchan would have already told them that. “Then I came back here, talked to Endeavor and the police, and used the override to let him and a couple of SWAT members in. I don‘t think the override will work for me, again.”

Sir confirmed that three times was the maximum with his code, though All Might had unlimited access, of course, but he was the only one.

“You’re injured, my boy,” All Might said with concern.

Uraraka looked at him sharply and grabbed a first-aid kit with the clear intent to tend to Izuku’s wounds.

“I got shot when they first broke in,” Izuku said, looking down at the dried blood on his shirt. “It seems pretty superficial; it’s not even bleeding anymore. “

Uraraka nudged his hands away and lifted his shirt to show a small hole in his side that seemed to have exited a few centimeters away. The area was red and bruised, but otherwise didn’t look too bad.
.
“But your quirks still work?” All Might asked with surprise.

“All but one,” Izuku said with a grim nod. “It seems like they’ve canceled out Inheritance, at least temporarily.”

Uraraka went to put bandages on Izuku’s wounds, but quickly discovered that the tape wouldn't stick. He gave her a rueful look and a slight shrug.

“Small mercies,” Sir muttered. “You and Bakugou are just the team we need.”

That got both young mens’ attention.

Sir quickly told them his plan, and everyone nodded in determination. It was simple, solid and most of all, it was easy. Izuku and Kacchan hurried back through the second floor and to the stairwell, where they silently made their way upward. They ran into Suneater and Lemillion, who were looking tired and a bit beat up, but were up and moving. They quickly told him the plan, and they agreed to go down to the second floor to help organize. Izuku and Kacchan kept moving, stopping to explain to a couple of other heroes that they needed to go to each floor and find any locked down employees and get them ready to be evacuated.

It took some time to reach the top of the lower floors, but then they felt free to make as much noise as they needed. They blew a hole through the ceiling to get to the upper floors and immediately parted ways. Kacchan was heading to UA, and Izuku dropped to the ground to relay to the police what was about to happen.

Tsukauchi listened, then sprang into action, putting in calls and directing his men. Izuku made sure everything was clear, then jumped back up to the hole in the fifth floor, and back into the building. It was there that he ran into Toga and Twice again.

“Midoriya-kun!” Toga exclaimed with glee when she saw Izuku appear. “Did you get some new quirks? We killed a whole bunch of Overhaul’s guys, so you should be super, super powered, now!”

“Those guys were wimps!” Twice said with a nod. “They broke so easily!”

Izuku did not need to have to fight these two, and sighed inwardly.

“I told you not to…” he began.

“You’re not the boss of us!” Twice shouted. “We do what we want!”

“What’s your range?” Toga asked excitedly. “Did you get all of them? So many quirks!”

“Overhaul’s men shot me with a quirk cancelling bullet, so I can’t get any new quirks right now,” Izuku confessed, hoping it would make them stop murdering people.

“Those bastards!” Twice said. Then he pointed at Izuku and shouted, “HA-HA!”

“Anyway,” Izuku told them while Toga stuck out her lower lip in a pout, “All of the heroes in the building are about to come through here checking every floor.”

“They already came through!” Toga said. “It’s so easy to hide here!”

“This time they’ve got people with quirks that will help them find everyone,” Izuku said, trying to sound convincing. “If you have a way to get out of here, you should probably go before they catch you.”

“Why aren’t you trying to catch us?” Toga asked.

“Didn’t you say you were going to help me?” Izuku asked. “Wouldn’t it be pretty bad if I just attacked you after you agreed to work with me?”

“You are a hero!” Twice exclaimed. “Scumbag!”

“I’ll have to try to arrest you the next time, though,” Izuku told them.

“Yay!” Toga said, clapping her hands happily. “I can’t wait!”

Izuku had to struggle to keep his face expressionless.

“You only have a few minutes,” Izuku told them. “The others won’t hesitate to arrest you.”

Izuku hoped they took his advice, so they didn’t have to deal with two more psychopaths on top of everything else. Normally, he would stand and fight, but they were kind of in the middle of something a lot bigger. He hoped he wouldn’t be in trouble for this later.

“Got it!” Toga said, giving him a flirty wave. “Until next time, Izu-chan!”

Izuku tried not to react in any way as turned and hurried from the room. He had a feeling that Toga and Twice wouldn’t leave while he was watching them, and he didn’t have time to waste. He sped to the second floor, where all of the people were being divided into two groups. Izuku quickly relayed that all of the plans for Tsukauchi were underway, and he privately filled in Sir and All Might about Toga and Twice, just in case they hadn’t left, after all. Both looked concerned, but agreed that he’d done the best thing under the circumstances.

“Let’s set this plan into motion,” Sir said once they were ready to move. “I don’t like being this close to the first floor with this many people.”

Lemillion, Suneater and Bubble Girl took charge of one group of people who were apparently just waiting for a signal, and they all walked quietly and mostly calmly in a single file line out of the hall, and toward the stairwell. Izuku watched as they moved to start climbing, but stayed behind with the second group. When the first group was clear, All Might, Centipeder, Sir and Rapidfire each assisted an injured hero that Uraraka had used her quirk on, though the remaining ones could walk without help. Izuku agreed to lead the way while the able-bodied heroes brought up the rear.

Like the group before them, everyone was quiet and calm as they walked single file into the stairwell, following Izuku and the others up the steps toward the fifth floor. He noticed that a few were holding hands in support of each other. If luck was on their side, Tsukauchi had used the time wisely, and Kacchan had made it to UA by now. It would take the first group quite a while to travel all the way up to the roof, which is why only the fittest and youngest employees had been placed in that one. The group Izuku was leading were all older, or less fit, and wouldn’t have been able to make such a long journey.

At the fifth floor, Izuku was relieved to find that Toga and Twice were nowhere to be seen. Izuku went to the hole he had made in the hallway earlier and looked down below. To his relief, he could see a figure in a UA uniform below with a very distinctive red and white head.

“The cavalry's here,” he told All Might and Sir. “I can see Todoroki down there.”

“Okay. Let’s try to make this fast. Go down and see if he can do what we need him to,” Sir said. “The sooner, the better.”

Izuku hopped out the window and let himself plummet a bit before engaging his levitation and landing in the street. He jogged over to where Todoroki was, noting that Midnight had come along, as well. Midnight was holding the case with Izuku’s class number on it, meaning he now had a hero costume. He might not be able to fully suit up, but it was something, at least, Hopefully they wouldn’t lose any more people before this was over.

Chapter 75

Summary:

Things do NOT go as planned...

Izuku outlined what Sir and All Might needed for Todoroki to do as he dressed in his auxiliary gear, leaving the main suit in the case. He was glad the building’s lock down protocols kept anyone inside from seeing out, so they would be shielded from view as they worked. He hoped that it was also well insulated inside, or else the cold might give something away. Either way, this was the fastest solution to evacuating a lot of people quickly.

As requested, there was a line of buses beginning to pull up along the curb of the closed-off street, opening their doors and waiting. Policemen with clipboards were on standby to take the names of any of the evacuated, to make sure that everyone got accounted for as they left the building. Everything seemed to be in place. Izuku led Todoroki to the section of the building with the hole in the side and Todoroki sized it up before nodding and extending his right hand.

Within a few moments, he had layered ice upward to the hole, then gradually lower to create a huge slide that curved slightly to send anyone who used it down a short length of the street, where there was plenty of room. Izuku travelled back up to the hole and made sure it was safe and stable, with no sharp edges. He sat on the ice, grimacing at the cold and wishing for his full hero costume as he allowed gravity to pull him downward. The ride was a bit bumpy, but not too jarring. The seat of his pants were wet and cold by the time he skidded to a stop, and he allowed Todoroki to help him to his feet when he reached the bottom.

“Great job,” Izuku told him with a smile. “This is a huge help.”

He turned and gave a thumbs up to All Might and Sir, then stood back so the police could take care of finishing the evacuation. The people would be sent down one at a time, helped up, their names taken, and then they would be allowed to board one of the busses. When the bus was full, it would take the employees to a nearby convention center where they could receive any assistance they needed to get home.

At almost the same time as the second person was boarding the bus, the first group of people who had traveled up to the roof were brought down to the ground in what Izuku imagined was a terrifying ride in one of Yoarashi’s wind bubbles. There were about a dozen people huddled together as he stood in the middle of them as if on solid ground, ferrying them from the roof to the street where police were waiting to direct them. Yoarashi saluted and rocketed back up to the roof to get the next group of people.

Izuku, relieved that the evacuation was going so smoothly, let out a small sigh and then launched himself up with a jump and his levitation, going all the way to the roof. He knew that getting these people to safety was only the first hurdle. There were still at least three madmen in the building’s lobby, holding dozens of people hostage. Even if they were at a standstill with the heroes already in there, anything could happen at any moment to change that. That was why he was so relieved to see Honenuki and Kaibara from 1-B on the roof with Kacchan, trying to keep everyone calm before they were taken by Yoarashi down to the ground.

“Honenuki, Tsubaraba” Izuku said with a welcoming smile. “I’m so glad to see you. Did Kacchan fill you in on what we want to happen?”

“He did. It’s a pretty brilliant idea, but it’s risky, too. Bakugou said the villains always wear masks… that might foil the plan right there,” Honenuki said.

“I think it’s better to try than to leave things the way they are,” Izuku said. Even if it comes down to a battle, at least the civilians should be safe enough,” Izuku said with more confidence than he felt. “Once all of these people get to safety, we’ll go back down to the street and get started.”

The evacuation took a lot less time than Izuku imagined, and soon the group of heroes from the roof was down on the street watching the last of the buses pull away, taking employees to safety. Tsubaraba was taking deep breaths, getting ready for his part in the unfolding plan. All MIght kept a hand on the boy’s shoulder, giving last words of encouragement as Honenuki checked to see if Midnight was ready for her part.

All of the able-bodied heroes that were left standing and ready to fight were lined up at intervals around the building, waiting for the signal. The tension in the air was almost palpable as Honenuki knelt on the ground and touched a spot on the security shutters that Sir pointed out to him. The police had been using infrared heat scanners to monitor where everyone was, and planned accordingly. Hnnenuki then nodded to Midnight, who came forward and ripped the sleeves of her hero costume away. Everyone backed up so that her quirk wouldn’t affect them while she shoved her arms through the wall of steel and glass.

She turned her head to keep it from becoming submerged in the softened wall, and her face looked flushed from her efforts to expel as much of her quirk’s fragrance into the room where the hostages were being held. Tsukauchi’s men assured her that her arms had penetrated into an area behind a crowd of hostages, and should be well hidden from Overhaul and Chronostasis.

“I don’t know if it’s doing any good,” She grunted, a sheen of sweat on her face. “Maybe I should just go completely in and strip as much as I can.”

“Anyone have some of those quirk enhancers?” one of the officers half-joked nervously. “That’d come in handy about now.”

“He’s not wrong,” Midnight said, sounding serious.

“Not an option,” Sir said firmly. “If you don’t think you can do it, then we’d be best off letting Tsubaraba put the hostages in a forcefield and just forcing our way in.”

“The people in close proximity to Midnight are beginning to drop,” the officer reported, keeping an eye on the screen of his device. “It’s getting the attention of others in the room.”

“If they don’t all go down fast,Overhaul and his cronies are going to become suspicious,” All Might said with a frown.

“I could…” Izuku said, pinching his bottom lip in thought…”I could use Air Force to blow them through the softened windows and force them outside of the building, but that might cause even more trouble if we can’t keep him contained.”

Izuku wasn’t really speaking to anyone in particular; rather, he was quietly brainstorming ways he could help the situation.

“If we got him out into the open, he could use his quirk to alter the landscape, but if Eraserhead stopped him, we could take him into custody before he could hurt anyone else. Chronostasis isn’t a match for this number of heroes, since he can really only affect one or two people with his quirk at a time. Nemoto’s not strong, either. On the other hand, is keeping the fight contained inside the building any better? He could bring the whole building down, or change it into anything he wanted, really…”

“Overhaul is moving,” the officer said.

“Midnight, get out of there.” Sir said tersely. “Mudman, harden the wall.”

All Might helped Midnight slide her arms out of the wall, and offered her his jacket.

“Sorry,” she apologized, looking fatigued. “That lobby has tall ceilings, I couldn’t emit enough to make a difference.”

“Some of them are getting a nice nap, instead of a stress-filled hostage situation,” Honenuki offered awkwardly.

Sir was standing near the officer monitoring the heat signatures inside, his brow furrowed.

“We need to move quickly. Overhaul is making agitated movements. It won’t be long before he loses patience altogether,” Sir told them all. “Izuku’s idea is a solid one; find Eraserhead and prepare to engage.”

“Wait. What? My plan?” Izuku asked.

His mind was racing with possibilities, and it took him a moment to recall what he’d been muttering about earlier.

“Mudman will soften the wall here, and on the other side of the building. Gestalt and Tsubaraba will go through the wall on this side, as quickly as possible. Gestalt will use Air Force to blow Overhaul, Nemoto and Chronostasis out of the building. Aizawa will lock onto Overhaul while the police move in to contain him. Tsubaraba will do his best to shield the hostages from being blown out, but his abilities are limited in such a large space. We’ll have to rely on the quick thinking of the heroes inside to adapt, and the ones out here to act in tandem to protect and evacuate.”

Izuku wasn’t sure how he felt about this; was his idea really good enough? He felt the weight of the others’ eyes on him, but none of them looked judgmental, just determined.

“The rest of us will be on the other side, making sure the villains don’t get away, should anything go wrong.”

“Tempest, maybe you should head over to the other side to make an Ice shield to protect the buildings around us, if you can. If things don’t go as planned, we don’t want them attacking another building to get more hostages,” All Might told Todoroki.

“Those buildings should be evacuated by now,” Tsukauchi told him. “But keeping property damage to a minimum would be appreciated.”

Todoroki moved off to do his part, and Izuku steeled himself for his own. There were people scurrying everywhere to get into position. Izuku flexed his fingers inside of his costume glove and noted that while they were really bruised, none of them felt broken. At the back of his mind, he was already wincing at the scolding he was sure to get from Recovery Girl when this was over. Still, all he really needed was one good shot with Air Force to finish his part in all of this. It was almost over.

Tsubaraba and Izuku stood shoulder to shoulder with each other in front of the wall that Honenuki had softened before he’d gone off to the other side of the building.

“Ready?” Tsubaraba asked Izuku quietly.

Izuku nodded.

“I’ll wait until you put up the shield before acting,”

Tsubaraba nodded, took an enormously deep breath, and began to step through the wall. Izuku followed suit, and both of them held their breath as they emerged on the other side of the wall.

The scene was pretty much what they expected, having seen the screen of the officer’s device showing where all of the heat signatures were. Almost everyone was sitting in a group on the floor, with Endeavor, Rock Lock, Fat Gum and Kirishima all standing, along with a couple of other heroes and at least two employees, all holding the line between the villains and the hostages.

The appearance of two figures walking through the wall was Very Noticeable™. Heads swiveled in their direction, but by the time anyone could react, Tsubaraba was already letting out his breath in a steady stream, turning his body to lay down a wide swath of solid air over those on the ground. Once he ran out of breath, he breathed deep again to continue, but Izuku was already letting out his breath and kicking up into the air. He took aim at the three villains before using Air Force at full power.

It worked exactly as he had hoped in regards to the villains, though a handful of others also got caught in the wind where Tsubaraba’s shield didn’t quite reach. The Heroes had been quick to brace themselves and even quicker to grab the hostages who were being blown away. Izuku had been thrown backward into the wall near the ceiling, which was (thankfully) still solid. He kicked off of the wall and let himself land on the solid air shield, sprinting toward the far wall, where Overhaul, Nemoto and Chronostasis had disappeared from his sight as they passed through it.

By the time Izuku made it across the lobby and out through the softened wall of the other side, Overhaul and Chronostasis were surrounded by heroes. Eraserhead’s eyes were glowing red as he used his quirk to keep Overhaul from using his quirk to escape. Officers were closing in with the restraints that would hold both villains as they were transported to prison. Nemoto was nowhere to be seen, but the two biggest threats seemed to be contained.

It happened in the blink of an eye. Chronostasis, with hands held high in the air in apparent surrender, suddenly shot out a lock of his hair toward Aizawa’s face, causing him to dodge reflexively and lose eye contact with Overhaul. The arrow of hair penetrated shallowly on his forehead, and Izuku knew that this meant Eraserhead’s quirk would be slowed down Overhaul instantly made a grab for his minion and all hell broke loose.

It was impossible to describe in words the horrible sound it made. The way that Overhaul seemed to absorb Chronostasis into himself, deconstructed himself and his underling and reconstructed into something monstrous. Izuku supposed it resembled a nomu in a way, with it’s grotesque size and misshapen body. Neither Overhaul nor Chronostasis had been overly muscular, but this abomination was bulging with muscles and veins that seemed to throb. There was no exposed brain, but there was a beak of sorts in the form of an elaborate looking plague mask that was lined with viciously long teeth. Bat-like wings formed on it’s shoulder blades, and Izuku prepared to kick off into the air after it, but flight wasn’t Overhaul’s first choice of action.

His hair was now made up of multiple arrows. He’d merged Chronostasis’s quirk with his own body, and apparently with his own quirk. One of the arrows shot out at Honenuki, who was nearby, and the ground exploded into sand, the provisional hero having just narrowly leaped away in time. Suddenly everyone, including Izuku, was dodging arrows shot from the thing that used to be Overhaul’s head. One of the heroes that Izuku vaguely knew as Mr. Brave wasn’t fast enough, and there were shouts of alarm as the hero was suddenly vaporized into a cloud of blood that rained to the ground in a gory puddle where he’d been standing.

The heroes redoubled their efforts to stop the creature while the police retreated to a safer distance. Tsubaraba was breathing out shields as quickly as he could for the police and heroes to shelter behind in between their attempts to hit Overhaul. The restraints they had prepared for two regular sized men would do nothing useful now. Endeavor was blasting flames at the thing, while Tempest tried ice. The ice was deconstructed instantly, but the fire seemed to annoy it. Tempest switched elements and began trying to use his fire spiral to contain them while Endeavor fed into it, turning it into more of a tornado.

Yoarashi, whose hero name was Gale, appeared in the air and shouted that he could contain the threat. He sent a narrow tube of wind down the center of the fire tornado and lifted Overhaul into the air. Once clear of the fire and closer to Gale, arrows shot out from all directions like helicopter blades hitting Might tower and turning the security shutters into steel shrapnel, propelled by the wind straight at Gale at hurricane speeds. Gale’s concentration slipped as he suffered multiple hits by jagged pieces of metal. For just long enough, the air stilled and a gun appeared in one of Overhaul’s hands. With a loud report, he fired the gun straight at Gale, striking him in the arm that he’d thrown up to shield his face from flying metal.

A moment later, Gale was in free fall, and Izuku was leaping up to catch him before he hit the ground.

“My quirk,” Gale gasped, clutching his arm. “It’s not working!”

“The same happened to me,” Sun Eater told him, coming to crouch beside him with a small first aid kit. “It was temporary.”

Izuku gritted his teeth and prayed that the one he’d been hit with still had some time left in his system.

“I’m going up,” he said with determination.

He aimed as best he could and kicked off the ground. He rocketed toward Overhaul, trying to stay beneath him, where he would have a harder time hitting Izuku with the arrows. He got in a hit that sent Overhaul tumbling in the air, unused to flight with the wings he’d given himself. A shot rang out a moment later, but the bullet wasn’t aimed at him, it was aimed at Aizawa, who dodged. The heroes below were scrambling to come up with a containment plan, and Izuku could see he was getting in the way of the long-range fighters. He dropped to the ground to give others a better chance and moved to check on Yoarashi. Before he could reach him however, a hand grabbed him, and a voice growled in his ear.

“Where is Eri?”

“I took her to my father’s office to keep her safe,” Iuzku said immediately.

“Where is it?” the voice demanded.

“The Ticoh building. Seventeenth floor.”

Izuku couldn’t control what he was saying, even though he was trying with everything inside of him. Why? Why had he answered so easily? It had to be a quirk! Now Eri and his father were both in grave danger!

“Did you hear that boss?” the voice said triumphantly. “Eri is on the seventeenth floor of the Ticoh building!”

Izuku, seemingly freed from the spell he’d been under, turned and punched the man who had just interrogated him in the face. The man’s plague mask crumbled under the impact and his head snapped backward. A moment later, the man was up to his chin in ice. Izuku whipped around to see that Overhaul was flying away from the scene, in the direction of the Ticoh building.

“No!” Izuku shouted. “He’s going after Eri! She’s with my dad at his office!”

Sir immediately pressed his phone to his ear while the heroes gave chase as best they could. Izuku had to give chase now, before Overhaul reached his goal. People scattered in all directions, with All Might trying to keep Izuku from blinding following, but failing.

Izuku shook off All Might’s arm and leapt into the air, letting himself land on the roof of Might Tower just long enough to get a running start for his next leap. He spotted Overhaul, already some distance away, apparently having become accustomed to flight once he started moving. He was fast, and Izuku tried to urge himself forward faster, but was forced to land every couple of blocks to give himself more momentum without letting his levitation take him too high. On one rooftop he tripped over a pipe that was painted the same color as the roof and cartwheeled; his balance keeping him from being injured, but costing him time. He had to backtrack and get another running start to launch himself into the air.

His heartbeat was roaring in his ears as he finally reached his father’s building. Chronostasis was lying face-down near the doorway, unconscious and discarded by Overhaul now that his usefulness was over. Izuku stepped over him and raced down the stairs to the seventeenth floor. There were frightened people crouching behind or under their desks, and Izuku didn’t pause as he ran in the direction of his dad’s office.

“Izuku!”

He whirled around at the sound of his father’s voice and found a very different looking Midoriya Hisashi standing nearby with smoke billowing from his mouth and nose. Izuku’s father looked… young, and it was hard to comprehend that this was what his father had looked like in his late teens or early twenties.

“What the…” Izuku asked.

“I’m sorry, Zu! That man showed up and pulled a gun, and grabbed Eri! She tried to run away when he showed up, so I grabbed her, but I couldn’t keep a hold of her!”

“Where are they now?” Izuku demanded urgently.

His father pointed to a glass door at the end of the hall that seemed to lead to the outside.

“There’s a balcony there, where some of the employees go to smoke.”

Izuku raced for the door and burst out through it so forcefully that he busted through the wall of the balcony and had to engage his levitation to keep from plummeting. He spared a glance below to make sure the debris wasn’t endangering anyone before he rotated and glared at Overhaul, who was holding Eri in a punishing grip by her upper arm. The horn on her head was noticeably longer, now. Overhaul had done something to turn off her quirk… maybe the temporary quirk eraser?

“It’s over,” Izuku told him angrily. “Let Eri go. There’s no way you’re escaping, now.”

As if to lend credence to his words, sirens wailed as the streets below became clogged with emergency vehicles, and Heroes arrived to help.

“Oh, it’s over,” Overhaul told Izuku. “Over for you. You seem rather attached to Eri, but what will you do if I do this?”

Izuku reached out to grab a piece of rebar to keep himself steady and pull himself back to the balcony. The few seconds it took him to accomplish that simple act was all it took for Overhaul press a fifth finger to Eri’s arm, and he deconstructed her in an instant. Izuku’s brain was still trying to process what had happened as the scream of rage and horror broke out of him, scoring his throat until it felt like he’d swallowed broken glass. He felt hot and cold as a shiver skated up his spine and his head began to ache as if he’d been hit by a hammer. He very nearly blacked out.

His scream was still echoing in the canyon of buildings down the street when Overhaul spoke.

“I’m the only one who can fix her,” he said, touching his hand to the puddle of gore that had once been a sweet, frightened little girl.

Suddenly Eri was whole again, looking dazed and terrified. There was no horn on her forehead anymore, however.

“Gestalt,” Eri whimpered as she hung limply in Overhaul’s grip again. “You have a horn, too.”

With dawning horror, Izuku lifted his hand and felt a short horn sticking out of the painful spot on his head, and felt his heart skip a beat.

“No. No, no. no!” he said in denial of the obvious.

“You’re that one,” Overhaul growled at Izuku in contempt. “The sickest of all of the infected! You’ve obviously been shot; the effects must have worn off much sooner than usual. And now you’ve stolen the one thing I need to cure the whole world!”

There were heroes at the broken door to the balcony, but there was no room for any of them to come out in the narrow space with half of its wall missing.

“You’re the sick one, here,” Izuku shouted at him. “Using a child like a lab rat!”

“She's worse than useless, now,” Overhaul spat.

He flung Eri over the edge of the balcony and sent her hurtling to the ground below. Izuku dove after her, but was stopped midair as something wrapped tightly around his pant leg and left him dangling. He looked up at his leg and saw something resembling a tentacle holding him for a moment before a burst of fire flared from above and Izuku’s leg came free.

He let himself free fall, but it was far too late to save Eri before she hit the ground.

No.

Her frail, pale form was still as people rushed to her, and all Izuku could do was fall, too late.

I failed.

Izuku’s mind blanked out, too overwhelmed to function.

I broke my promise to keep her safe.

The darkness was so close to swallowing him, that the only thing that could reach him was All Might’s voice, shouting.

“Don’t give up! Float!”

That demand kicked his instincts into action, and Izuku engaged his levitation enough to soften the impact when he hit the ground. He was sure one of his legs snapped when his balance tried to right his position for landing so he fell more or less on his feet, but he didn’t care.

He crawled.

He crawled to Eri.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed as made his way to her still form. “I’m so, so sorry!”

He heard so many voices shouting and talking around him, but he couldn’t understand anything but the need to get to the girl he’d failed to protect.

“Eri,” he said, finally reaching her and pulling himself into the sitting position so that he could see her properly.

He didn’t deserve the mercy of looking away from those sightless eyes that should have looked accusing, but only looked blank and innocent. He took her hand in his and choked on his tears as he realized that her skin was already going cold to the touch. He finally closed his eyes as his whole body felt twisted in knots, and he began to wail in misery and grief. He didn’t know how anything could possibly ever be okay again, after this.

“Why are you sad?”

Izuku caught his breath and gasped at the sweetest sound he’d ever heard as Eri’s little hand slipped from his own and she looked at him with eyes full of concern.

Full of life.

Chapter 76

Summary:

There is still a villain to contend with.

More than the sound of Eri’s voice, but the sight of her little horn, small again, poking out through her hair was something Izuku never thought he’d be so glad to see! He reached up to feel his own forehead and found that the horn that had been there only moments before was now gone. Eri had taken her quirk back; Izuku had rewound her.

“That bastard has wings again!” someone shouted from nearby, even as All Might was falling to his knees beside Izuku and Eri and pulling them both into a tight embrace.

Sir was crouching beside them too, looking as though he’d aged ten years in just the last handful of hours.

Eri looked upward, then cowered closer to All Might. Izuku looked to see what she was afraid of and saw that he still had a job to do. Overhaul was in the air again, though the wings he’d constructed for himself this time weren’t as large or strong. The loss of the body mass he’d gained from his fusion with Chronostasis seemed to have left him with less to work with in creating this form. His body looked almost skeletal, as if he’d used every last bit of available mass to create the wings.

“He’s not getting away,” Izuku swore.

He got to his feet, and nearly fell again when he tried to put weight on his leg. All MIght’s shoulder was steady and comforting under Izuku’s hand as he used it to brace himself on. Instead of trying to stand, Izuku pushed up into the air again, intent on bringing the villain down, even though he had no plan. As he got closer to his target, he could see that Overhaul was holding a gun, which he fired at Izuku before they were within a range that would force them into a close-quarters fight. Chisaki tried to aim again, though the flapping of the wings was hampering his efforts. All Izuku cared about at the moment was getting to Overhaul and making sure he paid for what he’d put Eri and everyone else through. The fear, pain and rage that filled him left little room for any other thoughts.

Pain lanced through Izuku, and he wondered if he’d been shot in the heart. His vision grayed and his hearing dimmed. He thought maybe he was dying, but… he didn’t feel like he was losing consciousness or altitude. His mind was still working perfectly. Was this the effect of someone’s quirk?

“Hey kid,” a voice said gruffly. “Looks like you’re in a spot of trouble.”

Izuku found his vision clearing and the pain in his chest easing, but saw that he was no longer levitating over the city, but floating in a void of blackness. There was a man facing him, bald, no eyebrows to speak of, but he did have some scruffy hair on his chin and jaw. There were goggles pushed up on his forehead, and his face was wide with a large, square jaw that gave him an under bite. He seemed to be dressed in leather pants and jacket, but no shirt, and a bandolier worn cross-body against his bare chest, though he didn’t seem to have a gun. Izuku attempted to ask him who he was. Ask WHERE he was, but whatever was happening kept him from speaking, as if his mouth was glued shut.

“I know you’ve got a lotta questions, kid, but we don’t have a lotta time,” the man told Izuku. “My name’s Daigoro, but my hero name’s Lariat. I’m the fifth user of One For All.”

Izuku’s mind spun in circles as he recalled something… a niggling memory trying to force it’s way to the front of his mind. When it finally blossomed, he wondered how he could have forgotten something so profound.

It had been after the sports festival. He’d been taken by Shigaraki and been unconscious for a few minutes. That was when he’d had the vision. Like now, he had been unable to talk, or feel anything below his nose. There had been a row of heroes standing in a line like soldiers. He’d recognized Shimura Nana from the pictures Gran had shown her, but the others had been unfamiliar. Some were shadowy figures unable to be seen, others were sharper in clarity. None of them seemed to see him. He counted them and saw there were eight. He knew immediately that these were the previous holders of One For All. The vestige of All Might was still barely a misty vapor-like shape, but still part of their number. They were all staring straight ahead as if waiting for something.

Izuku had followed their line of sight, and noticed two men, facing each other. They both had whitish hair and it was obvious by their looks that they were related in some way. He watched as the two men relived the birth of quirks and of One For All as All For One forced a quirk on his “quirkless” brother. How All For One had likened himself to a savior of a lost and leaderless people, and how he’d manipulated masses of people for his own advantage. Izuku sighed as the memories of the vision slotted into place, and he remembered that the first holder had spoken to him. How he had said that he’d wanted to show him more, but that it was too dangerous. But he’d reached out for Izuku and told him that he wasn’t alone.

That had been when the explosion had occurred that had caused the damage that had prompted Kurogiri to send Izuku back to UA.

Now, he was having another vision, but this one was more intimate than the one before. Except for the end of the last one, he’d merely been a witness to a replay history. The memory of a man long dead. Now one of the vestiges was speaking directly to Izuku, though Izuku couldn’t answer him at all.

“I don’t have a lotta time, kid. You’ve gotta get back to the fight, but you need to know what you’re dealing with. You’re manifesting my quirk, which is lucky for you, since it’s the best one of the lot. It’s called Blackwhip, and it’s comin’ out now because you’re in a desperate situation. I’ll bet you were thinkin’ that you needed help to grab hold of something that’s too far away, right? Blackwhip’ll make short work’o that! Be careful, though! My quirk has been stored up in One For All for a long time, and it’s only gotten stronger. Anger’ll help fuel it, but it can also make you lose control of it. Keep a cool head and a calm heart, and you’ll do just fine.”

Izuku could see that Daigoro’s form was beginning to get fuzzy, and his words were starting to sound as if they were coming from farther away.

“Damn. Looks like I’m outta time. Heads up, kid! Mine isn’t the only quirk that’s gonna be comin’ out, now that you’ve got a good grip on One For All. Be prepared to deal with the quirks of the other holders, too!”

With those ominous words still echoing in his mind, Izuku was tossed back into reality, not too much higher in the air than where he’d been before. Though the interaction with Daigoro seemed like it had taken longer, it appeared to have taken almost no time at all.

Black tendrils of something almost oily looking were now emanating from his hands, floating on the air around him like ribbons held aloft by a breeze.

“A cool head and a calm heart,” Izuku murmured, repeating the fifth’s words.

Easier said than done. Rage was still coursing through him, and a kind of grief that had been formed and realized and then reversed, leaving him with emotional whiplash. He had a job to finish.

Then he held out his hands toward Overhaul and, instead of pulling, he pushed with his thoughts, telling himself that he needed to grab hold and bind, without physically touching the villain. The black ribbons shot forward, and looped around Overhaul’s body several times, just as a whip might do if flicked properly. He pulled back on his arms as he might on a fishing pole with a bite on the line, and the black tendrils tightened like wires, clamping Overhaul’s arms to his body and his legs tightly to each other. The wings at his back were crushed down like a crumpled umbrella, yet blackwhip seemed to keep it’s captive suspended in the air, somehow.

Blackwhip seemed to be made of energy, because Overhaul’s fingers grabbed at the bonds repeatedly with no success. His hands scrabbled to grab at the tendrils, but they were immune to his quirk. Still, if Izuku lowered this monster to the ground, everyone there would be in danger again once Black Whip was released.

Izuku lowered himself to the ground first, willing the whips holding Overhaul to extend to let him down without lowering his captive. It was like a fishing rod in his mind was allowing him to feed out more line, and he was panting by the time his good foot hit the ground, but steady.

“Looks like another new quirk,” Tempest said from where he was standing on the sidelines.

“Just in time, too,” another hero agreed from beside him, sounding awed.

“What happens now?” Bubble Girl asked, sounding perplexed.

“We need to knock him out,” Sir said firmly, placing a hand on Izuku’s shoulder as if to hold him to the ground. “Can we get…”

But Izuku only heard the first part, and he was only too glad to oblige. He used the quickest way he could think of to knock the villain out. Sir jerked his hand back and stepped out of the way when Izuku swung his arms in an arc and slammed Overhaul into the side of the building. Overhaul seemed to go limp, Izuku wasn’t going to trust him. For good measure, he swung his arms in the other direction and slammed the villain into the building across the street. Then he pulled hard in an arc from behind his head toward the front of his feet and brought Black Whip down, down, down to the street, pounding Overhaul into a parked and abandoned truck. Metal crumbled and the vehicle bounced wildly on tires not designed for such abuse before it settled.

He realized he was being brutal, and struggled to rein in the desire for vengeance. He was not a judge and it wasn’t his place to sentence Chisaki Kai to an early grave. Swaying on his feet, Izuku released his hold on Blackwhip and watched it flicker into nothingness, as if it had never manifested. It felt like the weight of the world had vanished from his shoulders at the same time, leaving him feeling unsteady and exhausted. Sir stepped forward again to anchor him, and All Might rushed over, too. Overhaul was a bloody heap a half a block down the road, and not moving. Police were rushing around to quickly and cautiously take him into custody while Endeavor went to ensure that the villain stayed knocked out.

“Is it over?” Izuku asked no one in particular.

“It’s over,” Sir affirmed.

“How are you feeling, my boy?” All Might asked, his large hand taking hold of Izuku’s arm to shore him up. “If you’re getting new quirks, then the bullet you got hit with earlier has worn off.”

“It’s not…” Izuku started. “That wasn’t…”

Then he realized that he couldn’t really talk openly about it just now. Too many ears and too many secrets abounded to speak freely. Too many complicated thoughts and feelings. Besides, it was true, if he’d gotten Eri’s quirk (even if he didn’t have it anymore), then the effect of the bullet really had worn off. But that wasn’t why he had the newest quirk, and he hardly had the energy to talk about it, now.

“Something weird happened, but we can talk about it later. In private,” he said instead, hoping it was quiet enough for at least a little privacy. “How is Eri?

“Aizawa is riding with her to the hospital,” Sir said quietly. “She went through… quite an ordeal. Physically, she’s fine.”

Izuku felt the knot in his chest tighten again at the memory, but nodded. “Her quirk returned to her once I rewound her enough, and that was enough to shut it off, I think. I might be able to help her with it, some day.”

Uravity was helping the police by making the unconscious form of Overhaul weightless so that they could put the quirk canceling bonds on him without risking touching his hands, and load him into an armored truck that was acting as an ambulance for the time being. He was still alive, but just barely. Izuku found that he was more or less ambivalent to the villain’s condition.

Just as things seemed like they would settle down, both of the phones that Izuku kept on him began to ring, each with a different ring tone. One was his father, and one was the Hero Safety Commission. Izuku handed Sir his own phone.

“Can you let my dad know everything’s okay and that it’s safe to come out? He has got to be freaking out.”

Then he answered the other phone, voice rough and quiet.

“Midoriya?” a woman’s voice sounded relieved. “Can you please translate this? It’s a recorded message that’s been repeating for the last five minutes at the National Diet Building.”

Izuku listened and his brow furrowed in concern as he translated aloud.

“The bomb will detonate at 1500 hours if our demands are not met. Release Benicio Ferreira from Tartarus and give him an unhindered path to Haneda Airport, where he will board our private jet. Any attempts to interfere with his release will be met with carnage.”

Endeavor heard this and took off at a running start before launching himself into the air. Two other heroes' phones pinged even as Izuku related that Endeavor was on the way, and they also left in a hurry.

“We need to get Izuku to Recovery Girl,” All Might was saying, while paramedics tried to tend to the young hero’s wounds,

“Tempest! What are you doing here?” Izuku asked when he saw his friend standing nearby. “I thought you would have gone back to school.”

Todoroki just shrugged and said, “I wanted to know what was going on.”

Izuku stared at him blankly for a moment before he snorted out a laugh. He hadn’t realized how much he needed it until it slipped out, but it helped release some of the pressure that had been building up inside of him all day. The unexpected absurdity of Tempest just showing up at the secondary site because he was curious was just the thing to keep Izuku from falling apart in a bundle of nerves and reaction, now that things were calm again.

“It’s been a long day,” Izuku said, feeling like he would sleep for a week after this.

“It’s just barely an hour past lunchtime,” Todoroki supplied blandly.

“You’re joking,” Izuku groaned.

Sir and All Might managed to look a bit sympathetic while still studying Izuku for signs of a breakdown. Eri wasn’t the only one to go through an ordeal. Izuku honestly didn’t know what was holding him together at this point.

“You boys should be getting back to UA,” All Might told them. “Midoriya-shonen needs to be treated by Recovery Girl and to rest.”

“Wait,” Izuku heard a familiar voice call.

He looked over to see his dad approaching, his suit hanging a little more loosely than usual on his suddenly younger body.

“Dad,” Izuku said, unsure how to react. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! I feel great! It’s you I’m worried about!” his dad said, the smoke not as prevalent as before. “Everyone says that Eri’s quirk made me younger, but I still feel like an old man watching his son get tossed around by villains!”

“If you had continued touching her while her quirk was out of control, it’s safe to say you could easily have been reverted to your childhood, infancy or even out of existence with prolonged contact,” Sir said honestly. “You’re very lucky you didn’t maintain any more contact than you did.”

Izuku saw that his father didn’t even look shaken by that bit of information because he was so worried about his son. He wondered how long it would take for it to sink in that they looked more like brothers now than father and son.

“You also did an admirable job of keeping her safe,” All Might said. “I’m sorry you were caught up in this.”

“Sorry, dad. You were the safest person I could think of to leave her with, where the villains wouldn’t think to look,” Izuku told him contritely. “And then I ruined it by telling them exactly how to find you both.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Sir told him. “Nemoto Shin used his Confession quirk on you. You couldn’t have known. I was just about to explain about him when the invasion began.”

With that, All Might left Sir to explain things further to Izuku’s father, and then drove the boys back to school. Izuku sat in the backseat with his legs across the bench, so as not to jostle them more. All Might didn’t stay beyond making sure that Izuku got safely to Recovery Girl’s office, then went to take Might Tower out of lock down mode. Todoroki got called away by Nezu for disappearing when he should have returned to the school, and Izuku didn’t envy him the scolding he was probably about to receive.

Recovery Girl helped him undress, started an IV drip to hydrate him, and then kissed him into a welcome, temporary oblivion.

Notes:

Next chapter is the wrap up! It's been a wild ride!

Chapter 77

Summary:

All things must have an end, so new beginnings can take place.

Notes:

I want to thank all of you so much for sticking with this to the end! I didn’t realize how long it had gotten because I was having so much fun writing it! Every comment and kudos made me SO HAPPY, I don’t think you can really have any idea how much! I apologize if I ever missed answering a comment someone made - I assure you I read them all and appreciated every single one! I don’t know what I’ll write next, but I sure hope it’s as fun to write as this story was!

Izuku woke to find that he’d slept the rest of the day and all through the night. It was early morning when he sat up and stretched, feeling refreshed and distinctly free of pain. The IV was gone from his arm, and there were no bandages anywhere on his body, so he took it as a good sign. He slid off of the bed and didn’t see Recovery Girl anywhere, but nature was calling, so he took care of his most pressing need in the nurse’s bathroom and went back to his bed. He didn’t like the idea of putting on his bloody clothes again to go back to his dormitory, so he decided to wait for Recovery Girl to say he was free to go, then text one of his friends to bring him something to wear. Iida was usually up this early.

There was a soft clatter by the door, and Izuku looked over to see Recovery Girl pushing a small cart into the room with a tray of food.

“Eat breakfast,” she said by way of greeting. “You need the nutrition! You have visitors on the way.”

Izuku accepted the tray and dug in, surprised to see Sir and All Might enter the room a moment later.

“How are the others that got sent to the hospital?” Izuku asked immediately.

“I don’t know,” Recovery Girl told him. “I wasn’t called in to consult, so I haven’t gotten any reports.”

“They’re stable, and no one is in danger of dying,” Sir said. “We can discuss that in a moment. First, I have a confession to make.”

Neither Sir nor All Might’s faces gave away anything of what they were thinking or feeling. Izuku stopped eating and put down his chopsticks to listen to what they had to say. Instead of speaking though, Sir held up a tiny object that Izuku squinted at, trying to figure out what it was.

“I took this from the gun that Overhaul had yesterday. He dropped it when he lost consciousness, and I… stole one of the bullets before handing the gun over to the police.”

“You stole…” Izuku asked in surprise. “Why?”

A slight blush blossomed over Sir’s cheeks, embarrassment making him stiffen and fidget a little.

“I thought it might be useful to you,” he said.

“To me?” Izuku asked, not sure what he meant.

“Shonen,” All Might said softly. “The gun had quirk cancelling bullets that permanently cancel quirks. The effects aren’t temporary. All of his underlings were shooting with temporary ones, but Overhaul… His compound has been searched - is still being searched. We believe Chisaki completed the formula and intended to mass produce it. The fact that he was the only one to have the permanent ones and didn’t use them freely when he was forced into a standoff means he probably only had a limited supply.”

“This is one of those bullets,” Sir picked up the explanation from there. “As soon as the bullet impacts something, the needle is exposed, pierces the skin and the serum is injected into the bloodstream. If we were to use it on you we believe, based on how the temporary selective reaction of the serum you were shot with yesterday affected you, it would…”

“Permanently shut down Inheritance,” Izuku finished in awe.

“Exactly. Still leaving all of your other quirks intact,” Sir said with a nod. “But the choice is obviously yours.”

“You wouldn’t have to fear going to hospitals or being in disaster zones,” All Might told him. “But it is still a part of you, and that’s something that can’t be taken lightly.”

“I think… I think I want to use it. The bullet. But first, I have to tell you about what happened yesterday.”

Izuku went through the entire day with them, explaining why there were holes in between the floors of the top stories of Might Tower, now. He explained stashing Eri and meeting Toga and Twice and everything else until he got to the part about remembering seeing the vestiges of One For All.

“You saw...my master?” All Might asked, looking visibly shaken.

Izuku nodded, feeling like he’d somehow intruded on something private just by seeing her.

All Might swallowed hard, but then nodded. “And you saw The First? He spoke to you?”

“Yes, but… before. I just remembered about it yesterday when Lariat came to talk to me,” Izuku said.

Was that the right terminology?

“So you recovered a lost memory, and then Lariat appeared and told you about Blackwhip?” Sir asked. “And said you would be getting even more quirks?”

“Right, but I don’t know what the quirks of the previous holders were. Are. And if I get shot with the bullet and take away Inheritance permanently and anyone finds out about that, how can we explain even more quirks showing up?” Izuku asked, feeling as if things were out of control.

“That’s simple,” All Might said with a sigh. “We don’t tell anyone. I know you don’t like lying to people, but these are extenuating circumstances.”

“I knew you were going to say that. Can I at least tell my dad, so he doesn’t freak out?” Izuku said.

“Of course,” Sir told him immediately. “I know that things look like they just got a lot more complicated, but they really haven’t.”

Izuku was about to ask him if he’d gone crazy, when he paused.

Was Sir wrong? Izuku had been getting new quirks his whole life, hadn’t he? Some had been forced on him without his knowledge, some he’d gained through Inheritance, and two he’d taken on willingly with the help of very generous, heroic men. Now he would be gifted just a few more, through One For All. But! In exchange, he didn’t have to worry about being near death or dying people, and he didn’t have to worry about hastening death in those who were ill or mortally wounded. Was that really a bad trade? Once all of the quirks from the vestiges made themselves known, it would be easy enough to say that Izuku had inherited a quirk that canceled out Inheritance, somehow.

“What quirks will I be getting?” Izuku wanted to know.

“I’ll have to do some research into it, but one should be familiar, at least. My master, Shimura Nana, had Float. It’s not all that different from levitation, so the only difference might be that you gain a better control of how high you go and how easily you can come back down,” All Might told him. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Somehow, Izuku was beginning to believe it.

“We won’t have to shoot you, by the way,” Recovery Girl added.

All three of them startled, having forgotten that she was there.

“The serum can be extracted into a syringe, and injected normally,” she said. “I would be against this, but to be honest, I can only see advantages to Inheritance being disabled. You let me know what you decide, and I’ll keep the serum safe until you’re ready, one way or the other.”

They all thanked her, and Izuku asked to be allowed to go to class, to make sure his classmates were okay. Since he was healed, there was no reason for any of them to object; the distraction would do him some good after all of yesterday’s trauma. Luckily, a new uniform was readily available from a supply that Recovery Girl kept, to replace the one that had been ruined in his battles, and he didn’t need to bother his classmates about it. As he was leaving, he got a text from his father to let him know that he had an appointment with his therapist that evening.

Excellent. He had a lot to talk about.

The story was all over the school, and Izuku got shouts and waves from students he didn’t even know, congratulating him on taking down another big villain. He wasn’t sure how to handle the praise, so he just smiled awkwardly and waved. Everyone in his class pelted him with questions as soon as he entered, but he didn’t really know what to say. Yesterday had been crazy and frightening and exhilarating and horrifying all at once. He wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to say before he spoke to police, if they even really needed to talk to him since they’d been there for the final confrontation and had witnessed everything.

“It was all over the news,” Sero told him, holding up his phone that had an article that featured a picture of Might Tower in lockdown, looking like a big steel obelisk planted in the middle of the city. “Bakugou said not to believe everything you read or see on the news, but wouldn’t tell us anything else. Todoroki didn’t say much, either!”

Izuku scanned the room and saw that Uraraka and Tsuyu were absent.

“They went to check on Ryukyu,” Todoroki told him when he looked worried.

That made sense. Their mentor had been shot by one of the temporary quirk-canceling bullets in the initial attack on the conference room; of course they’d go and check on her.

“Any news on the others?” he asked.

There was a lot of head shaking, and Izuku wondered if he would be forgiven for leaving and going to check on the others himself. He shouldn’t go to the hospital though, and if the others were fine, they would also be in class. He settled in his seat and found Kacchan looking at him.

“What?” Izuku asked when Kacchan didn’t say anything.

“Are you really okay?” Kacchan finally asked.

“Recovery Girl thinks so,” Izuku said. “Physically, at least. I haven’t really had time to think about the rest, yet. I just barely woke up an hour ago. I’ve got an appointment with my therapist later today.”

That much was true. He’d taken the uniform and had a hasty shower in the nurse’s office before dressing and heading to class. He hadn’t even stopped at the dormitory.

Kacchan looked at him as if he was trying to figure something out, but then shrugged and turned to face forward. There was a lot of chatter still, so Izuku stood and asked everyone to take a seat for class. They slipped into their seats as the door slid open, and Midnight walked in.

“Aizawa-sensei is currently helping with a case, and will be out for the next couple of days. I’ll be taking over his homeroom duties for now,” she told them.

Her usual vivacity was missing, though she was still treating them with a friendly air and calm attitude. Izuku wondered if there was more to Aizawa’s absence than she was sharing. It was more than likely that he was still watching over Eri for the time being, making sure her quirk didn’t go out of control again.

After homeroom, their other teachers seemed to be distracted or crankier than usual, and Izuku wasn’t the only one to notice. There weren’t any, ‘Oh Yeah!’ comments from Present Mic all through English, Ectoplasm was hard to read, but seemed tense through math class, and Cementos kept losing his place while reading in modern literature.

It wasn’t until lunch time that any of them got a clue as to why the teachers were acting subdued. There were whispers and a strange atmosphere throughout Lunch Rush, and class 1-B all looked miserable and wouldn't make eye contact with anyone. Not even Monoma was up to taunting them. It was almost as if someone had… died?

Izuku nearly dropped his tray as the thought struck him, and his gaze raced over the students in 1-B, looking for clues.

“Honenuki,” Izuku said, seeking out the other boy. “What’s going on? Why’s everyone…”

A few others in the class glared at Izuku, and he automatically felt the need to apologize, but he didn’t know what he would be apologizing for.

“They didn’t tell you about Inasa?” Honenuki asked quietly.

Izuku shook his head with dread. Tears were already pricking the backs of his eyes at the thought that Yoarashi hadn’t survived. He’d been hit in the arm, hadn’t he? Had something else happened?

“The bullet they shot him with wasn’t like the others,” Honenuki said sadly. “They say the effect isn’t temporary.”

The tears that had been threatening already at the thought that someone had died spilled over and dripped down Izuku’s cheeks. He should have realized. They had told him that the bullets from the gun Overhaul had dropped had the permanent formulation of the quirk canceling drug in it. The same gun that he’d used to shoot Yoarashi. How had he missed that?

“Oh, no,” was all he could think to say.

“We’re all in shock,” Honenuki said.

“Didn’t you get shot, too?” Tsubaraba asked him from across the table, sounding angry.

“I did,” Izuku admitted, knowing he couldn’t deny what everyone else had seen.

By a different gun, with different bullets.

“Then why do you still have your quirks, while Inasa… Inasa…”

Tsubaraba seemed on the verge of breakdown and Kendo rushed over to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Instead of leading him away to help calm him though, she looked at Izuku as if wanting to hear his answer, too.

“The guns Overhaul’s underlings had seemed like they only had the temporary quirk canceling drug bullets in them,” he explained. “Only Overhaul had the permanent kind. That’s why I didn’t pick up the quirks of everyone who died yesterday. I got shot when they first ambushed us and he got shot by Overhaul later. I’m so, so sorry.”

It really did seem unfair that he had so many quirks, and Yoarashi had lost the only one he had.

“It’s not your fault,” Honenuki told him. “Just really bad luck.”

“At least that Overhaul guy got what was coming to him,” Tetsutetsu growled, stabbing at his lunch viciously.

Everyone at the table nodded.

“I never thought I’d be grateful to the League of Villains,” Kaibara added.

“Wait. What?” Izuku asked, feeling lost.

“You didn’t hear?” Tetsutetsu asked. “The League of Villains ambushed the transport that was taking Overhaul to the villain hospital.”

Kendo nodded.

“I’m missing something,” Izuku said.

“They cut his arms off,” Tsubaraba said with dark satisfaction in his voice. “The League of Villains cut off both of his arms and then they just left him there, as good as quirkless.”

“Holy crap,” was all Izuku could think to say. “Is he dead?”

“Nah,” Tetsutetsu said as if it didn’t matter either way. “The driver of the prisoner transport truck called for help as soon as The League showed up, so they were there pretty fast. League was long gone, though. Chisaki’s critical, but probably gonna make it.”

“Of course,” Izuku said sullenly. “This is… crazy.”

“Tell me about it,” Tsubaraba agreed.

“Look, don’t give up hope,” Izuku told everyone at the table. “We don't know that Overhaul didn’t make a cure for that bullet. I mean, what if he accidentally shot himself, or got some in his eyes or mouth while making it? Wouldn't he want to be able to reverse it? Plus, think about the money he could make from it. What wouldn’t someone pay to get their quirk back, if they got shot?”

That put a speculative look in their eyes and some hope that hadn’t been there before.

“It would be the smart thing to do,” Izuku said with a shrug.

“Thanks,” Honenuki told him, sounding grateful.

Izuku went to sit at a table with Todoroki, Kacchan and Kirishima, but had lost his appetite. He related the news about Yoarashi, but Kacchan didn’t seem surprised. That was probably why he’d been looking at Izuku so closely before homeroom that morning.

“You knew?” he asked.

Kacchan scowled at him, then nodded shortly.

“Why didn’t tell--”

“What can you do about it?” Kacchan interrupted him. “What’s the point in upsettin’ everyone before they had t’be?”

Izuku opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. In his own way, Kacchan had been protecting them. Izuku gave a reluctant nod of acknowledgement. Then, since it was weighing on his mind, he asked Kacchan his thoughts on Overhaul having created a cure.

“It’s what I would have done,” Kacchan answered thoughtfully. “Though what are the chances it’s not hidden somewhere only he knows about?”

“Just knowin’ there might be a cure is somethin’ at least,” Kirishima said. “If it exists, we should be able to find it.”

By ‘we’, Izuku hoped he meant the heroes, and not them, personally. He didn't want his friends getting involved in something that dangerous without being sanctioned by their mentors.

Lunch ended with class 1-B seeming a little less gloomy than when lunch had started, but Izuku hadn’t been able to bring himself to eat. There was a lump in his throat and a tightness in his chest that seemed to be trying to choke him, little by little. Maybe he wasn’t handling all of this as well as he thought. He hoped that his therapy session was booked for a long, long visit.

Basic Hero Training was taught by Present Mic, who taught them about the way sound carried and the vibrations it could cause. He challenged them all to move as stealthily as they could to avoid detection by either Jiro or Shoji. It was interesting and useful, but Izuku’s mind was too full of the events of yesterday and the implications to really excel at it.

Things were in a kind of limbo for a couple of days until Izuku finally decided to permanently disable Inheritance. It was done without fuss, with only All Might, Sir, his father (who had brought Eri’s kitten with him to be delivered to her) and Recovery Girl there to witness it. There was no sudden reaction or anything to indicate that Inheritance was gone, and the only real way to know for sure was to wait and see. Until then, things were just… the same as always.

Yoarashi Inasa came back to school three days later.

He was quieter than usual but it was clear that he was trying to keep his chin up. Izuku’s heart ached for him, and he told his friend that he felt guilty for having multiple quirks, when Yoarashi had been stripped of the only one he had. Yoarashi had waved that away and thumped Izuku on the back in a show of friendship, assuring him that he wasn’t giving up hope.

The school had agreed to let Inasa stay in the hero course, refusing to give credence to the idea that his condition was permanent. He would keep up with his academics and attend Hero Training, focusing more on battle tactics and hand-to-hand fighting until his quirk was restored.

Izuku had to keep up the pretense that he still had Inheritance, so he wasn’t able to go and visit Eri in the hospital, but that problem was solved a few days after Inasa came back when Aizawa showed up with Eri in the dormitory. She was clutching her surly looking kitten, and looking shy as she looked around at them all.

“She’ll be living here for the foreseeable future, until she can get a firm hold of her quirk,” Aizawa told them all as they gathered around to greet her. “You will NOT be teaching her strange things.”

His eyes traveled over to Kaminari and Mina when he said that last part.

“Once she’s stable, we can begin quirk counseling and training with her, and hopefully get Inasa back to normal, if we haven’t found the cure before then.”

That made everyone pause and stare at Eri with awe.

“I can’t believe I never even thought of that,” Izuku said in amazement, his heart soaring. “Brilliant!”

He hoped he would be able to help with that, though he wasn’t sure how he’d even used Rewind before. He wanted to try.

Things were beginning to look up. The path ahead had cleared a bit; All For One was in prison with no chance of being released, One For All was growing inside of him, and the vestiges were apparently there to guide him. His life would undoubtedly become complicated again sooner rather than later, but… that was okay. He had friends, he had his father, and he had teachers to help him every step of the way. They would do it together.

What more did he need?