Chapter Text
“There’s a fight,” Kacchan commented, looking down an alley on the way back from school.
“Keep going,” Mitsuki said, grabbing him by the top of the head to steer him away from the conflict, which his feet had already started pulling him toward.
With her other hand holding Kacchan’s backpack, though, she didn’t have enough arms to catch Izuku. Luckily, Izuku was not a headstrong instigator who jumped into fights head first. He stopped short, peered down the alley, and flipped through his hero notebook, contemplating. Definitely at least two villains down there, he decided, and one of them seemed to have a water based quirk. The other one had some sort of spikes on his hand but didn’t seem to have a lot of control over them. Based on hero patrol routes—
“Izuku,” Mitsuki barked, a warning in her voice, and Izuku wandered after her and Kacchan, skimming his eyes over the passerby for a likely target.
Based on hero patrol routes, Backdraft should be around, and he had the best match up quirk with the water guy anyway.
Here was the thing about Izuku. At nine years old, he was very aware that people should not break the law. He himself had never broken the law even once! But if he had gone online and entered corners of the internet that he should not have been in and profited off other people breaking the law, then really it didn’t even count.
“Excuse me,” he said to a nice looking lady buried in her phone at the bus stop. “Can I borrow your phone for a minute? I need to make a phone call?”
She gave him a worried look and passed him her phone, opening it to the phone app. He flipped through his notebook for Backdraft’s personal number. He called it.
Admittedly! He should not have had access to Backdraft’s personal number. But the shady villains in the dark corners of the internet had found it and Izuku had taken it from them so really it didn’t even count. Seriously.
“Hello?” Backdraft picked up, confused.
“Hi!” Izuku said. “There’s a villain fight in your patrol area.” He gave the exact address and some details he’d noticed at the scene before he’d been pulled away. Mitsuki, noting Izuku’s absence behind her, dragged Kacchan back toward him, her expression somewhere between bewildered and irritated. Izuku tended to have that effect on people.
“Who are you?” Backdraft asked, baffled.
“I gotta go!” Izuku said as Mitsuki got within phone snatching distance. “Thanks!”
He hung up and passed the phone back to the lady.
“Izuku,” Mitsuki said in a tone of forced calm, “what are you doing?”
“There was a villain fight,” he said, “and this is Backdraft’s patrol area and he had a good quirk match up so I just called him super quickly?”
The lady whose phone he just used went very pale and stared at her phone, which had the call history right there for her to see. Yes, Izuku told her silently, you will now forever have Backdraft’s phone number. Use it wisely.
He was not telepathic but he hoped she understood.
Mitsuki launched into a long lecture about how “Izuku couldn’t just run off like that” (he had not run off, he had just stopped walking) and how “Inko would kill her if she lost Izuku” (Izuku’s mom liked Mitsuki too much to kill her), but Izuku tuned most of it out. The bus came and the lady got on with a final curious glance back at Izuku. Mitsuki’s lecture continued. The bus left.
“Really, Izuku, this has to stop,” Mitsuki continued. “How did you even get his phone number?”
“The Internet,” Izuku said, tucking his notebook back into his yellow bag. It wasn’t a lie.
Mitsuki sighed, pinching her forehead with two fingers. Kacchan was already inching back toward the fight, so she grabbed him by the elbow and shepherded Izuku ahead of her so she could keep an eye on him for the rest of the walk home. “Why did you use her phone?” Mitsuki asked as they walked. “You have a phone that works fine.”
Izuku stuck out his bottom lip. “I can’t make calls on it without wifi connection. Because I’m only nine and apparently ‘can’t be trusted.’”
Mitsuki made a sound like she wanted to disagree with that but simply could not.
A fire truck whizzed by.
“What’s for dinner?” Izuku asked.
All for One was not a man who found himself irritated very often. In fact, he prided himself on his ability to keep a level head. He would not have been able to make it as far as he had, to be this successful, without his patience, his calm, and his unflappable concentration.
That said.
There was this kid, Midoriya Izuku. Nine years old. At school in Musutafu. Currently living with a family of Bakugous because his mother had moved across Japan to care for his ailing grandmother. Quirkless. And a huge pain in All for One’s backside.
When this kid had first become an issue around three months ago, All for One had done a deep dive into his background and found it all incredibly easy to access. He had cataloged his name, age, address, and major life details in under three minutes. It was so easy to find information on him that it was almost suspicious, but even top-tier cover ups had their tells and this was not one of those. Midoriya Izuku was not a genius, not a prodigy, not a highly protected hidden force of power that the HPSC was using to weed All for One out. He was a nine year old. And not even a popular one.
This was how it started. Midoriya Izuku had stumbled upon a business deal that All for One had been plotting for weeks, and he called—yes, called —Sir Nighteye and ruined the entire operation. Of course, at the time All for One hadn’t known about the cause of Sir Nighteye’s sudden appearance. He’d assumed Sir Nighteye’s pesty quirk had been the reason. But two weeks later a similar disruption occurred, this time with up and coming hero Present Mic. And then, a week after that, Thirteen somehow got involved in a fight. Thirteen, who usually avoided fights like the plague, had swept in and wiped out an entire gang that All for One had been carefully sharpening for months.
That was what sent up red flags in All for One’s mind. That was what got him wondering. Who was feeding intel to these heroes? Who was perfectly matching up quirks to make sure that whoever responded to these crises could easily navigate the situation?
Several deep dives into several private hero servers and he had descriptive details. Green hair, always asking to borrow other people’s phones, very young, freckled. In Musutafu, except for when he called Sir Nighteye that one time. And from there he had narrowed it down and found this nine year old kid who was both extremely unremarkable and extremely annoying.
At first, All for One had been content to keep an eye on him from afar, to wait for the right moment to strike as it had with Tomura. But that was quickly growing tiresome. Somehow, every single Musutafu operation was destroyed by this child. Midoriya Izuku either had incredible luck or was some sort of shady business deal magnet. Either way it was making it difficult to operate in or around Musutafu—one of the most important places to be, given the rise of UA.
What to do was the question. All for One wasn’t against killing children, but there was a sort of entertainment to Midoriya Izuku’s antics—perhaps even a value to them, and All for One would hate to dispose of anything valuable.
So he didn’t want to kill the kid or dampen his admittedly stupid attempts at heroism. So then what? Adoption?
He chuckled to himself at the very idea. Then stopped chuckling.
No. Surely adoption wasn’t the solution to his issues. All for One was many things—a mastermind, a murderer, a high class criminal—but he was not a father . The idea was an outrage.
But.
He eyed the photograph of Midoriya Izuku, his wide eyes and toothy smile. The similarities were not unnoticeable. They could pass as relatives. All for One could guide Midoriya Izuku—keep a watchful eye on him, maybe even make a villain out of him, as he was attempting to do with Tomura.
He contemplated.
He considered.
He decided, in the end, why the hell not?
More than anything, Izuku wanted to be a hero. This wasn’t possible, he was told, without a quirk, but he did want it and so he would step outside the “rules” and save everyone. He would be just like All Might. So even though he was now grounded for “disappearing,” this would not put a stop to his efforts! Did a hero stop when faced with adversity? No! Would Izuku stop when faced with Mitsuki’s wrath and the threat of a phone call to his mother? No!
Well.
It wouldn’t stop him but it did mean he needed to be a little less outwardly heroic. Heroic on the down-low. Like a spy! Or an underground hero.
Currently, he was going through a dark corner of the Internet, using several layers of ad blockers and basic computer protection, because people on the Internet could be scary. He also was on the phone with his mom, who was blissfully in the dark about both his transgression earlier and his current misdeeds.
“How’s Mitsuki been?” she asked.
“Good,” Izuku said, clicking a sketchy looking link. He was trying to figure out who was the head bad guy. Because, he figured, if he could get someone to take out the head bad guy, the bad guy of all bad guys, then all the issues forever would be resolved and everyone would be safe.
(He knew, logically, that a new head bad guy would always be waiting to take over, but a boy could dream).
“How’s Katsuki?”
“Good.” The sketchy link led to a sketchy website filled with pictures of a huge tall guy with a mess of white hair and one of the thickest necks Izuku had ever seen. Izuku took some screenshots of the page before running an image search.
“And how has school been?”
“Good.” The image search came up blank.
“Still having trouble with those bullies?”
“Good. I mean, uh, no.”
“You’re not paying attention.” She sounded more amused than hurt, luckily.
“I’m paying so much attention.” Another click on a new sketchy link. Instant regrets. An immediate hard reset of the computer.
“But not to me.”
“Shoot,” Izuku muttered. That had probably lost him a solid week’s work. But now he could give his mom his full attention, at least. “Sorry, I was just thinking. School’s been fine? The self-defense classes Kacchan and I started sort of help.”
A lie—the self defense classes were helpful but Izuku didn’t use them at school. He had used them that one time he threw a stick at a villain and couldn’t run away fast enough. It turns out it is very easy to break someone’s nose. And from that moment forth Izuku knew he could not use taekwondo skills at school.
“I’m glad to hear it. Oh—your uncle called, remember him?”
Izuku only had one uncle, on his dad’s side, and the last time he’d seen him he’d been, like, three. As such, he did not remember him, but he made a noise of agreement nonetheless.
“He said he wanted to visit. Would you be interested in seeing him? I know it might be awkward with the Bakugous around, but he’s in town and wants to see you. He’s a very nice man—you remember.”
Izuku squinted at the script that came up on his screen during the reboot. It seemed normal, just reminding him that he’d just wiped the whole laptop. After about the third time he’d had to shut down the whole thing because he was about to get a virus, he’d started to get pretty good at deciphering laptops. YouTube was always a savior. “Yeah sure,” he said absently, hitting the spacebar. “Great.”
“I’ll let Mitsuki know.”
The virus didn’t seem to have had time to take hold of his computer before he wiped it, thank goodness, so he would not have to go scavenging for a new laptop. On the other hand, he now had to start again from scratch. At least now he had a better idea what he was looking for. He shut the laptop off again, done for the night. “How’s obaasan?”
“She’s doing a little better.” His mom sighed. “Mostly she’s just tired all the time. I don’t know how much longer I’ll have to stay out here. I’m so sorry about all this.”
Izuku didn’t mind. He liked Mitsuki and Masaru, and Kacchan could actually be really nice when he wasn’t at school and posing in front of their classmates. His mom was way on the other side of Japan, staying with her sister because Izuku’s grandma was very ill. She hadn’t wanted to make Izuku switch schools, and Izuku’s grandparents had more than once gravely insulted him and his mom because of the whole ‘Izuku didn’t have a quirk thing,’ so Izuku had stayed behind.
“It’s fine,” Izuku said. He leaned back in his chair and peered at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Mitsuki and Masaru had done their best to make it feel like home. “Masaru’s cooking is really tasty and stuff.”
“I miss you, baby.”
Izuku opened his laptop again, a thought about the white-haired man striking him. “I miss you too.”
She laughed. “No you don’t. What are you working on?”
“Uh . . . homework?”
She laughed again at the obvious lie. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Izuku had honestly forgotten all about his uncle coming over until a few days later when a knock came at the door. He was in the midst of doing a deep dive of research on Fat Gum’s quirk and halfway through a nice long mutterstorm and he barely glanced up when he heard the knock. Mitsuki yelling his name, though, got his attention.
“Your uncle’s here!” she called.
Izuku’s first thought was that he did not have an uncle. Then he remembered the whole one-sided conversation with his mom and gave himself a single smack on the forehead for responding without thinking. He had zero desire to meet his creepy old uncle.
But he’d dug his grave now.
“Just a minute!” he said, shutting down the (sketchy) website he’d been combing through.
A deep, unfamiliar voice said something from somewhere in the apartment and Mitsuki answered with a laugh. Izuku closed his laptop and hid it under his bed. Pulling on a pair of fuzzy socks, he hopped out into the hallway and skidded into the kitchen.
Very tall. White hair. The thickest neck Izuku had ever seen. Taking up half of the Bakugous’ couch.
The head bad guy. The bad guy to end all bad guys. Izuku’s uncle?
Squeezed into the Bakugous’ living room.
He met Izuku’s eyes with a deep maroon stare and winked with a smile that might have fooled Izuku if he wasn’t in the midst of facing off with the supervillain. Not a supervillain. The.
“Hey Izuku-kun,” he said.
Kacchan was squinting at the head bad guy suspiciously from the door to the kitchen—but Kacchan was always suspicious. Izuku had to smooth out the situation right away before the whole house got leveled.
The head supervillain was inside the Bakugous’ living room! Izuku had a good shot at him! He could break his nose too!
But no. That would only lead to bad things. A broken nose wouldn’t stop the top supervillain of all supervillains. He had to, as they say in All Might 4: I-Island Rescue , play his cards close to his chest.
So Izuku said, “Oji-san! Wow, you dyed your hair! It’s been so long I almost didn’t recognize you.”
And then he tackled the supervillain to end all supervillains—his uncle?—with a huge hug.
Notes:
A quick note before you get any deeper: please don't criticize my work in the comments! I write fanfiction for fun and receive regular feedback on my original work :) I recognize there will be issues in here, and unless it's truly egregious and/or harmful, I would prefer not to know about it!
Chapter 2: The Uncle
Summary:
All for One gets a new phone wallpaper, and Izuku takes things a step too far.
Chapter Text
All for One considered, as Midoriya Izuku embraced him, that he might— might —have made a mistake. He’d actually thought, right before the kid had dived into him, that there was a possibility Midoriya knew who he was, but the odd, frozen look had been gone so quickly, and Midoriya was right about the color of All for One’s hair.
The truth was second guessing himself now wouldn’t accomplish anything. He had already laid all the groundwork for his success; taking steps backward would set him off course.
He waited for Midoriya Izuku to get off him and brushed off his suit. “You know,” he said through a smile that might have qualified as trying too hard, “last time I saw you, you were only this tall!” He gestured.
“No way he was that short,” Bakugou Katsuki said.
All for One could kill this kid by blinking. Wipe out the whole family in an instant. He forced himself to smile. “Hyperbole.”
“Are you staying for dinner?” Midoriya asked.
“Well, of course he is,” Bakugou Mitsuki said. “It was very kind of you to reach out, Midoriya-san. Izuku-kun has been lonely since Inko-san left.”
“I have not!” Midoriya said.
“Yes you have,” Bakugou Katsuki said.
Midoriya glared at him.
All for One did his best to chuckle good naturedly. It came out sounding a little strangled and Bakugou Mitsuki sent him a weird look.
“I forgot how funny your laugh is,” Midoriya said, and joined in on the laughter through his crooked teeth. All for One was struck with the strange notion that Midoriya was somehow covering for him. But why he would do such a thing, instead of being suspicious himself, mystified All for One, so he put the entire idea aside.
“Don’t make fun of your uncle,” Bakugou Mitsuki snapped and disappeared into the kitchen.
All for One attempted to give Midoriya a conspiratorial smile, but Midoriya was busy in a silent argument with Bakugou Katsuki and didn’t return it. Not for the first time, All for One wished he had a quirk that would let him read minds, but quirks like that tended to destroy a person from the inside out. Maybe if he found one that was easy to control, he would take it, but such a thing was so rare it wasn’t even worth it to look.
Bakugou Katsuki left the room with a final glare at All for One, and it was just All for One and Midoriya. Immediately, the pressure in the room spiked. Midoriya fixed All for One with his huge green eyes, and All for One once again was struck with the unsettling feeling that Midoriya knew much more than he was letting on.
“How long are you in town?” Midoriya asked. An innocent question, but there was an insistence to it that set All for One on guard.
“I’m not sure yet,” he answered.
Midoriya opened his mouth. Hesitated. Then said, “Why are you here?”
A shiver had the audacity to run down All for One’s forearms, but the conversation was interrupted by Bakugou Mitsuki shouting about dinner being ready.
“Sorry,” Midoriya laughed, already heading for the kitchen. “Weird question. It really is nice to see you again.”
Who, All for One wondered, even was this kid?
The moment Izuku’s uncle (The Head Bad Guy) finally departed the house, Izuku excused himself and went straight to his room, where he buried his face in his pillow and whisper-screamed into it.
Because like!
The Head Bad Guy was Izuku’s uncle! Not only that, but he was very capable of holding a normal conversation with the Bakugous and seemed actually kind of chill? The pictures of him Izuku had found on the internet made him seem mean—but maybe he had like a villain persona and a nice normal person persona.
This opened up a whole new world of possibilities for Izuku. His uncle was a supervillain. This was the perfect set up for the situation that had happened in All Might 2: Victory Lap , in which All Might’s estranged cousin had been the main antagonist. Izuku would be like All Might and he would defeat The Head Bad Guy by being The Head Good Guy.
Additionally, this raised some questions. If Izuku’s uncle was a criminal mastermind, then what about his dad? What if his dad wasn’t actually in America but was lurking in the shadows of Japan, waiting to attack people?
It was a little scary thinking about it.
Once Izuku had gotten his excitement about being related to someone who wasn’t exactly famous but sort of like that, he let the reality sink in. There had been a very scary person in the Bakugous’ house because of Izuku, and he could have killed all of them. More importantly, there was a scary person who Izuku happened to have a connection to, and who Izuku could help stop.
But carefully, carefully. He couldn’t rush into this.
He sat down at his desk and pressed his fingers into his forehead, lining the pads up with his eyebrows. This wasn’t the sort of thing he could just call a hero to resolve. Well, if it was All Might, he could, but that was one of the only phone numbers he hadn’t managed to get off the Internet. Probably, it would be best to turn it into a whole hero operation with Izuku as the bait, but he got the impression that the heroes would try to rush it and end up messing it up.
He flipped open his notebook and passed through the pages, trying to figure this out. Midnight, Clairvoyance, Gang Orca, Eraserhead, Ms. . . .
Izuku stopped. Turned back a page.
Eraserhead had been flying under the radar since his second Sports Festival at UA. Izuku had first marked him down because he thought Eraserhead was probably the closest to a quirkless Pro Hero that he’d ever find. But that was beside the point now.
Underground Heroics.
That was the sort of mission Izuku needed to embark on. He needed to spy.
He rushed out of his bedroom, kicking on his shoes and ignoring Masaru’s questions as he fled out the door. Down the stairs to the first floor—not worth it to wait for the elevator or his uncle would already be gone. He ran out the front door of the apartment and caught just the edge of a white head going around the corner. He sprinted for it, yelling, “Oji-san!” at the top of his lungs.
He rounded the corner and grabbed the suit by the back, pulling his uncle to a stop.
For a moment, he was absolutely sure he had met his end. From the way Oji-san looked down on him, he was certain he was dead. But his uncle recognized him then and said, “Izuku-kun?” with such genuine bafflement that Izuku felt safe enough to take a step back and hold up a finger so he could catch his breath.
“Um,” Izuku wheezed (he needed to work on his stamina, clearly), “so, are you around for a while? Because I could live with you. Instead. If you’re okay with it!”
His uncle stared at him, mouth partly open, and Izuku allowed himself to feel a minute of triumph for shocking The Head Bad Guy into silence with his own evil plans. Izuku was exactly like All Might.
“You want to live with me?” Oji-san said.
“Yeah!” Izuku beamed. “The Bakugous are nice and all but they’re not family. And you are!”
“I don’t live in Musutafu,” Oji-san said quickly. He then held up a hand and closed his eyes for a moment. “No,” he said, “no, it’s fine. There are ways around that. I would enjoy caring for you in your mother’s absence.”
Villains were super weird. “Okay, cool,” Izuku said. “So we have to get my mom to agree to this and she’s really stubborn and overprotective, so I have made a five step plan. Can I borrow your phone?”
Oji-san, staring at him like he’d just teleported in from another planet, opened his phone and passed it over. Izuku was temporarily distracted from his plot when he came face to face with a colorful background.
“Your home screen background is the default ?” he asked, horrified. “What’s wrong with you?”
He looked around for something to take a picture of, but the street was dead boring. He was the only exciting thing in it. So he opened the camera app, flipped the camera, and took a selfie of himself beaming.
“You don’t even act like an uncle,” he muttered, navigating to the settings. Although this was the phone of a supervillain, the settings were all normal and no evil plans were immediately evident. Lame. Utterly lame.
He changed the home screen and the lock screen to his selfie. When he was satisfied with the positioning of it, he went back to his original scheme. He opened the notes app and wrote out his five step plan. Then, he navigated to the call button, which had a lot of unnamed numbers in the history—super exciting, super scary, all the stuff—and he dialed his mom’s number.
Oji-san looked bewildered, like he had just been the victim of a vicious attack and he still hadn’t figured out how to respond. Izuku gave him a thumbs up.
“Hello?” his mom answered the phone.
Izuku grinned and started laying down the groundwork.
Chapter 3: A Hundred Thirty Million Yen
Summary:
Decorations, a credit card, and many regrets.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku was either an idiot or a genius and All for One had been struggling for the past several days to figure out which it was. He had, eventually, stooped to making a bullet pointed list.
Reasons Midoriya was an idiot:
- He fully believed All for One was his uncle, which he was not, and therefore had volunteered to live in the home of a complete stranger.
Reasons Midoriya was a genius:
- All for One’s plan to get Midoriya’s mother to agree to let him care for Midoriya had incorporated seventeen well-detailed steps and would have taken him months. Midoriya’s plan had five steps and was over within two weeks.
- Somehow, Midoriya had the ability to throw All for One out of his usual rhythms. Somehow, he had shocked All for One more than once. All for One, who no one shocked. He hadn’t even believed he was capable of being shocked.
The proof, All for One thought, was inconclusive. Idiot. Genius. Both of them. It was hard to categorize Midoriya. He would need further evidence.
Luckily, Midoriya’s five step plan had been incredibly effective—so effective All for One almost had to add a third tally to the genius book. His mother had actually been delighted when she found out how much Izuku had connected with his paternal uncle. Two more visits later and they had Mitsuki on their side, and from there it just fell on Midoriya pleading with his mother, who caved surprisingly quickly for someone who was supposedly overprotective. Midoriya claimed it was the “puppy dog eye effect,” which All for One found a degrading concept.
So the difficult task of kidnapping Midoriya Izuku was in fact not difficult at all. And now he was going to pick Midoriya Izuku up, in broad daylight, without issue, all because the kid had developed a five step plan that had worked.
Midoriya himself pulled open the door at All for One’s knock and pushed two suitcases at him and a backpack. “I have a feeling you are not going to like my decorations,” he muttered.
All for One didn’t have time to figure out what that meant before Midoriya disappeared again, and then reappeared with two more suitcases, a bright yellow backpack, and a delighted grin. “This is everything!”
“Not quite,” Bakugou Masaru said, appearing with another backpack. “You left all these in Katsuki-chan's room.”
Midoriya took the backpack without looking at it, slinging it over his free shoulder. “Okay, that’s everything!”
All for One propped the door open with his shoulder, but Midoriya apparently wasn’t done with his farewells, because he ran and hugged Bakugou Masaru. This hugging thing was going to be a real issue. All for One needed to find a way to put a stop to it—and quickly, before he was the victim of another embrace.
“Kacchan!” Midoriya screamed into the house.
“What!” a voice shouted back.
“I’m leaving!”
“Whatever.”
Apparently satisfied with that, Midoriya turned to go. “I said goodbye to Mitsuki-san earlier,” he explained, grabbing his last two suitcases and pulling them out the door. “And I’ll still be seeing Kacchan at school, so.”
“School?” All for One echoed as the door shut between himself and Masaru.
“Oh, yes,” Midoriya said happily, dragging his suitcases into the elevator. “School. It’s very important, you know, and Kacchan will be expecting to see me every day.”
All for One was struck with the strange feeling that he was being manipulated.
“Where do you live?” Midoriya asked, his eyes wide and wondering.
“We’ll be using a teleportation quirk to get there.”
How this was possible, All for One would never know, but Midoriya’s huge eyes somehow managed to get even wider at that.
“Your quirk is teleportation?” he squealed. “That’s so cool! How does it work? Do you have to have seen the location you’re teleporting to ahead of time or can you go anywhere? What about the bottom of the ocean? Or space? What happens if you accidentally teleport into a wall? How far can you teleport? Is it instant or does it take time? How many people can you teleport at once?”
At some point during that line of questioning, he’d extracted a notebook from his backpack and a pencil and had already started a new page with the title “Oji-san” and “Teleportation quirk.”
“Put that away,” All for One hissed, moving to snatch it from him.
Midoriya pulled back, snapping the notebook closed. “Stealing is bad,” he said.
All for One had done much worse than steal a notebook from a child. But he found himself stopping anyway. Maybe the shock at being told he was doing something so trivially immoral is what cut him off. Tomura would never have the nerve—or the idea—to say something like that. All for One considered that this relationship would be wildly different from the one he had begun to cultivate with Tomura. Unknown territory, so to speak.
“No more questions,” All for One said.
Midoriya pursed his lips tightly together and nodded. All for One checked to make sure he was holding still and texted Kurogiri to teleport them both directly to Kamino.
All Might posters.
When Midoriya said I have a feeling you are not going to like my decorations, what he meant to say was Every inch of the room you benevolently give me will be covered in All Might posters. All for One stood, horrified, in the doorway as Midoriya filled the remaining gap over his bed with a postcard from that ridiculous All Might theme park down south. “What is this,” he said.
“I really like All Might.”
If All for One didn’t know any better, he might think Midoriya was intentionally being a little shit.
What All for One wanted to do was murder Midoriya’s mother and the entire Bakugou family and completely obliterate all traces leading back to him. But he needed Midoriya to have some sense of normalcy in order to benefit from having him around, and in order for Midoriya to have a sense of normalcy, All for One could not: a) kill Midoriya Inko, b) pull Midoriya out of school, or c) lock him in a closet for a week while he systematically burned every All Might themed object in sight. So although this little side project of his might have been putting him in a position of slight vulnerability, it was necessary to allow Midoriya these small freedoms.
But of all the heroes, All Might was the one Midoriya chose?
“This is unacceptable,” All for One said. As a rule, he hated heroes, but if Midoriya wanted to engage in hero worship, he was not allowed to like the oaf. He needed to pick a new favorite. “Any other hero, I’ll accept. Not All Might. Pick a new favorite.”
Midoriya pressed his index finger into his chin, face screwed up. “I’ll have to think about it. There are a lot of heroes I like.”
“Pick one less obnoxious,” All for One said. If the next time he entered the room it was covered in Present Mic merch, he might go on a murdering spree. “An underground hero or a vigilante.”
“I love vigilante merch,” Midoriya said, hopping down from his bed and trotting out the door. “It’s so hard to get though, because most of the time it’s like custom made and stuff. And so it’s expensive.”
“I’ll give you a credit card.” All for One said, leading Midoriya down the hallway. After all, he had little intention to actually care for the boy. He just wanted to keep an eye on him. A very close eye. “You can buy whatever you need with it.”
Midoriya’s eyes lit up and All for One considered that giving him a credit card might be a mistake. But surely he couldn’t do that much damage to All for One’s incredibly vast accounts. What was he going to buy, anyway, that All for One wouldn’t willingly give him?
“No buying All Might merch with it,” he said, realizing the loophole. He glared sharply down at Midoriya before starting down the stairs to the bar. “This is an All Might free household.”
“I think you should give All Might a chance,” Midoriya said. “He’s a very cool hero.”
“I don’t even want to hear that name. Keep him out of it.”
Midoriya stuck out his bottom lip, which he was much too old to be doing, and nodded. “Okay. I’ll find other hero posters and stuff instead.”
All for One didn’t want other hero posters in his space either, but he could tolerate it, he supposed, as long as it wasn’t All Might. ( Famous last words, a niggling voice in his head said, but no. It couldn’t ever be as bad as All Might).
“Now, Midoriya-kun,” All for One said.
“Call me Izuku, since you’re my uncle,” Midoriya said, climbing up at a stool at the bar. He didn’t seem at all shocked by their location or at all curious about why they were at a bar. Suspicious.
All for One paused. Well, fine. “Izuku-kun. There are a few important things for you to know.”
“Right.” Midoriya’s eyes skimmed over the empty bar, the tables, the TV on the wall. His eyes caught on the door and then resumed their course around.
“I am very busy with work,” All for One said, “so you’ll be mostly interacting with a friend of mine who lives here. His name is Kurogiri.”
“Kurogiri,” Midoriya echoed. “Black fog? Does that have to do with his quirk? Black fog could be like—”
This kid was obsessed with quirks. “I’m not done speaking,” All for One snapped, cutting off the beginnings of what could have been a very long ramble. “You can ask him about his quirk yourself. Neither of us have much time for raising children, so mostly you’ll be by yourself. Food is under the counter.” He pointed at the bar. “Don’t come down here past eight at night—we often have guests. Kurogiri will take you to and from school”—the words were like poison on his tongue—“and you will do your homework without nagging.”
“I’ve never nagged in my life,” Midoriya declared, completely misunderstanding. “What’s the wifi password?”
“I’m confiscating your computer,” All for One said. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing to that thing but there are at least twenty viruses.” He’d done a cursory glance over it while Midoriya unpacked and had found himself extremely disappointed in Midoriya’s coding skills—or lack thereof. He would be burning the computer later.
“I don’t get viruses,” Midoriya said.
There was no good response to that so All for One just stared at him in disapproval until he ducked his head in acceptance. “I’m going to get someone to tutor you in coding,” All for One said, “so that if you continue to go onto the dark side of the internet, you can at least protect yourself properly.”
Midoriya nodded, eyes downcast.
“Now what questions do you have?”
Midoriya’s mouth opened and All for One immediately regretted asking that.
“No,” he cut Midoriya off before he could begin. “I’ve changed my mind. Don’t ask me anything. You can write down what questions you have and I’ll answer them when I have time.”
Although he looked disappointed, Midoriya shut his mouth again.
“Go upstairs.”
Midoriya went upstairs.
The credit card, in Izuku’s opinion, was the best invention known to mankind. A credit card connected to an account with seemingly bottomless funds was exactly what he needed to expand his enterprises.
He purchased more merch than he had ever purchased in his entire life, and in the meantime paid to ship all the All Might merch he had put up in his room back to Musutafu—no way would he let Oji-san get rid of all that. He also bought even more All Might merch but he sent it home instead of to the bar, because he figured the rule had not, in fact, been “don’t buy any All Might merch”; it had been “don’t have any All Might merch in the house.” Easy fix: buy All Might merch to use and admire later , after his mom returned and he could go back home to All Might merch heaven.
Additionally, he purchased a few All Might themed objects for Kacchan, and sent them to his house. And he also purchased a teaset Mitsuki had mentioned wanting, and sent that to her. And he also purchased an apron for his mother, and sent that to her.
His discussion with Oji-san about vigilantes had given him an idea. He had yet to figure out if it was a good idea or not, but he had had the idea and it was this: be a vigilante. Why not? He had resources. He had time. His mom wasn’t around and Oji-san didn’t really seem like he would care. And really just by volunteering to live in the home of a supervillain he was already making great contributions to society, so more contributions wouldn’t hurt.
As such he bought a whole vigilante costume for himself including such items as: a green sweatshirt that he just kind of liked, a hat (All Might themed—he would need to find a place to hide this in his room), a scarf (also All Might themed), swim goggles, running shoes (All Might themed), pens (a hero themed pack), and twenty-four notebooks (A7 Kokuyo Campus brand in several colors). He also purchased a book of hero themed stickers. So he could decorate.
It was around this point that Oji-san threw his door open and said, “What are you doing to my bank account?”
Izuku shut his (brand new) laptop guiltily. He perhaps had gone overboard. “Nothing?”
“I can confiscate the credit card.”
(The joke was on him—Izuku had the number memorized already). “Sorry?”
Oji-san gave him a final glare and stormed off, muttering, “A hundred thirty million yen. Hell.”
Izuku waited until his footsteps were gone before reopening the computer and purchasing a Best Jeanist lamp. Then he shut the computer and decided to take a break from the spending of money. Really, he thought, he was doing the world a favor.
Kurogiri was a man of few words. The boy All for One had kidnapped/adopted, on the other hand, had many words.
“Does it hurt to teleport? Can you teleport people who aren’t where you are? How do you know where to send your portals? Can you teleport anything? An airplane? I don’t know why you would need to teleport an airplane since they can fly on their own. Where’s your head? Do you have a head? Is that a rude question? Do you have skin? Can you teleport me? I want to try it. Does your portal work like through space or does it fold space? How does it work? Tell me everything.”
He blinked expectantly at Kurogiri, pen poised over a fresh A7 Kokuyo Campus notebook in shade pink.
“I don’t know how it works,” Kurogiri said.
“How are you talking? Do you have a mouth?”
“I haven’t investigated.”
Midoriya looked like he had just broken his favorite toy. “You haven’t? Why?”
“Get to school,” All for One snapped from the next room over. “You’re wasting time talking. And it’s distracting.”
Kurogiri had been doing none of that talking. He opened a portal for Midoriya. “Have a nice day,” he said.
“Bye!” Midoriya stepped through the portal. Kurogiri heard him start muttering immediately on the other side, but he closed the portal before he could catch any of it. What a strange, strange boy.
“Kurogiri,” All for One called.
Kurogiri went to his office. “Yes?”
“I have made a grave, grave error.” He gave Kurogiri the hapless look of a man who had gone far too deep. “That boy is going to be the death of me.”
Kurogiri couldn’t help but agree. “Of both of us, sir.”
Notes:
Where is Tomura, you may be asking?
And you know what I'm not really sure yet but it WILL be addressed. Soon.
Chapter 4: A7 Kokuyo Campus Notebooks In Various Colors
Summary:
All for One uses A7 Kokuyo Campus notebooks in various colors to make his diary entries. Izuku uses A7 Kokuyo Campus notebooks in various colors to make his hero notes. Chaos ensues.
Notes:
I have been waiting ALL WEEK for it to be Friday so I could post this fslksdf
Chapter Text
All for One knew that the battle would not conclude without some sacrifices. He was well aware that he would have to lose almost everything he had in order to come out of it with everything he wanted. This was why he had set Tomura up as well as he could with Kurogiri before he left, and why he had told Garaki the exact location to pick him up at. This had to be done with the clean precision of a surgical needle. No room for errors.
All for One stood at the center of a deserted crosswalk, and he waited.
As if on cue, All Might fell from the heavens. All for One rolled his eyes. Buffoon. The sooner he could get this over with the happier he would be.
“All for One!” All Might shouted.
All for One sighed.
“I have come to defeat you once and for all. No more will your cruelty reign over Japan!”
He monologued for a long time about this. All for One waited for it to be over.
“ . . . And that is why you will meet your end today!”
“All Might, All Might, All Might,” All for One sighed, adding a slow clap in for emphasis. “You think you’re so powerful. You have no idea the skill, the stamina, I contain in one finger!”
He monologued for a time.
The obligations of heroes and villains were heavy. One must monologue at the beginning of every fight. The monologue sharing was customary and crucial to every major battle. Most of the time, All for One didn’t even know what he was saying—just that it had to be decently gory or All Might would never collect the guts he needed to actually start the fight.
Eventually, All Might found an opening for exactly that, and the fight began.
All for One loved the thrill of a fight. So many quirks he had that were no use in day-to-day situations, that he got to bring out just because of All Might. He had a new one that’s entire purpose was to slap the recipient across the face. It was so glorious to see in action.
He was just starting to get into it when his phone rang.
His personal phone. Which very few people had the number of.
“All Might,” he said, holding up a finger. “I need a time out momentarily. This might be important.”
All Might did stop, albeit with clear confusion. His injuries weren’t quite at the level All for One needed yet. Perhaps five more solid and sharp hits and he’d be fully incapacitated for the upcoming weeks. In his current state, he’d probably be fine and dandy by next month.
“I’m sorry?” All Might said, as if he hadn’t caught All for One’s request.
“It will just be a moment,” All for One said.
All Might held up his hands in acquiescence. All for One picked up the call.
“Hello?”
“Oji-san, hi!”
No.
No, this was not happening. No way in hell was this happening. Not now.
Through gritted teeth, All for One said, “Why. Are you calling me. Right now. And how did you get this number?”
“Well, you see.”
Midoriya had the tone of one that was about to say something that he knew would make All for One very fucking angry.
“I was just exploring.”
“And. . .” All for One growled, letting his tone drift threateningly at the end.
“And I found this room with lots of these old notebooks? And I was wondering if I could open them?”
All for One felt his heart stop. It actually stopped. “No,” he gasped.
“Hmm. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure!” he snapped. “Why are you in there? How are you in there?”
“Well,” Midoriya explained, as if he was patiently walking a child through a difficult math table, “I was exploring, and I found a locked door, so I unlocked the door and went inside.”
“Unlocked how?” All for One snapped.
“Is everything all right?” All Might asked, stepping forward anxiously.
All for One covered the speaker of his phone. “It’s my nephew,” he said coldly. “Allow me a moment.”
The expression on All Might’s face at the word “nephew” almost made the whole affair worth it. Almost made Midoriya’s discovery of very precious heirlooms a nonissue. But it wasn’t enough. All for One returned to Midoriya. “How did you unlock it?”
“There’s a set of lockpicks under the—”
All for One made a noise that could only be described as inhuman. “Get out of there! When you see locked doors, don’t open them! Why would you do that?” He was so mad he could have killed someone. All Might was a likely target.
“I dunno. Hey, you use the same notebook brand as me! A7 Kokuya Campus! Wow. Are you sure I can’t take a look—”
“No, you may not!” All for One hung up.
He stared down at his phone, mind whirring. He had to get home as soon as possible. He had to stop Midoriya from looking through those notebooks.
But he was also in the middle of a battle with All Might, which was admittedly very important. So the options were 1) have very personal information infiltrated by Midoriya or 2) lose to All Might.
Well, but he had already planned to lose to All Might. So this was just losing to All Might a little earlier than he had previously anticipated. Feeling suddenly stiff and on edge, he put his phone away.
“Is everything all—”
“We’ll continue now,” All for One said. And then he resumed his attacks.
Izuku recognized he should not have been on the website he was on when he found out All Might was in a big villain fight. There were certain corners of the internet where the really big villains kept each other up to date on goings-on and this huge fight between All Might and some big supervillain was all anyone could talk about.
It hadn’t taken Izuku long to realize the big supervillain was his uncle. And from there he realized he and he alone could stop the battle and save All Might. That was when he frantically began exploring the house for a reason to call Oji-san. And that was when he found the notebooks. Rows and rows and rows of well-worn notebooks.
Despite Oji-san’s instructions to leave the notebooks alone without looking at them, Izuku’s curiosity was uncontainable. Notes from a villain. How exciting! There could be evil plans inside. He could send the evil plans to the heroes and they would give him an award and make him a hero too for being so helpful.
Izuku observed the notebooks carefully and selected one from the top right shelf. It was the same color as Hero Analysis Notebook Number 1, which Izuku had long since deemed unusable, since most of the notes were in crayon and had been written when he was in pre school. He replaced the notebook he pulled from the shelf with Hero Analysis Notebook Number 1. And then he found one that looked identical to Hero Analysis Notebook Number 2. So he replaced that one. And then he found one that looked identical to Hero Analysis Notebook Number 3.
At that point he decided maybe he should stop stealing notebooks. He put the three notebooks in his room where their Hero Analysis counterparts had been, and then he returned to the Room of Notebooks to wait.
When Oji-san arrived, he slammed the door open and immediately stormed to the bookshelves to make sure they were all in place. Izuku waited patiently as he scoured the shelves. The moment he was satisfied with his search, he whipped around to glare at Izuku.
“I didn’t open any of them,” Izuku offered. Which was true, as of this moment. “You said not to.”
“Why,” Oji-san said, “are you in here?”
Izuku sighed and began to explain for the third time how he had found the locked door and then picked the lock.
“Do you have any idea the trouble you caused me today?” Oji-san interrupted. “I had to leave a very important business meeting to come back here.”
“You told me not to touch the notebooks,” Izuku pointed out. “Maybe you should have trusted me to listen. I was waiting for you to come back. Also, why do you smell like smoke?”
Oji-san looked ready to breathe fire—something that Izuku’s dad could actually do, so maybe Oji-san was capable as well. “I was in a very important business meeting,” he said. “There were . . . candles.”
Izuku nodded.
“Since when have you known how to pick locks?” Oji-san asked suddenly.
“Well.” Izuku regaled him with the story of that one time Kacchan wanted to sneak into the teacher’s lounge but the door was locked so Izuku had taught himself to pick locks since he thought it would be a transferable skill to heroics but then the thing was that by the time he learned how to pick locks Kacchan didn’t even want to go into the teacher’s lounge anymore, but then Izuku knew how to pick locks so he could do other stuff like break into his mom’s fireproof safe and stuff.
Oji-san stared at him in silence.
Izuku shrugged.
Oji-san said, “Go to your room. And if I ever catch you snooping again there will be hell to pay. No more lock picking.”
“Okay,” Izuku said, and he went to his room, which, coincidentally, was exactly where he wanted to be. He waited until he was reasonably certain Oji-san wasn’t going to interrupt his time with the notebooks before pulling them out and flipping them open.
Dear Diary, the first one read, and Izuku giggled.
Oji-san kept a diary. He kept shelves and shelves and shelves of diaries.
Snickering, Izuku started to read.
Against his better judgment, Kurogiri had been growing fond of Midoriya Izuku. He was easier to be around than, for example, Shigaraki Tomura, who could be whiny on the best of days and an inconsolable nuisance on the worst. Midoriya had a light to him that had long been snuffed in Shigaraki Tomura, a curiosity and an excitement that Kurogiri found endearing. Something about it felt familiar to him, like finding a piece of himself that he hadn’t known was missing.
“How old is Oji-san?” Midoriya asked. He was sitting at the counter in the bar, his short legs swinging, as Kurogiri cleaned up. Technically, he was supposed to be doing his homework, but Kurogiri trusted him to multitask.
“Very old,” Kurogiri guessed.
“I think so too,” Midoriya said thoughtfully. He filled in an answer on his math homework, and then paused, fiddling with his eraser. “How old is my dad?”
“I’ve never met your dad.”
“Neither have I,” Midoriya said. “Well, actually, when I was really little he was around, but when I was like four he moved to America, so I actually don’t really remember him.”
Kurogiri didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m sorry,” he tried.
Midoriya waved him off. “No, no.” He fell silent again. Kurogiri frowned at him, putting down the glass he was polishing. Long silences like this were uncharacteristic of Midoriya Izuku. “My dad has a fire breathing quirk,” Midoriya said finally. “It’s documented and everything.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” Midoriya doodled lightly on the corner of his math homework. “What’s Oji-san’s quirk?”
That was a question Kurogiri thought it best not to address. He suggested, gently, “Maybe you should ask him.”
“Mm.” Midoriya answered another question. “Hey Kurogiri? Could I go to my friend’s house for the night?”
Kurogiri, of course, couldn’t find any fault in that. He did ask All for One very quickly if that would be all right, but All for One snapped at him that he didn’t care where the kid went as long as it wasn’t through any locked doors (Kurogiri didn’t know what that was about), so Kurogiri told Midoriya it would be fine. Midoriya ran upstairs to pack a bag. When he came back, he gave Kurogiri some exact coordinates and Kurogiri dropped him in what appeared to be a random park. “Is this right?” he asked before he left.
“Yep! Thanks!”
Kurogiri didn’t see any friends around, but Midoriya seemed so confident and All for One hadn’t seemed to mind. They agreed to meet up exactly here after school tomorrow, and Midoriya ran off to go find his friend.
Deep down, Kurogiri suspected that Midoriya didn’t really have any friends. But the independence would be good for him (never mind that he was only nine years old), and on the off chance that he really was about to have a sleepover—well who was Kurogiri to ruin that for him?
He closed the portal.
“How old is Oji-san?” Izuku asked his mom over the phone. He hadn’t really known where to go and hadn’t wanted to show up at Kacchan’s house without having set anything up yet, so he was sitting on the back steps of Kacchan’s building to use the wifi until he could figure some things out.
“He’s six or seven years older than your dad, if I remember right,” his mom said.
“How old is Dad?”
“Forty-two.”
“Oh.” Izuku thought about this for a moment. “How’d you meet Dad?”
“We met at a cafe. It was very romantic.” She sighed, lost in thought for a moment. Then: “Why all the questions, Izuku? Is something wrong?”
“No,” Izuku said slowly. “I was just curious, I guess. We don’t talk about Dad a lot. And Oji-san is . . . I don’t know him super well.”
“Oh. I’m sorry we don’t talk about your dad enough. He’s a really lovely man. Are you uncomfortable living with your uncle? We can move you back to the Bakugous’ if you need to.”
“No, he’s fine.” Izuku scraped his toe carefully along the concrete steps. “We would know if Dad was like hundreds of years old, right?”
His mom laughed. “I think we’d know that, definitely. He’s only forty-two, I promise.”
“And he has a fire breathing quirk?”
“Yes. It’s very impressive. You won’t remember this, but for your third birthday he lit all your candles with one breath.”
Izuku smiled, imagining that.
“It was very sweet.”
“Was he a late bloomer?” Like me , Izuku wanted to add, but he was too old for that fantasy now. Eight years old, or barely nine (there was some contention), was the record for late bloomers—and Izuku didn’t think he would be beating any records any time soon.
“No, right on time. Why?”
“I’m just . . . “ Izuku sighed. There wasn’t any way for him to explain what he had found in Oji-san’s diaries. The entries had been confusing and used a lot of big words Izuku didn’t understand. But from what he had gathered, it seemed like Oji-san was really old, which meant that Izuku’s dad was really old.
But Izuku’s dad wasn’t really old. He was a normal age, and he wasn’t quirkless, like Oji-san’s brother was. And so the more Izuku read of the diaries, the more it didn’t really seem like Oji-san was his uncle at all. And that was a little scary.
“How’s Obaasan?”
His mom paused, as though trying to decide whether or not to let him get away with the subject change, before answering. “She’s still fighting it. It might take her longer to recover than we thought. Are you sure you’re okay living with your uncle while I stay out here?”
“Yeah!” The last thing Izuku needed right now was his mom trying to pull him out of the clutches of an actual supervillain. Especially since now it was starting to seem like the supervillain was not, in fact, his uncle. “He’s . . . funny.”
“All right.” She paused. “I’m really sorry, Izuku.”
Izuku hated when his mom apologized for stuff. Because usually—almost always, actually—it felt like she was apologizing for his quirklessness. As if that was anything either of them could control. It felt like pity. It felt like shame.
“I’m fine,” he said, smiling as wide as he could so his voice would sound happy. “Really.”
He glanced at his bag and made up his mind.
Aizawa Shouta was a tired man.
The reasons for this were vast and numerous: his close friendship with Yamada Hizashi, the ever nagging emails from Nedzu of UA, the sad weakness of coffee in this day and age, his job, villains in general.
At the moment, it was an hour Shouta wished he wasn’t alive, let alone awake, and he was squatting on top of a building, looking down at two people doing something shady, and trying to decide if they’d done anything illegal enough yet for him to arrest them or if it would be a pointless exercise. Decisions like these were best made with the proper amount of sleep. He squinted as one of the people passed something off to the other person. Drugs. He sighed.
People, he decided as he dropped down to arrest both of them, were idiots.
He waited on the curb for the arrival of the police with them both tangled up in his capture weapon. To pass the time, he opened his phone and found a new message from Nedzu, which he deleted without reading. The rat wanted him to come back to UA and teach. Ha! As if Shouta had any potential for skill as a teacher. He would be a terrible teacher, and it was a terrible idea.
“Excuse me!” a young voice piped up. Shouta turned, an eyebrow already raised.
Before him stood a scrawny kid swathed in a green hoodie a couple sizes too big for him, wearing an All Might themed winter hat and an All Might scarf, which was pulled up to cover his nose and mouth. He was also, inexplicably, wearing swim goggles. There was no question that Shouta was coming face to face with a seven year old who was alone on the streets at 3 am.
“Can I borrow your phone?” the kid asked. “I need to call someone.”
Ordinarily, Shouta would not pass his phone off to a random stranger. But this kid was obviously lost and needed to find his parents, who would hopefully put him to bed and burn his outfit. He pulled up the phone app and passed his phone over to the child wordlessly.
The kid dug into his bag, pulled out a pink notebook, and flipped through it. He found the page he needed and typed in a phone number, cross referencing with whatever was in his notebook. He held the phone up to his ear and gave Shouta a huge thumbs up.
“Hi!” he said when someone picked up. “This isn’t Eraserhead. I’m borrowing his phone for a second. He’s a little busy and there’s some lady breaking into the ATM two blocks over? I was thinking you might be around?”
All of Shouta’s previous assumptions were shattered, except one. That one was this: he should never be a teacher. No one in the world sucked more at reading children than him.
“Oh cool!” The kid listed off an address. “Thanks so much! Bye!” He hung up and held the phone out to Shouta.
Shouta stared at him, the phone hanging in the air between the two of them. Slowly, Shouta took the phone. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I have yet to decide on my cool vigilante name,” the kid said, sounding distraught over this.
“Problem child,” Shouta started gruffly. He glanced down at the two people tangled up in his capture weapon, trying to figure out how he could have a real conversation with this kid about the dangers of vigilantism and why engaging in it was a bad idea, especially at seven years old.
“That’s a terrible name.”
“Where are your parents?”
The kid shrugged. “I live with my uncle. Except he’s not really my uncle? It’s a very complex situation.” He gave Shouta a grave look, which might have been less comical if it didn’t come from behind swim goggles. Shouta was almost ashamed of his own goggles just looking at the kid. “So complex it’s unexplainable. You wouldn’t understand.”
All Shouta needed to do was get the kid to hold still until Tsukauchi arrived. That was all he needed. “How old are you?”
The sound of something shattering came from the alley next to them. Both the kid and Shouta looked that way at once. When Shouta turned back to the kid to tell him to hold still , nothing was there except empty space.
Shouta was so tired.
Chapter 5: Just School Things
Summary:
Some tedious responsibilities of being a parent finally catch up to All for One. Izuku . . . helps?
Chapter Text
Izuku slapped his homework down on the corner of Not Oji-san’s desk. He then walked away and got a spinny wheely chair from the other side of the room and pushed it over to Not Oji-san’s desk. He climbed up on top of it.
“English,” he said, “is not my strongest suit.”
“And you are here why ?” Not Oji-san asked coldly.
As of now, Izuku had a plan. His plan was: one, get Not Oji-san to teach him English; two, slowly break through Not Oji-san’s shell to what had to be a very nice person underneath (he was determined that this had to be true); three, bring about world peace. These items were loosely connected. He had not thought the plan through very thoroughly.
After reading through Not-Oji-san’s diaries and doing some personal investigation, he decided Not-Oji-san was indeed not his uncle, and not even related to him at all. Upon that discovery, he subsequently realized that he had essentially been kidnapped by the biggest supervillain of all time. He didn’t know why this had happened, but since, after all, he wanted more than anything to become a hero, he had decided to take this as an opportunity. He could take down the biggest supervillain of all time all by himself and save lots and lots of people in the process, and then All Might would think he was super cool, and he’d be admitted into UA as the youngest student of UA history, and everyone in the world would think he was really powerful and strong and amazing.
But first, homework.
“I am here because you know English.” Izuku tapped his pen on the paper. “And I need help.”
Not Oji-san went very quiet.
“This is a part of adoption, you know,” Izuku said. “Helping with homework. Spending time with your kid. And so on.”
As if it was painful for him, Not Oji-san echoed, “And. So. On.”
“Yes. So the question is asking me to write out the alphabet but I’m stuck because the b and the d are the same letter?”
Not Oji-san glanced at the paper. “You wrote the d backward.”
“Aha.” Izuku observed his mistake. He erased the incorrect letter and rewrote it the right way. “Okay. And then why are the g and the q the same?”
“They are not.”
Izuku pushed his paper insistently toward Not Oji-san.
Not Oji-san made a long irritated exhaling noise. He took the paper and squinted at it. “You’ve written the curve of the g in the wrong direction. It curves in, not out.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s how English works,” Not Oji-san said. “Now leave me alone.”
“I have more questions.”
Not Oji-san made an aggravated sound. But he also didn’t tell Izuku to go away, so Izuku considered it an all around win. He pointed at the next problem he was having. Not Oji-san explained.
And on it went.
Toshinori had not expected the final fight with All for One to go so well.
Sure, he’d had to spend half a month in the hospital and had been told he wasn’t allowed to do any heroics for a full month after that, but he’d recovered fine, and other than a slight limp in his deflated form and a bit of a residual cough, no one was any the wiser to what had happened.
He could argue that there was something almost suspicious about it, like it hadn’t been the triumphant success he’d wanted it to be, but he couldn’t admit that to himself, couldn’t come around to it, so he let himself believe that All for One was dead. He had to, or he’d lose it. There just was no other option.
His friendship with Mirai was frayed, but not irrecoverable. Mirai strongly advised Toshinori retire, now that All for One was gone, but All Might couldn’t just up and disappear. A slow and steady phase out was probably the better way to go—but then there was the issue of finding a successor for the quirk and all that. Toshinori had decided not to think about that though, because he was busy trying to recuperate. It was proving difficult, due to him having an “inability to hold still” (Recovery Girl’s words, not his) and a “penchant for self-sacrificial behavior” (that was Mirai’s).
The months passed by quietly, and as time passed, he started to settle into the knowledge that he really had won. Just because they’d never found All for One’s body didn’t mean he hadn’t died. This was what Toshinori had to believe to keep going.
So he did.
When Midoriya had come to All for One with a nervous expression and an “important school thing” in the form of a sheet of paper in his hands, All for One could not have imagined that one week later he would be walking into Midoriya’s elementary school for Parent Teacher Conferences.
And yet.
“Where’s your classroom?” he asked Midoriya, who apparently wasn’t supposed to come to such events, but had asked to tag along so he could show All for One the way. This would have been humiliating if the situation hadn’t felt so unreal. All for One. At a Parent Teacher Conference. What had the world come to?
“I’ll show you,” Midoriya said, confidently leading the way. The school seemed normal enough, white paint on the walls, neatly labeled doors.
He hadn’t anticipated the amount of children’s art hanging on the wall. “Are any of these yours?” he asked, gesturing at some historical projects with nasty handwriting.
“No,” Midoriya said, affronted that he’d even suggested such a thing. “This is like eight year olds’ stuff. My project is hanging up in my hallway.”
He shot All for One a look like that should have been obvious. All for One felt his eye twitch.
“So, all you do in Parent Teacher Conferences,” Midoriya explained, as if All for One hadn’t done a deep research dive last night on the very topic, “is sit and, like, talk to the teacher about my grades and personality and stuff. And they should tell you how I’m doing in the class and some things to think about when I do my homework I think? I’m not really sure what happens. Maybe you eat candy.”
All for One suspected they would not be eating candy.
“ This is my hallway,” Midoriya said, turning down a hallway that looked exactly like the other hallways. The handwriting on the artworks looked a little better here, All for One supposed. “We did hero projects a month ago. I wanted to do mine on All Might, but you hate All Might and anyway everyone wanted to do All Might so I did Best Jeanist instead, even though my teacher didn’t know who that is.”
Midoriya stopped in front of a picture with an actually decent drawing of Best Jeanist (although the thought of Midoriya creating such a thing under All for One’s roof was sickening). “See?”
All for One peered to decipher Midoriya’s writing. The essay seemed to extend several pages past what everyone else had done, given the stack of papers glued to it.
“I got carried away,” Midoriya said without a singular ounce of sheepishness.
“I see.” All for One really did need to stop this hero obsession. Nip it in the bud. Cut it off before it swelled too far, if it hadn’t already.
“And this is my classroom,” Midoriya said, already at the door.
It looked fine enough. It had an irritating cutesy name plate on it and a picture of the class that featured a hugely smiling Izuku, despite an obvious black eye. Clumsy kid.
All for One peered in through the window on the door, but there was another family already in there, so he stepped back to wait with Izuku. Having to wait was irksome. He could, he reasoned, just murder the family inside, but maybe that would ruin more things than it would solve. Fine. He could be patient.
“Also,” Midoriya said, more softly now, “just so you know, my teacher doesn’t really like me very much. Most of my teachers don’t like me very much. So that’s probably a good thing for you to know too. Maybe my mom told you that already, though.”
Inko hadn’t mentioned any of that when All for One had spoken to her on the phone. “What, do you start fights or something?”
“I don’t start them,” Midoriya said. “They just kind of happen.”
This seemed in character given it was exactly the reason All for One had felt the need to abduct Midoriya in the first place.
The door opened and the other family stepped out, talking quietly to each other. The mom gave Midoriya a weird look, and then All for One a weird look, and kept walking, lowering her voice to talk to her husband further. All for One reached for a hearing quirk, feeling weirdly protective, but before he could activate it Midoriya’s teacher poked his head out of the classroom and gestured All for One in.
“Good luck,” Midoriya said gravely, like this was a matter of life and death.
All for One couldn’t even find the brain space to respond to that—a feat, given how much brain space he had available. Midoriya was too baffling a being to comprehend in one sweep.
“So, you’re Midoriya’s uncle?” the teacher asked, settling down behind a neat desk.
“Yes, and his current guardian.” All for One took the chair opposite. “I admit I’ve never had to go to one of these meetings before.”
“I’ll keep it short,” the teacher said warmly, shuffling his notes. “Midoriya is a bright student and he gets good grades, but he’s incredibly distractible and has a muttering habit that hinders his classmates. He’s behind when it comes to socializing and connecting with his peers.”
All for One had a tactic. It included agreeing with everything the teacher said to get out of here as quickly as possible. “He’s always been a loner,” All for One said, smiling pleasantly.
“If only it were just that,” the teacher said, shaking his head. “Starting fights—”
This seemed unlikely to All for One.
“—causing a ruckus, hurting other students.”
“Hurting them?” All for One repeated, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice.
“Oh, yes,” the teacher said, obviously misinterpreting the source of All for One’s confusion. He probably thought All for One had never even considered such a thing for his good, sweet Izuku. In fact, All for One was incredibly aware of how destructive Midoriya could be, but it seemed unlikely he would use any of that at school. He was an irritating, smart, pesky kid, but he was also gentle and obviously wanted more than anything to be a hero. The idea of him picking fights was ridiculous—although it did fall in line with typical heroic behavior. Just not Midoriya’s typical heroic behavior.
“Having a late quirk development can be difficult on anyone.”
“Izuku is quirkless,” All for One said, his confusion growing. The latest quirk development in the history books was age eight (some researchers argued for nine, but it depended on the source). Midoriya was almost ten.
“We’re still holding out hope for him. You know how difficult quirklessness can be. It’s already made him such a troubled child.”
All for One blinked at the teacher. Blinked again. He would have laughed if he wasn’t desperately trying to reconcile his earlier planned tactic with the situation before him. Midoriya was definitely quirkless and definitely not starting fights at school. “Perhaps he has an invisible quirk,” All for One said in a last ditch attempt to keep hold of some sanity. “How can he improve his class performance?”
The teacher rustled his papers again. “Yes, well . . .”
By the time the meeting was over, All for One had a headache and was seriously considering taking away the teacher’s useless quirk just so the ungrateful man could have a taste of it. He walked out of the classroom to find Midoriya set up on his laptop, hard at work.
“What are you doing?”
“I was thinking it would be fun if I could have teacher’s access to my report card,” Midoriya said, not looking up.
All for One sighed.
“What did he say?” Midoriya asked, hitting enter and then making a face.
For one of the first times in his life, All for One hesitated. The teacher had said plenty of things Midoriya probably already knew but didn’t need to hear a second time. He had also said Midoriya was unusually sharp for someone his age, particularly since he didn’t have a quirk assisting him (yet).
“Never mind.” Midoriya clicked his laptop shut and smiled at All for One. “I’m a terrible student and I like kicking people.”
“He actually said you’re very intelligent.”
Midoriya shook his head and climbed to his feet. “He thought I was cheating for the first month or so of class and then he had me take a test in a separate room and I got better scores than everyone anyway and he had to admit I was doing it all on my own. People are weird. I want to go home now, okay?”
Home.
All for One frowned at Midoriya, that word echoing around in his skull over and over again. Home. It didn’t mean anything, probably. Just that Midoriya wanted to go back to the bar but didn’t want to say out loud in his elementary school that he “wanted to go to the bar.” But home .
He was reading too far into this and it tired him. “All right. Home, then.”
Chapter 6: Ten Years Old
Summary:
Izuku decides its time he started doing independent and responsible things, like making pancakes and beating up villains. AFO keeps everything in order (kind of?).
Notes:
WE HAVE FANART!!!! Big many thanks to Laz for doing this quick and beautiful sketch of our young sir. The puffball nearly killed me.
EDIT: I know the image isn't showing up right now!! Working on a fix :)
EDIT 2: FIXED!!! Pls lmk if you notice the image is not here again so I can fix for the third time skjdjdkdThank you so much to everyone here for all the support on this fic! I really appreciate every comment, kudo, and bookmark. And here is the chapter!
Chapter Text
Over the last few months, Izuku had learned many things.
He had learned that Not Oji-san had a cool quirk that let him give and take quirks as he wanted, which had led to several fantasies of Not Oji-san giving Izuku a quirk, which he’d had to shut down with the logic of things like morals and danger. Izuku had endless questions about this quirk but had to keep them to himself or he’d reveal that he knew Not Oji-san was the villain to end all villains.
He had learned that All Might had a weird quirk too with a lot of complicated rules. This he still had to do some research on (he would need to get his hands on more diaries, probably, and that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon). But the baseline knowledge he now had was good.
But potentially more than all, he had learned about Kurogiri. He had learned—yes! he had learned—that Kurogiri, above all possible stretches of the imagination, was a terrible, terrible cook. The worst cook in the world.
Izuku had had bad cooking before (Mitsuki’s was particularly awful), but Kurogiri’s cooking held the record. This had led to Izuku volunteering to shop for himself and make his own lunches weeks ago, which seemed to be a relief to Kurogiri, and it had also led to Not Oji-san stepping in on the cooking duties more than once when what Kurogiri attempted making turned out blackened and/or raw (there was rarely an in between). Not Oji-san didn’t seem to like cooking, but he was much better at it than Kurogiri.
This cooking thing was honestly upsetting. At first, Izuku had thought maybe the reason for the bad cooking was that Kurogiri, being made of mist, didn’t have to eat. But no, Kurogiri had to eat too, and he also thought his cooking was the worst thing ever. Even after months of cooking for Izuku, it had not improved. Izuku thought he himself could probably do a better job.
Which was how Izuku had come to the grand idea of waking up at 6 am and attempting to make pancakes all by himself. He succeeded at mixing the ingredients although he had some trouble with the eggs, and the batter looked like it was the right consistency when he was done. The frying pan seemed dangerous and he observed it for a long time, trying to figure out how high to turn the heat and how much butter to put on the pan.
He had made pancakes with his mom before—since his dad was in America, his mom was always trying to get them to do American-style things, maybe to feel close to him, maybe to understand what he was up to. But when they’d made pancakes his mom had insisted that she be the one to do the parts that included fire and hot pans, and Izuku, being a very obedient and understanding child, had let her.
But now his mom wasn’t here and he was alone in the kitchen at 6:45 (mixing the batter had taken him a very long time, mostly because the ingredients were high up and he’d had to improvise to get them down from the top shelves in the cupboard—vigilante training, if you asked him). The pan looked somewhat menacing.
Izuku could try to turn on the stove by himself, but it seemed like a bad idea, particularly given that he wasn’t used to this stove and didn’t know anything about how it worked. His mom would not approve.
His options from there were limited. He could go to Kurogiri and get him to demonstrate how to turn on the stove, but given Kurogiri’s track record, it was likely Kurogiri himself didn’t know how to turn it on. And Kurogiri wouldn’t understand that Izuku wanted to do the cooking, and he would take over the pancake making, and then the pancakes would be terrible, and so really going to Kurogiri would do the opposite of what Izuku wanted to achieve.
The other option was Not Oji-san. After some contemplation, Izuku found that there really weren’t any drawbacks to asking Not Oji-san, so he set down the recipe book and went to find him.
It had only taken Izuku a couple weeks to learn that Not Oji-san didn’t really sleep. Sometimes he took a power nap or two, which he called “recharge breaks” to Izuku’s delight, but he didn’t sleep very often otherwise. Izuku chalked it up to a quirk, probably.
All this meant was that Izuku was able to quickly find Not Oji-san in his office, swiping through a map and squinting at the computer screen like an old man.
“Oji-san,” Izuku said, drawing out the name. “Can you help me? I’m trying to make pancakes and the stove is complicated and also unsafe for me to use all by myself.”
Not Oji-san turned slightly in his swivel chair, glaring quite openly at Izuku. “What did I say about interrupting my work?”
“Not to unless it’s an emergency.”
“And?”
“But it is an emergency!”
Not Oji-san looked at the ceiling as if it could help him, which was funny because obviously the ceiling couldn’t turn on the stove for Izuku. Evidently Not Oji-san received no assistance from the ceiling, because with a resigned huff he got up from his chair and entered the bar to help.
He stopped short at the sight of the place and Izuku happily squeezed past him to show him the stove dilemma.
“What did you do?” Not Oji-san asked, awestruck.
Izuku observed the kitchen, which he supposed he’d made a bit of a mess of. He’d seen Kurogiri do worse, in his defense. It was nothing that a little scrubbing couldn’t fix.
“The eggs were complicated,” he explained.
“And the flour?” Not Oji-san said, pointing at an offending spot.
“I’m not tall enough to get it down normally. Can you turn on the stove?”
Not Oji-san picked his way through the landmine of the kitchen. He turned on the stove with expert ease. Izuku put the frying pan on top of the stove and then produced the butter. “How much butter do I put on the pan?” he asked.
Not Oji-san gave the disaster of the kitchen another look and took the butter right out of Izuku’s hands. “We can do this part together,” he said, cutting a small piece of butter off and dropping it into the pan.
That sounded just fine to Izuku. He marched over to the batter he’d made and brought it over to the stove. Not Oji-san inspected it and apparently found it up to par because he used one of his quirks to pull the ground up under Izuku as a sort of step stool and gave Izuku a spoon. “Not too much,” he warned as Izuku stuck the spoon deep into the batter.
Izuku carefully put some of the batter on the pan. It was not enough so he added a little more. And then made another spot with it, and another. Not Oji-san helped him flip them when they were ready, his hands steady on the spatula.
When Kurogiri appeared in the bar, looking well rested and calm, Izuku and Not Oji-san had a stack of perfect pancakes and a much bigger stack of misshapen pancakes. He froze immediately, his yellow eyes very wide, staring at Izuku on his makeshift stepstool and Not Oji-san next to him, both of them eating pancakes by hand as they made more, and Izuku with eggs in his hair and flour on his shirt.
“You have no right to judge,” Not Oji-san said.
Kurogiri turned away, resigned. “I’ll get a mop.”
For Izuku’s tenth birthday, Not Oji-san gave him a really nice computer with a monitor and everything and a textbook on hero analysis and statistics. He did this with a sour expression, as though he was giving the gifts against his will. Nevertheless, Izuku nearly cried with joy, particularly when he opened the textbook.
Kurogiri gave him a brand new hoodie—yellow—and Izuku put it on at once. It was slightly oversized and the bottom of it extended to his knees. He loved it more than anything in the entire world.
His mom mailed him a few All Might related things, which Not Oji-san threatened to burn upon their opening. Izuku stuck his tongue out at him, which made him make this funny enraged constipated face, and then set about repackaging the figurines so he could mail them back to himself for a later date. They were all wonderful items.
His father sent him a very boring watch which Izuku contemplated briefly before setting aside. Izuku didn’t know his dad all that well and his dad didn’t usually get him anything good, so he felt neutral about the gift. Not excited or sad. Not Oji-san seemed more irritated by the gift than Izuku himself, but Not Oji-san was usually irritated anyway.
Mitsuki and Masaru (and Kacchan, likely with reluctance) had signed Izuku up for a subscription to Hero Magazine, which delighted Izuku for several reasons, including: the wonderful content in Hero Magazine, the torture that regular deliveries of Hero Magazine would bring to Not Oji-san, and the addition to his collection of other similar magazines. Life was good.
Those were all the presents Izuku got for his birthday. They were plenty. Not Oji-san, to his relief, didn’t seem inclined to set up a birthday party, which was wonderful because Izuku’s mom was always trying to set up birthday parties for him and always cried when no one showed up. So not having to go through the motions of having a birthday party only for the disappointment of being alone on his birthday anyway was a welcome change. And it was all thanks to the apathy of Not Oji-san, which Izuku found himself loving more and more by the daily. So much freedom came from apathy.
Izuku’s birthday gift to himself was that he was determined to make the most of his evening. He had a goal: stop one villain fight all on his own without having to call a hero in for help. As Izuku was now in the double digits, he had decided he had come of age to do some actual crime fighting.
Fortunately for him, Kurogiri liked Izuku possibly too much.
“Kurogiri,” Izuku said, draping himself over the counter at the bar. Very few people ever actually came into the bar before eight. It made Izuku wonder why they had a bar in the first place. “Today I turn ten years of age.”
Kurogiri’s foggy yellow eyes narrowed, as if he knew he was about to get talked into something he didn’t actually want to agree to.
“I would like to go to Kacchan’s for my birthday.”
“Has he invited you over?” Kurogiri asked, wiping off the counter. That was the other thing about this bar—it never got dirty, but Kurogiri was cleaning it all the time anyway.
“Yep,” Izuku lied. “Can you drop me off?”
Kurogiri glanced toward Not Oji-san’s study.
“He won’t mind,” Izuku said, which was probably true. Not Oji-san, he had found, took only a superficial interest in Izuku’s upbringing—except the few times he had suddenly become very interested. Izuku preferred Not Oji-san when he didn’t care what Izuku was up to, because in that window of opportunity was when Izuku did his best work.
Kurogiri sighed and put down the rag he was using. “All right,” he said. “Can the Bakugous get you to school in the morning?”
“Absolutely,” Izuku lied. He had started getting very good at finding places to sleep in the city. It was either sleep out there (one of his favorites was on the playground, because there were plenty of sheltered places there), or tell Kurogiri what he was up to, and he would rather take his chances in the city. He’d almost managed to convince himself it was just like camping in order to come to terms with it.
Kurogiri sighed. “Go get your bag ready.”
Izuku ran upstairs like a demon, so excited he could hardly breathe. He would stop crime just like All Might and save lives. Ten years old and the youngest hero in the history of ever. Wow! He was so awesome. He shoved his green hoodie, his goggles, his hat and scarf and gloves, an abundance of Very Healthy Snacks including two granola bars and a pack of chips, his toothbrush, a notebook and a pencil, and his cell phone into a drawstring bag. Successful, he thundered back down the stairs and skidded to a stop in front of Kurogiri, who had a vaguely amused expression on his face.
“I’m ready,” Izuku said, trying to regain some dignity by speaking very normally and seriously.
Kurogiri made a noise somewhere between a cough and a snort. He opened a portal for Izuku—an occasion which never ceased to be wondrous—and Izuku stepped through.
Finding crime in Musutafu was always the hard part. Not that there wasn’t crime in Musutafu, but more that it liked to hide. Izuku started by combing through the sketchier parts of the city, and when that didn’t reap any benefits, he climbed up a fire escape and sat on a roof, waiting for some action to begin.
Several hours later he was freezing and beginning to wonder if this was turning out to be the worst birthday of all time. He was just contemplating if it was worth calling Kurogiri and saying he’d changed his mind and wanted to come home when he heard a scream.
He jumped to his feet immediately, forgotten excitement surging up in him again. The best birthday ever was back in swing. He clambered back down the fire escape and wove through the alleys toward the noise, making a mental note to start mapping out the city better so he could navigate it more quickly. Still, he found the source of the scream in record time, mostly on account of the scream repeating itself, and found a giant bat lady cornering some other lady.
It struck Izuku in that moment that he had no idea how to fight people.
He puffed up his cheeks, trying to figure out how to solve the problem without actually doing any fighting, given that he knew about how well that would go for him. He wasn’t a super fast runner, so making himself into a distraction wouldn’t help much and would actually probably just make the situation worse. He didn’t have enough items with him to make a trap or a different type of distraction, except his phone which he suspected wasn’t actually helpful.
The bat lady tried to approach the lady again, who luckily was holding a taser between them and seemed like she was both willing to use it and capable, although clearly terrified. Neither of them had noticed Izuku yet.
Maybe Izuku hadn’t thought this through properly. Even if he could take down the bat lady, then what? He didn’t have anything he could use to tie her up.
What a terrible disappointment. And on his birthday no less.
Sighing, he stepped forward.
“Excuse me,” he said miserably. “Can I borrow one of your phones?”
Both of them looked at him at once. The bat lady looked him up and down, wings lifting more and more by the minute. She glanced at the other lady, hissed, “We’ll finish this later,” and took off.
Izuku couldn’t believe it. That was all it took to be a hero? What a thrill! He’d scared off that bat lady with one look and one simple question. He really was just like All Might.
“Thank you,” the other lady said shakily, pulling out her phone. “Here.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine,” Izuku said, watching the bat lady fly over the roof of the building. “I don’t need—”
The bat lady shrieked from up above and with a crash fell back into the alley. Wrapped all around her was Eraserhead’s capture scarf thing. He followed right after, dropping down and finishing tying her up, looking bored. He looked the lady with the taser up and down, probably scanning for injuries like any awesome hero, and then looked at Izuku, who waved.
“You again,” Eraserhead said, sounding displeased about this.
“You’re welcome!” Izuku said happily, and then he turned and sprinted away at top speed. Eraserhead was always trying to capture him.
As he ran, he began compiling a new list. From here forth for his vigilante activities he would need support items. If he was going to actually engage in fights he needed more things, including more skill and forethought. This had been an excellent birthday experiment (nevermind that he could have died), but he would refrain from repeating it until he had done much research and at least a little bit of practicing.
But wow! A complete success! He and Eraserhead would make very good teammates, Izuku thought. Maybe Eraserhead could be his new favorite hero now that he’d been banned from liking All Might. This seemed like a great idea.
He went back to his rooftop perch, pulled out his notebook and a pencil, and began to plot.
All for One hated the word “pickle.” It was a frivolous word, a cheap word. But right now, he had to admit, he was in one, and he was in deep.
So he had kidnapped Midoriya Izuku under the guise of being his uncle. Flawless, he’d thought. No one had to die, no suspicions were cast anywhere, and he could keep a close eye on the child as he grew up.
But this had been operating under a number of assumptions. First, that All for One would keep a healthy emotional distance between himself and Midoriya Izuku. Second, that All for One would murder Midoriya’s mother when the time came for her to return to take care of her son. Third, that All for One was capable of manipulating Midoriya to like him despite his murder of said mother.
Well, Midoriya’s grandmother had finally passed on and Midoriya Inko had called him to tell him she was preparing to return home, and he was in a pickle. Here is what had gone wrong: All for One had a reluctant fondness for Midoriya (he was sticking with that description), and thus he couldn’t murder Midoriya Inko. This threw off the entire operation.
He teleported to a small neighborhood in northwestern Japan and scowled at a wide house with a pretty front door and a carefully done garden out front. It was fine, he supposed, but not somewhere Midoriya could live. There wasn’t enough action here. He’d die from boredom.
All for One, like the creep he was, walked around the side of the house and peered in the window. When he found the room he needed, he strolled off down the street again to wait until dark. He watched the house as night fell, watched a tired Midoriya Inko bring her sister and her grandfather into the house. He waited until the lights went out and snuck back up to the house. He peered in the window at the grandfather.
He used one of his quirks to give him a nice, prolonged sickness.
That would keep Midoriya Inko out of his business for another couple years. And then there was always the sister. If he really needed to, he could help the grandfather recover, then attack the sister, and go back and forth like that until Izuku graduated.
Satisfied, he returned to the bar.
Chapter 7: Several Discoveries and a Friend (?)
Summary:
Two people who get bullied a lot walk into a martial arts class. Friendship ensues?
Also, Izuku sleuths.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It was a few weeks after Midoriya’s tenth birthday that All for One discovered he was getting bullied at school.
He should have noticed sooner, probably, given the amount of time he spent with the boy (against his will) and given the contents of the Parent Teacher Conference, but Midoriya was extremely good at talking the bruises away and Kurogiri hadn’t seen anything amiss when picking him up, so All for One easily wrote it off as a general clumsiness and/or idiocy.
But then he came home with a burn mark on his cheek.
It was just chance that All for One saw it—he happened to walk through the bar at the same moment Kurogiri portaled Midoriya home, but that chance was all he needed to stop short, noticing the ash smudged over his skin and the way his continually unruly hair was somehow even more misshapen than usual.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Huh?” Midoriya said. His hand flew to his cheek the second after, eyes widening, and he said, “Oh, it was just this experiment we did in science today. Got a little crazy.”
“Don’t lie to me,” All for One snapped, sweeping across the room to look. He took Midoriya’s chin and turned his face slightly to the side so he could see his cheek better. It definitely wasn’t more than a second degree burn, which All for One could heal in seconds, but it was a burn nonetheless, the skin rough and peeling.
“Who did this?” he asked, healing it.
Midoriya blinked at him, eyes very wide.
“Izuku-kun.”
“It was just this kid at school,” Midoriya said, pushing him away. “It’s not a big deal, I promise. They were just messing around.”
“Don’t make groundless promises,” All for One warned.
Midoriya’s nose wrinkled up. “Okay, it’s a little bit of a deal. Like half of a big deal. But I’m fine, see?” He pointed to his newly healed cheek. “All gone!”
“What would you do if I hadn’t noticed?” All for One demanded. “What then? What if it had gotten infected?” He didn’t know why he cared, to be honest, but he’d developed . . . not an affection for Midoriya, but a—yes, a reluctant fondness , and this was flaring up something protective in him he hadn’t seen since Yoichi.
Midoriya listed on his fingers. “Run cool water over it, spread burn cream on it, and bandage it. Change the bandages twice every day.”
And that was how All for One found out this was, in fact, a recurring issue, and he had just been blind to it earlier.
He took a deep inhale. He released a long exhale. “ Who?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Midoriya mumbled. “I don’t want to get people in trouble.”
All for One had been contemplating doing things much worse than getting people in trouble, but fine. “Martial arts classes. You’re going to start taking them. Lots of them. On top of the coding classes.”
Midoriya nodded vigorously, probably glad to have dodged the question of who was beating him up at school. All for One had other ways of finding this out, of course, but for now he’d let Midoriya keep his secrets. If not for anything else, then just to prove to himself that he was not getting attached to a random ten-year-old who was honestly more of a nuisance than a source of joy or support.
“Great,” Midoriya said, looking delighted by the idea. ‘Yes, good. Awesome. When do I start?”
Perhaps All for One should have been suspicious of his quick acceptance of this plan, but he was busy using a quirk to scan for other hidden injuries. Midoriya had a bruise on his shin and a skinned elbow but otherwise seemed fine. Seemed fine.
Goddammit. Maybe he was going soft.
Since his tenth birthday, Izuku had been trying to find other ways to be a vigilante without actually getting into fights since his martial arts classes had only just begun and until he actually knew how to defend himself, facing off against villains seemed like a bad idea. Of course he could always do what he’d been doing the whole time and call other heroes to help, and recently he’d also found out that he could use his credit card to anonymously purchase custom gear for active heroes and mail it to them (several heroes had already begun using the improvements), but he’d begun to wonder if there was some other way for him to level up his abilities.
Such as sleuthing through Not Oji-san’s stuff for the second time.
This time, he set himself up for better success. He waited until Not Oji-san was on a “work trip” and made a huge pancake mess in the kitchen for Kurogiri to clean up, and then slid right into Not Oji-san’s office.
His coding teacher had told him that there was a way to install viruses onto people’s computers that would make some sort of link from the computer to Izuku’s computer so he could go through things on his own time. Izuku had tried very hard to teach himself how to do this and had learned quickly that his level of skill was just not there yet.
So instead he climbed up into Not Oji-san’s swivel chair and went through all the papers on his desk. Not Oji-san was old fashioned and liked having information in hard copies lest something went awry with his computer—which, Izuku had to admit, was wise, given that Izuku was plotting to sabotage the computer at some point.
He went through the papers, carefully sounding out words he didn’t know. Most of it seemed like boring personnel stuff. He took pictures with his phone of stuff that seemed important but not urgent—he could parse all that out later.
When he was nearing the point that Kurogiri was probably almost done with the kitchen, he slipped off the chair again, disappointed but pleased that he could try this again. On the way to the door, a flash of paper sticking out of a binder on one of the shelves caught his eye. He hesitated, glancing at the door. He could hear Kurogiri banging pots and pans together, so he figured he had a moment.
Careful, he tipped the binder down and flipped it open.
Aha! This was more what he was looking for. Plans for a sketchy business meet up of some kind. It looked like maybe Not Oji-san was planning on blackmailing an important-looking man into doing something for him. Izuku squinted at the letters, trying to make out the complicated vocabulary, before giving up and just taking pictures of all the papers that looked important. He put the binder back together exactly as it had been and replaced it on the shelf.
On soft feet, he slipped out of the office, past Kurogiri, and up into his room.
And then he settled down to parse out every scrap of information he could glean from the papers he’d found.
Izuku wouldn’t really consider himself a big fan of the martial arts classes. He loved the coding classes, but the martial arts stuff was more difficult than fun, and he felt like it was taking him longer to learn than it should have been. Not only that, but he’d started to find that he didn’t really enjoy punching people, so he also had begun to feel torn about whether or not someone could be a hero if they were a) quirkless and b) didn’t really enjoy fighting that much anyway.
Kacchan, he knew, got a sort of thrill from punching people, because it made him feel better than them. It didn’t make Izuku feel better than anyone. Really, it made him feel bad for punching people in the first place. He thought maybe if someone was in danger, like that one kid he’d stepped in front of when Kacchan was being mean, then he might enjoy punching people more. But he didn’t even want to enjoy it.
This was a dilemma.
But! If Izuku had learned anything from being the kidnapee/adopted child of a The Villain to End All Villains, it was that sometimes asking for things would get good results. After school, when Kurogiri dropped him off at his dojo, he went right up to Sensei, a stern faced woman with a cool flower-making quirk, and said, “I don’t really like punching people.”
Sensei blinked at him.
He waited for the rewards of such a statement to appear.
“Well, good,” Sensei said. “You’re not supposed to enjoy it. Now get on the mat and start stretching.”
Okay, so that attempt had not been as successful as he’d predicted. He went to the mat and started stretching, contemplating how better to express his needs. Clearly he needed an actual question. But what was his question? How can I stop punching people ?
An unfamiliar voice said something at the front. Izuku looked over, curious, and saw a tall man with slicked back purple hair talking to Sensei, who was handing over some paperwork. Izuku remembered that paperwork. Kurogiri had done it for him.
The tall man walked over to the counter to fill out the papers, revealing a lanky, purple-haired boy behind him, who was standing with his arms crossed and staring at the floor. He didn’t really seem like he wanted to be here. Neither did Izuku, so it was relatable.
Izuku wished his hearing was a little better so he could listen to what the tall man, probably the boy’s father, was saying to Sensei. But his hearing was not a little better, so he just continued stretching. Probably, Not Oji-san had a file on him, and he could use that to investigate later. Or not. That seemed slightly immoral.
Sensei said something to the boy and passed him a gi. She gestured at the mat. The boy sent his father a dark glare, kicked his shoes off, and disappeared to change. When he emerged, tightening his belt, which Izuku could see from the mat, was terribly mistied, he looked more uncomfortable than ever. He cast his father another look, bowed at the mat, and stepped onto it.
Izuku waved.
One of the boy’s eyes had a big bruise around it. Izuku had had many a black eye in his life, and he pursed his lips in sympathy. It was a bad idea to comment on it, he decided.
“Your belt,” he said instead, “is an abomination. I’ll show you.”
The boy frowned at him and sat down a few feet away. Izuku demonstrated how to tie it, explaining every step and trying not to go on random tangents. The boy copied him and came out with something still horribly mangled, but at least properly tied. Izuku smiled at him. He looked away.
“My name’s Midoriya Izuku,” Izuku said, “but people call me Izuku.”
Very few people actually called him Izuku. The list was limited to: His mother, Mitsuki, Kurogiri. And now the purple-haired boy.
“Shinsou Hitoshi,” the boy said to the floor.
“And do you prefer Shinsou or Hitoshi?”
The boy shrugged.
Izuku had a feeling this friendship was not going to come easily, but Izuku’s number of friends was limited to one, and that one was Kacchan, who some might say didn’t even count, so he was determined to do this right. “Shinsou, then.”
“Hitoshi’s fine,” the boy said.
“Hitoshi, then.”
The rest of the class started to file in. Izuku waved at them, they ignored him and went to stretch on an entirely different part of the mat, and Izuku continued his attempts at learning who Hitoshi was. Most people stopped wanting to be friends with him the moment the word “quirkless” came out, so he avoided that topic altogether.
Hitoshi’s dad left the building. Izuku told Hitoshi as much. Hitoshi shrugged.
Izuku decided he really liked Hitoshi and that they were destined to be the closest friends of all time. Perhaps even closer than Izuku and Kacchan, if such a thing was possible. They started class and Izuku avoided punching anything for as long as physically possible. Hitoshi was actually halfway decent at stuff, which was good because he was still a white belt and everyone else in the class had already moved past that one.
After class, Hitoshi disappeared to change again and Izuku made his second attempt at talking to Sensei about his Big Punching Issue. He tried for a more direct angle this time.
“I don’t want to punch people,” he said.
She peered down her long nose at him. Her gray hair was up in a bun and it made the whole look all the more intimidating. Izuku stood his ground. He lived with the villain to end all villains. Sensei didn’t scare him.
Now for the question. “Is there a different martial arts style I should be learning?”
Sensei sighed like Izuku tired her. “Yes, there are many martial arts styles. You may be more interested in Aikido, perhaps? Or judo?”
These were a lot of words.
“I’ll research this on my own,” Izuku said, nodding seriously. “Can you teach me other styles? Or just this one?”
“I can help with a few others, and we have other teachers here that can help you with more. It depends on the styles you want to learn.”
Izuku nodded slowly. “Yes. Good. Excellent.”
She sighed again.
Izuku was a triumph. Yes! A triumph.
The papers Izuku had found in Not Oji-san’s office were indeed very important and very urgent. At first Izuku had thought Not Oji-san was just planning to blackmail some person into doing something for him, but it turned out to be much bigger than that, including abducting one of the high members of the Hero Public Safety Commission, which Izuku didn’t really know anything about but seemed important because it had the word “hero” in it, and forcing him to give up big information. The operation was planned for two weeks from now.
Izuku needed to get a hero involved as soon as possible, but he couldn’t figure out how to do that without tipping Not Oji-san off that someone had gone through his stuff. Such a discovery would definitely point right back at Izuku.
So if he couldn’t get the heroes involved, then the next option was to just get himself involved and call heroes in for back-up on the day of, after he had already ruined a good portion of the undertaking. The problem was Izuku didn’t feel like he’d had sufficient enough martial arts training for him to take down the entire operation or even make a dent in it. Knowing how to punch the air and not fall over was not the same as actually punching someone.
He’d have to be smart. And he was smart (his most recent school project on the weather cycle had gotten a 30/30!) but this was more than that—he’d have to be sneaky and careful. If he slipped up, he could get caught, and maybe then Not Oji-san would take away his Sir Nighteye figurines or something. It seemed unlikely, but possible.
He stayed up later than he should have researching, the blankets (now, unfortunately, Ms. Joke themed instead of All Might) pulled up over his head and his laptop to keep the light from escaping. He read everything he could on the subject—the abductee, who Not Oji-san had hired, the location (all the way in Tokyo!)—until his eyelids grew heavy and slipped closed without permission. He told himself he’d close them for just one minute and then get back to it, but exhaustion took him quickly and he slumped back against his headboard, fast asleep.
When his (no longer All Might themed, now Edgeshot) alarm went off the next morning, he felt everything click into place in his mind.
He had a plan.
Notes:
Happy holidays!! :D
Chapter 8: An AED Is Used Improperly But with Great Success
Summary:
Izuku's first true vigilante mission, featuring hacking his elementary school, an entire AED, and this random guy with red wings.
Notes:
Hello and welcome to my FAVORITE CHAPTER. I have a backlog stored up of the next 15 chapters and this remains my favorite. so PREPARE YOURSELF.
in other news! WE HAVE MORE FANART! Thank you to the lovely Mel_in_a_wel for this fanart of Izuku! I meant to mention it on Tuesday but I have AmNeSiA. But! It is here now :))))
Chapter Text
The day of the abducting, Izuku packed his school bag with stuff he definitely did not need at school, including a length of rope, his vigilante costume, a butter knife (he wanted one of the sharper kitchen knives but wasn’t sure about bringing it to school), a notebook and a pencil, a flashlight, his laptop, several cords, and his phone. He settled it on his back, wincing at the weight—the rope was much heavier than he’d anticipated, and marched downstairs, determined.
“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?” Kurogiri asked doubtfully as Izuku walked into the kitchen.
“I want to get a head start on my art project,” Izuku said. “My teacher said it’s okay.”
Izuku liked art class, and he had it every Friday. Kurogiri knew this about Izuku, but it was important to solidify, so that if part of Izuku’s plan failed and Kurogiri got a call from the front office about Izuku’s absence, he would at least think that Izuku had just gotten carried away in the art studio and would find class on his own time.
Kurogiri looked doubtfully at the clock.
“Kurogiri,” Izuku said, drawing out the i’s and giving him a pouting look.
A portal opened. Triumphant, Izuku stepped through the mist.
He looked up at the school building, the sun just peeking over the horizon, and walked resolutely forward. He had important work to do. Even if it was super, super early. Izuku crouched behind a tree in the parking lot and waited for the first teacher to arrive. When they did, he followed them carefully and slipped in after them when they unlocked the front door. From there, he went straight to the front office and sat behind the desk, opening his computer and connecting it to the big front office laptop with a cord.
It was easier than he thought it would be from there to hack into the attendance record stuff. He found his class and his name and used a program he’d made on his computer to set his attendance record permanently to “present.” The idea was that even if the teacher tried to mark him as absent, the front office computer would still show him as present, no matter what. Izuku couldn’t be sure if the program would work or not, but he’d done what he could with the knowledge he had (which he was starting to suspect was a lot of knowledge) and the program would, at the very least, do something. And if not, there was always his art class alibi.
Once that was done and he was reasonably certain neither Kurogiri nor Not Oji-san was going to get a call from the front office asking where he was, he unplugged his computer and put it away again. He slung his bag over his shoulder again, snuck out of the office and the school building, and walked to the nearest bus stop.
By the time he got to the train station, the train to Tokyo was waiting at the platform. Izuku climbed aboard and found his seat. Not two minutes later, the train pulled out of the station. Izuku grinned. He’d gotten away with something huge.
On the ride to Tokyo, he flipped open his notebook and checked over all the phone numbers he’d carefully copied out. He wished he could predict if there would be someone around whose phone he could borrow, because he would definitely need to borrow a phone. Even he knew that using his own phone to call a bunch of heroes was a bad idea—what if it was tracked? If only there was a way to have a phone that he could use and then throw out. What a great thing that would be.
When, a couple hours later, the train pulled into his station in Tokyo, he put away his laptop and his notebook and threaded his arms through his backpack straps. He checked his phone as he hopped off the train—no panicked calls from Kurogiri or Not Oji-san.
He allowed himself one moment of glee. His program had worked. Officially, he was still at school, which meant he was a genius.
In front of the train station, he found an empty taxi and climbed in the backseat. The driver gave him a strange look, which confused him—there wasn’t anything on his face—but he ignored it and rattled off the address of a cafe not far from the kidnapping site. The driver hesitated, looking around outside the car and then back at Izuku. Maybe he hadn’t heard the address and didn’t want to seem rude by asking again. Izuku said the address of the cafe again and buckled his seatbelt resolutely.
With another confused glance at Izuku in the rearview mirror, the driver pulled out of the station. This was all very strange. Izuku decided maybe the driver was not actually a taxi driver and was doing this as a front to cover up his shady undertakings, including selling villains super weapons hidden in the trunk, just like in All Might 5: Partners in Their Prime . He entertained himself with thinking this all the way through on the way to the cafe, ignoring the looks the driver continued to cast him in the rearview mirror, which grew more and more offended by the kilometer. What Izuku was doing to offend him was anyone’s guess.
When they got to the cafe, which was in a sketchy-looking neighborhood, Izuku paid with the credit card Not Oji-san had given him and hopped out of the taxi. The taxi driver sent him a concerned look, and then glanced around as if waiting for someone else to appear.
“Thanks!” Izuku said.
“Are your . . .” the driver hesitated, clearly torn between being polite and asking whatever was on his mind. Izuku waited patiently, but the driver gave up, shook his head, and drove off.
Weird.
Izuku waited for the taxi to be gone before he turned away from the cafe, opened the map app on his phone, and followed it into what was definitely the bad side of town. People on the street kept their heads down and hurried where they were going, not looking around. Izuku shrank toward the buildings, wishing he was just a little bit taller or bulkier, and wishing he knew where he was going so he didn’t have to keep surreptitiously glancing at the small blue dot on his phone.
The destination was a warehouse, which made Izuku very excited because the main climax of All Might 2: Victory Lap had also been in a warehouse. He really was just like All Might, except maybe not as tall or strong.
After spending some time peering up at the warehouse from a distance and trying to figure out how best to position himself, Izuku turned away, trying to think. Without going into the warehouse himself, he couldn’t catch the bad guys, but he also knew he was probably too small to catch so many bad guys all on his own anyway. The area seemed too dangerous to ask someone to borrow their phone—they probably wouldn’t give it to him anyway—and he didn’t want to use his own phone for reasons aforementioned. His computer programs, so delicately crafted, wouldn’t really do anything either. He had rope, a butter knife, and a flashlight in his bag, but what could he do with those?
This stumped him for a while. Eventually he decided he wouldn’t be able to do anything without his vigilante costume on, so he fished that out of his bag first and put it on before ducking into a small alcove in front of a random door and sitting down on the step to think. He opened his bag and squinted at the rope, the knife, and the flashlight.
Perhaps he should have come more prepared.
He glanced at the time—still an hour and a half left until the sketchy business deal was slated to go terribly awry. Frustrated, willing his mind to work faster, he pushed his goggles up and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyelids. Stars blinked in the field of black.
And then it hit him.
Izuku snuck into the warehouse, which some foolish person had left unlocked. He did a full sweep of the building, checking every entrance and exit. He counted steps across it both ways. The warehouse had lots of wooden crates in it. Izuku wasn’t strong enough to open any of the crates so he wasn’t sure what was inside, but their presence made the warehouse maze-like and difficult to orient himself in. This would have to be fixed.
He found the electrical panel and opened it up. An electrician Izuku was not, but he could see many switches which seemed important. He scouted out a few areas to hide in, came across an AED kit, and discovered the fire extinguisher and alarm. He also uncovered a small family of mice and a broken nail.
When he felt that he had a working knowledge of the contents of the warehouse he went back to the AED and ripped open the packet with pads in it, apologizing silently to the next person to have a heart attack in the warehouse. He picked a wall devoid of any exits and climbed onto a stack of boxes next to it. Flipping on his flashlight, he located a spot he thought was probably around door-height and used one of the AED pads to tape the flashlight there. Unsure how sticky the pads actually were, he used two more pads to secure the first pad. The flashlight sent a dull glow up toward the ceiling.
Pleased, Izuku hopped down and hurried back to the front of the warehouse. He climbed on top of a box by the door to get as high as possible and pulled his long rope out of the bag. He made a loop out of the top of it and slung it over the emergency light over the door. This took a few tries, but eventually he managed to get the rope around the emergency light and he pulled the slip knot tight.
Tugging on the rope didn’t yield the results he was looking for, so he carefully wound the rope around his arms a few times and jumped off the crate, pulling the emergency light down and a good portion of the wall. He flinched as he hit the ground, covering his head, but the chunks of wall and lights mostly missed him.
Good progress, Izuku decided. He picked up all the items, tucked them away behind a crate, and made his way to do the same to all the other emergency lights. The process earned him one scratch on the cheek and a deep shortness of breath, but otherwise he found himself unharmed and exhilarated by his successes.
The time had inched closer to the meet up so Izuku found a likely crate to hide behind near the electrical panel and curled up into a ball, checking that he had his costume on properly and that his bag was secure on his back. As he waited, he untied the slip knot from his rope and carefully retied the rope around the handle of his butter knife. He made several thick knots to hold it in place, and decided that as soon as he got home he was going to order himself a big book on knot tying. Knowing how to do a slip knot and a normal knot was definitely not enough.
Izuku heard voices at the front of the warehouse and he hugged his knees tighter to his chest. The voices were still too far away and too muffled to hear what they were saying. When they didn’t come any closer, Izuku realized he was going to need to adjust his plan on the fly. He dug into the AED kit again, found the biggest, bulkiest item (the actual AED itself), silently apologized again to the future dying soul who needed an AED, and carefully started climbing up the crate he was hiding behind. He slid on top of the crate and peered over the edge to see who had come inside.
A person wearing an orange shirt, a tall hat, and a mask was standing just inside the front door next to another, very normal and average looking man wearing a bored expression. The bored man flipped the lights on and Izuku tensed, waiting for them to look over and see him. Luckily, they didn’t seem to suspect anyone else was inside.
He couldn’t hear what they were saying but neither of them looked like the HPSC guy they were supposed to be abducting, so Izuku figured he still needed to wait.
And wait he did, for an excessive amount of time, until the orange shirted man and the bored man had both given up on standing by the door and had started sweeping the warehouse to make sure no one was inside. Izuku found himself very grateful, suddenly, that he was on top of the crate and not next to it.
Finally, a car pulled up in front of the warehouse and the abductee-to-be stepped out of the car. He was followed by a teenager with bright red wings and sunglasses, who looked decidedly unhappy to be at the warehouse. Abductee-To-Be gestured at Red Wings to wait outside, much to Red Wings clear displeasure, and walked inside.
The bored man shut the door behind him. The two of them walked deeper into the maze of boxes, talking in low voices. Izuku watched them carefully over the top of the crates. Abductee-To-Be suddenly raised his voice and the orange shirted man stepped forward, talking in what he probably thought was a soothing voice and was actually very creepy. Abductee-To-Be sent both of them slightly panicked looks, backing away. He stepped straight into a crate, nowhere to run.
Now Izuku chucked the AED as far as he possibly could. It made it further than he anticipated, falling to the ground with a clatter and then skidding across the floor. Everyone looked in that direction and Izuku slipped back off the crate as the bored man went to investigate.
Checking that the rope really was secure around the handle of the butter knife, Izuku took a deep breath and stabbed the knife straight into the electrical panel.
The panel sparked and Izuku stepped back immediately, freaking out a little. The lights flickered on and off quickly, like they were trying to decide what to do, before one by one they shut off. Someone yelled deep in the warehouse as the entire place went dark, save for the flashlight beaming upward on a random wall, like it marked an exit. It did not—Izuku just needed more time.
He traced his hand along the wall, counting steps as he ran for the fire extinguisher, which was too heavy for him to lift. But right next to the fire extinguisher was something that he was more than capable of using. His hand found the handle and he pulled.
Blaring sound echoed through the warehouse as the fire alarm started wailing. Izuku slapped his hands over his ears, wincing, but he needed both his hands and he knew it. The door to the warehouse slammed open and Red Wings flew in, looking entirely full of rage. Izuku darted out from the crates and pointed straight at the flashlight he’d left up on the wall, protecting his free ear with his shoulder.
“Over there!” Izuku shouted.
Red Wings gave him a deeply confused look, but flew in that direction straightaway.
Now Izuku needed to get out of here as quickly as possible before more heroes showed up and found out the amount of damage he’d done to an AED and all the emergency lights. He sprinted for the open door.
“Not so fast,” someone hissed, and a fist to the side sent Izuku flying into a nearby crate.
Kacchan’s punches, Izuku had learned, hurt pretty bad.
This hurt much, much more.
It took him a second to remember how to breathe, blinking shock out of his eyes. He rolled away from the approaching bored man, who no longer looked bored, and forced himself back up to his feet, curling over his injured side.
“H-hi,” he said, backing away. “You look pretty mad.”
“I am pretty mad,” the bored man said, approaching menacingly. Izuku felt very short and small. It occurred to him that he hadn’t really developed an exit plan. He was all short of rope, butter knife, and flashlight.
“Um.”
Izuku heard a frustrated shout from the other side of the warehouse. The bored man didn’t even look, still moving forward. Izuku kept stepping back, toward the exit, afraid to run because his ribs were throbbing and he thought the bored man could probably catch him quickly if he did, and then it would be all over. It occurred to Izuku that he might be about to die.
The bored man lunged for him and Izuku barely stepped to the side in time, ribs screaming in protest. His shoulder got clipped and he stumbled back, eyes wide with panic. This was really not good. He tried to remind himself he was being a hero and sometimes heroes did scary things, but he was too busy not dying for the reminder to stick. The bored man grabbed him by the elbow and slammed him into a crate. The back of Izuku’s head hit the wood hard and his vision blurred.
“How old are you anyway?” the bored man asked. “Eight?”
That was simply offensive. Izuku opened his mouth to snap at him for that, but didn’t get the opportunity before a red feather hissed through the air and caught the bored man by the back of the shirt, pulling him off Izuku. Izuku threw a glance down the maze of crates and found Red Wings standing down there, supporting Abductee-To-Be and glaring at the scene.
Izuku figured this was as good a time as any to run away as fast as possible. He turned, adjusting his backpack straps, and fled straight out the door. A feather chased him and he panted, “Please go away!”
The feather did not go away.
“I’m like eight,” Izuku lied, although it wounded him to say it. “My mom doesn’t know I’m over here. I’ll get in so much trouble.”
The feather still did not go away, but it did slow down considerably, letting Izuku get the best of it. Izuku ran as fast as he could down sketchy streets, vision blurry with tears from the sharp, unignorable pain in his side, until he found the cafe he’d made that random taxi driver drop him off at. He ducked inside the shop, pulling off his hat and his goggles, found an empty seat, and collapsed, gasping for air against the protesting of his ribs. The lady sitting at the table next to him gave him a weird look and he buried his face in his arms, trying to catch his breath without looking like a crazy person.
That, he decided, had been awful. He’d almost died—he was convinced this was true. He replayed the whole scene in his head as his breathing slowed. His ribs really hurt. Red Wings had been very cool. His ribs really hurt.
As his body sank into a calmer state, he reconsidered.
No actually, he mused, that had been freaking awesome.
All for One was already frustrated when Kurogiri called him out into the kitchen. His plans had, according to Mr. Compress, been completely foiled by some kid wearing an All Might beanie and a pesky up-and-coming HPSC side project. It was probably a one-off occurrence, but it was irritating. He wouldn’t have another shot at that HPSC representative in a long time. Not only that, but one of his loyal subordinates had been arrested and Mr. Compress had barely made it out himself.
So when Kurogiri called him out of his office, a deep anxiety in his voice, All for One was really not in a good headspace.
He walked out of his office to find Midoriya whispering pleadingly, “It really is nothing, Kurogiri, really, don’t tell Oji-san,” which naturally did not improve his mood.
“What is it,” he demanded, looking between them.
Midoriya gave him a guilty look. He had a deep cut on his cheek, dried blood crusted underneath it.
“He’s favoring one side,” Kurogiri said.
“Am not! It’s really fine,” Midoriya promised. “Nothing’s wrong at all.”
He continued providing excuses. All for One, not willing to argue with a ten year old over whether or not he was injured, used a quirk to do a quick scan.
And then froze.
“Midoriya, he said, trying to be very calm.
“Izuku,” Midoriya corrected, shoulders slumping as he resigned himself to the knowledge All for One had stumbled across.
“Why is one of your ribs broken?”
Midoriya winced.
“Broken?” Kurogiri gasped, fluttering over Midoriya even more than he had been before. “What happened? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ll get some ice—”
“Don’t,” All for One told him wearily. Kurogiri was like a mother hen sometimes. Ridiculous. “Is this those kids at school again?”
Midoriya frantically shook his head (eyes very wide), then hesitated and nodded. Then quickly cut that short by shaking his head again.
“Make up your mind,” All for One said.
“Nope,” Midoriya said, clearly lying, given the precedent.
All for One gave Kurogiri a weary look. “I’m going to call the school.”
“No thanks,” Midoriya squeaked. “I don’t want my classmates to die.”
Kurogiri hushed him. “No one’s going to die.” After he said it, he cast All for One a doubtful look, verifying if that was true.
All for One was not against the idea of Midoriya’s classmates dying. But fine. “I just want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“They already got in trouble,” Midoriya said, also clearly a lie or All for One would have gotten a call from the school that one of Midoriya’s ribs was broken. They would need to work on Midoriya’s poker face and ability to cover for himself.
Actually, All for One reconsidered, they definitely should not do that.
“Plus you can just heal it, right? So it’s fine.”
For a moment, All for One considered leaving it broken just to prove a point. It was just a fracture—Midoriya would live. But then he thought that was probably a good example of how to be a terrible fake uncle, so he sighed and gestured Midoriya forward.
Beaming, Midoriya pulled up the hem of his shirt to let All for One do his work. The side of his rib cage was swollen and red. All for One silently vowed that the child who did this would get what was coming to him, and healed Midoriya’s side.
Midoriya relaxed as it was healed, expression stilling. It had probably been very painful. All for One tried to hide his worry about this deep into his subconscious where he wouldn’t have to consider why he was concerned for this random kid. He was somewhat successful.
“Face,” he said, gesturing for Midoriya to let him heal the cut on his cheek.
Midoriya readily presented the injury to him. All for One frowned at the cut—it was clearly a couple hours old, and what kind of school let a kid walk around with an obviously bleeding face? He shook his head at the rampant quirkism in today’s society and healed the cut.
“Now go do your homework,” he ordered.
Midoriya saluted. Then hesitated. His eyebrows contorted like he was engaged in solving the biggest moral puzzle of all time.
“What is it?” All for One asked.
Slowly, carefully, almost like he couldn’t believe his own bravery, Midoriya reached his skinny arms out and wrapped them around All for One.
All for One had never been taken off more guard in his life. He stiffened, unsure of what to do. Midoriya slumped further into the hug, body shaking slightly. Glancing at Kurogiri for instructions, which he evidently did not have, All for One gave Midoriya an awkward pat on the back.
Midoriya let go. “It feels a lot better now,” he said, sniffling a little. “Um, so thanks.”
All for One stared at him. Kurogiri stared at him. Midoriya wiped his eyes, sniffled again, and climbed up the stairs to his room.
Inside his head, very quietly, All for One screamed.
Chapter 9: Kurogiri, A Saint
Summary:
Friendship blooms, and All for One has several crises.
Chapter Text
All for One was beginning to suspect he had erred. This suspicion was all concerning a boy by the name of Shigaraki Tomura.
At the time of the initial kidnapping, All for One’s intentions had been very clear in his mind, and he had executed them to the T. But now, after a year and a half of life with Midoriya Izuku, who stubbornly refused to be parented poorly, he was in the process of realizing that he might have made a mistake.
He sat across from the Shigaraki Tomura, who was whining about wanting to murder All Might, and contemplated his errors.
In his defense, a lot of the damage Shigaraki Tomura had incurred was caused by his terrible homelife pre-kidnapping and his quirk’s nature generally. But in his offense, he had in fact encouraged the instability in Shigarki Tomura and had given him the bad quirk in the first place. So really it was hard to say who was to blame for this.
“When can I start actually doing stuff?” Shigaraki Tomura asked, crossing his arms.
“Soon,” All for One said, his usual answer in these circumstances.
Damage had definitely been done here, and it was damage All for One was no longer sure was the right type of damage. Plus, All for One now had Midoriya to think about, and calling Midoriya a handful was a vast and frankly insulting understatement. Midoriya was the ultimate handful. All for One felt often that if he looked away for even a minute (which he did from time to time), Midoriya would dismantle everything he had worked so hard to build. An implosion.
So yes, at the time of the initial kidnapping, taking in Shigaraki Tomura had been an ingenious plan. Perfect to rile up All Might later, perfect to hone as his own personal unstable weapon. But at the time of the initial kidnapping, All for One had not anticipated the arrival of the fiery ball of destruction that was Midoriya. All for One had not anticipated this at all. And attempting to reconcile these two kidnappings, particularly given the recent event that All for One could only refer to in his mind as The Hugging Incident, was beginning to prove impossible.
“ How soon?” Shigaraki Tomura asked impatiently.
Perhaps never , All for One thought to himself, like a traitor. Out loud, he said, “You must be patient.”
One thing was certain: Midoriya Izuku could never be allowed to enter the same room as Shigarki Tomura. All for One shivered just thinking about it.
Izuku was mid stretch and wincing at a muscle he’d definitely pulled while vigilanteing the other night when Hitoshi walked into the dojo. This was not a rare occurrence—Hitoshi showed just as much dedication to the martial arts as Izuku, perhaps not by choice, and came to class consistently. But Izuku was excited anyway.
“Hitoshi!” Izuku waved frantically as Hitoshi stepped onto the mat.
Hitoshi, for his part, looked like he’d rather drop dead than go talk to Izuku, but he made his way across to him anyway, plopping down silently.
With his recent near death experience under the rug, Izuku’s determination to become best friends with Hitoshi had increased tenfold. Said experience had been nearly a month ago, and in that time he had learned: one, how to block punches to the side; two, how to tie a wide repertoire of rescue knots; and three, how much he did not want to die alone. All of these discoveries he found equally important.
“How are you?” Izuku asked Hitoshi. The answer to this question was usually the same.
Sure enough, Hitoshi’s half shrug appeared and then a slight jerk of the chin and raise of the eyebrows directing the question back to Izuku. Hitoshi didn’t talk a lot. Izuku found he didn’t mind this very much, because Izuku could do plenty of talking all on his own.
“I’m good,” Izuku said happily. “Gang Orca released new merch and I’ve been ordering nonstop. My uncle is going to be so mad when he finds out.”
Hitoshi’s expression contorted slightly in either confusion or concern. He could be a bit difficult to read. Izuku was getting better at it. In this particular instance, Izuku didn’t know what Hitoshi was wondering so he decided to just be quiet until Hitoshi could figure out what he wanted to say.
“Your uncle,” Hitoshi said finally, eyebrows creasing. He paused again. The front door opened and another one of their classmates came in, kicking off her shoes. “I’d like to know why your uncle would freak out over that, I guess.”
So much lead up for such a simple statement. But Izuku nodded, accepting the question, and lowered his voice to say, “He hates heroes.”
Hitoshi’s eyebrows shot up—the appropriate response. “What? Is he crazy?” Immediately, he slapped both hands over his mouth, giving Izuku a horrified look.
Izuku understood his concern, but didn’t find the question offensive at all. Maybe an ordinary boy would, but Izuku was shamelessly far from ordinary. “Between me and you,” Izuku said quietly, “he definitely is. Pray you never meet him.”
Hitoshi slowly lowered his hands, his eyes huge. “Right,” he whispered.
Izuku nodded sagely.
“I’d also like to know,” Hitoshi said, “where your parents are.”
Sometimes the way Hitoshi phrased things was kind of weird, like he was wording everything super carefully and therefore a bit awkwardly. Izuku didn’t mind this because he himself also had a tendency to do weird things and wouldn’t want to be judged for that. But it was true.
“My dad’s in America,” Izuku said, waiting for the obligatory fan service after such a declaration.
“Cool,” Hitoshi said, which was a bit of an underwhelming response but acceptable.
“And my mom’s caring for my sick grandpa up North. Where are you from?”
Hitoshi pointed at the matted floor. “I live here in Aichi.”
“Ugh, lucky,” Izuku said, scrunching up his nose. “You live so close to UA.”
A little smile curled up the corners of Hitoshi’s lips and he nodded. “Yeah, I know. You must live close too, though, if you come to class here.”
Izuku shook his head mournfully. “I live in Kamino.”
Hitoshi’s mouth dropped open—the appropriate response to such a statement. “But you come to class here!” he said.
“My . . .” Izuku fought with himself for a minute over how to describe Kurogiri. Uncle’s friend seemed a little too impersonal for what Kurogiri was to him. Uncle’s husband was also a weird way to put it, and very untrue. Guardian felt odd, but was probably accurate. Fake cousin wasn’t it. “My nanny . . .” he said, wincing as the word came out, “sort of person. Family friend person. This guy I live with.” He gave up and just kept going. “He has a teleportation quirk. So I go to school in Musutafu and take martial arts classes kind of all over the place. I’m also doing jiu jitsu and aikido now. Aikido is really hard.”
Hitoshi stared at him.
“I have a very complicated life,” Izuku said.
“Your family confuses me,” Hitoshi said. “Like, a lot.”
Izuku laughed. “Me too.”
“All right, time to get started,” Sensei said, taking her place on the mat. Izuku and Hitoshi scrambled to their feet and got ready to go.
After class, Hitoshi’s dad wasn’t there to pick him up. When Izuku walked out after talking Sensei’s ear off, Hitoshi was sitting on the curb with his arms curled around his knees, scowling at the ground.
“Did your dad not come at all?” Izuku asked, dropping down on the curb next to him.
“No,” Hitoshi said sharply.
“Very rude,” Izuku observed.
Hitoshi made a noise of vehement agreement.
“Did he forget?”
A car drove by very close to the curb and Izuku felt his hair woosh back. Hitoshi shrugged. “Probably.”
“Hmm. How long do we wait?”
Hitoshi glanced at him, expression quickly turning from anger to confusion. There was something hopeful in there, too, Izuku thought. Something not-angry. “You don’t have to wait.”
“Well I’m not leaving you here alone to get kidnapped,” Izuku said, crossing his arms over his shins. “Kidnapping is a very real problem in this society. Many unattended children have been scooped up by big scary villains and their assistants.”
Assistant! That was a great word for Kurogiri. Izuku’s uncle’s assistant. Or, even better, Izuku’s assistant. If only he’d thought of this sooner.
Hitoshi gave him a flat look. “I think I’ll be fine,” he said.
“Everyone thinks that until it’s too late,” Izuku answered. “Do we wait until he gets here? How long until he remembers?”
With a sigh, Hitoshi rested his chin on his knees again. “It might be a while.”
Izuku nodded and put his chin on his knees as well. “Okay.”
To his surprise, it only took Kurogiri thirty minutes to come storming over to where he and Hitoshi were sitting. “What are you doing?” Kurogiri asked, clearly in a mood. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Anyone could have walked into me. I thought you’d gotten lost.”
Izuku pointed at Hitoshi. “His dad forgot him.”
Hitoshi glared. “You couldn’t have said that any nicer?” His eyes widened again and he put a hand over his mouth. In Izuku’s opinion, Hitoshi needed to stop worrying about offending him. Especially since the things he said were rarely offensive.
Izuku shook his head. “I don’t make the cards, I just read them,” he said, which he thought sounded very wise.
Kurogiri made that sound he always made when Izuku was about to take a dive off his last nerve.
“So we’re waiting for his dad to pick him up,” Izuku explained further. “I probably should have told you.”
“Probably,” Kurogiri said, more loudly and high-pitched than he likely intended.
“It’s fine, Izuku,” Hitoshi said. “You can go home. I’m just going to wait here.”
Kurogiri opened a portal, ready to go. Izuku produced his best puppy dog eyes. “Kurogiri, tell Hitoshi about the rampant kidnappings in the area. It’s not safe for a kid to be on his own! Anyone might pretend to be a distant relative and scoop him up. You tell him!”
Perhaps he had taken that too far. Kurogiri gave him a sharp look. Izuku gave up that thread of dialogue.
“Can you teleport him home?” he asked instead. “Please?”
Kurogiri frowned at Izuku. Izuku batted his eyes at Kurogiri. Kurogiri sighed. “What are the exact coordinates of your home address?” he asked.
Izuku grinned.
All for One slammed a fist into his desk in frustration. He then picked up a big pile of papers detailing the next big operation he had begun to structure, and threw them all in the trash. He shut his computer down and restarted it to keep himself from destroying the damn thing.
The most recent report from Giran had just come in. His most recent attempt at assassinating the president of the HPSC had been foiled. This on its own was enough to make him want to strangle something, but there was more. Oh, yes, there was more.
What he had taken to be a one-off instance of a random kid in an All Might hat causing destruction on his evil plans had in fact not been a one-off instance.
The random kid was back. The All Might hat was back.
More than anything in the whole world, All for One hated—
No, wait.
More than anything in the whole world except all the holders of One for All, All for One hated vigilantes. Always meddling their little hands into things. Heroes were easy to destroy because heroes were easy to predict. Vigilantes had so much more flexibility, so much more leeway, and this made them very difficult for villains to deal with. Sure, they didn’t have the resources or the support of the public, but what they did have was no concern for the law and little to no regularity to their actions. They were the worst.
“Kurogiri,” All for One snapped as his computer revived itself. He pressed control-alt-delete ten times in a row, irritated with how long it was taking. “Kurogiri!”
“Yes?” Kurogiri asked, already in the doorway.
“Look!” All for One jabbed his finger at the monitor. The picture wasn’t up yet. He clicked the mouse around, navigating to the file. A double click and an fn-F11 and the brat in all their All Might-clad lowliness appeared on his screen.
Kurogiri looked at the image. He didn’t seem to understand what he was looking at.
“Another vigilante!” All for One yelled. “Another one! What, are they multiplying like rabbits? I take one down and another appears? Why! Why me?”
“You did choose the life of crime,” Kurogiri pointed out.
All for One inhaled sharply, glaring harder than he’d ever glared in his life (which was very hard).
Hastily, Kurogiri added, “But yes it is very unfair, sir, yes. What can I assist you with?”
All for One zoomed in on the All Might hat. “Look at this,” he said, pointing at it. “Terrible taste in fashion. Just look.”
Kurogiri looked.
All for One waited for a response, jabbing his finger at the image again.
In a placating voice that irritated All for One more than he would like to admit, Kurogiri said, “Yes, I agree.”
This was not the first time, of course, that All for One had entered one of these moods, and Kurogiri was well-equipped to handle them. But All for One did not want to feel handled. He took great pains to calm himself, forcing his shoulders to relax and his expression toward something more pleasant. “I called you here for a reason,” he said calmly, trying to think of a reason.
Kurogiri waited.
“Could you start a folder,” All for One said, “in which we will put all the information we accumulate on the vigilante?”
“Of course.”
“Excellent.”
All for One looked at the picture. Rage swept through him again. “And the scarf , Kurogiri!”
As he continued to rant, he thought, for a moment, he heard a giggle. As though a kid somewhere was laughing at him. But it must have been his imagination. No one sane would dare laugh at All for One.
Chapter 10: On Morals
Summary:
Izuku punches someone, and All for One struggles with the responsibilities of being a parent.
Notes:
It takes literally all my self control to keep myself from posting these on days that are not Tuesdays and Fridays. Love the update schedule because when I get super busy I need it, but right now? Over winter break? HA! I just want to post every day T-T
but no
Chapter Text
Izuku stood at the bottom of a fire escape and regretted being so short. A tall person, he reasoned, would be able to teach the bottom rung of the ladder and pull the fire escape down. And although Izuku was now ten and a half, he was not a tall person. At eleven he would be—he was sure of it.
He tried jumping up and down to reach it, to no avail. The closest dumpster was too far away for him to climb up from there, so, with a heavy sigh, he turned and went to find another way to the roofs. Wandering the streets was also an option, but he’d found that method less effective than standing on top of rooftops. He could see a lot more from the top of something than he could from the ground.
And in his jiu jitsu and aikido classes, he’d been learning a lot about how to land properly on a fall, which he’d found pretty useful when launching himself from one building to another. He didn’t risk this very often, but he had been practicing on buildings that had smaller gaps in between them and whatnot. The first couple times had been a bit disastrous. Not Oji-san hadn’t been pleased, which was bad because Izuku was trying very hard to stop getting injured so Not Oji-san wouldn’t murder all his classmates. So far, his classmates lived on (although one of the kids at his school had suspiciously stopped interacting with Izuku at all after the incident with Red Wings), but he never knew when Not Oji-san would tip.
He found a good looking fire escape on a building that seemed tall enough and clambered up. He took out a pair of night vision binoculars he’d acquired off the internet (very expensive) and peered into the dark expanse of alleys below. It would be easier, he thought, if he had a setting inside his goggles that let him do this without holding binoculars up to his eyes, but he wasn’t nearly smart enough to make something like that.
The night was quiet, which Izuku found usually meant there would be nothing exciting until very, very late, but that thing would be high stakes and difficult. To prepare, he took a quick nap on the roof. It was made of concrete, so it wasn’t very comfortable, but he managed to fall asleep fine enough.
He was awoken when he heard two people yelling at each other below him. He glanced at the clock—one AM, a little earlier than expected—before wriggling over to the edge of the roof (which was far away, because sleeping on the edge of a roof was a terrible idea). He poked his head over the side.
“It’s mine!” one of the people was yelling. They seemed to have some sort of electricity quirk, because their hair was crackling with lightning. Izuku wondered if it extended over their whole body or just their hair.
“You aren’t using it properly,” the other person snapped. “Why would you get to have it if you’re not even putting it to good use? I’ll show you—”
This electricity quirk was very fascinating. The first person’s chin length hair was standing on end like they’d rubbed a balloon on it. Izuku wondered if it was connected to their emotions somehow or if they were intentionally using it.
“You’ll show me?” the electricity person answered. “You’ll show—”
“Shh, wait.”
“Don’t shush m—”
“No, wait, did you hear something?”
Izuku drew back quickly from the edge of the roof, pressing his hand over his mouth. He seriously needed to get a handle on the muttering thing.
“I don’t hear anything,” the electricity person said.
The other person didn’t respond but Izuku felt something sweep through his body, sending a shiver over his arms, and he winced. That was some sort of perception quirk for sure. He rocked back onto his toes and stepped away carefully on the concrete roof, keeping his footsteps as soft as possible. From living with Not Oji-san, he had learned a lot about soft footsteps. He’d made it halfway across the roof when lightning struck the roof with a loud bang. He flinched away, arms up to protect his face. When he lowered them, he found a big black scorch mark where he’d been sitting just a minute before.
Well this was not good.
Izuku glanced over his shoulder, gauging the distance to the next roof. It was a bit farther than he thought he could actually jump to, and this wasn’t the time to test it. He thought about calling Kurogiri, then quickly dismissed that thought as one of his more terrible ideas.
He felt the perception quirk run over him again, waited for the sensation to be done, and moved, covering his head as he went this time. The lightning struck much faster and he made up his mind. Keeping his steps as light as possible, he sprinted for the fire escape, slinging himself down off the roof as quickly and quietly as he could. His feet hit the ground just as the two probable villains rounded the corner.
“Hi,” Izuku said, out of breath. “Your quirk is really cool. Both of them, actually.”
The electricity person relaxed right away. “It’s just some kid,” they said, turning to go.
The one with the perception quirk caught the electricity person’s elbow, not done with the conversation. Izuku glanced behind him to confirm what he already knew—the end of the alley was blocked off by a wire fence. Sure, he could climb over it, but he’d be dead by the time he tried.
Perception quirk demanded, “How much did you hear?”
This was a tricky sort of question, Izuku could tell, because being honest was a bad idea but lying was a great way to get into an even worse situation. “Um, actually I couldn’t make anything out,” he said. “The wind, you know.”
“See, it’s fine,” the electricity person said. “Come on, let’s get out of here before a hero shows up.”
“What’s with the goggles?” Perception asked, taking a step closer and dragging Electricity behind them. “You some hero wannabe?”
Izuku scrambled for an excuse, because Oh, I’m a vigilante was definitely not the right answer. “No, my quirk makes my eyes really sensitive,” he said. In his bag he had a kitchen knife, which he did not want to use, a rope and a flashlight, a first aid kit, and a pinecone he’d found that he thought was cool. None of these seemed like they’d be particularly useful.
Perception took another step forward.
“Come on, stop,” Electricity said, tugging on Perception’s shoulder. “He’s just a kid.”
Izuku wouldn’t say he regretted his life choices, but he would say that if he could redo his life choices he might have chosen to behave differently. He could really use a hero showing up right now. He contemplated his options and decided maybe it was time to use his flashlight again. He slung his backpack in front and dug through it.
“He’s a loose end is what he is,” Perception growled.
Electricity rolled their eyes. “Oh, please. You’re so overdramatic. What’s he going to do?”
“He could steal the weapon,” Perception said.
Izuku decided that in comparison to Not Oji-san, these guys were pretty lame. Sure, they could and probably would kill him, but their evil genius was at probably around a level one and their intimidating banter wasn’t even intimidating. Satisfied with this discovery, Izuku flipped on the flashlight and concentrated the beam. He pointed it straight up to the sky and waved it around a bit, making sure the light grazed the top of the buildings. Maybe it wouldn’t work, maybe it would. At least he would know that he had made a decent effort at living.
“Hey,” Perception growled, shaking Electricity off. “What are you doing?”
“You seem kind of like you’re about to kill me,” Izuku said, “so I’m just making sure a hero finds my body.”
“Shit,” Electricity said, looking up at the rooftops like they expected heroes to fall off of them in droves. “We need to get out of here.”
“Not without getting rid of the loose end,” Perception said, approaching Izuku.
Izuku set his flashlight down, keeping it pointed upward just in case. He found the ready stance Sensei had taught him and raised his hands up in preparation. Perception lunged for him and he shifted his weight to the side, letting Perception fly past him and into the ground.
Hey! That had been okay! Maybe Izuku was —
Perception grabbed him around the knee and his leg buckled. His rear hit the ground hard. He scrambled back, but Perception, already up again, put a foot down on his stomach to hold him in place. “Gotcha,” Perception said, grinning.
“Congratulations,” Izuku said, “you’ve captured an eleven year old. You’re so strong and powerful.”
Sure, Izuku wasn’t eleven yet, but he was so close! Only half a year away, so basically he was eleven already, when you really thought about it. He grabbed Perception’s shin with both hands and twisted his feet up, using his calves to pull Perception down (thank you, jiu jitsu classes). Perception caught the fall with their hands and rolled. Izuku jumped to his feet and darted backward to give himself some space.
Perception didn’t leave any time to breathe, rushing forward.
Izuku moved before he thought. He slammed the heel of his fist up and struck Perception in the underside of the nose.
Perception gasped, stumbling backward, and fell to the ground, both hands clutching their nose.
“Oh no!” Izuku rushed forward to help. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. I’m really sorry. Are you okay?”
Blood gushed out of Perception’s nose. Electricity was gone—probably ran away just after the fight started in the first place. Perception glared at Izuku, gathered their feet underneath them, and lunged for him again.
White scarfs shot out of the heavens, binding Perception up like a mummy. A hero had arrived. Izuku ran for his flashlight, switching it off and tucking it into his backpack. With the situation now taken care of, he turned and fled.
Another scarf caught him by the ankle and with a yelp he fell to his hands and knees. “Eraserhead,” he whined, trying to kick the scarf off, “you already have a whole villain all to yourself. Don’t be greedy.”
“Hold still,” Eraserhead said, dropping down to the street level. “I’m not done with you yet.”
Izuku rolled into a sitting position. He crossed his arms and pouted. Eraserhead turned to Perception, taking in the scene and the blood still falling quite rapidly out of their nose. Izuku had felt bad in the moment, but actually, now that he was thinking about it, Perception had kind of gotten what they deserved there. Maybe punching people wasn’t so bad.
Careful not to move too suddenly and alert Eraserhead, Izuku carefully unwound his foot from the capture scarf. He slipped his leg out of it, climbed carefully to his feet, and backed away. When he got to the end of the alley, he turned on his heel and sprinted out of there like his life depended on it.
Really, it kind of did.
Midoriya was sick.
All for One didn’t know what to do with this situation. Kurogiri had suggested tissues and a lot of blankets, but he might as well have been talking in French. Except that All for One was also fluent in French.
He didn’t speak Sickness. And he had sorted through his many healing quirks to find one to resolve this particular problem—the flu , according to Kurogiri, who had retained too much of his old intelligence for All for One’s liking—but none of them seemed to have any effect. So Midoriya would be sick for the next couple days, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Except give him “a cold compress” and “soup.”
As Kurogiri called the school to let them know Midoriya wouldn’t be coming in for the day, All for One researched this so-called flu. Apparently it was pretty contagious. Midoriya must have picked it up at school. Maybe All for One should just pull him from school altogether to keep anything like this from happening ever again.
The Internet also suggested soup, tissues, and blankets, so maybe All for One should trust Kurogiri more. An interesting idea, trusting Kurogiri. He supposed there wasn’t much harm in it.
As he was entering a deep dive on what to do about the vomiting, Kurogiri soundlessly appeared in his office. “The school called me again. They want to speak with you.”
“What for?” All for One asked waspishly. He didn’t want to talk to anyone from Midoriya’s school. The broken rib incident had made it especially difficult for him to even think about Midoriya’s school without preparing for a murdering spree.
Kurogiri wordlessly handed him the phone.
“What is it,” All for One snapped into it.
“Well, sir,” the front desk attendant said, sounding anxious. “Midoriya’s attendance record. It says he’s present.”
“Well he’s not, so mark him absent,” All for One said, not sure why this was a problem.
“It won’t let me,” the front desk person said. “And I spoke with his teacher just now and she said that he’s missed several days of class this year. But his attendance record is perfect.”
All for One still didn’t see the issue. “Your system must not be very good then.”
“Sir.” The front desk person cleared their throat. “It appears to me that Midoriya has been tampering with his attendance record somehow.”
That sat between them in silence for a moment. “How so?” All for One asked finally.
“There’s been a program uploaded that—”
“Stop.” All for One could already see what had happened. He ran his hand down his face, watching it all play out in his mind. Midoriya had snuck into the school and tampered with his attendance score. Because of course he had.
All for One found himself fighting a smile. His fake nephew had hacked his own attendance record. It was both highly frustrating and incredibly amusing.
“I’m not surprised,” All for One said when he managed to retrieve his composure from behind the stupid grin that had momentarily overtaken him.
“Would you please speak with him about the consequences of these actions?” the front desk person asked, sounding relieved that All for One had accepted the issue so quickly. “He’ll definitely have detention for this. It would be helpful if you could explain to him that what he did was wrong.”
All for One blinked. “What?”
“Sorry—it’s not my place to tell you how to parent your nephew. But it would be helpful for us on the discipline side if you let him know that he shouldn’t do this again. And he will need to attend detention after school when he’s well again.”
“Of—of course,” All for One said, dumbfounded. “Yes, of course I’ll speak with him.”
“And,” said the front desk person, apologetic, “I can’t remove the program. I can’t figure it out. So if you could tell him he’ll also need to remove it, that would be helpful as well.”
“Right,” All for One said. “Of course. Well.”
“Thank you.”
“Goodbye.”
After hanging up, All for One sat staring at the phone screen blankly for a long moment.
“Sir?” Kurogiri nudged from the door.
“Apparently,” All for One said, “I need to talk to Midoriya about why hacking into his own attendance record is immoral.” He sent Kurogiri an agonized look. “Do you understand? I, All for One, need to talk to a ten year old about morals .”
Kurogiri said nothing, his yellow eyes still.
“What have I done, Kurogiri?” All for One asked, covering his eyes with his free hand. “Why did I think abducting him was a good idea? Have I lost it? Morals! Morals! ”
“He does seem to lack some of them,” Kurogiri said noncommittally.
All for One spread apart some of his fingers so he could peer through them at Kurogiri. “ You could talk to him about morals.”
“He’s your abducted nephew,” Kurogiri said, headed back to the bar. “All this was your idea. I think it’s your responsibility to carry through with it.”
“Kurogiri!” All for One yelled after him.
The useless Noumu didn’t respond.
Grumbling to himself, All for One sank lower in his chair. Morals. Ten year olds. What was he doing? And why? At some point, he’d thought this was a good idea. He couldn’t remember what he’d been on at the time, but whatever it was should be banned throughout Japan.
Midoriya had hacked into his own attendance record.
Something swelled inside All for One. He squashed it down. The day he felt proud of Midoriya would be the day he stopped trying to quash out One for All. Never—it would never happen.
But he couldn’t help the amused smile. His attendance record. All on his own. What a kid.
Chapter 11: A Treatise on Why Verbal Filters are Overrated
Summary:
Izuku has Hitoshi over and they learn more about each other. Aizawa and Tsukauchi are very, very tired.
Notes:
You will note that I have finally put in a final chapter count! You will also note that I really just guesstimated (I have only written through chapter 28) and it will likely change ten million times. But for now I am guessing 50 chapters!
Chapter Text
“Can I have Hitoshi-kun over?” Izuku asked.
Kurogiri nearly dropped a plate of inedible food. A shame.
Izuku added, “Please?”
Kurogiri coughed. “You’ll have to ask your uncle.” He put the plate down in front of Izuku. Most of the vegetables were burnt and the salmon was underdone. The rice seemed, somehow, cooked correctly.
Izuku poked at the veggies with his chopsticks, trying to figure out what he could salvage. “Do you think he’d say yes?”
It took Kurogiri a long time to answer, so that was a no. But regardless of the truth, Kurogiri said, “If you asked, maybe.”
“I don’t have many friends,” Izuku said. The veggies really were burnt to something unrecognizable. He picked up a blackened carrot slice and put it in his mouth before his survival instincts could take over. Immediately, he took a drink of water. “I feel like—” He coughed. “I feel like Oji-san would like to see me socializing.”
“As I said, you’d have to ask him,” Kurogiri said, oblivious to Izuku’s veggie-related troubles.
Almost as if on cue, Not Oji-san walked in from the side hallway. He sat down at the bar next to Izuku. Kurogiri handed him a plate. He wrinkled his nose up at the sight of either the salmon or the vegetables—it was hard to tell which—but picked up his chopsticks regardless, probably realizing that it was either eat this or cook something for himself using the limited supplies in the fridge.
Kurogiri glanced at Izuku. He didn’t look encouraging, but he wasn’t actively trying to stop Izuku either, which was probably a good sign. Or as close to a good sign as Izuku was going to get.
“Oji-san,” Izuku started, rather bravely. “I would like to have a friend over.”
Not Oji-san choked on a burnt piece of broccoli. Izuku couldn’t be sure if this was his fault or the broccoli’s, so he soldiered on.
“You may be shocked to find out I even have friends,” Izuku said, recalling several long hours of crying from his mother on this topic, “but in fact I have a rich social life. His name is Shinsou Hitoshi and we go to martial arts class together. The one in Aichi.”
Not Oji-san finished with his choking, his eyes watery and red. “And you want to have him over why?” he rasped.
Izuku cocked his head to the side. “Because that’s what friends do? You have friends, right?”
Not Oji-san looked at him. Izuku contemplated the possibility that in fact Not Oji-san didn’t have any friends. Maybe villains didn’t make friends.
“Maybe your personality isn’t amenable to friendship,” Izuku observed, and it was Kurogiri’s turn to choke. The difference between the two events was that Kurogiri wasn’t eating anything.
“Izuku!” Kurogiri said.
“What?”
Not Oji-san had his eyes closed and a twisted-up expression on his face like he was trying to transport himself to a distant land. Silly. He had a teleportation quirk for that. Or Kurogiri could do it for him. “Izuku,” Not Oji-san said. “Manners.”
“Sorry.”
“You can have a friend over, I suppose,” Not Oji-san said.
“Like for a sleepover?” Izuku clarified, trying to see how far he could take this.
Not Oji-san looked at Kurogiri like he needed help. Kurogiri didn’t say anything, so Not Oji-san said, “Yes, fine. Just make sure to tell me and Kurogiri when this is happening. And the rules about being upstairs by 8 still stand.”
“Yes!” Izuku wanted to hug him but maybe that was weird. He was the villain to end all villains. But Izuku had hugged him before and it had been fine, so he dove over and wrapped his arms around him.
Not Oji-san tensed immediately but didn’t stop him.
“Thank you!” Izuku released him and turned back to his plate. Maybe he’d just stick to the rice today and avoid everything else.
The Hugging Incident now had a Part Two and All for One felt like a stranger to himself. He stared blankly at his computer screen, trying to convince himself to continue setting things up to hone Shigaraki Tomura into his heir, but his heart wasn’t in it and he was still thinking about Midoriya’s weak noodle arms winding around his shoulders. Parenthood, he decided, was awful.
Shigaraki Tomura remained a problem.
If Tomura had asked All for One to have a friend over, All for One would have murdered said friend and made it look like a hero had done it. He would have used it against the teenager, twisted it into something he could make Tomura angry about. But Tomura didn’t have any friends, by design, and Tomura would never ask anyway.
Midoriya and Tomura were different.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked the empty room.
The room had no answers.
His options, he thought, were as follows.
- Get rid of Midoriya.
- Get rid of Shigaraki Tomura.
- ?????
So he was a bit stuck. He needed Midoriya to stay under his watchful eye so Midoriya would stop taking apart his enterprises one by one (this new vigilante was posing a similar problem, but All for One didn’t have space in his brain to think about that at the moment). But something about Midoriya was making it difficult to focus on Tomura.
An inkling of an idea struck him.
But surely it was too soon for that. Surely such a thing would disrupt his plans.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps there was something useful in the idea. After all, if All for One abducting Midoriya had thrown his life into such disarray, then surely a hero, such as All Might, adopting Tomura would cause similar effects. Surely so.
He decided to let the idea rest for now. But it lingered, always, in his mind. Adoption as the ultimate weapon. He liked the sound of that.
For whatever reason, the coffee at the police station was the strongest stuff in all of Japan, which is how Shouta found himself in the break room at the station downing a full cup of steaming coffee at dawn. And then another. With an audience of one: Tsukauchi Naomasa, who looked absolutely horrified.
“Rough night?” he guessed when Shouta crumpled the cup between his hands and let it fall, like his hopes and dreams, into the nearest trash can.
“You have,” Shouta said, “no idea.”
“Tell me.”
“There’s this kid,” Shouta said, rubbing the tips of his fingers into the steadily growing headache just under his eyebrows. “I keep running into him on my patrols.”
Tsukauchi leaned back in the plastic break chair at the table, head tipping slightly to the side.
“I’ve never seen his parents, and he shows up at random intervals and tells me where a crime is happening before running off again. I’ve tried to catch him, but I usually can’t spare time to go after him because doing my job as a hero is more urgent. Oh, and sometimes he shows up and uses my phone to call other heroes.”
“Oh, the mystery caller.” Tsukauchi nods. “Yeah, he’s been active for a couple years now.”
Shouta stared. He got a fresh cup and filled it with coffee. He took the chair next to Tsukauchi. “Tell me more.”
“Right.” Tsukauchi gave the third cup of coffee a wary look. “Do you need to slow down?” When Shouta didn’t respond other than to take a long sip, Tsukauchi continued, “There’s this kid that uses random people’s phones to call heroes to crime scenes. We haven’t ever investigated far into it because it’s more helpful than anything else—although how he has all these heroes’ phone numbers is concerning. But he’s been around for, ah, probably two and a half years by now.”
“Definitely the same kid,” Shouta said. “I first met him just over a year ago.”
Tsukauchi flipped open his notepad and clicked his pen open. “Want to give me a description? We can put out a BOLO on him if you think it’ll be helpful.”
Shouta scowled and shook his head. “He hasn’t done anything BOLO-worthy. Not yet, anyway, although I think he’s starting to slip into some sort of vigilante role. But right now he’s just a mystery, and I don’t like encountering mysteries repeatedly while on the job.”
Tsukauchi clicked his pen closed and then open again. “Still.”
“Green hoodie,” Shouta said, “All Might scarf and All Might hat. Swim goggles.”
None of that made it onto the notepad. “You’re kidding.”
“He has to be like nine.”
“Shit.”
Shouta took a long drag of his coffee. “If I run into him again I’ll try to get information out of him, but like I said, he’s excellent at turning up when I’m preoccupied. I don’t have enough hands for it.”
“Gotta wonder where his parents are.”
Shouta made a noise in agreement, buried in his coffee again. When he emerged, he said, “Well, that’s me. What are you doing here so early?”
Tsukauchi sighed. “Some heroes keep having random unnamed packages show up at their door with hero gear inside—and I mean high-tech, fancy custom-made hero gear. Jeanist got one last night and panicked, understandably.”
“You’re kidding.”
“When have I ever done that?”
Shouta sighed, rubbing his forehead. No amount of coffee could fix this headache. “Have you traced it back to the manufacturer?”
“Yeah, plenty of times. They say it’s just a normal order, and they don’t want to violate customer privacy by letting us see who placed it. And we don’t have a warrant because technically sending people unnamed packages with hero gear isn’t illegal , although it is, like you said, irritating to have a mystery hanging over everyone. And if it does turn into a mail bomb . . .”
“You want a head start on the culprit.”
“Yeah.”
“Well.” Shouta’s cup was empty again. “Who knew we’d have this much work at this age. I feel ready to retire already.”
Tsukauchi nodded slowly and the conversation fell to silence, both of them lost in their heads. Shouta thought about this mystery kid and wondered, as he did every day, where he came from. Where he went to school. How he kept finding these villains in the first place.
Suddenly, Tsukauchi snorted. “It’d be convenient if we were both looking for the same person.”
Shouta laughed drily. “Yeah. Right.”
“You live in a bar.” Hitoshi looked unimpressed. Horrified, even.
Izuku squinted at the wooden tables, the long counter, the various alcohol dispensers. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
“Wh—I’d like to know why.”
“Sometimes,” Izuku said, “your grandma gets sick and then your distant relative who lives in a bar decides to take you in out of the blue while your mom cares for your grandma, and then your grandpa also gets sick so it becomes a prolonged situation.”
Hitoshi looked at him.
“Sometimes that happens,” Izuku said.
“Right.”
“Anyway, the good stuff is up here,” Izuku said, leading Hitoshi up the stairs. He showed him the bathroom, which was very normal, the hallway, which was also very normal, and his room, the first door on the left.
“Holy crap,” Hitoshi said.
“I have a small obsession,” Izuku admitted, observing his room as if for the first time. Having Hitoshi around really changed his perspective on things. The room was large, but windowless, and was packed, floor to ceiling, with hero merch. Big, glossy posters lined the walls, the bookshelves were crammed with comic books and figurines, he had probably too many plushies with heroic faces on them, his entire bed set was made of a conglomeration of different hero sheets. The clothes that spilled out of his dresser were primarily hero-themed, he had hero playsets which he suspected he was starting to outgrow, his desk had a vast collection of hero stickers pasted over the entire surface. The back of his chair had Gunhead’s face on it. His bath towel was patterned with different hero logos.
“I thought your uncle hated heroes,” Hitoshi said.
It was a miracle, Izuku realized, that he was still alive after buying and filling his room with so much merch. No wonder Oji-san avoided the room at all costs. Perhaps he’d gone overboard.
“Well, as long as it stays in my room I don’t think he really minds,” Izuku said, shutting the door (which had a floor to ceiling poster of Sir Nighteye on it) behind them. “He’s weird like that.”
“Will I . . .” Hitoshi stopped, eyebrows furrowing as he struggled to phrase something.
“Meet him?” Izuku guessed.
Hitoshi nodded once.
“Maybe? Probably not. He’s antisocial.”
Hitoshi nodded again.
“Want to play heroes?” Izuku sat down crisscross on his wood floor. Hitoshi sat across from him. “Oh—I don’t have any All Might, though, so we’ll have to use the other figurines. You like All Might?” Izuku couldn’t believe he’d neglected to ask this sooner. Probably the most important friendship defining question, really.
“Yeah, he’s cool,” Hitoshi said, which was acceptable. “I really like underground heroes, actually.”
“Eraserhead,” Izuku said, digging around for a figurine he’d had to have custom made. It featured his baggy black outfit, his capture scarf, and his yellow goggles, and had his hair floating above his head. It was one of Izuku’s favorites.
Hitoshi froze, eyes locked on it. “How’d you get that?” he breathed. “Can I hold it?”
Izuku passed it over immediately. “You can keep it if you want!”
The figurine nearly slipped from Hitoshi’s hands but he fumbled it and managed to maintain his grip. “Are you kidding?”
“No, it’s fine! I can just get another one.”
Never had a boy looked more shocked or joyful in his life. “Wow, thank you. Thanks. Wow!”
“It’s custom made,” Izuku said proudly.
“I didn’t know other people even knew about Eraserhead,” Hitoshi admitted. “He’s my favorite.”
“Most people don’t,” Izuku confirmed.
“How—I’m wondering how you found out about him.”
Izuku hesitated.
There came a time in life, he supposed, when a person came to a crossroads. They could either be honest and spill the deepest darkest secret of their soul (or one of them anyway), or they could decide they didn’t trust the world enough for that and keep it to themselves.
Luckily for Hitoshi, Izuku was not particularly awesome at keeping secrets.
“I don’t really have a quirk?” he said, voice lifting up at the end like it was a question, even though it was not. “And one day I was looking for heroes that fought without using theirs, and Eraserhead came up. And that’s all.” He focused on his hands twisting together in his lap. Now Hitoshi would storm out of the house and leave him forever.
“Oh.” It was Hitoshi’s turn to hesitate, and Izuku scrunched up his shoulders in anticipation of the end of the friendship. Now Hitoshi would say, I can’t believe you kept this from me. Who would want to be friends with a quirkless Deku like you? and he would try to leave and then Not Oji-san would find out and murder Hitoshi for being mean and it would all be Izuku’s fault.
What Hitoshi actually said was, “I have a bad quirk.”
Izuku frowned, looking up slightly. “Bad?”
“Kids at school say it’s villainous,” Hitoshi said. He said it dismissively, like it didn’t matter, but it very clearly did.
“Quirks can’t be bad,” Izuku decided. “There’s no such thing.”
“Mine is.”
“Well, what is it?”
Hitoshi fell silent, staring at the floor between their crossed legs. He was quiet for so long that Izuku thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. He almost changed the subject.
But then Hitoshi said, very quietly, “Brainwashing.”
And Izuku’s mind exploded. So much slotted into place at once. Brainwashing. In what sense? He imagined wiping people’s memories. He imagined controlling their minds. Maybe it could be used to calm someone down from a panic attack.
It had a verbal activation, probably, and that explained why Hitoshi phrased everything so carefully. Maybe it was a verbal response sort of thing. Maybe Hitoshi avoided asking questions. So all this time he hadn’t been worried about offending Izuku, he was worried about activating his quirk on him. What a silly thing to be worried about. Izuku thought being brainwashed would probably be fun.
And there were so many practical applications! The panic attack thing aside, it would be so helpful in an interrogation. Izuku could think of five or ten situations he’d been in recently that would have been wildly helpful to have a brainwashing quirk around for. Hitoshi could deescalate fights so quickly and with minimal damage to anyone. Hostage situations would be a breeze. It was a contactless, nonviolent quirk.
Although there had to be something that could be used to break out of it. If it was a brainwashing quirk, then probably something that would snap someone out of a daze would be enough, but stronger. So instead of a pinch, maybe a—
Hitoshi’s hand pressed into Izuku’s upper arm and Izuku startled, hand immediately jumping to cover his mouth. “Sorry!” he squeaked.
Although Hitoshi looked a little concerned for Izuku’s wellbeing after the muttering, he mostly just looked a little bit sheepish.
“Sorry,” Izuku repeated. “I get lost in my head. Sorry. It’s creepy.”
“I didn’t understand most of it,” Hitoshi admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “You don’t seem to mind my quirk, though.” He raised his eyebrows as if verifying that was true.
Izuku nodded immediately. “I have many questions. And I love your quirk. You’d make such a good hero.”
Hitoshi blinked and drew back slightly like Izuku had just slapped him across the face. And then his expression softened and his eyes crinkled up in a slight smile. “Wow. Thanks.”
“Okay, so, now you have to tell me everything. I’m getting a notebook. Is that okay? That’s okay, right?”
Still visibly taken aback, Hitoshi nodded.
Izuku dove for his notebook drawer. This was going to be awesome.
Chapter 12: The Perfect Crime Meets the Most Dangerous Detective (Mom)
Summary:
Inko wants to visit. Chaos ensues.
Notes:
Thank you so much for all the support T-T we passed 300 kudos this week and i'm so! <33333 thank you for reading!!!
Chapter Text
Izuku hurled himself off the last three steps and skidded into the bar, sending a shocked Kurogiri a frantic look. “It’s a code red,” he said.
“A code . . .”
Izuku sprinted past the bar to Not Oji-san’s office. “It’s bad,” he panted from the doorway, holding out his phone as proof. “It’s terrible.”
Not Oji-san had the decency to look alarmed, rising from his fancy swivel chair. Izuku wasn’t “allowed” in Not Oji-san’s office, but the desk was in the closest corner on the leftmost wall and the room was small enough that even at the door he was already near Not Oji-san. “What’s wrong?”
Izuku brandished his phone, loaded with text-based evidence. “My mom,” he wailed. “She wants to visit.”
And Not Oji-san froze, staring at him like he’d been caught red-handed. That was exactly the problem—he hadn’t been caught yet . But if anyone was going to figure it out, it would be Izuku’s mom. Because that’s just what moms did.
“This is fine,” Not Oji-san said, recovering himself faster than Izuku. “We’re a perfectly normal family.”
“We live in a bar,” Izuku cried.
Not Oji-san paled. “It’s fine,” he said again. “It’s completely fine.”
The situation was far from fine.
Living in a bar notwithstanding, All for One was not the typical uncle, and Midoriya was not the typical nephew. All for One wasn’t even a real uncle. He knew next to nothing about Midoirya’s father—other than what several in depth research spirals had acquired for him—and all his efforts to keep Midoriya Inko at bay were falling apart before his eyes.
He thought about going up north again to make Midoriya’s grandfather’s health suddenly take a turn for the worse just to keep Inko away, but Midoriya’s birthday was next week and that would be a cruel move to pull on Midoriya’s eleventh birthday, which he had been talking about almost nonstop for a month. And even if he did twist the tide of fate to keep Inko away, he suspected her determination would only grow and she’d come to visit next month instead. All for One would prefer to just get it over with. And already he was taking steps toward this inevitability.
“So,” the realtor said, gesturing at a pristine kitchen that looked like it had been lifted straight from a catalog. “It comes with an electric stove, and the dishwasher is high efficiency. You’ll notice the light switches, which—”
“Nevermind all that,” All for One interrupted, journeying down the side hallway to glance into the bedrooms. There were three of them, as suggested on the listing. He found the master bedroom—fine, a smaller bedroom they’d make look like an office-turned-guest room, and a bedroom much too large for a child of Izuku’s stature, which was perfect.
The realtor trailed behind All for One uselessly, remarking on key features of each room. All for One ignored her. The living room was decent as well. Two bathrooms, one in the master bedroom. Plain white walls behind everything, but fine, all fine. This was an emergency.
He turned to the realtor, who was babbling unhelpfully about the natural lighting. “When can we move in?”
The answer was a satisfactory and perfunctory, “As soon as the forms are signed!”
Once said forms were signed, of course, the real work began. Now they had a clean new home, and they had to destroy it a little so it would look lived in. As Kurogiri, who All for One was beginning to appreciate more than he expected to, moved all their non-suspicious things into the apartment, Midoriya took to the task of roughening up the apartment with a determination and enthusiasm that was frankly concerning. He grabbed a pot and smacked it into the corner of a wall near the kitchen.
“This,” he said, pointing at the fresh dent in the wall, “is from when I thought biking inside the house was a good idea. Remember that.”
All for One wasn’t sure what Midoriya found so fun about smashing up an apartment he’d spent a lot of money on, but he wouldn’t stop him. He winced when Midoriya started bringing hero merch out of his room and into the apartment proper, but Midoriya argued that if this was a house he lived in normally, there would be figurines all over the place, and All for One figured he should focus on being grateful that Midoriya was cooperating with the sudden move instead of asking suspicious questions about why they were putting this much effort into looking normal.
The boy was distractible and dramatic, and it blinded him to real motives. All for One couldn’t be more pleased. And marginally concerned, but he buried that.
While Midoriya set about bringing hero blankets out and more figurines than All for One wanted to know he had, All for One settled down at the kitchen counter with his laptop and dove into researching Midoriya Hisashi. He’d moved to America when Midoriya was three, and had remained there since. Other than presents on Midoriya’s birthday, the occasional phone call, and a check every two weeks to Midoriya Inko, he wasn’t involved in their life anymore. All for One found himself resenting the man a little and plugged that up before he could analyze why. He could remember a time he thought he didn’t even have emotions, and now—
Well, that was just the effect Midoriya Izuku had on people.
All for One dove deep into his background, combing the dark web, which had surprisingly little on the man, and diving into all his social media accounts. Midoriya Hisashi was, by all accounts, boring. Exceptionally and horribly.
As All for One started a second research thread where he researched himself, Midoriya climbed up on the counter stool next to him, propped up his own laptop, and plugged in his earbuds. He turned on the news and flipped open a notebook to a fresh page.
Fascinating. All for One hadn’t known Midoriya was interested in the news. Regardless, he went back to his research.
All for One kept tabs on Midoriya’s uncle already to make sure nothing interfered with his kidnapping, but that was purely keeping track of his day to day and monitoring his communications. The personal stuff was what he needed to find for this event.
Midoriya’s uncle was a dry, drab man. The only interesting thing about him—the only thing that set him apart from Midoriya Hisashi—was that he, at least, had a criminal record, but that wasn’t something a person brought up at the dinner table. He was allergic to cats, the weakling, and liked strawberries. He didn’t seem like the type of person that would check in on Midoriya Inko or Midoriya Izuku, particularly given that one of those two people was quirkless.
A low droning sound started up next to All for One and he cast Midoriya an irritated look, which Midoriya didn’t catch, eyes locked on the news, where a hero fight was taking place. It was between Power Loader, of all people, and a woman dressed like a bat. And Midoriya, hand hovering over his lips like he’d been mid-pinching them shut before he forgot the task and let them escape, was muttering faster than All for One could understand.
Intrigued, All for One selected a time quirk and set the world to .5 speed.
“—wonder if Power Loader would be more effective if he stopped using blunt force so much and tried using the environment to his advantage more, although now that I think about it maybe he’s trying to avoid property damage, since he could get sued. A team up with Cementoss maybe? To replace what he tears up? But no because not everything is pavement, but there’s gotta be some sort of a team up. But heroes in the area? Nothing good. He’s probably better with a bigger opponent, since pairing him against someone agile and quick is just asking for his gear to get disassembled. Could his gear be less bulky? Or maybe—”
The quirk wore off and Midoriya’s muttering went back to an indecipherable speed, his right hand matching his voice with notes in shorthand.
All for One stared at him.
He’d known, of course, that Midoriya was an underdeveloped genius. A prodigy, actually, when it came to this sort of thing. Midoriya had been enough of a nuisance pre-kidnapping that he would have to have been exceptionally smart, or All for One would have found it easy to evade him.
But All for One hadn’t considered the extent to which this could be pushed and pulled. He saw raw potential here, and he itched to nurture it.
Midoriya flipped to a new page of his notebook, his hand flying across the page, and All for One made up his mind. Would he regret this later? Probably.
“Izuku-kun,” he said and cleared his throat.
Midoriya’s eyes snapped up, his hand immediately slapping over his mouth. “Shoot,” he mumbled from behind his hand. “Sorry.”
All for One ignored the apology. “Let me—ah.” Demanding things wasn’t the way to go about being a good fake uncle. “May I,” he said, the words like poison on his tongue, “use your computer for a moment?”
“Um.” Midoriya blinked, glancing at the news feed, and then looking at All for One’s computer, as if he thought he could find something wrong with it. “Why?”
Why? All for One felt a surge of irritation build up behind his eyes and he pursed his lips very tightly together to get a handle over himself. He didn’t need a reason to use his own fake nephew’s computer. He was All for One! Whatever he asked for should have been given without question.
But he had to be a nice, normal fake uncle, or Midoriya would tell his mom and then All for One would have to kill Midoriya’s mom and lock Midoriya in his room and everything would be ruined. So he forced his tone to remain calm. “Because I want to give you access to the Hero Network.”
He thought he would have to explain what that was, but Midoriya’s eyes widened immediately in recognition and the computer slid across the counter to All for One.
All for One opened a new browser tab and typed in the website. “I’m surprised you haven’t hacked in here already,” he noted.
“Nedzu,” Midoriya said miserably, and that made a lot of sense, actually.
The Hero Network was, as would be suggested by the name, a website for the usage of top heroes only which had information on every single hero in Japan. It was extensive, and extremely dangerous if in the wrong hands. Thus why All for One had spent an exorbitant amount of time wriggling into it, against all the efforts of Nedzu and the HPSC. The site was so dangerous that only heroes who made it into the top 50 could use it, and even they were at constant risk of having their account removed at the slightest misstep.
All for One typed in his log-in details, which he’d spent months convincing the site to accept, and went in through the back end to create a new persona for Midoriya. As he worked, Midoriya stared at him with huge, star-filled eyes. And then it was done. He reached across Midoriya, took his pen, and wrote out the new log-in details for his unique persona. “There.”
“Is this my birthday present?” Midoriya whispered, amazed.
It probably should have been. But, “Is it your birthday?”
“Not for three days.”
“Well then, what do you think?”
Before he could stop it, he was being attacked by another hug. He froze up, as was typical, but Midoriya only tightened his arms. “You’re like the best uncle ever,” Midoriya mumbled. He pulled away. “Also, how do you have access to the Hero Network?”
Crap. All for One should have considered that question before he did all that. “Through a friend,” he said vaguely, and Midoriya, his beautiful, incredibly shortsighted fake nephew, accepted it immediately, already distracted by going through all the information now available to him.
“I’m going to cry.”
“Don’t,” All for One said, inching his stool away.
But Midoriya was true to his word.
Izuku sat cross legged on the floor just past the genkan, watching his mom’s progress to the apartment on Find My iPhone. He felt simultaneously very excited and very nervous about this. Not Oji-san, he knew, was mostly stressed, given the way he kept going around the apartment and messing it up as much as possible. Tilting the picture frames Kurogiri had spent ages putting up on the walls. Dirtying dishes and putting them in the sink.
The apartment was temporary. It felt weird that they’d put so much effort into making it perfect when they were just going to move out again the minute his mom left, but that was the way of things. It would be back to the bar tomorrow. Izuku preferred the bar anyway. It made him feel like he was living on the edge.
He watched the little blue dot of his mom stop at the closest bus stop and make her way toward the apartment building.
“Where is she now?” Not Oji-san asked, walking up behind Izuku.
“Two minutes away,” Izuku said.
Not Oji-san swore under his breath and disappeared into the apartment again. It was kind of funny how stressed he was about all this. It would have been funnier if Izuku wasn’t equally stressed. If his mom found out he’d been kidnapped, everything would be over. The villain to end all villains would get away. They had to make this perfect.
She entered the building and he swiped out of the app, hopping up. He bounced from foot to foot, trying to dispel some nervous energy. It had been a long time since he last saw his mom in person.
The apartment fell into a deep foreboding silence, broken only by the occasional hissed curse word from Not Oji-san as he stress-messed. It was like stress cleaning except not at all like that.
The doorbell rang and Izuku froze. He felt his eyes start to burn in anticipation. On soft feet he padded to the door, unlocked it, and opened up.
His mom looked exactly the same as the day she’d left, tears and all—maybe a few extra wrinkles. The moment she saw Izuku, she dove forward, wrapping him in a big hug, and he fell apart, sobbing into her shoulder. “Izuku,” she wailed. “Izuku, sweetheart.”
He didn’t even have enough air to respond as he released all his pent up tension and relief through tears, bunching up the back of her shirt in his hands. He hadn’t been hugged like this in a long time, and he never wanted it to end.
“I’m so sorry,” was the next sentence out of her mouth, and Izuku winced. But then came, “Happy birthday, Izuku,” and everything was okay again.
When they’d finished crying, for the most part, Not Oji-san cleared his throat. “Midoriya-san,” he said awkwardly.
“It’s Inko-san to you,” his mom said, standing up straight and adjusting her bags—one of which looked suspiciously like a present. “Thank you for taking care of my son.”
Not Oji-san looked so stressed, his mouth in a tight line. “Of course,” he said. “Yes, of course. He’s been a pleasure. Very nice, ah, energetic boy.”
His mom gave Izuku an amused look. “That’s a glowing review. What have you been up to?”
“I ran my bike into the wall in the kitchen,” Izuku said.
“Oh no.” His mom bowed apologetically to Not Oji-san. “I’m so sorry.”
Not Oji-san glared at Izuku, who beamed. “It’s fine,” Not Oji-san said. “Won’t you come in? Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Izuku’s mom said, taking off her shoes and walking in.
“Kurogiri didn’t cook, did he?” Izuku whispered.
“I ordered out,” Not Oji-san answered, matching his tone. “She’ll never know.”
Izuku nodded approvingly.
Izuku enjoyed watching Not Oji-san’s face as Izuku unwrapped his mom’s birthday present, a limited edition All Might Silver Age hoodie. He loved the hoodie and told his mother as such, putting it on because Not Oji-san could do absolutely nothing to stop him.
Next, his gift from a begrudging Not Oji-san, which was a tablet and a surprisingly thoughtful book on unsolved cold cases.
He’d already unwrapped his gift from Kurogiri, who had gotten him a set of the nicest pens Izuku had ever held in his own two hands, and his gift from his father, which had been as uninspired as ever. Not Oji-san produced the gift from the Bakugous, which was the omnibus of the I-Island Rescue comic book series. Hitoshi, to Izuku’s surprise, had also gotten him a gift, a thin book on the history of underground heroics. Not Oji-san handed that one over to him as well, and Izuku wondered how that pass-off had even happened. Hitoshi was sneakier than he’d realized.
They ate cake, and Not Oji-san and Izuku’s mom talked about his dad for a while. Not Oji-san did a very good job pretending he knew things, laughing at the right places and inventing some clever stories about his childhood. Izuku wanted to take notes.
All in all, the visit passed without a hitch. Izuku thought maybe they hadn’t needed to worry so much about pretending to be a normal family—although all that worry might have been the reason it went so smoothly. Hard to say, really.
As Izuku’s mom went out the door, she kissed him on the head and hugged Not Oji-san, who gave the wall behind her an alarmed look and fumbled with his hands. Izuku bit back a laugh. The villain to end all villains didn’t know how to hug people properly.
Tears pouring out of her eyes, Izuku’s mom backed out the door. “Thank you for letting me stay,” she sniffled. “We’ll have to do this again soon.”
Izuku and Not Oji-san froze.
“Yes,” Not Oji-san said, sounding a bit strangled. “Yes, of course.”
Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, Izuku’s mom waved goodbye and headed down the hall. The moment the elevator closed, cutting off her I love yous and Goodbyes , Izuku shut the door to the apartment and dropped his forehead onto it. Again. They’d have to do it again.
“What a mess,” Not Oji-san muttered, walking away. “What a mess.”
Chapter 13: Grand Ideas, and Further Discoveries
Summary:
Shigaraki and Izuku become more aware of each other. Kurogiri puts a few things together and then regrets it. And All for One has a very good idea with no drawbacks at all.
Chapter Text
Something in the world had shifted, and it irked Tomura.
He slammed his thumb into the A key on his Switch, only half focused on the game. His mind was on a bigger game—the game of life.
He couldn’t say what exactly had changed, and maybe that was what was actually so bothersome. A mood, maybe. Sensei didn’t look at him the same way anymore, like a source of his pride. Sensei didn’t really look at him at all anymore, and when he did it was with a furrowed brow, like Tomura was a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. Tomura knew Sensei was very good at puzzles, so he wondered what had stumped him so suddenly. The shift was probably Tomura’s fault—maybe he wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t hateful enough—but he couldn’t put a finger (or five) on what had caused the issue, so he couldn’t fix it.
That was fine. Tomura wasn’t meant to fix things.
If Kurogiri was still around, maybe it would be easier to bear the sudden long silences, the stretches of loneliness in his room. The training with various private instructors remained the same, but Kurogiri only came by every once in a while now. According to Sensei, he’d been “repurposed.”
Tomura cursed and dropped the controller into his lap. He’d died in the game, not focused enough on his survival. He pressed the three middle fingers of each of his hands into his forehead and glared at the username of the one that had defeated him: NotARat2000.
Maybe this was all a test, he reasoned. Maybe Sensei was trying to find out if he could endure the lack of attention or care. Well, Tomura would prove he could. He didn’t need anyone or anything to survive. If it was all a game, then Tomura would win the game.
He picked up the controller again and asked for a rematch.
“Kurogiri,” Izuku said sleepily, crawling onto his usual bar stool. “Remote, please.”
With a quizzical look, Kurogiri procured the remote. Izuku turned on the TV above the bar, rubbed his eyes, and opened his notebook.
Recently, Izuku had discovered within himself a deep and unrequited love for the news channel. This he believed had started with Not Oji-san giving him the gift of access to the Hero Network and that book of unsolved cold cases, which Izuku loved with all his heart and had already read front to back four times.
Ever since the Hitoshi-had-a-super-cool-brainwashing-quirk-Izuku-didn’t-know-about incident, Izuku had been obsessed with figuring out people’s quirks. Sometimes it was super easy, like with mutant quirks, and he could deduce the quirk, its primary functions, and practical applications in minutes. Sometimes, especially with mental-based quirks, it was very difficult. He liked the challenge.
Nowadays as he walked down the street he guessed people’s quirks, watching them move, watching the way they stood, the way they held their hands. The way their eyes landed on things. He was not very good at it yet but he also hadn’t figured out a good way to practice.
Thus, the news.
He tested himself by guessing quirks in hero fights and then getting immediate confirmation depending on how the quirk was used or updates from the newscasters if he was right or not. Sometimes, he was immediately right, and Kurogiri gave him startled looks. Sometimes, he was very wrong. But he improved every day.
Kurogiri gave him a plate of burnt rice and egg. Izuku nibbled at it absentmindedly, using his left hand to eat and his right hand to scribble. He decided in that moment he would need to learn to be ambidextrous, and resolved to always take notes at school with his left hand from here forth. An ordinary boy resolving something like that wouldn’t last ten minutes under such conditions. Izuku wasn’t an ordinary boy.
Near 7am, Not Oji-san emerged from his office. Izuku waved at him. He looked at the TV, then Izuku’s half-full notebook, and sighed. “It’s a bit early, isn’t it?” he asked.
Izuku shrugged, mouth full of food, and resumed his practice. Time stopped for no one—except maybe Not Oji-san.
“What did we say about analysis while eating?” Not Oji-san said, taking the plate Kurogiri held out to him and wrinkling his nose at the state of the rice.
“Not to,” Izuku said, mouth full.
“Why?”
“Because I forget not to mutter and might choke,” Izuku said.
Kurogiri, the traitor, turned off the TV. With a sigh, Izuku shut his notebook. He would resume his practice tomorrow. And he would, of course, find other ways to practice as well. Izuku was nothing if not inventive.
Kurogiri had never before considered himself an “enabler,” but as Midoriya “call me Izuku please!” Izuku looked at him with big puppy dog eyes and asked to please be dropped off randomly in Morioka, of all places, he had to wonder if he might have a problem.
With Shigaraki Tomura, this was never an issue. Then again, Shigaraki Tomura had never been so outspoken or so confident in his own manipulative skill as Izuku was. At eleven years old, Izuku had power over Kurogiri (and All for One, although the man would never admit it) and knew it. Shigaraki Tomura didn’t have power—only wanted it. The two hadn’t ever met. Kurogiri was beginning to believe that was for the best, and that, in fact, the two should never meet.
“Why do you want to go to Morioka?” Kurogiri asked to buy himself time to talk himself out of this.
“It’s the hero convention!” Izuku said, whipping out a flier and shoving it in Kurogiri’s face, despite the height difference. “Everyone who’s everyone is going to be there. Even!” He glanced at the door to All for One’s office and lowered his voice. “Even All Might.”
Kurogiri also glanced at the door to All for One’s office, waiting for it to explode. Nothing happened. Either Izuku was very lucky or All for One couldn’t bring himself to care for once. Kurogiri had his bets on the former.
“And who will accompany you?”
Izuku frowned. “I don’t need anyone to go with me. Unless you want to come!”
Kurogiri did want to, against the terms of his employment, but knew that would never be allowed. “You’ll get lost. Or kidnapped.”
Izuku made a face that said Really? in the most sarcastic way possible, almost like he knew that he had already been kidnapped and was living with his kidnappers to this day. But that was impossible. “Then come with me.”
Simply, he could not. But it was kind of Izuku to offer.
“You have to promise me,” he said, “that you won’t get lost or kidnapped.”
“I’ve never been lost. Or kidnapped.” Izuku said this very seriously, like it was a matter of state secrecy. This would have been endearing if it wasn’t completely false.
“Promise.”
“I solemnly swear I will not get lost or kidnapped. Not even a little bit.”
“And you will be at the pick up location exactly when I ask you to be there?”
Izuku karate-chopped one hand into the other palm. “On the mark. I’m so punctual. I’ve never missed a single day of class. No tardies. And I’m always right where I say I’ll be during pick up.”
None of that was true, especially given that Izuku had hacked his attendance score last year and that Izuku was notoriously terrible at showing up for pick up from school. Kurogiri had had to stand at their meet up location for several hours one time, with All for One “not panicking” on the phone. Izuku had been thoroughly grounded after that event, although Kurogiri still found ways to sneak him treats and forbidden computer time.
“I promise,” Izuku said.
“All right,” Kurogiri relented, opening a portal. “Make good choices.”
“When do I not?” Izuku asked, pulling his bag over his back and marching straight through the portal with a huge shit-eating smile on his face. Kurogiri suspected he was about to make a mess of things.
When All for One two hours later cursed from his office and shouted, “ Why is that goddamn All Might-spangled vigilante in Morioka?” Kurogiri realized a few things at once.
The vigilante who All for One hated so much and who had, against all All for One’s efforts, somehow kept his identity hidden over the past year or so, was almost always in Musutafu, where Izuku went to school.
All for One had had a big deal planned to go down in Morioka today.
And Izuku, under the guise of an exciting hero convention, had happened to convince Kurogiri to send him to Morioka today.
As All for One started cursing in a way Kurogiri hadn’t heard him do since All Might recovered from his injuries without complaints, Kurogiri considered all these things and how they might be connected. He understood more than he should.
To be absolutely certain, Kurogiri used his tablet to look up hero conventions, and found that not only were there none scheduled this weekend, but also there were none ever in Morioka. It all clicked into place, then. Izuku had probably designed that flyer all by himself. He’d taken a risk by asking Kurogiri to come with him, but of course Kurogiri wouldn’t say yes. Izuku was the “goddamn All Might-spangled vigilante.”
Ordinarily, he would consider it his duty to inform All for One of this discovery.
But here was the crux of the issue: Kurogiri liked Izuku—maybe even loved Izuku, the ridiculous child. So he turned on the TV to look for any sign of the green-clad vigilante, and opened a portal to take a beaming Izuku back home at their designated meet up time and location.
Izuku was right on time.
All for One rewound the clip he’d gotten from a security camera that had caught a short glimpse of the new vigilante. He squinted at it, waved a hand to turn off the lights so he could see better, and turned the brightness on his computer up.
The vigilante was certainly kid-shaped. Some adults were small, but this vigilante moved with a certain hopeful inexperience that All for One had found already beaten out of older vigilantes. The clip was too short to know for sure, but he didn’t seem jaded the way the other vigilantes were.
All for One upped the resolution, watching the short video again. All that happened was the vigilante got thrown into a wall, shook it off, and ran back into the fray.
Probably a kid, All for One reasoned. Maybe a particularly scrawny UA reject—most kid vigilantes started soon after the UA entrance exam. Midoriya was the exception, but his activities hardly counted as vigilantism. They were just a nuisance.
The police had already begun a tab on the new vigilante, but they seemed just as lost about him as All for One. He didn’t seem to have a particular M.O., although he usually hung around Musutafu at night, so he might live in that area. And somehow he knew exactly where and when All for One had big things planned and went elsewhere to ruin those. The police were puzzled at the way he showed up to stop random hidden crimes in other cities. All for One was puzzled at the way he only showed up to stop All for One’s crimes in other cities specifically. He didn’t go to other cities to stop other people’s crimes (although the police had no way of knowing this). Maybe he had some sort of knowledge-based quirk.
Regardless, the new vigilante was trouble, and All for One was quickly growing tired of trouble. “Kurogiri!” he called.
It was late now—late enough that the bar had mostly cleared out and the few remaining stragglers wouldn’t be allowed to drink more, so Kurogiri could spare a moment away from the counter.
“Yes, sir?” Kurogiri said, appearing next to him. He looked at the looped clip on the computer screen with disinterest. His yellow eyes flickered.
“I have a proposition,” All for One said, steepling his fingers, “and I need you to tell me if we have the resources for it.”
Kurogiri waited.
“This new vigilante,” All for One said. “If he is the right age and not posing as a child, would we be able to abduct him?”
It took Kurogiri a long time to respond, the mist around his head flaring slightly like it did when he was trying to find control of himself. An odd reaction.
“Is that unreasonable?” All for One asked, thinking through the idea again. It had seemed to work fine with Midoriya, who no longer got in All for One’s way (on the job—at home he remained a constant difficulty), so All for One couldn’t see why it wouldn’t work on this vigilante as well. It created more work for Kurogiri, sure, and it would be expensive. But this was why he was asking Kurogiri if it was even feasible, or if All for One needed to take a long nap to regain his sanity.
“No, sir,” Kurogiri said, his voice a bit tight. “Not unreasonable at all.”
All for One squinted at him, wishing again that he could read minds. “Are you feeling unwell?” he asked finally.
“No, sir. You just surprised me, is all. I didn’t think you’d be willing to adopt again so soon.”
“Abduct,” All for One corrected.
“Right,” Kurogiri said. “Abduct.”
“Well,” All for One said, replaying the clip again. “I’ll begin planning, then. Begin making space for another vigilante, and prepare Iz—Midoriya, would you?”
“Of course, sir,” Kurogiri said weakly.
“And check yourself for a fever while you’re at it,” All for One said absently, opening his folder of information on the new vigilante. “You sound like you’re coming down with something.”
“Yes, sir.”
Izuku was in the midst of his weekly sleuth through All for One’s office when he found it.
Evidence.
Of another kidnappee.
And here Izuku had been thinking he was unique! This Shimura Tenko / Shigaraki Tomura guy (Izuku couldn’t tell which was actually his name) had been filling the role of Not Oji-san’s fake relative for much longer than Izuku had. Perhaps this knowledge should have hurt Izuku, but he was too busy being excited about a new potential friendship for the betrayal to sink in. Izuku now had a fake cousin as well as a fake uncle.
He took pictures of as much evidence as he possibly could to dissect later, as always. There was a lot of it, and he couldn’t get pictures of all of it because he only had a limited amount of time and access to the office before Not Oji-san returned. When he’d gotten as much as he could without taking too much of a risk, he slinked back out of the office, waved to Kurogiri very innocently, and thundered up the stairs.
He dove onto his bed, opened the pictures he’d taken, and let the real work begin.
Chapter 14: Certain Wonders, Including Lunch, Burners, and Bugs
Summary:
Kurogiri, Shouta, and Izuku each learn a few things.
Notes:
y’all i might need to do more updates i am so freaking impatient lsfjkskd i might start updating on sundays too bc every day that i am not updating is a day that i am very very sad. Deprived of the update juices. Every day i wake up and i think ‘can i update’ and 5 out of 7 days the answer is no and i CRY
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Kurogiri stood outside Izuku’s door trying to force himself to knock.
He had never had to have any sort of serious talk with Izuku because he usually left that part to All for One, who was more Serious Talk than he was Comforting Hugs. Kurogiri couldn’t say his own hugs were at all comforting (he was, after all, made of mist), but in the raising of Midoriya, he took the role of caregiver because he knew All for One would not. It was the same with Shigaraki Tomura, although Shigaraki Tomura had the added disadvantage of being the first child and therefore receiving the full brunt of inexperienced parenting.
Because Kurogiri had never had to be stern with Izuku, he wasn’t quite sure how to go about having this conversation. He could pretend that nothing was wrong, as he had been for the past month, but during that month every time Izuku had asked to go to a “sleepover” in Musutafu he’d spent the night anxious, sleepless, and fretful.
Thus why he was standing outside the door overthinking proper knocking patterns and if he should be doing this at all.
Eventually Izuku, being smart for his age, just called through the door, “You can just come in, you know.”
And Kurogiri teleported two feet forward to enter.
Izuku’s room was, as ever, a chamber of horrors and it took his eyes a long moment to adjust to the bright colors, clashing logos, and entropic chaos. Izuku was perched on a Fat Gum bean bag, his laptop balanced on his knees and his notebook open on the floor next to him.
“Welcome,” Izuku said, as though they were conducting a business meeting.
Kurogiri decided he might never understand what made Izuku into the very strange person he was.
“What brought you to stand outside my door for like forever?” Izuku asked.
At most it had been three minutes of indecision. Forever was a bit of an exaggeration. But Kurogiri put that aside to get to the point, as Izuku clearly wanted him to. All for One was out of town today, and this might be the only time they had together to discuss this. “I know what you’ve been up to,” Kurogiri said. “The vigilantism.”
Izuku made a face. “Shoot. For how long?”
Kurogiri told him for how long and Izuku scowled. Before he could panic, Kurogiri continued, “I didn’t tell your uncle—”
“Fake uncle,” Izuku corrected.
Something in Kurogiri’s brain came to a halt right then. Izuku sat innocently on his bright yellow beanbag, waiting for Kurogiri to continue, but Kurogiri just stood there and looked at him. And looked and looked.
“Sorry,” Izuku said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Kurogiri decided he needed to sit down. He took the foot of Izuku’s bed. “How long have you known that?”
Izuku squinted up at the ceiling, trying to do math. The fact that he had to do math at all was terrifying. “Like pretty much the whole time. I’ve known about the whole ‘He’s a supervillain’ thing since, like, the first day.”
“Izuku-kun,” Kurogiri said, unable to keep the pain out of his tone. “ Why?”
The puzzled look Izuku sent him in return was proof enough that he didn’t see anything wrong with intentionally going to live with the worst villain of all time. Kurogiri wanted to put him inside a safety bubble and never let him out.
“All right,” Kurogiri said, putting that aside for now. Later, he’d come back to that, when he could process properly. “Back to you being a vigilante. I’m aware I can’t stop you from continuing, and I will continue to keep this from your—from All—from your fake uncle—”
“All for One,” Izuku provided.
He was trying so hard to be helpful, the poor kid, but every time he opened his mouth he made it worse. Kurogiri closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Izuku also knew that his kidnapper was All for One, and presumably knew who that was and what he had done. Unable to process, Kurogiri put that aside to think about later as well.
“Yes, I will continue to keep it from All for One,” Kurogiri said, impressed with his own calm tone. “But from now on you will call me and come home after you’re done. How have you been handling being out all night?”
“The playground at my school,” Izuku said.
Kurogiri nearly burst into tears. He didn’t even know if he could cry, but if he could this was the closest he’d ever gotten. This kid was unbelievable. “Right, so no more of that. You’ll call me and I’ll pick you up. Understood?”
Izuku nodded, and then beamed. “Yeah. Thanks, Kurogiri. That’ll be really helpful when it gets cold out. This past January was awful.”
Kurogiri remembered some terrible freezing nights this past January and cursed himself for not realizing what Izuku was doing sooner. “You’ll call me,” Kurogiri said. “Promise right now.”
“I promise,” Izuku said, holding up a pinky.
Kurogiri frowned at it.
“It’s a pinky promise,” Izuku said, pushing his laptop off his knees so he could get his pinky closer to Kurogiri. “You give me your pinky and we shake.”
Did Kurogiri even have pinkies? He looked at his hands and carefully shifted the mist into something five-finger-like. He extended his “pinky” and held it out to Izuku, who wrapped his own pinky around it, disrupting the mist, and shook.
“So it’s, like, basically law now,” Izuku said.
“All right,” Kurogiri said, tired. Sometimes he missed Shigaraki Tomura. “I’m glad that’s settled.”
Shouta watched the new vigilante take a running leap off a rooftop and felt his stomach plunge before the kid’s head popped up on the next rooftop and kept going unhindered.
That kid was going to get himself killed one of these days, and Shouta would never forgive himself for it. Tonight was quiet in the city—the calm, soft sort of quiet—so Shouta took off after him, determined to give him a piece of his mind now that there was nothing else to do.
The vigilante was fast, but Shouta was more experienced and caught up in no time at all, shooting the scarf out to trip him up and immediately wrapping both his legs together. There would be no getting away this time.
With a sigh, the vigilante wriggled around until he was sitting upright, his tied legs straight out in front of him. Shouta crossed his arms and activated his quirk to make sure the kid didn’t get any terrible ideas. It had a weird feeling to it, activating his quirk, close to the feeling he got when he erased mutant-type quirks or weak mental quirks, but different. Sort of slippery. He doubled his focus on it, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“I want to be upset,” the vigilante said, “but that was actually super cool, so I just can’t be. Also, have you considered hair ties? It’s a bad tell.” He pointed at his own head. “Someone could take advantage of it. The timing, I mean.”
Shouta deactivated his quirk, scowling. Hizashi, at some point, had also suggested hair ties, and Shouta, being a very reasonable man, had refused to use them just because Hizashi had been the one to suggest them. He supposed now that Hizashi had proposed (two months ago—yes, a shock to everyone involved including, probably, Hizashi) and Shouta had said yes (also a shock), he could bring himself to put aside such a petty disagreement.
Except now it had also been suggested by a nine year old, so his stubborn refusal renewed immediately.
“What’s your name?” Shouta asked.
The vigilante looked at him quietly for so long Shouta thought he might be ignoring the question. But then he said, “Wow, I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for so long and I don’t even have a cool idea for a name. I should have a cool name! What should my name be?”
The last thing Shouta would be doing for this kid was picking a vigilante name for him. “How old are you?”
The kid considered that question. “If I said fifteen would you believe me?”
“No.”
“Dang. I think I would make a good fifteen year old. Hey, what’s this thing made out of?” He kicked his legs a little and Shouta tightened the grip of the capture scarf.
“None of your business,” Shouta said gruffly.
“It’s gotta be synthetic,” the kid mumbled, leaning over his own legs to inspect it closer. “But it’s kind of got a mind of its own, right? Is there nanotech in it?”
He pulled his backpack onto his lap, threw out a lunchbox with Ryukyu on it, and pulled out a notebook and pencil, muttering, “Surely some sort of wire. You know, it kind of reminds me of those wrist-slap bracelet things. You know those things? But it’s less firm. Elastic? No, but . . .”
And the kid sunk into indecipherable muttering.
Shouta stared at him as he verbally broke apart the entire capture scarf, coming dangerously close to the exact synthetic makeup of the thing. It was hard to follow his rapid speaking, but from what Shouta could catch, it was clear that the kid wasn’t messing around.
Well, if the sanctity of his scarf was going to be ruined, then Shouta might as well invade into some privacy on his own. He picked up the kid’s lunchbox. When the muttering continued without interruption, he opened the lunchbox.
Inside was a truly horrible collection of wrappers. An entire empty Pocky box. Kabukiage rice crackers. Potato sticks. KitKats. All empty packets.
“Tell me this wasn’t your lunch.”
The muttering stopped. “No, it was dinner,” the kid said.
Shouta closed the lunchbox. Put it down. Resolved to pretend he had never looked at it.
“Believe me, this is much better than the alternative.” The kid picked up the lunchbox and put it back in his backpack along with the notebook. He hopped to his feet.
With a sudden and terrible horror, Shouta realized that not only had the vigilante gotten out of the capture tape, but he had also tied it into a very complex-looking knot.
“Toodaloo!” the kid said, and he jumped off the roof.
Shouta thought perhaps he might be heading toward an early grave caused by idiot children. The vigilante aside, Nedzu sure was trying to get his life to head in that direction, given the constant recruitment emails from UA. Grumbling to himself, he sat down on the roof and began the agonizing process of untangling the scarf.
“This one has really been stumping me,” Izuku said. “It definitely was either the wife or the second cousin, but there’s like a missing piece that I’m not sure about.”
Hitoshi leaned over to look at the open book in Izuku’s lap.
They were waiting, again, for it to strike Hitoshi’s dad that he’d forgotten a kid. Hitoshi had three older siblings and got forgotten a lot—and he didn’t usually like to let the mist guy Izuku called “his assistant” just portal him home unless it got really late. So Izuku and his assistant had agreed that Izuku could hang out with Hitoshi until his dad arrived, as long as Izuku remembered to text his assistant to go home afterward.
Hitoshi and Izuku had gone to the park across the street and sat on the curb, feet in the gutter, and began, for lack of anything better to do, poring over Izuku’s unsolved cold cases book. Izuku had solved three out of twenty-four of them so far. He said he presumed the point of the book was for people to do this, and that probably other people had done the same thing, and Hitoshi agreed that it seemed reasonable that if Izuku could solve them then other people must have also solved them and told the police about it. So they were just solving them for fun now.
“Why not the dad?” Hitoshi asked, pointing at the image of the whole family.
“He’s too rich. No point.” Izuku rested his chin on his fist and his elbow on his thigh just beneath the book.
“Huh.” Hitoshi thought Izuku was pretty smart when it came to this sort of thing. He’d been looking at the book for barely thirty minutes and had a headache.
Someone yelled from behind them and Izuku twisted around, eyes sharp for the danger. Hitoshi glanced back too but couldn’t see anything straight away.
“Cool quirk,” Izuku mumbled, climbing to his feet. “Camouflage. Good for pick pocketing. Pick pocketing, why didn’t I think of that? Excuse me?” he caught a nearby mom by the elbow. “Can I borrow your phone for a minute?”
Hitoshi watched, puzzled, as Izuku dialed in a number from memory and held the phone up to his ear. “Hi,” he said after a minute. “There’s a crime in Aichi right now. Some sort of mugging. I can give the exact address, but I think you might be in the area and would be a good match up?”
Whatever Hitoshi had expected when Izuku asked a random woman if he could borrow her phone, it wasn’t this. The confusion that swept through him was unmanageable and he decided it would be best not to address it. He put Izuku’s bookmark into the cold case page they were on and closed the book, standing up to wait awkwardly.
Izuku told the hero their current address, and then said, “It’s a pick pocketer with a camouflage quirk. I figure you’d be able to smell through it, but that might be helpful to know.” He paused. “Well, that doesn’t matter.” He paused again. “Thank you. Bye.”
He passed the phone off to the lady again, bowing in gratitude, and sped over to Hitoshi.
“Okay, we should get out of here,” he said, grabbing Hitoshi by the wrist and pulling him to the street. He glanced both ways before crossing over. “I called Hound Dog and he’ll totally trace my scent.”
“You called—you—” Hitoshi struggled to wrap his mind around this. Izuku pulled him into “the assistant pick up alley,” texting his assistant with his free hand. “I’m wondering—Hound Dog?” Hitoshi got out finally.
“Yes, he patrols in this area at around this time,” Izuku said, pulling Hitoshi through a purple portal.
The portals always had a weird feel to them, like getting squished flat and then pulled and then coming out on the other side a little different from before. Hitoshi didn’t like using them much—it felt like he was getting corrupted every time, somehow, like a copy of a copy.
“How do you have his number?” Hitoshi asked.
“The Internet,” Izuku said. “Hi, Kurogiri. Hitoshi will need a portal home. We had to make a quick getaway.”
Hitoshi looked at Izuku’s assistant, who nodded at him respectfully. “But Izuku,” he said, turning back to the issue at hand, “why’d you use that random lady’s phone?”
“I don’t want heroes to have my number,” Izuku said. “Seems like a bad idea.”
That made sense, actually. They could use it to track Izuku somehow. “Okay, but then I’m wondering why don’t you just have a burner. You’re, like, good with electronics and stuff, right?”
Izuku blinked a few times at him. Kurogiri seemed unsure if he should make a portal right away or not, but Hitoshi was too focused on the issue at hand to address that.
“A burner?” Izuku echoed.
“Yeah, like a phone that you use and then throw away,” Hitoshi said. “They’re super cheap—just get a bunch of flip phones.”
Izuku stared at him.
“Izuku,” Kurogiri sighed, covering his face with one hand. “Tell me you knew about burners before now. Just say that to me so I can sleep easily at night.”
“I totally one hundred percent knew about burners before now,” Izuku said, punctuating each word so much it was obvious that in fact he totally one hundred percent had never heard of burners before.
Hitoshi wasn’t done. “You could also just route your number through something else to make it untraceable or something. You’re good with electronics, you could figure that out.”
Izuku put both his hands on Hitoshi’s shoulders as Kurogiri, apparently done with the conversation, opened a portal. “Hitoshi,” Izuku said very seriously, “I’m glad I met you. We should talk more about these things.”
Hitoshi glanced at Kurogiri, who was steadily ignoring the two of them as he put out a fire on the stove. “Okay?”
“Thank you,” Izuku said. “Sincerely. You are wonderful.”
“No problem,” Hitoshi said. He handed Izuku’s unsolved cases book back to him. “Glad to have helped.”
Izuku sat at the top of the stairs at 8:30pm and let the noises from the bar below wash over him. He balanced his laptop on one knee and his tablet on the other and started making flash cards on an app he’d found. One one side, clips of recurring villains. On the other side, full breakdowns of their quirk, criminal history, weaknesses, and allies.
His laptop he had open to the police files, which he recognized he should not have had access to—recognized that it was, in fact, probably illegal for him to have access to—but since he was using it for good he figured some law bending was probably all right.
There were a lot of villains so he was at the same time doing some statistical analysis of the likelihood of them being repeat offenders, how often they might repeat, and (if they had a long sentence in prison) the likelihood of them breaking out. Everyone in Tartarus he also put on the flash cards, not because he thought they would be able to break out, but because breaking people out of Tartarus seemed like something Not Oji-san would do on a random Thursday just for fun.
He caught whiffs of conversation floating up the stairs, people talking about kidnappings, money laundering schemes, heists, and every once in a while he paused his work to write something down in his notebook. The police would probably find most of this information very interesting, if Izuku could only find some untraceable way to get it to them.
After another hour his mind started to drift off the files and he opened a new tab to give himself a break. He ordered himself some burner phones (incredible!), and ordered a few improvements to hero gear that he’d thought of, setting them to be delivered right to the heroes’ houses. He was about to close out the tab, pleased with himself, when he realized there might be a better way to listen in on the bar than sitting on the top of the stairs. Something on the same level of genius of burner phones.
And that was how Izuku discovered that he could bug every table in the bar and listen carefree to every discussion being held down there from the comfort and safety of his room, and no one, not even Not Oji-san, would ever know.
Notes:
Like why is izuku the sweetest most softest little bean and also somehow the worst gremlin child known to man and every parent’s worst nightmare?
Chapter 15: Information Flow
Summary:
Shouta puts two and two together. Izuku reveals some secrets and discovers some secrets. He also finds a fun upstart business.
Notes:
Happy Extra Sunday Chapter!!!
Chapter Text
A notification popped up on Shouta’s phone. He glanced at it, sighed, poured himself a cup of coffee, and went to collapse on the couch in the living room (Hizashi had very good taste in couches, thank God), where he glared at the new email from Nedzu, hating himself for actually thinking about it.
He blamed himself first and the new vigilante second, because if not for that kid bouncing around in Shouta’s head twenty-four seven, he would have no reason to consider teaching as a viable career, other than Hizashi’s constant insistence that “Teaching is fun, Shouta!” and “You’d love the kids, believe me!” which wasn’t particularly convincing.
Nedzu had written (amongst other long-winded sentences), “You’d be a perfect match for the first year homeroom and as an assistant teacher in Practical Heroics. As an underground hero, I imagine you have plenty of wisdom to share with the new generation of heroes.”
Bold, outright flattery, and an actually decent job offer this time. Shouta wasn’t helping himself by continuing to refuse it, and, since the previous first year homeroom teacher had just quit suddenly, Nedzu was in a bad position and therefore could, potentially, be negotiated into giving Shouta an entirely unreasonable salary. And paid time off.
He clicked “Reply.” Just a draft, he told himself, and began to type.
He’d drafted the email, reread it four times to figure out how the rat would try to twist his words, and almost convinced himself to delete it and continue to ignore Nedzu’s attempts, when he heard the key jiggling in the lock to the apartment. Hizashi burst in, humming, and kicked off his shoes.
“Morning Shouta!” he said, much too loud for the hour, 6:30pm.
Shouta grumbled out a, “Morning, ‘Zashi,” and luckily Hizashi was a kind and forgiving fiance because he planted a kiss on the top of Shouta’s head, dropped a package on the couch next to him, and continued on into the kitchen, unoffended by Shouta’s lack of charm.
“What’s this?” Shouta asked, scowling at the package. He hadn’t ordered anything.
“It was outside!” Hizashi said. “It has your name on it.”
“Did you order me something?” Shouta asked, suspicions rising quickly. He got up from the couch and went to get latex gloves from the closet. Like hell was he touching an unknown package.
“I didn’t,” Hizashi said, appearing at the door to the kitchen with his eyebrows furrowed seriously. He already had on an atrocity of an apron, checkered pink and green, but looked concerned despite that. “I assumed you did.”
Shouta pulled on the gloves.
“Anthrax,” Hizashi said in warning.
“Unfortunately,” Shouta said, feeling sour because the anonymous package distribution system had caught up to him, “I think I know exactly what this is. While I open it, can you read this email draft and tell me that I’m crazy and an idiot for writing it?” He passed over his phone.
Hizashi squealed as he read the opening line and Shouta sighed, picking up the package and carefully tearing the top off it, holding his breath in case Hizashi’s caution about poison had been accurate. He flipped the package over and not one, not two, but five packets of hair ties fell out of it straight to the floor.
No.
No, he didn’t have the brain space to process this. No, he refused to put together the pieces sitting in front of him. No, he did not want to make a phone call to Tsukauchi about this.
Three out of five of the packets were colorful rainbow hair ties. One of the colorful ones was a packet of scrunchies. And then the other two packets were brown and black.
“Okay, I need my phone back,” Shouta said, holding his hand out for it. He hadn’t wanted to come to terms with this so quickly, but life did suck sometimes.
“Someone gets it,” Hizashi said, looking at the small pile at Shouta’s feet.
“Shut up,” Shouta said, scrolling to Tsukauchi’s number. Before he could change his mind, he jabbed his thumb into the call button.
It took three rings for Tsukauchi to pick up. “Aizawa?”
Shouta skipped any niceties. “Bad news. Your mystery mailer is definitely the new vigilante.”
Tsukauchi took a moment of silence to process that. And then said, “How do you know?”
Shouta explained about meeting the vigilante the other day, the conversation they’d had, and now the hundred hair ties Hizashi was gleefully sorting through.
“Shit,” Tsukauchi sighed.
“At least the investigations can be consolidated.”
“True.”
Hizashi whispered, “This might be the best day of my life.” Shouta didn’t have a glare strong enough for him, so he just pressed the phone further into his ear and turned away. This kid was actually going to be the death of him.
“A question,” Izuku said as Not Oji-san stacked their empty plates after dinner.
Not Oji-san sent him a suspicious look, which meant this conversation was already off to a great start.
Izuku cleared his throat. “Recently it has come to my attention that I am not your only ward.”
He gave Not Oji-san a minute to process that. As soon as it sunk in, Not Oji-san turned to Kurogiri and gave him the dirtiest look Izuku had ever seen on his face, which was saying a lot. Kurogiri backed up a step, misty hands coming up defensively.
“Kurogiri didn’t tell me,” Izuku said.
Not Oji-san pointed his scowl at Izuku instead.
“I am curious about why you have kept us separated,” Izuku said, “and why you hid your son from me, but for now I’ll put those questions aside.”
“How did you find out about him?” Not Oji-san asked before Izuku could pose the question he was trying to get to.
Izuku looked at him seriously. “I’m very smart.”
Not Oji-san’s scowl, if it was even possible, increased in potency.
“Can I meet him?” Izuku asked.
“No,” Not Oji-san said.
“Okay,” Izuku said. He put his fork on top of the stack of plates. “Goodnight, then.” He wriggled off his stool and took the stairs up to his room. He opened his laptop, stretched his fingers, and set to work.
Izuku had never needed anything as silly as permission to get what he wanted. He found Shigaraki Tomura’s hiding place in under an hour.
Hitoshi flipped the page in Izuku’s I-Island Rescue omnibus, eyebrows furrowed. He had never read the series, apparently, and this discovery had wounded Izuku so much that he’d intentionally brought Hitoshi over just to make him read the series in full. He recognized this would probably take several visits to accomplish, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make for his best friend.
As Hitoshi read, sprawled out on the wood floor in Izuku’s room, Izuku had begun watching interviews with recent new heroes and trying to guess their quirks from the interview alone, checking against the Hero Network. Now, though, his eyes hurt and he was losing focus, so he put aside his computer.
Over the past few days Izuku had been at war with himself about whether or not to tell Hitoshi the biggest secret of his entire existence 2.0. Telling Hitoshi the first biggest secret of his existence had gone shockingly well, so he thought there couldn’t be much that might go wrong with telling him the second biggest secret.
With this logic backing him up, he said, “I have something to tell you.”
Hitoshi made a noise of acknowledgement, still focused on the riveting story of I-Island Rescue .
“Something very important,” Izuku said, and Hitoshi glanced up.
“Okay,” he said.
“I”—Izuku paused for dramatic effect—“am a vigilante.”
Hitoshi didn’t say anything. It didn’t look to be so much out of shock; more that he looked like he was waiting for Izuku to tell him more. As if what Izuku had just told him hadn’t been extremely impressive and amazing.
Izuku deflated. “You don’t care?”
“Um.” Hitoshi tipped his head to the side. “No, I care, it’s just. That’s it?”
“I fight crime!” Izuku said. “I’ve stopped many bad people!”
“Cool,” Hitoshi said.
“Hitoshi-kun,” Izuku wailed. “Be excited.”
“Izuku-kun,” Hitoshi said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but I kind of already knew that. Like I didn’t know, but it’s not surprising at all. It’s very obvious. You talk about it all the time and don’t do a very good job of hiding it.”
Izuku looked at Hitoshi. Hitoshi looked at Izuku. Izuku said, “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well at least I’ve read I-Island Rescue.”
Hitoshi rolled his eyes and went back to reading. Apparently Izuku needed to work on keeping his vigilantism a secret so that he could make his awesome reveals so much more awesomer. Fine, then. He had other amazing stuff to reveal too.
“I live with a super villain,” he said, because he really just wanted Hitoshi to think he was cool and lived a crazy life. “Oji-san is like the biggest villain of all time.”
“Yeah?” Hitoshi flipped to the next page.
“He runs a criminal empire,” Izuku said, “and fights with All Might all the time.”
“You’ve told me this before.”
Hitoshi could at least do Izuku the decency of looking up. Izuku flopped backward, wailing, “Is there anything you don’t know?”
“Probably not,” Hitoshi said. “You talk a lot.”
What a rude person. Izuku sat up in his beanbag, pulled his laptop back onto his knees, and nursed his wounded pride. He did have a super awesome life. Hitoshi was just really lame and didn’t know how awesome and dangerous Izuku’s living situation was. He was stopping crime from right here in his bedroom! Super cool.
“For the record,” Hitoshi said, flipping the page, “if you’re ever out late and need a place to stay, my house is right there in Aichi. You could sneak in.”
Izuku paused an interview with Sirius, who he was pretty sure had an advanced hearing quirk, and said, “That would actually be amazing. Kurogiri might adopt you just for suggesting it.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Hitoshi said.
“Don’t say that,” Izuku said seriously. “Adoption is very dangerous.”
Hitoshi looked at him. Izuku held his gaze. Hioshi said, “Okay.”
Izuku had been learning so much in his coding classes that he finally felt ready to attack the behemoth that was Not Oji-san’s CPU. He waited for a moment when Not Oji-san was out visiting his other kidnappee, waved at Kurogiri on the way to his office, and climbed onto Not Oji-san’s swivel chair. He took out a flashdrive he’d been preparing for months and stuck it in.
Someone knocked on the door lightly. Probably Kurogiri, then. Izuku turned around in the swivel chair dramatically to reveal himself. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello.” Kurogiri drifted in. “Would you like the password?”
Izuku beamed and scooched the chair over so Kurogiri could type it in. Kurogiri put it in carefully—it looked like a long string of letters, numbers, and special characters with no rhyme or reason, so it was a good thing Kurogiri was here—and hit enter. “Thank you!” Izuku sang, attacking the computer with newfound vigor.
Kurogiri nodded and disappeared. Izuku wondered, briefly, if Not Oji-san had some sort of mind reading quirk and would know what he was up to, but decided it didn’t matter and the potential cost was well worth the definite rewards. He opened the flash drive and set about uploading a very carefully crafted virus into the computer.
It wasn’t a particularly complicated one—it just provided a link from Not Oji-san’s desktop to Izuku’s so that Izuku could go through all the information on there in his own time. The complicated part was that he had to make sure it was so buried, so integral to the computer’s functions, that Not Oji-san wouldn’t find it, and if he did, he wouldn’t be able to take it out without damaging everything else. That was the hard part.
Luckily, Izuku spent a mortifying amount of his time on his laptop and had perfected the program. He swung his legs back and forth from the chair as it uploaded from the flashdrive.
It took him longer than he would have liked it to to guide the program deep into the meat of the computer, but eventually the program tangled its clutches into the hard drive and Izuku ejected his USB, hopped to his feet, and reset the desk and chair exactly as it had been. He was careful to log back out of the computer before scampering back out of the room, waving his successful flash drive at Kurogiri, who ignored him, and heading back upstairs.
The moment he was back in his room, he dove into his bed with his laptop, opened it up, and happily connected remotely to Not Oji-san’s computer. It took him two tries to get in because he had to go downstairs and ask Kurogiri to write out the password for him, but he did get in eventually.
Happy with his work, he snuggled down into his pillows, opened up the files, and let the sleuthing begin.
Izuku took to the story of All for One and One for All like it was a soap drama and he was a 72 year old woman living in rural Ohio. He drank it up. He read through the whole saga like a novel and then restarted from the beginning, taking it all in again.
How awesome, he thought.
How incredible. A quirk that could be transferred through the ages. Two brothers, enemies, fighting generation by generation.
Izuku entertained several fantasies in which he was given One for All by All Might (All Might!) and used it to take down All for One.
When he was done with that—or at least, when he needed to take a break from that—he went back to ordering custom hero gear. He hadn’t been able to spend as much time on this recently as he would have liked, and recently ordering all those hair ties for Eraserhead had rekindled his passion for the activity. Who knew how fun using a credit card could be?
He was scrolling through the internet looking for places to make a new costume for Sirius (it wasn’t that her costume was bad , but given that she wanted to be a water rescue hero, it might have been inefficient) when he found it.
A small, upstart business. A small, upstart business that made super cool gadgets and advertised itself as HATSUME MEI’S BABIES. It seemed slightly illegal, given that the person that started it was a minor, but Izuku could put such things aside, especially given that he also, against his will, was a minor. The important thing was that this Hatsume Mei made really cool gear and clearly very desperately needed a sponsor. And Izuku needed/wanted to send really cool gear to heroes and as luck would have it, had a bunch of money to spend.
He found her contact form (it was buried deep in the website, and he made a mental note to help her with her website design once they had a good working relationship) and filled it out, giving her his name, his reason for contacting her, and his phone number. He used one of his burner phones for that last part, feeling very proud of himself, and submitted the form.
With that done, he went back to finding the right new costume for Sirius. Hatsume Mei would get back to him when she got back to him. And he would wait patiently until then.
Chapter 16: Kidnappees One and Two (and Three)
Summary:
Izuku annoys Shigaraki half to death. Someone makes a bold attempt at kidnapping Vigilante!Izuku, and someone new lurks in the shadows.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Kurogiri probably knew, when Izuku asked to be dropped off at a very specific address in Kamino, what Izuku was doing. But Kurogiri had, as of late, stopped asking questions and started just letting him go with a simple murmur of, “Don’t get hurt,” and he stayed true to that pattern for this event, although Izuku heard him sigh very heavily right before the portal closed.
Izuku stood outside a boring looking traditional home in one of the nicer parts of Kamino. It was wide and short, one story, with an unkempt garden and all the front shutters closed. All the houses on this street looked the same—rows and rows of one story houses, evenly spaced.
A car went by behind him. Izuku decided he wouldn’t accomplish anything if he didn’t at least go up and knock, so he went up and knocked.
No one answered, which maybe he should have expected, so he abandoned that idea and walked around the house to the back door. He thanked Past Izuku for learning how to pick locks, squatted down by the door, and set to work.
Unfortunately, the door opened before he could finish.
“Just what,” a high, irritated voice said from above him, “do you think you’re doing?”
Izuku shot to his feet, beaming. “Hi! Shigaraki Tomura, right?”
The boy was a teenager. A teenager with bluish hair, red eyes, and dry skin. Izuku contemplated the benefits of lotion and decided to use more of it from here forth. He thought maybe that wasn’t Shigaraki’s problem (maybe stress?), but it was a good reminder. He held out his hand to shake and then thought better of it.
“Who’s asking?” Shigaraki asked, sneering.
“Oh, I’m Midoriya Izuku,” Izuku said, “but everyone just calls me Izuku. I’m your cousin. Sort of. Can I come in?”
Shigaraki Tomura stared at him.
Izuku waited patiently.
Shigaraki Tomura stared at him.
“May I come in?” Izuku tried again. “I can explain. I wanted to meet you because I thought—well, not everyone knows what it’s like to live with, um, with All for One, and I thought maybe we could, like, hang out or connect over it or something. But I could be wrong. I could leave?”
Still staring, Shigaraki Tomura stepped back and held open the door for Izuku.
“Awesome.” Izuku trotted in. Just beyond the door was a dining room, the kitchen to the right and a living room to the left. Izuku chose a seat at the table and plopped onto it. “Do you live here all by yourself? It seems big. And lonely. Do you have a pet? You should have a cat. I’ve heard they’re very helpful for stress relief, and also maybe it would just be good in general because you’re lonely.”
“I’m not lonely,” Shigaraki said.
“Okay,” Izuku said. He kicked his legs around, trying to get closer to the table. “So do you live alone?”
Shigaraki narrowed his eyes at Izuku. “Why are you here?” he asked.
“Oh, sorry! I thought I explained.” Izuku launched into a deep exposition on how he had been adopted for Not Oji-san and how recently he’d discovered that Shigaraki existed and how he had thought they could bond over shared experiences in being kidnapped and parented poorly. Shigaraki spent the whole explanation glaring at Izuku like he wished he could light him on fire with his eyeballs and scratching at his neck.
“Another me?” Shigaraki muttered when Izuku was done. “But why?”
“He says I was ‘a nuisance’ and he ‘needed to keep an eye on me’ in his diaries.”
“His . . .” Shigaraki’s scratching accelerated. “You read his diaries?”
“I got in trouble the first time I tried,” Izuku admitted, “so I wouldn’t recommend it. Also, I heard calamine lotion can be really helpful for stress scratching? Unless you have a skin problem and I jumped to conclusions. Sorry, I shouldn’t have. Or you could try yoga? Yoga is supposed to be very helpful.”
Shigaraki stared at him. He seemed to do that a lot.
“Sorry, am I intruding on something? I can go.”
“No,” Shigaraki said, sitting down at the table across from him, “stay. I have a lot of questions.”
Izuku nodded seriously. “Shoot. And when you’re done, I have like fifty questions about your quirk.”
“We’ll trade information, then,” Shigaraki said.
“Yes,” Izuku said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had another kid?” Tomura asked.
Sensei stiffened. Then made an irritated growling noise in the shape of “Midoriya.” Then pinched the bridge of his nose with two hands. “I don’t want to know how you found out about that so don’t tell me,” he said.
“Fine,” Tomura said. He hadn’t had to wait too long to see Sensei again, luckily, after he’d met Midoriya. Sensei had come to visit just a couple weeks after, and Tomura could now ask him all the burning questions he’d had about Midoriya, who was difficult to hold a conversation with. And not only that, but Sensei was in a good mood—he was sitting in Tomura’s desk chair as Tomura sat cross legged on his bed, a sure sign—so Tomura could take some risks.
“Is he another heir? Am I not good enough for you?”
“You are plenty,” Sensei said, dropping his hand. “In many ways you’re much easier to handle than he is. Midoriya is a complete nuisance.”
Tomura could agree with that. He’d spent barely two hours with Midoriya and had felt dried out for days afterwards, like a husk of himself. It was as if Midoriya had sucked the life out of him.
And then, not two days after he had recovered, a bottle of calamine lotion and a book on stress relief techniques had shown up on his doorstep. Tomura had disintegrated the stress relief techniques but had put the lotion in the bathroom. He’d resolved not to use it but had wanted to see if what Midoriya had said about it had any grounding, so he’d tried just a little bit of it. He was extremely peeved to find out that Midoriya was correct and it was helpful. So his resolution had failed him and now he used it every day, and, to his disappointment, the scratching had mostly ceased.
It almost made him wish he hadn’t disintegrated the stress relief techniques book, but he couldn’t take it that far or he’d lose himself.
“So then why do you have him?”
Sensei sighed and went back to pinching the bridge of his nose. “Midoriya is a vigilante and I need to keep him from messing with my work.”
“So just kill him, then,” Tomura pointed out.
“I probably should have,” Sensei sighed, “but I’m in too deep now. I’ve made mistakes.”
Tomura had known Sensei for a long time, and he’d never before now heard Sensei say he’d made a mistake. The acknowledgement terrified Tomura, whose hatred for Midoriya increased immediately. Here was a boy that had made Sensei, who was perfect, think he had messed up somehow. For that alone he deserved to die.
“I can kill him,” Tomura volunteered.
Sensei snorted. “You could try,” he said.
Yes, Tomura hated Midoriya. Hated, hated, hated him. On the list of people Tomura hated, All Might was at the top, and then Midoriya, and then a long list of other heroes. “I’m going to kill him,” Tomura said.
Sensei’s hand drifted down from his face. His eyes lingered on Tomura’s for a long time, long enough that Tomura found himself shrinking back, wondering if he had something on his nose. Then came back the confused, somewhat concerned expression on Sensei’s face—the new one that Tomura hated so much.
“What?” Tomura demanded.
“Nothing,” Sensei said, standing up to leave. “Nothing at all.”
But it was something. It had to have been, or Tomura wouldn’t feel this off center, like he’d been on a ledge and suddenly it had dropped out underneath him. He had nothing to stand on, and he was falling. And he didn’t like it.
The night was one of those exhilarating crime-filled nights in Musutafu when excitement abounded, and Izuku had already used his burner phone four times, fully aware he’d have to destroy it before tomorrow. Eraserhead had already tried to capture him twice (and failed both times—ha!) and Izuku was at an all time high.
Not only had he recently gotten over his afraid-of-punching-people phase, but also he’d gotten pretty good at punching people and at whacking them with sticks after he watched a two hour YouTube video on escrima and then talked Not Oji-san into signing him up for classes. And so he’d whacked his way through the night and was feeling satisfied and ready to call Kurogiri when the air shifted beside him and he barely ducked his way out of the way of a descending hand.
He hopped back on the sidewalk, putting space between himself and his would-be attacker. He took in an orange shirt, a black-and-white face mask, and a tall hat, and said, “Oh, it’s you!”
His attacker bowed with a flourish. “It is.”
Izuku flipped through his mental flash cards of all the police files and found Atsuhiro Sako, AKA Mr. Compress, quirk Compress. From there, he took the liberty of jumping to conclusions. Someone was trying to kidnap him. Again.
The street they were on wasn’t particularly hidden, dark, or dangerous but it was very late and the type of people still around weren’t the type of people that would help Izuku in his time of crisis. Unless Eraserhead was still around—unlikely, given that Izuku had wounded his pride twice on this night. Izuku backed into the halo of a nearby streetlamp, trying to keep the events that were about to go down as visible as possible.
He was pretty sure that Mr. Compress’s quirk only worked if he touched something with his hands, but he didn’t want to take too large of a risk. To prevent himself from getting touched, he got out his escrima sticks and prepared himself to continue his whacking.
If his escrima teacher found out Izuku was calling it “whacking” he might actually kick Izuku out of class. Luckily, he would never find out.
“I’ve heard you’re slippery,” Mr. Compress said.
Ugh. Banter. Izuku didn’t want to banter; he wanted to go home. And he couldn’t go home until after he was done with this fight, and so the last thing he wanted to do was banter . “Yeah, I guess,” he said halfheartedly. “Who hired you to kidnap me?”
Mr. Compress didn’t answer that. “You’re smart too,” he observed.
Izuku sighed, escrima sticks wilting in his hands, and considered asking Kurogiri to pick him up right now to avoid having to do this fight at all. He considered that for another moment, and then tucked his sticks under his arm and held up a finger. “Give me one minute and we can continue this,” he said.
“But of course,” Mr. Compress said, bowing today. “I am a gentle kidnapper.”
“Uh huh.” Izuku texted Kurogiri asking him to open a portal at the pick up location. Kurogiri liked the message. Izuku pulled his backpack over his shoulder and tucked his sticks away again. “Okay, I’m ready,” he said, settling his bag on his back again.
And then he turned and sprinted away.
Izuku didn’t practice running in his free time but he did find himself running away from Kacchan almost every day at school, and doing so had made him pretty fast. Sure, Mr. Compress was an adult, but Izuku knew Musutafu better than most people and could turn around corners much faster. He took a left down a short alley, threw himself over the fence at the end of it, and sprinted out onto the next street, taking an immediate right and then another one.
He ran around the block again, climbed over the fence again, giggling when Mr. Compress got stuck on it, and took a left this time, and then a right, and ran straight into Kurogiri’s portal. He glanced behind him as the portal closed.
Mr. Compress was nowhere to be seen.
“I think,” Izuku panted, putting his hands on his thighs and bending over to catch his breath, “that Not Oji-san is trying to kidnap me. Again.”
Kurogiri sighed. “Yes.”
Tomura couldn’t help himself from staring at Midoriya, sitting on the other end of Tomura’s couch, eyes glued to the UA Sports Festival on the TV, as he verbally broke down every single first year’s quirk.
I’ll come over to watch the Sports Festival with you , he’d said. You can throw popcorn at the TV and make fun of all of the students, and I’ll just have fun watching , he’d said. And Tomura, who had not realized how foolish he was until this moment, had agreed to it because Midoriya had made it sound fun, and because Tomura, curse it all, had been lonely. It had felt exciting, at first, to do something that Sensei obviously wouldn’t approve of. This was no longer the case.
“Well that one’s easy,” Midoriya said as the camera barely skimmed over a student who looked unremarkable other than that she had orange hair. “Emitter quirk. Probably works just like a flashlight.”
This might have been fun, Tomura thought, if anything exciting was happening. But the Sports Festival hadn’t even started yet. All that was happening now was Present Mic was talking about the rules of the first task.
And Midoriya had already figured out half the quirks of the first years.
And so it went. The first event started before Midoriya was done dissecting all the quirks and he spent half of it (a complicated moving maze) pouting that it had started before he was ready, and the other half of it squealing excitedly every time one of his guesses was right. This squeal was often accompanied by excitedly grabbing Tomura’s forearm. How he was brave enough to do this was a mystery to Tomura. Brave enough or stupid enough to not think about how easy it would be for Tomura to reach out and wrap a hand around his throat.
But he digressed.
When the first event was over, Midoriya spent the entire explanation of the second event dissecting the first, and then when the second event started, he realized he’d missed the explanation and asked Tomura what the rules were. Tomura hadn’t been able to hear the rules for obvious reasons, and so the second event was also a pain.
Then it was the one v. ones, which Tomura zoned out most of because Midoriya was no fun to watch anything with and spent the whole time talking basically to himself. He had predicted the outcome of the entire game during the second round of the Festival, and Tomura sat seething through the final round and then the awards ceremony as Midoriya’s predictions turned out to be exactly what happened.
Needless to say, by the time Present Mic was wrapping up the event, Tomura was pissed beyond all hell and hating himself for agreeing to this in the first place.
“We should watch the second years too,” Midoriya said. “Think the replay is up yet?”
Tomura took the remote away from him, praying for a miracle to arrive that would give Midoriya a reason to leave. Just as he was thinking it, Midoriya glanced at his phone and made an aggravated noise. “Ugh Kurogiri says I have to go back home because I have chores. Chores! I’ve never done chores in my life.” He scowled at his phone.
God was real and his name was Kurogiri. Tomura knew this now and he would never forget it.
“That’s fine,” Midoriya said brightly. “I can come back tomorrow!”
Tomura hated him. Hated Midoriya, hated himself, hated everything. Hated Sensei. Hated All Might. (That last one was irrelevant, but needed to be on the list anyway).
He woke up cold and alone. He cursed quietly under his breath, reaching for the tattered blankets he’d wrapped himself in the night before, but they were cold too so he tossed them aside and sat up. He rubbed his hand across his face and then regretted it.
His quirk was supposed to be better than this, but no. Like a fever, his skin burned but his bones froze, a shell of heat around a shivering body. Useless.
He climbed to his feet and stretched, enjoying the line of pops up his spine. He began to gather up the few belongings he had—this home was only temporary and he’d need to move today.
A letter fell out of his bag as he picked it up. He frowned—he certainly hadn’t put that there. Setting the bag down, he took the letter up and slipped his thumb down the fold, lifting the flap.
Inside was a slip of paper, and on the slip of paper was an address. He flipped the paper, but the backside was blank.
It was an open faced invitation and a question. Will you risk it? Are you desperate enough yet?
Well, sure, he thought. The “yet” wasn’t even necessary. For as long as he could remember, Dabi had been desperate enough for this.
Notes:
i'm sorry to say that i reallyyyy don't like writing shigaraki, not at all my cup of tea. but for you i did it
Chapter 17: A Good Support System Saves All Might from Repeating All for One's Mistakes
Summary:
Shigaraki is abandoned, adopted, and then abandoned and adopted. Also, Mei and Izuku start collaborating.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
For Izuku’s twelfth birthday, he got a whole bunch of stuff that wasn’t worth listing and an email from Hatsume Mei.
Granted the email wasn’t intended as a birthday present, but it did arrive on his date of birth, so he counted it. The subject line was, “YES TO MAKING YOUR BABIES” and the body text read as follows:
MIDORIYA IZUKU hi so nice o hear from you yes of couse i’d be happy to make custom hero gear for you tell me waht sort of things youre looking for and any specifications and i’ll makei t right away
also i couldn’t find anything aobut you online are you a hero? I don’t work with villains so tell me if you are one
thanks talk to you soon bye- MEI
Izuku, of course, answered right away to tell her he was not a villain at all and to explain his goals, a current project he was working on (he thought Gunhead’s costume could use some improvements), and how excited he was to be working with her. He also asked how much her services would cost, because he wasn’t so totally foolish as to forget that part. Satisfied with himself for making a real business connection, he closed his email and opened the police files, ready to get back to work.
“Are you packed?”
“Yes,” Tomura said, eyebrows furrowed as he pulled his light blue backpack on. “Where are we going?”
All for One had come to a conclusion. It had been a difficult conclusion to arrive at and had required him to upend most of his evil plans on behalf of a twelve year old, but after seeing Tomura look so glum over the past couple days—not even inspired enough to destroy his game console, which he usually did once a month on accident—he realized that Midoriya had, once again, already ruined everything he’d worked toward, and it would be better to control what he could while he could instead of continuing to let Midoriya unintentionally destroy his entire life.
“A new safe house,” All for One said vaguely. “Hopefully one Midoriya won’t find.”
Tomura nodded his agreement at that and tightened the straps of his backpack. He took his suitcase by the handle, careful of his pinkies, and stepped closer to All for One, ready to teleport. All for One poked his index finger into his phone a few times to text Kurogiri and a portal opened next to them. All for One led Tomura through.
They came out into a sparsely decorated living room. Tomura frowned as he looked around and All for One spent a moment silently judging the decor. All the money in the world and he’d chosen to do nothing to make his apartment look nice, not even picking a clear style. Even though All for One also knew nothing about interior decorating, he could still judge, because heroes had a responsibility to make things look nice in their homes. Obviously.
“Someone else lives here?” Tomura asked, showing an impressive amount of spacial awareness as he looked at a slightly crumpled blanket over the back of the couch.
“Yes,” All for One said. “Now, Tomura, listen to me.”
Tomura looked at him.
“I need you to know a few things,” All for One said. “First, you have every right to be angry with me from here on out.”
Tomura’s eyebrows knitted together.
“Second, this is not your fault. It’s my fault, if anything.”
“No,” Tomura protested. “I don’t care what poison Midoriya has been telling you. You don’t make mistakes, Sensei, and that—that child —”
“Tomura,” All for One said sternly.
Tomura stopped talking.
“This isn’t Midoriya’s fault”—it definitely was his fault, honestly, but the last thing that kid needed was Tomura having a grudge on him—“and it isn’t your fault. I am making this choice, so feel free to blame me.”
“What choice?” Tomura asked, suspicion finally growing in his tone.
All for One nodded at the space, stepped backward, and let the portal take him. The last thing he heard before Kurogiri shut the portal again was an unholy shriek from Tomura.
He’d be fine. This was what All for One told himself. And then he reminded himself that he didn’t care anyway, and went to his desk to continue his evil plans.
midoriya, yes you’re so right about gunehad’s vostume and i’d be happy to make that for you. how do you feel about jetpacks also, i have a prototype
my rates are very reasonable. i’m attaching a quote at the bottom of the document for you to perusal at your earliest convenience
i admire your mission and am happy toa ssist however you may find helpful.
once i have the goahead from you on the price i’ll sned you some schematics of the new costume and we can discuss further, let me know about the jetpacks-
Best- MEI
Tomura spent the first thirty minutes after All for One left yelling at him to come back, and then accidentally disintegrating the handle of his suitcase, and then part of one of the straps of his backpack, and then exploring the apartment.
It was lame.
Clearly someone lived here, but it didn’t seem like they considered the space so much of a home as it was a place to eat and sleep. The remote to the TV was on the TV stand, rather than laying haphazard on the couch, so it seemed unused.
And otherwise, the apartment was just small. It had the living room, two bedrooms (one of which seemed like it was only used for storage), one bathroom, and a small kitchen. Tomura found himself bored very quickly.
He was debating whether to turn on the TV and lurk until whoever Sensei had just passed him off to came home or to leave the house and go hunting for Sensei on his own, when the front door, just off the living room, burst open and a tall skinny man with limp yellow hair burst in, clutching a crumpled piece of paper in his hand and looking horrified. His eyes found Tomura right away. Tomura crossed his arms. The man looked vaguely familiar somehow although Tomura was certain he’d never seen him before.
“Shimura Tenko,” the man gasped.
Tomura’s eyes widened immediately—no one had called him that in a long time—and his breath caught on the way in. He coughed, turning his head away. “That’s not my name,” he said.
“It’s not?” the man asked.
“No,” Tomura said.
The man referred to his crumpled sheet of paper. “Ah,” he said, reading a portion of it. “Shigaraki Tomura?”
Tomura frowned, not confirming or denying. “And who are you?”
“Ah—sorry.” The man cleared his throat. “I am Toshinori Yagi. I was a . . . friend of your grandmother’s. I was given this note?” He glanced at it, then tucked it away and fixed a sharp blue gaze on Tomura. “I don’t know where you came from but I need you to know I’m here now, and I’m going to help you.”
Tomura did not need help . He wanted Sensei back. But he also didn’t have a plan and this man seemed like a lonely loser who would be easy to manipulate, so he said, “Whatever.”
izuku- sure you’re okay with me calling you that? - i’ve taken a look at the detailed request doc you sent me and YES i can make this absolutely. sad that the jetpack is a no but yes i am more than capable. I have a few tweaks i’ve suggested in the document attahced - please take a look at your conveneince and lmk
in the meantime i’ve also attached a mock-up, look at that too please and tell me what yo uthink
my lab is pretty smlal so i might not have access to all the tools required to make something this complex but am willing to give it a good shot with what have available let me know if this will be an issue
excited for this project to start, hoep your day is going well-
MEI
“What do you mean he just showed up?” Mirai said, right after doing a spit take into his mug of coffee.
Toshinori glanced around the coffee shop, shushing him, to make sure no one was looking at them. Other than a few glances, no one seemed to notice them, and Toshinori let himself feel glad he’d tucked himself and Mirai into a corner at the back of the shop, between a bookshelf and a brick wall, to talk about it.
“Where is he now?” Mirai asked, looking around sharply as if expecting Shigaraki to climb out from under one of the tables and shout Surprise!
“At home,” Toshinori said.
“You left him alone?” Mirai hissed. “What if he’s running away? Or burning down your apartment? What if he’s a spy?”
Toshinori laughed. “Who would spy on me?”
Mirai rewarded that comment with an exceptionally unimpressed look. Toshinori didn’t understand for a long moment, but when it hit him he shrank back into his leather armchair and said quietly, “Oh.”
“You’re the Number One Hero,” Mirai muttered, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Who wouldn’t want to spy on you?”
Toshinori had, in fact, forgotten he was the Number One Hero, but yes, this made sense. “He’s just a kid,” Toshinori argued.
“A seventeen year old,” Mirai said. “Fully capable of spying on you or taking you down from the inside.”
“Oh, come on,” Toshinori said, putting his scone down. “He’s not trying to murder me. He’s been living with me for a week and has had plenty of opportunities to try, and hasn’t. No one even knows about this form—he just thinks I’m an old family friend. What do you think is going to happen?”
“Didn’t that note you got explain that his whole family is dead?”
“Yes,” Toshinori said. “It’s very sad.”
“How did his whole family die, though? If I look this up right now am I going to find out they were all murdered? What if All for One is using this kid as a—”
“Enough, Mirai,” Toshinori snapped. “He’s just a kid, and he needs a home. I am planning on raising him—”
“Oh no you are not,” Mirai said, glowering at Toshinori over his glasses.
“I am,” Toshinori argued.
“Toshi,” Mirai said, putting his coffee cup down on its saucer with expert precision. “I admire you and value you extremely highly as my friend. As you know, I hold you in high esteem and believe you have many commendable traits.”
This was probably the best compliment Toshinori had ever received from Mirai and he sat dumbfounded as it continued.
“You are brave, selfless, kind, amongst other things. But.”
Ah, here it came.
“Know I do not speak lightly,” Mirai said, “when I say, with all the love in my heart, that you are the last person in the entire world, except maybe All for One, who should ever be a parent.”
Toshinori spluttered, “Why?”
“When was the last time you took a break?” Mirai asked. “When was the last time you actually rested? Do you have time for a kid? Do you know how to deal with it when they go haywire? A seventeen year old , Toshi, that’s been missing for years. Probably highly traumatized, amongst other things. You—again, I say with care—are not qualified.”
Any arguments Toshinori might have had for himself fell under the strong rhetorical skill of Mirai Sasaki. He verbally floundered for a moment, trying to find purchase in the conversation, and eventually slumped forward, dropped his chin to his chest, and said glumly, “You’re right.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re right,” Toshinori said again.
“Well, yes,” said Mirai.
“But then what am I supposed to do with him? I can’t turn him over to the foster system. I just can’t. And someone clearly trusted me with his care.”
Mirai picked his coffee back up again—in both hands, using only the tips of his fingers—and took a sip. “Why don’t you ask Torino-san?”
izuku how kind of you to send me all this upgraded lab equipment! as soon as i find a place to put it i will definitely put it all to good use. are you incredibly wealthy
sorry if that’s a rude quesiton
i have begun work on the new cosutme thank you for your feedback on the schematics- youre absolutely correct about th4e jet propulsion being a dangerous idea i jst thought it was fun
will be done in a week r so, make sure to sned me the address to forward it on to
and to answer your question yes of course i take the utmost care with customer privacy. rhe secret is very safe. pleasure doing business with you as always MEI
The tall skinny guy Yagi didn’t own a car.
This was why he and Tomura were on a train.
Tomura had never been on a train, and he had found very quickly after entering the train that he didn’t like it. He also didn’t like that he didn’t know where they were going—Yagi had just said “visiting an old family friend” and left it at that. Tomura didn’t like a lot of things. The list was ever growing.
He sat tucked as close to the wall as he possibly could and glared at everyone else on the train, daring them mentally to come over and try to talk to them. He’d rip their face off.
Yagi, who Tomura didn’t hate as much as he expected to, was babbling about whatever came to mind, clearly nervous and awkward. Popular conversation topics included the weather outside, the landscape outside, tidbits about the personality of this person they were going to see (a lot of “But I promise you’ll like hims” were uttered, which wasn’t hopeful), and how fast or slow the train was going. Despite Tomura’s lack of response or participation in the conversation, Yagi kept up the good, awkward cheer. At times, he almost reminded Tomura of Midoriya.
Eventually Yagi cleared his throat and announced it was their stop. They got off the train and into a taxi, which took them to a run-down building in the Yamanashi prefecture. Yagi, who was actually sweating, knocked on the door.
It swung open with a long creak and Tomura rolled his eyes. The drama. He’d been in scarier situations than this.
“Torino-sensei?” Yagi called, stepping into the apartment.
A visibly alive and awake body was laying on the floor of the apartment with ketchup spread all over it. Tomura raised two very unimpressed eyebrows as Yagi ran to the body, panicking.
If Tomura wanted to, he could run away right now. Yagi would never catch up to him. He inched to the door as “Torino-sensei” had a miraculous revival and used Yagi’s shock as an excuse to begin berating him for not checking the apartment before barging in and for being an idiot for thinking ketchup was blood. Tomura could agree to the second point, at least.
“And who did you bring me?” Torino demanded, pointing. Tomura froze halfway out the door and gave up with his escape attempt, slinking deeper into the apartment. “Not your successor, I hope?”
“No, Torino-sensei, shh,” Yagi said. “I called you about this, remember?”
“I’m so old. My memory fails me.”
Tomura knew sarcasm (he was a teenager, after all) and that sounded sarcastic to him. Or at least he wasn’t being honest.
“This is Shimura Tenko,” Yagi said, voice tight.
“Ah, yes.” A pause settled over the apartment and Tomura began wishing he’d just bolted the second Yagi freaked out about the ketchup. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with this all over again. “Boy!” Torino yelled. “Come over here!”
Scowling openly at Yagi, Tomura went over to them. Torino, who was very short, very old, and wearing a yellow costume, squinted at him.
“Mirai said I couldn’t raise him on my own,” Yagi said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.
“That man has a good deal of common sense,” Torino said. “You could learn a lot.”
Torino continued his examination of Tomura, who was beginning to suspect that Torino was a hero. His costume looked heroic enough (why he was wearing it in his apartment on a random Thursday was the question). But he was ancient. A good kick from Tomura and he’d keel over.
“All right, fine,” Torino said. “But only because Nana . . .” He trailed off.
“Yeah,” Yagi said. “For Nana.”
Tomura didn’t know what was going on. But soon after, Yagi left without him, abandoning him with this short, irritable hero (?). This situation was unideal, but Tomura still didn’t have a plan of where to go once he escaped. So he harbored his resentments against Sensei, this Yagi guy, whoever Mirai was, Midoriya, and All Might (who always had to be on the list), and let “Torino” show him around the apartment.
“I knew your grandmother, you know,” Torino said softly as Tomura glared at a perfectly inoffensive bed in the spare bedroom. “She was a wonderful hero.”
“She abandoned my family,” Tomura said, thinking about all his hands, which Sensei had made him leave behind.
“Maybe,” Torino said. “But she loved your father.”
Tomura swallowed down some bitter comments—he’d grown past all that—and threw his backpack down on the bed. “Love is stupid,” he said.
Torino said, “That it is, my boy. That it is.”
Notes:
HI if you are here sadly hunting for the next chapter and wondering why i haven't uploaded it even though it is a sunday i PROMISe it is coming. i changed some stuff in it last minute (important character detailsss) and i'm waiting for my (very busy, very kind) beta to check it over before i post!! it'll be out later today or early tomorrow! but IT WILL BE HERE I PROMISE
Chapter 18: The Stabbing
Summary:
Honestly I think the chapter title pretty much sums this one up. Someone gets stabbed. Someone else is talked out of calling Tsukauchi about it and instead has a Protective Moment.
Notes:
Hi!!! Sorry I'm late T-T only by like 12 hours but still I am late and you have my deepest and humblest apologies. I rewrote a big chunk of this chapter pretty last minute haha
but it's here now!! enjoy <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The trouble with criminals, Izuku decided as he watched a group of four break into a corner store, was that they never thought to look up.
Here Izuku sat on the rooftop across the street contemplating which hero would be a good one to call (the answer was usually Eraserhead and this was no exception), safely tucked away without any chance of being spotted by the villains shattering the glass door below. He was content, he was warm because he had new gloves striped with All Might colors, and he was watching them without any repercussions. Life was good.
He used the burner phone of the night to text Eraserhead (yes! he’d realized recently he could just text heroes!), signing it off as All Might 2, and within seconds Eraserhead liked the message. And then wrote, i’m not calling you all might 2, just like that with no capital letters.
Laughing to himself, Izuku shut his burner off and tucked it into his pocket. Eraserhead was such a grouch. It was funny. Most of the people Izuku knew now were grouches, actually, except for maybe Kurogiri who liked to pretend to be a grouch but actually was very soft.
And Izuku and Hitoshi had spent several hours the other day in Izuku’s room trying to figure out what his vigilante name should be, pinning red thread over the options for the aesthetic, but they hadn’t had much success with it. Naming was difficult. Izuku had wanted Small Might, but Hitoshi had said that was stupid, and he was right. So they were basically at square one, except now they’d vetoed a bunch of names. So square minus one.
Izuku settled down on his roof to watch the villains some more. Honestly, what were they even hoping to gain from raiding a corner store? Pocky sticks? Izuku couldn’t understand. Maybe he’d ask Not Oji-san; he’d probably know.
By the by, Eraserhead swung into the scene. He glared right at Izuku’s hiding spot as he landed on the roof of the corner store across the street and Izuku ducked, trying to make himself invisible. But then he decided he wanted to see what was going on and poked his head back over the lip of the roof so he could keep watching.
Eraserhead had climbed down from the roof somehow and was standing by the shattered glass door now, back flush to the wall, peering inside. This wasn’t the sort of situation Eraserhead was good at—Izuku knew that—but he was the closest hero around and was probably capable.
Probably.
Izuku played out the fight in his mind as Eraserhead crept in. He gave himself a few separate renditions of how it might go, factoring in what he thought the villain’s quirks were—one of them definitely had some sort of blade manifestation quirk, which was unideal. After a few different scenarios, two of which Eraserhead won but at great cost, Izuku got out his burner phone again and scrolled through his contacts for backup. He found the hero he wanted and shot her a quick but complicated text, signing it off as “Eraserhead’s vigilante friend.”
Honestly he probably should have just texted her in the first place. He’d become too reliant on Eraserhead to solve all his problems.
That done, he rolled to his feet and climbed down the fire escape so he could give Eraserhead backup in the interim. Probably he would not be very useful, but he would try!
He slipped through the shattered glass door of the corner store just as Eraserhead activated his quirk and the corner store erupted into motion all at once. There were four villains, so Eraserhead was outnumbered. At least he had the advantage of surprise.
Izuku ducked behind a nearby shelf and watched Eraserhead go. The close quarters weren’t helpful for anyone, but he kept his quirk active and his scarves whipped around wildly, catching one of the villains and then moving to the next. He managed to get one of them knocked out.
One of the villains unleashed their quirk and smoke flooded the room.
Smoke! Izuku was an idiot . He sent Eraserhead into a battle where one of the quirks was the exact worst mash-up for Eraserhead’s quirk. He’d been getting better with the fast quirk identification, but clearly not good enough. Or maybe he was just getting lazy.
As all chances at visibility ended, Eraserhead grunted in a way that didn’t sound healthy. Izuku winced, checking his phone to see if he’d gotten a return text. He had—a quick I’ll be there soon sweetie thanks —but it might not be good enough. She might not be fast enough.
“Gotcha,” one of the villains said. Izuku poked his head out again. The smoke was clearing. Eraserhead was pinned against the wall by a bunch of rocks and looked angry. The villain with the blade quirk was approaching him, grinning evilly. His evil grin had nothing on Not Oji-san’s.
“Look what we caught,” the blade villain said. He slapped a hand over Eraserhead’s eyes to stop his quirk.
Izuku sighed. All these small villains, C tier at best, and their bad banter. It almost made Izuku want to call Not Oji-san in to show them how it was done. But no.
Well, Eraserhead was in trouble and it was just him and Izuku right now, and he needed help. Dire situations required drastic action, in Izuku’s opinion. Tightening up his resolve, he adjusted his hat on his head, grabbed an armful of bags of chips, and ran out from his hiding place to rescue Eraserhead.
“Hey!” he yelled and threw one of the bags of chips very hard at the blade quirk guy. It wasn’t a long distraction but it was enough of one. The blade quirk guy turned slightly, Eraserhead drove a knee up and into his stomach, and Izuku hurled another bag of chips, badly, at the rock quirk guy. His aim was terrible but it hit the guy in the back of the knee and in the second of confusion, Eraserhead got the guy’s quirk and the rocks dropped. His scarf immediately shot out.
Izuku stepped back, trying not to get in the way as he readied more bags of chips. He wished there was something heavier or denser he could throw that would actually damage something but couldn’t see an option like that around.
It was three on one on Eraserhead and he—
Wait.
Three?
Izuku moved on instinct. Just in time—a blade veered toward his shoulder. As he moved, it barely skimmed the sleeve of his hoodie, cutting through the fabric, and he threw all the bags of chips he had at the blade quirk guy, trying to put distance between them, and in the process accidentally putting himself between the blade quirk guy and a dead end.
This store, he decided, looking helplessly at the shelves to his left and his right, both of them running right up and flush to the wall, was terribly designed. He didn’t know a lot about architectural laws, but something like this just had to be illegal.
He pulled out his escrima sticks.
Izuku had been taking escrima classes for about five months now. That was enough that he knew basic blocks, a few strikes, and summarily not enough for this situation. He tried to keep his grip relaxed but found his fingers clenching down on the sticks involuntarily. He tried to breathe.
The blade villain rushed forward and Izuku moved, darting to the side and only ending up smacking into the shelves. A knife shot out of the blade villain’s forearm—and Izuku really wanted to know the limitations here, including if he could make multiple blades at once and if he could produce them out of anywhere or just his arms—and plunged down.
Izuku saw the trajectory like it was in slow motion. He started to move but he wasn’t fast enough and the blade drove straight down into the outside of his thigh.
At first he didn’t feel anything. It looked bad, blood oozing up, but his leg felt very normal, actually. Maybe even better than normal.
And then the villain retracted the blade and blinding pain shot through his hamstring. He pulled his leg back, gasping, and thought, stupidly, about how the blade villain avoided getting diseases transferred through blood if he was stabbing people all the time. Because Izuku was just like that and he apparently couldn’t think of anything better when he was stabbed.
“You would stab a fifteen year old?” Izuku asked, trying to sound offended through the sharp pain because his secret identity must come first. “That’s so rude.”
“You’re fifteen?” the villain asked, and then added, because he was a big jerk, “I thought you were like eight.”
The wound on Izuku’s leg hurt a lot but that didn’t even match this verbal injury. “You thought I was eight?”
He attempted to make an escape, ducking down, but the villain grabbed him by the wrist and pinned him to the shelves. “You’re built like a shrimp and talk like a four year old,” the villain said. “Haven’t hit puberty yet, have you?”
This was just insulting. Izuku had just learned about puberty a few weeks ago and was basically an expert. He was so post-pubescent. He’d pubesced.
Of course, with this personal attack, he had no choice but to lash out in return. “Your villain banter is really terrible,” he said. “I’ve seen children at the park doing better banter than—”
A blade shot out of the villain’s hand and straight into the side of Izuku’s thigh. Same leg, two stabs. Izuku made a very sad squeaking noise. The blade retracted.
“Keep up the smart mouth,” the villain taunted, grip tightening on Izuku’s wrist. “I can keep stabbing.”
A scarf wrapped around the villain’s head and pulled him off Izuku. The villain nicked Izuku’s wrist as he went but Izuku ignored that, immediately bending over to press both his hands as hard as he could into the two stab wounds, whimpering at the sharp pain. He’d need to explain this somehow to Not Oji-san.
How on earth would he explain this to Not Oji-san?
Panic set in then, deep and tight, closing Izuku’s lungs off. He pressed into the wound on his leg, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. What had he been thinking, trying to be a vigilante at twelve years old? Had he lost his mind?
Smoke filled the room again and Izuku’s knees crumpled underneath him. He was a failure of a vigilante and a failure of a human. He’d led Eraserhead into this situation and now they were both going to die. And it was all his—
“Why are you here?” he heard Eraserhead say waspishly.
“I received a mysterious text,” a musical, husky voice said. “A friend of yours?”
The smoke was kind of sweet-smelling. Through blurry eyes Izuku tried to examine it. Pink?
Aha. He grabbed his All Might scarf and pressed it into his nose and mouth, but it was too late. The gas took him and he fell asleep.
“I had it handled,” Shouta said, handcuffing one of the sleeping villains to the bike rack outside.
“Of course you did,” Kayama said sweetly. “You were doing beautifully, of course, and I barely did anything at all.”
Shouta glared at her. She smiled and batted her eyelashes at him. “All right, fine,” he conceded. “I needed help.”
She laughed.
“Did you knock the kid out too?” Shouta asked, turning back to the store to look for him.
“Little All Might in there?”
“Don’t call him that. He doesn’t need encouragement.”
Proving her incapacity to take anything seriously yet again, Kayama laughed. “Yes, he’s just in there. Cute little guy. Sent me an adorable text.”
“Can you handle clean up?” Shouta asked.
He didn’t wait for a response as he headed back into the store, but heard the echoes of a musical, “Of course!” as the door shut behind him.
Most of the remnants of Kayama’s quirk had already cleared, but Shouta pulled his scarf over his nose and mouth anyway as he walked through the shelves just in case the residue made him drowsy. The last thing he needed was anything short of his full wits when dealing with the kid.
He navigated through the shelves, making a mental note to report the store for architectural inaccessibility later, and came to the one he’d found the kid pinned down in. The kid was crumpled on the floor, fast asleep, and next to him was—
Shouta blinked.
Blood. A pool of blood. Whose blood? The kid’s blood. It was oozing out of a hole—two holes, shit—in his leg. Shouta was a terrible hero and deserved to be fired from UA. How had he not noticed —
Now was not the time to panic.
He crouched down next to the kid, pressing the heel of his palm into the first stab wound and the flat of his fingers into the second. The stab wounds, he noted, had hit nonessential areas on the outside of the thigh, and all the kid’s arteries, unless they were in weird locations, were intact. The blood was oozing, not gushing, so he thought the kid would be fine until he could get him to the hospital, or get a medic here.
He cursed under his breath for letting it come to this. He needed to clear the kid's nose and mouth so he could breathe properly. As he reached for the kid’s scarf, his arm got batted out of the way and the kid’s eyes blinked open drowsily.
“No touchies.”
“You’re bleeding out,” Shouta said flatly, although in fact the situation was not that dire.
“And your first instinct instead of giving me real medical care was to take a nice long look at my face? What kind of a hero even are you?”
Shouta hated teenagers. He hated them. Yes, he taught twenty of them. Yes, he still hated them.
“All right, fine,” Shouta said, taking out his phone. “Understood. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“You better not,” the kid mumbled sleepily. He lifted a heavy hand and brushed it against his face a few times, checking that everything was still in place. “My uncle will kill me.”
“You’re going to the hospital,” Shouta said. “You were stabbed twice.”
“No, I mean my uncle will actually kill me.” The kid yawned. “He’s really mean and scary and stuff.”
This did give Shouta pause, thumb hovering over the green call button. “Mean and scary how?” he said slowly.
“He’s like a super big supervillain guy,” the kid said, laying his head back down on the ground. “Above S tier. Hates heroes and vigilantes and especially me as a vigilante, but he doesn’t know that part and he’ll find out if I get arrested or something or taken to a hospital, and then he’ll kill me. I’m really tired.”
“Stay awake,” Shouta said.
“It’s just this gas stuff,” the kid murmured. “Really thick. ’M’fine.”
“Kid—”
But he was already gone.
One step at a time. Shouta would figure this out one step at a time, and after he was done panicking over the blood soaking the kid’s leg. He wanted to take the kid to a hospital so Tsukauchi could arrest him from there, but he also didn’t want the kid to be killed by his guardian. As much as he wanted to get the kid off the streets as soon as possible, he also didn’t want to put the kid in immediate danger.
He’d bring him home while he figured out his next steps. Hizashi would bring him sanity, and they could regroup and figure out what to do.
He scooped the kid up bridal style and slipped out the back of the corner store before Kayama could ask questions—he loved her but she was nosier than anyone he’d ever met, including Hizashi—and headed home.
When he butted open the door to his apartment with his shoulder, careful of the kid’s head, he was confronted with the next big problem. Given that he wasn’t a medical professional and this wasn’t a medical building, there wasn’t anywhere to actually put the kid.
Aware that Hizashi would hate him for this later, he brought the kid over to the dining room table and plopped him down. It was a miracle, he thought, that the kid was still asleep at all—but then again, the gas had been thick and hadn’t been produced in consideration for someone this small. Plus, he was bleeding.
He got out some plastic bags and put them under the kid’s leg before the dining room table could get too bloody. Then he fished out the first aid kit from underneath the bathroom sink and returned to do what he could.
The kid was stirring again when Shouta got back—unideal, although it was good to see him regaining consciousness. Shouta set about cutting away the fabric of his pants around the two stab wounds.
Both of them were deeper than he would have liked, but not as bad as they could have been. He frowned, trying to figure out how best to clean them.
“I,” the kid said, “am so dead.”
Shouta sent him a sharp look. “What?”
“My uncle is actually going to kill me,” he said. “I’m going to come home with two stab wounds and he’s going to say, ‘Where did you get those stab wounds?’ and I’m going to say ‘What stab wounds?’ and then he’ll look at me judgingly and then I’ll say ‘oh, those stab wounds,’ and then he’ll kill me.”
As far as Shouta was concerned, the kid was never going home again. From these two conversations, it was very clear he wasn’t safe at home, and if Shouta had to hide him in his own apartment for the rest of his life, then Shouta would do that. But right now, he needed to focus on making sure the kid didn’t bleed out on his table.
“Am I about to meet Present Mic?” the kid said abruptly. “I don’t want to meet Present Mic while I’m bleeding out.”
“You’re not bleeding out." Shouta paused. “Present Mic?” he said, trying to sound like he didn’t know what the kid was talking about, although internally he was screaming and freaking out and thinking about burning his entire life to the ground and starting from scratch.
“Your husband?” the kid said.
Shouta maintained his composure, but it was difficult. Extremely difficult. His neck tensed so hard he felt like his jaw was cement. “How do you know about that?”
“Hero Network.” The kid pulled his backpack onto his stomach and fished out his phone.
“Ha ha,” Shouta said drily. As if the kid could have access to the Hero Network—the idea was ridiculous. Shouta didn’t even have access to the Hero Network. Most of the UA staff didn’t even have access to the Hero Network, and it was UA . “Seriously, kid, where did you find that information?”
“I was being serious,” the kid said. “I looked at the Hero Network. I’m going to text Kurogiri to come pick me up, if that’s okay. You don’t happen to know the coordinates off the top of your head?”
Shouta stared at him. His brain stuttered, half formed thoughts swirling forward and then dissipating before they could really take hold. The kid. The Hero Network. The kid. What?
“I think that’s a no,” the kid said. “That’s fine, Google will tell me.”
He tapped away at his phone as Shouta continued to stare. He regretted not taking him to the hospital. If he’d taken him to the hospital, then the kid would have been arrested, and then this would be Tsukauchi’s problem instead of Shouta’s. Maybe the kid would have died, but Shouta would be free.
“Wait,” Shouta said, mind catching up to what was going on. “Don’t text—”
“Ah.” The kid winced. “This is bad.”
And then a black hole opened in Shouta’s kitchen.
Notes:
thinking about. Chapter 25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . >:)
A GENTLE NOTE that you have now read 50,000 words of this fic, just over the size of The Great Gatsby. If you are binging! You may want to consider taking a break at this point. Drink water. Walk around a little. Stretch your arms over your head. Sleep if it’s 2am. take care of yourself <3 (and then continue).
Chapter 19: Outfit Changes and a Stranger
Summary:
Shouta gets a peek into the family drama of one vigilante. Izuku receives a package and discovers a potential friend.
Chapter Text
The black hole shivered and warped and became a person wearing a suit and sporting two glowing slanted yellow eyes. They took in the situation in front of them: the kid lying on the dining room table, the bloody leg, Shouta with his first aid kit. Their eyes lingered on Shouta for longer than anything else, misty eyes slanting into a deeper v and narrowing.
“Do I know you?” the black hole said.
“Probably not,” Shouta said, capture scarf swirling out around him. He noted that the black hole had for some reason thought Shouta’s identity was more important than the child losing blood on the dining room table.
“Hmm.” The black hole turned to the kid. “What happened?”
“Jumped into battle blindly and stupidly,” the kid said (at least he had self awareness). “Got stabbed. And insulted. Then got stabbed again. I need to know—do I look like an eight year old? Tell me honestly.”
“No,” the black hole said. “You look twelve.”
“Ah.”
As the kid decided whether or not he could accept looking like a twelve year old, the black hole turned to Shouta. “Do you have a bathroom?”
A stupid question—what kind of a house didn’t have a bathroom—but Shouta chose not to point out the flaws here in favor of stepping between the kid and the black hole. “I don’t know who you are,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “but from what the kid’s been telling me about living with you, I don’t feel comfortable—”
“Oh, sorry, this isn’t my uncle,” the kid interjected. “It’s Kurogiri. He’s my assistant.”
The black hole, Kurogiri, spluttered. “Assistant?”
“I couldn’t figure out what to call you,” the kid said. “Anyway, Kurogiri’s very nice and normal and not really a supervillain.” He turned back to Kurogiri. “I’m sure there’s a bathroom! I’ll get us there.”
“I’ll be back in a moment.” With a whirl of mist and darkness the person disappeared.
Shouta didn’t have much time. He turned to the kid immediately and said, “If I let you go home will you be safe?”
“Nope,” the kid said, sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the table. “I could die of food poisoning any day now. Kurogiri’s a terrible cook. Help me to the bathroom please!”
Shouta had more to discuss here but he figured he could multitask. “I meant are you . . .” He fought for words.
The kid hopped off the table, stumbling a few steps and wincing on his bad leg. He limped through the living room and down the hallway, testing doors as he went. “What is safety, anyway? It’s all relative.”
Safety, Shouta thought as he followed the kid, was probably one of the only things in the whole world that was not at all relative.
“I did just get stabbed,” the kid pointed out, finding the right door. “And no one at my house seems to want to stab me at the moment. So I’d say it’s mostly safe.”
He climbed into the bathtub and let himself slide down, legs pointed toward the drain.
A blood trail was splattered from the bathtub all the way back to the kitchen table. Shouta pinched his nose with his finger and thumb. He was about to begin unpacking the kid’s earlier statements which had seemed to be backed by real, genuine fear of death by his uncle’s hands, but as he opened his mouth the black hole reappeared, this time with a stack of clothes.
“Leave us,” Kurogiri said to Shouta.
All right, that was enough. “No,” Shouta said. “I’m not okay with this. What is going on?”
“Well I can’t go home looking like this,” the kid said, gesturing at his outfit.
Sometimes Shouta wondered if the kid intentionally missed the point or if he was actually so in his own world that he didn’t see it in the first place. He seemed so blase about this whole situation, and Shouta couldn’t wrap his head around it.
Kurogiri slipped past Shouta and gave the kid the stack of clothes.
“Don’t watch me,” the kid said. “It’s very creepy, and I value my privacy.”
Kurogiri shut the shower curtain.
It was at this moment that Hizashi chose to appear. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he looked at Shouta, then at Kurogiri, then at the closed shower curtain. “What’s going on?”
“No!” the kid squawked. “Is that Present Mic? You couldn’t have woken up any sooner? This is so rude. I want to meet Present Mic.”
“Hey, Little Listener,” Hizashi said in his radio voice, simultaneously giving Shouta a confused look. Shouta inched closer to him for his own sanity.
“Today is the day I die,” the kid declared.
Shouta wondered suddenly if the kid had been being hyperbolic this whole time. Maybe he wasn’t, in fact, in danger of his uncle killing him. Maybe Shouta had overreacted.
“Focus,” Kurogiri told him.
The shower curtain moved slightly and an All Might hat and swim goggles poked out. “Wow! Your hair is down. Very cool. Hello.”
“Hey,” Hizashi said, grinning brilliantly.
“Focus,” Kurogiri said more insistently.
The shower curtain closed again. Hizashi gave Shouta an even more puzzled look. Shouta shook his head, which was beginning to ache terribly. A low muttering started up on the other side of the curtain. Shouta dragged his hand over his face, letting it pull on his cheeks.
“You can go now,” Kurogiri dismissed Hizashi and Shouta. “We’ll portal out from here.”
“I already thought of a cover story,” the kid piped up from the other side of the curtain. “I was tragically mugged while at Kacchan’s house.”
"While?” Kurogiri said.
A silence fell as the kid contemplated that. “I think my cover story needs help.”
Kurogiri sent Shouta a despairing, tired look, which Shouta, having spent more than three seconds around the kid, could understand. Hizashi, to Shouta’s surprise, was frowning at Kurogiri like he was trying to place where they’d met before (who wouldn’t remember meeting a black hole?) and missed the glance Shouta sent at him. They had a lot to talk about.
“I’ll think of something better,” Kurogiri sighed.
The shower curtain opened to reveal a bright yellow hoodie with the hood pulled way down over the kid’s face. “Clothes,” he said, holding a bundle up to Kurogiri, who took it with an expression like he didn’t know exactly what he was meant to do with it. “I’m starting to feel kind of lightheaded, so I need to get home. Um, but, I can’t actually stand up now, so um, Kurogiri, if you could . . .”
Kurogiri sighed, tucked the bundle of clothes under his arm, and bowed to Shouta and Hizashi. “Thank you for finding him and taking care of him temporarily.”
“Of . . . of course,” Hizashi said faintly.
“Hold on.” Shouta forced his way forward. “He needs medical attention right away and as I mentioned I will not let him continue to live in an unstable home situation. I’m not letting you leave with him.”
“I’m so sorry.” The kid bowed his head at Shouta. “I’ve done such a bad job explaining. I have to get home so that Oji-san can fix my leg. He’s got a quirk. I have to go home. Kurogiri, please, I’m actually bleeding out.”
Kurogiri muttered, “You’re fine.” His body shifted and morphed and the black hole grew into a vortex and wrapped around the space. Shouta reached out. The black hole shrank into a speck and then nothing stood between Shouta and the empty shower. It was as if they had never been there at all, other than the smudge of blood in the bathtub.
This, Shouta thought, explained a lot.
“I swear,” Hizashi said, blankly gazing at the spot the black hole had just disappeared from. “I swear I’ve heard that voice before. And you know me, Shouta—I don’t forget voices.”
“Yeah,” Shouta said, turning off the bathroom light to go to bed, patrol be damned. “Yeah, I know. Damn, I have so much to unpack with you right now. I think I’m a terrible hero.”
Three weeks after The Stabbing, Izuku received a very special package in the mail from HATSUME MEI in all caps just like that. Not Oji-san passed it over to him somewhat suspiciously—after The Stabbing and another considerable dent in Not Oji-san’s bank account, Izuku was “on thin ice,” whatever that meant—and Izuku wrapped his arms around it and lugged it up the stairs to his room. The package was the width of his chest and the length of his arms so it was difficult to carry. But he managed.
He dropped it on his bed and called Hitoshi.
“Hey,” Hitoshi picked up after a couple rings.
“It’s here,” Izuku said. “Want to come over?”
Two minutes later Hitoshi walked through a purple cloud of mist into his room. He immediately crossed to Izuku and Izuku’s box. “This is so exciting,” he whispered.
“I think I’m going to cry,” Izuku said, opening and shutting his scissors like a mad surgeon. He pointed them at several taped edges of the box, trying to figure out the best way in. “Like actually real tears might come out of me.”
Hitoshi gave him a look as if that wasn’t at all surprising. Maybe it wasn’t, but he could at least pretend.
“In we go,” Izuku said, snapping the scissors open and shut again. Hitoshi took a step back and Izuku attacked the box, ripping through tape and fighting with the flaps of the box. He engaged in battle with bravery and resilience, tearing and pulling. When he had finished, tape stuck to his cheek and a wild fire in his heart, the box was open.
“That might have been unnecessary,” Hitoshi said, unsticking a piece of tape from Ms. Joke’s knee on Izuku’s duvet.
“The death wrapping,” Izuku panted. “Meant to never be opened.”
“Right.”
While Izuku caught his breath after the war, Hitoshi folded the flaps of the box back and reached inside. He extracted several layers of bubble wrap, some extra cardboard, and then The Case.
Izuku hurried forward, making grabby hands for it. Hitoshi, being a kind and generous friend, passed it over to him without any resistance. Izuku threw it down on the bed, shoving the box and bubble wrap onto the floor—he’d pick it up later—and undid the clasps of the case. He took a deep breath. Hitoshi snorted, because he was very mean. Izuku opened the case.
Inside was a brand new, not stabbed vigilante costume. Izuku picked up the first piece, a new green hoodie (this time featuring drawstrings!) and took it all in, admiring the black detailing. Mei said it was bulletproof, which was potentially unnecessary given that Izuku didn’t think anyone would go so far as to shoot him, and would adjust for the temperature outside. The fanciest hoodie Izuku had ever owned. He put it aside along with the long-sleeved black shirt that was supposed to go under it.
Next, black pants (stab proof, Mei said, which probably wasn’t fully accurate, but at least it would be stab resistant). Instead of goggles, Mei had given Izuku a black mask with eye holes, which was supposed to lay tight from the bridge of his nose up and went over the top of his head, keeping his hair tucked in. She had also supplied another, looser mask to put over his nose and mouth, and had been very accommodating when he requested All Might colors for that one.
She’d also packed black gloves and new bright red shoes. He’d had to talk her out of making the shoes steel-toed, although he liked the idea of his kicks doing maximum damage, because he needed more flexibility than brute strength and he’d rather not risk death more than he already was doing when he jumped from building to building.
He loved it, long story short. It was fancy, it was classy, it would prevent him (hopefully) from getting stabbed again. He loved every piece of it.
“Maybe I should be a vigilante too,” Hitoshi muttered, examining the hood. “I’d like to know—or, um. What did she put in this? It’s like concussion-proof or something.”
“She said it was padded like a bike helmet but better,” Izuku said, examining the soles of the shoes. It was hard to see but he was pretty sure Mei, who he’d just decided was the most incredible amazing person alive, had put the All Might logo on the sole of the shoe, so if it snowed Izuku would be stamping the All Might logo everywhere. Mei was just really awesome. Izuku had recently figured out that he didn’t really get crushes on girls but if he did , Mei would be first on his list. He decided this now.
“Okay.” Izuku put the shoes down. “Time for me to cry now.”
“Here we go,” Hitoshi sighed.
And Izuku burst into tears.
“You bugged your own house.” Hitoshi said, horrified.
Izuku, sprawled out on Hitoshi’s floor with his two laptops open and his headphones on one ear, looked up. “Yes,” he said. “Are you surprised?”
Hitoshi thought about that. “I guess not.”
“Dang,” Izuku said.
“Sorry,” Hitoshi said. “But you’re obsessed.”
Today was an exciting day for Izuku because there was a new guy in the bar. He’d been listening through the bugs for a couple months now and had come to realize that the bar had many people that came to it regularly and very few people that dropped in without warning. But today there was a guy that he hadn’t heard of before.
What’s more, Giran was bringing him in, and whenever Giran was involved with something it always got very exciting very quickly.
Hitoshi did not understand such nuances, perhaps because Izuku was the one with the headphones on. After a moment of contemplation, Izuku adjusted the channel output so the one with Giran and the new guy came out through his computer speakers and the rest of the channels went into his headphones. No need to scar Hitoshi so young with talk of blood and guts and murder.
“—ask me to meet you here?” the new guy was saying. He had a rough sort of voice, like the back of his throat was sandpaper. Listening to him speak wasn’t comfortable. It sounded painful.
Hitoshi’s eyebrows furrowed slightly and he pulled over a gray swivel chair from his desk to listen, sitting on it backward.
“My employer,” Giran said, “has been looking to create a network of alliances throughout the underground. You, of course, are quite the asset.”
The new guy snorted. “Asset, yeah. I’m not for hire.”
“I wish I had cameras,” Izuku said. Hitoshi shushed him.
“This isn’t a ‘hiring’ sort of situation. It’s an offer of room and board, and a request that you come to aid my employer if he comes to a time of need.”
“He’s already in a time of need,” Hitoshi said. “He adopted you.”
Izuku twisted his head up to glare. “Hey! He loves me.”
“Against his will.”
Izuku could concede that that was probably true. But he put that aside on account of this new development. Quirks Izuku had seen taken and given right and left. But room and board? Where would Not Oji-san put him?
“An interesting offer. I’d have to consider it.”
Giran laughed, low and dry. “He also can do something about that quirk of yours, if you want it. He is a powerful man.”
“Do what?” the new guy asked, audibly curious.
“He never tells them,” Izuku told Hitoshi as Giran said something vague about having to accept the deal before getting more information. “He likes to be mysterious. And also it’s a big secret.”
Hitoshi lifted his eyebrows. Izuku hadn’t explained the full extent of everything to Hitoshi, but he at least had more information than the poor new guy talking to Giran.
“Well, it’s not like I’m doing anything else,” the new guy said. “I guess I can hang around. But never mind about the quirk. I’ll destroy my enemies with this power.”
Giran chuckled again. “I thought you might say that. All fine, then. We don’t deal in contracts, of course, but I’ll consider this conversation our handshake. Come back when you’re ready and Kurogiri will set everything up for you.”
“I’m wondering,” Hitoshi said, and then stopped himself. They’d been working on his hesitance to ask questions recently. “Is he going to be, like, a new roommate?”
“No idea,” Izuku said, changing the channel output settings again now that the conversation was over. “It sounds like it though.”
“Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?”
Izuku shrugged. “I’ve been told I’m super annoying, so it’s probably a good thing for me and a bad thing for him.”
“Yeah,” Hitoshi said with a wry smile, “probably.”
“You’re supposed to disagree,” Izuku muttered. Someone struck up a conversation about some grand theft they were planning and Izuku flipped to a new page in his notebook, settling in to get as much information as he could. One of the art museums was planning to transport a priceless jewel—villains could be so unoriginal.
“Sorry,” Hitoshi said lightheartedly.
Izuku barely heard him.
Chapter 20: Why Bullying Is Totally Different Than Villainy
Summary:
Izuku flips a kid at school. All for One attempts to talk sense into the administration of Aldera Elementary. This does not go as well as he'd hoped, and he experiences Izuku being upset for the first time ever.
Notes:
Angst? In this house? More likely than you would think
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Three thousand four,” Deku said without looking up from his notebook.
Sensei scowled at him for a count of ten before his shoulders slumped and he emitted a resigned, “Correct.”
Deku flipped the page of his notebook, unconcerned.
Katsuki didn’t know what to think about Deku anymore.
To be fair, Deku had always been a little weird. Jittery, endlessly stubborn, seriously creepy. Since they were kids, even during those couple months they had lived together back when Auntie Inko’s mom had first gotten sick, he had been strange. Katsuki used to think it was the quirklessness, like his personality had to be extra unique to make up for the lack of uniqueness elsewhere.
At school, he stayed to himself mostly, always buried in a notebook or, during breaks, in a laptop. Katsuki didn’t know how he’d gotten the school’s wifi password, but he had.
But that was typical Deku stuff. What was not typical Deku stuff was that no matter how cool Katsuki was nowadays, no matter what he got up to, Deku didn’t follow him around anymore. They were top of the pack in their elementary school, the oldest grade in the whole building. And Katsuki was the best of the best.
But at the most, Deku watched him from afar, and at the least, Deku completely ignored him, buried in his notebook or laptop. No matter how many notebooks Katsuki blew up, no matter how many weaklings Katsuki yelled at, Deku was dead set on not caring, and Katsuki couldn’t make sense of it.
“Continue to work on your astronomy projects,” Sensei said, “and I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
Katsuki packed up all his books and the homework they’d been assigned for tomorrow. He started piling them all in his backpack, distracted when he heard an irritated whine from Deku. Deku, who was currently being cornered by three guys that usually followed Katsuki around.
This gave Katsuki pause. He decided, however, that he shouldn’t care and so he wouldn’t, and he went back to packing stuff in his bag.
“Leave me alone,” Deku said, which was more than usual.
Katsuki couldn’t hear what the other kids were saying, but regardless he was beginning to rethink his previous decision. Deku didn’t get this freaked out over nothing.
“I said leave me alone,” Deku said, louder this time. “My uncle keeps getting—”
The sound of flesh on flesh and Katsuki couldn’t keep his eyes averted any longer. He turned, shoving his hands into his pockets, just in time to see Deku flip a kid over a desk and straight onto the floor with a loud crash.
Katsuki stared. The two remaining kids stared. The kid on the floor stared.
Deku slapped both hands over his mouth. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”
The kid on the floor burst into tears.
“I’m so sorry—are you okay?”
Katsuki marched over, about done with all this. “Oi, extras,” he snapped. “Go home. This is totally lame.”
They listened, because of course they did, and helped the crying kid up and out—not without him (loser) yelling at Deku that he was going to tell on him, which was just stupid. Deku flinched, though, because he was super weak. The others left and Katsuki slung his backpack over his shoulder.
“Thanks,” Deku said, lowering his hands. His lip was split and the left side of his mouth was already swelling up.
“Get out of my way,” Katsuki snapped. “I didn’t do anything for you. You’re just an extra. Back off.”
Deku gave him a look that only Deku was capable of giving.
“Don’t look down on me,” Katsuki told him, and then he shoved past him and left the classroom.
Loser Deku. Weakling Deku. Shitty Deku. Katsuki couldn’t stand him. Creepy, stalking weirdo. He was just awful. Awful! And to think Katsuki used to live with him.
But he had flipped that extra over a desk and onto the floor.
Well, but had he? Deku flipping a kid—to think of it was ridiculous. It had all been a freak accident. Deku was prone to accidents. He hadn’t meant to do that. He wasn’t able to do that. It was a fluke, and that was all.
Katsuki stormed out of the school and down the sidewalk toward home. It was all a fluke. Definitely and no question. And Deku was just a weird kid who muttered a lot and was totally lame. And Katsuki was his hero. That was all.
“Detention,” All for One said, staring at his one and only fake nephew, who had not only a split lip but also bruising under both his arms, like someone had held him still so someone else could punch him. All for One wasn’t an idiot. He’d crawled his way up the ranks of villainy and he knew what the bruising looked like when someone pinned a guy down to punch the love of God out of him.
The question then was why this bruising was on his twelve year old. Or—the twelve year old that he happened to live with. The twelve year old. Not his.
“Yes,” Midoriya said. “Because I kind of flipped one of my classmates at school.”
All for One felt his eye twitch. “And is the kid you flipped getting detention?”
Midoriya’s head tipped to the side, like that was a strange thing to say. “No? I flipped him, not the other way around.”
“Someone clearly punched you,” All for One said, tired. “I’m not so old that I didn’t notice. Is that kid getting detention?”
The answer was clearly no, given the way Midoriya’s eyes stayed round and slightly amazed, as though the mere suggestion was an impossibility. Or perhaps horrified that All for One had even noticed that he got punched (of course he had noticed). But Midoriya had never been verbose when it came to his own wellbeing, so he said nothing.
“I’m going to your school and giving them a piece of my mind,” All for One said, gesturing to Kurogiri, who, luckily, seemed altogether on board with the suggestion.
“No, don’t,” Midoriya said. A useless effort. All for One would teach those stupid, vapid children to mess with his —ahem, to mess with the twelve year old under All for One’s care. “No, seriously,” Midoriya pleaded, getting directly in the way as All for One headed to Kurogiri, “don’t. Please. It’ll just make it worse. And I’m fi—”
“Worse?” All for One said, straightening to his full, intimidating height. “Worse than what?”
Midoriya recognized his mistake. “Look, you know there are a few bullies at my school that don’t like me very much, and—”
“And how would going to the administration to ask them to do their jobs and provide fair treatment to all of their pupils make the situation worse?”
“Because they’ll think I’m just making trouble for attention.” Midoriya got in the way again as All for One tried to sidestep him. “And if Tada—no, if—if the kid that punched me finds out that I told them, then I’ll be known as—”
“Stop blocking me,” All for One growled.
“—the kid that ratted him out and the bullying will just get worse. It’s not a big deal.”
All for One stopped moving so he could peer straight down his nose at Midoriya, whose blood was still dripping out of the cut on his lip. “Not a big deal,” he repeated. “Someone held you by the arms so another kid—a twelve year old, I presume—could punch you in the face.”
“That’s like nothing,” Midoriya said.
It was definitely the wrong thing to say.
“No, no,” Midoriya said, putting his arms out to stop All for One this time. “No, sorry, no—nothing worse than that has happened at school, that was a bad choice of words. It’s like. In villain fights—” He cut himself off and then sent Kurogiri a pleading look for help.
“You’re not a hero, Izuku-kun,” Kurogiri said softly. “Don’t compare yourself to them.”
“Thank you,” Midoriya said, relieved. Then seemed to realize that Kurogiri had not helped his argument. “Wait, no—wait—Oji-san, please— ”
All for One was already through the portal. He was pissed off enough to burn the whole building down at this point, but Midoriya, being a stubborn, irritating little barnacle, trotted through the portal after him, continuing to beg All for One to stop going into his school to give the administration a big piece of his mind.
The begging did absolutely nothing except give All for One an excuse to tune Midoriya out, which was a welcome change of pace. He decided to tune back in as soon as Midoriya shifted to bargaining, mostly because it was more entertaining and included suggestions such as, “I’ll make pancakes for you every day” and “I’ll give up half my hero merch.” (The second offer was tempting, but All for One was on a mission).
He banged into the front office of Izuku’s school, glared at the receptionist, and said, “I’m here to speak to the principal. I don’t care how many meetings he has or how crowded his schedule is. My—Ah.”
The nephew under his care?
Oh screw it.
“My nephew has a split lip and bruising under both his arms and I will have a word with whoever is in charge here,” All for One said.
Midoriya, for his part, was staring wide-eyed at the floor like his worst nightmare had come to life and he was just riding along with it.
“Of—of course,” the receptionist said, staring at Midoriya. He picked up the phone to call the principal, glancing with something akin to terror at All for One, who was still contemplating murder. After explaining the situation to the principal, the receptionist stood up and gestured. “I’ll show you the way,” he said. “After me.”
“I told you,” Midoriya was saying as they stepped through the portal. “I told you. I told you.”
All for One was about to snap at him for repeating the same phrase over and over, but as he rounded on the kid, he realized Midoriya had tears flooding his eyes and was in fact making a valiant and fruitless attempt at holding back his emotions.
“They don’t listen because I’m just not like them,” Midoriya said. “They’ve never listened. And you just made it all worse.”
“They shouldn’t be treating you like that,” All for One pushed back, because it was true and Midoriya had better get it in between his ears that he deserved so much better than that school was giving him. The principal had basically just told him that she couldn’t put the other kid in detention because the other kid had potential and she didn’t want to slow down his path of growth. She’d said it nicer than that, of course, but that was in essence what she had said.
All for One had been so angry he hadn’t been able to do anything except gape at her. It had been a long time since he’d been that angry. Not since having a quirk was weirder than not having one.
“You are so much better than that. They shouldn’t—”
“But they are. They are treating me like that. So now what? Are you going to go in there every time? They won’t listen. It’s been my whole life and you think—and you think you can just come in—and—and you think you can—you don’t know anything!”
“I know more than you think,” All for One said coldly.
“Oh come on!” Midoriya yelled. “You’re not quirkless! You have this weird quirk that makes you so powerful you can’t even imagine what it might be like to live like this! Don’t pretend for a second you understand me—you don’t get it! Oh, your life is so hard, isn’t it? Oh it’s so hard having all these quirks and all this power and all this other stuff and—and—and people listen to you and they don’t push you down—”
Midoriya swiped a hand across his nose and it came off sticky. He glared at his hand harder than All for One had ever seen him glare at anything.
“I do get it,” All for One said. “I used to—”
“You’re not listening! Why are you so bad at that one simple thing? Why can’t you just listen? I just—I told you and you didn’t listen and I—and I—” Midoriya made a frustrated screaming noise. “I want my mom back! She wouldn’t have done that—she would have listened to me when I said I wanted—when I said—”
He couldn’t get the words out around the tears. Even as he wiped furiously at his eyes, they kept coming.
“This isn’t—You’re not even—you’re not even—you can’t just come in here and pretend you know how to be my uncle! You don't know how! You don’t know me at all—and— and I hate you!”
“Izuku-kun!” All for One gasped, but Midoriya had already turned and was pounding up the stairs, sobbing. The door slammed upstairs, rattling the dusty picture frames on the walls.
All for One turned, horrified, to Kurogiri. He was wiping down an immaculate glass.
“Oh, find something useful to do,” All for One snapped.
Kurogiri put the glass down carefully. He folded up the towel he’d been using to wipe it and set it to the side. Then he clasped his hands on the counter and met All for One’s eyes. “No one said parenting would be easy,” he said.
“I don’t care about him,” All for One said, and the words tasted bitter. “He can say whatever he wants. I don’t care.”
Kurogiri stood behind the counter, his gaze heavy and calm. All he said was, “Really?”
The words clogged up in All for One’s throat.
No. Not really. Not at all. But this wasn’t who All for One was. This wasn’t what he had strove for. Midoriya was reaching inside him and twisting all the parts up into something unrecognizable, and he didn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t felt hurt like this in two hundred years.
So then kill him, the reasonable voice in his head said.
The shut down on this idea was harsh and immediate. The reasonable voice shattered into a thousand pieces. Kill Midoriya? His—the nephew under his care? As if he could ever do such a thing. As if he could even think of it without feeling like the world had lit aflame.
Midoriya’s lip was still split, he realized suddenly. He inhaled to ask Kurogiri to bring the poor kid some ice, since probably he and Midoriya weren’t on speaking terms at the moment. He was still contemplating burning the goddamn school down.
It hit him, then.
“Kurogiri,” he whispered, “I’m ruined.”
Notes:
*holds you all gently* thank you so much for 500 kudos <3 it means so much and you are all so wonderful, thank you for all your positivity and kindness. Every comment and bookmark brings me joy. I am sending so much love and so many good vibes out to you.
Chapter 21: Housemates
Summary:
All for One and Izuku make up after their fight. Dabi moves in. All for One has a very, very good idea (really good).
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
All for One stood on the threshold to hell and wondered if it really was worth it. Maybe he could just give Midoriya back to his mother and call it a failed experiment. It wasn’t too late to get Tomura back. Probably.
No, that was another regret All for One was never going to escape. Damn the kid.
Gah, no, don’t damn him. Walk through his door, maybe, and apologize for being an ass. Maybe.
All for One’s nose wrinkled up at the door to hell. He sighed and lifted his hand. He knocked lightly three times.
“Go away,” came the clogged-up voice of one teary twelve year old.
Now that was a good idea, All for One thought, but no. He’d come this far; he might as well pretend to be a nice person for the kid. “Let me fix the split lip, at least,” he called through the door.
Midoriya sniffled—loudly. “I like it the way it is,” he said.
All for One made a face at Midoriya’s door. That was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “Midoriya-kun,” he said, and then found he didn’t have much to follow that with. Just disapproving silence.
The door opened. Midoriya, wet tracks still lining his blotchy cheeks, frowned at his own feet and then turned and walked back across the room to his bed. He’d made a nest out of a combination of a Ms. Joke duvet cover and multi-hero bedsheets.
Wincing softly to himself, All for One stepped into the chamber of torture. He contemplated whether it would be okay to prop the door open so that he’d always have an escape route, and then decided maybe he needed to stop being such a weakling and just suck it up. He did have a teleportation quirk, after all.
Midoriya wriggled down into his nest. He fiddled with the edge of his blanket. All for One considered if he really even wanted to apologize (nope) or if he could just heal the kid and get out (yep). He abandoned the previous tentative plan. Whatever he had to do to get out of this room as quickly as possible.
“I’ll fix that,” All for One said, reaching out. He waited for permission to touch, which Midoriya granted with a nod and by presenting his chin, and then he healed the split lip and swollen jaw. Healing the bruised underarms would be more difficult, since he needed to have contact with the injured area for the quirk to work, so he left those alone. They’d heal. Still, he cursed himself for feeling upset. The poor kid shouldn’t have had to heal from so many injuries.
He stepped back. “There. That’s all.”
“I don’t hate you,” Midoriya murmured.
All for One did not consider himself one who was often surprised. Midoriya, however, liked to prove himself the exception.
“I said it,” Midoriya continued, “because I’m really mad and upset and mostly just hurt and stuff. But I guess I’m not really mad at you. So I’m sorry.”
Damn the kid for having emotional maturity. Now All for One had to be a “role model.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed you to do it,” he said, gruffly. “You did warn me.”
Izuku— no, Midoriya, goddammit, shook his head. “I did, but . . . also you were kind of right? Like it really isn’t fair that I have detention and he doesn’t. Although I did give him a concussion.”
All for One shoved down something suspiciously akin to pride. He’d banned that already.
“But it was in self defense, so maybe I shouldn’t even have detention at all?” Midoriya shook his head, twisting the corner of his blanket up between his hands. “Anyway, you were kind of right. But I don’t think talking to the principal will really fix anything. I mean, she just talks to the board of directors or whatever, and they can’t really do anything if the families that pay the school back it, and Tadashi-kun’s parents are really rich if I remember right, so really it comes down to bribery. Which—” He glanced up nervously. “I’m not telling you to bribe my school, to clarify. Just explaining.”
Everything Midoriya was saying made a lot of sense.
“It’s a systemic issue,” All for One said.
Midoriya gave him a strange look, blinking a few times like All for One himself was confusing. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it is. How do you know about those?”
All for One smiled, or something like that. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” he said, which was maybe an outdated phrase. “And, ah . . . some of my business partners experience similar—I work with people in similar situations.” That had been difficult to phrase, but Midoriya seemed to understand, eyes widening slightly as he nodded.
“Oh, I get it. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, actually.” He seemed to have gotten more out of that than what All for One meant to give him, but whatever. It was probably unimportant.
“Well, anyway,” All for One said, backing to the door. He’d paid his dues, he’d entered the shrine to the devil, and now he wanted out. “Kurogiri said dinner will be ready in a couple hours.”
Midoriya reached to his desk for his laptop. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
For Not Oji-san’s hundred and somethingeth birthday, which they celebrated on Izuku’s real uncle’s actual birthday, Izuku got him several pairs of warm, fuzzy socks, patterned with different quirk puns. Not Oji-san claimed he hated them, but Izuku knew him better than that.
Kurogiri gave him a thick stack of parenting books, which made Izuku laugh so hard he cried, which made Not Oji-san threaten to burn them, which made Kurogiri chuckle. Also, Kurogiri made a disaster of a cake, but it was okay because then Izuku and Not Oji-san worked together to make a not-disaster of a cake, which was much more edible.
Additionally, for his birthday, Not Oji-san got a new housemate. Izuku was extremely excited about this, although Not Oji-san seemed mostly perturbed by the further disturbances to his “household peace” (ha). His name was Dabi and he was the owner of the sandpaper voice who had been talking to Giran that one time. Izuku had already gone on several research dives and found mostly inconclusive answers, which meant that this guy was definitely a treasure trove of secrets. Izuku was surrounded by treasure troves. He was a boy in heaven.
So really it felt like it was Izuku’s birthday. Just in December. An un birthday.
Izuku sat on the top step leading down to the bar, knees pulled up to his chest, and strained his ears to listen to what Sandpaper was saying to Kurogiri. Or what Kurogiri was saying to Sandpaper.
It was a useless effort. Kurogiri, who was a huge jerk, was keeping his voice low on purpose, and Sandpaper was matching him because he was a villain with apparently halfway decent situational awareness. Shock.
After much straining of his ears, Izuku finally heard Kurogiri call his name. “You can come down now.”
Izuku threw himself down the stairs, scrambling around the corner. “I’m here,” he panted. (He really needed to work on his stamina. First thing tomorrow. Maybe.) “I totally wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.”
Kurogiri sent the new guy an amused look.
Izuku had already looked up everything he possibly could on the new guy and had found his police files, so he wasn’t super shocked when he saw him. He had a lot of staples on his face and a lot of purple scar tissue. His hair was spiky and black. His eyes were very bright blue. And he was wearing a long black coat.
These things Izuku expected. What he did not expect was that Dabi was an actual giant. “Oh my gosh,” Izuku said. “You’re so tall. I feel like a shrimp. Kurogiri, am I shrimp?”
“Yes,” Kurogiri said, because he was cruel.
Dabi’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as he looked at Izuku. Possibly he was wondering who Izuku was. Or possibly he was wondering something else. He looked surprised, almost, like Izuku had done something out of the ordinary. Well! Izuku was always doing stuff like that.
Kurogiri gestured from Dabi to Izuku. “This is Midoriya Izuku, All for One’s, er, ward.”
“I’m kind of his nephew,” Izuku said, “but it’s complicated. Everyone just calls me Izuku!”
“And I would introduce you,” Kurogiri continued, “but Izuku-kun’s been doing research on his own and probably knows more than he should already, so there’s no point.”
Dabi leaned back and put his hands in his pockets. He had a way of standing that made him seem perfectly in control, shoulders slouched back, head tilted slightly, eyes lidded. It probably was supposed to be intimidating.
“Are you living here now?” Izuku said, bouncing up and down on his toes (this did not help with the height difference). “And, follow up question, do you know how to cook?”
“I’ll be around,” Dabi said. “And no.”
“Dang.”
Kurogiri, hurt, said, “It’s been getting better.”
“It has,” Izuku conceded.
He wasn’t lying—Kurogiri had gained some skill over the years. But all that progress tended to be overshadowed by the fact that he had started at level negative three and was now, at best, a level one. He could make fried rice without burning down the kitchen. That was about it.
“Where will you be staying?” Izuku asked Dabi. “My room is upstairs. And there are other rooms up there also that I don’t think anyone uses. One of them is a closet.”
“He’ll be upstairs,” Kurogiri said. “The room just past yours.”
“Two rooms past mine and across the hall?” Izuku said, cupping a hand around his ear.
Kurogiri looked at him, mist flaring.
Izuku blinked innocently.
“Fine,” Kurogiri said, as though it pained him physically to say it. “Fine. Two rooms past yours and across the hall.”
Izuku beamed. “I’ll show you!” he announced, running for the stairs. “Come on!”
It took Dabi a moment (and probably a baffled look at Kurogiri) to follow him, and Izuku was already at the top of the stairs by the time Dabi reached the bottom. “You’re, like, super slow,” Izuku told him. “I’m not even that fast.”
Dabi frowned up at him. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen,” Izuku said.
“He’s twelve!” Kurogiri called.
Izuku pouted. And then muttered, “And a half.”
“You’re an elementary schooler?” Dabi asked, ascending the stairs.
“But I’ll be in junior high school next year,” Izuku told him, leading him down the hall. “So really I’m not in elementary school at all. Because my foot is out the door and stuff.”
Dabi didn’t answer that for a moment, and then said, gruffly, “Sure.” Nice of him.
“It’s this one,” Izuku said, pushing open the door. It was one of the better bedrooms—Izuku hadn’t just chosen it so Dabi would be far away from his room where he did a lot of listening to private conversations through his computer speakers. The room was a decent size and it had a queen bed in the middle of the leftmost wall from the door with a red bedspread, and it also had an entire TV on the rightmost wall, with the closet just next to that. It also was one of the few rooms with a window, which was currently being covered by some ugly black curtains.
“I got you something, one second.” He ducked under Dabi’s arm as Dabi reached to catch the door before it closed, and he ran for his own room. He dove for the little packet on his desk, scooped it up, and hurried back out into the hallway.
Dabi stood in the middle of his new room, arms by his side, looking around with an expression of distaste. Izuku couldn’t decide if he didn’t like the room or if he just always looked distasted, so he chose not to comment on it.
“Here,” he said instead, holding out his gift.
Turning, Dabi looked at it. And then at Izuku, expression of distaste growing. “Cough drops?”
“An entire unused packet!” Izuku said. “Your throat sounds really dry. Unless that’s just your voice? Am I insulting you?”
“No.” Dabi took the packet.
“They’re the honey lemon ones,” Izuku said. “My favorite. But you’re not supposed to have more than one every hour, which is upsetting because I like eating them. But those are for you.”
Dabi looked at the packet. And then at Izuku. “You’re really weird,” he said.
“I have been told,” Izuku said, beaming. “Anyway, let me know if you need anything! I have a credit card. And also manipulative powers. And don’t set anything on fire please!” He backed out of the room. “I’ll let you unpack!”
Izuku held Dabi’s judgmental gaze until he was out of view, and then he turned and sprinted down the hall to debrief with Kurogiri. A whole new housemate! Yes, a murderer of a housemate. Yes, a housemate with a very powerful and very dangerous quirk. But what else was new?
More than anything, Izuku felt triumphant. Here he was, networking in the villain community. As soon as he became a hero, all of this information would be so helpful. He was like an undercover spy. And he was headed straight for UA’s heroics course, as soon as he was old enough. Which was basically tomorrow.
The bar was a weird place to live.
Dabi didn’t mind it—it was better than squatting, at least, but it was undeniably strange. The mist guy, Kurogiri, was probably the most normal inhabitant, and he was completely made of mist, so that was already a bad sign. Second most normal was All for One, who Dabi was on his way to talk to now, and then there was the twelve year old.
How to describe.
If one took a kazoo and a trampoline and merged those together, then took a textbook and a knife and merged those together, and then made the products of these mergings have a baby, and if one then put that baby into a small body full of way too much energy and topped with a mass of curly green hair—if one did all that, then they would still not even be close to creating something remotely Izuku-adjacent. He was on a plane of existence all on his own. Dabi didn’t know what to make of him.
And deep in the back of his mind, a niggling voice reminded him that Shouto was around twelve now too. But he didn’t listen to niggling voices.
He knocked on the door to All for One’s office, glancing back at Kurogiri, who nodded at him in confirmation. This was supposed to be some important business conversation. Dabi had never really considered himself a villain for hire, and he suspected he was going to have to make that boundary clear, but he supposed he should probably talk to the guy anyway.
“Come in,” All for One said.
Dabi pushed the door open and stepped in.
The office was almost square, and lined floor to ceiling in shelves, other than the wall just to the left of the door, and the space just past that where All for One’s desk was. All for One, who was sitting in a swivel chair in front of the desk, turned around so he could see Dabi. As Dabi walked in, he pushed another swivel chair to him. “Shut the door,” he said.
Dabi did, and then took the chair, taking up as much space on it as he could so he’d have more stability for this conversation.
“I understand,” All for One said, “that you are not interested in doing work for me.”
Ah, so that Giran guy had gotten to him first. Great—that made Dabi’s life easier. “That’s right. I’m doing my own thing and don’t want side quests.”
All for One dipped his head, acknowledging that. He was kind of an intimidating guy—broad shouldered and clearly a giant, even by Dabi’s standards. Endeavour was 195 centimeters, and Dabi was pretty sure All for One would make him look short if they stood side by side. His hair was white and close cropped. Dabi had heard rumors that he’d been around for hundreds of years, but if he had the age didn’t show on his face, which was smooth and even. His eyes were a deep red.
So maybe Dabi was grateful Giran had set the boundary about villainy for hire. Because now that he was sitting here, he had the feeling that he wouldn’t have been able to bring it up on his own.
“I understand that,” All for One said. “I will ask you, however, for a favor. You don’t have to, but I’ll consider the free housing I’m giving you paid off if you do this one thing. Otherwise, that’ll hang over you.”
Dabi supposed that was fair. He was living here, in a nice room and several doors away from a demon of chaos, for free. “What is it?”
“Recently I have been inconvenienced by a new vigilante.” All for One rolled his chair to the side slightly so he could show Dabi an image on his computer screen.
“Oh, him.” Dabi recognized the guy, luckily, although it looked like he’d gone through an outfit change recently. Gone was the All Might hat—he’d gotten a new streamlined sort of look. If the guy wasn’t such a pain in the ass, Dabi might have been able to admire it.
“Oh, him, indeed,” All for One said. “He’s been evading all my attempts at capturing him. If you could capture him and bring him to me alive and, if possible, uninjured, I would consider your debt for the housing paid.”
Dabi rested his elbows on the back of the swivel chair. “Sure, if I run into him.”
“By all means, don’t go out of your way for it,” All for One said. There was a hint of sarcasm in his tone, but Dabi couldn’t be certain. All for One was a hard guy to read. “He’s slippery, as I’m sure you know.”
“He’s a prick,” Dabi said. “What do you want with him?”
All for One waved the question off. “That’s a matter of little consequence. Just bring him here.”
This seemed slightly suspicious, but Dabi had been dealing in suspicion for a long while now, so he just shrugged. “Got it.”
“Onto more important matters.” All for One shut the computer screen off again. “Are you any good at cooking?”
Notes:
This I think is the first chapter that has really made me think to myself “do i ship Kurogiri and All for One”? And then subsequently made me wonder where on earth this disaster of a fic came from in my mind. Anyway I’m pretty sure I don’t ship Kurogiri and AFO, buT know that it did occur to me
Chapter 22: An Abduction (And It Isn't Even Izuku This Time)
Summary:
Someone (not Izuku) gets kidnapped. Izuku remains a little shit.
Notes:
This is one of my favorite chapters sfdlkjljsfd I'm still waiting patiently for chapter 25 but i do really like this chapter and I hope you do as well <3
Chapter Text
“Why,” Shouta snapped, yanking hard on his capture tape to smooth out his landing, “is everyone always attacking you and you specifically?”
“If I knew the answer to that,” the vigilante gasped, diving out of the way of a jet of blue fire, “I think the world would be a better place. Geez.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down the alley, “Cool it down! You’re going to kill me!”
To Shouta’s surprise, the fire did let up slightly after that statement. This gave him a good opportunity to throw out his capture tape for the kid—yes, the kid, because he had decided after the stabbing incident that there would be no more fighting with the child. From here on out he was going to get the kid out of whatever nasty situation he’d gotten himself into before dealing with the problem at hand.
Unfortunately, the kid was getting a lot better at dodging the capture tape—and he’d already been decently good at it in the first place. He rolled out of the way, gasping, and sprinted off down the alley in the direction opposite the blue fire.
All right, well, he hadn’t been able to get the kid tied up, but he seemed to have succeeded in getting him out of the way. He turned back to the source of the blue fire to erase his quirk, but the guy was already halfway up the fire escape and chasing after the kid.
This vigilante was going to be the death of Shouta. He was getting too old for this, and he wasn’t even that old. He hauled himself up the fire escape after the blue fire guy and chased after him and the kid over the rooftops.
To his credit, the kid was fast and clearly knew Musutafu better than most. If Shouta wasn’t a trained hero, he probably would have lost him by now. But he was not, and the guy with the blue fire was clearly no joke, so they both kept up with only some difficulty.
The blue fire guy dropped down off the roofs, and Shouta followed him, trying to get a good angle to erase his quirk. He happened to come down from the roof on the side closer to the sprinting kid. He grabbed him before he could run past and shoved him into a shallow alcove, activating his quirk just as the villain sent another blast of fire down the alley.
Because apparently he had no sense of self preservation, the kid stuck his head out of the alcove. He waved at the villain, panting. “Dabi! Right?”
“Fuck off,” the guy, Dabi, snapped. Shouta wasn’t sure if this was directed at the kid or at himself for erasing his quirk. Probably the kid.
“How’s, uh—how’s the new housing situation treating you?”
Shouta almost lost focus on erasing Dabi’s quirk. The guy looked completely pissed off, though, so it was probably a good thing he had not fumbled that. It was easy to forget, sometimes, just how much information the kid had. This wasn’t the first time he’d come out and said something unsettlingly knowledgeable; one time they’d been chasing a villain with some sort of mist quirk and the kid had said, “Oh, the governor is having an affair with this one,” and Shouta had nearly tripped.
Dabi advanced down the alley, gunning for Shouta this time—reasonably, since Shouta was keeping his quirk away. The kid wriggled out of the alcove.
“Kid,” Shouta growled. “Get out of here.”
He hesitated, looking down the alley at Dabi. And then, to Shouta’s surprise, he said, “Okay,” turned, and sprinted off in the other direction.
Dabi made an angry, aggravated noise and burst forward. He seemed ready to run right past Shouta and go for the kid, but Shouta whipped out his capture scarf and caught him by the ankle. He face planted in the alley, rolled over, and twisted around to knock Shouta off his feet. Shouta managed to stay up by stumbling a few steps but by the time he regained his balance, Dabi was up and capture tape free, glaring down the alley where the kid had disappeared.
Shouta allowed himself one smirk.
That smirk was immediately wiped off his face when Dabi turned and lunged for him, snarling. “I’m not going back empty handed.”
Shouta threw his arms up to keep him from getting to the goggles—fire quirk and dry eye was not a good combination. Dabi adjusted and punched Shouta in the stomach, ducking behind him. Shouta spun on his heel, trying to keep Dabi in his vision, but Dabi reacted faster than he anticipated and gave a good amount of distance between them, watching Shouta with narrowed eyes. Shouta shot his capture tape out, and Dabi stepped behind a nearby dumpster to keep him from getting a good angle.
They came to a stalemate, Shouta erasing Dabi’s quirk and Dabi keeping far enough away that Shouta couldn’t get to him. Dabi threw a glass bottle at him from behind the dumpster, hard, and Shouta barely got his hands up in time to stop it from crashing into his head. He managed, but he lost sight of his opponent.
Fire erupted down the alley, circling around Shouta, and he couldn’t see past the bright blue flames. He got into a defensive stance, squinting as he turned in a circle, looking for Dabi.
He felt the air shift behind him and turned, but it wasn’t enough. Dabi grabbed the goggles and yanked them off, throwing them into the fire.
The smoke immediately got to Shouta’s eyes and he narrowed them, activating his quirk again.
The fight lost all sense then, falling into just rhythm—block, attack, block, block. Shouta was an expert at hand to hand combat, but between the smoke in his already dry eyes and the way Dabi kept ducking out of the fire circle where Shouta couldn’t see him and then jumping back in from a different angle, he was off balance.
Dabi jumped out of the circle again and Shouta, a bit desperate, launched out his capture tape to at the very least get out of the situation. Suddenly Dabi was there and then Shouta was on the ground, blinking stars out of his eyes, not sure what had just happened. Dabi’s foot came out of nowhere and the world tipped.
He must have fallen unconscious for at least a minute because the next thing he knew, he couldn’t see (a blindfold, maybe?) and Dabi was talking about a pick up location. The world felt fuzzy and unreal and he drifted off again.
The next time he woke up it was to hear an enthusiastic, “Dabi!” and then skidding feet coming to an abrupt halt. “Um, what’s going on?”
Goddamn it. What was the kid doing here? Shouta swallowed hard to keep himself from coughing up the smoke in his lungs.
“Ugh, get off, Kurogiri!” the kid whinged. “He’s got a blindfold on anyway.”
Okay. Shouta came to terms with the knowledge that the kid had not in fact been joking or exaggerating when he mentioned living with a supervillain.
“Go upstairs,” Kurogiri’s deep voice said. Hizashi was right—it was familiar. Shouta was both absolutely sure he hadn’t heard it before (it was a low, rumbly sort of voice, hard to forget) and convinced that he knew it, somehow.
“No, that’s Eraserhead,” the kid said. “I like Eraserhead. Dabi, what’s he doing here?”
“None of your business,” the scratchy voice of Dabi said.
Shouta had actually no idea what was going on. Yes, he who prided himself on situational awareness and always having a grasp of his environment, had no idea what was going on. He was pretty sure he was tied to a chair, which was unideal, and he definitely was blindfolded. That was all he knew.
“Well, but it is my business. Because this is my house. So.”
“This isn’t a house, actually, and you don’t own it,” Kurogiri said. “Also, it’s past your bedtime. We’ve talked about this. Go upstairs.”
“I’m getting Oji-san,” the kid declared.
“You are not—hey! Stop!”
Kurogiri seemed to have lost control of the kid. Shouta could relate to that. There was a scuffling noise, probably as the kid tried to avoid his own guardian, and then a squawk, and then a disappointed grumble from the kid.
“Go upstairs,” Kurogiri said.
“But—”
“Well, well.” A new voice joined the mix and Shouta felt his spine stiffen. Something was off about this voice—it screamed danger and bloodlust. Deep, dark, and slow. Someone who could take their time when they killed a person. Shouta struggled to breathe. “What is going on here?”
“Oji-san,” the kid said, and holy shit this was the kid's uncle, “Dabi abducted Eraserhead. Imagine abducting someone! Who could ever do something so horrible? And cruel. To think this poor person has been separated from their family—stop trying to cover my mouth, Kurogiri—and brought to this lame building—”
“Why are you down here?” the deep, cruel voice (fucking hell, the kid's uncle) interrupted. “It’s past eight.”
The kid made a gasping sound. “Are you suggesting that every time I go to bed you abduct a hero? Who even are you?”
Someone sighed very heavily. The uncle. “Dabi,” he said, “remind me to kick you out in the morning.”
“I had very good reasons,” Dabi grumbled. “And the kid’s supposed to be asleep.”
“Sleep!” the kid said. “I may never sleep again after this betrayal! Next thing I know you’re all going to turn into murd—”
“Stop being dramatic,” Kurogiri said. “Everything’s fine. Your uncle and I will handle the situation and talk to Dabi about proper conduct, and then your uncle will give you a very good explanation of what’s going on. Won’t you?”
Kurogiri had the sort of tone of a mother who’d gone past her last nerve. Shouta wouldn’t want to cross him at this stage, and neither, apparently, did the uncle, no matter how powerful he sounded. “I will.”
“Good. Go upstairs.”
“But—”
“Up. Stairs. Don’t make me say it again.”
“You’re the worst ,” the kid snapped, and Shouta counted fourteen fading steps as he stomped away. He regretted the day he first got himself involved in this mess. He wanted to go home and forget it all happened. And lord knows he would be making every effort from now on to make sure Nedzu never found out about this kid.
“Teenagers,” Dabi muttered.
“Technically, he isn’t one yet,” Kurogiri said.
The uncle said darkly, “We all dread the day.”
Shouta almost snorted. If the situation had been different, he might have. It was good to know that Shouta wasn’t the only one that found the kid to be a terror—although horrifying to discover that the kid was under thirteen and still on the streets every night. He hadn’t been sure until now.
“Dabi,” the uncle said, “explain.”
“Right, so, you told me to kidnap the vigilante—”
But the kid was the vigilante? Unless he had a twin brother Shouta didn’t know about.
“—and I was getting close but this hero got in the way. So I thought I might as well remove the problem, and then I can get to the kid next time.”
If Shouta survived this the first thing he would be doing would be figuring out how to get the kid permanently out of this house. It was clearly not a good environment for any child and now that he had confirmed that the kid did indeed live with a supervillain, he needed to take decisive action as soon as possible.
“He does have a good quirk,” the uncle said thoughtfully.
“Your nephew will be extremely upset,” Kurogiri said abruptly, “if you get within an inch of his quirk. You know him—he’ll figure it out. He’ll never speak to you again. And Tomura-kun liked Eraserhead too, you know.”
Shouta wanted out of here. He wanted to leave and scrub this entire night from his memory. One, he was confused; two, he was decently afraid; and three, the kid was involved. Everything Shouta learned was another thing he wanted to unlearn. Curse him.
“I’ll have to think about what to do with this,” the uncle said. “Dabi, this way, please. I’ll speak with you in private. I should have explained some things to you about my nephew.”
Two sets of footsteps walked away and a door shut. Kurogiri sighed. “I know you’re listening.”
Shouta frowned—obviously he was listening, it was hard not to when he was sitting ten feet away from all the chaos—but then soft footsteps padded down fourteen stairs and he understood.
“It wasn’t my fault this time,” the kid whispered. “I didn’t think Dabi would actually kidnap him. I thought he’d just run after me and find nothing. He’s, like, weirdly set on attacking me for some reason.”
Inside Shouta’s head, several things were starting to click together.
Kurogiri, the black hole, knew the kid was a vigilante. The kid’s uncle did not. Dabi, apparently, did not. And somehow the kid was using this to manipulate every single member of his household.
A terror. An actual terror.
“Just be quick,” Kurogiri said. “And I hope you have an excuse for how he’s escaped in mind.”
“I am full of excuses,” the kid answered. The blindfold came off Shouta’s eyes and he blinked against the sudden light, his eyes still aching from the smoke.
An unimpressed silence fell and then Kurogiri said, “Never mind. I’ll come up with something.”
They were in some kind of bar. Shouta let his eyes drift all over the place. It was completely empty—strange for this hour—and dimly lit. The entire place had the feeling that there had been people in it moments ago, but they’d all been cleared out. A few half full glasses sat on the tables.
Kurogiri stood with his arms crossed in front of the bar. The kid was crouched down next to Shouta, swathed in his yellow hoodie. It would be so easy to pull the hood down from here, but Shouta got the sense that was a bad thing to do in this environment, and anyway, he was better off not knowing.
“I’d love an explanation,” Shouta said, although really he’d prefer to block out the whole experience and call it a hallucination.
“Shh,” the kid said. “Oji-san has a hearing quirk.”
But wasn’t it a healing quirk? Shouta had assumed it was a healing quirk after last time. Maybe it was a dual quirk? Hearing and healing? Not super far fetched, but a little weird.
“He’s probably not using it right now,” Kurogiri said.
“Yeah, but his office is right there.”
The ropes suddenly loosened around Shouta’s arms and he pulled them free, checking immediately that he had his capture scarf, his phone, his license. They were all in place.
The kid hopped back, beaming, and Kurogiri reached out to pull his hood further down. Unnecessarily—Shouta hadn’t been able to see past the tip of the kid’s nose anyway. “Stop doing that, Kurogiri,” the kid hissed, flapping his arms around. “It’s fine. I’m, like, super protective of my secret identity.”
“Your friend figured it out within weeks of knowing you.”
“It was not weeks!” the kid protested. “Months! Months and months!”
“All right.”
A portal opened in front of Shouta, who was examining the bar for anything that might tell him where in Japan he was. If he was even in Japan—he didn’t know the range of the portals. But probably he was in Japan.
“Out you go,” Kurogiri said.
“Bye,” the kid whispered. “Sorry you got kidnapped.”
Shouta rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. A fever dream. This was all a fever dream, and he was going to wake up in a few moments, relieved that it hadn’t been real. “I’m going to get you out of here,” he told the kid. “Even if I have to adopt you myself.”
The kid groaned. “Why is everyone always saying that?”
“Hearing quirk!” Kurogiri hissed.
Shouta couldn’t handle it anymore. He stepped through the portal and straight into his own living room.
Wow. His life was actually the worst.
Chapter 23: Mr. Green
Summary:
So much bonding. All for One and Izuku, Hitoshi and Izuku, Aizawa and Izuku. Everyone's learning to trust and be trusted. And who is this Mr. Green?
Notes:
me several hours ago: time to post to ao3!
ao3: We are down for maintenance at this time.
me: T-T (sobs resound through the atmosphere)
BUT i am so grateful to the ao3 people for all their hard work so i can't even be upset. and i am posting now!also y’all are so funny in the comments XD i’m loving the amount of times i’ve gotten a comment that’s like “OOOH such and such character! also i guess there’s dabi too.” like dabi is the perpetual afterthought and i love it so much please don’t stop sfjlkfjklds i’m so amused. New running joke lmao i’m so glad to have fostered this environment
Chapter Text
Izuku was at the mall, and not only was he at the mall, but he was at the mall with Not Oji-san. Why? Because in just three months—yes, that soon! Izuku would be starting junior high school. And he needed to be prepared.
“You need a new backpack,” Not Oji-san said, squinting at the list they’d made together.
“And new notebooks,” Izuku pleaded. This had been one of their main points of argument when they were developing their list last night.
“No. You have so many notebooks.”
“But I could always have more notebooks,” Izuku said. “You have a lot of notebooks too.”
Not Oji-san glared at him. “You promised to never speak of that again.”
“I had my fingers crossed behind my back. Ooh! Look!” Izuku ran over to a display with a bunch of awesome T-Shirts.
“No,” Not Oji-san said without looking.
“But Oji-san,” Izuku said, “they say funny things on them. Look! This one says ‘formal shirt’ even though the shirt isn’t formal. Isn’t that funny?”
“No,” Not Oji-san said.
“You’re super lame,” Izuku informed him.
Not Oji-san didn’t answer that. Izuku got the impression that he didn’t care.
Admittedly, Izuku had Not Oji-san’s credit card and could have ordered all his school supplies online. But Not Oji-san had been reading those parenting books Kurogiri got him for his fake birthday, and he had learned that quality time was an important part of parenting (Izuku thought this should have been obvious), and he had insisted—albeit awkwardly—that they do this step together. He also had said they could take pictures and send them to Izuku’s mom, which was probably his real motivation for pretending to be a good parent.
Kurogiri had been suspiciously enthusiastic about this and had sent them off with a big smile. Izuku found the entire situation strange. He and Not Oji-san didn’t talk a lot, unless Not Oji-san was trying to cover himself for some really blatant villainy he’d done around Izuku. He usually gave a really bad explanation and then Izuku did the rest of the work inventing a story for what had happened and how it was totally legal, while pretending that he was just repeating back what Not Oji-san had said. It worked like a charm every time. Not Oji-san still believed Izuku knew nothing about his criminal activities.
That was one thing. But Izuku wasn’t really sure what to do with himself around the biggest supervillain of all time as they walked through a very normal shopping mall.
So he turned to his one true coping mechanism, which was causing chaos.
“How about new pens?” Izuku said.
“Hitoshi-kun gave you new pens for your birthday,” Not Oji-san said.
“But that was ages ago!”
Not Oji-san sighed and added them to the list. Izuku pumped his fist triumphantly and Not Oji-san sighed.
They’d also argued for a long time about which junior high school to send Izuku to. Not Oji-san had wanted Izuku to go to school closer to the bar in Kamino, but Izuku had made a strong case for going to Aldera. Not Oji-san had pointed out that Aldera Elementary had done such a terrible job that he would under no circumstances would Izuku be going to their junior high school. Izuku said that his friends all went to Aldera and Not Oji-san said that Hitoshi didn’t at all go to Aldera and that he was a terrible liar.
Izuku hadn’t really had an answer to that. But it did lead to Izuku making a serious effort to convince Hitoshi to go to Aldera, and since Izuku had extremely strong persuasive skills, Kurogiri had a teleportation quirk, and Hitoshi had no other friends, he succeeded. And so, in the end, Izuku had been able to convince Not Oji-san to let him go to Aldera.
“Backpacks,” Not Oji-san said, stopping in front of a row of them.
Izuku contemplated his options. There was one with All Might’s face on it that he liked but probably wasn’t allowed. So the next best thing would be to get a backpack that didn’t have All Might’s face on it but gave those vibes. He narrowed his search down to red, blue, or yellow backpacks.
The red ones were good but all of Izuku’s shoes were red and he didn’t want to match, because that was weird.
He liked the blue ones too, but they didn’t have enough pockets, and one of the yellow ones had so many pockets Izuku felt like he was in pocket heaven. He took it off the hook and presented it to Not Oji-san, who examined it carefully before nodding his agreement and bringing Izuku to check out.
“Is yellow your favorite color?” Not Oji-san asked as they left the store, Izuku with his new yellow backpack on already so he could show it off.
“I like red,” Izuku said.
Not Oji-san thought about that in silence as they walked toward the store with the best pens.
Izuku asked, “What’s yours?”
“Mine?” Not Oji-san echoed, as if he’d forgotten what they were talking about.
“Your favorite color,” Izuku said.
Not Oji-san looked at him, eyebrows slowly furrowing more and more. Izuku shrank back. He was thinking that maybe he’d somehow insulted Not Oji-san by asking that when suddenly Not Oji-san said, “Light green.”
Izuku put his hands on his hair.
“That’s dark,” Not Oji-san said, but he smiled a little bit. And then he frowned, touching his fingers lightly to his mouth. He looked confused.
“Light green is good,” Izuku said. “Like celery.”
Not Oji-san glared. “Not like celery. Like the aurora borealis. Or the sea.”
“The aurora what?” Izuku asked, not willing to point out that the sea was definitely not light green.
“Borealis,” Not Oji-san said. “The northern lights.”
Izuku squinted at him. It sounded like he was making stuff up.
Not Oji-san huffed in frustration. “What are they teaching you in that school?” he muttered, taking out his phone and texting with his index finger. “You should know this by twelve years old.”
A few seconds later a portal opened in front of him. Not Oji-san took the strap at the top of Izuku’s backpack and guided him through.
It was freezing on the other side of the portal. It was also the dead of night, and they were in the middle of nowhere, vast fields of snow stretching out on either side of them. The wind cut into Izuku’s skin through his thin hoodie. For a moment, Izuku thought that this was the moment Not Oji-san finally got fed up and abandoned him to die in the cold.
“Look,” Not Oji-san said, pointing at the horizon.
Izuku looked. “Oh,” he whispered.
Threads of green and purple streaked the sky. It was like the night had split into canyons of brilliance, wisps reaching up for the stars. Walls of light green. Izuku’s eyes grew wider and wider as he stared, the cold biting into his knuckles, which were clenched around the straps of his new yellow backpack.
“That,” Not Oji-san said, “is the aurora borealis.”
For once, Izuku couldn’t find anything to say.
“Now come here before you freeze to death,” Not Oji-san said, and he dragged Izuku back through the portal.
“Are you planning to apply to UA?” Hitoshi asked. This had been niggling him for some time now—Izuku’s sheer capability in the face of difficulty compared to Hitoshi’s incredible weakness. Izuku had been fighting villains for years now, sort of, and had a steadiness to him that Hitoshi couldn’t match. He’d been doubling down in the martial arts classes to keep up, but Izuku was always a step ahead.
Hitoshi wasn’t jealous.
“Definitely,” Izuku said. He was on his stomach on Hitoshi’s floor, drawing a hero in one of his notebooks. These days, they were always at one or the other’s house. More often than not, they were at Izuku’s, because Hitoshi didn’t like being at home more than he had to be, but sometimes, like today, Izuku wanted a break from the craziness of living with the Number One Villain. The only real advantage Hitoshi’s plain room had over Izuku’s was that he had a window and Izuku did not, even though according to Izuku, it was illegal to have a bedroom without a window. But it was nice having Izuku over because it was nice having a friend.
“Are you?” Izuku asked.
“I want to,” Hitoshi said. “I’m worried that I won’t get in.”
“The test is notoriously biased against people with non-emitter quirks,” Izuku said thoughtfully.
The other thing that could sometimes be annoying about Izuku was that he knew a lot of stuff and didn’t seem aware of it. Hitoshi didn’t like the term “know it all” because it made him think of bullies and he didn’t like bullies, but Izuku kind of was a know it all. Unintentionally.
“Right, yeah. Do you think there’s a way to get in even with a mental-based quirk like mine?”
“Probably,” Izuku said. “I feel like Principal Nedzu wouldn’t design the test without a few loopholes.”
Hitoshi had to stop himself from making an annoyed sound. He didn’t want a loophole, he wanted to get in because he was awesome and clearly hero material.
“I could hack UA—”
“No,” Hitoshi said before that thought could get any further. “You should not do that.”
“Hmm.” Izuku put his pencil down. Hitoshi regretted bringing this up with him. “I don’t know how else to beat the system,” Izuku admitted. “I’m not very creative.”
Hitoshi gave him his best Really? look.
“What?” Izuku protested. “I’m not!”
“Maybe,” Hitoshi said, deciding the best thing to do is ignore that, “we should make like a training plan or something? To get strong before the entrance exam? Like, I feel like the martial arts classes aren’t enough . . .”
Izuku nodded enthusiastically, flipping to the next page in his notebook and starting to scribble down his thoughts right there on Hitoshi’s floor. Hitoshi hoped he planned to rewrite them neatly later because he could not read Izuku’s handwriting at all when he got like this.
“You’re so right,” Izuku said. “Genius, really.”
The nice thing about having Izuku as his friend, though, was that despite how much of a know it all Izuku could be and despite how overshadowed Hitoshi felt around him sometimes, he was just really, really nice. And helpful.
He was muttering about different things they could put in the training plan already and how many days a week and where they should do it. Hitoshi got out his phone and settled down next to him on his light blue rug, looking up exercises they should do.
“We should probably go on runs,” he said.
Izuku groaned, dropping his head onto his notebook. “I hate running.”
“My mom says it grows on you,” Hitoshi says.
“Ugh,” Izuku said, but he wrote it down.
“I’ve heard flexibility training is important too,” Hitoshi said and Izuku nodded, immediately writing that down. “Maybe like a bunch of different stuff? Like strength and flexibility and, like, stamina?”
“Cardio,” Izuku said.
“That, yeah.”
Izuku’s pencil stilled. “You know,” he said slowly. “If you were up for it, we could try training your quirk too. Technically, it’s illegal, but people do it anyway and it might have some sort of uses we don’t know about. But only if you’re up for it, of course.”
Hitoshi’s thoughts stopped working for a minute.
“We could do it at my house, actually,” Izuku said, oblivious to Hitoshi’s crisis. “So much illegal stuff already happens there. No one would know.”
“I’m wondering how we would do that,” Hitoshi said carefully.
“You could practice on me,” Izuku said like it was nothing.
Hitoshi stared at him.
The silence eventually extended for long enough that Izuku looked up, eyebrows raised curiously. When he saw Hitoshi’s expression, he faltered. “What?” he asked, drawing back. “Sorry—we don’t have to—”
“I want to try it,” Hitoshi said before he could change his mind. “I’m nervous, but I want to.”
“We could practice on Dabi instead,” Izuku said, grinning.
Hitoshi pushed his shoulder lightly. “No,” he said, and Izuku broke into giggles. It took only a second before Hitoshi chuckled with him.
“Sorry,” Izuku snickered. “He’s just so annoying.”
Hitoshi breathed out another laugh. “That’s exactly why we can’t practice on him.”
He didn’t know when “I” had turned into “we.” But also, he didn’t mind it.
“Kid,” Eraserhead said.
Izuku tensed immediately, getting ready to run. Eraserhead had snuck up on him, and he was on top of a roof, so he didn’t really know where he would go if he did have to run. But he prepared himself anyway.
But then Eraserhead said, “I’m not here to arrest you,” and he relaxed.
“Good, because I was thinking about whether or not I’d have to jump off this roof to get away from you,” Izuku said. “And I wasn’t excited about it.”
Eraserhead gave him a flat look. “Please don’t ever do that.”
Izuku threw up a peace sign.
Eraserhead sighed. “Anyway.” He sat down on the roof next to Izuku, legs criss cross. “My husband made too much curry.”
“Present Mic,” Izuku said, wiggling his eyebrows.
Eraserhead couldn’t see his face, but he could hear his tone and he shot him another glare before just shoving a lunchbox at him. “It’s in there. I saw your idea of dinner and hated it. Eat that.”
“So you’re poisoning me, basically,” Izuku said, taking the lunch box. “So that you can arrest me.”
“If I wanted to arrest you,” Eraserhead said, “I would just arrest you.”
“Ah, but would you?”
Izuku wasn’t sure whether to open the lunch box and eat it now or if it would be better to hold onto it and wait. He wasn’t sure what Eraserhead wanted, either. Surely he had not come just to give Izuku curry.
“You know,” Izuku said, “Kurogiri says eating food from strangers is a bad idea.”
“Am I a stranger?” Eraserhead asked.
That was actually a very good question. Izuku thought about it, examining the lunchbox as he did. It was just black, although it had a gray stripe across the front of it. “Not really,” he said. “But also you’re not not a stranger. You don’t know my name.”
“True,” Eraserhead said, instead of asking what Izuku’s name was like he expected him to.
Weird. This was all very weird. “I still don’t have a vigilante name either,” Izuku said. “Small Might is still my top option.”
Eraserhead closed his eyes and shook his head. And then he said, “The police are calling you Midori-san.”
Izuku nearly choked, and turned it into a strangled laugh at the last second. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Kind of a feminine name,” Izuku said to cover for his weird laugh. He repeated it to see how it sounded in his mouth. “Mr. Green.” He laughed again. “I don’t mind it, but I think they’re making fun of me. Maybe I’m Midori-kun.”
“Midori-kun,” Eraserhead said, and no, that was super weird. But also, somehow, it was perfect. Like he was hiding behind his own name.
“That’s me,” Izuku said, grinning. “Nice to meet you.”
Eraserhead bowed his head. “Nice to meet you,” he said. And then he climbed to his feet. “Well, crime doesn’t stop for curry. And do eat that,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “If I find out you ate a bunch of Kit Kats instead, I will start trying to arrest you again.”
Izuku nodded. “Sir yes sir.”
Eraserhead walked away. Izuku watched him until he climbed down the fire escape. Still trying to make sense of what had just happened, he looked at the lunchbox in his lap. Shrugging, he zipped it open. Inside was a tupperware full of curry. Probably poisoned. Izuku ate it anyway.
Chapter 24: Junior High School Begins
Summary:
Dabi has another run-in with Midori-san. Izuku and Hitoshi go to their first day of junior high. All for One finds a new enemy.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Dabi stumbled through Kurogiri’s portal with a bloody nose and rage behind his eyes.
“Oh no,” Kurogiri said. “Do you need a tissue?”
“Fuck off,” Dabi growled, storming for All for One’s office. But he did need a tissue so he paused by the hallway entrance and turned back. “Yeah, I do.”
Kurogiri produced one. Dabi pinched his nose shut with it and continued down to All for One’s office. He pounded on the door and entered when instructed.
“That guy,” Dabi snapped, banging into the room, “is awful.”
All for One watched him as he paced up and down the small room, plugging his nose up with the tissue.
“I can’t get close to him without him doing something unhinged,” Dabi said. “He shot a flashlight beam in my eyes and then threw it at me. I think my nose is broken. Jesus fuck.”
“So, no success, then?” All for One asked.
“Not yet,” Dabi said, taking the tissue away from his nose and refolding it before pressing it back on. “Ugh, I almost had him, though, goddamn. He’s an asshole.”
All for One nodded, pursing his lips. “That he is.”
Dabi considered himself somewhat lucky that he was still alive. After the whole kidnapping Eraserhead incident, he’d been pretty sure All for One was going to turn him into sludge. Instead what happened was All for One calmly explained that Midoriya didn’t know All for One was a villain, and they had to continue to try to keep this a secret. Dabi actually doubted that was true, given how much Midoriya knew about everything and everyone, but he decided to keep those thoughts to himself in order to keep his head attached.
Midoriya was annoying in his own right. Whip smart and talkative. He used a wide eyed innocent look and then swept the rug out of everyone while they were distracted by whatever crazy thing he was saying. Clingy. And sweet and kind, which disturbed Dabi, who felt like he was getting the kid dirty by being in the same room as him.
How ironic that of the three people Dabi hated most in the world, two of their names started with Midori. He’d have a grudge against the color for the rest of his life.
“I’ll keep trying,” Dabi promised. “I’ll get him. I need just one more shot.”
“Have as many shots as you need,” All for One said. “He’s slippery.”
“No, I know what he is,” Dabi said. “He’s a demon.”
“You have your notebooks and pencils?” Kurogiri asked, fluttering over Izuku.
“Yes,” Izuku said.
“You have your lunch?”
He had something resembling lunch. Eraserhead would be ashamed of him, but he did have a lunch box and inside the lunch box was food, so he had lunch. “Yes.”
“You have—”
“Kurogiri,” Not Oji-san groaned, hovering at the mouth of the hallway to his office. “Stop. I’m sure he has everything.”
“We don’t have Hitoshi-kun,” Izuku pointed out.
Kurogiri opened a portal immediately. A few moments later Hitoshi walked through, dark blue backpack on and a nervous twist to his eyebrows. He hurried straight over to Izuku.
“Now we have everything,” Izuku said.
“We should take a picture,” said Kurogiri.
Izuku groaned.
“Your mom would want a picture, Izuku-kun,” Kurogiri said. This spurred Not Oji-san into motion immediately. Sometimes Izuku wondered if Not Oji-san was a little afraid of Izuku’s mom. He came forward with his phone and forced Izuku to stand there and smile while he took pictures in non-incriminating locations (which were few—they had to use the only plain wall to do it, and then Not Oji-san spent some time fretting over whether or not she would realize that wall wasn’t in the apartment she had visited).
Hitoshi stood patiently while all this took place. He was a very nice person. Izuku was happy they would be going to junior high school together, and not just because it meant he wouldn’t be left alone with Kacchan.
“It’s kind of like we’re carpooling,” Izuku said as Kurogiri popped in and out of the bar, looking for a good location for their portal, “except there’s no car. Just Kurogiri.”
“He kind of is like a car,” Hitoshi said.
“Carogiri,” Izuku said, snickering.
Hitoshi grinned.
“All right,” Kurogiri said, finally holding still and opening a portal for Hitoshi and Izuku. “Text me when it’s time for pick up,” he said, “and be good, and don’t set anything on fire. And, Izuku—no hacking the school.”
“I would never!” Izuku crossed his arms.
“You did that when you were ten,” Not Oji-san said. “I fully believe you would do it again if given the opportunity.”
“You hacked your elementary school?” Hitoshi asked, nonplussed.
Izuku headed for the portal. “And I almost got away with it.”
“Don’t do it again,” Kurogiri said, like Izuku hadn’t heard him the first time.
“Okay, okay,” Izuku said. “Sheesh.”
As he walked through the portal, Izuku heard Kurogiri yell after him, “Be good!”
Sometimes it was like the spirit of Izuku’s mother inhabited Kurogiri and made him into a huge helicopter. But then again, it wasn’t like that at all, because Kurogiri wasn’t worried Izuku would go to school and never come back; Kurogiri was worried Izuku would come back from school and announce he’d accidentally leveled the place.
So that was comforting.
Hitoshi stepped through the portal right after Izuku and after a moment’s hesitation it swirled to a close. They were right outside the school gates, which Izuku thought was bold of Kurogiri, but at least they didn’t have to walk far.
The junior high school edition of Aldera was very similar to the elementary school edition. Gray and flat and uninspired. Izuku was excited.
“I’m going to need you to tell me about hacking your elementary school,” Hitoshi said as they walked up to the front doors.
Izuku grinned and started regaling him with the tale. Hitoshi was a good listener. He raised his eyebrows in the right spots and he laughed at the right times.
“I think you should do that again, actually,” Hitoshi said as they stepped into their classroom (thank goodness they were in the same class—Izuku might have lost it otherwise). “Forget what Kurogiri thinks.”
“Well, but I’d get caught faster this time,” Izuku said, checking the board for their seats, “because the school knows me now. Hey, we’re close to each other!”
Hitoshi was right smack in the middle of the room, and Izuku was one seat behind him and one to the left. Kacchan, Izuku found with a small frown, was on his other side and one seat forward. Izuku liked Kacchan, but maybe not enough to sit so close to him. He’d just have to get used to it.
They sat down and Hitoshi sat sideways in his desk so they could keep talking to each other as the rest of the class filed in. Izuku knew the exact moment Kacchan walked in because he immediately yelled, “Why are you in here, shitty Deku?” and Izuku had to sigh and explain, “I go to school here, Kacchan.”
Hitoshi glared at Kacchan, which wasn’t great. Izuku probably should have predicted that they wouldn’t get along. Or not right away—Izuku thought he could get them to like each other eventually.
“Who are you frowning at, Eyebags?” Kacchan snapped at him, plopping down at his desk.
“You,” Hitoshi said coolly. “You’re insecure and totally lame.”
“Okay,” Izuku squeaked, cutting this off. “That’s enough. Kacchan, this is my friend Shinsou Hitoshi. Hitoshi-kun, this is Bakugou Katsuki.”
“I don’t learn the names of bullies,” Hitoshi said, staring Kacchan down.
Kacchan stood up, explosions popping on his palms. “HAH?”
“Hitoshi-kun,” Izuku begged. “Kurogiri will actually kill me if I get into a fight on the first day. Stop it.”
“‘Kay.” Hitoshi flipped open a notebook.
Kacchan was a lot harder to subdue, even with threats of death. He started toward Hitoshi anyway, stopped only by the miraculous arrival of the kid who sat in front of Izuku, and therefore directly between Hitoshi and Kacchan. Oblivious to the fight about to go down, the kid sat at his desk right between the two of them. Kacchan, glowering, took his seat again.
Izuku nearly cried tears of relief. He decided this new kid was his best friend from here forth.
Now that the threat of Kacchan had simmered down, Hitoshi closed his notebook again and turned back to Izuku. He pursed his lips.
Izuku made a face and shrugged.
Hitoshi rolled his eyes.
And so the first day of junior high school began.
The round of introductions the whole class did was as painful as always. Luckily, most of the class knew Izuku since he’d gone to Aldera Elementary with the majority of them, so when he had to stand up and announce his lack of quirk to the entire room, it didn’t faze most people. Hitoshi’s similar announcement, which he did with his hands in his pockets and a lazy smirk, did faze the entire class, sending up rounds of mutters. Izuku thought it was probably pretty hard for Hitoshi to say his quirk out loud to a new group of people, but he got through it.
Hitoshi spent most of class itself leading a master class on how to send Kacchan into a rage state. He did this by raising his hand every time Kacchan spoke and making thinly veiled jabs at him while disagreeing with whatever Kacchan said, even if Kacchan was objectively right. Izuku would have been impressed if he wasn’t absolutely horrified. Kacchan looked seconds away from exploding his desk all day long.
At lunch, Hitoshi and Izuku sat next to each other, which was nice because usually Izuku had to hide during lunch to keep away from Kacchan and his group of friends. But now he sat next to Hitoshi in the plain open space and Hitoshi glared at anyone who so much as looked at them funny. Hitoshi was different at school than he was at home. Izuku didn’t mind the change, but it was interesting.
Eventually, and after Kacchan almost had five stress-induced strokes, the long day was over. Izuku’s teacher handed out some important forms and informational papers to bring home. Izuku put them in his folder, and put his folder in his backpack, and then he waited for Hitoshi, who was taking his sweet time and smirking at Kacchan as he did it. Kacchan, for his part, was resolutely ignoring Hitoshi, possibly at his wits’ end.
“I hate you,” Izuku laughed as they exited the building. “You did that on purpose.”
“Serves him right,” Hitoshi grumbled. “I’ve never seen anyone as irritable and loud as that guy. You grew up with him?”
“I used to live with him,” Izuku said, “before I was kidnapped.”
Hitoshi gave him a dry look. “The good old days.”
“He’s actually not that bad when he’s not at school,” Izuku said. “I think he gets stressed out when everyone’s looking at him. He’s antisocial.”
“That’s a word for it,” Hitoshi grumbled.
Izuku texted Kurogiri as they walked and a portal opened in front of them. They stepped through. “Want to do homework together?” Izuku asked as they came out the other side.
“Ugh, yeah,” Hitoshi answered. “Who assigns homework on the first day? Absolutely disgusting.”
“Agreed.” Izuku set his folder down on the counter so he could pull out the forms for Not Oji-san and the informational papers he was sent home with.
“How was school?” Kurogiri asked.
“Good,” Izuku said. “The building is still standing, and Kacchan didn’t blow up at anyone, despite Hitoshi’s best efforts. Can you give these to Oji-san? Some of them need to be signed.”
“I can,” Kurogiri said. “I’m glad your day was all right. Dinner in an hour.”
“Joy,” Izuku said.
“Do you want to stay for dinner, Shinsou-kun?”
“No, thanks,” Hitoshi said quickly. “I have plans with my family.”
“Liar,” Izuku mouthed at him.
“Forms from Izuku-kun’s school,” Kurogiri said, dropping them off on the corner of All for One’s desk. “He said some of them need to be signed by tomorrow.”
“The school’s still upright?” All for One asked, shutting off his computer and pushing his swivel chair back to properly talk to Kurogiri.
“So he says,” Kurogiri said. “He’s upstairs doing homework with Shinsou-kun now. I didn’t see any injuries, so I think they both made it through the day without much drama.”
All for One turned his head slightly to the side and up, scanning over both of the kids through layers of drywall and wood. They were both totally fine, to his surprise. “Hmm, you’re right. Impressive.”
“It probably won’t last,” Kurogiri sighed, drifting to the door.
“Correct.” All for One picked up the papers.
“Dinner in an hour,” Kurogiri reminded him as he disappeared.
All for One suppressed a groan. He shuffled through the papers he’d been given. He was supposed to sign off on the syllabus to prove that he had read it and understood what Izuk— Midoriya— what Midoriya was going to be doing over the course of the year. He also had to sign a form in agreement that Midoriya could have his picture taken by the school. These both seemed fine to him, so after carefully reading through both forms (not contracts, he had to remind himself), he signed them both using Midoriya’s uncle’s name and set them aside.
Then there was a piece of paper with Midoriya’s schedule on it, and there was also a list of supplies Midoriya would need, and also a very lengthy reading list (apparently Midoriya was supposed to only read books off this list, which All for One thought was stupid). And at the bottom of the pile, on an innocuous pale pink piece of copy paper, sat the very thing All for One had been looking for.
He had not forgotten, after all, the abuse Midoriya had suffered at the hands of Aldera faculty, staff, and students in his elementary school years. And like hell would he be letting anything like that happen again. He’d weed out all the corruption with his own two hands if he had to, never mind his villainous reputation.
PARENTS: GET INVOLVED! the pink paper said at the top.
What followed that was an explanation of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA)—what they did, their objectives for the year, and how to participate. It listed the dates and times of every planned PTA meeting for the semester. At the bottom of the paper was the signature and email of the PTA president, named Sakamoto Miki.
All for One jabbed his index finger into her name and narrowed his eyes. That was his target. He would do what he must—befriend her, manipulate her, murder her—but he would defeat her in the end.
The paper crinkled under his finger. He cleared his throat and turned to his calendar. Carefully, he transferred all the dates of the PTA meetings into the calendar one by one. He cackled to himself when the last one was in.
The school wouldn’t know what hit them.
Notes:
Mei: I can make you any weapon you want, just name it. Katana. Brass knuckles. Flame thrower.
Izuku: I would like a flashlight please
Mei:
Izuku:
Mei: What.
Chapter 25: Another Kidnapping, and Imminent Death
Summary:
Hitoshi practices his quirk. Izuku learns how to pick pockets before his night is very rudely interrupted. All for One realizes abruptly and painfully that he is a giant fool.
Notes:
CHAPTER 25!!!!!!!!!!! WE'RE HERE!!!!!
Chapter Text
“I don’t usually do this,” Hitoshi said. Izuku could tell he was nervous from the way he was sitting, shoulders all hunched up. They were both on Izuku’s floor, sitting criss cross and face to face, knees nearly touching. “People get mad.”
“I solemnly swear I will not be mad,” Izuku said, holding up his hand. “This is for science.”
Hitoshi squinted at him. “Isn’t Science your worst subject?”
“For science,” Izuku repeated, glaring. Rude of Hitoshi to bring that up at a time like this. Also, Literature was his worst subject. Then Science.
“Okay.” He shook out his hands. “Right. It’ll be super chill and easy and nothing will go wrong. At all. Unless everything does go wrong.”
“Well, I trust you,” Izuku said. “So even if everything does start going wrong, I know it’ll be fine.” He beamed.
“You’re super weird.”
Clearly Hitoshi had never learned that the proper response to compliments was generally returning one. Well, whatever. Izuku had meant what he said—he hadn’t just been fishing for something nice about himself. “And you’re stalling.”
“Yeah.” Hitoshi exhaled shakily. “Are you ready?”
“I was—” born ready, Izuku had been trying to say, but it suddenly became hard to do anything. It became hard to even think. The world went fuzzy and dark, and his perspective shifted, almost like his mind had leaned back and outside of his own body. His ears sounded distorted and blurry.
It wasn’t uncomfortable, he thought as he drifted lazily through his subconscious. A little weird, maybe, but not painful or frightening. Soft.
He felt a little tug on the front edge of his mind and he snapped back into his room, where he was now sitting on top of his bed, legs dangling over the edge, with Hitoshi sitting on his floor still, looking anxiously up at Izuku. The second they made eye contact, Hitoshi looked down at his own hands. “Okay, so I’ll just go now—”
“Go?” Izuku yelled, amazed. “Go! After that? Hitoshi-kun, that was so cool —we have to do it again. We just have to. What are the limits in range? Can I get Kurogiri to teleport me somewhere while you do that? Oh my gosh and how much can you get me to do before I snap out of it? Is there a time limit? Does it have to be a verbal response or does nodding count? What if I was talking to someone else and you asked a question and I kept talking to that person—does that count as a verbal response? Oh—oh, and, Hitoshi-kun, you made it sound so awful but it was actually like all floaty and nice? We have to do it again. Can we?”
Here he had to come up for air, which was a good thing because Hitoshi looked on the verge of tears. Izuku caught his breath as he watched Hitoshi sort of shrink in on himself.
“Hitoshi?” Izuku asked quietly. “Are you okay?”
“What in the heck is wrong with you?” Hitoshi snapped, whipping his head up to glare at Izuku, and yep, there were tears in his eyes. “You’re supposed to freak out and tell me I’m some wacko Puppet Master—”
“Cool hero name,” Izuku said, nodding.
This only made Hitoshi’s wrath increase. “You’re not supposed to act like this is normal! It’s not normal! I’m not—” He swiped angrily at his eyes.
“It is normal, though,” Izuku said. “I mean—it’s unique, but lots of people have unique quirks. Your quirk is really, really special and cool.”
“It’s villainous,” Hitoshi spat.
“Well, but you’re not,” Izuku said, shrugging, “and I don’t think you’d use it that way.”
“If you gave someone a gun and told them to use it in a not-evil way—”
Izuku snorted. “Your quirk isn’t a gun, though. It’s actually exceptionally non-violent. A better analogy would be giving someone NyQuil and telling them to use it in a non evil way. They’d laugh and be like obviously.”
Hitoshi wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. He studied Izuku, still obviously angry but with a more open expression than before. Sort of quizzical.
“The NyQuil Hero,” Izuku said, “Puppetmaster.”
“Shut up,” Hitoshi muttered, dragging the heels of his palms over his eyes again. He almost managed to hide his smile.
“Never,” Izuku vowed. “Besides, lots of people have stereotypically bad quirks. I mean, Eraserhead’s quirk is taking away other people’s quirks. You know? He probably got a lot of bullying for that.”
Hitoshi nodded.
“Well,” Izuku said, hopping off his bed. “Maybe we should pause on it for today, though. Unless you want to go find Dabi to practice on.”
“I can’t believe he still lives here after the whole Eraserhead-kidnapping incident,” Hitoshi mumbled.
“Oji-san is a huge softie,” Izuku answered.
Hitoshi’s eyebrows twisted up incredulously. Izuku waited for the truth to hit him. After a moment, his expression cleared and opened and he said, “Honestly? True.”
It was a dark and stormy night.
Well, not stormy, per se, but definitely dark, and with lots of clouds covering the moon. So it was more of a dark and cloudy night than anything else, but the point overall was that it was dark out. The air was very dry and hot.
Izuku was watching, with some amusement, an older couple arguing about which of them had the keys to their car. Neither of them was the answer, because Izuku had caught a pickpocket not two minutes ago who had stolen the keys to their car and had been waiting in the darkness for the two of them to leave so she could steal it.
“You’re the worst,” the pickpocket hissed as Izuku took the keys back.
Izuku pulled down the bottom half of his mask so he could stick his tongue out at her, and then he proceeded to run the keys out to the older couple, who thanked him and asked for his name. He said, somewhat smugly, “Midori-san!” and they thanked him again and left.
With that done, Izuku returned to his pickpocket. He’d been trying to get one of these for a while now, but they were surprisingly difficult to find and even harder to catch. This was only his second pickpocketing capture ever. Third, if you count that one he set Hound Dog on.
“Technically,” he said, leaning against the wall and raising his eyebrows at the girl, “I should call Eraserhead and have him arrest you.”
“Your evidence just drove away, though,” she said, smirking.
Izuku rolled his eyes. “You have like four phones on you right now,” he said, because he was nothing if not observant. “You can’t possibly be the rightful owner of all of them.”
She went back to scowling at him.
“I won’t call Eraserhead if you give me the stolen phones, promise not to steal more, take a hundred thousand yen cash off my hands, and teach me how to do that.”
Her eyebrows, which had inched up incrementally each list item, disappeared under her blunt bangs. She wasn’t even wearing a mask. Amateur. “You’re kidding,” she said.
“I don’t do that as a rule,” Izuku answered. “I’m always very serious.”
“Well, sure,” she said, “if you untie me.”
Izuku clipped off the zip tie.
He honestly expected her to attack him and run away directly after that, like his last target of such a proposition had done, which was why he was not, in fact, carrying a hundred thousand yen on him in cash at the moment, but she just rolled out her wrist and gave him an in depth and valuable lesson on pickpocketing. He took notes as she talked and asked questions, and then she let him practice on her. He was not very good at it.
“It’s more subtle,” she said. “You aim to distract and redirect attention so you can rob people blind.”
At least she was passionate.
When Izuku had squeezed every last drop of knowledge out of her, he led her to an ATM and took out a hundred thousand yen cash. He handed it over, and she passed over the three stolen phones. They shook hands.
“A pleasure,” she said, grinning toothily, and Izuku smacked her hand away from his pockets. Laughing, she turned and ran off into the pitch black night.
Feeling triumphant, Izuku went to find Eraserhead, who took the phones from him and scolded him for “losing” the villain. Izku tried to explain it was a tactical negotiation, but Eraserhead wouldn’t hear it. He swung into the darkness to bring the stolen phones to the police.
Izuku stood proudly with his hands on his hips on the edge of a tall roof. He looked out on the city of Musutafu and smiled. He was very good at this whole vigilante thing. Maybe even the best at it.
“Gotcha,” a scratchy voice said from behind him, and a bag went down over Izuku’s head.
His hands flew up immediately to get it off but rough palms seized his wrists and wrestled them behind his back. He kicked behind him, desperate, but his foot met empty air and he nearly lost balance, swaying.
His attacker used this as an opportunity to push him down onto his stomach, where with one knee pressing into Izuku’s lower back, he tied Izuku’s hands together. Izuku struggled, but his attacker was stronger and definitely bigger than him, so it had no effect. He’d been caught.
“We’re going on a little field trip,” his attacker hissed, pulling Izuku up to his feet. And then he let go.
Izuku held very still, keeping his feet planted. They were on a roof, after all, and unless the fight had somehow traveled, they were close to the edge of it. He didn’t want to risk falling off by moving. He felt a little like he was in a void, unable to sense where he was. He wished he could see.
This, he decided, sucked. Thank goodness Not Oji-san hadn’t kidnapped him this way. Not at all sophisticated.
Worse, he genuinely didn’t know who’d attacked him. Sure, he’d made his fair share of enemies and had a small collection of villains who probably despised him (that guy who’d broken his ribs, namely), but they were all supposed to be in jail, and none of them seemed organized enough to make an abduction attempt.
The voice had maybe been familiar? He tried to replay how it had sounded to place it. Scratchy, like the guy (it seemed male) had a perpetual itch in the back of his throat, or was always on the verge of coughing.
“Pick up’s here,” the voice said, and grabbed Izuku by the scruff of his neck, steering him forward.
Now that he was thinking about it, it sounded a lot like Dabi. But that didn’t make any sense. What would Dabi want with hi—
Oh crap.
Izuku twisted to get out of Dabi’s grip—he’d take his chances with the roof—but Dabi grabbed both his arms right by the joint. His long fingers encased Izuku’s upper arms.
“Nuh-uh,” he said, dragging him back. “You’re not getting away, you little shit.”
“Dabi,” Izuku said helplessly. He felt Kurogiri’s portal around them—it always had the sense of pressing and folding around him—and panicked, thrashing to escape. “Let go , Dabi—”
“Ah,” Kurogiri said.
“No,” Izuku groaned. This was the worst possible scenario.
“Dabi,” Kurogiri said, probably about to save Izuku’s butt like he always did. “Remember the last time you kidnapped someone?”
“All for One asked me to get this one,” Dabi said. “Just make sure the kid stays upstairs or something. That was the real problem last time.”
“Ah,” Kurogiri said again, and Izuku lost all hope.
Well, it had been a long and successful life, but Midoriya Izuku, age thirteen (almost) had died a miserable death caused mostly by his own arrogance and also Dabi. Rest in peace.
Dabi forced him into a chair.
“I will give you so much money if you let me go right now,” Izuku said, squinting as if that would help him see through the bag over his head. “I’m so serious. Millions of yen.”
“Shut it,” Dabi said.
“Be nice,” Kurogiri said halfheartedly. He also sounded defeated. He knew the end of Izuku was coming.
Izuku felt an additional rope twist around his torso a few times. It was really tight, which was unnecessary but flattering. Then another rope was wound around his thighs. Also extremely tight.
“You’re very rude,” Izuku said in the direction he thought Dabi was.
“I’m not taking any chances,” Dabi shot back from the opposite direction.
That was fair.
“Go get All for One,” Dabi said, probably to Kurogiri. Then, as a clear after thought, he added, “Please.”
Izuku decided that if he survived this day, Dabi would be his number one enemy from here forth. Jerk. Izuku would spare no expense in stalking him and digging up weird details about his past that no normal human should know and then flinging them in his face at the dinner table just to terrify him. Izuku would become his worst nightmare.
Kurogiri sighed. Izuku didn’t hear him move (he was made of mist) but he knew Kurogiri had walked away. He had to have. He’d gone to get Not Oji-san and bring Izuku’s life to a close.
Dabi ripped the bag off Izuku’s head. He was very dramatic. Izuku glared at him although Dabi couldn’t see it through the masks.
“No Eraserhead around to save you today,” Dabi sneered.
Very sincerely, Izuku said, “You’re, like, my least favorite person in the whole world.”
Dabi flipped him off.
“Don’t make rude gestures at children,” Not Oji-san said, strolling in like he owned the place. Because he did. Kurogiri came in anxiously behind him and hovered in the outskirts of the room.
Izuku dropped his head onto the back of the chair and stared woefully at the ceiling. Goodbye world, he thought.
“You are a child, correct?” Not Oji-san asked. He dragged over a stool from the bar and sat down, studying Izuku.
“I’m fifteen,” Izuku told the ceiling.
“And a pain in my ass,” Dabi said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Izuku snapped, tilting his head up again to scowl at him. “Next time I’ll try to make your ass more comfortable. How’ll that be?”
“Don’t swear,” Kurogiri said, fretful.
Izuku frowned into his own lap. Dabi had tied his legs to the chair like four times, and his arms were starting to cramp from being bound behind him. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“You’ve been quite the difficulty,” Not Oji-san said. “And virtually untraceable, too, which is impressive.”
Izuku blinked. Call him an optimist but that sounded almost like a compliment. A statement on Izuku’s effectiveness as a vigilante, coming from the head supervillain himself.
“How do you keep figuring out where I’m operating and what I’ll be doing?” Not Oji-san asked.
Izuku hesitated. He could answer truthfully, but if, by chance, Not Oji-san didn’t kill him the second his mask came off, he might want to retain some of his privacy.
“A magician never reveals his secrets,” he said.
“You don’t have a quirk,” Not Oji-san said, standing up abruptly. He was really tall. Izuku winced.
“Sir,” Kurogiri said, stepping forward. “Maybe you should—”
“Am I an idiot?” Not Oji-san asked.
It wasn’t clear who he was asking (maybe it was rhetorical?) so Izuku said, helpfully, “No, just not all-knowing.”
Not Oji-san grabbed his hood and mask and tore both off. Izuku shrank back, wincing. Now, he would die.
Instead, he was met with complete silence. He worked one of his eyes open to find Not Oji-san staring at him, frozen. Behind him, Dabi’s mouth was hanging open and Kurogiri had a hand over his face, tired.
“Hi, Oji-chan,” Izuku said weakly. “How’s it going?”
Chapter 26: How to Punish Your Fake Nephew: Step One, Don't
Summary:
The fallout (or lack of it?). Izuku practices pickpocketing. A check in with Shigaraki.
Notes:
A few notes before this chapter:
- Thank you to Laz for her assistance on the title of this chapter. One of my favorites. Very accurate.
- I AM DONE WITH THE DRAFT!!! It might still go through some changes but rn it is exactly 50 chapters and i am somehow really good at predicting these things? Like fifteen chapters ago i was like eh i’ll guess 50 chapters and now it is exactly 50 chapters. Like how? But anyway yes i am done with the draft!! We are moving forward with ALACRITY. And this is only really relevant to you because it means it's possible my updates might get a little crazy. Self control = gone.
And now here is the chapter we’ve all been waiting for:
Chapter Text
“I quit,” Dabi said, turning on his heel. “You know what? I quit. I regret meeting you people.” He stormed up the stairs. Good riddance.
Not Oji-san closed his eyes, infinite pain flashing across his expression. “All along,” he said slowly. “All along it’s been you. Under my nose. Under my roof.”
“To be fair,” Izuku started.
Not Oji-san held up a hand. “Don’t.” Then, slowly, he turned to Kurogiri. “Tell me you didn’t know. You can lie, just tell me that. I need to hear it. Say, ‘I didn’t know.’”
Kurogiri looked at Izuku. His expression betrayed it all as he said, “I didn’t know.”
Dabi stomped back down the stairs, bag slung over his back, stalked across the bar without looking at any of them, and went straight out the door, slamming it behind him.
“I,” Not Oji-san said, “need a drink.”
“Can we untie Izuku-kun first?” Kurogiri asked as Not Oji-san turned to the bar.
“Do whatever you want.” Not Oji-san grabbed a full bottle of something from behind the counter. “I’ll be in my office.”
“Good night!” Izuku called.
Not Oji-san’s sigh echoed down the hall to his office.
Izuku looked at Kurogiri. “He’s mad at me.”
“No,” Kurogiri said, gliding over to untie Izuku. “He’s mad at himself.”
“Because of me.”
“Because of himself.” The ropes around Izuku’s legs came undone. Kurogiri went around him to untie the rest of them from the back.
“Am I a terrible fake nephew?” Izuku asked.
“FAKE?!” The shout was so loud Izuku could hear it clearly from all the way in the bar, even though it had come from Not Oji-san’s office. The door to the office slammed open. Not Oji-san stormed out. “Fake?”
“Um,” Izuku said. He looked to Kurogiri for help, but couldn’t quite see him because Kurogiri was behind him untying his arms from the chair. “Yes? Since, like, you kidnapped me and pretended to be my uncle even though really you’re this really huge supervillain All for One and my actual uncle is chaperoning a study abroad program in Australia right now?”
“How long,” Not Oji-san said, long-suffering, “have you known this?”
Izuku grimaced. “You won’t like it.”
“Izuku,” he said. “Tell me this instant.”
Izuku told him.
He didn’t like it.
For Midoriya’s thirteenth birthday, All for One gave him the set of T-shirts he’d seen in the mall that one time (“A few sizes too big,” he said, “so you can grow into them”), and, to his alarm, Midoriya cried.
All for One hadn’t meant for it to be a thoughtful gift. He hadn’t spent much money on it, to prove to himself that he wasn’t so attached to Izuk—Midoriya that he had to spend exorbitant amounts of money on him for his birthday. He could spend very little money on a small, trivial gift (that Midoriya would still like—he wouldn’t have been able to buy him a bad gift) and that would show both of them how little he cared.
It had backfired. Midoriya sobbed and said All for One was his favorite fake uncle ever.
“There there,” All for One said, patting Midoriya awkwardly on the back (he was entrapped in another hug) and sending Kurogiri an alarmed look. Kurogiri, the traitor, was taking pictures.
“This is the best gift anyone’s ever given me,” Midoriya wailed.
Over the past couple weeks, All for One had learned some things about himself.
One, he was not particularly smart. Average, actually. Some might even call him foolish.
Two, he had a weakness when it came to Midoriya. A weakness that included almost immediately forgiving him for meddling in his evil plans, continuing to let him be a vigilante even after the recent discovery (which they weren’t discussing), and making pancakes with him every Sunday.
Three, he had very little control over his own life.
Thus, this situation.
“Oh, Shinsou-kun just texted,” Kurogiri said, effectively ending the hug. He opened a portal and Izuku’s perpetually exhausted friend walked through. All for One thought that the way he felt on the inside was the way this kid looked on the outside—fed up and slightly soulless.
“Hitoshi-kun!” Midoriya chirped, bounding over. He wiped away his tears.
“Hi,” Shinsou said. “Happy birthday. I got you a present but I want to wait until after school to give it to you, or you’ll talk my ear off about it all day.”
“Good thing you have two ears,” Midoirya said, hunting for the gift by circling around Shinsou.
“I left it at home to keep you from stealing it,” Shinsou said. He gave All for One a dead look. “Did you know he’s been taking lessons from pickpockets on the street?”
“Hitoshi-kun!” Midoriya punched him lightly in the shoulder. “That was a secret!”
“Seems like something your Not Uncle should know,” Shinsou said.
“All right,” Kurogiri said, sending All for One an anxious look. “Time to go to school or you’ll be late.”
“We’re not even remotely close to being late,” Midoriya said, but he headed for the new portal anyway.
“Don’t burn the school down,” Kurogiri reminded him.
Midoriya didn’t respond, which was foreboding. Shinsou gave Kurogiri a little head jerk of a nod before following him through the portal.
“So everyone knew,” All for One said calmly as Kurogiri closed the portal, “except for me.”
“Izuku-kun was trying very hard to keep it from you,” Kurogiri said, as if this would make All for One feel better. “And you know how he gets when he sets his mind on something.”
“I’m still not speaking to you,” All for One sniffed. He’d been giving Kurogiri the silent treatment for the past week as he recovered from the Midoriya-Is-The-Annoying-Vigilante discovery. He’d get over it eventually. Maybe.
“All right,” Kurogiri said easily, and went to the kitchen to start something on fire.
“These are so cool,” Izuku said.
“I made them with three extra features too!” Mei answered giddily over Izuku’s brand new, very cool, comm system, which was now connected to his phone. She’d sent updates and new gadgets to him over the mail and insisted they call to go over the updates. It was nearly midnight, because Izuku had wanted to test his brand new awesome, incredible, fantastic night vision goggles in the night, but Mei claimed sleep was for the weak and was happy to talk him through the goggles at any hour.
Izuku felt giddy. With the goggles on, he could see everything pretty clearly, although there was a bit of a green hue to everything.
He wondered, briefly, if it was possible to somehow use quirks to improve technology. Like by using someone’s DNA who had a night vision quirk, maybe it would be possible to use biomechanics to make night vision goggles.
Maybe there were morality issues with that, though. It seemed like the sort of thing someone would get arrested for.
He dragged his attention back to the awesome piece of technology at hand, setting aside these thoughts for later. “What are the extra features?”
Mei walked him through the three settings, which he could navigate by a dial on the side, and which included infrared vision, captioning, and binoculars.
“Mei-san,” Izuku said when she was done. “I’m so happy right now. I’m going to die.”
“Not yet! You haven’t tested them out!”
Izuku’s birthday had been about two weeks ago, but he counted this as one of his presents. It was just too epic to not have some sort of ceremony attached to it. He had real, genuine tears in his eyes. Too bad the goggles didn’t have a tear-collecting setting.
“You’re a total genius, Mei-san. The most genius.”
“Well, I try,” she said, but she sounded smug. “Anyway, give the night vision setting a good test tonight and let me know how it works! If there are any glitches or anything, I’ll work to fix them up right away. And if anyone asks—”
“Hatsume Mei Industries, I know,” he laughed. “Thank you so much.”
“ Particularly Eraserhead. That man needs a goggle upgrade.”
“We could send him one anonymously.”
“Ha!” Mei cackled. “Maybe we should. I enjoy those projects, you know.”
Izuku did know. He’d been running a little dry on researching which heroes needed new gear recently because he was so busy doing ten million other things, but maybe if he got a minute he could think of something good for both of them to work on. He liked working with Mei—she was high energy and a little off putting sometimes, but so was Izuku, and they clicked well when they were knee deep in a project and shouting ideas at each other over the phone.
“Crap, my mom’s coming,” Mei hissed. “Talk to you later! Let me know how it works!”
“Bye,” Izuku said, but Mei had already hung up.
Time to test the goggles out, then. He put them back on night vision mode and slipped through the alleys. He could see everything perfectly fine, really. It all had a kind of grainy quality to it, but it was working and it was working well. This was much preferable, at any rate, to standing triumphant on a rooftop on one of the darkest nights in Japanese history and having someone come up behind him and shove a bag over his head. Maybe he could have prevented that if he had been wearing night vision goggles.
He had, of course, recently done his requisite deep dive into Dabi, his new worst enemy. He’d found a surprising amount of dead ends, which implied there was a lot more to dig into. Although he hadn’t asked Not Oji-san directly, he suspected that the answers to Dabi’s past were hidden in his computer, so eventually, when he had time, he’d go thoroughly through all the files and try to find stuff.
When he had time was the kicker there. Izuku was doing too much stuff, and apparently Aldera Junior High liked to assign ridiculous amounts of homework on top of it all.
He turned the corner and found someone trying to rob an ATM. Sighing, he got out his escrima sticks and jumped into battle.
It was much easier than he anticipated, mostly because he had the element of surprise on his side and because he could actually see now. He ziptied the villain to a light post and crouched down next to her. Time to test out his skills.
He located the villain’s phone, dipped his fingers into the pocket, and took it.
“What are you doing?” the villain asked, glaring.
“I’m pickpocketing you,” Izuku said happily. “Look, I took your phone! Isn’t that awesome?”
The villain gave him a disgusted look. “It’s not pickpocketing if I’m tied up, you nut.”
“Shh,” Izuku said, holding the phone up to the villain’s face to unlock it. “Let me have this.” His first time pickpocketing a villain! He was so accomplished. So cool.
He decided maybe calling a hero on a villain’s phone was a bad idea, so instead he called the non-emergency police line, sitting criss cross on the sidewalk next to the villain, who had sunk to irritated muttering about how much Izuku sucked.
“Hello, this is Musutafu police,” the receptionist picked up.
Izuku explained the situation. She promised to send a car over and tried to extract some details about him, such as his name, his age, etc., but he just thanked her for her help and hung up. “Someone will be here shortly,” he told the villain, and returned the phone to his pocket. Reverse pickpocketing.
Then he went and climbed up the nearest fire escape. He waited on the roof for the police to come, keeping an eye on the villain to make sure a) that she didn’t try to run away and b) no one came up and tried to kill her while she was defenseless. Neither of the two things happened and the police arrived with little fanfare. Izuku turned away and jumped for the next roof over.
A very successful night, he decided. And he had his new goggles and new skills to thank.
Tomura scowled at the TV. The news broadcasters were talking about a vigilante named Midori-san and Tomura wanted to strangle someone. A very particular someone. Two someones, really. Three if you counted All Might, but he was beginning to discover through his mandatory triweekly therapy sessions that he had no reason to count All Might.
The other two someones were Midoriya Izuku (obviously) and Sensei. All for One. His therapist said it was preferable to refer to him by name. Tomura, against his will, liked his therapist—she was the only one he’d managed to even mention All for One to—and that made it difficult to get her voice out of his head in moments like these.
“Vigilantes,” Torino grumbled. He jabbed a finger at the TV and shouted at it, “Get him off the streets! What are heroes these days doing? If you need a child to do your job for you, you’re not doing a good job.”
Tomura found living with Torino very odd. Torino was not the same as All for One. Torino was loud and abrasive and said things he didn’t mean, only to take them back with an apology later. Tomura had tried to run away several times, especially during those first few months, but Torino always caught up and brought him back, and over time he’d started to wonder why he’d wanted to go back in the first place. All for One had abandoned him for this handful of a vigilante. He deserved what he’d gotten himself into by throwing Tomura away for the next bright and shiny thing.
And Tomura—fine, he’d say it—Tomura was happier here than he had been there. Torino paid attention to him. And he didn’t do it in the same way All for One had, like Tomura was a tool he was trying to figure out how to properly utilize. Torino paid attention to Tomura with no apparent ulterior motives attached.
This had scared Tomura at first. It still did, sometimes, because he hadn’t found the limit yet. But despite that he liked it better.
“This kid,” Torino said in a voice of amazed frustration and Tomura pursed his lips hard. Midoriya was hard to look away from. He was, Tomura had seen, an attention hog. And now he was hogging Torino’s attention too. It wasn’t just limited to All for One and Kurogiri anymore. The whole world was watching him.
Tomura huffed and returned to his remedial homework. Since he’d never gone to proper school, he was making up for it now. “Is Toshinori-san still visiting tonight?” he asked.
Torino’s eyes left the TV and found him again. “Last I heard.” He shook his head. “That man needs to take a break.”
That, at least, Tomura could agree with.
Chapter 27: A War Begins, a War Continues, and a War Ends
Summary:
AFO's first PTA meeting, Tsukauchi's thoughts on Midori-san, and Izuku making Several Important Discoveries about Dabi.
Chapter Text
All for One walked into Aldera’s gymnasium two minutes before seven. He glared around the room, trying to locate the PTA president. He suspected she was the short and slight one with chin length black hair at the front of the room, currently listening to a huge hairy guy.
The gymnasium was half filled with rows of chairs lined-up lecture style, with an aisle down the middle. All for One sneered. Surely Sakamoto Miki didn’t expect this many people to show up to the first PTA meeting of the year. It was almost time for the meeting to start and there were only around 30 people in the room. All for One thought if he was in charge he could have filled all these seats easily and forced the remaining people to stand in the back.
“Midoriya-san?” a sharp voice asked to his left. Bakugou Mitsuki was sitting in one of the chairs near the edge of the mass of cheap blue folding chairs.
“Bakugou-san,” All for One said, walking over.
“Oh, call me Mitsuki.” She moved over two seats to give him room to sit next to her. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
All for One had prepared an excuse for this. “I’m trying to be more involved.”
Mitsuki nodded and All for One gave himself a mental pat on the back for his manipulative skill. She didn’t even know it was the truth! Foolish woman.
“You’ve been doing this a while?” All for One asked.
“Since Katsuki’s third year of elementary school,” she said. “Usually Masaru—that’s my husband—comes with me, but he couldn’t make it today.”
“Know anything about the president?”
She looked at the same woman All for One had pegged as Sakamoto, her eyes narrowing. “Sakamoto Miki. She’s friendly. Nice. Too nice, if you ask me. Her kids are fucking hellions—she’s probably really lenient with them.”
That coming from Bakugou Mitsuki was really something. All for One had only been in the presence of Bakugou Katsuki once, but he’d heard plenty from Midoriya and knew he was, at best, a handful.
“All right, we’ll go ahead and get started,” Sakamoto chirped from the front. She tapped on the microphone a few times to test it, although she’d just spoken into it. All for One despised her. “My name is Sakamoto Miki! I’m the president of this year’s PTA. It’s nice to meet you all, and I hope to talk more individually with you after the meeting! Now, the agenda.”
She pointed the projector remote up and a full bullet pointed agenda suddenly appeared projected onto the gymnasium’s white wall behind her. “First, I’ll give a brief introduction to the PTA, and then I’ll talk about our goals this year, and then ways that you can get involved! Finally, major dates to remember and how to stay in touch.”
With another click of the remote, the projector slide changed.
Sakamoto launched into a well organized and neatly formatted presentation on the Parent Teacher Association at Aldera Junior High. All for One spent the whole meeting glaring at her from his seat, but she didn’t seem to notice, flipping from slide to slide with a happy smile.
They needed volunteers for making decorations and volunteers for running tables at the school’s fundraiser. They needed event planning volunteers and volunteers willing to provide support at school events. Sakmoto put up a QR code for sign ups and All for One put Midoriya’s uncle down for almost everything (skipping the bake sale because he couldn’t bake and neither, frankly, could Kurogiri) just to prove he was an involved and dedicated parent. Take that, Sakamoto Miki.
“That concludes our meeting!” Sakamoto Miki said brightly after around thirty minutes, switching the slide to a simple Thank you! in flowery font. “We have the space reserved for another thirty minutes, so please, enjoy the refreshments and mingle! I’d love to speak with you if you stay.”
The room rustled as all the parents got up. They started chatting in murmurs, some of them heading to the refreshment table and the rest of them gaggling toward the gymnasium doors. All for One stayed in his seat and judged them all. Sakamoto Miki flitted from parent to parent.
“I feel,” Mitsuki said drily, “like I’ve been sitting in the sun too long. How can anyone be so happy all the time? Jesus.”
All for One thought perhaps he’d found an ally in Bakugou Mitsuki. “I feel an urge to spite her.”
Mitsuki cackled in agreement and got to her feet. “Well, she seems to be organized, at least, and on top of her game. That’s good—the PTA president at the elementary school was a fucking mess. It’s a wonder anything got done.”
Sakamoto Miki was drifting over to them. All for One stood, letting his entire 226 centimeters take up the space. He towered over her—two Sakamoto Mikis standing on top of each other like Legos would only be a head taller than All for One.
Legos! That would be a good gift for Izuku. He’d have to write it down—
God damn it. No. Midoriya! He was just Midoriya.
Sakamoto, oblivious to All for One’s crisis, chose this moment to pop over and say, “Hello! Thank you for coming!”
All for One gave her his sweetest smile, lacing it with a good amount of sharp hatred. She would cower before him.
Something must have been wrong with her amygdala because she just arched her neck back and beamed. “I haven’t seen you around before! Who’s your kid?”
“I’m Midoriya Izuku’s uncle and current primary guardian,” All for One said. “This is his first—”
“Oh, I remember Midoriya-kun!” Sakamoto snapped her fingers. “He’s quirkless, right?”
All for One stopped, observing Sakamoto silently for a moment. She’d just toed a mental line. Any further and he’d have to murder her. He didn’t think he could get away with killing Sakamoto in public like this without damaging Midoriya’s reputation. Maybe he had a quirk that could do it and make it look like an accident. He started rummaging through them.
“My kids used to play with him and Bakugou-kun when they were younger,” Sakamoto said, blindly plowing on. “Maybe third or fourth grade? Is that right, Mitsuki-kun?”
“Hell if I know,” Mitsuki said. She didn’t seem really engaged in the conversation, instead watching two parents bicker over the last bit of green tea, both of them trying to get the other to take it.
Mitsuki’s lack of attention didn’t seem to sway Sakamoto, who said brightly, “I remember Midoriya-kun was always a very smart kid. You must be so proud of him.”
How dare Sakamoto tell All for One whether or not to be proud of Midoriya! He had banned pride long ago. What had he said? The day he’d say he was proud of Midoriya would be the day he stopped trying to destroy One for All. It would never happen!
“He’s a wonderful child,” he said stiffly.
“He must be. How kind of you to step in and raise him in Inko’s absence. It can’t be easy. Oh, Kariage-san! Hello!” She bowed to All for One, who had finally found the quirk he wanted. “Excuse me! It was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope to see you at the next meeting!” She bounded off to go talk to whoever Kariage was. All for One glared at her back as she retreated.
War. This was war.
“Well,” Mitsuki said, “now you’ve met her. Like a ray of sunshine, isn’t she? A bit rude, to be honest. Some people don’t want to be doused in joy at seven fucking thirty.”
All for One made a noise of vehement agreement. He did not like Sakamoto Miki. He’d given her a good chance! He’d tried his best! But no, she’d proven her worth and it was nothing. He would steal her spot as president of the PTA and he would show the whole world how to run this place!
But he’d have to wait until the next PTA election. Then he could do all that.
Naomasa contemplated the coffee machine as Aizawa took a heaping cup of coffee away from it and held it up to his nose, inhaling deeply. Aizawa treated the coffee at the police station like it held the answers to the universe. Naomasa had had the coffee before, and it was honestly kind of gross. But at certain hours, maybe, a man started getting desperate and hallucinated the police station coffee into holy water.
And in fact Naomasa was desperate. He got up and made his way over to the coffee machine. Aizawa, ever aware of his surroundings, moved slightly to the side as Naomasa came up behind him, letting him have access to the coffee machine.
“That bad, huh?” Aizawa asked as Naomasa poured himself a cup. “I haven’t seen you drink this stuff in over two years.”
“This vigilante,” Naomasa said, letting his exhaustion show in his tone.
“Midori-kun?” Aizawa guessed.
The clarification, Naomasa supposed, was justified—Midori-san was far from the only vigilante in the streets around Musutafu today—but also, “Obviously.”
No one else was as big a pain in the ass as Midori-san. Not any of the other vigilantes in Musutafu, not any of the other vigilantes in Japan period. Naomasa would place bets that no other police force in the world was dealing with a vigilante as big a nuisance as Midori-san.
It would be easy if they could just figure out what his quirk was. Then they could go through the quirk registration database, find someone who matched Midori-san’s description (green-haired and plain looking was all they had to go by, based on the reports people gave when he was still young and making random phone calls on the street), and call it a day.
But no. Midori-san either didn’t use his quirk when he was out vigilante-ing or it wasn’t a flashy one, and that didn’t help narrow things down at all. Frankly, Musutafu’s residence database didn’t have anyone who matched Midori-san’s description. He might not have even lived there at all.
So it was hell.
Aizawa said, “He hasn’t been bothering me as much recently, so it’s been harder to keep tabs on him.”
Naomasa wished Aizawa would be more willing to just arrest the kid, but Aizawa had made his stance on this clear a few months back when he decided to stop nabbing him. I’d rather try to incentivize him to stop than put him in more danger by forcing him to , Aizawa had said, which was admirable and also made Naomasa’s job ten times more difficult.
“You look like you’re about to quit,” Aizawa said drily. “What’s he been doing?”
“He’s started calling the police to come get villains he’s defeated,” Naomasa says. “He takes their phones from them and calls us for pick up. We aren’t a clean up service.”
Aizawa’s lip twitched.
“Don’t laugh!”
“I never laugh,” Aizawa said, hiding his smile behind his paper coffee cup.
“This is the last time I confide in you,” Naomasa vowed. “He’s the biggest nuisance the police force has ever seen. Worse, dare I say, than that awful car thief.”
“He told me he ran into her and let her go,” Aizawa said.
Naomasa put his cup down. “No.” His quirk was ringing truth, but he didn’t want to hear it.
Aizawa took a sip of his coffee. “Yep. I told him to never do that again. He said, if I remember correctly, that it was a ‘tactical negotiation,’ and that it would benefit everyone in the long run.”
“I see no benefits.” Naomasa swore.
“Well, he’s calling you directly now instead of bothering me,” Aizawa said, “so I’ve definitely benefited.”
“Fuck off.” Naomasa slurped down his police station coffee. Disgusting, it was absolutely disgusting. He refilled his cup.
“Well, this can’t be right,” Izuku muttered to himself, clicking back out of the file he’d found to double check that he’d taken the right path.
Not Oji-san had a whole folder on Dabi. Apparently he had some crazy scientist under his employ who had saved Dabi’s life or something. The medical files were all in there. Izuku didn’t really understand what they’d said, but they were there.
That hadn’t tripped Izuku up. What had gotten him was the folder underneath all the medical stuff, which contained a lot of scanned articles on Todoroki Touya.
The path was right—that folder really was inside the Dabi folder. Maybe it had been misplaced? Maybe Not Oji-san had accidentally . . .
Yeah, no. Not Oji-san didn’t do ‘accidents.’
Izuku opened the Todoroki Touya folder again, eyebrows furrowing. There were at least thirty documents in there—who knew the world had so much to say about Todoroki Touya? All Izuku knew about him was that he was Endeavour’s first son but had died in an accident pretty young (yes, this was an obscure fact that very few people knew, he was obsessed with heroes and a little bit of a stalker, sue him).
The presence of the Todoroki Touya folder inside the Dabi folder seemed to imply that they were one and the same. He supposed that made sense. Irritable guy with a fire quirk, son of irritable guy with a fire quirk—yeah, that added up. Honestly, the more Izuku thought about it, the more similarities there were.
So Dabi was Todoroki Touya.
This explained absolutely nothing.
Izuku opened the first scanned document, ignoring the clock on his desk which was telling him Kurogiri would actually kill him if he found out Izuku was still awake, and began a deep dive.
He emerged from his deep dive over three hours later, eyes aching and clock on his desk nonverbally telling him he was an idiot, but with several more answers. They were not the answers he’d wanted, but they were answers nonetheless.
Izuku rolled his chair away from his desk and frowned at his keyboard, trying to give his eyes a break while he thought this through. Todoroki Touya had died in a very suspicious way, but supposedly this mad scientist had saved him and now he was Dabi.
But why be a villain? Why not just go back to Endeavour and explain? Izuku had found the pictures of him right after he’d woken up from surgery, when he’d still looked pretty normal. He could have gone back to Endeavour and explained the situation without fear of being turned away because of the scars. There was no clear reason not to go back.
Something was up. Izuku could smell it.
He rolled out his shoulders, which were starting to cramp from being hunched over so much. Steadily ignoring both his clock and the little time stamp on his computer screen, he flexed his fingers, opened an incognito window, and dove straight into the dark side of the Internet.
The Internet was full of Endeavour hate. People could admit he was effective and call him Number Two all day long, but that didn’t mean they liked his glowing personality. And villains in particular hated his guts, which was a good sign that something was off. Villains didn’t like heroes as a rule, but most of them wouldn’t go so far as to hold a grudge against a particular hero, and definitely not en masse like this.
Izuku found a post titled DOES ENDEAVOUR ABUSE HIS KIDS?
He scrolled past it, rolling his eyes. People on the Internet could be so ridiculous. Endeavor was a hero and heroes didn’t—
Izuku stopped scrolling, thinking about that for a minute. Kacchan, he thought to himself, wanted to be a hero.
He dismissed the comparison right away (Kacchan wasn’t that bad), but the thought was enough to send him scrolling back up again anyway.
He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t even want to suspect it. But he opened the post. He read it from top to bottom. Then he read it again, much more slowly, and analyzed every sentence. He thought everything through, turned the theory over in his mind and checked it for holes.
Todoroki Touya. An accident. Dabi, a villain.
No . . .
Izuku had wanted to find creepy things to randomly say to Dabi the next time they ran into each other, like, “So you use bubble gum toothpaste, huh?” or “How’s your cat doing?” He had not wanted to find an incredibly detailed and unignorable bit of evidence that Endeavour was abusive. That had not been on his to do list.
Leaning back in his chair, he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. This could not be happening. He was not feeling sympathetic toward Dabi, who had kidnapped his (second) favorite hero and also him.
Dang it.
Chapter 28: The First Broken Arm
Summary:
Izuku breaks his arm, Katsuki learns a few secrets, and All for One decides maybe the whole denial thing isn't working for him and he should actually talk to his nephew about the vigilante situation
Notes:
three minutes ago i was all in a panic like I FORGOT TO POST but you see the thing is that i missed my normal posting time by like twenty minutes XD and the world will live on without chapter 28 for twenty extra minutes slkjfljkskjf it is still tuesday here lol
anyway here i am twenty minutes late sflkkfjd with the chapter
Chapter Text
Katsuki was dreaming about sheep (for some reason) when a weird knock woke him up.
It was a weird knock for a couple reasons—one, it was kind of echoey in a way that he didn’t usually associate with knocking, a weird hollow sort of sound; and two, it was not coming from the direction of his door.
He sat up in bed, squinting at his door.
The knock came again and he twisted around to look at his window.
It was only his heroic instincts and a good deal of self control that kept him from screaming. Deku was right outside his window, something splattered on his face. He made eye contact with Katsuki and waved. Then pointed at the window and mouthed, “Open it?”
Katsuki got up and opened the window. “What is wrong with you?” he hissed.
“ Move, Kacchan,” Deku whispered, pushing him out of the way and practically falling into his room through the window. “Ow!”
Something was not right with Deku’s arm. Katsuki looked at it for a second and then decided he didn’t want to look at it anymore. He looked at his face instead and his mouth dropped open. The splatter on Deku’s face was definitely blood. “What the hell?”
“It’s rude to stare,” Deku said. “Can I borrow your phone?”
Katsuki, numb, went and unplugged his phone on his desk. He handed it over to Deku, who wrinkled up his nose.
“Unlock it?”
Right. That would be important. “What happened?” Katsuki asked.
“I got in a fight.” Deku struggled to type one handed for a moment, eventually sighing and walking over to Katsuki’s desk. He set the phone down and typed with his left index finger.
“A fight?” Katsuki said. He glanced at the door and reminded himself to be quiet. Last thing he needed was his mom or his dad waking up, and neither of them were particularly heavy sleepers.
“Okay so this is a super big secret so you can’t tell anyone.” Deku held up a pinky. “You have to promise.”
“I think we’ve outgrown pinky promises,” Katsuki said, glaring.
Deku pushed his pinky out insistently.
Rolling his eyes, Katsuki linked his pinky in Deku’s and they shook. “Okay, I promise or whatever. What’s going on?”
“Okay, so for like three years now I’ve been a vigilante,” Deku said. “Four years? Maybe almost four? It’s been a while. And I—”
“You what?” Katsuki hissed.
“I’m a vigilante,” Deku repeated. He waited a moment for Katsuki to process that. It wasn’t a long enough moment. “Anyway, I got in a fight and lost, and the villain broke my arm and also my phone but I need to call Kurogiri to pick me up, and I can’t go to the hospital or the police will find out and be mad, and Hitoshi-kun lives over in Aichi and I don’t think I can get over there this late, so my options were very limited.” He hit the green call button on Katsuki’s phone and lifted it to his ear.
Katsuki felt like his mind was exploding. Deku’s explanation had in fact explained very little and he was having trouble comprehending everything going on. Deku was a vigilante—shocking but not surprising—and, what, had gotten beaten up by a villain? What? That was supposed to be Katsuki’s job!
“Kurogiri, hi,” Deku said into the phone, “It’s Izuku. I kind of broke my phone. I’m at Kacchan’s house? In his room. Yeah. Yes, I know. Yes. Okay. Okay! I get it! Geez.”
Katsuki shushed Deku, gesturing at his door. His parents really were light sleepers and the last thing he needed was them finding out Deku had a broken arm. And was inside Katsuki’s room, for whatever reason, at two in the morning.
A swirling purple vortex opened in the middle of Katsuki’s room and he slapped a hand over his mouth to contain an undignified yelp. Deku passed his phone back over.
“Thanks so much!” he whisper-yelled at Katsuki, and then he stepped right into the vortex, which immediately twisted around itself and disappeared.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Katsuki sat down numbly on the end of his bed and stared vacantly at the wall. What just happened? What?
What?
Needless to say, he didn’t sleep much that night.
The next day at school, Deku’s arm was totally back to normal. Katsuki spent a long time staring at him when he walked into class. Surely he hadn’t dreamed that whole crazy interaction.
He almost managed to write it off as a hallucination, but then he remembered that time Deku had flipped a kid over a desk, and he couldn’t continue to lie to himself. Deku was a vigilante and somehow he’d healed a broken arm in less than six hours. Unhinged.
Plus, when he checked his call history, he found an outgoing call to a number he didn’t recognize at an unholy hour of the night, so it had to have been real.
He spent the day watching Deku from afar—farther than normal, barely ever stopping to talk to him or taunt him, just observing. How had he not noticed how much Deku had changed? Sure, Deku still spent the majority of his time hunched nervously over a notebook and sure he still shrank back when Katsuki’s friends went anywhere near him, but he wasn’t a fucking noodle anymore. It was hard to tell because he sat like a gremlin and his uniform swallowed him, but he’d definitely bulked up at some point.
At lunch, Kariage went over to pick at Deku, who stumbled his way through a weak response until the purple-haired asshole got up and stared Kariage down. With another biting comment, Kariage turned and sauntered away. Deku immediately turned and started babbling about something or other to his friend.
Katsuki had pushed Deku around for more years than he could count, and Deku rarely stood up for himself. Now that Katsuki was paying attention, though, it was obvious. Deku could wipe the floor with half the school if he would just grow a backbone.
This was a development. Katsuki didn’t really know what to do with the new information. So he sat, and he watched.
“You have to talk to him,” Kurogiri said.
“I don’t ask clouds for parenting advice,” All for One answered, narrowing his eyes at his computer screen. He’d been reviewing footage of “Midori-san” (ridiculous, the kid was ridiculous) for the past two hours and all he’d found was that he was an idiot for not realizing it sooner. The similarities were obvious.
“All right,” Kurogiri said softly.
All for One glanced over his shoulder, but the doorway was already empty. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
Midoriya had broken his arm last night while he was out as a vigilante. And All for One couldn’t figure out what to do about it. This might have marked the first time in a long time that he felt actually unsure of himself. It was like he was standing in a field of landmines and couldn’t decide where to step to go forward.
A good parent would probably stop Midoriya from being a vigilante at all. A good villain would do that as well. All for One definitely wasn’t the first and he was beginning to doubt himself on the second. He huffed and sighed and got up from his desk. Kurogiri would be bringing Midriya home from school soon.
As he walked out into the bar, Midoriya came through the portal without breaking conversation with Shinsou, who stepped out afterward. “—and it’s just that his effectiveness as a hero is dampened by the sheer amount of damage he creates. I mean do you know how expensive it is to rebuild after a building is destroyed? Not to mention bad for the environment—hi, Oji-san—and insurance won’t entirely cover it.”
“Maybe insurance companies should get better, then,” Shinsou grumbled, following Midoriya to the stairs.
“That’s another thing!”
Why, All for One wanted to know, was his neph—his fake nephew talking about insurance companies at 13 years old? He hadn’t even known what the northern lights were until last year, because Aldera was a joke, and already he was just casually talking about reforming insurance companies?
He shook that off. “Izuku-kun,” he said, “I need to speak with you.”
Midoriya paused on the stairs two feet up and turned. “Really?”
All for One scowled. That should not be shocking. They’d spoken before, at times of great need. “Yes, really,” he said.
Midoriya’s nose wrinkled up, but he started down the stairs again. Admittedly, All for One’s tone had been a bit sharp, but he refused to back down, and he gestured toward his office, raising an eyebrow.
“Will it be a long time?” Midoriya asked, trailing after him. “Does Hitoshi-kun need to go home?”
“No, just a few minutes.” All for One held the door to his office open.
“Okay?” Midoriya glanced back at Shinsou. “Just go to my room, I guess, and I’ll be up in a little bit?”
“I’ll get a headstart on that awful math homework,” Shinsou said.
Midoriya stepped into All for One’s office. All for One shut the door as Midoriya plopped into the extra swivel chair. Like he owned the place.
“What’s going on?” Midoriya asked, eyebrows raised high. He was so trusting, and All for One almost resented him for it.
All for One swept off his irritation. “We need to discuss what happened last night and the vigilantism generally.”
Midoriya’s expression stayed open and curious. How he wasn’t cowering or sweating as Tomura would have done at this age confused All for One, who was blocking his way to the exit by circumstance and happened to be much, much taller than him.
“You broke your arm,” All for One said, realizing abruptly that he still hadn’t gotten around to making a plan about this conversation. He’d leapt into it without thinking it through, something that he never did.
“I did,” Midoriya said, frowning at the newly fixed arm. “It was very painful.” He went back to looking expectantly at All for One.
“I’m thinking—” No, he was not thinking, he knew. “We need to set some ground rules.”
Now Midoriya’s expression finally collapsed into something more distressed. “What? No! The whole point of being a vigilante is not having a bunch of random rules keeping me from—”
“Midoriya-kun,” All for One said. It felt weird coming out of his mouth, Midoriya instead of Izuku. But they weren’t actually related, and there was no point in pretending behind closed doors, regardless of the confusion that flashed over Midoriya’s face. “Like it or not, I am your legal guardian. And—”
“Legal?” Midoriya muttered.
All for One raised his voice. “And like it or not, I am responsible for your safety. You were out in Musutafu with a broken arm and no way to get home and you had to break into—”
“But I—”
“—and you had to break into your friend’s house to get a phone to call Kurogiri! That is not okay! Bakugou-kun lives on the fourth floor of that building!”
Midoriya crossed his arms. “Well maybe you should be proud of me for scaling up the side of the building with a broken arm. It was very impressive. You don’t ever acknowledge how amazing it is that I’m doing this stuff at my age. Even Hitoshi-kun’s parents know to be proud of him.”
The P word. All for One was knocked speechless. But it was only for a split second, and then he recovered himself. “Don’t deflect,” he snapped. “And don’t compare me to other parents.”
Midoriya had the audacity to roll his eyes.
This was hell. All for One remembered when he had first adopted a nine-year-old Midoriya and he had believed that it couldn’t get worse. He had been wrong. Teenager Midoriya was worse. Much, much worse.
“Ground rules,” All for One said again, in a desperate attempt to get himself back on track. “Every time you leave, Kurogiri and I need to know where you’ll be patrolling.”
“Are you kidding?” Midoriya burst out. “The whole point of it is to stop you from doing crazy and very illegal stuff! Why would I tell you where I’m going to be? That’s so stupid!”
All for One smacked his hand into his own face. How aggravating could this conversation get? “All right, fine! Fine. Don’t tell me. But you will tell Kurogiri.” When Midoriya’s eyes narrowed, All for One added, “And I won’t ask him for details unless I think something’s wrong.”
He had not imagined for one second when he started this conversation that it would be this difficult. Midoriya held his gaze, thinking it through. And this was just the first rule.
“Okay,” Midoriya said finally. “Okay, fine.”
“Rule number two,” All for One said.
“Two!” Midoriya threw his hands up. “How many are there?”
Obviously, All for One thought, there was not going to be just one rule. “Many,” he said savagely.
Midoriya slumped down in his chair.
All for One actually had not thought of the second rule yet. He took a moment to clear his throat. “Rule number two,” he said, mind scrambling. He couldn’t exactly ban Midoriya from getting injured. “Updates,” he said, in a last ditch dive for whatever word his mind could come up with. “You need to send Kurogiri updates with where you are every hour on the hour. If you miss it by 5 minutes he’ll alert me and we’ll both go looking for you.”
He expected more argument on that one, but Midoriya nodded. “That’s fair.”
All for One was on a roll now. “Rule number three: I’m giving you an emergency button. You’ll put it somewhere in your suit where it won’t get pressed easily but you can get to it in an emergency, and if something goes wrong you press it and I’ll come get you.”
So, All for One was a genius. He’d known all along, but this confirmed it. Only a genius would have thought of this.
“Okay,” Midoriya said.
“Rule number four: you need someone you can contact who isn’t your friend from school and who you don’t have to climb to the fourth story of a building to get to if something does happen. I’m open to ideas on this one.”
Midoriya reached a hand up and pinched his own mouth closed, furrowing his eyebrows. Eventually, his lips escaped and his muttering started. All for One didn’t even bother trying to listen to it. This was just Midoriya thinking everything through, his own way of processing.
“Maybe,” Midoriya said abruptly, stopping mid-mutter, “do you think we could have a second emergency button? But this one for Eraserhead instead? He’s helped me a bunch of times before and in situations where I don’t want you to come, he’d be the closest responsible adult. Probably. And I can bring an extra emergency phone in my backpack for Kurogiri if I go somewhere outside of Musutafu.”
All for One hated this idea. Hated it. Every little piece of it, except the emergency phone part, he hated. And yet, he said, “All right.”
If it would keep Midoriya safe, it was worth it.
He’d tired of thinking of rules. “Those are all of them for now.”
Midoriya immediately launched out of his chair. “Awesome,” he said. “I’m going up to do my homework with Hitoshi-kun, then.”
Suddenly, All for One felt off balance, like they’d missed a step. He couldn’t think of what he’d missed, though, so he stepped out of the way as Midoriya beelined for the door. Midoriya was gone in an instant, and by the time All for One wandered out of his office, he was already upstairs.
What, were they supposed to hug or something?
For whatever reason, All for One found himself thinking about Sakamoto Miki. That asshole. He would be a better parent than her. What would she have done?
Midoriya —No, actually, Izuku, she would have said. Thank you for talking this over with me. I’m sorry it took so long for me to bring it up.
And maybe that would have been better.
Chapter 29: Rivalries: One in Fire and One in Snowflakes
Summary:
Nedzu lurks. Izuku finds Dabi again. And All for One interacts with glitter for the first time ever.
Notes:
"BuT SAbeR," I hear you crying, "It is not a Tuesday a Sunday or a Friday! It is none of those days! Why chapter?"
Because I was bored and my draft is finished so there's nothing holding me back slkjsfdlkdsf i warned you my friend. i did warn you (cf. chapter 26 A/N)
Chapter Text
“I’ll have you know you were a last resort.”
Nedzu sipped his tea behind his desk and let a grin spread over his cheeks. It was impressive, he thought, that it had taken him as long as it had to take notice of what was going on.
Truthfully, he should have known when Aizawa took his position as an assistant teacher in the heroics course at UA, and even more so he should have known when Aizawa agreed to getting promoted to be the primary practical heroics teacher. He had incorrectly assumed both times that Yamada had gotten through to him and turned the tides, but no. It seemed Aizawa had found himself a child.
And Nedzu hadn’t realized until this morning, when Midori-san hit national news.
“I’m only coming to you now because you definitely know and there’s no point in continuing to keep it from you.”
Yes, very impressive. Nedzu might even go so far as to call Midori-kun one of the best-kept secrets in Japan, right next to One for All.
“Well, whatever could get this much desperation out of you?” Nedzu asked, although he already knew.
“Midori-kun,” Aizawa said. “I need to know who he is.”
Nedzu had been, for the past seven hours, shirking his duties as a principal to figure out the answers to that exact question. It had taken much longer than he’d initially anticipated. The vigilante had covered the tracks to his identity so well that Nedzu lost the trail several times. And he was the best of the best when it came to this sort of thing, so either the child was a genius or he had someone on his side with a lot of connections. Nedzu suspected both may be true, although who his benefactor was remained an annoying mystery.
Regardless, moments before Aizawa Shouta slid into his office, Nedzu had discovered that Midori-san was a quirkless thirteen-year-old boy named Midoriya Izuku (the alignment of the names made Nedzu chuckle) who, despite reportedly not living in Musutafu, went to school at Aldera Junior High.
Fascinating, Nedzu thought.
This was a rare thought for Nedzu. Things could be intriguing or notable, but for him to find something well and truly fascinating was out of the ordinary. And a singular person, no less.
Aizawa apparently found the child fascinating as well, although perhaps in an altogether different way than Nedzu did. Nedzu wanted to sit with the child and pick his brain for several hours. Aizawa, if Nedzu’s instincts were to be believed, wanted to save him. How heroic.
Nedzu clapped his paws together and let his grin extend to his ears. “And what brings you to believe I have that information? Midori-san is a very private individual.”
Aizawa didn’t justify that question with a response, just an unimpressed eyebrow raise.
Nedzu cackled. He hadn’t had something this entertaining come up in years. “Unfortunately, I have an emotional investment in leaving the situation as it is. I don’t believe I’ll be revealing anything.”
“But you do know.”
“Maybe,” Nedzu said. He sipped his tea.
“I’m not going to arrest him,” Aizawa said. “I’m electing to gain his trust over time and slowly pull him out of there. His home situation—it isn’t safe.”
Nedzu had an entirely different view of things. “Isn’t it?” Before Aizawa could respond, Nedzu added, “And if you’re looking to gain his trust, then surely going behind his back to figure out his identity won’t win you favors.”
Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers and Nedzu hid behind his teacup, satisfied with his win. The game wasn’t any fun without good players, and Aizawa, although he wore a mask of ordinariness, was a highly entertaining opponent.
“You’ll tell me,” Aizawa said, “If something goes wrong and he needs immediate help. You’ll tell me.”
Nedzu acquiesced. “Naturally. I am, after all, a hero.” He bared his teeth in a sharp smile.
Aizawa sighed.
Dabi decided that if his lungs were going to give out from his quirk anyway, he might as well smoke. He flipped open a pack of cigarettes he’d stolen in a moment of desperation not long after moving out of the bar, pulled one out, and lit it with the tip of his finger as it hung from his mouth.
“Did you know that’s really bad for you?” an annoying, horrible voice piped up from directly behind him and Dabi nearly lit the whole goddamn alley in flames.
Things had gone downhill after he left the bar. He’d spent a week hating himself, another week taking that hatred out on the world around him, and a third week feeling miserable. If someone had told him a month ago that one thirteen year old could cause such destruction on his life, he would have laughed at them. But no, he was still processing everything that had happened.
And now, the thirteen year old had come to destroy Dabi’s life further.
“What,” Dabi said in a dead, flat tone, “do you want?” More of a statement than a question.
“It’s just,” the kid said, trotting around Dabi so they could talk face to face, “we did this biology unit in class and we dissected a bunch of lungs and—”
“Yes!” Dabi snapped. “I know it’s bad! Everyone knows that!”
“Okay! Okay, geez.”
Midoriya wasn’t wearing his mask or anything, maybe because it was the middle of the day and, although it was cloudy and bitter cold out, he might not have wanted to be so conspicuous. He had on a giant yellow hoodie, but the hood was down and his green curls bounced all over the place. Awful, terrible kid. He’d grown taller since Dabi had last seen him.
“Don’t yell at me,” the kid said. “I was just pointing it out.”
“Well it’s rude,” Dabi said.
The kid lifted his eyebrows as if to point out that Dabi couldn’t exactly point fingers about rudeness. He so could! Just because he was a villain did not mean he didn’t know how to be polite. He was so polite!
Enough. Even in his head, thinking stuff like this made Dabi cringe.
“What do you want?” he asked again.
“Oh.” The kid swung a yellow backpack in front of himself, which Dabi hadn’t noticed due to it matching the color of his hoodie, and pulled out a thick stack of papers. “Okay, so I was doing some research and you could totally sue your dad.”
Whatever Dabi had been expecting, it wasn’t that. It felt like all the smoky air got swept out of his lungs. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth.
“I feel like I could have explained better,” Midoriya said. “Um, okay, so I, like, looked really deep into your background because I was mad at you and I found out about, like, Endeavour and your family and all that? And then I put this packet together. It’s not much.”
He held out the packet. Dabi stared at it, unable to move.
“Um, and also, I’m sorry for being so weird and chaotic and making you move out on accident? You should come back and live with us again. I don’t like you very much, to be honest, but the room is still there, and I need you to eat Kurogiri’s food before me so I know if it’s poisonous.”
Dabi managed to breathe in.
“Um, are you going to take it?” The packet was wilting in Midoriya’s hand.
Like his arms were pressing through wet cement, Dabi reached out. He took the packet.
“Okay!” Midoriya stuck his arm back through the strap of his backpack. “That’s all I had to say. Um, have a good day? Week? Life? Um. Bye!”
He backed away. At the head of the alley he turned around, and then he was gone.
Dabi looked down at the packet in his hands. He flipped open the first page, and then flipped to the second. There were maybe twenty pages of what was essentially detailed Endeavour vitriol. Sophisticated and well-evidenced Endeavour vitriol. A booklet of evidence Dabi could use against his own dad in court.
Like hell would Dabi use it, obviously, because he already had a plan, but holy shit. To give Dabi this packet like a piece offering and then call it ‘not much’ was insane. Midoriya was actually insane. And absolutely the kind of person Dabi wanted on his side.
Dabi threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped it out. He ran out of the alley after the kid, who was luckily still in sight. “Midoriya-kun!” he yelled after him.
The kid turned and beamed at him. Weirdo.
“Kurogiri picking you up?”
Midoriya nodded. “Yeah! Wanna come with?”
Clutching the packet in his scarred hands, Dabi didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”
And so his life was changed forever for the second time.
“So,” Sakamoto Miki sat down next to All for One after the PTA meeting. He had been waiting for Mitsuki, who had run to the restroom, and apparently Sakamoto had seen this as an invitation to break the ice. “Tell me about yourself, hmm? How’d you come to step in to parent Midoriya-kun?”
All for One had many talents. Of all those talents, possibly his most prominent was his ability to manipulate a conversation into a direction he needed it to go. Usually, in his day-to-day life, he didn’t use this skill. He reserved it for those high-stakes face-offs when he really needed it.
This was one of those moments.
“Ah,” he said with a smile. “Well, as you may know, Inko-san—Izuku-kun’s mother—is up north caring for her father. And Izuku-kun had been staying with the Bakugous, but I thought why not step in? He’s a great kid. No trouble at all.”
“Wow,” Sakamoto said. She laid a hand on All for One’s knee. “That is so kind of you to step in. I’m sure it’s a lot of pressure.”
All for One hated Sakamoto. Without any logical reason, he despised her. “Well, these are the things we do for those we love. Who are your kids?”
“Oh, I have one in Midoriya-kun’s year and one two years above,” she said.
“First and last years of junior high,” All for One said, nodding. His tactic was this: deflect. Keep attention off himself at least until Mitsuki returned. “Where’s your eldest hoping to go to high school?”
“UA,” she said, with an almost apologetic laugh. “I’ve told her again and again it’s not going to happen, but her heart is set.”
All for One did a quick scan for her quirk and found nothing good. A weak mental-based quirk that allowed her to sense emotions more strongly than the average person. It barely even counted as a quirk. If her kids took after her, no wonder she didn’t have faith in their ability to get into UA.
He did, however, immediately apply a quirk on himself to mask his own emotions. “Well, heroics schools are underrated.”
Sakamoto beamed. “That’s my belief as well! Of course I’m very appreciative of heroics schools and the work that heroes do, but I told her it’s best to find a practical career. She’s very interested in chemistry as well, so I’m hoping to set her up with a good science high school and maybe send her to school in America once she graduates. She’s going places, for sure. Is Midoriya-kun thinking about high school yet?”
Curse it all, she’d managed to deflect the conversation back to him again. She was beating him at his own game.
“Oh, I’m sure he has his plans,” All for One said. “He’s always striving for the best and the highest.”
“He doesn’t share his goals with you?” Sakamoto asked, eyebrows raised.
All for One could spot a critique on his parenting from a mile away, and that was one. He focused on keeping his emotional response level, both so that she wouldn’t pick up on his irritation and so that he didn’t reduce her to shreds right now. “He’s not very verbose,” All for One lied.
“Oh, really? He was quite the chatterbox when he was younger.”
All for One wanted to scream at her. How dare she insinuate that she knew his neph—his fake nephew better than he did! How dare she?
He kept a pleasant smile on his face. “Yes, I recall. He went through a lot of bullying in elementary school, and he’s changed.”
Sakamoto put a hand on her heart. “Oh no,” she said, with so much passion and sympathy that All for One almost worried for her. “That’s awful. Bullying is terrible. My kids would never do something like that.”
All for One sincerely doubted that. He had no proof, but suddenly he blamed Sakamoto’s kids for all of the bullying Midoriya went through in elementary school. She had effectively scapegoated herself. “Well,” he said.
Luckily for Sakamoto, this was the moment Mitsuki reappeared. “Sakamoto-san,” she said, nodding in acknowledgement. “Thanks for all the work you’ve been putting into the PTA this year. It’s been really well organized.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble! Thank you for your dedicated participation!”
Sakamoto, All for One had to begrudgingly admit, was good at structuring the PTA meetings. But he would keep those thoughts to himself.
“Thanks for waiting for me,” Mitsuki said as All for One rose from his chair. He enjoyed, when Sakamoto stood up, the vast height difference between the two of them. She was small and insignificant.
“Well, I won’t hold you,” Sakamoto said brightly. “I’ll see you at the fundraiser! And thanks for volunteering to help make the decorations, Midoriya-san. That’ll be really great.”
All for One hated his past self for deciding to sign up for that.
Sakamoto bounded away.
“Decorations?” Mitsuki said, grinning at All for One. “You signed up for decorations?”
“I had an impulse at the time,” he said. “I regret it.”
She cackled. “Well, come over to my house for dinner this upcoming week and we can do it together. And then Izuku-kun and Katsuki can hang out too—they haven’t seen each other outside of school in a while and I’m sure they miss it.”
All for One had never heard Izuku say anything of the sort, but, “Sure,” he said. “That’d be nice.”
Immediately, he regretted the words. He did not, in fact, want to go over to the Bakugous for dinner. Although it would not be the same level of chaos as Inko coming to visit, it certainly wasn’t a good idea.
Too late now, though, he thought miserably, walking Mitsuki to her car (at some point, he’d become chivalrous). Too late now.
Now that he and Izuku were standing on the other side of Kurogiri’s portal right outside the Bakugous’ door, All for One was beginning to wonder what, exactly, was going on.
He had not been invited to someone’s house like this in a long time. Usually there were ulterior motives attached, or there was blackmail involved. This ‘popping over for dinner’ because they were going to ‘make decorations together’ was practically unprecedented.
“Are we going to stand here forever or are you going to knock?” Izuku said.
All for One took a step toward the door.
“Ohmygod,” Izuku muttered all in one word and he brushed past All for One and rapped on the door.
Wait a minute.
Midoriya. Not Izuku. Mi-fucking-doriya brushed past All for One. Enough with this first name thing! All for One couldn’t even trust his own mind anymore. Who was he becoming?
The door opened. “Izuku-chan!” Mitsuki screeched, and pulled Izuku into a hug. “It’s been such a long time! You grew!”
“I did!” Izu—Midoriya answered, hugging her back full force. “I’m almost a hundred sixty centimeters!”
“Come in, come in!” Mitsuki led them into the house. “Masaru’s making katsudon for you. Your favorite!”
“Yes!” Izuku cheered, kicking his shoes off and running for the kitchen. “Thank you Masaru-oji-san!”
All for One had not known that Iz—fucking hell— Midoriya’s favorite food was katsudon. That felt like something he should have known, but he hadn’t.
“Katsuki’s in his room!” Mitsuki shouted after him.
“Okay!” Midoriya shouted back.
“Sorry for the chaos,” All for One said, bowing slightly.
Mitsuki waved it off. “Ah, it’s no trouble. We’re family at this point. Come in, come in! I have everything set up for crafting in the living room. If we work together we can crush these decorations in no time.”
Carefully setting his shoes together by the door, All for One walked into the apartment. He could hear Katsuki yelling at Midoriya all the way down the hall and hesitated, unsure if they were okay by themselves. But, he reasoned, Midoriya had trusted Katsuki enough to come to him with a broken arm, and Midoriya had proved time and time again he could handle himself. Best to let the kid have some independence.
Mitsuki had indeed set up a bunch of crafting supplies, spread all over the coffee table. All for One reached into a space bending quirk he’d stolen from someone a century ago and pulled his own additions to the supplies, including colored paper, glue, and glitter (fuck his life), out of the space pocket, adding them to the table.
All for One forever hated himself for signing up for this. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, spiting Sakamoto. Now, however, he was faced with the fact that he had just made himself into Sakamoto’s servant, toiling away making decorations for her. He could probably just whip something up using a quirk, but that felt like letting Sakamoto win, somehow.
“I would suggest we get the kids to help,” Mitsuki said, settling down on one end of the coffee table, “but I know Katsuki would just destroy all the decorations and the table, so better to leave them to themselves.”
“Izuku would end up going off task and making a killer robot out of the paper,” All for One answered, “so I think you’re absolutely right.”
Mitsuki laughed. Her laugh was always more cackle than anything else, which All for One appreciated. It wasn’t falsely sweet the way Sakamoto’s laugh was.
All for One and Mitsuki set about making the decorations. All for One kept up a steady internal monologue of self-hatred for getting himself into this mess, but Mitsuki was good company and had an eye for design, thankfully, so as they went on with it he managed to tone down his irritation.
“Why,” Mitsuki muttered at a certain point, trying to glue two pieces of paper she’d cut into snowflakes together, “does she insist on handmade decorations? We could just buy this shit from the store. Where does she think we have the time? Where does she get the time? Fucking perfect parents.”
Excellent questions, All for One thought. “I intend to try to take her position as president next year.”
Mitsuki laughed derisively. “Good luck,” she said. “Sincerely, good luck. The school could use a change, but good fucking luck.”
An explosion sounded from down the hall. Mitsuki sighed, looking at the door to the hallway with hopelessness. “He needs quirk control,” she muttered. “He knows not to hurt people with it but it’s so loud and his room gets into this charred mess of hell. He’s lucky I’m an expert with cleaning products.”
“Quirk control is difficult,” All for One said, trying not to spill glitter everywhere as he made Mitsuki’s new snowflake creation sparkly. If it hadn’t been said before, fuck his life.
“I’d say good thing Izuku-kun doesn’t have to deal with it,” Mitsuki said, “except he probably would be extremely good at controlling his quirk if he had one. That kid’s a genius when it comes to that stuff. Right after Katsuki’s quirk manifested, Izuku-kun broke down the whole thing and probably twenty different applications. He was four.”
All for One couldn’t help a chuckle. “That sounds like him.”
Mitsuki glued two more snowflakes together, one white and one blue. “It’s unfortunate he doesn’t have a quirk,” she said, and All for One felt himself start to bristle. He forced his shoulders to remain relaxed. But all Mitsuki said was, “The world isn’t kind. He’ll have his work cut out for him.”
“It’s true,” All for One said, reaching for the next snowflake pair. “I’d say, in fact, that he already does. But he’s determined to keep up.”
Mitsuki let out her cackling laugh. “That’s a word for Izuku-kun, for sure. Determined. Fucking determined.”
“All right!” her husband called from the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready!”
Chapter 30: How All for One Thwarted Aldera Junior High
Summary:
Izuku gets bullied at school again and All for One totally doesn't scare the everloving crap out of his classmates. He resorts to bribery.
Notes:
*slides some angst in*
Chapter Text
Deku and that purple-haired loser leaned toward each other across the aisle in the classroom, talking to each other in low voices, when Katsuki walked into the classroom. Some of the other kids were sending them, or rather the purple-haired loser, wary looks, but Deku seemed perfectly oblivious to the stares and the rumors that he was being brainwashed.
Katsuki, for the record, did not believe Deku was being brainwashed by the purple-haired loser. Deku was really so stupid that he would latch onto the most villainous person in class out of desperation for a friend. Plus, Katsuki had begun tracking Deku’s activities through the power of the Internet and some obsessed people on Reddit, and he had to admit despite himself that Deku could probably handle himself if the purple-haired kid did try to brainwash him.
This revelation had not come easily. It had also been accompanied with a newfound hatred for Deku for trying to get ahead, and a subsequent determination to prove how awesome he was. A determination, which, unfortunately, was made more difficult by the purple-haired loser.
Katsuki glared at them from his desk.
The purple-haired loser looked at him and levelly met his eyes as Deku kept chattering about whatever he was chattering about.
Katsuki lost the staring contest and looked away with a quiet tch.
Maybe Deku was brainwashed, honestly. It would explain why he’d want to hang out with that loser instead of Katsuki (and it hadn’t been long ago, that Deku had wanted to hang out with Katsuki, had followed him around everywhere and wanted to be his friend ).
Katsuki watched them murmur to each other, probably talking about him behind his back, and he gnashed his teeth together. He’d show them. He’d show both of them. They were supposed to be looking at him. He was supposed to be the hero. And now he’d just have to prove it.
Hitoshi was sick.
Maybe, if Izuku wasn’t quirkless and hated by every single member of his class, this would not be a notable event. But it was very notable.
Izuku had asked Not Oji-san if he could stay home from school and Not Oji-san had given him this wrinkly nose squinty look as if to ask, “What on earth is wrong with you that you think I’ll let you stay home from school for no reason?” and Izuku didn’t want to explain, and so now he was at school.
His plan was to keep his head down, not mutter at all, and run out of class the second it was over. Lunch would be the hardest, but he’d made it through hard lunch periods before and usually no one was too mean to him then because they all still had to make it through to the end of the day.
For the first half of the day, his plan worked well. He stuck a pencil in his mouth to keep himself from muttering, which did lead to the pencil falling with a clatter onto his desk more than once. That definitely annoyed the teacher, but it was better than muttering a whole ton and drawing even more attention to himself.
He got through lunch by sitting really close to the teacher’s desk and keeping very quiet. He could tell Kacchan was looking at him, but overall he seemed to have escaped the attention of the class and after lunch was over he went back to his seat completely unharmed.
The pencil in his mouth trick worked for the rest of the day as well and as the final bell rang he let himself sigh out a breath of relief. He’d made it through the whole day! Without Hitoshi there! He put his pencil into his pencil case and his pencil case and his notebooks into his backpack.
A shadow fell over his desk. Two shadows. Three shadows.
Crap.
Izuku had forgotten that he actually had to leave the school before he could call it a success. He looked up and he shrank down in his chair. This was very bad.
“Sir!” Kurogiri called, sounding a bit frantic.
All for One was in the middle of going through some files and did not have time for distractions at the moment.
“Sir!” Kurogiri yelled again, more urgently.
Okay, maybe he could spare a second. He pushed his swivel chair out from his desk, eyes still on the screen. The files were a mess. He’d need to make a whole new organization system.
“Shigaraki!” Kurogiri shouted, now incredibly pissed. “Get in here this goddamn second!”
It was fury that launched All for One out of his chair. He stormed into the bar proper. “ What did you just call—”
He froze. For a second, it felt like all the air in the world was clogged up in his throat. He couldn’t even process what he was seeing.
“Oji-san,” Midoriya said over not one but two splits in his lip. “It’s not that bad.”
Comparatively, this was the worst All for One had ever seen Midoriya. The kid’s left eye was swollen—someone had a mean right hook—and he was holding his wrist delicately. Maybe sprained or even a fracture. All for One didn’t even want to scan for anything else because the immediately visible was bad enough, but he did, and he found a torn ligament in the kid’s knee. He couldn’t fix that with any of his quirks, so after examining it he continued scanning up and found a lot of bruises and a concussion.
“This was at school?” All for One asked, careful to keep his voice calm. The last thing he needed was Midoriya trying to cover for it because he thought All for One was going to kill a kid.
Midoriya hesitated.
All for One did something he’d never done before and bent his knees to crouch down in front of him so they were more eye to eye. The last thing he needed was Midoriya hurting something more by craning his head up.
For some reason, suddenly being able to meet All for One’s eyes seemed to break something in the kid, and his chin wobbled. He pressed a hand into his mouth. The back of his hand was swollen like someone had stepped on it. “It was at school,” he whispered.
“How long ago was this?” All for One asked.
Kurogiri stiffened. “You can’t use—”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” All for One said without looking. “Midoriya?”
Midoriya sniffled and mumbled, “Maybe thirty minutes ago.”
“Right.” All for One dug through his mind for the quirk. He always used this one sparingly because it had a long cool down period—it could only be used properly once every year, and it was one of his most useful quirks.
“I’m sorry,” Midoriya said, and the tears were starting to spill over now, silent and thin, not at all like his usual sobs. All for One very rarely saw Midoriya truly upset like this, down to his core, and that was why he pulled up the time reversion quirk to the surface.
“Not your fault,” he said softly, kindly, because there were no consequences in a time loop and Izuku wouldn’t remember this in one second. And then he pushed the quirk through every inch of his skin and looped—
All for One got up from his desk. Screw the disorganized files; he could fix that at any time. What he could not fix at any time was a torn ligament in the knee.
He hurried through to the bar. “I need a portal to Izuku-kun’s school,” he told Kurogiri without preamble, and then realized he’d said Izuku and not Midoriya.
Well, screw it. Izuku it was, then.
“Why?” Kurogiri asked, confused but already in the midst of opening the portal.
The time reversion quirk reset everything to an hour prior. It was a very powerful quirk, one of the best in All for One’s collection, and had saved him more than once when he got caught up in a situation he didn’t like and wanted a do-over. No one else would realize time had reset or remember what happened in the first rendition of the loop, and so he could redo a whole hour once every year with no consequences.
“He’s about to get beat up,” All for One said, stepping through the portal. That weird flattening sensation passed and he came out the other side right in front of Izuku’s school.
Kurogiri popped out after him. “Do you need a return portal?”
“The normal time for pick up will be fine,” All for One said, narrowing his eyes at the school building. “Actually, would you warp me just outside Izuku-kun’s classroom? I don’t want to deal with that vapid front desk assistant.”
Kurogiri produced another portal and All for One went in.
Luckily, the hallway he stepped out into was empty. He checked the time and decided school hadn’t ended yet. Izuku must have been cornered just after the bell.
So All for One leaned against the wall, keeping an ear on the hallway in case someone started coming and he needed to just disappear for a moment, and waited.
It took around fifteen minutes for the bell to ring. All for One stayed still as students started leaving the classroom, flanked by their teacher. All for One decided he hated this teacher, especially given that the man didn’t seem to notice the 225 cm tall man standing in the midst of the hallway. The kids noticed, and the teacher did not.
All for One waited another agonizing minute before pushing off the wall and ducking through the door to Izuku’s classroom.
There he was, still sitting at his desk, and there were four kids around him, blocking any possible exit. One of them, to All for One’s surprise, was Bakugou Katsuki. The other three he didn’t recognize, although one of them looked vaguely familiar so he’d probably seen their mom or dad around.
Izuku was sitting very small in his desk. All for One hadn’t ever seen him so small, all curled up on himself. He looked like he’d shrunk a few inches.
Enough. All for One swept across the classroom and loomed over the kids. “Izuku-kun,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”
Five heads snapped up so fast it would have been comical in other circumstances. As it was, All for One was not amused. He raised his eyebrows, locking eyes with Bakugou Katsuki in particular, who should have known better.
“Oji-san?” Izuku said, sounding a combination of relieved, confused, and annoyed. How he managed to do this all at once was astounding.
All for One decided to ignore Izuku for the moment and address the staring eyes of the remaining four kids. Bakugou, at the least, had the sense to lower his eyes. He’d been caught and he knew it. “I hope you’re not picking on my nephew,” he said, and if he pulled himself to his full height and used a quirk to make his eyes glow, no one would call him out on it.
“Nope,” the familiar-looking kid said. “Not at all.”
He peered at them. “Then what are you still doing here?”
The kids scattered.
“Why are you here?” Izuku said the second after they all scurried out of the room. “And, um, that wasn’t anything. They weren’t—that wasn’t anything.”
This wasn’t the time to argue. “I’m sure,” All for One said. “And I’m here to take you home.”
The glittery snowflakes dangled all over the room as All for One sat next to Mitsuki and her husband at an incredibly fancy table at Aldera’s fundraiser.
“I’m so sorry, again, for the trouble Katsuki’s been putting Izuku-kun through,” Mitsuki said, bowing the best she could while seated. “I can’t apologize enough for not noticing it.”
Masaru, who was significantly more soft spoken than Mitsuki, also dipped his head slightly. “The same sentiment from me,” he said. “We never would have imagined this could be happening. They were so close when they were younger.”
All for One had, of course, informed them that Katsuki had been bullying Izuku. Luckily, they had both accepted the news straightaway, rather than fighting or doubting him for it, and hopefully the kid would start leaving Izuku alone. Much more luckily, Mitsuki hadn’t let the situation be awkward and All for One hadn’t lost his only ally in the fight against Sakamoto because of some middle school bullying.
“Well, you can’t help what you don’t know,” All for One said. He’d decided to be amicable about this because he did value his alliance with Mitsuki and he did want to continue to find support in her during the trying times of PTA meetings. “I’d say the fault lies more with the school for failing to notice it.”
Mitsuki nodded right away, taking the easy out All for One had given her. “Yeah, it’d be easier for us to keep control of our kid if we knew what the hell he was even up to at school. Please let us know if Izuku-kun mentions anything like this happening again.”
All for One wanted to tell her Izuku never mentioned anything happening, he just came home with bruises and burns and smiled it off, but that might back her into a corner and he was trying, goddammit, to keep her on his side. “Of course.”
“This school district is very corrupt,” Masaru put in softly. “It’s all about who can bribe their way into favor and who can’t.”
That sounded like purely nonsense gossip, but All for One, who could very easily bribe his way in, leaned forward anyway in case there was a nugget of truth in there. “Oh?” he said.
“People like the Kariage family,” Mituski said, jerking her chin in the direction of another table where two sharp-eyed people All for One had seen before at the PTA meetings sat. “They have money to throw around, so they give it to their school. So if any of their kids get in trouble, the school ‘doesn’t notice’ because they want the Kariages to keep donating.”
The Kariages, All for One noticed, had two low emitter quirks that didn’t seem to be much use to anyone. He pursed his lips.
“We, of course, don’t bribe the school,” Masaru said, “so that doesn’t necessarily explain why Katsuki is getting away with all this.”
“The staff likes Katsuki because he has heroic potential.” Mitsuki shrugged. “They probably just want an alumn to go to UA and think he has the best chance.”
All for One thought that was a bit self-congratulating of Mitsuki. He was in the middle of furrowing his brows at her when Masaru, usually the more level headed of the duo said, “Oh, yes, that’s probably it.”
“Izuku has heroic potential,” All for One said, and immediately regretted it. What was even coming out of his mouth? Total trash. Something was wrong with him. He just tried to defend his own kid by saying he could be a hero, as if that was a compliment. He deserved to go to Tartarus for even thinking it. Fuck.
Mitsuki and Masaru looked at him with something between confusion and pity. They were too polite, even Mitsuki, to say what they were thinking, but All for One knew already. He decided, lest he started blowing up tables, not to comment further on that.
“Oh, look,” he said instead. “Sakamoto-san approaches.”
Sakamoto got on the stage and launched into a sickly sweet speech about how great Aldera was and how lucky her kids were to go here—how lucky all their kids were to go there. She praised the teachers and staff (All for One scoffed under his breath), the arts programs and the sports teams, and several notable alumni. Her speech came to an end when she put up a QR code for donations, and, with a little bow, she stepped off the stage.
Reckless and crazed pandering for money, if you asked All for One. He sneered as he scanned the QR code. So it was all bribery, huh? Fine, then. If that’s what it came down to, then he’d drown the school in money. They wouldn’t even know what to do with it all. Assholes.
Chapter 31: The Enemies Without, and the Enemies Within
Summary:
All for One runs against Sakamoto Miki to be president of the PTA, and Izuku goes digging into files he'd be better off leaving alone.
Notes:
we are about to take such a hard turn into angst and i am so sorry. I think it’ll only last a few chapters but i’m just issuing the warning. Izuku is a growing boy and his problems are growing with him >:)
Chapter Text
“Midoriya-kun!” Sakamoto cheered, throwing her arms out for a hug. “It’s been so long!”
“Hi, Sakamoto-san,” Izuku said sheepishly, letting her embrace him. “How have you been?”
All for One watched this interaction with growing horror. Here in the school’s gymnasium, stood his worst enemy (worse, perhaps, than All Might himself, although the race came close), hugging his fake nephew, and his fake nephew, if it could even be believed, was hugging her back. They were surrounded by decorations All for One and Mitsuki had spent ages on, paper tulips and cherry blossoms taped to the walls. It was a hideous scene.
“You’ve grown so much!” Sakamoto gushed, looking Izuku up and down. “Oh my goodness! I feel like the last time I saw you you were only this tall.” She gestured.
Izuku beamed and said proudly, “I had a growth spurt this year. I grew four more centimeters!”
“Wow! Isn’t that exciting!” Sakamoto smiled up at All for One. “How are you doing, Midoriya-san?”
“Well, thank you.”
Izuku, the little shit, was laughing at him behind Sakamoto’s back. So what if All for One was acting stiff? The witch had just hugged his fake nephew in the middle of a fake spring. Some stiffness was warranted.
“I was surprised when I heard you were campaigning against me,” Sakamoto said, which, frankly, was insulting, “It’ll be difficult for me! Best of luck to you.” She bobbed her head happily.
“And to you,” All for One said.
She separated herself and went to greet another parent and their kid as they walked in.
Izuku grinned at All for One. “You’re campaigning against Sakamoto-san to be president of the PTA?”
“Don’t patronize me,” All for One said.
“That’s such a terrible idea.” Izuku laughed at him. “This is going to be so funny.”
“Go hang out with the other kids,” All for One said, pushing him away. “Go. Find where Shinsou-kun wandered off to.”
Still laughing, Izuku stepped away to find his friend.
The event was twofold—one, a spring festival for the kids to show off projects that they did in class and to eat food that was terrible for them and to hang out as a group. There was a bouncy castle, which All for One found offensive, and cotton candy and a cupcake decorating table. The president of the PTA, who was still bounding around greeting people, had spared no expense.
And secondly, the event was so parents could vote for next year’s president. All for One had followed through with his decision to run against Sakamoto and he thought he stood a good chance. He valued efficiency, he had donated so much money to the school this year that it probably looked suspicious, and he had promised the parents they would be purchasing decorations under his rule rather than making them at home like worker ants. Ridiculous.
People were voting on paper, which was archaic. It would have made it easier for All for One to rig the votes, but he’d decided he wanted to win fair and square (and he would) so he could really rub it in her face when he wiped the floor with her.
He found Mitsuki and Masaru at one of the cafeteria tables and sat next to them. The festival went on and on. Izuku came back a few times to make All for One hold onto weird projects he’d been working on—he’d made a bracelet at one of the tables and had, apparently, won a small prize in the hero trivia contest.
Eventually, Izuku and Shinsou exhausted all that the festival had to offer and they both settled down at the table next to Mitsuki and Masaru and All for One, chatting back and forth. All for One supposed they could leave—the results of the race for PTA president would be announced digitally later that evening if he missed it in person, but he was, to his surprise, enjoying talking with Mitsuki and Masaru and delayed their departure to continue the conversation.
Bakugou Katsuki appeared after another half hour or so, sending Izuku a wary look and keeping his distance, as he should. Slowly, the Festival started to die down.
Sakamoto Miki took the stage again.
“Thank you so much to everyone who came to the Spring Festival today! Our vice principal has been diligently counting the votes for the PTA election and it is now time to announce the PTA officials for the upcoming year. I’ll let our vice principal take the stage now.” She introduced the woman and descended from the stage so the results could be announced.
It occurred to All for One suddenly that if, by some slim chance, he did not win the election, he would have to hear this announcement while surrounded by people whose opinions of him he actually cared about and who would probably think less of him for the negative results. He glanced over at Izuku, who had the decency (or indecency?) to look anxious.
The vice principal started by announcing the treasurer, the event coordinator, and the secretary. And then: “The contest between our two candidates for PTA president was incredibly close! The winner is Sakamoto Miki. Congratulations! Her vice president will be her oppo. . .”
All for One didn’t hear the rest of it. He was too busy stewing in amazement. It felt like cotton had been stuffed into his ears. Sakamoto Miki won? Against him? He was twice her size! He could snap her like a twig! And she had won?
“Ugh, bad luck,” he heard Mitsuki say, although she was politely clapping. “That’s annoying. I cannot do another year of hand making decorations for these things. Ugh.”
Izuku had his head down on the table and Shinsou was giving him a somewhat amused pat on the back. “Vice president of the PTA,” Izuku mumbled. “What has the world come to? Tell me you see the problem here, Hitoshi-kun.”
“I see it,” Shinsou said, fighting an obvious smile. “Can we make your life into a reality TV show?”
Izuku sighed heavily.
“Good try,” Mitsuki said, standing up. “Run again next year, please. I can’t take much more of this.” She patted All for One on the shoulder and started shepherding her son out the door. “See you around!” she called back behind her. Masaru trailed after her with a quiet, “Have a good night.”
How was everyone acting so normal in the face of his catastrophic failure?
Sakamoto Miki appeared as if conjured by All for One’s hatred of her. Izuku jumped to his feet, already starting to wedge himself between them, as if All for One was about to blow her up. Obviously he was not. He could be civil if he really set his mind to it. He nudged Izuku back.
“I’m so excited to be working closely with you this upcoming year!” Sakamoto Miki said, beaming up at All for One. “I can already tell this is going to be a great partnership.”
All for One was starting to feel like he missed something in his initial shock. Something important. “Ah, yes,” he said, nodding like he knew what was going on. “Congratulations on your win.”
“Thank you,” she said, beaming. “Well, I’ll send you an email in the next month or so and we’ll get started planning for next year!” She bowed and bounded off, people flocking around her to congratulate her. How was she so popular?
“He’s the vice president,” Izuku mumbled to Hitoshi again. “It’s real.”
“Who’s the vice president?” All for One asked sharply, struck suddenly with a terrible sense of foreboding.
Izuku’s expression was miserable. “You are,” he said.
The world, All for One decided, was coming to an end all around him. Vice president to Sakamoto Miki’s president. He’d have to spend twice as much time around her next year. No.
“Well, time to go home,” Izuku said. “Can you unlock this for me?”
He held up All for One’s phone. All for One, still shell shocked, unlocked it. And then realized what had just occurred. “How’d you get that?”
“Out of your pocket,” Izuku said, a huge smile exploding over his face. “You didn’t notice? Am I really awesome? And talented? You can tell me, I don’t mind.”
All for One begrudgingly admitted, “I didn’t notice.”
Izuku’s smile could have rivaled the brightness of the sun itself. He gave himself a single whispered cheer, “Yes!” and went back to whatever he was doing on All for One’s phone. “Kurogiri will pick us up in the normal spot in five minutes!” he announced, passing the phone back.
“You could have done that on your phone,” All for One grumbled.
“Mine’s dead,” Izuku said brightly. “Come on!” He pranced off toward the exit.
“How does he have so much energy?” All for One asked no one in particular, awestruck.
“Every time I think he’ll run out,” Shinsou said drily, “he somehow finds more.”
All for One thought he might have a kindred spirit in Shinsou Hitoshi. They shared a tired look and then followed after Izuku, who was already at the door to the gymnasium and waving them over.
Fine, then. Vice president. This was all just a stepping stone—he had bigger plans ahead.
“My birthday’s in a few weeks,” Izuku informed Dabi.
Dabi didn’t answer beyond glaring more deeply at his phone. He’d been trying steadfastly to ignore Izuku for the past hour, although Izuku was sitting on the floor in his room and trying to keep up a conversation. They couldn’t get over their hatred of each other if they didn’t try to bond. Dabi was putting in significantly less effort than Izuku, though.
“When’s your birthday?” Izuku prodded.
Stubborn as ever, Dabi didn’t respond. It was hard to believe, sometimes, that he was raised by a hero. It was harder to believe, at times, that he could actually be over twenty. He was so immature.
“We celebrate Oji-san’s birthday in December,” Izuku told him, “because that’s when my uncle’s birthday is.”
“What are you even talking about?” Dabi said, finally looking up. “Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?”
Yes! Attention! Now to just push it further. “And Kurogiri’s birthday is,” Izuku said, and then paused. “Huh.”
Rolling his eyes, Dabi went back to his phone.
Dabi’s room was very messy. He didn’t clean it meticulously like Izuku did his, maybe because his room wasn’t curated like a museum and didn’t need constant upkeep. He also never made his bed, so his sheets were all in a tangle everywhere. One of his blankets was a charred heap on the floor. Izuku sometimes contemplated introducing Dabi to a vacuum, but he also enjoyed having his head attached to his shoulders and so he had not taken that risk yet.
“I actually don’t know when Kurogiri’s birthday is,” Izuku admitted. He couldn’t remember them ever celebrating it, although maybe they had when he was younger and his memories hadn’t started solidifying yet. “I bet I can find out though!”
“Sincerely,” Dabi said, “I don’t care.”
Izuku already had his laptop on his knees. He used his connection to Not Oji-san’s computer and started hunting around for Kurogiri-related files. Maybe they could even surprise Kurogiri on his birthday by having a sorry-we-forgot-your-birthday-for-the-past-several-years celebration!
Kurogiri, like Dabi, had an entire folder dedicated to him. It took a long time for Izuku to find that folder, so long that he almost gave up on the information even existing at all, but after searching through every folder in the hard drive he found it.
He took a slight pause after he found the file to look up when Todoroki Touya’s birthday was—that seemed like a fun fact he could randomly spring on Dabi at some point to creep him out. It was January 18, which had already passed this year, but he’d remember it for next year. He looked up all his siblings’ birthdays too, just to know, and made a mental note to look deeper into the family. He’d spent so much time on Endeavour that he’d neglected the rest of them.
That done, he went back to the Kurogiri file. Poking his tongue out slightly, he opened the file and skimmed through the many folders inside of it. One of these folders was named medical, which would probably have the information he needed. There was also a file named Shirakumo Oboro which he squinted at for a long time. He didn’t recognize the name, but he had the distinct feeling that he was on the edge of something when he looked at it—some piece of information that was really important to who Kurogiri was, the type of information that would change everything.
He dodged away from it to begin and went to the medical files to find his birthday first.
He did not, in fact, find Kurogiri’s birthday.
What he found instead was a lot of confusing stuff about surgeries and quirks and stasis tanks. The word Noumu was floated around a lot. He found diagrams and extremely scientific informations. As he got deeper, a headache forming behind his eyebrows, his confusion grew and grew. This couldn’t be right. Kurogiri was a person, Izuku’s nurse guardian cousin assistant person. He wasn’t—
Izuku switched over to the Shirakumo Oboro folder, opening files. He gnawed on his lip. He felt like he was standing in a stone tunnel, and although his core was warm, his skin tingled with cold on the surface. This was horrifying.
“Kid,” Dabi said gruffly, “Are you—”
“I’m fine.” Izuku clicked open another article on Shirakumo Oboro’s death. He didn’t like it any more than he’d liked the last one.
He closed out of all the folders and cut the link to Not Oji-san’s computer. Clapping his laptop closed, he got to his feet.
“Kid,” Dabi said again, looking a bit worried.
“I’m fine,” Izuku said and he stormed out of the room. He took the stairs two at a time on the way down and caught a hand around the end of the railing to swing himself around the corner. Ignoring Kurogiri (how could he ever talk to Kurogiri the same way again?) he stalked right to Not Oji-san’s office and slammed the door open.
Not Oji-san turned in his swivel chair, eyebrows furrowed. Izuku very carefully shut the door behind him, twisting the handle to make it soft.
“Shirakumo Oboro,” he said.
The expression that took over Not Oji-san’s face confirmed everything.
Izuku shut his eyes and pursed his lips together hard. This was awful. “Tell me you didn’t,” he said. “I can’t—just tell me you didn’t.”
Not Oji-san didn’t say anything for so long that Izuku managed to get himself back together again and worked his eyes open. When he did, Not Oji-san wasn’t even looking at him, but at the door to his office, a thoughtful look on his face.
“Oji-san,” Izuku said, voice breaking.
“I don’t regret it,” Not Oji-san said.
“But,” Izuku said, and found he didn’t have anything to follow it.
Izuku didn’t like crying when he was upset, but his eyes blurred and stung and he didn’t do anything to stop it. The tears started to slip out, cold tracks tracing down his cheeks.
“But it’s Kurogiri,” he managed to get out, chin wobbling. “Why would you do that to Kurogiri?”
Not Oji-san met his eyes again, expression calm. “Do you want an explanation? Do you think one will actually help you understand? You like the heroes, and I am a villain. These are different things.”
“I hate you,” Izuku sobbed. “I really, actually hate you.”
Not Oji-san said nothing. To his credit, he stayed facing Izuku as Izuku tried and failed to pull himself together, hiccuping through his tears.
“I just don’t understand.” Izuku tried to wipe the tears out from under his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“You’re not supposed to,” Not Oji-san said, not unkindly. “And, as I mentioned, I don’t regret doing it, and I won’t regret doing it. But, for what it’s worth, I am sorry for how it’s impacted you.”
“Just shut up. Please, just—”
“Don’t speak to me that way.”
“I can’t—” Izuku opened the door again and wobbled out. “I can’t even talk to you. I can’t do this. You’re just terrible.”
Not Oji-san’s voice followed him down the hall. “Yes, I know.”
Izuku walked back into the bar, met eyes with Kurogiri, who looked thoroughly bewildered, and burst into tears all over again. He ducked his head, sobbing, and ran through the bar and up the stairs. Shutting his bedroom door behind him, he stood, crying, in the middle of his room, swiping his tears away with his sleeves.
Kurogiri didn’t even know. He’d had a life before, friends and a family, and he didn’t remember it. Those memories had died with his old self and Izuku couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t even tell Kurogiri. How would he bring it up? Hi, Kurogiri, fun fact! You actually used to be a person and then my fake uncle decided to kill you and erase all your memories and shove a bunch of quirks into you and now you’re not even the same person anymore!
Izuku crawled onto his bed and wedged his shoulder into the corner of his room. He pulled his secret All Might pillow out from the corner, dragged it onto his lap, and curled up around it, letting his tears seep into it.
This was the end, he thought. His life couldn’t get any worse than this.
Chapter 32: On Noumus and Existential Crises
Summary:
All for One talks to Kurogiri, Kurogiri talks to Izuku, and Izuku takes matters into his own hands.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
On Izuku’s fourteenth birthday, he continued to refuse to speak to All for One and walked right past him and through the portal to school without looking. Kurogiri, who still had not been let in on what was going on, looked aghast.
“I know,” All for One said.
“It’s been weeks,” Kurogiri said.
“I know.”
Again, Kurogiri asked the question All for One had been avoiding ever since Izuku initially stopped speaking to him. “What’s going on with you two? You’ve been tight lipped and Izuku-kun just starts crying whenever I ask.”
All for One sighed, pinching his eyebrows together with his index finger and thumb. “It’s complicated.”
“I can handle complicated,” Kurogiri said.
Izuku, All for One suspected, hadn’t told Kurogiri anything because he didn’t want to drop that bomb of information on him, proving that sometime in the past year or two he had learned a little bit about tact. Not a lot, but a bit.
All for One had never told Kurogiri simply because it hadn’t come up, and over the past few weeks (Izuku was very stubborn) he had continued the secrecy because he could sense it might ruin all his evil plans, which he had a lot of stakes in. But Kurogiri was starting to get pushier and pushier, and Izuku clearly expected All for One to take some sort of step to mend this situation. Maybe information was the place to start.
“You can’t tell me,” Kurogiri surmised.
“I could tell you,” All for One said. “But I’m weighing if the potential loss is worth being on speaking terms with Izuku-kun again.”
When he put it like that, it was obvious what to do. When he’d gone so soft, he didn’t know. Yes, he worried about losing Kurogiri in the process, but to keep Izuku in his corner he would do this. Fine.
“All right,” he sighed, taking a seat at the bar. “You know the Noumu experiments?”
Kurogiri’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Izuku-kun found out about them.”
“Well, yes,” All for One said. He paused. It was such an easy out, going along with that assumption, that Izuku had found out about the experiments and had been so angry with All for One just because of that. But no. He sighed.
“There’s more,” Kurogiri said.
All for One pursed his lips and nodded. He wanted an easy way to say this, and he didn’t have one. Not for the first time, he wished he’d never started to care about stupid things like Kurogiri’s feelings, but he did and he knew this was going to be a crushing blow.
Kurogiri shifted, uncomfortable.
“I’m just going to say it,” All for One said, “very bluntly, because I don’t know how else to say it. And then we’ll go from there.”
Kurogiri nodded.
“ You are a Noumu.”
The silence that followed that statement was painful, but All for One didn’t let himself look away. This wasn’t something he was ashamed of, and, as he’d mentioned to Izuku, it wasn’t something he regretted. He was a villain, and he hadn’t cared about Shirakumo Oboro. He did care about Kurogiri, against his will, but he wouldn’t have a Kurogiri to care about if he hadn’t done what he had.
“Ah,” Kurogiri said finally.
“I would tell you more about your past self,” All for One said, “but I worry it would mess with the programming.”
Kurogiri winced. “Calling it programming is . . .”
“That is what it is, though,” All for One said flatly. “And I hesitate to go against it because at best it would lead to you having an identity crisis, and at worst it could cause you to completely shut down and die. I wasn’t keeping this from you lightly.”
He wished they could take this more slowly. All this information wasn’t going to be easy for Kurogiri to process, and it could already be causing damage to the programming. Although, the conversation was already going much smoother than All for One had predicted.
Kurogiri ran a hand over his forehead. “I suppose Izuku-kun wanted to know why you did it.”
“Well, I wanted a working Noumu with a teleportation quirk,” All for One said. “But he wouldn’t take that well, so I didn’t give him a reason.”
“Hmm. Was I alive before or did you find a dead body to use?”
“You were alive.” Now that he’d started the conversation, the rest of it was becoming easier. Kurogiri wanted answers, and All for One was happy to tell him. Kurogiri was one of the creations he was most proud of himself for, and while he wouldn’t call what he was currently doing bragging, it wasn’t awful explaining the process.
To All for One’s surprise, Kurogiri cracked a tight smile. “Ah, I understand then why Izuku-kun’s upset. And why he keeps bursting into tears.”
Back to Izuku again. All for One had to admire Kurogiri’s dedication to the boy’s feelings—he hadn’t even seemed to consider his own, perhaps because he wasn’t supposed to have those anymore. “He’s taking the news surprisingly hard. In my view, you are still alive, and I value having you here. You were probably happier before, of course.”
“I can’t miss what I don’t remember.”
Yes, indeed, Kurogiri was reacting much better than All for One expected. Perhaps also because he hadn’t read a bunch of articles about his life pre-Noumufication.
Suddenly, to All for One’s surprise, Kurogiri chuckled. “I guess you kidnapped me, too. Just in an entirely different way.”
“I—” All for One paused, thinking that through. “Hmm. I suppose I did. Am I becoming predictable?”
“Izuku-kun’s chaos balances you out.” Kurogiri pulled a few glasses down from the shelf. “I’m drinking. Do you want to join me?”
“It’s eight in the morning,” All for One said.
Kurogiri got out a bottle of vodka.
All for One said, “I’ll take some.”
“And you’ll tell me everything,” Kurogiri said. “About who I was before, too. Like it or not, me knowing this is going to change things. I’ll risk the break in my . . . my programming.”
If he wanted it so badly, All for One wouldn’t keep it from him. “Fine,” he said. “But alcohol first.”
“You’re not upset?” Izuku asked, curling his knees up to his chest. Kurogiri had come to his room after dinner to talk through everything, which Izuku appreciated because he’d been having trouble figuring out how to tell Kurogiri what was going on. Izuku sat in his bed with his back against the wall and Kurogiri had taken his desk chair so they could talk eye to eye.
Kurogiri’s head tipped slightly to the side. “I’m not not upset,” he said. “But your uncle—”
“Fake uncle,” Izuku muttered.
“—is a complicated person. And, you know, if he hadn’t done what he’d done I never would have met you. So—”
“But you had other friends,” Izuku exploded. “You were friends with, like, Eraserhead! And Present Mic! And you—and you were a hero. You went to UA and had a family and it’s so unfair that he took all that away from you for something as stupid as making a Noumu, which, by the way, I’ve been looking into and did you know there are more of them?”
“I did,” Kurogiri said.
“It’s not fair! It’s not fair for anyone.” Izuku swiped at his eyes, angry with himself for tearing up again. Izuku probably cried more than the average person, but over the past few weeks he’d probably cried more than he’d ever cried in his entire life. It was just all so frustrating and out of his control. “I’m just so upset. I can’t ever talk to him again.”
Kurogiri got up from his chair and sat on the side of Izuku’s bed, slightly diagonal. Izuku bunched up his blankets in his hands.
“Listen,” Kurogiri said. “You might never understand the way All for One thinks. I mean, look around yourself.” He gestured at the millions of posters on the wall. “You love heroes, and he isn’t one.”
“But he could be.” Izuku wiped his eyes again.
Kurogiri’s face twisted up with incredulity.
“Okay, you’re right,” Izuku muttered. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“My point is you two are different. His morals are different. His goals are different. And I’m not saying you should agree with him, but I am saying for this to work you have to learn to accept that he is going to do things you don’t like. It’s his job to do things you don’t like.”
Izuku looked away, sniffling. “But what he did to you . . .”
“I am fine,” Kurogiri said firmly. “I have had opportunities here that I would not have had otherwise. And it’s certainly not too late for me to undo some damage.”
“I just don’t think I can forgive him,” Izuku said.
“Then don’t. You don’t have to do anything like that. But you do live with him, and that’s going to be difficult if you’re not talking.”
Izuku twisted up the face of his Ms. Joke duvet cover in his hands just for something to do as he processed. His room seemed too bright for the conversation. He wanted saving people to be easy, and it wasn’t. “I get it,” he said, and the mattress shifted slightly as Kurogiri relaxed. “I’ll try to . . . I’ll try.”
Kurogiri’s voice was soft as he said, “Thank you.”
“And, um.” Izuku smoothed out the duvet with both his palms, flattening out the wrinkles. “If you want, I can—I can reintroduce you to Eraserhead? But only if you want.”
After a second’s hesitation, Kurogiri said, “Maybe eventually. We’ll warm up to it, how about?”
Izuku nodded. “Yeah. Do I have to talk to Oji-san, like, right now?”
“Not if you don’t want to.” Kurogiri stood up. “But maybe do it soon, if you can. Let’s try to move on from this.”
What Izuku wanted was for Not Oji-san to get rid of all the Noumu experiments. Kurogiri was right, though; it wasn’t like Not Oji-san would just do something of that magnitude just because Izuku asked. So Izuku would have to take matters into his own hands.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do it by the end of the week. Thanks, Kurogiri.”
Kurogiri shook his head. “Thank you, Izuku. You’ve been very mature about this.”
“I’m basically an adult,” Izuku admitted, and Kurogiri laughed as he left the room.
Izuku had tasks ahead of him. He rolled onto his hands and knees on his bed and reached to his desk for his laptop, pulling it onto his bed with him. Flexing his fingers out in preparation, he opened the laptop and started to dig.
Two days later, Izuku stood fully clad in his vigilante clothes outside a very sketchy looking warehouse in another part of Kamino. He hadn’t told Kurogiri where he was going, which, technically, was against Not Oji-san’s new vigilante rules, but he thought Kurogiri would try to stop him if he knew what Izuku was up to, and so he had broken the rules a bit and just gone.
The warehouse loomed above him. He eyed the big garage doors and avoided the security cameras as, instead, he looped around the back. Another, smaller door was cut into the side of the warehouse and he went to that instead.
It was locked, of course, so he got out his lock picks and spent a few minutes crouched down outside it, wiggling the picks around. He slowly nudged the pins out of place and grinned when the lock clicked. Twisting the handle, he slipped in.
More than anything, his first impression of the interior was that it sounded like an aquarium. A wet, dripping sound echoed through the room sporadically, like something dripping into a tank. The warehouse spread out dark and still. A vague green glow lit the space ahead of him.
Izuku eased the door shut and padded forward, keeping close to the walls where shadows hid him. Cluttered materials crowded the area, wires and tubes twisting over the floor. Something about the air felt oppressive, and tied in with the sterile smell of a hospital lingered a weird musty scent like clothes that had been left damp too long.
As Izuku approached the green glow, he slowed down his pace, taking extra care to make sure his footsteps were light and soft. A row of computers on a semicircle of desks rose out of the shadows on his left. It didn’t seem like there was anyone here—all the monitors dark and the swivel chair neatly tucked in.
Izuku paused at the desks, trying to think. There was probably data on these computers that Not Oji-san didn’t have on his computers in the bar. Izuku could waste an hour or two trying to set up a link from these computers to his one at home, but it might keep him from finding what he’d come here for.
A quiet plink rang through the warehouse and Izuku shook off the temptation. He didn’t know how much time he had before Not Oji-san figured out he was in here, and he needed to find the Noumus before then. He turned away from the computers and stopped short, air catching in his throat.
Rows and rows of tanks glowing green spanned across the far side of the warehouse. All of them had unidentifiable blobs in them, the size of a person but distorted and gloopy. Izuku stumbled back a step, pressing a hand into his mouth. No amount of data or research could prepare him for standing amidst this hell.
“Holy crap,” he breathed, and somehow the sound amplified through the space, bouncing off the tanks and the walls in a whispered echo.
Izuku didn’t know what to do. He could destroy the tanks, but those things in there had been people once and it felt wrong to tear off their life support. But he couldn’t leave them either—Not Oji-san would use them for evil and that was definitely worse, in Izuku’s opinion, than just dying.
Mind whirring, he crossed to the tanks.
The green plasma inside them probably induced some sort of coma state for the Noumus. It didn’t look comfortable, exactly, but it might mean that if Izuku did destroy the tanks, the Noumus wouldn’t feel anything. They’d just collapse into a peaceful death.
It didn’t seem fair, somehow, but Izuku was starting to learn that very few things were fair in the battle between heroes and villains.
He reached out a hand and very gently rested it on the exterior of the tank. The glass, unexpectedly, was warm to the touch and he could feel his own pulse through his palms. The whole situation felt horrid and grotesque and he just wanted to leave again and pretend he’d never found out about this at all. He should have come with backup. He should have called the police. He shouldn’t have ever let himself be abducted in the first place.
Thoroughly disturbed, he stepped forward to walk through the rows of tanks.
Something snapped—a trip wire?—and Izuku flinched his head down, crossing his arms over his face. A clang rattled all around him and he snapped his eyes up again. Metal bars criss crossed around him in all directions. He’d been caught in some sort of cage.
Crap.
Crap crap crap crap—
“Well, well!” a lilting, gleeful voice said from behind him. “Looks like I’ve caught a little mouse.”
Notes:
The boy is FOURTEEN now!!! T-T he’s grown so much. Remember when he was only nine. I’m picturing afo going through a photo book and sniffling. He was so young. He was so chaotic. And NOW he’s deep into his teenagerhood tsk not the same
Also I'm so sorry I do recognize that I keep leaving you on cliffhangers on Tuesdays which means you have the longest time to wait for the resolution to said cliffhangers.... my deepest apologies. I don't know why this keeps happening.
Chapter 33: An Equal and Opposite Reaction
Summary:
All for One overreacts just a little bit, Izuku gets grounded, and Tomura continues living his life.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku couldn’t believe his eyes. “Dr. Tsubasa?” he said, trying to wrap his mind around the unreal situation before him. The man before him certainly looked like his childhood doctor, round goggles, bald head, and all. But surely that was impossible.
The Dr. Tsubasa Lookalike tipped his head to the side, squinting at Izuku. “One of my old patients?” he guessed, but he shrugged it off and toddled away. “Well, no matter.”
Yes matter! Izuku’s childhood doctor was a villain?
Izuku decided right then and there that his life sucked. Villains just attracted to him for some reason like he was the ultimate magnet. He wished he could turn himself around and use the reverse side of the magnet to send them far, far across the globe.
Dr. Tsubasa came back, rolling a swivel chair behind him, uncaring of how it jostled over the tangle of wires mapping the floor. He pulled it to a clear area and sat, crossing one leg over the other. “I’d love to know more about you,” he said, and this confirmed it. Izuku’s old doctor was completely crazy. “Your quirk, your age, your blood type, the full make up of your DNA. How’d you find out about this place?”
“I’m fifteen,” Izuku said. It was becoming truer and truer every day. He reached out to test the bars of the square cage around him and gasped when they zapped his hand back.
“A low electric current,” Dr. Tsubasa said happily. “Not enough to kill you, obviously, but it’ll make escaping extremely uncomfortable. It also acts as a signal disrupter—no making phone calls from in there!”
All right, Izuku had been caught. Dr. Tsubasa would call Not Oji-san, Izuku would get lectured, and then this could all be over with. He resigned himself to the situation.
“Your quirk?” Dr. Tsubasa asked.
“I don’t have one,” Izuku said miserably.
The expression of delight that suddenly overtook Dr. Tsubasa’s face had Izuku stepping back, nearly running into the bars behind him. “Really?” Dr. Tsubasa said. “What a wonderful surprise! We’ve never experimented with someone quirkless before. I rather think it’ll be much more successful than using a body with a quirk built in already. We’ll get started right away! You don’t happen to know your blood type?”
Startled, Izuku shook his head. He didn’t really know what was going on anymore—the situation had escalated beyond his estimation.
“That’s fine,” Dr. Tsubasa said happily, pulling out a pocket notebook and flipping to a clean page. He rested it on his knee and made a few notes. “We’ll figure it out as we go along. And a live subject, no less!”
It clicked for Izuku, suddenly, that Dr. Tsubasa had no intention of calling Not Oji-san or getting him involved whatsoever. His chest crumpled closed. He focused on getting air into his lungs, trying to think. Kurogiri didn’t know where he was. Not Oji-san certainly didn’t know where he was. He was alone with a mad scientist and no escape route.
“I’ll need you to avoid panicking,” Dr. Tsubasa said in a bright voice. “It can mess with your blood sugar level and such.”
Izuku shot him a nasty glare. The exact last thing he cared about right now was his blood sugar level.
He needed a way out. He couldn’t use his phone. He couldn’t get through the bars by himself. He did a mental run through of his gear and came up empty. There wasn’t anything he could—
Oh.
As Dr. Tsubasa chattered on about some truly horrific things he planned to do to Izuku’s body, Izuku reached for a small pocket he’d sewn into the shoulder of his costume all by himself. Inside the pocket was a button, which he could access just by tilting his head to the side if his hands were tied up. He and Not Oji-san had discussed at length how to do this.
The bars were a signal disrupter, but the button had been made by a quirk and, according to Not Oji-san, should work under almost any circumstance, even underwater. Sending up a silent prayer that he was right, and hating himself for letting the situation come to this, Izuku pressed his fingers into the button as hard as he could. And then pressed it again, just to be safe. And then one more time.
He stopped pressing it at that point, not wanting to freak Not Oji-san out if the button was working as intended, and settled for wringing his hands together and waiting anxiously.
A wisp of purple mist caught his eye a few feet away and he exhaled shakily in relief. The mist swirled and grew and Not Oji-san shot out of it, eyes glowing red. He stopped short immediately, taking in the situation—Izuku in a cage, a mad scientist with a notepad, a bunch of tanks of half-made Noumus in the background.
Dr. Tsubasa waved. “Oh, you’re here! What incredible timing!”
Izuku winced as Not Oji-san met his eyes. “Hi.”
“What,” Not Oji-san said, voice low and smooth and controlled, “is going on here?”
“Well,” Dr. Tsubasa said, clasping his hands on his knee. “This little mouse stumbled into a trap I set. He’s quirkless, if you can believe it! We’ve never had a quirkless test subject before. I think this could make for our best Noumu yet! Think of the possi—”
A quirk erupted out of Not Oji-san, who looked so pissed it was a miracle the warehouse was still standing. Izuku flinched back from the sudden movement of giant red spikes, arms coming up to protect his face again even though he knew the quirk wasn’t aimed at him, and winced when he heard a scream from Dr. Tsubasa get abruptly cut off, accompanied by a really awful squelching noise.
When the noises were done, Izuku slowly lowered his arms from his face. He looked at Not Oji-san first, who had an expression on like he’d just squished a particularly bloated bug. Slowly, Izuku lowered his eyes to where Dr. Tsubasa had been sitting.
What Izuku saw there was not appropriate for discussion. Long, disturbing description short, Dr. Tsubasa was no longer in one piece. Nor was he in two pieces. Or three or ten.
“Oji-san!” Izuku gasped. “No! Put him back!”
“Put him back?” Not Oji-san snapped, rounding on Izuku. “Why in the hell would I do that? He just threatened to turn you into a Noumu!”
Izuku crossed his arms. “Like you did to Kurogiri? Should I start trying to kill you? No! Put him back and just drop him off at the nearest police station or something.”
Not Oji-san looked at him.
Izuku held his gaze.
“I can’t do that,” Not Oji-san said.
“You will do that,” Izuku said, stubborn. “That’s the right thing to do.”
“No, I actually can’t.” Not Oji-san gestured at the mess on the floor. “This is physically unfixable. I don’t have a quirk for it and I’m certainly not a necromancer.”
“Oh.”
“My apologies for overreacting.”
Izuku looked at all the blood and gore that used to be Dr. Tsubasa. “Um.” He looked away again. “Well. He did try to make me into a Noumu. It was pretty scary.”
Not Oji-san reached out a hand and dismantled the entire cage around Izuku, melting it to a sludge. Izuku ducked his head, but nothing came crashing down on him. He didn’t know why he’d expected it to. He shook it off and stepped out of the perimeter where the cage had used to be.
“On an unrelated note, Izuku-kun.”
His voice was light in a way that Izuku knew meant he was not going to like what was coming next. Scrunching his shoulders up to his ears, Izuku screwed up his face in preparation.
“You,” Not Oji-san said, “are most definitely grounded.”
Izuku’s mouth dropped open and he twisted his head up to stare. “You can’t do that!”
“I think you’ll find I can.” Not Oji-san loomed looming over him. Izuku immediately shut his mouth. “You’re benched for a month. No vigilantism, no hacking, no secret phone calls with Hatsume-san. Grounded.”
As much as Izuku wanted to protest, he knew when he was beaten. And it made sense—he’d broken several of their key rules of vigilantism tonight. “Okay,” he muttered. “Fair, I guess. Can we go home?”
Not Oji-san gently dropped a hand on his shoulder and guided him through Kurogiri’s portal. Before they went through, he said softly, so softly maybe he thought Izuku couldn’t hear it, “I’m glad you’re safe.”
The portal flattened Izuku up before could answer, and by the time he popped out the other side to a worried gasp from Kurogiri, the moment was over.
“You seem to be doing much better,” Toshinori said.
Tomura shrugged one of shoulders up and took a sip of his coffee. He’d never had coffee when he lived with All for One and on his first introduction to it he had been fundamentally changed as a person. He liked it with cream but no sugar.
He and Toshinori were crammed into the back corner of a coffee shop near Torino’s apartment. Toshinori had a thing about crowds and liked to be hidden in corners when they were out in public. Tomura suspected this was related to him being All Might, which neither Torino nor Toshinori had told him, but Tomura had figured out a few months ago by having common sense, a set of ears, and a decade of experience hating the man and therefore knowing everything about him.
It had been difficult to come to terms with. He had managed, in part because Toshinori had been the one to give him the gloves he was now wearing, index and middle finger covered by fabric and everything else free. These made it a lot easier for him to not destroy random things, and the gift had been a complete surprise. Tomura appreciated it more than he’d ever be capable of saying, and so he’d managed to forgive Toshinori for the All Might side of his personality.
Toshinori cleared his throat. “How’s, er. How’s your schoolwork been going?”
“Good.” Tomura knew he was not very good at talking to people, and he also knew this clashed with Toshinori’s general penchant for awkwardness. The two of them met about once a month like this so Toshinori could check in with him, and every time they spent the hour in faltering conversation. “I’m almost done with remedial school.”
“Oh good!” Toshinori said.
Tomura hadn’t had too much to make up, since All for One had done a decent job of making sure he was well-educated, but since Tomura had never done tests and had never officially graduated from anything, he had to go back and test through elementary school and junior high school.
This had all been very difficult, because everyone in Japan had to go to school in person all the way through junior high—not doing that was very illegal—and so there weren’t a lot of systems in place to help him through school remotely. Torino had a lot of connections in the government and had managed to help Tomura a lot in that respect, but now they were facing a big wall of how to get Tomura through high school. The timing was all messed up.
Technically, Tomura could go to vocational school instead. There was no need for him to do high school. But he wanted to, and so they were fighting with a bunch of legal problems on how to get him in there.
“I was thinking about making an appeal to Nedzu for you to do a few years in the general education track at UA,” Toshinori said, as if he’d read Tomura’s mind.
Tomura’s eyebrows shot up. “UA?”
Toshinori fiddled with his cup of tea. “Probably it would have to be some sort of situation where you’re half in person and half remote, since you can’t be a traditional student, but, ah, I have some sway with the, ah, faculty and staff in UA and it might be the only option you have if you want to go to high school. Would you be interested in that?”
The part of Tomura that had been raised by a supervillain was screaming in disgust, but Tomura had been working very hard to separate himself from that and he did his best to tune it out. “Yeah, if you think it could work.”
Tomura and his therapist had been working on setting manageable long term goals for him, and the first one he’d managed to come up with was that he wanted to go to university. He didn’t know what for, but he wanted that bit of normalcy. He thought it would give him breathing room.
He couldn’t go to university without going to high school first, though, so he would take any opportunity that came up. Including an opportunity at UA.
“I’ll reach out,” Toshinori said. He smiled. “I’m really proud of you.”
Tomura blinked, surprised, a weird twisty feeling in his stomach. Toshinori’s blue eyes were wide with sincerity. He really meant it.
“Um.” Tomura dropped his gaze. This felt wrong. Something about it was uncomfortable—good, but not right. He hadn’t done anything to be proud of. Or had he? Unable to come to terms with it, Tomura mumbled into his coffee cup, “Thanks.”
He’d never told Toshinori or Torino anything about living with All for One. They’d asked him plenty of times where he’d lived before, but he’d never told them. At first because he hadn’t wanted them to know where he’d gone when he managed to run away, and then out of spite, and then because he felt ashamed of it.
But the secret was bubbling under him. Toshinori was All Might, and All Might hated All for One. Toshinori was proud of Tomura. Tomura hated All for One.
“Um,” he said, “you know how you’re always asking . . .”
Toshinori looked at him expectantly, limp yellow hair framing his skinny face. He was so open, so ready. Completely unaware of the bomb of information Tomura had tucked away. Toshinori thought All for One was dead.
Telling Toshinori about All for One felt too much like letting go of the one thing that was actually Tomura’s. He didn’t want to share All for One more than he already had been forced to with Midoriya. He wasn’t ready.
So Tomura couldn’t bring himself to crush Toshinori’s utopia of ignorance. “Never mind.”
While Izuku was grounded, he wasn’t allowed to use his laptop for non-homework things or to talk to Mei or to go out in his costume or to call heroes or to do anything remotely related to his vigilantism. He spent about a week trying to keep himself distracted by spending every waking second possible with Hitoshi but they got tired of each other quickly (Izuku liked Hitoshi a lot, but there was a limit, and the same, he suspected, vice versa).
Then he tried to spend every waking second possible with Dabi, but that went about as well as shaking a liter bottle of soda really hard and then trying to drink out of it—that is to say, it went very, very poorly straightaway and Izuku’s nose might never be the same.
This all led to him doing what he was doing currently, laying flopped out on his back and staring miserably at the posters of heroes he’d plastered up there when he ran out of space on the other walls. He’d had a brief moment when he’d had extra space after the Dabi-related removal of all Endeavour content, but that moment had long passed.
He huffed and reached out for his phone. Holding it above him, he opened up a search engine and started doing a deep dive into the Todoroki family. He hadn’t had time to do this before, and it didn’t technically count as vigilantism—not yet.
All it did was make him super depressed. He would talk to Dabi about it but given how well his last attempt at talking to Dabi about the weather had gone, it was a terrible idea to bring up his family.
Izuku missed the dark corners of the Internet where phone numbers lurked. It’d be nice to get in contact with one of the Todoroki kids, test the waters for a reintroduction of Dabi to the family. Dabi would not do this willingly, of course, but they could work up to it.
He spent some time researching emancipation laws. He called his mom. He got weeks ahead on homework. He drifted lazily around the house and talked to Kurogiri and coerced every member of the household into playing Uno with him. He won by a wide margin and refused a rematch when Not Oji-san demanded one. (It was okay, though, because Not Oji-san flattened him at Monopoly).
Slowly, tentatively, he made up with Not Oji-san over the Kurogiri thing. Not Oji-san promised there would be no more Noumu making, although he wouldn’t get rid of the ones he already had. Izuku accepted it, reluctantly.
And so a month passed with such little fanfare that Izuku almost died like five times out of pure boredom.
“And what did you learn?” Not Oji-san asked on the last night of Izuku’s grounding.
“Getting grounded sucks ,” Izuku said emphatically.
“Right,” Not Oji-san said. “And how can you avoid getting grounded in the future?”
Izuku sighed heavily, but he knew the answer to this one. “Following the vigilante rules. Telling Kurogiri where I’m going instead of just going there randomly.”
Not Oji-san looked pleased. “Correct. Well, the lesson seems to have been learned! Tomorrow you can resume your activities.”
“Thank,” Izuku said, “goodness.”
Notes:
i really love writing izuku and tomura in the same chapter, because izuku is like elmo with fire behind him and tomura is like the ‘this is fine’ dog with fire around him. Two extremely different energies but still fire everywhere.
Anyway our turn into angst has passed!! Successfully if i dare say. The crack returns. For a little bit. And then. >:)
Chapter 34: Fourteen Year Old or Stalker? Both?
Summary:
Izuku and Eraserhead talk (it goes about as well as expected). Izuku tracks down a Todoroki.
Notes:
omg omg omg we are SO CLOSE to catching up with the canon timeline. Have i ruined most of canon already? Hell yes. Have i left several Scrumptious Snacks remaining for the chaos gremlin of izuku to dEstRoy? Absolutely i have. Canon cries in the face of my frantic typing
Chapter Text
A flash of green crossed over a nearby rooftop and Shouta nearly choked on relief, taking off after the kid immediately.
Over a month had passed since Midori-kun was last spotted anywhere, let alone in Musutafu, and Shouta, screw it all, had been worried sick. It was always difficult when vigilantes went missing—impossible to know if they’d died, gotten sick, or just laid down the uniform—but Shouta hadn’t imagined having to deal with Midori-kun disappearing. But then it had happened and he’d spent several sleepless nights hunting everywhere for him until Hizashi finally stepped in and forced him to rest.
“Kid,” he shouted, panting. Had he seriously gotten faster?
Luckily, Midori-kun heard him and skidded to a stop on the next roof over, turning back to him. “Oh, hi! How have you been?”
“Never mind that.” Shouta landed on the roof next to the kid and grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him in place as he looked him up and down. No visible injuries or issues. “Where were you?” Shouta demanded.
“Oh,” Midori-kun sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “There was this whole thing. I got grounded.”
“You got—” Shouta cut himself off. He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. “You got grounded.”
“Yeah. Basically I found out my uncle made a personal robot out of, um, out of a high schooler and several different people’s quirks, and I got kind of mad at him and went to destroy the other similar robots he was trying to make and then instead I got captured and almost died and then my uncle found out and got really really mad and killed the person that was trying to turn me into a robot thing and then grounded me for breaking the Vigilante Safety Rules. And it was a whole month, Eraserhead. I was so bored, you can’t even know—it was awful. There were times I almost wished I had been made into a robot thing.”
Shouta held up a hand. “Stop talking,” he said, pained.
Midori-kun, thankfully, stopped talking.
There was too much to process. Shouta pressed his fingers into his eyebrows and tried to work through all the information he had just been given. Robot things. The uncle again. A high schooler and several different people’s quirks. Grounded. It was all too much.
“Vigilante Safety Rules?” Shouta said finally, just to start with something sane.
“Yes. Actually, I’m glad I ran into you, because I’m supposed to give you this.” He held out a small pager-like device. Shouta studied it carefully. “I have this emergency button that I can press if I get in a bad situation and my uncle and I—oh, he found out I’m a vigilante, by the way, and I lived through it!—um, yes, but we decided you should have the other side of it. I forgot to give it to you earlier and then I almost died and now I recognize that you should probably have it. So.”
Shouta was tired. “Well, better late than never,” he grumbled, pocketing it. He wondered briefly if the uncle knowing Midori-kun was a vigilante meant Shouta could start trying to arrest the kid again. Still, he felt set on slowly pulling the kid in for an adoption, particularly once he figured out how to get the uncle out of the picture.
“It’ll beep really loud,” Midori-kun said, “and then it’ll give you my location. And it’s made by, like, a quirk, so it’ll work through signal disruptions and stuff! I found that out when I almost died.”
Shouta was very, very tired. “Please stop talking about almost dying so casually. You’re giving me a heart attack.”
“Well, while I was grounded I learned how to do CPR and how to properly use an automated external defibrillator,” the kid said proudly. “I also learned how to tie a tourniquet, how to do the heimlich, and how to set a broken arm with only sticks and a T-shirt! I was super, super bored. Also, do you happen to have any of the phone numbers of Endeavour’s kids?”
“I do not,” Shouta said. He was beginning to wish, somewhat desperately, for a villain attack to randomly start somewhere just so he could escape from this situation and the flurry of unwanted information he was getting from it. The night, however, was clear and quiet, the sort of night where the moon was big and bright enough to light the streets and villains wouldn’t risk going outside.
“Dang,” Midori-kun muttered. “Anyway, I’m super glad to see you! It’s been like ages.”
Not long enough, Shouta was beginning to think. “How old are you, again?” he asked.
“I’ve been telling everyone I’m fifteen,” the kid said.
Shouta gave him an unimpressed look. What the kid was telling everyone was not the same as what was actually true.
The kid laughed. “I’ll tell you honestly if you answer a question I have. About when you were in high school.”
That couldn’t be awful. “Sure.”
“I’m fourteen.”
For some reason this update didn’t make Shouta feel better about anything. He contemplated arresting the kid much more seriously.
“Right, okay, so I don’t mean to freak you out,” the kid said, already brewing the recipe for disaster, “but what can you tell me about Shirakumo Oboro?”
It was like getting punched in the gut.
Shouta couldn’t breathe for a second, ears ringing with that name. It had been ages since anyone dared mention it in his presence—he and Hizashi didn’t even talk about Oboro. They had when they were younger, but talking about it made Shouta uncomfortable and even though Hizashi had clearly needed to vocally process, Shouta hadn’t been able to receive it all. They’d done what they could separately in therapy and never spoken about him again.
It had been years since someone brought him up. Even Kayama knew better. Hell, even Nedzu knew better.
“I sense that I’ve made a mistake,” Midori-kun said. “I was supposed to take it slow but it’s been over a month and I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it, but maybe I should have taken more time. But also there’s not really a delicate way to bring that up, you know? So maybe—”
“Stop,” Shouta said through gritted teeth, “talking. For one second. Just let me reground.”
Nodding seriously, Midori-kun pressed both hands over his own mouth.
Shouta exhaled very slowly and forced his body to relax. Midori-kun was not a threat, he was a fourteen (holy shit) year old. The situation was safe. Shouta could talk about this and process it like a normal person. He could do that.
A light breeze swept over the rooftop, rippling through Shouta’s clothes and over Midori-kun’s hoodie. The night air lingered dry and pleasantly warm. Somewhere in the far distance an ambulance siren wailed, and Shouta decided to ignore it.
“Okay, my turn for questions,” Shouta said, calm again.
Midori-kun, hands still over his mouth, nodded.
“How do you know that name?”
Midori-kun’s hands came down for just long enough for him to say, “It’s super complicated and I’m not supposed to talk about it.” He covered up his lips again.
“You—okay.” Shouta inhaled and exhaled. A motorcyclist sped by below them. “Okay. Why are you asking?”
“Also super complicated and I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
The end of Shouta’s last nerve was fast approaching. “Well what can you talk about, then?” he snapped.
“Probably nothing.”
This goddamn problem child. Perhaps the reason Shouta was so successful as a teacher was because no other student he had ever had was as big a pain in his ass as Midori-kun. Still, Shouta’s voice came out shockingly calm and level when he said, “Shirakumo Oboro was a UA student who died—”
“No, I know that part.” Midori-kun waved him off. “Also he's n—um. No, I wanted to know more, like, what he was like? Before all that happened and stuff?”
If aliens came down from a planet twenty million light years away and started doing the macarena to communicate with humans, Shouta would not be as confused as he felt right now. “What?”
“Like, what was his personality like? Sorry, am I not being clear?”
He was being perfectly clear, but the words he was saying didn’t make any sense in Shouta’s brain. They went in understandable and then came back out in a perfect mush. Shouta looked at the big, white moon illuminating the rooftop and tried to decide if this was actually happening or if it was a very weird fever dream.
Well, if it was a fever dream, then there was no harm in answering.
“Energetic,” Shouta said. “Kind. Funny.” He shrugged. “I could give him adjectives all day. He was just alive, and I don’t say that lightly. It was impossible to keep your eyes off him.”
“Did you love him?” Midori-kun asked abruptly. The question made Shouta give him a sharp look, but his body posture was open and curious. He genuinely wanted to know.
“No,” Shouta sighed. “Not like that. I could have, probably, but then he . . . then he was gone.”
“Right.” Midori-kun nodded a few times. “Right, right. Right.”
Shouta narrowed his eyes at him. “You’re acting weird. What’s going on?”
Midori-kun’s hands clapped over his own mouth again and he shook his head. He moved them for a second to say, “I think I’m very bad at keeping secrets.”
“What secret?” Shouta asked, trying to figure out what signs he’d missed in the conversation. It had been a weird topic in general.
“Um!” The kid unexpectedly dove for the edge of the roof and launched himself down the fire escape, disappearing just as suddenly as he’d appeared. Shouta probably could have stopped him—they’d been standing right next to each other, but instead he just blinked after him in complete confusion.
Maybe it was some sort of weird tactic to get Shouta off his game, he thought. Or maybe it was just Midori-kun being curious about heroes, which wouldn’t be out of character. Probably, it was nothing.
Still, the conversation haunted him all night.
The leaves had begun to turn on the cherry blossom tree outside. Rei’s window was too high for her to see the whole thing, but one branch laden with orange and yellow leaves drooped across it. As she watched, one of the leaves slipped off the branch and drifted out of view.
Todoroki Rei considered herself to be a very fragile person.
If glaciers of ice were strong and unbreakable, then Rei was a thin sheet on top of a puddle. Already broken by a passing car and melting in the morning sun. Easily shattered, and thinly frozen back together once the night fell. Barely hanging on.
Somewhere along the way she’d lost herself, and these nurses and doctors in this hospital claimed they’d help her find herself. So far she hadn’t felt much help. She felt trapped and useless. Her kids were out there suffering because she’d been mentally weak and her actions had given him an opportunity to trap her in here, where she couldn’t save her kids.
But she couldn’t think about them without feeling the cracks in her ice sheet heart shift and extend. The hair-thin plate was one stray thought away from fracturing.
A breeze brushed through the orange and yellow branch and two more leaves detached themselves and floated off. Not so much of a break as a release. They just let go.
“Um, excuse me,” a young voice said.
Rei gave a violent start, twisting in her chair to see behind her. A plain-looking boy with dark green hair and freckles stood right past the door. He immediately dropped into a bow.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. I teleported in here and it doesn’t make any noise. I’m so sorry.”
Rei released a shaky exhale. The boy seemed to be on the younger side of his teen years, or maybe a tall tween, and somehow he was in her hospital room. It seemed like a hallucination, but it had been years since she’d last had one of those, and there wasn’t any reason for her to hallucinate a boy she’d never seen before.
He was still bowing.
“It’s all right,” Rei said carefully.
The boy straightened up. “Sorry for not introducing myself,” he said, “but if you decide to call the police after I leave—which would be totally understandable, since I’m a complete stranger and I just appeared in your room which is so awful and stalker-ish—um, but if you do call the police, I’d prefer they don’t know my name. And I know your name already, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Do you mind if I sit down?”
Rei glanced at the door, and then at the nurse call button next to her bed. She could probably get to it if this turned bad, but Rei trusted her instincts and this boy felt implicitly safe. He was unexpected, sure, but he didn’t seem like he’d come here to be violent. She could get help if she needed it, and if she couldn’t get help, she did have her quirk.
“I don’t mind,” she said.
The boy smiled and took the spare chair at her table, sitting directly across from her. He swung a yellow backpack into his lap and dug into it. “I came because, um. Well, let me back up. I do a lot of analysis of heroes and stuff in my free time and I met this guy who, um, who has a history? I think I’d call it a history, for lack of—”
As he hunted for a better word, mumbling to himself rapidly, Rei studied his face. He had to be about Shouto’s age. She couldn’t imagine Shouto was anything like this, though. Not her quiet, stoic Shouto. Her baby.
“Yeah, a history,” the boy decided. “Okay, so I met this guy who has a history with Endeavour and anyway I was doing a bunch of research and came to the conclusion that Endeavour should probably not have custody of his kids. Your kids. And I guess that really only applies to the youngest since Todoroki Natsuo-san is old enough now. Sorry, I’m not explaining this very well.”
He pulled a packet of papers probably thirty pages tall out of his yellow backpack and slid it across the table to Rei, who untangled her fingers from each other and carefully pulled it to her, frowning. The top page was full of legalese, some passages highlighted and notes scrawled in the margins in neat hiragana.
“I’m not a lawyer,” he said, “and honestly I found most of this stuff really confusing. But I’m pretty sure—I mean, they can’t actually keep you here—there’s nothing wrong with you. I might have hacked your medical records.” He bowed again. “I’m so sorry for that. Totally an invasion of privacy. But anyway, there’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just Endeavour’s super rich and famous and no one wants to argue with him. But there’s a full legal defense for getting you out of the hospital in that packet. I’m pretty sure that . . .”
He kept talking but Rei couldn’t hear him anymore over the pounding in her ears.
Out of the hospital. She could get out of the hospital.
“How soon?” she breathed, interrupting the boy.
“Hmm?” the boy said, blinking at her. He had a sort of dazed expression, like he was still deep in his head, still mentally sorting out everything packed into this little stack of papers.
“How soon can we do this? I—when?”
Like the first rays of sunlight erupting over the horizon, a beaming smile spread over the boy’s expression. Rei suddenly had his whole attention, his eyes alert and bright. “You want to? I thought you’d call me crazy, to be honest.”
“I want to. Please.” She thought of being able to go to bookstores again. She thought of walking out into rainstorms and feeling the droplets patter on her upturned face. She thought of seeing her kids again—outside of these walls, unsupervised, no time limits. She thought of being free.
He nodded several times enthusiastically. “Well, now that I know you’re on board, we can get started right now. All we need is funds for a lawyer, which I’m pretty sure I can get on my own. My uncle’s crazy rich.”
Tears flooded Rei’s eyes. He was being serious. It wasn’t a test and it didn’t come with an ultimatum. She pressed the back of her hand into her nose to keep the sting at bay and nodded. “Thank you for doing this,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”
Chapter 35: Defeating Evil
Summary:
Board games and Tsukauchi's last shred of sanity
Chapter Text
“My car isn’t big enough,” All for One said, irritated. Kurogiri tried and failed to hold back a snicker. Izuku had recently entered what he called his “Board Game Arc” and they’d slowly been working through a vast collection of American classics. This was why they’d shoved the bar tables to the side and were currently sprawled out on the floor of the bar in front of the TV, all of them clutching paper money and driving tiny colored cards all over a board.
“I didn’t think it was possible to have this many babies,” Izuku laughed, handing over two small pink pieces of plastic.
“Shouldn’t have taken the family path,” Dabi, who somehow had pulled far, far ahead of everyone else and was already nearly at retirement, said drily.
All for One pointed accusingly at Izuku. “He told me I had to.”
Izuku, who had indeed done that, grinned. “Bet you wish you had a lie detection quirk now, huh,” he said, flipping through a huge stack of money. “Should have thought of that.”
“This game relies mostly on luck. There’s no strategy at all.” All for One narrowed his eyes as he tried to fit his two new additions to his family into his overpacked car. He had to lay them sideways between his other rows of people to get them to stay.“Also, having this many people in a car is illegal.”
“Not that you care,” Izuku said, spinning the wheel. “I’m going to catch up, Dabi. Watch me.”
Dabi rolled his eyes. “Sure. Life isn’t a race, you know.”
“Ha!” All for One yelled, pointing at the spinner as it landed on the number 10. “Speeding! Pay your fine, Izuku-kun. I have children to feed.”
“I don’t think you should get to keep this,” Izuku muttered. “That’s totally bribery. Give it to the bank.”
“Nope,” All for One put the money on top of his promissory notes. He’d been hit hard by this game and had very few funds remaining. Already, Kurogiri had had to calm him down from several episodes related to buying yachts and having to pay for the funerals of dead relatives. And he had children to feed.
Kurogiri spun the wheel and went forward five spots, winning an award for writing a bestselling novel. He took the money from the bank, run by Izuku, with pride.
“Woo, I’m retiring,” Dabi said, audibly unexcited.
Izuku, who was the only one who’d read the rules, helped him through the retirement process and tasked him with counting his money. On his next spin, Izuku got another speeding ticket but shot into retirement himself.
That left All for One and Kurogiri to catch up. It took them a few rounds and an argument about whether or not it was speeding if the police officer did it (“I can’t exactly pay myself a fine,” All for One pointed out, and Izuku, grumbling about corruption in the police force, let it go).
Kurogiri came into retirement third and carefully set about counting his money. As soon as All for One’s child-ridden car wheezed into retirement, everyone revealed their totals.
“How?” Izuku gasped when Kurogiri announced how much money he had. “Wait, let me count.” He reached out both hands and Kurogiri passed over his slim stack of money. “How did you even get this many hundreds? Oh my god.”
All for One, who had not only lost but had done so badly, crossed his arms and scowled. “I was so focused on beating Izuku-kun I didn’t even think to look at what you were doing.”
Kurogiri let a smug smile cross his face. “And you said it was a game without any strategy,” he said. “Shouldn’t have underestimated me.”
All for One glared at him, hard.
“Kurogiri definitely won,” Izuku said, recounting the money again. “I didn’t even know this was possible. Wow! Kurogiri, you just won the Game of Life. How do you feel?”
“Speech,” Dabi said, cupping his hands around his mouth and drawing the word out.
“You know,” Kurogiri said, “sometimes life isn’t about winning. It’s about the friends we make and the many, many children those friends adopted along the way.”
All for One’s glare deepened. Kurogiri beamed. He very rarely got to stir up shit in the household and he was having the time of his life. Maybe All for One would make him regret it later, but he doubted it. The board game world was Izuku’s world, and there weren’t real life consequences while they were together in it.
“Boring speech,” Dabi said, handing off his money to Izuku.
“Someone help me organize these,” Izuku said. “It’ll take me ages if I do it by myself.”
Kurogiri ended up being the one to help him, despite being the winner, and together they packed the game back into the box. All for One spent most of that time complaining about how games were no fun if there wasn’t any strategy involved (Kurogiri refrained from pointing out that just because All for One hadn’t come up with a strategy didn’t mean there wasn’t potential for one). Izuku muttered, “I’ll show you a game with strategy,” and challenged him to a game of chess, which was destined to end poorly. The two of them climbed up to one of the tables in the bar and set up a chess game, Dabi egging them on from the floor.
Chuckling to himself, Kurogiri finished sliding the lid onto the box and slipped it onto its shelf under the TV. When Tomura was younger, the TV stand had held mostly video games. Somehow, Kurogiri liked the board games more. Maybe because Tomura usually played video games by himself, but Izuku needed other players.
He hadn’t thought about Tomura in a long time. Shaking off the memories, he pushed the tables they’d moved back to rights and went to check the rest of the bar to make sure it was all in order. The tables were as clean as they were going to get; the glasses were all in place. He checked that they had enough alcohol and various juices and marked down that they were running low on olives.
“What?” Izuku squawked.
“I said, ‘checkmate,’” All for One said, smug.
“It’s only been like two minutes!” Izuku stood up so he could look at the board from a bird's eye view. “How did you do that?”
“It’s chess,” All for One said. “All villains are good at chess.”
Kurogiri drifted over to look at the board. It was incredibly obvious that Izuku had lost very badly. Most of his pieces hadn’t even moved yet.
“That’s not true.” Izuku whipped around and grabbed Dabi by the arm, pulling him up into his chair. “Dabi, you look like you’d suck at chess.”
“What—”
“Play me. I’m proving a point.”
“I’m very good at chess! Excuse you!” Dabi aggressively reset the board, accidentally lighting the white king on fire in the process. All for One stood so Izuku could take his chair, and he loomed over the two of them as they played, giving Dabi helpful directives and ignoring Izuku’s protests that he was cheating.
Kurogiri took Izuku’s side out of pity, although he wasn’t helpful at all and Izuku politely asked him to stop advising him after a few turns.
A couple minutes later, Dabi won the game.
“As I said,” All for One said. “All villains—”
“Oh, come on,” Izuku said, crossing his arms and slouching back in his chair. “You were helping him. That doesn’t even count.”
“I’ll rematch you and do it on my own,” Dabi snapped, already resetting the board. “I’ll flatten you.”
Kurogiri swept up to them, shooing Izuku to the stairs. “You can do a rematch upstairs,” he said. “The bar is opening in two minutes.”
“I’ll report back,” Izuku said, grabbing the board with all the pieces on it and heading for the staircase, “when Dabi loses terribly.”
“You won’t have anything to report.” Dabi picked up the few pieces he’d missed before storming up the stairs after him. “I’ll show you.”
“Yeah, right.”
Their arguing voices faded as they reached the second floor. All for One watched the staircase quietly, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Don’t overthink it,” Kurogiri said, replacing the table they’d been playing on to its original spot and wiping it down.
“Right,” All for One said, shaking whatever that was off. “I’ll be in my office.”
Kurogiri nodded.
Ten minutes later Izuku sent a text to the family group chat with a gif of All Might throwing up a triumphant fist flanked by glittery text that read, “I have defeated evil.”
The group chat exploded within seconds with All for One aggressively re-banning All Might content from the group chat and Dabi all-capsing how Izuku had just gotten lucky. Kurogiri fought a smile and put his phone away. He turned back to making drinks.
“You understand, now, why I’m torn,” Shouta said.
Tsukuachi continued staring. He didn’t seem to be able to properly form words. Shouta could understand, because when Midori-kun had texted him a photo of Stain the Hero Killer, tied up and looking pissed, Shouta had also lost all ability to speak for several minutes. He couldn’t begrudge Tsukauchi, who was only finding out now while standing on the side of an average street face to face with the villain, his shock.
“On the one hand,” Shouta said, “if you give me credit for this arrest, it will completely ruin my career as an underground hero. On the other hand, if you give the teenager who actually deserves it the credit for this arrest, you’ll be making a fool of the entire hero rankings and police force.”
“Horrifying,” Tsukauchi managed.
Minutes before, when Shouta had swung down to the street level, still fighting debilitating disbelief, Midori-kun had said helpfully, “His quirk relies on blood type! Here’s a full breakdown,” and then handed Shouta a small packet with over a thousand words of analysis on Stain’s quirk, history, and weaknesses. Shouta had barely finished perusing it when Tsukauchi showed up. After blocking off the busy street from passerby, some of the younger officers, who didn’t have the necessary history with Stain to be surprised, took the packet and combed through it.
“An anonymous . . .” Tsukauchi drafted out loud. “An anonymous civilian stepped in and. . .”
“I think you desperately need a PR department,” Shouta said.
Tsukauchi put his head in his hands. Some officers came up and forced a very stubborn Stain into the police car. Tsukauchi spread his fingers apart over his eyes and peered through them. “And you won’t take the credit?”
“It’s a terrible idea,” Shouta said. “The whole point of being underground is being out of the spotlight. The second you put my name on arresting the Hero Killer, I’ll be directly in the spotlight.”
“An underground pro hero who wishes to remain anonymous . . .” Tsukauchi said, hopeless. “But I’d feel awful lying about it. My quirk is already freaking out.”
“Honesty, then,” Shouta said, miserable.
Tsukauchi groaned. Just like that his head disappeared behind his hands again. “We’re all going to look like idiots,” he said. “Genuinely, we are.”
“Midori-kun will be happy,” Shouta said. “His name in the news again. He’ll be over the moon.”
“That kid is going to be the death of me,” Tsukauchi said.
“Me first,” Shouta answered. He still hadn’t figured out the whole conversation about Shirakumo Oboro the other day. Probably, he’d have been able to make heads and tails of it if he’d managed to bring it up to Hizashi, but he had not and so he remained in confusion. Something about the way the kid had been talking made it seem almost like—
But no. Oboro was dead. Trying to convince himself otherwise was inviting insanity.
“Well.” Tsukauchi took the packet back from the younger officers and made a face. “The problem isn’t going to go away. Unless you feel like arresting h—”
“No,” Shouta said. “I trust my instincts on these matters and my gut is telling me arresting him will make everything worse.” His gut or his experiences being in the same room as the kid’s uncle. “Better to leave him be.”
“I know, I know,” he grumbled. “You’re making my precinct look bad, though.”
“No one’s stopping you from arresting him,” Shouta pointed out.
Tsukauchi gestured violently at the police car with the packet of papers. “Do you see who’s in that car?” he demanded. “Do you see? Stain the Hero Killer? And do you think I or any of my officers are capable of putting the person who stopped the Hero Killer in jail? He’s gotta have some crazy overpowered quirk.”
Shouta didn’t think Midoriya had an overpowered quirk at all—probably something mental based instead. But instead of addressing that, he said, “Paper can’t beat scissors but it can beat rock. Different opponent, different weaknesses.”
“Stop talking to me like a fortune teller.” Tsukauchi rubbed his temples.
Well, it was a lost cause, then. Shouta hesitated before changing the subject. “Unrelated, but would I be able to come in and look at the folder for Shirakumo Oboro at some point? I think something came up in the case and I want to confirm before I make a big deal of it.”
Tsukauchi looked at him with a slight frown. “I guess,” he said. “Something I need to be worried about?”
Shouta shook his head. “I don’t think so. Just something.”
“Well, fine with me,” Tsukauchi said, heading for the cop car. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with this mess I’m dealing with.”
“It won’t,” Shouta said.
Tsukauchi got into the car and slammed the door.
Chapter 36: Questions, Hesitations, and Threats
Summary:
Izuku fails to keep several secrets. Shouta spends quality time with a cat (and also his husband). All for One takes the matter of Izuku's schooling into his own hands.
Notes:
I am three hours later than usual :( my deepest apologies
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I have a new question for you,” Midori-kun said, “and it’s also probably going to be hard to answer so we can do that thing where you ask me a question first. Any question, and I’ll be honest.”
Shouta sighed and sat down on the edge of the roof. Given the contents of the last conversation, he didn’t want to deal with this standing up. He swung his legs over the edge so he could look out over the city’s twinkling lights. Midori-kun scrambled down next to him, legs dangling next to his.
There were a lot of things Shouta wanted to know about the kid. He wanted further clarifications on his home life, he wanted to know what the kid’s quirk was, he wanted to know how, exactly, the kid had come to live with someone who was obviously a supervillain. He wanted to know if the kid was safe. Where his parents were. Where he went to school and if he’d be able to convince his uncle to sign over custody to Shouta, who sure as hell didn’t want the kid living in his house but would do more than that to keep him safe.
He wanted to know all these things, but selfishly he said instead, “Why were you asking about Shirakumo Oboro the other day?”
Midori-kun stiffened. “Okay, actually, I’ll answer any other question—”
“No,” Shouta said. “That wasn’t the deal. You said any question, and I want the answer to that one.”
Shouta had spent a long time at the police station the other day searching up Oboro’s death. He’d needed a long decompress session in therapy afterward, but he had done it. The facts hadn’t changed. Shirakumo Oboro was very much dead, in the most uninspired and unmysterious way.
So why had the kid brought him up?
“All right,” Midoriya said, wincing. “All right, I’ll explain. But that’s going to be a really hard conversation, so can I ask my question first? And then we’ll talk about that.”
Everything in Shouta wanted to say no, to force the kid to tell him everything right now, to shake the answers out of him. But Shouta had learned at UA not to shake children, and so he said calmly, “Fine. But you will explain after.”
“Promise,” Midori-kun said, holding up a pinky.
Feeling stupid, Shouta locked pinkies with him. They shook.
“Okay.” The kid pressed the tips of all his fingers together, steepling his hands. “My question. It’s going to sound weird. But kids at school are saying things and I don’t know what to think anymore. So I thought I’d ask you because you know things and are trustworthy and stuff. Or I mean I think you’re trustworthy and stuff. You definitely seem—”
“Stop stalling.”
The kid pursed his lips together to stop himself, nodding once. “Okay. Do you think someone quirkless can be a hero?”
Shouta sharpened all his attention onto the kid immediately. “What?”
“Do you think someone—”
“No, I heard you.” Too many questions he had. But to start: “Are you saying you’re quirkless?”
“In a roundabout, very vague sort of way, yes, I guess I’m saying that,” Midori-kun said. “I kind of thought you knew? Since your quirk doesn’t do anything to me. But, I mean, if you didn’t—yeah, um. I don’t have a quirk.”
He had to be lying. Shouta stared at him completely shamelessly and wished, momentarily, that Tsukauchi was here to confirm or deny. But the kid probably wouldn’t have told him at all if Tsukauchi was here.
“Staring is rude,” Midori-kun said, curling in on himself. “I’m not a unicorn. Just very stubborn.”
The kid had nothing to gain from lying about this. He’d asked the question and seemed nervous enough about it, and he had no reason to lie. So fine—he was quirkless.
In which case: holy shit.
Shouta fought mostly quirkless, of course, but he fought mostly quirkless with the added advantage that the villains were also forced to be quirkless. The kid didn’t have that advantage. The kid, evidently, had beaten Stain the Hero Killer without that advantage. Or any advantage. If it hadn’t been emphasized enough, holy shit.
“Right,” Shouta said, trying to brush off his shock—no need to make the kid feel like an outsider. “I didn’t know you were quirkless. I assumed—”
“Yeah, yeah,” the kid waved him off. “Everyone always assumes. But my question?”
He’d asked a question. Shouta reached back through all his surprise for it. “If someone quirkless could be a hero,” he said, verifying.
Midori-kun nodded.
Shouta prided himself on being realistic. He’d survived as long as he had off that ideal, and that made this particular situation incredibly difficult. “I’ll be honest,” he said, and Midoriya stiffened. “If you’d asked me that the first night we met, I would have said no immediately.”
Midori-kun sat up straight, arms crossing around his body. The wind picked up, pressing into Shouta’s back. He wished they weren’t so close to the edge of the roof.
“But,” Shouta said, “quirkless or not, you’ve been very effective.” Seeing the kid perk up, he added quickly, “And this is not an encouragement to continue and I would much prefer you get off the streets and let yourself be a normal fourteen year old. It’s taking everything in me not to drag you to the nearest police station right now, actually. But I would be remiss not to point out everything you’ve done already without”—damn, it was hard to believe—“without a quirk.”
“So,” the kid said, audibly confused, “is that . . .”
Shouta wasn’t done. “It won’t be easy. You will need support items and you’ll have to operate under constraints most heroes don’t have. A lot of constraints. It’ll be hard for you to get into school and you won’t be able to do anything without a teammate with you. And you won’t be able to do any of that if you get killed before then, so you really should stop the vigilante stuff right now.”
He considered, suddenly, if he should offer to sponsor Midori-kun for UA. It seemed both like a terrible idea and the best idea he’d ever had. No need to act rashly, though—he’d think about it.
Shouta refocused on Midori-kun just in time for the kid to give a huge sniffle and dive across the space between them to wrap Shouta in a hug. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Midori-kun sobbed.
Concerning. Flat out concerning. Nothing Shouta had just said could be considered nice.
The kid pulled out of the hug and pushed the top half of his mask up, revealing big eyes flooded with tears. Water poured out like his eyes were a broken pipe. He wiped them uselessly again and again as more tears flooded out.
“Kid,” Shouta said, completely at a loss.
“Everyone’s always saying no,” Midori-kun sniffled. “They’re always telling me I can’t do it. And I felt stupid for even trying, even though I’m basically already doing hero things.” He scrubbed at his eyes, to zero effect.
“Who’s everyone?” Shouta asked cautiously.
“Just people at school and my mom and stuff,” Midori-kun said. He laughed. “Sorry, I’m such a crybaby.”
This was the first time Midori-kun had mentioned a mom before. Shouta filed the information away for later.
“Clearly they don’t know you very well,” Shouta muttered. If anyone had the stubborn drive to become a hero, it was this weirdo.
“That’s true,” the kid admitted. He wiped his eyes off again, and this time it actually did seem to stop the tears.
Shouta had a pretty good view of the top half of Midori-kun’s face right now, but the lighting wasn’t good enough to get much out of it. All he could really see was that the kid had really big, dark eyes. In the dim moonlight he couldn’t see the color or any other identifiers, except maybe a few freckles. But it was something.
“Geez, okay.” Midori-kun pulled the top half of his mask down again. “Okay, enough. So Shirakumo Oboro.”
The subject change came out of nowhere but Shouta needed these answers and so he let the conversation swing away, refocusing his attention.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Midori-kun said, “but remember when I almost died a few months ago?”
Hard to forget that.
“Well, I found out Shirakumo Oboro’s not dead,” Midori-kun said.
Shouta’s heart stopped. This weird sickened feeling lurched through him, up into his throat.
Midori-kun went on unhindered. “I live with him, actually. He’s . . . he’s not really the same anymore, and he doesn’t really remember anything, but he’s—”
“Alive,” Shouta breathed. It came out strangled.
“Yeah, and he asked me not to talk to you about it.” Midori-kun braced his hands on the edge of the roof, nervous. “So I can’t introduce you to him or anything and I shouldn’t have said anything at all—he actually yelled at me when he found out I asked you about him—but I mean. Now you know.”
Shouta felt like he’d never breathed before. He couldn’t figure out how it worked. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Midoriya winced. “Sorry.”
“He’s alive?” Hizashi said, voice an uncharacteristic quiet. Shouta had expected more screeching—but he should have known better. This was too fragile a conversation for that.
“According to the kid.” Shouta dragged a hand over his face. He’d waited until after dinner to talk about this, both of them sitting at the dining room table with their empty plates. Probably he should have started the conversation sooner, but he’d found himself ducking around the topic every time an opportunity came up. He couldn’t avoid it any longer, though. “Apparently he can’t remember anything about us or his life before.”
Hizashi put his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. Shouta let him have a moment, stacking the plates just to do something. After a moment, Hizashi’s distraught face reappeared. “How is it possible?” he asked. “He was dead. Everyone knew he was dead.”
Shouta shook his head. Midori-kun really hadn’t given him much information to work with. It sounded far fetched, but the kid had seemed so certain. “Midori-kun could be wrong—he’s only fourteen. But I thought you ought to be looped in.”
“We’ll have to tell Kayama-chan,” Hizashi said.
Shouta made a face. That was a conversation he wasn’t looking forward to. “Let’s be certain first? Try to meet him? I’ll try to get through to the kid. It might take a while.”
“She’ll want to know.” Hizashi picked up the dishes and got up, carrying them to the kitchen. Shouta took a second to himself before following him. “It’s not fair to keep it from her.”
“Hizashi.” Shouta waited for attention. Hizashi took his time putting the plates in the sink, probably doing the same thing Shouta had just done, regaining his calm. When he finally turned around, Shouta said, “Physically I can’t have that conversation with her. This was hard for me.”
“I don’t mind telling her myself.” Hizashi crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. “But I won’t if we’re not on the same page about it. I can keep her from hounding you with questions.”
A cat wove around the corner to the kitchen and Shouta scooped him up, turning him upside down like a baby in his arms, arms splayed out. The cat, who Shouta refused to refer to by name due to Hizashi’s involvement in the name selection, meowed. “If you’re all right with doing that,” Shouta said, “then yes. She should know.”
“Thank you,” Hizashi said. “Are you doing okay?”
“Of course,” Shouta said automatically. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re clutching Floof-sama very tightly,” Hizashi said.
“Ah,” Shouta frowned at the cat in question. “It’s just stressful. I don’t like that I’m not sure what’s going on, and I don’t like that the kid is wrapped in all this. And if Oboro-kun is still alive, he’s probably not the same anymore. It’ll take a long time to figure all this out, and I’m just . . . I’m anxious.”
Hizashi pushed off the counter and wrapped his arms around Shouta, squashing the cat in between them. He tucked his chin over Shouta’s shoulder, cheek brushing his ear, and murmured, “It’ll be okay.”
The Cat Who Shall Not Be Named wriggled in Shouta’s arms and meowed.
“I heard you’re having an affair,” All for One said, leaning in toward a very terrified government official. “With a villain no less! Mist quirk. Somehow miraculously made bail the other day.”
The poor governor floundered, arms flailing as she tried to find purchase in the conversation. She stammered through an empty excuse.
“It would be a shame,” All for One talked over her, fixing a sharp smile on his face, “if the media were to find out about this. Truly a reputation-ruiner. And to think about what your children would say. And your wife! Not to mention the impacts it will have on the upcoming election. It’s a career-ending bit of information, for sure.”
The governor whimpered. She looked around for an escape route, but there was nowhere to go. All for One had cornered her in the parking garage and the security cameras had conveniently stopped working just before he arrived. No one was coming to save the governor, and she couldn’t run.
“I could, of course, keep that little tidbit to myself,” All for One mused, standing up straight to give the governor a sense of reprieve and tapping his chin. “For a price, I suppose.”
The governor did not seem to in fact be paying attention to what All for One was actually saying. All for One supposed, when faced with a 225 cm man, most people would stop paying attention to silly things like words and start freaking out. But, still, the ignorance to his threats was irritating.
All for One sighed and rolled down his sleeves. “I’m not going to repeat myself, so listen up. I know you’re having an affair with that guy with the mist quirk. I know you’re embezzling money from the federal government. I have several inarguable bits of evidence I could very easily send off to any number of people. Let’s avoid that.”
“What do you want?” the governor wailed.
Finally! All for One let an evil smile spread over his face. “I want,” he said, “to be on the school board in charge of Aldera and other Musutafu schools.”
The governor’s shaking and whining stopped. She tipped her head to the side. “That’s it?”
All for One narrowed his eyes.
“I mean! Of course.” The governor bowed a full ninety degrees. “Of course. Please don’t reveal what you’ve found out about me. I’ll do anything.”
A much better response.
Notes:
Ah yes and this is my cat Lord Floof, Hizashi says
Dearest reader, if you are binging this fic (which is very valid and understandable and I too have been where you are now) you have now hit 100k words. Please, I beg! take a smol break to drink some water or eat or take a nap if you haven't! It's been a lot of words and it is time for some self care <3 And then of course! Continue.
Chapter 37: An Offense to Half of Japan Itself
Summary:
AFO and Izuku have a heart to heart
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Something happened at school,” Shinsou said as Izuku disappeared up the stairs. “I’m actually not sure what it was, but something happened.” He shot an anxious look to Kurogiri, and then, more hesitantly, All for One. “I’m really sorry—usually we stick together to avoid stuff like this but we got cornered at the same time and I couldn’t do anything. But he’s upset, even if he’s hiding it. He was upset all through martial arts too.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kurogiri said, shepherding Shinsou away from the portal to the dojo, which they had been going to after school.
Kurogiri sent All for One a significant look over the kid’s head and All for One gave himself one internal sigh of preparation before turning to the staircase to find one moody teenager. “How are you feeling?” Kurogiri asked Shinsou as All for One ascended, and All for One was once again left with the horrible sense that Kurogiri was and would always be twice the person All for One was.
That was how it was meant to be, he supposed. Even villainified, Kurogiri had that heroic spirit deep down. Or at least the parenting instinct. All for One had neither, and yet he was the one going to Izuku’s room to—to what, comfort him? All for One was about as comforting as a sharp stick to the foot.
Izuku’s door was cracked, so All for One nudged it open. An onslaught of color attacked him immediately, flashy yellows and blues and heroic faces beaming down at him. He scrunched up his nose but forged ahead.
There Izuku laid in the middle of his bed, curled up in a tight ball, head toward the foot of his bed and back to the door. All for One ran a quick scan over his body for injuries and found absolutely nothing. The kid was perfectly fine physically.
This left All for One feeling a bit lost. If there was nothing physically wrong, he didn’t know what to do next. But something needed to happen, so he cleared his throat and said, “Izuku-kun?”
Izuku immediately scrambled upright and around to face the door, trying to surreptitiously wipe his eyes. He produced a huge beaming smile that All for One saw right through. “Oh, hi! What are you doing up here?”
“You’re obviously upset,” All for One said flatly. He shut the door behind him and crossed to Izuku’s desk.
“What? No, I’m not!” Izuku laughed. Weakly and without much creative inspiration.
All for One ignored the protest and pulled out Izuku’s desk chair, wheeling it to the end of Izuku’s bed so he could sit down without making the kid feel trapped.
“Seriously,” Izuku said. “I’m not.”
“One of these days,” All for One said, “I’m going to get a lie detection quirk so we can stop pretending I don’t see right through you.”
Izuku opened his mouth to argue that further, then stopped. He dropped his gaze down to own lap, now crisscross in front of him, and let the breath out shakily through his nose. “I was trying not to be obvious.”
“Shinsou-kun ratted you out,” All for One said.
“Traitor,” Izuku muttered.
“What happened?”
Izuku curled his fingers around the black hem of his uniform pants. He chewed on his lip in silence for a long time—so long All for One started to wonder if he was making an incredibly unsubtle attempt at avoiding the question altogether. But finally he said, “Do you think . . .”
That was all he managed.
He dragged the heel of his hand under his eye. He didn’t look like he was crying, but he must have felt close to it, because he immediately reset his hand and did it again, blinking hard.
All for One, above all else, was patient. He sat perfectly still in Izuku’s desk chair and waited in expectant silence for Izuku to get the words out.
“It’s stupid,” Izuku said.
“The worst problems often are.” All Might being one of them.
Izuku was back to biting his lip. All for One wanted to ask him to stop—that could not be healthy—but he also didn’t want to disrupt whatever Izuku was working up to, so he held his tongue. Izuku shook his head at himself and said softly, “Do you think I’m useless?”
The question slammed into All for One like a hard hit to the solar plexus. Time itself came to a terrible grinding halt. He sat, horrified, in shock as everything froze around him.
Some kid—
Some dumbass fucking dickhead of a kid—
Had told All for One’s nephew—
He was useless.
It was worse than fighting All Might. It was like the earth had cracked underneath him, something jerking out of alignment and stopping the world in its orbit. In years and years nothing had disrupted the natural state of the universe like this simple question.
All for One gasped, “Excuse me?”
Izuku shrank in on himself, shoulders hunching up to his ears. “Because, like, I don’t have a quirk. Does that make me useless?”
If All for One could go kill every single kid in that goddamn junior high school right this second except Shinsou Hitoshi, he would. He would in a heartbeat. But then Izuku would never speak to him again, and he’d been through Izuku’s silent treatment before and it was, in a few concise words, not pleasant.
Izuku forgave easier than he breathed. It would forever be his greatest strength and his greatest weakness—this All for One knew. But he also knew that killing every single child in Aldera would be unforgivable, even for Izuku, even if he subtracted out Shinsou Hitoshi. So he contained himself.
“You’re mad,” Izuku observed. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you—”
“You didn’t make me mad,” All for One said, mouth on autopilot as he processed. “Who told you you were useless?” Surely he could kill one child and get away with it.
Izuku’s eyes flitted around as he studied whatever mess had taken over All for One’s expression for the moment. He said, “No one.” Another clear lie.
Fine. Izuku didn’t want to share an essential detail. Fine! As much as All for One wanted to retaliate, he could admit that damage control was probably more important. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and said slowly and clearly, “I need you to listen to me when I say this.”
Izuku tucked his curly hair behind his ears (it sprang back out again immediately) and nodded.
“You,” All for One said, “are one of the most—no, you are the most talented, intelligent, productive child I have ever met. To call you useless is an offense to half of Japan itself. You’ve been making a visible difference to the entire city of Musutafu since you were eight years old.”
“But I don’t have a quirk,” Izuku said, as if that made a difference. As if that made a freaking hair’s width of a difference. He dragged the heel of his hand under his eye again, voice fluctuating sporadically up an octave as he said, “I don’t have a quirk and so I can’t be useful. I’m just nothing.”
“Who gives a flying rat’s ass about quirks?” All for One said.
Izuku released a wet laugh at the curse word, but All for One wasn’t joking. All for One, who gave several flying rat’s asses about quirks, was being dead serious.
“How useful do you think I am?” All for One said.
Izuku gave a startled blink. He thought about it, processing, and then shook his head. “I don’t know. Like 20 percent useful? You’re a villain.”
That was horribly insulting and All for One wanted to argue, but, “Fine, 20 percent. How many quirks do I have?”
He realized, just after he said it, that Izuku probably didn’t know the exact number of quirks (All for One himself didn’t know the exact number of quirks), but Izuku said immediately, “One.”
“And how useful do—” All for One stopped for a second. Backed up. “ One?”
“Yeah, your quirk is ‘All for One.’” Izuku held up a finger. “One quirk. Which is still infinitely more than how many quirks I have.”
“You think of my quirk,” All for One said, completely fascinated, “as one quirk?”
“You don’t?”
What a unique and awe-striking boy Izuku was. What a puzzle of a person. It was one quirk, when All for One really thought about it, except it wasn’t at all. But the very fact that Izuku had thought to question—
He was getting sidetracked. Also, the illuminating comparison he’d been about to make (about how if he had multiple quirks and was only 20% useful then having no quirk shouldn’t make a difference) had just been completely ruined by Izuku. One quirk. Unbelievable.
Setting that aside, he hunted for a new angle. “Do you think someone with a small mutation quirk like changing their fingernail color is automatically useless?”
Izuku thought about it. All for One let him—this wasn’t the sort of thing that clicked into place all the sudden. It would take him a long time to undo all the self-hatred his classmates were forcing onto him. More than anything, All for One regretted letting Izuku go to Aldera Junior High in the first place.
But maybe Izuku was right. Maybe this sort of conversation was unavoidable no matter where he went.
The hem of Izuku’s pants may never be the same from how much he was twisting and untwisting it. Maybe Kurogiri could work some magic. Probably not.
“Someone with a fingernail color changing quirk could help out a lot in a place where people get their nails done,” Izuku said finally. “Or they could be a model or an actor.”
He was missing the point still. All for One released a silent huff of breath and hunted for a different way to explain this. A new angle. “Say someone has a quirk that’s perfect for healing animals,” All for One said, “but they don’t want to be a vet. They want to be a—an electrical engineer instead. They’re terrified of animals and never go near a single one in their whole life. Are they useless?”
With a tiny gasp, Izuku’s head shot up suddenly, eyes widening in understanding.
Yes! Best uncle of the year. All for One awarded the title to himself mentally along with a pat on the back.
“Oh,” Izuku said. “I get it. Even if they can’t use their quirk to help for some reason, they can still be helpful in other ways. And that’s similar to not having a quirk at all.”
“There you go.”
Izuku dove for him. All for One saw it coming and braced himself. Izuku’s arms spread out and then latched themselves around All for One’s body, Izuku’s face smashing into his chest. The tears came next. All for One contained a sigh—his suit would never be the same—and gave Izuku a soft pat between the shoulder blades.
“You’ve already been useful,” he said as Izuku soaked the front of his shirt. “Quirk or not, you’re smart and strong and creative, and you’ve been a huge nuisance to me specifically. That’s enough, I’d say.” You’re enough. He felt the words linger on the tip of his tongue, but that was too sappy so he kept it to himself.
“Thank you,” Izuku mumbled into his shirt.
All for One gave him another pat.
Izuku released him then and scrambled back on his bed, sitting cross-legged again, the gushing tears reducing to a trickle. “I knew it was stupid. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.”
“People shouldn’t be saying that to you,” All for One said.
“I don’t know why they do,” Izuku admitted. He wiped off the remaining tears with his sleeve.
“They likely feel threatened by your potential.”
Izuku snorted.
“I mean that genuinely,” All for One said. “Not long ago, everyone was saying the opposite. Being quirkless was better than having a quirk. You could fit into society if you didn’t have a quirk, and so you were useful. Having a quirk made you dangerous. It’s not like that anymore, but people have to find something to hate. You scare them because you prove everything they think is so great about themselves can be achieved through effort and sheer willpower.”
Perhaps that speech had gone on too long. Izuku was looking at him like he had just sprouted an arm out of his ear. Which was a quirk All for One had actually come across once (he had not stolen it).
“You know,” Izuku said. “You’re actually pretty good at this.”
It was All for One’s turn to look at Izuku like an arm had grown out of his ear. All for One was good at many, many things. This situation was not on the list.
Izuku released a breathy half laugh. “It’s weird but I’m pretty sure I think of you as my actual uncle at this point. I mean, you’re here, and he’s not. And my dad’s not, and my mom’s not, even though I know she wants to be.”
All for One felt a flash of guilt for slowly killing the kid’s grandpa through long-term illness, and then remembered that the man was very quirkist and probably contributed in part to the conversation All for One had just had to have with Izuku. He forgot the guilt.
“It’s been a long time, is all,” Izuku said. “And I was just thinking—I haven’t really felt lonely in a while? I did at the beginning, definitely, but now it’s just like. You’re here, and Kurogiri’s here, and Dabi is my worst enemy, and it’s just, like, it’s home now? And I was just thinking about that. Um, so, thank you? I guess?”
It was like an arm had sprouted out of Izuku’s other ear as well. What language was he even speaking?
Izuku dabbed at his eyes again. “You’re looking at me weird,” he said into his sleeve.
“You say very strange things,” All for One said. “I am the worst supervillain of all time. You do know that, right? You know that moments ago I was thinking about leveling your school with everyone inside of it?”
“But you’re not going to,” Izuku said, “because I’d be mad. And that’s actually pretty cool. Real uncle energy.”
Around Izuku’s pinky finger was wrapped: one All for One, one Kurogiri, probably a half a dozen heroes, one Hatsume Mei, and one Shinsou Hitoshi. He didn’t even know the power he held.
“Right,” All for One said. “I think there’s something incredibly wrong with you. I hope you know that.”
Izuku laughed. “Yeah, I know.” He wiped the remnants of the tears off with the back of his wrist and said one last time, “Thank you.”
Notes:
AFO: My love language is insults
Chapter 38: Midoriya Izuku: Origin
Summary:
Izuku meets All Might. This bodes well.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Izuku fished his notebook out of the koi pond. He flipped through the soggy pages, huffing. He’d been working on this notebook for a long time. Served him right for taking it to school.
“That guy’s a huge jerk,” Hitoshi said. “He literally just suicide baited you. I don’t know how you can stand him.”
“We used to be really good friends when we were kids.” Izuku shook out the notebook to dry it as much as he could and then gave up. “Well, it’ll air dry and I’ll salvage what I can later. We can’t be late!” He pumped a fist in the air.
“This isn’t something you just brush off like that,” Hitoshi said, but he trailed after Izuku anyway as they embarked on the walk to the dojo. It wasn’t super far, which was why Kurogiri hadn’t insisted on portaling them there after school, and it was nice because it made Izuku feel more independent. He felt lucky they’d even found a dojo so close to the school.
They walked together, Izuku chatting away and Hitoshi nodding and occasionally interjecting with a comment or a question or a noise to show he was still listening. As they passed through an underpass, though, Izuku heard a strange gurgling noise. He stopped immediately, ears pricked up, but Hitoshi kept going, stopping a few feet ahead of him on top of a sewage grate.
Something brown and gooey splurted up out of the grate and Izuku dove for Hitoshi, a hand coming up to protect his head as they fell. They both tumbled to the ground beyond it, Izuku rolling to his feet immediately.
“Dude,” Hitoshi snapped, “what the actual—”
A huge sludge figure bubbled up between the metal bars and Hitoshi cut himself off, both of them staring at the thing. A villain, Izuku deduced as the thing shot for him. He tried to dodge out of the way but it grabbed him by the ankle and started pulling him in.
“Need a body,” the sludge person gurgled out.
Completely calm, Hitoshi asked Izuku, “Do you need help?”
“Honestly, yeah,” Izuku said, trying and failing to kick the sludge villain off him. “There’s no body for me to hit.”
“Hey, sludge thing,” Hitoshi said. “What’s your deal?”
A huge blast of wind shot through the alley and Izuku screwed up his face, flinching away. The sludge released his ankle and splattered all over the place.
“Okay,” Hitoshi said, “what is going on?”
And then All Might landed with a huge boom right in front of both of them. “I am here!” he bellowed, a huge smile plastered on his face. Izuku almost died right then and there.
“Oh my god,” Izuku said. “Ohmygod.”
"No . . .” Hitoshi said.
“It’s All Might!” Izuku screeched. “Oh my god. Can I have your autograph? Can I have a photo with you? My uncle will flip out. He absolutely hates you.”
Hitoshi scoffed, somewhat weakly given the circumstances. “That’s the part of having a photo that you’re excited about?”
“Of course, young man,” All Might said, taking Izuku’s soggy notebook and scrawling All Might! out on it with a small drawing. “Would you like one too?” he asked Hitoshi, who shook his head.
“He definitely does,” Izuku said, brandishing his notebook again. “I’ll give it to him after.” Or slip it under Oji-san’s door to be a nuisance. Honestly, Dabi’s door was a good target too.
“I don’t,” Hitoshi insisted, glaring at Izuku. He could try all he wanted to pretend he was too cool to be excited about meeting All Might, but he definitely was. It was impossible not to be.
“How are you doing, All Might?” Izuku asked, ignoring Hitoshi as All Might signed his notebook for a second time. “Have you recovered from that really big injury you got?”
Hitoshi face palmed.
All Might froze, hand halfway through his autograph, and stared at Izuku. “Come again?”
“That really big injury you got,” Izuku repeated. “When you were fighting with All for One. Did you recover from it? It was pretty bad, right? You had to take a break. But you haven’t talked about it in the news so I was wondering if you were okay?”
“How do you know about that?” All Might asked, frowning. Izuku had never seen All Might frown before. He began to wonder if he’d made a mistake.
“I get around,” Izuku said vaguely.
“You have to stop doing this,” Hitoshi said. “Seriously, you have to stop. You can’t keep dropping people’s lore on them like this.” He turned to All Might and gave a deep apologetic bow. “I’m so sorry for my friend. He knows too much and doesn’t know how to filter it.”
Izuku could understand perhaps where he had gone wrong. His cheeks started to heat up as he realized he’d definitely just asked All Might a super invasive question that he wasn’t even supposed to know about, like a complete creep.
“Ah,” All Might nodded like he understood. “That must be your quirk, right?”
“Um, actually, I don’t have a quirk,” Izuku said, cheeks burning even more at the admission. Now All Might would think he was a crazy stalker or something. It was true, but that didn’t mean Izuku wanted him thinking it. Izuku flipped his notebook closed and headed for Hitoshi. “Um, but it was nice to meet you! I’m a big fan. Very big.”
He nodded his respect to All Might, face burning, grabbed Hitoshi by the wrist and headed off. He wondered, vaguely in the back of his mind, what had happened to the sludge villain, but he shook it off. All Might had it handled.
He and Hitoshi didn’t make it very far before they heard a big boom down a nearby street. Izuku frowned, drawn toward the fight like a magnet, and Hitoshi, now the one muttering about how they were going to be late, was dragged along after him.
Down the alley the sludge villain had attacked another random passerby.
No, not a random passerby. Kacchan.
Izuku didn’t think. He just moved.
Toshinori was convinced he had never met a boy like this one before. Standing down a side street in the sunset, both of them facing each other and the young man giving Yagi his full attention, his friend with his face in his hands behind him, Yagi became absolutely certain there was no one in the world quite like him.
“You have what it takes to be a hero,” Toshinori told him.
He thought he heard the boy’s purple-haired friend mutter, “Don’t encourage him.”
“And because of that,” Toshinori continued, “I would like to offer you my quirk.”
Toshinori prepared to swear them both to secrecy and explain the history of One for All and how it could be passed down from generation to generation, but suddenly the boy screeched and whipped around to face his friend. “Oh my god, Hitoshi-kun, it’s happening! It’s actually happening! Pinch me.”
The other boy, Hitoshi, groaned.
“One for All, Hitoshi-kun! I’ve dreamed and dreamed about this day! Is it real? Is this a fever dream? Am I about to wake up sad and alone? Tell me I’m not dreaming!”
Toshinori began to have regrets. And worries. If there was a leak of information about One for All, Toshinori needed to find it and stop it up immediately.
“You are far from sad and alone,” Hitoshi grumbled. “This is the worst possible scenario. All Might, I beg you. Rethink this.”
Toshinori couldn’t exactly retract the offer now that he’d made it. And clearly the young man had heroic instincts—he ran without a plan and without a quirk into a dangerous situation to save a life. That was heroic potential if Toshinori had ever seen it.
But perhaps he should have run a background check or asked more questions before just offering up his quirk, which somehow the young man knew about, although it was a state secret. How had he found out? Who was he, really?
Mirai would be ashamed of Toshinori if he found out about this.
The young man fell into a deep, deep bow. “Please, please do not rethink this. It would mean the absolute world to me to be the ninth successor of One for All. Thank you so much for offering. I’m just—I’ve been wanting this for a really long time and I thought it was just this wild, unattainable dream, and now it’s happening and to be honest I’m freaking out a little bit but mostly I’m just— wow, thank you so much. I definitely accept.”
“Your uncle is going to have a fit,” Hitoshi said.
“He’ll never know,” the young man answered. “It’s a secret, Hitoshi-kun, didn’t you hear?”
Hitoshi gave the young man a completely dead look before turning back to Toshinori. “Please don’t,” he said. “There’s enough drama in my life without this added on. Izuku-kun doesn’t need encouragement.”
“I already accepted,” the young man, Izuku, said, socking Hitoshi in the arm. “There aren’t any take backs.” His face suddenly closed with worry. “Unless there are?”
Toshinori gave Hitoshi a truly apologetic look before bowing to Izuku. “I’ll be honored to train you to be my successor. We’ll need to work together to get you strong enough to contain the power of the quirk. I’ll put together a training plan. How did you know about One for All already?”
“Oh, um. I get around.” Izuku pulled out a notebook and flipped it open, scribbling quickly on a blank page. He ripped it off and handed it to Toshinori. “That’s my phone number,” he said. “I get new phones a lot so it might change, but right now that’s it. I’m really excited about this opportunity, so thank you so much!” He bowed a full ninety degrees. “This has been something I’ve wanted for a long, long time. I’m trying not to cry.”
Toshinori had a lot of questions.
“I’m texting Kurogiri,” Hitoshi muttered, pulling out his phone. “Screw martial arts.”
“Oh, you have a deflated form!”
Midoriya sounded surprised, which Toshinori appreciated. He’d met the boy a week ago and had since then thrown out surprise after surprise only for Midoriya to nod along like he’d already known. The history between All for One and One for All, he already knew. The history of One for All generally and all its past users, he already knew. How One for All worked he already knew.
But he did not know, apparently, that Toshinori had a “deflated” form.
It wasn’t much, but it was something. Midoriya had dodged all of Toshinori’s attempts to figure out how he found out about All for One, One for All, and everything in between, so Toshinori was still in the dark about all that. He’d been terrified of telling Mirai about the boy just because he could sense the disapproval from all the way over here in Musutafu, so he hadn’t jumped that hurdle yet.
“Oh,” Midoriya gestured at the purple mist he’d just appeared from. “This is Kurogiri. He’s . . . sort of my guardian? One of them? One of . . . Or like my adoptive cousin, sort of?” He made a face. “It’s really complicated.”
The purple mist shifted and became a purple blob wearing a suit. “I’m one of Izuku-kun’s guardians,” he said, bowing. “It’s nice to meet you. He mentioned having something he needed to get permission for?”
“Right, so.” Midoriya peered around Kurogiri. “The portal’s closed, right?”
“It is.”
“Awesome, so this is All Might!” Midoriya gestured.
The noise Kurogiri made was all-suffering. It reminded Toshinori immediately of Midoriya’s friend Shinsou, who responded in a similar way to many Midoriya-related situations. “Izuku-kun, no,” Kurogiri said. “Your uncle—he might never forgive you. Or himself. This will kill him.”
Toshinori had a lot of questions about this uncle, who Midoriya had immediately banned him from ever meeting the first time Toshinori had asked. Apparently the man hated All Might with such a passion that Midoriya was afraid Toshinori wouldn’t survive the interaction. This had to be an exaggeration, of course, but if Midoriya felt strongly about it, Toshinori wouldn’t protest. Kurogiri’s permission would have to be enough.
“What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” Midoriya said. “He didn’t find out about the vigilante stuff for like a super long time and in hindsight I was being very obvious.”
Toshinori frowned between Midoriya and Kurogiri. This was the first he’d heard of any vigilante stuff.
“Oh.” Midoriya turned to Toshinori. “I’ve been a vigilante since I was like ten. I’m not super well known or anything so you probably haven’t heard of me. Midori-san? Probably not.”
Yes, Mirai was going to murder Toshinori. Never mind fear about Midoriya’s uncle finding out about this— Mirai finding out was the worst possible situation. “ You’re Midori-san,” Toshinori said, trying to believe it.
“Oh, you do know! Yes.”
Kurogiri sighed a long, tired sigh.
This did, however, explain a lot. Midori-san was, although not infamous in the heroics industry, relatively renowned for knowing altogether too much about everything and being a scary opponent for any villain. Although Toshinori’s mind was not put at ease about Midoriya knowing about One for All, knowing that he was Midori-san helped soothe his worries slightly. That was typical Midori-san behavior, according to Naomasa.
Midori-san. Midoriya. Had he done that with the names on purpose?
“Anyway,” Midoriya turned back to Kurogiri. “You know all the drama between All for One and One for All?”
Toshinori’s mouth dropped open. It was a secret. He had told Midoriya, and Midoriya had seemed to understand, that it was a national secret and one of the most private things Midoriya could ever know about, and he’d just turned around and started talking about it casually with his guardian.
And, to Toshinori’s absolute horror, Kurogiri said, “I do.”
How did everyone know about this?
“Okay, so All Might’s going to give One for All to me next and I was hoping to train with him for a while before then?”
“Ah, Young Midoriya . . .” Toshinori started, trying to stop him from revealing more incredibly top secret details. But it was too little, too late, and he trailed off uselessly.
Kurogiri didn’t respond for a long time. His mist flared in and out as he stood on the beach of Musutafu, birds squawking wildly as they found some crumbs on the dock behind him. And then he said with more emphasis than Toshinori had thought him capable of, “ Why would you do this?”
“It’s my dream, Kurogiri, you know this! I’ve been fantasizing about this since I was like ten! I need it. And All Might offered! I can’t say no to All Might! I’m going to be, like, the best hero ever! Think about all the people I can save!”
“Izuku-kun, stop.” Kurogiri held up a misty purple hand. “Stop. Think this through. Your uncle’s quirk senses other people’s quirks. Do you see the issue?”
“Well I’m not going to have it until my body is ready,” Midoriya said, “so my limbs don’t explode off. We’ll have time to find a way to hide it from him.”
“So your limbs—no.” A new portal swirled into existence and Kurogiri turned toward it. “You know what? I’m not dealing with this on top of everything else. Do whatever you want, but for the love of everything in the world, stop telling me about it. I can’t handle . . .” He kept talking as he stepped through his own portal and the rest of his sentence disappeared with him.
“I think that went well,” Midoriya said, turning to Toshinori. “We got permission!”
Whatever had just happened didn’t really seem like permission, but Toshinori wasn’t going to argue. He was too busy adding another tally to People Who Knew About One For All That Weren’t Supposed To.
“How’d he find out about One for All?” Toshinori asked, pained.
“I think he’s always known,” Midoriya said, cupping his chin with the crook of his index finger. “My uncle’s kind of obsessed with this sort of thing.”
And so the uncle also knew. Wonderful.
“Who else knows, so I don’t get any more surprises?”
Midoriya listed on his fingers. “Hitoshi-kun knows, I’m pretty sure Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa knows, same with Sir Nighteye, Nedzu knows—”
Toshinori knew these but for fear of missing one he didn’t stop Midoriya.
“—Gran Torino knows, David Shield could know but he probably doesn’t, and there’s this random guy named Shigaraki Tomura who knows also—no idea where he is right now, though. I think that’s it.”
That made a cohesive list. Toshinori hadn’t been aware that Tenko knew about it, but Tenko rarely spoke at all, particularly about his past. It was definitely something to keep an eye on. “Let’s try to make it so the number of people you just said doesn’t grow. Right?”
“You said it’s a secret,” Midoriya said, like Toshinori had just reiterated the obvious. “I know. I can keep a secret.”
“Okay.” Unable to argue, Toshinori turned to the beach. “So for your training, you’re going to clear this whole beach of trash.”
Instead of groaning or complaining like Toshinori expected him to, Midoriya jumped immediately on board. Toshinori gave himself this: even if Midoriya was clearly going to be more than a handful, he was a good fit for One for All. He had heroic drive in spades. And that was all, really, that mattered.
Notes:
i’m trying realllyyyy hard not to rehash canon bc like you all know canon already and i can be original but i am going to follow it really closely at some parts please forgive me <3 i have a plaN
Also i cannot EXPRESS how excited i am to finally be in the canon timeline i like teared up a little bit when i was writing izuku getting his silly little notebook out of the pond sflkjlkjf idk if i’m just emotional or what but holy crap we made it!! Izuku’s canon timeline arc! My bones are viBrAting like omg omg omg omg !!! (too much coffee??) canon timeline! The boy has grown so much T-T
Chapter 39: Pulling the Curtain
Summary:
Izuku turns fifteen and gets a birthday present from Mei. He arranges several meetings, one of which is fraught with emotional tension and the other of which is with Todoroki Rei and a lawyer.
Notes:
I am giving you an extra chapter and I'm going to say it's because this fic just hit a thousand kudos (thank you so much!! seriously!) but the real truth is because I'm excited and can't wait any longer to post. THANK YOU FOR A THOUSAND KUDOS, HAVE AN EXTRA CHAPTER
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
For Izuku’s fifteenth birthday, his mom visited again.
This, as usual, caused chaos in the household—although less than last time. They’d had a rehearsal when he was eleven, and now they were doing it again.
He called his mom regularly, but not so much that this situation felt calm or comfortable for him. Regardless, his mother came to his and Oji-san’s new fake apartment. She spent two days with them. The first they spent together, just the three of them, and the second was the real festivity day. Izuku invited Hitoshi over and they had his first birthday party in years. Dabi and Kurogiri also came. If his mom thought it was weird that Izuku was friends with a bunch of adults, she didn’t say anything, too busy sobbing over the fact that he had friends at all.
For his birthday Izuku received several really awesome presents including (but not limited to) a new oversized hoodie since his other one fit properly and was no longer oversized, a new laptop since his old one’s battery was shot, and a full textbook on the latest in quirk science.
After the party was over mid-afternoon, his mom departed again to go back north, and the whole family plus Dabi, who Izuku refused to acknowledge as part of the crew and who also refused to acknowledge himself as part of the crew, moved everything from the apartment back to the bar again. Hitoshi also helped.
Hitoshi and Izuku were solely responsible for his room, since no one else could stand all the hero merch. This was ideal.
“Thank you so much, seriously,” Izuku said, rolling his brand new Kamui posters together. “I thought Oji-san was about to explode.”
Hitoshi had gotten Izuku a book on how to design hero costumes. Oji-san had been incredibly unimpressed, and unable to express this in the presence of Midoriya Inko. His reaction was a gift in and of itself.
“Anytime. Mei wants to call, by the way.” Hitoshi was already pulling up her contact.
Something Izuku didn’t know was how Hitoshi had gotten Mei’s number. Izuku certainly had never given it to him. But he let it happen, taking down a poster of Hawks as the dial tone rang on speaker.
“Hello!” Mei’s voice shouted through the line all at once. “Is he here?”
“Hi, Mei-san!” Izuku said.
“You! Happy birthday, you weirdo!”
Izuku thought Mei couldn’t point fingers, but he laughed. “Thanks.”
“I have a present for you. Shinsou-kun! Produce the present!”
Hitoshi gave Izuku a tortured look that Izuku could relate to all too well. Mei was wonderful and a genius, but she was also a lot. He no longer wondered where Hitoshi had gotten her number—she’d probably forced it on him the last time she, Izuku, and Hitoshi were on the phone together like this.
But Hitoshi did produce the present, digging out a big box from under Izuku’s bed. Izuku had so many questions, including: How did that get there?
“Oh my god,” he said, recognizing the box as similar to when she sent him his first vigilante costume. “Mei-san, you didn’t.”
“Did you open it yet?” she asked. “Open it before you get all excited! I need to gush!”
Izuku peeled the tape off the top of the box and gingerly lifted the flaps, heart pounding. This couldn’t be happening. Surely she hadn’t made him another —and for free —
He pulled out the case hidden between layers of bubble wrap. And then, confused, the case sitting right below that one. “Two cases?” he wondered aloud.
“The one with the purple tape is for Shinsou-kun! His birthday was like two weeks ago, right?”
“How did you know that?” Hitoshi muttered. The question seemed rhetorical. He took the case with the flag of purple tape hanging off the top as Izuku handed it to him.
“Hold on,” Izuku said, pressing his hands into his mouth as he figured it out. “Mei-san, you didn’t .”
“Open the present!” she screeched. “Stop ruining it by deducing what it is!”
Izuku immediately opened the present.
He burst into tears.
“Oh my god,” Hitoshi murmured, his own case open on Izuku’s fake bed. “You can’t be serious.”
“You have to promise me you won’t use them until you get into UA,” she said. “I gave them a little bit of room so you can grow into them, but these are, dare I say, top-of-the-line hero costumes based on Izuku-kun’s long and crazed ramblings and my own incredible imagination. You may now shower me with praise.”
Izuku did that. He did it tearfully and loudly, Hitoshi shushing him the whole time and glancing nervously at the door. “It’s perfect,” he sobbed, delicately sifting through the pieces.
“I try,” she said happily.
“Izuku-kun, your uncle will kill us all,” Hitoshi said, putting a hand over his mouth. “Be quieter.”
Izuku nodded tearfully and lowered his volume significantly. “Thank you so much, Mei-san. Seriously, thank you.”
Hitoshi echoed him. His gratitude was all in his eyes. He was, like Izuku, freaking out. Just in a very different way.
Shouta hadn’t heard from or seen Midori-kun in a few weeks and he was beginning to feel worried again that the kid had died when randomly he received a text from a number he didn’t recognize with coordinates and a time.
And then another message that said, oh that was probably super ominous and scary, this is midori-kun! pls don’t trace this phone number bc i’m attached to it bc it has a lot of nines in it and i don’t want to change it, anyway there’s a big villain thing planned at this time and place ^ and i need backup if you could come and also please don’t tell anyone else because my uncle might freak out if i get too many people involved. i have assembled a small tight knit team of heroes s and also me so we are all set :)
It was horrifying but predictable that Midori-kun texted exactly in the same way he spoke.
Shouta immediately texted back asking several clarifying questions, some of which Midori-kun responded to immediately and some of which he either forgot to answer or ignored. He did get explicit instructions to wear civvies, which was weird, but maybe it was an undercover sort of mission.
So mostly Shouta was left in the dark on how to proceed. But he had an address and a time, and he couldn’t let the kid deal with everything on his own, so the day of, he let Hizashi know where he would be and set out to keep the kid from dying.
The location he’d been sent was to a coffee shop near the outskirts of Musutafu, and he spent a long time outside the door trying to figure out what kind of villain attack could possibly be at a coffee shop and why.
He checked his phone to see a text from Midori-kun. YOU’RE HERE!!! Okay enter the coffee shop you will notice a bright yellow hoodie and kurogiri in a booth near the door
This wasn’t the weirdest mission Shouta had ever been on, but it was close to the top of the list. He walked into the coffee shop, looking around, and located Midori-kun’s yellow hoodie. The hoodie must have been growing along with him, because the sleeves still flopped past his hands just like they had when he was smaller, and the deep hood cast his face in shadow. Across the table from him was Kurogiri, his back to Shouta, sending confused glances around the room.
Midori-kun popped up from the table as Shouta approached and shepherded him into the seat across from Kurogiri.
Kurogiri immediately stood.
“No, sit back down,” Midori-kun ordered, pointing. “I’m sick of being the middleman. You’re going to talk like adults.”
With an incredibly nasty look at Midori-kun, Kurogiri sat back down. “You’re lucky I love you,” he grumbled.
A shattering silence crashed down on the table. Shouta, once again, regretted ever meeting these people with all their incomprehensible family drama. Kurogiri gasped and turned to Midori-kun, yellow eyes widening with some sort of realization.
“You—” Midori-kun’s voice wobbled. Tears fell out from under his hood. Shouta looked on in horror. “You love me?”
“Oh . . .” Kurogiri’s expression softened into one of deep, deep worry. “Is—Um, I—”
“No!” Midori-kun held up both hands to stop him. “You won’t distract me with this! I see what you’re doing. You two are going to have a nice conversation.” He bunched up the sleeve of his hoodie and used it to dab his eyes under the hoodie. “I’m going to go process the emotional bomb you just dumped on me over there while I have my business meeting.” He pointed at the opposite corner of the restaurant, where a tall man in a suit was sitting next to a nervous-looking woman with long white hair.
Kurogiri acknowledged that corner with an exhausted, helpless expression. “Don’t tell me what you’re doing. I don’t want to know. The mental stress is too much for me.”
Midori-kun sniffed. “I wasn’t planning on telling you anyway.” He pointed at Shouta. “This is Aizawa Shouta, AKA Eraserhead, who is married to Yamada Hizashi, AKA Present Mic.” To Shouta, he said, “And this is Kurogiri, AKA Shirakumo Oboro. Bye.”
It felt like Shouta had just been punched so hard the wind was knocked out of him. His vision went dark at the edges. Midori-kun turned and stalked across the cafe to have his ‘business meeting,’ leaving Shouta with—with—
For his part, Kurogiri looked dismayed. His hands came up as if in surrender. “I don’t remember anything,” he said. “He found—it’s a complicated situation. I don’t remember anything from before about ten years ago. So don’t . . . don’t get your hopes up. ”
Shouta’s hopes were far from up. Kurogiri looked so different than Oboro had that the changes he would have had to go through, the pain he would have had to go through to become like this, was horrifying to think about. “What happened?” he asked. Probably not the most sensitive of questions, but it was the one on his tongue. He had to know.
Kurogiri—Oboro? Kurogiri made an aggravated sighing sound, pressing misty hands into his forehead. “It’s so complicated. I would have told you this differently to help you understand but . . .” He frowned toward Midori-kun.
In all honesty, Shouta would prefer finding out now under strange circumstances than continuing the long dreading wait. He studied Kurogiri, trying to put together the picture he was seeing with his memories of Oboro. They didn’t click.
“How much has he told you about his living situation?” Kurogiri asked, nodding at the kid.
“Too much and nothing at all,” Shouta grumbled. He wished he had a coffee—more for something to do with his hands than to drink. Instead, he clasped his hands under the table and tried to hold them still. Oboro and Kurogiri, the same? “His uncle is a supervillain? He has a mom somewhere too.”
“Up north,” Kurogiri said. “And it’s more complicated than that, but you have the groundwork, I suppose. Well, here’s what happened.”
He explained. Succinctly, but thoroughly. Every sentence bred new horrors.
When he was done, Shouta put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. He took a second to remember how to exhale. A memory swirled up of the kid saying something about his uncle mixing together a high schooler and a bunch of quirks. So Oboro had been that high schooler. Grotesquely curious about the mechanics of this, Shouta said, “How is that possible?” and then immediately said, “Actually, I probably don’t want to know.”
Carefully, clearly trying not to reveal too much, Kurogiri said, “His quirk is conveniently lined up with the practice.”
Shouta had no idea what that meant and decided to leave it that way. The how didn’t matter so much, he supposed. What mattered was that his friend had been genetically altered and mentally destroyed just so a supervillain—Midori-kun’s uncle—could have a convenient teleportation quirk at his disposal. Oboro had been turned into a villain against his will. And so Shouta went right back to panicking about Midori-kun’s life’s longevity or lack thereof.
“Now that, ah”—Kurogiri nodded in Midori-kun’s direction—“he’s figured it out, his uncle and I have been discussing how to recover the lost memories and such. He thinks it’s possible, but it’ll have to go slowly because we don’t want to accidentally cause total collapse.”
A steady but painful headache bloomed behind Shouta’s eyebrows. “Total collapse.”
“Well, it’s difficult because, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I am not the same as I was in high school. And the reconciliation of the two identities, or rather the potential that the identities can’t reconcile, could be catastrophic.”
It made sense, but it was difficult to hear. Shouta had unrealistically and optimistically (horrifying to use those adjectives for himself, but true) imagined that Oboro would be exactly the same as before. He’d known it was an impossibility, but he’d let himself indulge the fantasy because the reality was difficult to bear. Oboro wasn’t the same and he never would be. “So you don’t know if you’ll ever remember.”
“Oh, I will eventually,” Kurogiri said easily. “ He won’t let it rest until I do.” He nodded to Midori-kun’s business meeting again. “I suppose I’m asking for patience.”
Patience Shouta could give him. “I’ve waited this long,” he said. “I can wait more. But I won’t lose touch with you again.” He opened his phone and pulled up the contacts. Making a new entry, he held it out to Kurogiri. “You’re a villain. I understand that. I know you’re not the same anymore, but I still miss my friend and I’m willing to take a chance. Please let me.”
It was the most sincere and vulnerable sentence Shouta had uttered in years. His pulse pounded in his temples but he didn’t let up. He would not lose Oboro again.
Kurogiri frowned at the phone, yellow eyes flickering, and then glanced again at Midori-kun’s corner of the cafe. His eyes narrowed and he bent his head in acceptance. He took Shouta’s phone and filled in the details. When he passed the phone back, the new contact had been formed. Kurogiri was the name on it, not Shirakumo Oboro. Shouta pursed his lips but left it alone.
“Hizashi and Kayama-san will want to meet you. I can’t keep them out of this. But we can take it slow.”
“Thank you.”
Since Midori-kun didn’t seem anywhere near wrapping up his business meeting, and in fact had several stacks of paper spread out over the table and seemed knee-deep in some discussion with the man in the suit, Shouta and Kurogiri spent some time awkwardly getting reacquainted.
And finally, Shouta got around to asking what he really wanted to know. “The kid,” he said. “Is he safe, living with this supervillain? I mean, given what he did to you . . .”
For the first time since Shouta had sat down, the corners of Kurogiri’s eyes tapered into a smile and he released a brief chuckle. “In all honesty,” he said, “there’s no one in the world safer.”
Shouta furrowed his eyebrows. Whatever Midori-kun’s home situation was, it definitely wasn’t an ideal situation. Kurogiri was talking about it surprisingly lightly.
“Ah, think about it this way,” Kurogiri said. “He lives with the biggest supervillain of all time, and although that guy won’t admit it, he’s incredibly fond of his nephew. If anyone so much as looked funny at . . .” He nodded to Midori-kun’s corner.
“Midori-kun,” Shouta supplied.
Kurogiri closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said, all-suffering. “ Midori-kun. If anyone so much as looked funny at Midori-kun, they would find it suddenly difficult to continue existing. His uncle actually recently murdered one of his most trusted advisors because of the mere suggestion of hurting him. So as far as safety goes, very few people are as well-protected as he is.”
“And the uncle, he doesn’t . . .”
“He’s largely uninvolved in Midori-kun’s upbringing,” Kurogiri said, catching the implication with a slight shrug. “And if something did go awry, I would get Midori-kun out of there before he could blink. He’d be in your apartment in seconds. I’d do anything—” Kurogiri cut himself off. “You understand.”
Shouta did understand. He let his shoulders relax back into the booth. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”
“But really,” Kurogiri said, smiling again, “there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Business meeting complete,” Midori-kun shouted right next to Shouta’s ear. He slammed a thick stack of paper into the table. “I hope you’ve been acquainted,” he said, glaring pointedly at Kurogiri.
“Very much so,” Kurogiri said smoothly.
“And I hope,” Midori-kun said, a big grin visible under his hood, “everyone is ready for the absolute storm about to hit all the news networks.”
A foreboding chill climbed Shouta’s spine.
Two weeks later, Todoroki Rei filed a lawsuit against Todoroki Enji.
The case, which media outlets predicted to be very messy, was incredibly short lived. Enji, or more accurately, Enji’s attorney and PR department, chose to settle, and Rei was released from the hospital and awarded a large sum of money. She and her lawyer took a few days to regroup before she faced the media.
“Above all,” she said into the ten mics shoved into her face, “I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude and appreciation to the vigilante Midori-kun for his assistance throughout this whole process. I wouldn’t have been able to take the first steps without him, and I certainly wouldn’t have been able to carry through with it without his support. I will forever be grateful, and I hope he knows I am willing to return the favor at any time, a hundred times over.”
A new slew of questions bombarded her, and she took the one shouted loudest: “What’s next for you from here?”
“Next from here,” she said, and waited for the media to be quiet. “From here, I will be filing two more cases against Todoroki Enji, one for a divorce and custody of my children, and the second for domestic abuse.”
In all the videos, she looked tired. Standing in a conference room in a hotel, microphones crowding her chin, small and frail in front of so many people clamoring with questions, she had an exhausted, jaded stance.
But her voice held steady as she said, “This society has strayed too far into voluntary blindness. There is darkness behind the glamor. Not everything is as it seems. And I fully intend to pull back the curtain on my husband. I will not sit pretty and quiet any longer.”
The voices rose up again.
Rei stepped back. “No more questions.”
Notes:
thinking about. chapter 41. there it sits, on the horizon. i longingly await posting it
Chapter 40: The Nemesis and His Plans
Summary:
Another grounding, a heart-to-heart, and absolute bewilderment from Aizawa
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Oh,” Izuku said, “you’re here.”
All for One took a moment. It wasn’t a very long moment, but it was a moment nonetheless, because he needed to regain his calm. Why was it— how was it that every time he had something big planned, Izuku found out about it immediately and showed up to stop it equally quickly? There was nothing so aggravating. This had been one of his most top secret plans. He’d intentionally not spoken about it in the bar, not put any information about it in his computer (which he suspected had been hacked by one fifteen year old), and not made any visible moves toward it.
And yet Izuku was here, dressed up in his vigilante outfit (All for One refused to use the vigilante name), being held down by several ropes and two of All for One’s lackeys who had caught him outside.
“Indeed,” All for One said. “I am here.”
Izuku snickered. “You sound like All Might.”
The moment of calm ended extremely abruptly. All for One jabbed a finger in Izuku’s direction. “You’re grounded.”
“What?” Izuku squawked. “You can’t do that! I’m not doing anything wrong!”
All for One listed off his crimes. “You just mentioned All Might in my presence—”
“A slip of the tongue!”
“And you are currently completely tied up and in visible danger, and yet,” All for One produced his side of the emergency button to check it, “I have not been informed of your location.”
“I’m right in front of you!” Izuku protested.
“And surprised to find yourself there!” All for One shot back. “Grounded! You haven’t even done your homework yet—don’t lie to me, I know you haven’t. Kurogiri told me.”
Izuku slumped. “Snitch.”
“I’m calling him to pick you up.”
“In my defense,” Izuku started, and although All for One wanted to stop him there, it would be a useless exercise. He was going to get Izuku’s excuses either way. “I purposely got captured because I wanted to get in here. I’m in control of the situation.”
All for One shook his head, holding the phone up to his ear.
“It was a tactical maneuver,” Izuku insisted. “I would have pressed the button if something started going wrong. I have backup this time! Hawks is here! Outside. Somewhere.”
The two lackeys holding onto Izuku (shameful that they needed to both hold on to him to not lose him) glanced nervously at the door to the warehouse.
“You are a nuisance,” All for One told Izuku. To the lackeys, he added, “And you two are terrible at your jobs.”
“Stooping so low,” Izuku muttered, “as to human traffic people. I can’t believe it. My own uncle.”
“It’s monetarily—oh, hello Kurogiri. My nephew just got himself grounded. Please come pick him up.”
Kurogiri sighed. “Send me your location,” he said.
All for One hung up and opened his text messages. “It’s monetarily strategic,” he said. “It’s—”
Hawks chose that moment to careen through the upper windows of the warehouse, spiralling into a superhero landing right in front of All for One, glass shattering everywhere. All for One used a quirk to smack him to the side and pin him to the wall, feathers and all. Distractions weren’t helpful.
“I told you,” Izuku said. “I had backup! I was being very safe the whole time. I’ve been getting better with the whole self-sacrificing thing.”
“You’ve ruined everything.” All for One said. “I thought that hero friend of yours was getting on you about this. Being a vigilante isn’t a viable career path . You need to get off the streets.”
“Eraserhead hasn’t said that in those words,” Izuku said.
“Yes, he has,” All for One said. “Grounded again for lying to me.”
“Not in those exact verbatim words.” Seeing that All for One wasn’t budging, Izuku added, “And I have been getting better. I haven’t gotten into random fights! I’m specifically targeting groups now. Including groups that human traffic people that apparently you’re in charge of. I may never speak to you again. How long am I grounded for?”
“A week,” All for One said savagely.
“What!” Izuku shrieked. “I need that time! I’m training!”
“For what?” All for One demanded. He and Izuku had been going back on forth on this for weeks now and Izuku had still given him no information on what all this so called training was and why it sucked up so much of his time. All for One hardly even saw Izuku anymore. Teenagers!
“For—it’s important!”
“If it’s that important, you’d share the details with me. Ah, finally.” Kurogiri’s portal had swirled into existence just to his right. “He’s getting slow,” All for One grumbled.
“He’s heavy with all the secrets you’ve kept from him,” Izuku muttered, shaking the ropes that had been tying him up free. The two lackeys stared at him in shock and moved to stop him, but he elbowed one of them out of the way and kicked the other one in the back of the knee and stalked forward, peeling rope off himself. “Your evil cronies need to get better at tying people up,” he said. “And you’d better let Hawks go—it’s not his fault you suck. And, for the record, I hate you.”
“Grounded for two weeks now,” All for One said, crossing his arms. “Keep talking.”
Glaring at him, Izuku walked through the portal and disappeared.
All for One killed both of his useless lackeys, threw the hero Hawks out the window he’d come in from, and screamed very loudly just to himself. And then he proceeded with his evil plans.
“Member of the school board,” Izuku muttered. “What’s next! President?”
“You’ll graduate before I can do that,” Oji-san said. “But that would have been my goal, yes.”
“Embarrassing.” Izuku knocked on the Bakugous’ door. “I don’t understand why you’re still doing PTA stuff if you’re basically in charge of the whole school.” Izuku, in fact, didn’t understand a lot of things about Oji-san being on the school board. Why, for starters. It made no logical sense and didn’t advance his evil plans whatsoever.
“I’m proving a point to Sakamoto-san.”
That would explain it. “Right, your nemesis.”
“All Might is my nemesis,” Oji-san said immediately. “Sakamoto-san is ranked third.”
Izuku frowned, trying to count nemeses in his head. Inside the Bakugous’ apartment, he could hear Mitsuki shouting for Kacchan to open the door. “Who’s second?”
“You,” Oji-san said, as if it was obvious.
Izuku burst into tears.
“Oh no,” Oji-san muttered, barely audible over the gushing water.
“I’m your nemesis?” Izuku sobbed. “Really? This is the best day of my life—”
Oji-san gave him a look that somehow managed to be irritated and wildly condescending at the same time. “This isn’t news.”
“But you acknowledged it! I can’t believe it! The level of respect—”
“Stop.” Oji-san glanced down the hallway, checking for an audience. They were alone, of course. “You’re an embarrassment.”
“That’s an integral part of being a nemesis.” Izuku’s tears were flooding the hallway. “I can’t believe this. You’re my nemesis, too.”
The door opened. “Why the fuck,” Kacchan snapped, “are you crying?”
“It’s a very emotional moment,” Izuku wailed.
Oji-san blew past the two teenagers—not without a pointed glare at Kacchan—and stormed into the apartment without another word.
Izuku didn’t really want to hang out with Kacchan if he could avoid it, so he followed Oji-san, kicking off his shoes and heading for the kitchen. As he walked in, he found Mitsuki hugging Oji-san in greeting. Oji-san had gotten better at hugs and was accepting it fine, although somewhat stiffly. Izuku resisted the urge to take a picture for blackmail material, and instead smirked at Oji-san, who glared at him over the top of Mitsuki’s head.
Mitsuki disentangled herself and spotted Izuku, immediately rushing him with a hug too. He did his best demonstration of a proper hug, maintaining eye contact with Oji-san the whole time. His glower only deepened.
“So good to see you both again!” Mitsuki said happily.
“It’s been so long!” Izuku answered, letting her step out of the hug. “I’m really grateful to you for being Oji-san’s friend. He doesn’t have very many.”
If looks could kill, the one Oji-san sent Izuku after that statement would have collapsed the whole apartment building. Mitsuki, however, just laughed and ruffled up Izuku’s curls. “I’m sure that’s not true. It’s no trouble at all, kiddo. Katsudon for dinner again!”
The best day ever kept improving exponentially. Izuku made a fist pump in triumph. “Yes! Thank you so much!”
He sent Oji-san another smug grin because he could before heading off to find Kacchan again. They didn’t really talk anymore, but Izuku could stand the awkwardness for Oji-san’s sake. He really did, after all, need more friends.
Shouta wasn’t sure if Midori-kun had chosen to heed his advice or just had gotten too busy to be a vigilante full-time, but Midori-kun hadn’t been on the streets as often recently. Sometimes, this was worrisome, and Shouta imagined countless ways the kid could be dead or kidnapped, but most of the time he chose to take it as a relief. He still saw the kid more than he wanted to, just less frequently than before.
He let himself hope that Midori-kun was growing out of the vigilantism, like clothes that didn’t fit anymore. Although it was unrealistic and Shouta hated nothing more than being unrealistic, he let himself hope that.
Still, the kid was plenty active. Shouta dropped down to the street level where Midori-kun had tied two villains to a lamp post. Shouta checked the knots (which were expertly done), and checked for two pulses just in case, and then straightened up.
“I know you’re still here,” he said.
“Dang it,” Midori-kun muttered from somewhere behind him.
Shouta turned and lifted an eyebrow at the kid as he slipped out from behind a dumpster down the nearby alley.
“Hi,” Midori-kun said sheepishly, adjusting his hood. “How are you?”
“I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” Shouta said, avoiding the question not because he didn’t see its value but because he had bigger things on his mind and needed to get to the point before the police came and startled Midori-kun off. “You’re fourteen or fifteen now and the heroics entrance exams for high schools are coming up.”
Midori-kun’s head tipped to the side. “Yes?”
“Are you planning to apply?”
“Yes, definitely! I’ve already been studying and practicing and training.” Midori-kun clenched his gloved hand into a determined fist. “I want to get into UA if I can!”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Shouta had been thinking about this for months now, and after several talks with Hizashi about the pros and cons and some unsolicited and unwanted encouragement from Nedzu, he had decided to bring it up with the kid. There wasn’t any harm in it. “How’d you like to be sponsored to take the Recommendation Student Entrance Exam?”
Midori-kun went very quiet and still, which was a good sign that tears were on the horizon. Shouta braced himself.
Instead of crying, though, Midori-kun slapped a hand over his own mouth, probably to keep himself from going into a mutter storm. He processed in complete silence for over thirty seconds—Shouta counted.
“I can’t tell you how much this means to me,” Midori-kun said finally, dropping his hand. “I’m really flattered that you asked and honestly I think I might be dreaming? But I have to say no thanks!”
Shouta had expected this response, mostly because in order to sponsor the kid he would have to know the kid’s real name. That didn’t make the response any less disappointing, but it was expected.
“I already have a plan, see,” Midori-kun said, which was not expected. “Otherwise I’d definitely say yes. But I already have a plan.”
Well, now Shouta just had a lot of questions. “A plan,” he repeated.
“Yes.” Midori-kun nodded. “And I don’t want to change the plan, because I’m already very deep into it.”
Shouta stared at him. This kid was so baffling, so preposterously perplexing, and Shouta would never, ever understand anything the kid said. “You don’t want a recommendation to UA,” he said slowly, “not because you’re worried about your secret identity or your uncle finding out or any number of other good reasons, but because you already have a plan.”
“Yes,” Midori-kun said.
“Good god.” Shouta turned back to the villains. “I regret asking.”
“It’s a very good plan,” Midori-kun said. The worst part of the whole thing was he spoke with complete sincerity. He meant it.
Shouta couldn’t give this any more mental energy or he’d explode. “Go away. The police are coming.”
“I really am grateful that you asked,” Midori-kun said. “It means a lot.”
The entrance exam for UA was three months away and Midori-kun had a plan. What plan could he possibly have? The structure of the practical exam wasn’t made public and there wasn’t any way to prepare for it. That was the entire purpose of the test. What’s more, it was notoriously biased toward flashy quirks, which Midori-kun didn’t have. Without getting a recommendation, Midori-kun couldn’t get into UA. He just flat out couldn’t.
But he had a plan.
Shouta hated his life. He wanted to start from scratch. Upend everything and move to Europe. Spain. He didn’t speak Spanish but he would learn quickly just to forget all of this.
Police lights flashed down the street in red and blue. “Crap, police,” Midori-kun said.
“I’m going to start trying to arrest you again,” Shouta grumbled, but when he turned back, Midori-kun was already gone.
Notes:
Hawks listening to AFO and Izuku bicker: ????????? [confused cat surrounded by complex equations meme]
Chapter 41: Ways to Feel Joy: Reveal a Big Secret and Ride a Robot, Both out of Mostly Spite
Summary:
Shigaraki and Izuku meet again. Izuku and Shinsou begin the UA entrance exam.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
For Oji-san’s fake birthday, Izuku got him a mug that said World’s Best Uncle on it. Oji-san stared at it for a very long time after unwrapping it. Izuku didn’t know what thoughts he was having, but he took several pictures (to blackmail Oji-san with later) and cemented this moment as one of the highlights of the year. Dabi spent the entire episode laughing his head off.
Meanwhile, Todoroki Rei was in the midst of her second court case against Endeavour and doing well, Kurogiri had met up with Eraserhead, Present Mic, and Midnight a couple more times, and Izuku had almost cleared the entire beach. All Might was “very impressed” with his progress.
At risk of bringing hell down on himself, Izuku thought life was going extraordinarily well. He was, for the first time in a long, long time, extremely happy. He had friends and family. Life was looking up.
Which was why when they were almost done clearing the beach and All Might said, “I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch with my adopted pseudo-cousin and myself at some point,” Izuku, in a blind stupor of positivity, had said yes.
He now regretted that.
“Oh!” he said, staring into the eyes of one pissed-looking Shigaraku Tomura. “It’s you!”
“Oh,” Shigaraki said, eyes narrowing. “It’s you.”
There was an audible tone shift between the two sentences.
“You two know each other!” All Might said, delighted. A moment later he seemed to realize that this was unexpected for good reason, and he said, “How do you two know each other?”
Ordinarily, Izuku might be very excited about seeing Shigaraki again after all these years, since their friendship had been cut short before it could fully bloom. However, Izuku suspected his own presence in the bar was the entire reason Shigaraki had suddenly disappeared a few years ago, and he also suspected his own unintentional involvement in that disappearance was the reason Shigaraki was looking at him like he was spilled milk that had been left to congeal and curdle on the nice kitchen counter.
“Please don’t tell him,” Izuku said, wincing. He took his seat at the dark wood table, sliding in across from All Might and Shigaraki. They’d decided to meet in a ramen restaurant, which had seemed great at the time but now Shigaraki was here and it didn’t seem great anymore.
Shigaraki nodded contemplatively. And then turned to All Might and said, “Midoriya-kun and I used to live with All for One together.”
“Used to,” Izuku said hurriedly as horror invaded All Might’s expression.
“You still live there,” Shigaraki accused.
Izuku opened his mouth to argue but could not. It was true. He closed his mouth again. Shigaraki smirked.
“Slow down,” All Might said, sunken eyes blown wide. “All for One?”
“Still alive,” Shigaraki confirmed. “Suspiciously fond of adoption.”
“It’s not suspicious,” Izuku said. “Of all the things he’s done, that might be the least suspicious.”
“It’s pretty suspicious.”
“But in comparison—”
“Stop talking for a minute.” All Might pressed his fingers into his temples. “Sorry. Please.”
He got exactly two seconds of silence before Shigaraki turned back to Izuku and said, “I can’t believe you’re defending him.”
Izuku shot back immediately, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell All Might he’s still alive. It’s All Might!”
“Ah, Midoriya-kun,” All Might said—possibly he had not actually told Shigaraki he was All Might, now that Izuku was thinking about it—but the situation had long escalated past his control.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell him you live with All for One,” Shigaraki retorted. “You’re getting One for All, I’m guessing? And you didn’t even tell him you live with his worst enemy?”
“It’s not voluntary,” Izuku said. “I can’t just move out.”
Shigaraki lifted his eyebrows. “Can’t you?”
“Boys,” All Might pleaded, lifting his hands. “Stop, please.”
They stopped. Both their heads turned to look at All Might, who dropped his hands and shifted awkwardly under the sudden attention. “Young Shimura,” All Might said and Shigaraki sighed.
“Shimura?” Izuku muttered. It sounded familiar. He opened his mental database of information on all heroes and began sifting through it for answers.
“Hello,” the waiter said, dropping by. Izuku absently ordered, too busy going through his mental database to focus on anything as trivial as food. All Might and Shigaraki ordered after him and then the water drifted away again.
“You’re Shimura Nana’s grandson?” Izuku put together, snapping his head up to look at Shigaraki. “Dude! Dude!”
Shigaraki pointedly ignored him.
“Does that make us double cousins?” Izuku asked. “Once through One for All and once through weird adoptions by Oji-san?”
Shigaraki continued to ignore him, instead electing to say to All Might, “You were going to say something?”
“Ah, yes.” All Might glanced around the restaurant, checking that no one was eavesdropping. The restaurant wasn’t crowded and the music was loud, so they were probably fine. “I didn’t know that you used to live with All for One. I assumed you’d lived with the yakuza or something similar—this is, I’m sure you understand, difficult to wrap my head around.”
“I would never live with the yakuza,” Shigaraki sniffed. “They hate quirks and their leader is notoriously a pain in the ass. Like hell would I associate with them.”
Izuku made several mental notes to look into the yakuza later. There was a gap in his research there. He should have noticed it sooner.
“I didn’t want to tell you I lived with him because I was worried you’d ask me for information on him or something, and frankly I’m not ready to disclose anything. Until this prick came along.” Shigaraki looked pointedly at Izuku.
“Right,” All Might turned to Izuku. “Young Midoriya, I . . .” He stopped. “Honestly, this answers more questions than raises them. I felt more confused about you prior to knowing this.”
“Ugh,” Shigaraki said.
“I also,” Izuku said earnestly, “can’t tell you anything about Oji-san because we have very strict household rules and I don’t want to be grounded. I can only work actively against Oji-san while being Midori-kun, and this situation falls outside of that. And, before you issue an offer of adoption, I have already received several of those from other heroes, and unfortunately I do not want to move out and would prefer if you don’t attempt to rescue me.”
All Might blinked, and then his expression collapsed into distress. “And now I’m confused again.”
Shigaraki released one short, dry guffaw and patted All Might on his bony forearm. “Welcome to knowing Midoriya Izuku,” he said. “You know, initially I thought this would be bad, but honestly it’ll be nice not being the only one completely baffled by him anymore.”
“I’m right here,” Izuku grumbled. “Does this affect me getting One for All?”
All Might hesitated, and Izuku felt his heart plummet. After all the work he’d done, his dreams were about to be whisked away all because of his extremely evil uncle. Again.
“Honestly,” Shigaraki said, “I think it’s a great idea. I’m pretty sure All for One would upend the whole earth for you. Giving you One for All is the best way to keep it from him.”
Izuku considered that.
All Might considered that.
Izuku said, “Actually, that’s a very good point. I hate to say it, but you’re right.”
Shigaraki’s glare could cut glass. “Why do you hate to say it?”
“I’m reluctant to put you in the line of fire,” All Might said, “but I suppose I was already doing that. I told you I’d give you One for All, and I’m not backing away from that. You can have it.”
Izuku turned to Shigaraki and gave him the smuggest grin he was capable of. “Thanks, Shimura-kun ,” he said.
“I am going to strangle you,” Shigaraki said calmly, taking off his gloves.
Izuku ducked down under the table.
“That was humiliating,” Hitoshi commented.
“Shut up,” Izuku said, face extremely warm.
“You tripped and had to be rescued by one of our competitors.”
“I didn’t notice you swooping in to rescue me,” Izuku snapped. It had, indeed, been embarrassing. He didn’t even know the girl’s name, only that she had a very interesting anti-gravity quirk he’d need to analyze later, and that he had only lived through the experience because of her quick reflexes. He hoped she got into the heroics program.
He and Hitoshi found their seats in the packed auditorium at UA. Hitoshi showed Izuku his entrance ticket, which had several numbers and letters on it that the test administrator would explain. Izuku showed his back.
“I think we’re in the same group,” Hitoshi said, pointing at a letter in the corner. “That’s weird—I would have thought they’d separate us by school.”
Izuku’s cheeks started to warm again, and he looked away. “It’s possible that enough people from Aldera applied to take the test that we got around the full loop of different groups and by chance happened to fall into the same one.”
“Convenient,” Hitoshi said, narrowing his eyes at Izuku.
“ . . . or someone hacked UA yesterday when we were here for the written exam and rigged the test so the two of us would be in the same group, since friends should get to stick together.”
“And did someone do that?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Izuku said, although he did in fact know. “You should ask Mei-san.”
Hitoshi sighed.
Mei had, in fact, had very little to do with it. Her role had included standing directly in the sight path of the security camera while Izuku accessed UA’s main servers. He’d gone at it somewhat hesitantly, because any sign from Nedzu that this wasn’t okay would have stopped him immediately, but he received no such signs, and, in fact, noticed a few conveniently open doors in his hacking journey, so he proceeded with making the changes.
The reason for this was simple. Three days ago Izuku had eaten one of All Might’s hairs (disgusting), and although his limbs had not exploded off, both he and All Might had decided it would be best not to test it until his body had grown more accustomed to the power simmering under his skin. Since Izuku wasn’t exactly sure what would happen if he had to activate One for All for the first time in the middle of the entrance exam, he wanted to have Hitoshi around in case the situation went awry. Hitoshi could call Oji-san directly if Izuku’s body did explode.
Izuku really hoped, though, that nothing went wrong. He hadn’t told Oji-san he was applying to UA, and several missing limbs was not how he wanted Oji-san to find out.
Kacchan sat down on Izuku’s other side. Izuku said hello and received an annoyed tch in response, so he turned back to Hitoshi. “I wonder who’s going to—”
The lights dimmed and Present Mic appeared. Izuku tried very hard not to mutter the whole presentation and did not do a very good job, as pointed out by a tall boy with glasses who Izuku figured must be related to the Ingenium family. Embarrassed, he ducked his head and grabbed Hitoshi by the forearm to keep him from responding. Hitoshi huffed but didn’t interject with anything snippy, and so they got out of the presentation without insulting anyone.
Izuku spent the whole bus ride to the grounds muttering to himself, and Hitoshi did say several snippy things to the boy with the glasses then, who kept sending Izuku glares. It was worth it, though, because by the end of the busride Izuku thought he had a pretty solid plan that did not require any usage of One for All.
He looped Hitoshi in on the plan as they climbed off the bus.
“So we’re about to do this whole test quirkless,” Hitoshi said. “Since brainwashing doesn’t work on robots.”
“Pretty much,” Izuku said. They approached the big wall surrounding the grounds, the gate closed to keep them out. Izuku noticed with some happiness and some awkwardness that they were in the same group as that girl who saved him from face planting on sacred ground.
“And you think that’s feasible?”
“Not particularly, but it’s the best I’ve got.”
Hitoshi shrugged. “Yeah, okay. I trust you.”
Izuku wished they had a secret handshake of some sort to seal the deal with, but they hadn’t really ever made one of those and it was too late to start now. He settled for a resolute nod and turned toward the grounds.
Present Mic (Present Mic!!!) counted down and the gates opened. No one moved until he shouted for them to get going already, and then it became chaos.
As he ran through the gates, Izuku got out his phone and called Mei. She picked up right away, thank goodness.
“Aren’t you in the middle of your test?” she asked.
“Yep! If I facetime you can you help me hijack a robot?”
Mei cackled, which was as much of a yes as Izuku was going to get.
As Izuku had explained to Hitoshi in the back of the bus moments ago, technically speaking this was cheating. However, the point of the test was to simulate a real heroics situation, and in real heroics situations, Izuku would be able to call his support-minded friend and ask for help. He thought this showed logic and use of resources, which Nedzu would appreciate, and therefore would not count against him. It was a gamble, but he wouldn’t pass at all if he didn’t take some risks.
“Over there.” Hitoshi pointed. “It’s a one pointer.”
“Perfect.” Izuku ran for it with Hitoshi, weaving around in case the thing started shooting at him. This didn’t seem a particularly safe environment to toss a bunch of kids into, but he supposed they did have Recovery Girl on staff, and Kurogiri had had to sign a really long waiver (Oji-san would have been the one to sign it, but he didn’t know Izuku was applying to UA for obvious reasons, so it had to be Kurogiri).
“I’ll distract it from the front,” Hitoshi said.
“Thanks,” Izuku answered and left his side to sweep around to the back. He switched the call with Mei to facetime, flipping the camera so she couldn't see his face (although, he supposed, it didn't matter much anymore), climbed a fire escape, and braced himself.
Hitoshi was doing a great job drawing the robot’s fire while avoiding being singed. Izuku waited until the robot’s back was turned and ran straight off the roof, jumping straight onto the robot. He slipped a few feet and barely managed to catch himself on a weird ridge on the robot’s back.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Mei told him over the phone. “Terrifying. I hated every second of it.”
“I’m on!” Izuku yelled. Hitoshi ducked into a nearby building and got out of view of the robot. Izuku slung a leg up over the robot’s shoulder and located the control panel just under its neck. He angled his phone so Mei could see and banged open the panel.
“Oh, this is easy,” she said right away. “Principal Nedzu’s on your side. I’ll explain.”
She walked him through every wire in the robot’s back and how Izuku could use them. He couldn’t take notes with his hands full, but he kept careful track of everything. Hitoshi appeared on the roof of the building next to him and Izuku grabbed the robot’s head, turning it away so it wouldn’t sense Hitoshi, who took a running leap off the building and landed a lot more gracefully than Izuku had on the robot’s shoulder.
“Great,” Izuku said when Mei had finished explaining. “I owe you so much, Mei-san, thank you.”
“It’s always a pleasure,” she said. “I expect monetary rewards.”
“Definitely.”
“See you in school!” She hung up.
Izuku pocketed his phone again and relayed everything Mei had told him over to Hitoshi, who nodded along and immediately bent over to help Izuku. Working together, they killed the robot. But they didn’t stop there. They then rewired the robot to attack the other robots.
“Well,” Izuku said as the robot woke up again.
“Well,” Hitoshi agreed.
“I guess the only thing now is to keep it from running over people.”
“We really can only accomplish that by staying up here,” Hitoshi said, which wasn’t actually true but expressed the deep desire of both their hearts. The robot lurched into motion, headed toward a big crowd of other robots. “We’ll just ride it to the finish, I guess.”
“I guess so,” Izuku agreed, trying to conceal his own excitement about riding a giant robot through the grounds of UA. As their hijacked robot shot a laser out and completely decimated another robot, he grinned. “And you said brainwashing doesn’t work on these.”
“Shut up,” Hitoshi said, but he couldn’t hold the glare long. They were riding a giant robot . “It doesn’t.”
“Okay. Hey!” Izuku yelled down at someone in the street in front of them. “Watch out!”
With an absolutely bewildered expression, they stepped to the side and let the robot pass.
“This,” Hitoshi said, “might be the best day of my life.”
Notes:
is this how robots work? Probably not. Do i care? nopE. Let’s all pretend nedzu made it incredibly convenient for people to do this, knowing very few people would try sfjlljfds for the sake of it being fun
Chapter 42: Unexpect the Expected
Summary:
Izuku manifests a quirk, the teachers discuss the entrance exam, and AFO has a lot of questions.
Chapter Text
The plan had always been that Izuku and Hitoshi would avoid the zero pointer at all costs as soon as it came out. That had always been the plan.
Plans, Izuku had always believed, were built to fall apart. There was no such thing as a perfect plan, because situations on the fly often created very real problems that could not be solved with an inflexible strategy.
What happened was this:
The nice girl with the really cool gravity quirk was trapped under a rock. The zero pointer was bearing down on her, and Izuku’s and Hitoshi’s robot was super small and lame and wouldn’t even make a dent in it. Izuku had one of the most powerful quirks in the entire country sitting under his skin.
“I need—” he said, but Hitoshi was already messing with the wires of the robot to get him closer. Because Hitoshi was a hero.
Izuku braced his feet on the shoulder of the robot. He did exactly what All Might said. He clenched his butt cheeks and braced himself. He shouted, “Detroit smash!” with everything he had in him and jumped.
One for All as he knew it did absolutely nothing. What did happen, to his surprise and horror, was the sudden and unexpected emergence of these terrible black ropes out of his fist, which he had extended for a killer punch. In short, what happened was chaos.
The direction of his jump spoke for itself and the black tendrils shot forward, catching around the head of the robot. The impact they gave was enough to bring the robot to a teetering stop and the subsequent momentum of Izuku, taken by surprise, going over the robot’s shoulder and swinging around behind it, yanked the robot back a full step.
Completely out of control, Izuku swung back around to the front of the robot, black tendrils stabbing and swirling out around him. It was scary and it wasn’t helpful. He couldn’t get them back in.
“Hitoshi-kun!” he screamed, the black tendrils ripping through the zero-pointer like claws. “I need—I need!”
“What’s up?” Hitoshi yelled at him.
“I—”
The world went fuzzy and dark. Just like that he felt the tendrils go still, nothing to control them. It was strangely relaxing. One for All slipped from hs grasp, everything gone. In the haze, he thought he saw a face.
Something hit him hard in the jaw and he jerked out of it.
“Sorry!” the girl said. “Sorry, that was a bit of a slap. Sorry.”
Izuku was floating three feet above the ground. He blinked, dazedly trying to get his bearings again.
“Release!” the girl said and Izuku plummeted the final three feet, landing harshly on his hip.
The buzzer rang for time.
“Thank you,” Izuku gasped, pieces of what happened fitting together. Hitoshi had used his quirk, thankfully, and told Izuku to release whatever just happened to his quirk. Izuku had, and then he’d fallen. This girl had just saved him from definite death. “Oh man. Thank you so much. That was—thank you. I can help get the rock off you if you give me a second to get my robot.”
He pointed.
“Oh, um,” she looked at the robot, and then the rock, and then the robot again. “I think maybe we can just get a teacher to help, actually! But thank you for the offer. And thank you for saving me! My name’s Uraraka Ochako.”
“Midoriya Izuku,” he said. “Nice to meet you officially.”
“I guess we keep saving each other,” she laughed.
Hitoshi ran up to them, worry all over his expression. “What just happened? Are you hurt? Do I need to make a really uncomfortable phone call?”
Izuku shook his head hard. “Please don’t. I’m fine. Confused, but fine. Thank you so much for the save. You’re so cool and amazing and I love your quirk. That was very heroic. I’ve never seen anyone more heroic.”
Recovery Girl showed up at that moment.
“Ah. Okay, now I have.”
“You’re the worst,” Hitoshi said, but he reached out a hand to help Izuku to his feet. Uraraka laughed.
“Are we going to ignore the part where he cheated?” Vlad King demanded. He glared at the screen with complete disgust.
“That part doesn’t bother me as much as the clear lack of quirk control,” Shouta said.
The teachers were all gathered in the conference room to go over the footage and settle some debates about the scores of applicants. For several minutes now, they’d all been discussing the performance of one very reckless teenager named Midoriya Izuku. Most of them had scored him at the top of the entire group, but Shouta and Vlad King, the actual heroics teachers, had scored him much lower. This is why he’d been flagged for them to discuss as a group.
It had not escaped Shouta that this applicant had green hair and a name starting with “Midori,” but he had set aside his suspicions almost the moment he’d thought of them for two reasons: one, even Midori-kun was not so much of a fool to let his vigilante name be almost exactly the same as his actual surname; and two, Midoriya Izuku had a quirk, albeit a very weird quirk, labeled as a strength enhancer in the system and clearly not that.
Hizashi said, “Yeah, I don’t know that I’d call it cheating. He used his resources. There aren’t any rules against it, and he called a fellow applicant, not an adult. I don’t see any issues with it.”
“Thinking outside the box,” Kayama agreed. “More of a heroic trait than a point against him.”
Shouta did not understand why everyone was ignoring the part where he had no control over his quirk. “The quirk, though,” he said.
“This is a school,” Vlad King grumbled.
A good point. Not Shouta’s favorite point, but a good one.
Nedzu had been suspiciously quiet this whole discussion. Shouta eyed him warily. He was wearing a big, self-satisfied smirk.
“You look happy,” Shouta said.
“Indeed.” Nedzu pressed his paws together like an evil mastermind. “This is the most entertained I’ve ever been during the entrance exam. I think it would be remiss of us not to pass Midoriya Izuku.”
Well that was not at all comforting. Shouta now wanted to accept Midoriya even less.
“We’re supposed to help people learn to be heroes,” Hizashi, the traitor, said. “He has a lot of raw potential—I mean, it’s impossible not to award him save points. There are clear problems, obviously, but that’s a hero if I’ve ever seen one.”
“That’s someone who’s going to get himself killed on his first mission,” Shouta grumbled, but it was half-hearted.
“We can put him in 1-A. You can just expel him on the first day if you hate him so much,” Kayama, also a traitor, said. “But the rest of us scored him on top and it would be stupid to block him from moving on.”
“We should discuss how to divy the combat points between him and Shinsou Hitoshi, though,” Snipe pointed out. “That’ll be a real issue.”
“Regardless of how we split it, they’re both in,” said Hizashi. “Let’s just agree on that.”
The room nodded. Some nods (Shouta’s) were more reluctant than others. But they all nodded. And then they stepped into negotiation on how to split the points.
“He’s using it again,” Banjo observed. “Not well.”
Yoichi made an embittered sound and smashed his hands over his ears. Something about Midoriya Izuku had made the usually very mature man extremely immature. Potentially, Nana thought, Midoriya’s uncle was the root of the issue.
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” En hushed. “Cut him some slack.”
That wasn’t entirely true. It had taken Midoriya exactly forty-five minutes after his quirk manifested to put together what had happened, figure out that Blackwhip had manifested instead of One for All, form a strategy for training with it, and develop several (wrong) theories about why it hadn’t manifested the normal way. The real reason it hadn’t manifested the normal way was because Yoichi, in a fit of stubborn wrath, had refused to lend the strength part of the quirk to Midoriya. So the rest of them had had to improvise. Thus, Blackwhip. But Midoriya didn’t know that.
“You have to admire his persistence,” Hikage said as Midoriya managed to curve blackwhip to the left and immediately fell over himself to write down notes about it, the tendrils still snaking out into the empty air toward the ocean. He, his friend Shinsou, and Toshinori had visited the beach together to train his quirk properly for the first time. It was going reasonably well, in Nana’s opinion. Others didn’t share that opinion.
“I’m still offended that he called it ‘long and slithery and violent,’” Banjo huffed. “I’m willing to get over the rest of it if he just takes that part back.”
Through the fog of One for All, Midoriya’s voice said, “I don’t know how to release it.”
“Just let go,” Shinsou said, like it was obvious.
Midoriya succeeded at doing that with impressive speed. Nana covered her mouth with her hand in case Yoichi saw her grinning like an idiot. It had been easy, at first, to feel angry with Toshinori for picking such an obviously terrible successor. But day by day Midoriya proved himself. It was impossible not to be fond of him. Yoichi would get there eventually.
“I thought it would be harder than that,” Midoriya admitted. “No one told me having a quirk is easy.”
Shinsou’s face dropped into his hands. It seemed to end up there often. Several of the other vestiges, Nana knew, could relate.
“Is it over yet?” Yoichi asked the room.
“No,” Kudo said. He sounded pissed about it.
Nana spoke loudly so Yoichi would hear her over his hands. “You’re going to have to let him have the strength part eventually.”
“Am I?” he asked.
“You are,” Nana said. “And soon, too. That’ll be the hardest one for him to control. The sooner he starts the quicker he can learn it.”
Most kids in UA would already know at least the basic applications of their quirks, even if it was illegal to practice them without a license. Midoriya needed, essentially, to cram fifteen years of experience and time into the month he had before his (probable) first day of UA. As soon as he got to UA, he needed to start training with the strength quirk. Toshinori had broken several bones the first time he’d used it. Midoriya would break more.
“I want to try shooting it out of my feet too,” Midoriya decided.
“No!” Banjo screamed. “A desecration!”
“Calm down,” Kudo muttered.
Nana got up to poke Yoichi. “You need to let him manifest it.”
“Never,” Yoichi vowed. “I will not give my brother the satisfaction of having the quirk in his fake bloodline.”
“The point of having One for All is to use it as intended, though,” En said, suddenly paying attention. “If he doesn’t manifest the strength quirk, he won’t be able to defeat All for One at all.”
“We’ll wait for the next successor then,” Yoichi said.
“No we won’t,” Kudo said, glaring. “The quirk is getting too strong. The next holder will just explode, unless he passes it on tomorrow. It has to be him. As much as we all hate it.”
Yoichi dragged his hands down the sides of his face, frustrated. Nana gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder—they were all in this hell together, after all. He definitely had it the worst, though. No question about that.
“Don’t go too far,” Toshinori’s echoing voice warned Midoriya. “Quirk exhaustion can be dangerous.”
“I would never,” Midoriya said, audibly offended.
Bruce snorted. “He would.”
Several others voiced their agreement. It was pretty much a rule at this point—holders of One for All tended toward recklessness and self-sacrifice. It would be a miracle if Midoriya didn’t follow the tradition.
“All right,” Yoichi huffed. “All right, fine. I’ll get over it. He can use the full quirk.”
Hikage shot up in alarm. “Don’t give it to him right now! You have to wait. He’ll break something for sure, and—sorry Nana-san—I don’t trust Yagi-kun to get him to a hospital subtly. We need to avoid All for One finding out Midoriya-kun has the quirk at all for as long as possible.”
“I know.” Yoichi sighed.
“Something tells me,” Kudo muttered, “that All for One is going to find out extremely quickly, no matter how much we try to avoid it.”
Nana shushed him. “Don’t jinx it. There’s still hope.”
Someone gave a dry laugh.
Post-acceptance into UA, Izuku and Hitoshi had done a lot of crying in Izuku’s room. Yes, even Hitoshi. Loud crying as they listened to All Might’s speech together over and over again. Oji-san himself had come up the stairs to check on them and they’d both had to shove their acceptance holograms underneath Izuku’s pillows and play booming music over All Might’s voice to hide the news from him.
He probably suspected something was up then, but on account of something always being up, he didn’t seem on the verge of opening an investigation.
Now, though, with the whole family plus Dabi packed around a table at the bar for dinner, Oji-san seemed ready to investigate.
“What high school are you going to?” he demanded.
“Who said anything about high school?” Izuku said immediately. He contemplated lying outright but he’d found in the past he was not very good at that. “Wouldn’t you have had to fill out paperwork if I was going to high school?”
Oji-san rounded on Kurogiri, who had indeed been the one to fill out Izuku’s UA paperwork. Kurogiri immediately put his hands up innocently. “I think this is between you and Izuku,” he said. “Let’s all enjoy dinner.”
Dinner was not enjoyable. Izuku took a bite of his less-burnt-than-usual rice and smiled. “Delicious,” he lied outright.
Kurogiri made a sad noise. “I thought I was getting better.”
“It is better,” Dabi said, eying an overcooked bit of shrimp on his plate. “You’ve improved. A bit.”
“Kurogiri’s Cooking Academia,” Izuku agreed. Kurogiri’s birthday was coming up on May fifth and Izuku already had incredible plans for what to give him. Last year, he had given Kurogiri the gift of several cookbooks. The ensuing meals had led to a household ban on giving Kurogiri cookbooks, but this year Izuku had an even better idea. Cooking classes.
“Stop deflecting.” Oji-san glared at everyone at the table. “Stop helping Izuku-kun deflect. Tell me what high school you’re going to. Now.”
“I’ve chosen to go into vocational school,” Izuku said.
“No you haven’t.”
Izuku looked to Kurogiri for help. Kurogiri resolutely avoided eye contact, studying the wood grain of the table instead. “If I said UA,” Izuku said, “what would be your response?”
Dabi nearly did a spit take of water back into his own glass. He forced a swallow and spluttered out, “What?”
“It’s a hypothetical,” Izuku said hurriedly.
Oji-san inhaled. Izuku winced. Oji-san exhaled. And took two more calming breaths before saying, “I would ask which department.”
“Well,” Kurogiri interrupted, because he was Izuku’s one and only savior and a true hero at heart, “dinner has been a failure altogether. I’ll order takeout. What do you all want?”
“Deflecting!” Oji-san pointed accusingly at Kurogiri, very rudely, before whipping his head back to Izuku to demand, “Which department?”
“Well, see, it was a hypothetical,” Izuku said. “So I can’t really say.”
Oji-san turned to Kurogiri again, smoke practically coming out of his ears. “Kurogiri,” he growled.
“I think we should get ramen,” Kurogiri said. “Does that sound good?”
“Sounds wonderful.” Izuku nodded more times than was strictly necessary. “Perfect, even.”
“Ramen sounds great,” Dabi said, leaning in, and Izuku decided to rethink his previous determination to hate Dabi. Anyone who stepped in to help Izuku in an emergency like this deserved his friendship.
“I love ramen.” Izuku just needed to fill up space in the conversation to keep Oji-san from talking. “Ramen for life. Ramen forever. Yay ramen.”
“Preach,” said Dabi. So they would be best friends, then.
“I hate all of you,” Oji-san grumbled.
Kurogiri got out a notepad and started taking ramen orders. They all avoided eye contact with Oji-san until Kurogiri artfully changed the subject to ask about Dabi’s day. Dabi answered without enthusiasm, but the conversation swung away, and although Izuku knew Oji-san would corner him for information later, they were safe. For now.
Chapter 43: Time to Process (or the Lack of It)
Summary:
Shouto meets with his mom. The first days of UA classes arrive. AFO makes a single unsurprising discovery.
Notes:
Hello my lovely readers!
As you may notice, the chapter count has gone up! This was brought about by my lovely beta and friend Laz. You can thank her for that. And then you can unthank her because I will not be posting until I have written said chapters lkfsjlkfsdj. I will be taking ONE WEEK to write the chapters. This will also give me some time to take a small mental health break. Just one week!!! A short breaK! And then I promise I'll return. :)IN THE MEANTIME!! Here is a chapter :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“You can say no,” Shouto’s mom said. “I won’t be offended. I probably won’t drop the case, but I won’t push you. Fuyumi-chan can look after you.”
Todoroki Shouto knew where his strengths lay. His ice quirk was unmatched by any other in the country. He had direction and purpose. He didn’t need other people to help him. He could do anything by himself.
This situation did not fit into any of his strengths.
“I can,” Fuyumi confirmed. The rate at which she was pacing around behind Shouto’s chair suggested otherwise.
Shouto hadn’t been allowed to actually see his mother in person, mostly because his father was a jerk but also because there were some legal issues. So he was video calling her instead, in Fuyumi’s room, with Fuyumi, Natsuo, and his mom’s lawyer present. Someone else was also on the call with their camera off. All the screen showed was a black box with the word “Green” typed through the middle. No one had acknowledged this other person and the other person hadn’t said anything, so Shouto was left wondering.
Everything had escalated so quickly. He’d been training, trying to get ready for his UA entrance exam, and then his mom had started a huge legal war with his father and the world had flipped on its head. He couldn’t go anywhere without the media appearing to ask him questions—not that he’d been able to do that before, but it was worse now.
He’d never imagined that the first time he saw his mother again after all these years would be like this. He hadn’t imagined he’d see her again at all.
“I don’t understand,” Shouto said finally.
“Mom’s asking if you’d be interested in moving out,” Fuyumi said, which was much easier to understand than all the legal jargon his mom and the lawyer had given him before. “She’s just saying you can live with her or with me, that’s all.”
Shouto knew he was smart, but he couldn’t comprehend this. “But,” he said, “I live with Father.”
Fuyumi’s face did a weird sad twist and she looked away. “Mom’s filing a case for—um, well, she’s filing a case and you might not be able to live with Father anymore. That’s all.”
Shouto suspected that was not, in fact, all. But that seemed to be as far as Fuyumi was willing to clarify. He’d heard the questions shouted at him by the media and had come out of it mostly confused. This didn’t give him much more to work with.
“Terrible explanation,” said Natsuo from his seat next to Shouto, but he didn’t expand further.
“If I have to move out,” Shouto said, “then I’d be fine with living with Mom. Or Fuyumi. Either is fine.”
His mom’s lawyer leaned forward into frame. “I’ll need some written statements from you.”
“All right.” Shouto looked to Fuyumi, who seemed to be fighting a battle with her own face, trying to get her emotions off it. He wanted help understanding everything.
She put a hand on his shoulder, which he tried not to stiffen up, and murmured, “I’ll explain once we’re off the call, okay?”
Green unmuted. “I also can send a packet,” a bubbly voice said. “It wouldn’t be a problem.”
Fuyumi looked at the computer screen, expression unreadable, and said, “That could be helpful.”
All this made Shouto worried, but he could tolerate that if he got an explanation. He turned back to his mom and her lawyer. “I can do the statements.”
“Thank you,” the lawyer said. “I’ll send them over email now and I can help you fill them out.”
“Also, while we’re all here,” Green said, “I should probably mention I found Touya-san.”
Fuyumi gasped. Natsuo suddenly leaned in next to Shouto so he could see the screen better.
“You didn’t,” Shouto’s mom said, voice low. “You can’t have.”
“I did,” Green said. “He’s really stubborn and refuses to let me put you in touch with him, but I thought you should know I found him. Actually I live with him. He’s fine, mostly. I mean, besides being kind of an asshole. I probably shouldn’t have said that. Also, like, the burn scars are real, but I assume that’s a family tradition. I’m the worst ever and I’m going to stop talking now.”
He muted himself.
The room sat in silence for several seconds.
Shouto’s mom said haltingly, “I’m going to need to call you about that, Midori-kun.”
Unmute. “Yep! I’ll see if I can get him on the phone too. It’s unlikely, but I’ll try.” Mute.
More silence followed. Shouto glanced at Fuyumi, who was frozen mid-pace behind his chair and staring at the screen wide-eyed. He hadn’t known Touya well enough for this to hit him the way it clearly had struck her.
The lawyer cleared her throat and rustled some papers. “Well, I’ve sent the forms. Could you open them on your end and we’ll go through them together?”
The new 1-A class was exactly the same as all other 1-A classes at the beginning of the semester. Excitable, loud, and wielding overinflated egos. Shouta was already tired.
Halfway through the quirk apprehension test, he was starting to get a good sense of each member of the class—who’d be at the top, who’d be at the bottom, who’d need the most support and who would rather him leave them the fuck alone. There were always stand-outs (not always for a positive reason). Bakugou Katsuki, Todoroki Shouto, Shinsou Hitoshi.
And then there was Midoriya Izuku.
Midoriya didn’t stand out in a crowd. In fact, if Shouta hadn’t been deadset on paying attention to the kid on account of his name, his green hair, and whatever the fuck happened in his entrance exam, and if Bakugou Katsuki didn’t keep screaming at Midoriya that he wasn’t supposed to have a quirk, Shouta might have forgotten Midoriya was there at all.
The kid was jittery and quiet and had average control over his quirk, in contrast to the entrance exam which Shouta mentally labeled a fluke. He was keeping up with the other students in the test, but he seemed overwhelmed and distracted. Shouta had almost immediately brushed aside all suspicions that Midoriya Izuku could be Midori-kun during the first test. They simply weren’t the same.
He hung in the middle of the class. Tenth place on every single challenge. If Shouta hadn’t threatened expulsion, he’d think Midoriya was intentionally striving for tenth place.
Shinsou and Midoriya spent their time between challenges with their heads together, talking in low voices until they were inevitably interrupted by Uraraka Ochako, another stand-out student, who had evidently decided Midoriya was her best friend. Midoriya, who hadn’t seemed to have much choice in the matter, accepted this with a certain amount of nervousness and a, “I have a lot of questions about your quirk for later.”
But Midoriya Izuku was decidedly unremarkable. So Shouta kept an eye on him and kept Bakugou away from him, and he focused on appraising the other students.
By the ball throw challenge, Midoriya had settled into a comfortable fourteenth place overall and seemed perfectly content to be there. Shouta hated nothing more than comfortability.
“Are you going to put some effort in?” Shouta asked drily from the sidelines as Midoriya contemplated the ball. “I don’t reward laziness.”
Midoriya gave him a startled deer look, like he hadn’t expected Shouta to be paying attention. A red flag, but Shouta brushed it aside.
“You’ve been hanging in the middle of this class the whole time,” Shouta said. “I think you can do more than that. UA isn’t a school for people who don’t reach for the top. It’s in the school motto.”
Instead of responding, Midoriya looked to Shinsou Hitoshi, who shrugged. Midoriya smiled apologetically down at the ball in his hands. “You’re probably right.”
There was no ‘probably’ about it. Shouta was definitely right. But he let it slide. “If you can’t prove you have the drive to move forward, I don’t see any potential for you. Heroics isn’t a career for the passionless. You have two tries.”
He stepped back to watch.
Midoriya frowned at the ball in his hands. He thought about it hard, mouth moving silently as he tried to figure out a strategy. Shouta had to hand it to the kid—he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. That wouldn’t count for anything if he couldn’t get to the top.
“I can do anything if I stay in the circle, right?” Midoriya asked, looking up.
There it was. Shouta lifted an eyebrow, but nodded.
Midoriya turned around. “Hey Uraraka-san? Can you come here for a second?”
Shouta’s mouth dropped open. Luckily, the capture scarf hid this reaction, but the reaction happened nonetheless. He’d expected Midoriya to come up with something unusual (this was, after all, the boy who cheated on the entrance exam), but not this.
Uraraka, perhaps not as used to blatantly bending rules as Midoriya clearly was, glanced nervously at Shouta before stepping into the circle with Midoriya. He held out the ball and asked her politely to erase the gravity on it. Shouta could not believe his eyes. Glancing at Shouta again, Uraraka pressed her fingers into the ball and stepped back out of the circle.
Midoriya threw the ball into infinity. The class burst into chatter, praise right alongside protests, all at once. Shouta suspected Midoriya had just made himself several new best friends, and a healthy amount of enemies.
Iida Tenya waved his arms around. “That can’t be allowed.”
“I can try again if it wasn’t,” Midoriya said, shoulders hunching up to his ears.
Shouta handed him a new ball. “It was, technically, allowed. But you’re proving my point about not trying hard enough.”
Midoriya’s eyebrows furrowed and Shouta saw it—the determination under there. He could try to hide it as much as he wanted but no one stumbled their way into hero school. Shouta wanted to see what Midoriya could do when he wasn’t holding himself back. Then they could address why he was holding himself back in the first place.
He looked at Shinsou again. He frowned at the ball. He geared his arm back and Shouta’s mouth dropped open for the second time.
“Strength quirk” was listed in the system for Midoriya Izuku. A stockpiling type. And Shouta had assumed it was some sort of record error because the green-tinted tendrils Midoriya had wielded in the entrance exam were not a strength quirk.
This , though. This was a strength quirk.
Midoriya let go of the ball at the end of his arm’s arc. The ball shot into the distance with a huge boom. And Midoriya’s arm went limp. It turned a shade of purple no arm should ever be. Shouta wasn’t sure how the kid didn’t immediately fall unconscious.
“Holy shit,” someone said. Kaminari Denki.
Midoriya immediately turned to Shinsou. In a tone full of pure joy and gratitude, he said, “Hitoshi-kun, look! My arm’s still attached!”
The score came up on the reader. Bakugou started screaming. Shouta contemplated early retirement.
Arm hanging brokenly and purply at his side, Midoriya turned to Shouta. “Did I do okay?”
“I know UA wasn’t a hypothetical,” All for One said. He’d cornered Kurogiri and he would be getting answers. “What department is he in? Gen ed?”
Kurogiri didn’t answer—just watched him with calm, but wary, eyes. That was a no.
So it wasn’t the general department. Made sense. Izuku was too bright for that, anyway. “Support, then,” All for One said dismissively. Still not necessarily great, given that support technicians could be more damaging than heroes sometimes in the grand scheme of things, but he could accept it.
Still, Kurogiri wasn’t answering. Not even gesturing yes or no. His expression looked almost like he was pitying All for One, but that couldn’t be right, because that would imply . . . No, surely not.
All for One couldn’t help himself—he had to clarify. “Support, correct?”
“Sir . . .” Kurogiri said, a pained warning. Don’t make me do this , he was saying.
But Izuku wouldn’t be interested in business of all things; Izuku had never been interested in business. So if not support and if not general education, then—
“No,” All for One said.
Kurogiri backed away. “I’ll leave you to process.”
“Don’t,” All for One snapped, “move.”
Heroics.
Izuku had applied to UA for the heroics track, and because he was a puny little genius, he had actually done it and now he was enrolled in UA without All for One’s permission and he was in the heroics track. All for One did not like swearing, but this was a fuck ass shitshow. Heroics. His nephew. Shit.
“You kept this from me,” All for One accused, somehow managing to maintain a calm tone.
Kurogiri raised his hands in defense. “It was Izuku’s information to share.”
“That is not how coparenting works!”
Kurogiri’s eyes flickered. “Coparenting?” he said softly.
All for One gestured wildly between the two of them. “This. Whatever this thing is with you and me raising the most volatile and irritating teenager in the history of Japan. Of the world, even.”
“Coparenting,” Kurogiri said again. This seemed to mean something to him. All for One didn’t understand what was such a big deal about this—they’d been parenting together for years now no matter what Kurogiri wanted to call it.
He frowned as Kurogiri fought with his emotions, purple mist flaring in and out.
Just as Kurogiri seemed to regain his cool, the door to the office swung open and Izuku’s head poked in. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt. I have a permission form I need signed?”
“Of course.” All for One got out his pen with a sigh. “For your hypothetical attendance at UA, I presume. Give it here.”
Izuku went to his desk and put the form down. All for One had signed a lot of forms for Izuku’s schooling in the past, although never for high school since Izuku had been hellbent on hiding that from him.
Sure enough, on the top was the UA logo. All for One pointed at it with the tip of his pen to let Izuku know that he’d seen it but didn’t comment. He skimmed the form to make sure he wasn’t signing his life away (one could never be too cautious around Izuku), but it seemed like some sort of field trip thing. He signed it Midoriya and gave the form back.
“What about the syllabus and liability waivers?” he asked.
“Kurogiri did those.”
All for One shot a glare at Kurogiri. “Did he now?”
Kurogiri smiled a little self-satisfied smile. All for One sharpened his glare. And Kurogiri laughed.
“I’m determined,” Izuku said, clutching both sides of his lunch tray so hard he lost some feeling in his fingers.
Hitoshi said, “I know that about you.”
“Maybe I’ll be turned into a popsicle, but it will be worth it.”
“Okay.”
“For Dabi I have to do this. Actually, no. Not for him. Forget I said that.”
Hitoshi sighed. “Are we ever going to actually go sit down or are we going to stand here forever? I’m actually hungry. If you’re so determined we should just go.”
“I got this,” Izuku said. He closed his eyes and took a step forward. And then another. And ran directly into someone. His eyes flew open to find a taller student with white-blue hair. “Oh my god I’m so sorry.”
The student turned and raised his eyebrows.
“Shigaraki-kun?” Izuku gasped.
Shigaraki closed his eyes. He inhaled. He exhaled. He said, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see you. I’m just going to pretend that you don’t go to school here and I’m never going to see you again. If I pretend hard enough, it might come into reality.”
“Why are you here?” Izuku asked, looking him up and down. He looked exactly the same as the last time Izuku had seen him, over food with All Might. Except now he was wearing a UA uniform.
“I go to school here,” Shigaraki said shortly. “Obviously. I’m a second year in the gen ed track.” He gestured at his uniform. “ Obviously.”
“Oh, right.” Izuku nodded. “Right. Obviously.”
“Okay, enough.” Hitoshi stepped in between them. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but I am starving and Izuku has been stalling for like ten years. Time to go. Nice to meet you, the name’s Shinsou Hitoshi. Bye.”
Hitoshi shoved Izuku past Shigaraki and pushed him all the way over to where Todoroki Shouto was sitting silently next to Yaoyorozu Momo, who was reading. Izuku barely had time to regain his senses before they were there. Hitoshi gave him a final push and stepped to the side, waiting for Izuku to make the move he was so determined to make.
Izuku’s heart pounded wildly in his chest. He said, “Can I sit here?”
Todoroki looked up at him, and then past him to the ever impatient Hitoshi. “Why?” he said.
A good question. A great question, even.
“Because we’re lonely and have no friends,” said Hitoshi. And then he sat down at the table without receiving permission, because allegedly he was starving. “Just like everyone else that just started high school. And you seem less likely to blow our heads off than Sparky McBoom down there.” He nodded toward Kacchan, who was yelling at Kirishima Eiji and Kaminari Denki.
“Oh.” Todoroki scooped up some rice. “I guess it’s fine.”
“Definitely fine with me,” Yaoyorozu said, smiling at them. “I’m Yaoyorozu Momo.”
Izuku already knew this. He sat down next to Hitoshi and picked up his chopsticks. “Midoriya Izuku, and this is Shinsou Hitoshi. I have about ten million questions about your quirk.”
She closed her book and leaned in. “Okay,” she said, a curious lilt to her tone. “I’ll answer what I can.”
“Here we go,” Hitoshi muttered.
And Izuku let loose.
Twenty minutes later he had half his original questions answered and more questions brewing. Sometime during his rambling Uraraka had sat down with them, and then Iida and Asui. Izuku was perfectly content to keep going with an audience, but Hitoshi nudged him in the arm to stop him. “You need to eat,” Hitoshi said. “She’ll be here tomorrow, too.”
“And the next day,” Yaoyorozu said goodnaturedly. Izuku was really glad she didn’t seem to think he was super creepy.
“Good point,” he said. He shoveled in a bunch of food.
“I want you to do mine, too,” Uraraka said, eyes alight. “That was so interesting.”
“You did ask things I’d never thought of before.” Yaoyorozu dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “I’d love to discuss this with you further.”
“Ah,” Izuku glanced at Todoroki, who looked annoyed. In terms of responses he’d gotten to his analysis, this might have been one of the best. Even above Eraserhead. “Right. Thanks. I do get carried away.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
At that moment the alarm chose to go off and mass panic descended on the cafeteria.
Notes:
I will be back to posting on Friday the 28th!
Chapter 44: Case Closed, Case Opened
Summary:
Class 1-A's trip to the USJ is very rudely interrupted.
Notes:
Thank you for your patience with me! Let's finish this thing >:)
Chapter Text
“In 2118,” Aizawa said, “a whole family was found murdered. The crime was untraceable.”
In Hitoshi’s opinion, Aizawa was a really cool hero and a really boring lecturer. The way he managed to make cold cases sound dry and eventless was worth taking notes on. They were talking about bloody murders that had killers still on the loose and Hitoshi felt like he was going to fall asleep.
“I thought they solved that one,” Izuku piped up.
Hitoshi lifted his head, frowning up at the board past Izuku’s head. There was a picture of a family projected there that looked vaguely familiar. Hitoshi had a migraine and was finding it difficult to focus, but he thought he’d seen that picture before.
Aizawa paused at the front, frowning at Izuku. Frowning seemed to be the natural state of his face. “Repeat that. And raise your hand next time.”
“Sorry,” Izuku said, standing up. “I just, I thought they solved that one. There was a book about it that I read when I was younger. I thought it was pretty obvious it was the sister’s ex boyfriend.”
Aizawa’s frown deepened. “Explain.”
Hitoshi sighed and put his cheek down on his cool wood desk as Izuku erupted into a long-winded, rambling walk through of the cold case, the solution he’d found based on the evidence available and a healthy amount of internet stalking, and a cohesive explanation of both method and motive. Aizawa’s expression grew more and more twisted and wrinkled as Izuku went on. This Hitoshi could relate to.
As Izuku rambled, Hitoshi contemplated the state of his tie. The fact that Hitoshi, who sat behind Izuku, could tell that the tie was a mess from here meant that it was a true rat’s nest. This was perplexing because Izuku was an expert in a wide variety of rescue knots, and the pseudo-son of a supervillain who exclusively wore expensive-looking suits, including a pristinely tied tie. So much experience Izuku had, and yet. Hitoshi supposed maybe tying a tie was too simple for Izuku and he’d over complicated it.
Aizawa interrupted Izuku’s rambling to say, “This case remains unsolved. Have you presented this information to the police?”
“Well, no. It was kind of obvious? So I just assumed they knew.”
Aizawa didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. He just frowned at Izuku, maybe waiting for him to realize he should have just gone to the police the second he had a solution. Hitoshi was starting to realize that now, too. He seemed to remember telling Izuku not to bother, years ago. It had seemed pointless at the time.
“Dude,” the kid that was always talking about being manly said, “how many of these have you solved?”
Hitoshi tipped his head up and slid his arm across his desk, resting his chin on his wrist. Ever since Izuku and Bakugou had almost killed each other in combat training yesterday, the class had been treating Izuku with huge amounts of amazement and confusion. And now there would be more of that.
“Just a couple.” Izuku’s shoulders were already on a journey up to his ears. “Like maybe five or six. I wanted to solve the whole book when I was younger but some of them actually are unsolvable, I think. Or at least old enough that there’s no way to prove anything.”
“All right,” Aizawa switched the slide. “Sit down. We’ll discuss this after class, and I’ll show you how to file a report.”
Izuku sat down. He then twisted in his chair to look at Hitoshi, who met his eyes coolly. Izuku mouthed desperately, “What just happened?” and Hitoshi just shook his head.
They’d made a mistake, apparently. That was what just happened.
Shouta had compiled plenty of evidence in favor of Midoriya Izuku being Midori-kun. The similarities were impossible to ignore. But for his sanity, here was the evidence Shouta had compiled in favor of Midoriya Izuku not being Midori-kun:
One, Midoriya had a quirk. When Shouta used Erasure on Midoriya, it had a different feeling to it than when he used it on Midori-kun. The slipperiness wasn’t there.
Two, Midoriya was from Kamino, and Midori-kun was from Musutafu.
Three, surely, surely Midori-kun would not be so stupid as to use his actual last name as his vigilante name. Shouta refused to believe it.
They acted differently, regardless. When Iida shushed Midoriya for muttering as Thirteen lectured them at the top of the stairs in the USJ, Midoriya made a little eeping sound and hunched his shoulders up to his ears. Midori-kun probably would have sassed Shouta for that. People could act differently in different contexts, of course, and particularly when they were wearing a mask versus not, but Shouta was trying to maintain his sanity here, goddammit.
So yes, the similarities were there, but Shouta had been looking for similarities. A textbook example of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. This was—
Shouta’s attention got caught by a disturbance near the fountain. He stepped forward immediately, squinting to see, as several goopy blobs appeared and formed into the shapes of people. “Get back,” he told the class immediately, activating his quirk.
“Are you kidding me right now?” Midori-kun’s voice said from right behind him.
Shouta whipped his head around to look. What was the kid doing here—
But Midori-kun wasn’t there. Midori ya was, though, scowling down at the people-shaped globs by the fountain. Shouta hadn’t thought Midoriya was capable of scowling.
One of the globs by the fountain had turned into a tall, terrifying-looking white-haired man. A giant. He was frowning up at Shouta. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a voice that sent shivers down Shouta’s spine. A familiar voice. A voice like—
“Why am I here?” Midoriya snapped. “I go to school here! Why are you here?”
Ah.
Here was the evidence Shouta had compiled for why he was an idiot: He just was.
“Midoriya-kun, get back,” he said.
Midoriya completely ignored him and stormed down the stairs toward the fountain. Shouta shot out his capture scarf to stop him, but with expert ease only achieved through years of vigilantism, Midoriya avoided it without even looking, and Shouta was forced to bark at the rest of the kids to get out before he followed Midoriya down the stairs.
“You ruin everything!” Midoriya was shouting at an incredibly terrifying villain. He had to be over 200 centimeters tall and clearly extremely strong. Shouta’s previously re-thought plans for adoption came back in full swing. “This was supposed to be a fun trip to see one of the most high tech rescue simulators on the planet, and now you’re here.”
“You’re grounded,” the terrifying villain said.
“No, I’m not. There’s no reason,” Midoriya said, crossing his arms.
“You’re supposed to be in school right now.”
“I am in school,” Midoriya snapped. “I’m on a field trip. You literally signed the permission form.”
“I did not! I . . .” The villain thought about that for a moment. “Ah. There was a form. I did sign it. Hmm. Fine, not grounded, then.”
Shouta. Was. An. Idiot.
It was all so obvious now. Midori-kun, Midoriya. The same voice. The same speech patterns. He’d refused to believe it because of the quirk discrepancy, but there was probably a convoluted explanation for thar. He should have known.
“Hold on.” Midoriya narrowed his eyes. “Is this about All Might? Did you seriously interrupt my field trip because you wanted to see All Might? Do you have a crush on him or something?”
The villain’s eyes flashed red.
“Midoriya-kun.” Shouta stepped in between the kid and his uncle. “Go up and join the rest of the class.”
“Excuse me,” the villain said, frowning at Shouta like he was a pesky inconvenience. “Izuku-kun and I are having a conversation.”
This whole fucked up family.
“This is so embarrassing,” Midoriya wailed, putting his hands over his eyes. “You interrupted my really awesome and epic school field trip in front of my whole class so you could see All Might. And you brought a Noumu, which I thought we’d banned.” Since his hands were occupied, he used an elbow to gesture at a purple monster standing to the right of his uncle. If the uncle himself hadn’t been terrifying enough, the “Noumu” made everything ten times worse.
Shouta was not backing down, regardless of the fact that no one was listening to him. “You can have your conversation at home. Right now, we’re on a school-sanctioned field trip and you’re interrupting the education of all twenty of my students.”
“All Might isn’t even here,” Midoriya said. Shouta shot him another glare. They needed to have a conversation about conflict deescalation later. “You’ve embarrassed me for nothing. Where’s Kurogiri?”
“He refused to be involved in this,” the uncle sniffed.
“That’s called common sense,” Midoriya muttered. “Which apparently you don’t—”
“I can ground you again,” the uncle said pointedly, and the rest of Midoriya’s sentence faded into nothing.
“Midoriya-san, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Shouta said. He wondered where his sanity had gone. Here he stood, politely asking an extremely terrifying villain to go, instead of arresting him like a normal person. Shouta would try to fight him, but he could tell just from looking at the guy that he wouldn’t win, and he had nineteen other kids to think about. “If you’d like to visit the school you can go through the proper channels and fill out a guest form through Principal Nedzu.”
“Yeah,” Midoriya agreed unhelpfully. “Or blackmail the governor into putting you on the school board again.”
Shouta stared at him. Unable to properly respond, he turned back to the uncle and said, “Or that.”
“You win this round,” the uncle muttered, and one by one the lackeys around him vanished into dark puddles.
Midoriya’s head tipped to the side. In an eruption of black goop, the uncle disappeared. “I think I actually win every round,” Midoriya said.
He then seemed to realize where he was.
His eyes widened and he turned to Shouta, immediately sinking into a bow. “Please don’t arrest me. He’ll flip out and then break me out and then I’ll be on the run my whole life and that’s just not a good look—”
“I’m not going to arrest you. Stand up,” Shouta said firmly. “I am going to sit you down in Nedzu’s office later and ask you many, many more questions than you’re probably comfortable with. We’re also going to talk about when it is and is not appropriate to run into a fight. But I’m not going to arrest you.”
“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience,” Midoriya said.
Good god, the kid really was so stupid that he had let his vigilante name be almost the same as his last name. This was going to take so much time and ranting to Hizashi for Shouta to process. For now, he set it aside to make sure the rest of the class was safe. Keeping Midoriya in sight, he climbed up the stairs to find where the rest of his students had scattered to.
Katsuki would have gone and fought the intruder on UA’s grounds. In fact, he lunged to do so the moment he sensed the threat, which came from a sludge-shaped glob, and was only stopped by Thirteen’s instincts and vice grip on his wrist.
But then the intruder was just Deku’s uncle.
And now he was confused.
“No, don’t,” he snapped at that half-and-half guy as he geared up to join the fight. “That’s Deku’s uncle.”
“Seriously?” the one that looked like a pink alien said. (Katsuki hadn’t bothered with the names. He regretted that now.) “That guy?”
Katsuki had never really considered the lack of similarities between Deku and his uncle. As he frowned down at the center of the USJ, where Deku was definitely yelling at his uncle and Aizawa was acting as a glorified chaperone, he found that there really weren’t any similarities at all. Deku was short with green hair and green eyes. Those words could not describe the behemoth of an uncle standing in front of him.
“Please go to the doors,” Thirteen directed, gesturing. “Aizawa-san has this situation handled. Let’s evacuate with speed and order!”
The guy with the glasses chopped his arms around, shouting directives and forcing people toward the doors. Katsuki ignored him as much as he could with the guy right there.
But Uncle Midoriya wasn’t a villain. He was Uncle Midoriya. He was a little goofy and weird and sometimes could be crazy intimidating, like that one time he showed up at Aldera, but he wasn’t a villain.
Unless he was. Unless Katsuki was, like always, falling behind Deku.
It occurred to Katsuki that he hadn’t known Deku in a long time. He couldn’t consider himself an expert on how Deku thought or acted. Deku had changed and Katsuki had changed, but they hadn’t changed together.
“What an idiot,” Shinsou commented.
Katsuki jumped. Somehow Shinsou had appeared right next to him without him noticing at all. This would have been suspicious, but Shinsou also had his eyes fixed on the center plaza.
“Surely he knew Izuku-kun would flip out over this,” Shinsou said, and Katsuki realized that the idiot in this case was not shitty Deku, and was instead Uncle Midoriya. This, he suspected, would take him a few days to wrap his mind around. “I’m pretty sure it goes against their rule book, too.”
“They have a rule book?” Katsuki asked before he could stop himself.
Shinsou glanced at him with an expression that conveyed only one thing: Of course they have a rule book.
And that. That was fair.
“The doors are locked!” someone shouted.
“My phone isn’t working!” someone else screamed. Somehow this second thing was more devastating for the class than the first, and everyone burst into panic. This was why they were extras and Katsuki wasn’t.
Shinsou released a dry chuckle. Katsuki squinted down at the plaza just as all the villains (maybe the whole thing was staged?) disappeared in the same sludge they’d come in. The doors burst open behind Katsuki to relieved shrieks from the class. And then Uncle Midoriya vanished, too.
Deku sank into a full ninety-degree bow to Aizawa. Katsuki couldn’t hear the exact words from up here, but he got the tone, an apologetic freak out. Quintessential Deku.
“Gotta hand it to him,” Shinsou said, turning away. “He’s efficient with it.”
Katsuki wouldn’t fall behind. He wouldn’t fall behind. He had to stay a step ahead, always. But Deku, it seemed, was already pulling past him.
Fucking damn it.
Chapter 45: In Which Comforting Oblivion is Stripped Away
Summary:
The fall out after the USJ, and a hunt through AFO's files on the yakuza.
Chapter Text
“It’s like you’re not surprised,” Aizawa said. “That’s the feeling I’m getting.”
Izuku pursed his lips. He felt a little like he was in trouble—he was in the principal’s office, after all—and he hadn’t even done anything wrong. He decided to do what he usually did in these situations, which was to sit as quiet and still as possible and wait for it to be over. It was all Oji-san’s fault for attacking the school in the first place.
“I’m not surprised,” Nedzu said, his paws clasped together in front of him and an evil smile Oji-san would be jealous of on his face. “I’m not surprised at all. Midoriya-kun, would you like some tea?”
Izuku shifted in his chair across the desk from Nedzu and glanced at Aizawa in the seat next to him. Aizawa looked tired and grumpy, like always, and unwilling to give an opinion on the tea.
“Um, yes please?” Izuku said.
Nedzu procured a steaming cup with impressive quickness. Izuku looked at Aizawa again for help, but Aizawa was now staring at Nedzu like he was trying to intimidate answers out of him. In Izuku’s experience with Nedzu, which wasn’t extensive, answers weren’t the probable outcome.
The tea, when Izuku took a sip, was the perfect temperature. Intimidating.
“As you know,” Nedzu said to Izuku, ignoring Aizawa, which was maybe a little rude but Nedzu didn’t seem to care about manners all that much, “I am well-aware of the many details of your situation.”
Izuku knew Nedzu had been informed of the One for All thing, but besides that he had pretty much no idea what Nedzu knew about him. Nedzu was an enigma in a way Oji-san never had been. Regardless, Izuku nodded.
“All Might is on his way now to join the discussion.”
“All Might,” Aizawa said sharply. “What does All Might have to do with anything?”
“Well, it’s this whole thing,” Izuku said, and then stopped himself, looking at Nedzu, who took a long sip of his tea without breaking eye contact. He was really terrifying. “Um. Well, I guess if he’s coming then he can just explain it. I’m a minor and stuff. So I probably shouldn’t be revealing national secrets.”
“Perhaps,” Nedzu said, although he didn’t seem like he would stop Izuku either.
Aizawa made a movement like he was shaking off water from his shoulders. “Okay, look, I don’t know what’s going on and frankly I’m too tired to be delicate about this. Midoriya-kun, my first and most pressing issue is that your uncle just attacked the school. There’s nothing I expect you or want you to do about this. Your job is to prioritize your safety. Do not start anything at home just because of this situation. Do you understand?”
He did not. “I already told him off for it,” Izuku said. “So I think it’s fine? We have a very strict no-talking-about-work-at-home rule. So it’s fine.”
Aizawa stared at him. He had the most broken, perplexed expression on his face. Izuku almost felt bad for him, and he didn’t even know what was wrong.
“I . . . Okay.” Whatever it was, Aizawa let it go. “The next thing. I thought you were quirkless?”
“Um.” Izuku looked at Nedzu.
Nedzu said, “Late quirk development,” and smiled. “It happens.”
Aizawa sent him a disgusted look. “Not at age 15. Give me some credit. The oldest documented quirk manifestation is age eight.”
“It’s age nine, actually, although there’s some contention.” Izuku said, and then realized that was the opposite of helpful. “Or, it was. Now it’s age fifteen. My quirk manifested in . . . the . . .” He realized his mistake.
“In the when,” Aizawa said.
Izuku looked at Nedzu for help. Nedzu sipped his tea.
“In the when,” Aizawa said.
“The entrance exam?”
The door banged open. “I am here!” All Might, Izuku’s true hero, shouted, and then erupted into a coughing fit and deflated in a cloud of smoke in the doorway.
“A little late,” Aizawa snapped. Something had put him in a bad mood. Izuku suspected he was the culprit and resolved to sit a little quieter and stiller from this moment forth. “Also aren’t you supposed to be hiding something? Something identity-related?”
“I already knew about his injury,” Izuku said quickly, and then lifted his tea cup to his mouth just to have something to hide behind. “I kind of know a lot of stuff. About everyone.”
“The youngest person to have access to The Hero Network,” Nedzu said happily. “Not legally, of course.”
A long—very long—silence graced the office. Izuku sipped his perfectly brewed tea with much more focus, his entire face heating up. He tried without success to make it stop, knowing he was probably turning a delicate shade of pink.
“ I don’t even have access to The Hero Network,” Aizawa said flatly.
Izuku mumbled, “I think maybe the key words were ‘not’ and ‘legally.’”
Aizawa pressed his hands into his forehead. “Okay, enough. Why is All Might here?”
Izuku tried to be quiet while Nedzu and All Might explained the whole One for All thing, but eventually the story started getting so convoluted between the two of them and Aizawa looked so revolted and confused that Izuku had to step in and explain the whole thing himself, to everyone’s visible relief.
And then Aizawa rounded on All Might. “You gave the most volatile and coveted quirk in the history of the world to a teenager?”
“Yes,” All Might said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to train with it at a hero school before trying to get his license.”
Aizawa opened his mouth. Then closed it. “I can’t even argue with that,” he said. “Good point.” He turned to Izuku. “You live with this All for One guy. You took the quirk, despite that?”
“I had a dream, Aizawa-sensei,” Izuku said earnestly. “I needed it.”
Aizawa ran both his hands over his face, exhausted. “Enough. That’s enough new information for one day. How are we covering this up to the class?”
Nedzu, of course, had all the answers. “There’s no need to cover up that Midoriya-kun’s uncle is a villain—that’s easily navigable, as long as it stays out of the press. We’ll keep it to 1-A, if we can, and manage the fall out if it spreads. And no one seems to know Midoriya-kun is a vigilante, so that can remain a secret.”
“ Was a vigilante,” Aizawa said.
“Technically I definitely still am a vigilante. Hawks and I are doing a thing on Sunday.”
The range of emotions that had crossed Aizawa’s face during this discussion just kept getting bigger. He just looked so exhausted. And like he was the only human in a world full of monkeys. “For legal reasons, I didn’t hear that.”
“Okay.” Izuku looked at All Might. All Might looked at Aizawa. Aizawa looked at Nedzu, who smiled a very unpleasant smile.
So everything was going to be fine, then.
“Right, I know I said I didn’t want to know anything else,” Aizawa said, “but unfortunately I have more questions.”
Izuku looked woefully into the dregs of his teacup. It was only his first week at UA, and all this drama had occurred, and he had no more tea to help him through it.
“More tea, Midoriya-kun?” Nedzu offered, holding out a fresh cup.
Izuku tried not to look too desperate as he took it. “Yes, please. Thank you.”
“Everything looks better with googly eyes,” Kaminari said at the next table over.
Shinsou looked over and snorted, and Izuku covered his mouth with his hand, so Ochako twisted around to see. Kaminari had plastered googly eyes all over the still life everyone at his table were supposed to be drawing. He was looking at it with pride.
Midnight drifted over to his table, probably to tell him off, which was good because Iida had started up from his seat at Ochako’s table and seemed ready to scold him himself. Ochako thought Kaminari had a point, honestly, about the googly eyes. It made more of a statement.
“Take those off,” Bakugou snarled. “It’s making it more difficult to draw. Idiot.”
“Don’t call your classmate an idiot,” Midnight said. “Kaminari, what have you done so far?”
Kaminari gestured. “I put googly eyes on the still life. To make it more interesting.”
UA was somehow everything Ochako had dreamed it would be, and nothing like that at all. It was the top hero school of the nation. She was surrounded by top heroes and her classmates were obviously extremely talented, passionate, and competitive. Ochako fit right in.
But the whole thing was very unserious. She was expecting more discipline, less patience. There’d been the whole USJ thing—they’d literally been attacked—and the teachers seemed almost unconcerned. Amused, in Nedzu’s case.
Well, the teachers except for Aizawa, who’d taken to frowning thoughtfully at Izuku whenever he was in eyesight, which made sense. There had been the whole revelation that Izuku’s uncle was a villain and Izuku had totally already known about that and still applied to a hero school. Ochako, and most of the rest of the class (after they’d gotten over the shock) found this hilarious or inspiring or both. Aizawa seemed to think it was a nuisance. But then again, Aizawa seemed to think everything was a nuisance.
Plus, Izuku’s hero costume was really cool, so he was obviously headed for greatness. It was all black with jets of dark green darting up the sides and the sleeves. He looked like a real professional hero in it. A friend of his in the support course had made it for him, and when Ochako asked, he gave her the friend’s phone number immediately.
“How,” Shinsou grumbled, “are you good at literally everything?”
Izuku looked up from his drawing with a sort of bewildered and surprised expression. Ochako peered at his paper. It was a really good sketch—all the proportions were right and everything. He’d only just started on the shading, but Ochako could tell it wasn’t going to be an issue for him. Ochako’s drawing, meanwhile, left much to the imagination. She’d decided if Midnight asked, she would say it was supposed to be abstract.
Shinsou brandished his own paper in Izuku’s face. “Do you see this? It’s complete crap. And then I look over and there you are with your masterp—hold on. Are you doing this with your left hand ?”
“Um.” Izuku looked at his left hand, which was holding the pencil, like he’d never seen it before. “Yes? I thought it would be good to practice, since I usually draw with my right.”
“Are you ambidextrous?” Ochako asked, leaning in.
Izuku’s face turned red at all the sudden attention. “Yes?”
“Wow!”
“Since when,” Shinsou said, eyes narrowed.
“Since I was like ten?” Izuku said. “I wanted to eat and write at the same time, so I just . . .”
“So you just,” Shinsou repeated flatly.
“So I just,” Izuku confirmed.
“Of course you did.”
Ochako thought Izuku was the coolest person in the entire world. He was made even cooler by the fact that he seemed to have absolutely zero idea that he was super awesome—it was like he thought he was average at best. He was not average. This delighted Ochako.
And! He had an evil uncle! How crazy was that? He was super passionate and smart and he lived with a genuine supervillain. And he still had turned out really nice, despite all that.
“You should do mine too,” Shinsou said, putting his paper down next to Izuku’s. “Practice both hands at once.”
Iida cleared his throat. “Having others do your assignments is cheating!”
Ochako stepped in before Shinsou could rip Iida a new one—the two of them had already proven on multiple occasions that they did not get along and maybe never would. “I think Aoyama-kun is putting glitter on his.”
Izuku followed her gaze, eyes suddenly sharper. It seemed to Ochako that Izuku existed on planes of varying focus. Most of the time, he drifted in this sort of multi-tasking blur, lots of movement, high energy, mind everywhere at once. And then sometimes, all of that condensed into one. The intensity never varied, but it could go from scattered to sharp in two seconds.
This was one of those kind of terrifying, locked-in moments.
“Don’t,” Shinsou said in a warning voice, sliding his drawing back. “Don’t, Izuku-kun.”
“Midnight-san won’t even notice,” Izuku said. “She’s busy removing googly eyes.”
“You’ll scare the ever-loving shit out of him.”
“No I won’t,” Izuku said, climbing out of his chair. Iida started to protest but Ochako shook her head at him, fascinated by whatever was happening, and he quieted down. “I’m not intimidating at all.”
“You’re a little intimidating,” Ochako said.
Shinsou sent her a grateful look. Izuku completely ignored her. He padded over to Aoyama’s table, where he, Ashido, Hagakure, and Tsu were sitting. Poor Tsu, trapped with those three. She looked a bit out of her depth.
Ochako observed the proceedings, her own drawing forgotten, with a deep sense of glee. Izuku was just so fun to watch. She never knew what he was doing. It was epic.
Izuku tapped Aoyama on the shoulder. He leaned in and said something to Aoyama in such a low voice Ochako wasn’t even sure Tsu would be able to hear it. Across the room Jirou choked.
Aoyama went plaster pale.
Genuinely, it was the best day of Ochako’s life. Every day she got to spend around Izuku was another great one. Her existence before this had been so boring and uneventful, in hindsight. Thank goodness she got into UA, and thank goodness it was so unserious.
Izuku said something else and Aoyama started nodding, eyes very wide.
“Hell,” Shinsou muttered.
“What’s he doing?” Ochako asked.
“No clue.” Shinsou drew a deep line on his paper. “Probably saving someone’s life. He does that stuff with an embarrassing amount of ease.”
This was unsurprising.
Aoyama said something back to Izuku, waving his hands around, and Tsu’s eyes widened. Ocahko would definitely be questioning her later.
The conversation went back and forth a couple times and then Izuku gave ashen-faced Aoyama a little pat on the shoulder and returned just as Midnight finally caught wind of what was going on. “Stay in your seats, please!” she called as Izuku slid into his. “Aoyama! I said no to the glitter!” She swept over to where Aoyama was giving the far wall a shell-shocked look of dread and horror.
“Midnight deserves so much happiness,” Ochako decided, going back to her battle with the outline of a vase. No way would Izuku explain in comprehendible terms what he’d just been doing, so she’d just ask Tsu and maybe even Jirou about it later. “Someone should get her a gift.”
“Her birthday isn’t until March ninth,” Izuku said.
“Really?” Ochako made a mental note. She was good with birthdays—they were the most important and exciting day of the year. “How’d you find that out?”
“Hero Network,” Izuku said. His eyebrows furrowed as he shaded in the fake flower in the middle of their still life.
Shinsou was strangling his own pencil. Any second now it would break.
“The Hero Network?” Iida asked, confused. “But I thought—”
“Literally just don’t.” Shinsou’s pencil snapped. “Don’t ask. That’s a can of worms better left extremely closed and locked into a trunk at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.”
Iida, regrettably, let it go. Ochako beamed at Izuku, who’d gone back to his usual scattered aura and gave her half a nervous smile in return. Ochako refocused on her vase. Definitely abstract.
Oji-san’s files had, predictably, plenty to say about the yakuza.
The time was 2 am and Izuku should have been asleep, but instead he was curled up in the corner where his bed met the wall, laptop on his knees, half buried in Oji-san’s digital filing system. He clicked open file after file. Oji-san even had an informant on the inside, and there was lots of communication filed between the two of them.
Most of it was super, super boring.
Izuku found blueprints of their base, scientific reports about this serum they were trying to make that erased quirks (full of a lot of jargon he couldn’t make heads or tails of), lists of members and their quirks. That last part fascinated Izuku the most, so he read the folder top to bottom, taking notes in shorthand as he went so he could analyze it all later.
And now it was 2 am and he was sweeping back through the files again for anything else. He reopened the file with all the weird scientific stuff and tried to go through it, rubbing his eyes against the itch from staring at the screen for too long.
It really was difficult to understand. One of the folders in the scientific stuff had a bunch of medical files in it that he could barely read. It had the sense of human experimentation hanging around it, which Izuku had strong feelings about, but nothing specific was listed.
He was deep, deep in the files, in a nearly empty folder that seemed forgotten, when he found it. A file from a few years ago with a picture of a tiny little girl and an explanation of her quirk. There were also some very graphic descriptions and plans listed. Izuku stared at the file for a long time, certain he was just too tired to process it correctly and he wasn’t reading what he’d just read. He reread it again and again.
But he couldn’t deny the truth for long. Hugging his open laptop against his chest, he uncurled and slipped off the side of his bed. He slid his feet into his Hawks slippers (modeled after his suit and with little red wings hanging off the back) and padded out of his room.
The bar had maybe ten people in it. Everyone stared at Izuku as he stalked across in his Present Mic-themed pajama shirt and his Miruko-themed pajama pants, little Hawks wings flapping behind his ankles. Kurogiri swept in front of him, yellow eyes blown wide, purple mist expanding around them to block Izuku off from the rest of the room.
“I have to,” Izuku said. “I have to talk to Oji-san. Please.”
“It’s three in the morning!” Kurogiri hissed.
“I have to.”
Something in Izuku’s eyes must have convinced him, because Kurogiri shifted, and the mist rolled and crashed in around both of them. It dissipated again, leaving Izuku just inside the door to Oji-san’s office. Oji-san was sitting at his desk, sorting through a huge pile of papers.
“Hi,” Izuku said.
Oji-san spun in his desk chair. When he saw Izuku, his expression collapsed into confusion, and then irritation. “It’s three in the morning. Grounded.”
Izuku, who personally believed he had outgrown bedtimes, pushed past him and dropped his laptop down on his desk. “You knew about this,” he said, pointing. “Right?”
Oji-san squinted at the picture of the little girl with his old man eyes. He scrolled through the PDF, skimming the details. “I did not.”
“I found it in your files,” Izuku said. Probably he should have explained that from the get go. “I know you knew about it. I was expressing my outrage.”
“Well, I was being honest,” Oji-san said. “I don’t remember this.”
“You forgot?”
“I process a lot of information every day.” Oji-san said this in a tone of great patience, which annoyed Izuku. He didn’t need to be babied. “Some of it gets lost.”
“Well, can you reprocess it, then?” Izuku nudged the computer closer to him. His eyes were burning—he definitely should have been asleep a few hours ago.
Oji-san went back to the top of the PDF and read through it more thoroughly. Izuku skimmed over his shoulder, felt disturbed all over again, and paced a few steps away. Unable to keep himself from the problem, though, he turned around and came back to keep reading. He repeated this sequence a few times until Oji-san said, “I’m caught up. I’m assuming you’re not going to let this rest?”
“I’m going to infiltrate the compound myself,” Izuku said, plans formulating. “I’ll go in there, get her, and get out. I think there’s a side door that’s unguarded.”
“You,” Oji-san cut in before Izuku could sink into a full mutter storm, “are going to sleep.”
“But she—”
“Might already be dead,” Oji-san said, lifting his eyebrows. “Or might have already gotten out of there somehow. She might be fine.”
“Unlikely,” Izuku said, digging his fists into his itchy eyes.
“And if she isn’t fine, she’ll live through it until we have a proper plan.”
Izuku slowly dropped his hands from his eyes, unsure if he’d heard that right. Oji-san was gazing at him steadily, seriously. It seemed real. “We?”
“Well, I’m certainly not letting you go against Overhaul on your own,” Oji-san said, closing the PDF. “And I know you’d be mad if I went and did it all by myself, although undoubtedly that would be easier for both of us. You’d want to supervise.”
That, Izuku could admit, was true. It would definitely be more efficient if Oji-san just went in by himself, but who knew what else he’d get up to while he was in there? He was right—better to do it together.
Oji-san frowned at Izuku’s screen. “You hacked my computer.”
“No I didn’t,” Izuku said immediately.
“Your lying is more obvious when you’re tired. Go to bed.”
“I’m not tired,” Izuku mumbled. And then he yawned involuntarily, proving that his body hated him and was a traitor. Now that the adrenaline of the discovery was over, he was starting to crash. The world felt somehow crisper than usual, but with a distinct fuzziness around the edges.
“I’m confiscating your computer.”
“Don’t go through it,” Izuku said. “I’ll never forgive you.”
Oji-san rolled back in his chair and gestured to it. “You can shut it down yourself,” he said. “I don’t know your password, so you’ll know I’m not going into it while you’re gone.”
Technically, Oji-san could hack the computer while Izuku was gone and get into it anyway. But Izuku didn’t think he would. He locked the computer and closed it. Feeling somewhat awkward now, he said, “Thanks.” And then yawned again.
“Let me teleport you up there,” Oji-san said. “You’re not walking through the bar.”
Izuku decided not to tell Oji-san at this time that he already had gone through the bar. Instead he nodded and winced as he felt the teleportation goop start to climb up his throat.
Chapter 46: Pride
Summary:
The Sports Festival arrives.
Notes:
This is one of my favorite chapters in the whole fic, I really hope you like it!! :D Thank you as always for all the support.
Chapter Text
The stadium was crowded and hot and Izuku’s hands were sweating. Everyone was looking at him. Ten million points. Crap. He slotted his fingers together and held them stiff and spread out.
He couldn’t use his quirk on live television. This is what he had decided. Because although he didn’t think Oji-san would turn on the TV and watch the UA Sports Festival since he hated heroes and all the fanfare, there was always a chance he would. So Izuku couldn’t use his quirk.
“Ten million points,” Hitoshi laughed. “Good luck.”
Izuku wanted to flip him off. But it was live television.
Hitoshi had, before the competition started, asked Izuku to not help him at all. Izuku was somewhat offended by this, but he also understood, so he’d agreed and let Hitoshi have his space. Now, though, he needed Hitoshi’s help, and Hitoshi was backing away. Like a total jerk.
Luckily, there was always Uraraka, who bounded over to him almost immediately. Iida abandoned him for Todoroki, and then—
“Hey, Ten Million!” a loud, familiar voice piped up. A girl with pink hair and big, excited eyes sprinted over. “Let me be on your team!”
“Mei-san?” Izuku spluttered, amazed. He had known Mei got into UA, of course, but hadn’t gone out of his way to find her and certainly hadn’t expected to see her here, at the second stage of the Sports Festival.
She faltered somewhat at him knowing her name, eyes narrowing slightly. But then she beamed. “You must have heard of my company! Good! I want to use you as free advertising.”
Of course she did. “Okay? And actually I know your name because we’ve worked together before. We sent some packages together over the phone and over email. And you designed my hero suit.” He wasn’t sure how else to phrase it without revealing his identity to the live television audience.
Luckily, Mei was incredibly smart. “Oh! Oh, it’s you! No way!” She grabbed his hand and shook it enthusiastically. “It’s so good to finally meet you in person! Midori—”
“—ya,” Izuku said hurriedly. “Midoriya-kun.”
“Right, right,” she waved that off. “Ten million. We’re going to win! We need another player.” Her arm shot out and she dragged Tokoyami into the group out of nowhere. “Found one!”
The second challenge was far, far more stressful than the first. Izuku used the smallest bit of One for All at a certain point out of panic, and felt relieved when his fingers didn’t explode and it wasn’t obvious he’d used a quirk.
They scraped out a win thanks to Dark Shadow and, hearts still pounding from the close call, started off for lunch.
Well, up until Todoroki appeared out of nowhere and asked Izuku to talk.
In the flurry of yakuza research Izuku had been up to his knees in during the past week, he’d been neglecting the drama in the Todoroki family. Rei called him probably every other day asking for details on Touya (Izuku probably shouldn’t have told her the tidbit about him being alive), but Izuku had been too busy to give it much attention. He regretted that now.
Todoroki pulled him down a hallway in the stadium, which Izuku noted was not very private, and began unleashing his whole life story on Izuku, who, of course, pretty much already knew the whole thing. He tried to be a captive audience anyway, nodding and attempting to look shocked in the right places.
Since the start of UA, Izuku had been aggressively campaigning to be Todoroki’s best friend. Todoroki seemed equally determined to have no friends at all, but Izuku would prevail. He was determined, even if he was distracted at the moment by a certain little girl trapped in the yakuza compound. That would all be over soon (he hoped), and he was in this fight for Todoroki’s friendship for the long game.
The part of Todoroki’s hair was so perfect it was a little scary. Did Todoroki painstakingly separate all the strands out every morning, or did it just naturally fall that way? There wasn’t a single strand of white in any of the red. Izuku kind of wanted to mess it up just to see what it would look like with red and white everywhere instead of split down the middle.
“Are you All Might’s secret love child?” Todoroki demanded and Izuku realized suddenly he had not been paying attention for a few minutes.
“No!” He waved his hands around to fend off the accusation. “It’s not like that.”
“But it is like something,” Todoroki mused. Izuku could see him taking mental notes.
“Everyone always wants to be my parent,” Izuku said, pained. “I can’t help it.” An idea struck him. “Would you like an extra parent? Maybe I could pawn one off.”
“Thank you, but I have a mom already. And I’m going to defeat you using her power.”
Izuku tipped his head to the side. “Did you steal her quirk?” He hadn’t seen anything in Oji-san’s files about that, but maybe he’d missed something.
Todoroki’s eyebrows furrowed, his expression featuring possibly the most emotion Izuku had ever seen from him. All confusion. “No, I’m going to use her side of my dual quirk. Was that not clear?”
“Oh, that.” Izuku didn’t quite know what to say.
An awkward silence fell between them.
“Well.” Izuku tried to figure out how to phrase You’re not your father out loud to Todoroki, and how to avoid saying I’m the whole reason you don’t live with that jerk anymore anyway in the process. He also thought this would be a good time to express his determination to be Todoroki’s friend, but how to bring it up? This was very difficult.
“I’ll see you on the field,” Todoroki said, nodding curtly.
Izuku opened his mouth and then closed it again. Todoroki walked away. Izuku managed, finally, to say, “What if we’re not even in the same bracket?” but by then it was too late, and Todoroki was gone.
“You’re not going to watch the third round either?” Kurogiri asked, putting out a fire on the stove with expert ease.
“Why,” All for One said, making a point to not look at the TV across the room, which had Dabi sitting in front of it with an almost religious amount of focus, “would I watch that?”
“It’s your nephew,” Kurogiri said. “Your pseudo-son.”
“We are not calling him that,” All for One said, jabbing his index finger down resolutely into the counter of the bar.
“He’s pretty much your son,” Dabi put in. All for One resolved, not for the first time, to kick him out first thing tomorrow. Dabi’s eyes had not departed from the TV screen, but he still had plenty to say, apparently. “And he won first place in the first round without a quirk, and got through the second round fine. I saw one of the other contestants crying.”
All for One tried not to care. But he found himself, moments later, pulling up a chair in front of the TV, a good distance away from Dabi, and frowning at the screen. Dabi didn’t comment, which was lucky for him because his head was teetering dangerously close to getting blown off.
He crossed his arms begrudgingly and settled back to watch.
Izuku was up against Shinsou in the first round, which was altogether unfortunate. Dabi explained they’d been avoiding each other all competition. All for One made a mental note to talk to Izuku about that later in case there were hurt feelings involved.
The match between Izuku and Shinsou started off predictably. Shinsou managed to say something that got Izuku to answer him, Izuku turned around to walk straight out of bounds.
And then, suddenly, Izuku twitched and a huge blast of air swept through the stadium. All for One squinted, trying to see properly.
“Did he just break his fingers?” Dabi asked, horrified. “How’d he even do that?”
Kurogiri appeared right behind both of them immediately, focused on the screen. “What happened?”
“He somehow broke out of Shinsou-kun’s brainwashing.” All for One wished the cameras would zoom in so he could see what had happened properly.
“Maybe they’ll replay that part,” Dabi said.
The rest of the fight ended in a quirkless hand-to-hand battle, Izuku’s mouth firmly shut. He pushed Shinsou out of bounds. Shinsou looked pissed off about this, but nodded in acceptance, and then immediately grabbed Izuku’s hand and started inspecting it.
Now All for One got the camera angle he wanted and his stomach dropped.
“What did he even do?” Dabi gasped. “How are his fingers that messed up? Holy shit.”
“I need a portal,” All for One said to Kurogiri, standing up.
“The school has a very good nurse,” Kurogiri said without taking his eyes from the screen, where Izuku was getting escorted out of the field by a teacher. “He’ll be fine.”
“But—”
Kurogiri frowned at him and All for One fell silent immediately. “Izuku-kun would be very upset if you ruined the whole Sports Festival by showing up and sending a whole stadium full of heroes into a panic. You know that, right? He still has to compete. At least wait until the end.”
All for One scowled and settled back in his chair.
The rest of the first round was boring. Dabi, of course, paid rapt attention to Todoroki Shouto’s performance, which looked flashy and impressive but was mostly reckless and sad. All for One wasn’t oblivious to what was going on there and what Izuku had contributed, and he hoped (against himself) that Izuku could save that kid from himself. He was visibly a disaster.
“Maybe I should let Izuku-kun put me in touch with him,” Dabi muttered, leaning back. “What a mess.”
“We could corrupt him,” All for One said, already forming plans. “Bring him over to the dark side.”
Kurogiri glared. “Stop trying to morally destroy all Izuku’s friends. Don’t think I didn’t see you trying to teach Shinsou-kun how to gamble the other day.”
All for One wanted to defend himself, but it was true. “There’s nothing immoral about gambling,” he said instead and Kurogiri made a disapproving noise.
The new bracket came out, putting Izuku up against Todoroki in the next round. All for One could admit that Izuku was very impressive for his age, but he didn’t think this match would go well for him. Todoroki had decimated half the stadium in his last match, and Izuku didn’t have a quirk. Talented or not, Izuku couldn’t win in an all-out fight like this. He just couldn’t.
The two boys appeared on the platform. Izuku’s left hand with both its broken fingers was conspicuously bandaged.
“Well,” Dabi said, “this is going to be over fast.”
Kurogiri shushed him.
The match started.
It was not, in fact, over fast.
When Izuku extended an arm and a familiar blackish tendril shot out of it, All for One thought he was going crazy. He thought, for a moment, the ghosts of his past had come up to haunt him and laugh in his face. He thought maybe he’d hit his head and this was one of those weird coma dreams.
Blackwhip. It looked like Blackwhip.
All for One tried to remember if he’d given Izuku a quirk at some point. He couldn’t remember ever taking Blackwhip from Banjou—he’d thought it was a bit of a useless quirk at the time—and he certainly couldn’t remember making the decision to give it to Izuku.
The options were these:
- This was all a weird coma dream (likely)
- Izuku had manifested a haunted quirk just now (unlikely)
- Izuku had cozied himself up to All Might and somehow gotten the buffoon to give him One for All (unfortunately, likely)
“When did Izuku-kun get a quirk?” Dabi asked the television screen. Ever astute, Dabi was. Very observant. “Did you give him one?”
All for One turned slowly in his chair to look at Kurogiri, who resolutely kept his eyes on the screen and his face very blank of emotion. “You knew about this,” he said. “You always know these things.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kurogiri said calmly. “I’m just as confused as you are.”
Kurogiri looked many things at the moment: tired, resigned, stubborn. He did not, in any sense of the word, look confused.
“Kurogiri,” All for One said, drawing the name out dangerously.
“Holy shit,” Dabi breathed. “They’re going to kill each other. Why aren’t the teachers stopping this?”
All for One looked at the screen again just in time to see Izuku shoot feet first into Todoroki’s stomach.
The audio was pretty bad, both because of the cheering of the crowd and because of the hero doing an egregious job of playing sports announcer, but both boys were visibly screaming at each other on screen. Izuku looked about ready to throttle Todoroki.
“They should kiss,” Dabi said.
Kurogiri smacked him on the back of the head.
All for One’s lip reading wasn’t perfect, but as Izuku pinned Todoroki to the ground with a forearm to the throat, he could have sworn the kid yelled, “Use it!”
They had a full conversation down there, Todoroki snapping something up at Izuku that looked like it ended with, “your other quirk.” Either All for One’s lip reading needed more help than he thought, or he had a lot to unpack later.
Izuku said something eventually that sent Todoroki over the edge. A huge blast of fire erupted over the stadium, throwing Izuku back.
“What in the fuck is going on?” Dabi yelled at the screen, which summed up All for One’s feelings perfectly.
Izuku rolled back up to his feet and held one of his arms out, the other hand supporting it by the wrist, middle finger curled in like he wanted to flick Todoroki on the forehead from the other side of the ring. Todoroki, left side on fire, said something to him that made Izuku’s face set in determination.
They both sent blasts at each other at the same time, Izuku’s finger snapping as All for One watched, helpless, on his side of the TV screen. That was One for All if he’d ever seen it. The teachers decided to get involved at this point and a huge explosion rocked the whole stadium. One of Izuku’s black tendrils shot into view as smoke overtook the screen.
For a long second, nothing was visible. As the smoke cleared out, it revealed both boys unconscious on the inside of the ring, blackwhip planting Izuku in place, shards of concrete scattered everywhere.
Izuku stirred after a second, sitting up and putting a hand on his head. He winced, and then looked to Todoroki, who was also fighting to regain an upright position. Izuku said something to him and Todoroki hesitated before nodding.
They both held a fist out to each other. They shook their fists up and down three times. As Todoroki’s index and middle fingers shot out in a V, Izuku’s hand flattened out straight in front of him.
Silence fell over the stadium.
But Izuku just laughed, nodded at Todoroki, and planted one of his hands on the concrete just outside of the white tape.
The crowd went crazy. The announcer was freaking out. Dabi was freaking out. All for One was freaking out. Everyone was on their last string of sanity and their fingers were slipping fast.
“Now, Kurogiri,” All for One demanded, twisting in his chair. Kurogiri already had a portal waiting.
“Don’t kill him,” Kurogiri mumbled as All for One lunged for the purple mist, determined to find his pseudo-son and yell a little bit and also just make sure he was okay. Three broken fingers—what was wrong with the kid?
The other end of the portal took him to a random hallway with white concrete walls. He stepped out face to face with a door that said Medic on it, so he must be in the right place.
Kurogiri’s portals had definitely been faster than Izuku leaving the field, so All for One took a few steps away from the door and crossed his arms to wait.
He heard Izuku before he saw him. “And then I said, ‘It’s your power, isn’t it?’ and that was when he tried to light me on fire.”
“You’re crazy,” Shinsou told him. “Like you’re actually insane. I really need you to know that about yourself.”
Izuku spluttered out something unintelligible as he turned the corner. He came to an immediate halt as he took in All for One right in front of him. At his school full of little heroes. The whole place was disgusting.
“Why on earth,” All for One started, “would you sacrifice three of your goddamn fingers for a school competition? Are you clinically insane?” He swept forward, already running a search for injuries. The count steadily racked up.
“Yeah, lay into him,” Shinsou said, leaning into the wall. “He deserves it.”
“Hitoshi-kun,” Izuku hissed, glaring.
“You have a school nurse, correct?” All for One said. “What’s her quirk?”
Izuku explained. While he sank into a deep analyzing session, All for One healed some of the easier injuries, leaving the fingers because they definitely would need to be reset, and that was going to hurt like hell.
When he had all the scrapes and bruises cleaned up, he took Izuku’s unwrapped hand in his, checking over the broken middle finger. It was completely destroyed. He’d never seen a finger this messed up, and he’d seen plenty of broken fingers. He’d smashed several people’s fingers himself. This was beyond that—it was like his bones had exploded.
“What is wrong with you?” he grumbled as he sorted through his quirks for a combination that would do the trick here. “Give me your other hand too.”
As Izuku unwrapped his fingers, All for One ran a scan for his quirk. And nearly kicked himself when he felt One for All in all its glory buzzing and whirling around in Izuku’s body. How long had this been going on right under All for One’s nose? And he hadn’t noticed? Because of course he hadn’t run a quirk scan on him before—there was no point. Except evidently there had been one.
Izuku gave him his other hand, featuring two purple fingers.
All for One found the least destroyed finger of the three and jammed a cocktail of quirks into it. Izuku gasped, face crumpling in pain, but didn’t resist, and the fingers healed nicely. All for One inspected his work, bending and flexing Izuku’s finger, before moving onto the next one. As he healed it, he said, “And how long have you had One for All?”
The blood drained from Izuku’s face. Shinsou snorted.
“Breathe.” All for One took Izuku’s right hand and inspected the last broken finger. This one had the worst damage.
Izuku said, “Please don’t kill me.”
All for One’s eyebrows shot together. He looked up from Izuku’s finger, some unfamiliar, wild emotion coursing through him. Izuku looked completely serious and was even cringing back a little. All for One wanted to strangle someone. Maybe All Might.
“Why in the hell,” All for One snapped, “do you think I’d kill you?”
“I . . .” Izuku thought about it.
All for One forced healing quirks into his finger, pursing his lips hard to keep himself under control. He focused on resettling his emotions. He had to stay calm for this conversation.
“Because I have One for All?” Izuku guessed.
“When have I ever done anything that would make you think I value a quirk over your life?”
Izuku had to think about that one, too.
“I might manipulate you into giving it to me,” All for One said, because he wasn’t a saint and he did want the quirk back. “But I’m not going to kill you over it. Who do you think I am?”
“You’re All for One,” Izuku said. And that. It was a good point. But:
“I’m your uncle,” All for One said. He braced himself for the mushy gushy stuff that parenting rules dictated he say now. “I’m . . . fond of you. And I’m proud of you. I’m not going to kill you. That’s ridiculous. Did you sprain your wrist too? Give that to me.”
Izuku offered up the injured wrist, chin wobbling a little. “You’re fond of me?” he asked, voice shaking.
This kid. Where had All for One gone wrong? “Yes,” he said grudgingly.
Todoroki Shouto limped around the corner. He froze, taking in All for One frowning at him, Shinsou leaning against the wall, and Izuku completely absorbed in his injuries.
“Ow!” Izuku said, ripping his wrist back right after All for One healed it. “Why was that the worst one?”
“Everyone knows sprains are the hardest to heal,” Shinsou said. “Hi, Todoroki-kun.”
Izuku whipped around. His ears turned bright red. “Oh, Todoroki-kun! Hi! Sorry. This is my uncle. As, um, as you know, I mean, because of the whole USJ thing. He’s not being a villain right now though, so don’t worry. Don’t—don’t mind him.”
Todoroki looked at All for One. All for One raised his eyebrows.
“Todoroki-kun,” Izuku said with sudden franticness. “Don’t.”
Todoroki said, “Are you All Might’s brother?”
Shinsou choked. All for One felt all the air gush out of his lungs at once. Izuku winced, shoulders hiking up to his ears.
All for One contemplated murder, but he decided he couldn’t act on that impulse directly after telling Izuku he was safe. That would ruin the whole thing. “I am most certainly not,” he said. His voice came out darker than he’d intended it to, a little more sharp and terrifying than he’d wanted. At least it got his point across.
“Ah.” Todoroki nodded. “It’s maternal then.”
Izuku made a little squeaking noise but said nothing coherent. Todoroki proceeded on, pushing open the door labeled Medic and disappearing inside. The door closed behind him.
“You’re beet red,” Shinsou observed. Izuku pressed both his hands into his cheeks as if he could cool the blush out of them.
All for One slapped a hand directly into his own forehead. If he could go back in time, he would murder his past self just to keep him from adopting any children. Hell was a boy and his name was Midoriya Izuku.
“You can’t date until you’re eighteen,” All for One said, just to keep this drama from developing more than it needed to. “That’s the rule.”
Izuku’s forehead contorted. “Who said anything about dating?”
“Beet red,” Shinsou repeated.
All for One needed to nip this in the bud. Now. “That’s the rule, Izuku-kun. Agree.”
Izuku, with a wildly bewildered glance at Shinsou, said, “Okay.”
Chapter 47: The Overwhelming Chaos before the Storm
Summary:
The yakuza raid begins.
Chapter Text
“Unbelievable,” Shigaraki muttered. “Un-fucking-believable.”
“I can’t share a room with him,” Izuku said, wringing his hands. “He’ll murder me in my sleep. I can’t handle the stress.”
“You’ll learn to handle it,” Gran Torino said with a nasty glare. “You’ll learn quickly to handle it, because you’re training to be a hero and heroes can handle these things.”
These were good points. Except: “Heroes can’t handle being disintegrated in their sleep. That’s not something anyone can handle.”
“I’ve stopped doing that,” Shigaraki sniffed. “I haven’t disintegrated someone in years.”
Gran Torino looked at him. He inhaled to say something, and let the air out empty. And then he inhaled again to say, “I’m going to pretend I missed the glaring implications behind that statement, because I simply cannot deal with the emotional repercussions. Midoriya-kun, you’re sharing a room with Shigaraki-kun because there aren’t any other rooms. And you will live through it.”
“Maybe,” Shigaraki grumbled.
“You will,” Gran Torino said firmly. “Now, make me some takoyaki.”
Izuku learned more about microwaves in the next ten minutes than he had known in his entire life. The next time he activated One for All, he managed to spread it all over his body, crackling energy burning through his muscles. It felt so strong he couldn’t even move, but his body wasn’t breaking apart, and that was something. He let it go and slumped to the ground.
“Oh,” he gasped.
Gran Torino, for his part, looked unimpressed. “We’ll get it better than that,” he said. “Mark my words.”
Izuku did mark them. And that night, instead of sleeping vulnerable next to someone who hated his guts, he snuck out the window and practiced. At a certain point, his phone buzzed and he stopped, picking it up.
A text from Oji-san that read: I know this is an inconvenient time, but there’s an opening to go get her.
Izuku responded immediately. I’ll be right outside the apartment in three minutes. THIS IS SO GOOD!
He climbed back in the window to his and Shigaraki’s room.
“What the hell are you doing,” Shigaraki mumbled as Izuku pulled on his hero suit. His vigilante costume would be better, but he didn’t have it with him and the hero suit would be fine, he supposed, for now.
“Who can say?” Izuku answered. “The world is full of mysteries.”
Silence from the other side of the room. Izuku hopped on one foot as he put on a sock. He pulled his hood up and checked himself over quickly, patting all his pockets. He texted Oji-san, Can you get Hitoshi-kun a portal too? Sending you his location now! and used Find my iPhone to locate Hitoshi in order to send his coordinates to Oji-san.
Shigaraki said finally, “I don’t want to know what you’re doing if you’re being an idiot.”
“Great,” Izuku said, picking up his shoes. “Then I won’t tell you.”
“Fine.”
“Awesome.”
“Wonderful.”
Izuku stuck his tongue out at him as he slung a foot over the window sill. Shigaraki flipped him off. Then he climbed out of bed. “I’m coming with you.”
Halfway out the window, Izuku paused. “Really? Why?”
“You’ll get yourself killed,” Shigaraki said. “And then Torino-san will kill me for letting you get killed.”
“I’m going to the bar,” Izuku warned.
“Yeah,” Shigaraki said. “I guessed.”
Once Shigaraki had real clothes on, they both dropped out of the window. The portal was already open and waiting for them. Izuku didn’t so much as glance back at the apartment before walking straight through.
Aizawa did most of his underground hero work at night. Hitoshi liked this because he didn’t like sleeping very much, so underground heroics seemed like a great way to make his already messed up sleep schedule fifty times worse. A step in the right direction, if you asked him.
Today they were sweeping the city for crime. Aizawa had asked him a few questions about Izuku already, questions which Hitoshi had answered as vaguely as he could while avoiding a nonanswer, but Aizawa seemed to understand this was Hitoshi’s internship, and kept the focus on showing Hitoshi how patrol routes worked and the proper way to climb a fire escape instead of the weirdness of Midoriya Izuku.
“We’ll pause here for a minute while you catch your breath,” Aizawa said when they reached the top of a wide roof.
Hitoshi nodded gratefully and immediately bent over sideways, hands on his thighs, and forced air into his lungs. Aizawa set a quick and unforgiving pace. Hitoshi had thought, moments ago, he was going to die. But now he had a second to breathe.
“Drink some water,” Aizawa advised.
Hitoshi did so immediately. “You do this all the time?” he gasped when he had to come up for air.
Aizawa didn’t laugh but he did exhale through his nose in a laugh-like sound. Hitoshi considered this a big accomplishment for himself. “Yes,” Aizawa said drily. “It’s my job.”
“Terrible job,” Hitoshi said. “Can’t imagine wanting it.”
Definitely a smile there. Hitoshi deserved an award.
He took a couple more steadying breaths and another couple sips of water. Just as he was starting to feel somewhat normal again, Aizawa said, “Ready?”
“Yeah,” Hitoshi said, putting his water away.
Movement to his left caught his eye and he turned. Right there next to him on the roof was a purple portal. Immediately obvious and easily distinguishable. He frowned at it.
“Why,” Aizawa said. It wasn’t a question.
“I think your patrol is getting side tracked,” Hitoshi said.
Aizawa sighed. “You’ll follow me,” he said, “but you will keep a safe distance from any conflict and you will not engage. Do you understand?”
Hitoshi understood those words. He didn’t promise to follow the directions contained in those words, but he did understand them.
When Aizawa had gotten his confirmation, he turned back to the portal. With another sigh, he stepped through. Hitoshi followed right behind him, already bracing himself for chaos.
“—request Todoroki-san too, then?” was the first sentence Hitoshi heard on the other side, from Izuku, of course, who was the lord of chaos.
The flattening sensation ceased and the mist cleared from Hitoshi’s eyes. They’d walked straight into the bar, which was mostly empty except for All for One, Kurogiri, and Izuku. The usual. Dabi was conspicuously absent. Someone with white-blue hair Hitoshi didn’t recognize was sitting at one of the tables in the bar and scowling at the back of All for One’s head.
“Give me a location, and then sure,” Kurogiri said to Izuku.
Izuku, perched cross legged on top of a bar table next to the stranger’s, picked up his phone and made a call, waving sheepishly at Aizawa and Hitoshi in the process.
“What is going on?” Aizawa asked, looking around flatly.
“Rescue mission,” All for One said. “Izuku-kun’s been obsessed with saving this girl over the past couple weeks, and apparently I can’t be trusted with a simple rescue on my own. I don’t know why you’re here specifically.”
“He requested Shinsou-kun,” Kurogiri said.
“And you listened?” Aizawa asked. He sounded seriously angry. “They’re both on their internships. They shouldn’t be getting dragged into random other stuff. They don’t have licenses.”
“Oh, hi, Todoroki-san!” Izuku chirped into his phone. “I was wondering if you wanted to meet your son and also help me with taking down a big supervillain at the same time? Oh! Oh, great! Could you just text me your location, then?”
“Todoroki-san also doesn’t have a license,” Hitoshi pointed out.
Izuku, hanging up, shrugged at him. The stranger put his head down on the bar table.
“This is the situation,” Kurogiri said, spreading his hands out like he was presenting a fine meal. “Izuku-kun is going to raid the yakuza compound whether or not we try to stop him.”
“The what?” Aizawa said sharply, but Kurogiri wasn’t done.
“We can go with him and keep him from getting himself killed. Or we can pretend he won’t get himself killed and be upset when he does.”
“I’ve never gotten myself killed,” Izuku said like he was making a very solid point.
“And—ah, hello Dabi, glad you’re here—if Izuku, who has planned this whole thing, thinks he needs Shinsou-kun, then Shinsou-kun is coming. Those two have done far more illegal deeds than this.”
Izuku started listing on his fingers. “Unlicensed quirk usage, hacking, recording without consent, my bedroom doesn’t have a window—”
Hitoshi crossed to him and put a hand over his mouth. “Shh. Aizawa-sensei doesn’t need the full list.”
“Who have you been recording?” All for One said, eyes narrowing.
Izuku looked at him. All for One looked back. His eyes continued narrowing until they were crinkled slits.
The stranger released a dry, short laugh. “Karma is so sweet.”
“I do not give my permission for this,” Aizawa said. “We’re going back to campus.”
“She’s six,” Izuku said. He did the puppy dog eye thing that wasn’t really a puppy dog eye but was somehow irresistible just because he looked so sad and sincere and desperate. Hitoshi stepped to the side so Aizawa would be hit with the full brunt of it. “I can’t leave her there. She’s six, and they’re torturing her.”
“Through the proper channels, we can . . .” Aizawa tried, but Hitoshi had seen Izuku like this before. There was no stopping Izuku when he got to this point. Hitoshi tried to convey this silently to Aizawa. It must have worked, because Aizawa took one look and stopped.
“She’s six,” Izuku said again.
Aizawa frowned at Izuku. At All for One and Kurogiri. At Dabi, who was standing with his arms crossed and an irritated expression just past the bottom of the stairs, and at the stranger. At Hitoshi.
“Well,” Aizawa said, “if there’s no stopping you, at least I can make sure you do this as safely as possible. And get you out of legal ramifications. Does Gran Torino know where you are?”
“Definitely,” Izuku said, and then he nodded one too many times.
“No, he doesn’t,” the stranger said, propping his chin up on a half-gloved hand. “I’m here as adult supervision in his stead.”
“Gran Torino?” All for One said sharply. “You’re doing your internship with Gran Torino? Do you hate me? Is it your life’s work to make mine miserable?”
“Oh, Kurogiri, I have the location!” Izuku held up his phone for Kurogiri to see, ignoring All for One with a grace only achieved through years of practice.
Kurogiri glanced at the phone screen and opened a portal.
Izuku turned to All for One. “Before we go, we need to review the Nemeses Rule Sheet. We haven’t updated it since you found out about my quirk.”
Hitoshi took a seat at one of the bar tables immediately. This would take a few minutes. Aizawa, apparently sensing that Hitoshi had more knowledge about this situation than he did, padded over to the table and sat across from him. “How was it growing up around this?”
“Ever entertaining,” Hitoshi said.
“Right.”
Todoroki Rei stepped through Kurogiri’s portal, looking around like she was hunting for something. Dabi tensed by the stairs and she caught the movement, looking at him dead on. Her expression contorted in confusion and then a sort of devastated but hopeful hesitance. “Touya-chan?” she said, voice wobbling.
“Crap,” Dabi said. He glared at Izuku, who wasn’t paying him any attention across the bar.
What Izuku was doing instead was saying, “I firmly believe you should not be allowed to try to steal my quirk while we’re on this mission, because the fact is we’re working together on this one, and allies don’t steal quirks from each other.”
“But,” All for One said, jabbing his finger into their several-page-long list of Nemeses Rules. “That goes directly against Clause 17-C, which states very clearly—”
“I am aware,” Izuku interrupted, “of the language and details of Clause 17-C. This situation falls outside of the framework of Clause 17-C.”
Dabi, resigned, said, “Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Todoroki crossed to him and pulled him into a hug. A somewhat awkward hug, given that he was extremely tall. “You’ve been through so much, haven’t you?”
“No,” Izuku snapped, flipping through the Nemeses Rule Sheet. “Clause 5-A, Oji-san. That was one of the first rules we made—we can’t break that one. I’m attached.”
Aizawa pressed his fingers into his temples. “I could use a drink.”
“Me too,” Hitoshi said.
Aizawa frowned at him.
“Just because I’m underage,” Hitoshi said, “does not mean I need a drink any less than you. Just because I can’t have one doesn’t mean I don’t need one.”
“Fair point,” Aizawa said, and he closed his eyes. “Tell me when it’s over.”
Hitoshi promised to do so.
There were, All for One supposed, advantages to Izuku having One for All. The most obvious one was he now had easy access to the quirk at all times, although according to the newly fleshed out Nemeses Rule Sheet, he was not allowed to try to get it unless he and Izuku were actively going against each other. Many of their rules had a similar caveat attached for both of them (for example, they were no longer allowed to argue about All for One’s misdeeds in the household, only when they were out being nemeses), so he’d accepted this condition.
Another advantage was simply that when Kurogiri opened a portal straight into the yakuza compound, All for One didn’t have to worry about Izuku walking quirkless into a face-to-face fight in which having no quirk would definitely provide a distinct disadvantage. Sure, part of Izuku’s quirk pulverized his bones. But that was better than insta-death.
All for One would outlive Izuku and kill off the next successor. Izuku having One for All had, at first, felt like the end of the world, but it was not. It was just hitting the pause button. And All for One had needed a break anyway.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Izuku’s incompetent teacher Eraserhead was muttering as they all walked one by one through the portal. “I can’t believe I’m letting this happen.”
Shinsou sent him an amused look. All for One stepped through the portal to keep Izuku from destroying anything before they were all met.
He walked out of the portal to find two yakuza members tied up and unconscious. Izuku still had trails of blackwhip wisping off him as he looked around for more enemies. Tomura stood next to him, amused. This was, indeed, going to be hell.
“I feel like we should have thought through the order of us walking through the portal better,” Izuku said.
“You clearly handled it fine,” All for One said, although in all honesty he had had the same thought. And then, since he’d decided to stop ruining Tomura’s life, he added, “Thank you for helping him, Tomura-kun.”
Tomura shrugged, dropping his hands into his pockets. “I didn’t do anything but stand here.”
Dabi stepped into the gray hallway, followed by his mother who seemed determined to never let him out of her sight again. Then came Shinsou and Eraserhead together, and then Kurogiri appeared last, mist flaring around him.
Everyone took a moment to observe the two unconscious yakuza members in silence, except Izuku who was lost in muttering to himself. And then Izuku looked up.
“Okay,” Izuku said. “We’re all here. I have a plan, which I will now explain.”
“Why are you the one coming up with a plan?” Tomura asked, eyes narrowed.
“Why are you even here?” Izuku countered. “Because I wanted to, obviously, and no one else is competent enough to do it. No offense, Hitoshi-kun.”
“None taken.” Shinsou sent an amused glance at Eraserhead, who looked put out.
“ I’m offended,” Dabi said.
“Good,” Izuku answered. “Okay, the plan. I have the basic blueprints of the compound memorized but there are some sections that our informant couldn’t get into. That’s where we have to search for the little girl. I have a picture of her, which I’ll show you all now.” He tapped away on his phone for a minute and then passed it around with the little girl’s photo. “We’re going to be operating using a buddy system. I’ll pair everyone up now.”
Izuku put Dabi and his mother together and All for One and Shigaraki together (“Because,” he said, “Shigaraki-kun is the only one I trust to keep Oji-san from taking this as an opportunity for crime.”). He then tried to put Aizawa and Shinsou together and himself and Kurogiri together, but Aizawa immediately put a stop to that on account of Kurogiri being an enabler. He put Shinsou with Kurogiri so he’d have a quick escape route and himself with Izuku because he was the only one who could feasibly keep up with him. All for One thought this was logical.
“Destroying my buddy system,” Izuku grumbled. “Fine. Before we get anywhere, Kurogiri, can you get Endeavour a portal to the front of the compound? I already got Todoroki-kun on board.” He took his phone back and started tapping away again. “I just need a big distraction and potentially a scapegoat.”
“I’m seriously considering expelling you right now,” Eraserhead muttered.
“Please do,” All for One said. This whole operation could have been a quick one and done, and now here Izuku was determined to destroy the entire yakuza in one blow. All for One was tired.
Kurogiri squinted at the location on Izuku’s phone and nodded. He flickered and nodded. “Done.”
“Great. We’ll get moving, then, and I’ll explain the rest of the plan on the way. Oh, um, if that’s okay?” Izuku looked around for verification.
“Sounds good to me,” Shinsou said, hands in his pockets.
And so it began.
Chapter 48: Fire in the Hornet's Nest
Summary:
The yakuza raid continues!
Chapter Text
“Everyone has my phone number, right?” Izuku asked as they came to the first real obstacle to their journey—a split in the hallways, one to the left and one to the right.
“No,” Shigaraki said. “And I don’t want it.”
Izuku got out his phone and found Shigaraki’s number in his contacts. He texted the number with the meditating man emoji. Shigaraki scowled and got out his phone. He looked at it, looked at Izuku. Sent back the middle finger emoji. “If anyone needs anything,” Izuku said, “or if you lose your buddy, you can text me and I’ll send Kurogiri to save you. I have everyone’s location tracked.”
“ How?” Dabi hissed. Izuku decided that was a rhetorical question.
“I’ll go with Oji-san and Shigaraki-kun,” Izuku said. He gave Hitoshi a sympathetic look, because it really was unfair that he had to be stuck with Dabi this whole time. “We’ll take the right hallway.”
“Unnecessary,” Oji-san said, frowning down the right hallway. “I just scanned that hallway. She’s not down there.”
Izuku very slowly turned to look at Oji-san. He said very calmly and levelly, “You have a quirk that lets you do that?”
Oji-san frowned at him. “I thought you’d hacked my computer. You didn’t look at the records of quirks I have?”
“There are like five hundred quirks!” Izuku protested. “I can’t remember all of them!”
“Oh, please,” Oji-san rolled his eyes. “At most there are two hundred. And you’re obsessed with quirks—memorizing two hundred of them is an afternoon’s fun activity for you.”
Izuku scowled at him. Mostly because he had a point and Izuku honestly didn’t have an excuse for not doing that other than that he hadn’t really had time what with trying to do everything else he already had on his plate. There was only so much sleep a guy could sacrifice for quirk memorization.
But that wasn’t the point of this. “Okay, right, but if you have a quirk like that, can you not just scan the whole compound and tell us where the little girl is and how to get to her? What is it, like an x-ray? Infared?”
Oji-san lifted an imperious eyebrow. “I can.” He didn't seem inclined to reveal the specifics of how the quirk worked.
Exasperated, Izuku threw his hands up in the air. “Then why haven’t you done that?”
Making air quotes, Oji-san said, “I can’t be trusted with—”
“Oh for the love of—” Izuku took a calming breath. “Oji-san. Please scan the compound for the little girl, if you can." Izuku would be researching this later, mostly because Oji-san having some sort of infared quirk could really put a wrench in many of Izuku's plans to take him down. "And if you have any other convenient quirks, I would love to take this opportunity to hear about them.”
Oji-san had a little smug smile on his face as he turned to scan for the little girl. As he did so, Izuku turned to Hitoshi to make sure he’d heard all that. From his expression, he had, and was equally exasperated and more than a little amused. Next to him, Aizawa was pressing his fingers into his eyebrows.
Suddenly, a violent boom shook the compound, the ground rattling under Izuku’s feet. It was followed by another one, bigger than the first. Endeavour and Todoroki must have arrived.
“Found her,” Oji-san said over a third boom. “Or, rather, found someone presumably her size. The compound has some sort of—”
Two yakuza members rounded the corner ahead of them. Aizawa’s quirk flared as Izuku shot out blackwhip and slammed both of them into the wall hard enough to knock them out.
“—hidden set of hallways,” Oji-san continued, as though the interruption hadn’t even happened. “The closest entrance is behind us a few hallways.”
“You take point, then,” Izuku said. He gestured at Kurogiri to put the yakuza people somewhere not in this hallway where they could be easily found. Kurogiri got the message, and mist reached out for them, curling around them before vanishing with their bodies.
“Oh, so I can be trusted with leading the group, then? You trust me with that?”
“Oji-san, you’re killing me.” Izuku pushed him in the direction they needed to go. “Take point, please.”
Ever smug, ever relaxed, Oji-san led the group down the hallway. Izuku fell into stride with Hitoshi and dropped his forehead onto his shoulder. Hitoshi gave him a little pat. “There there,” he said.
“It’s like no one is taking this seriously,” Aizawa muttered.
“I am,” Todoroki Rei volunteered.
Aizawa looked at her, resigned. “Thanks.”
The second boom was the scariest.
Eri sometimes heard booms in the compound, because there were a lot of people in the compound and sometimes things happened that were loud. But she very rarely heard a boom and then another boom. And then another one after that. So big the walls shook. So big she imagined she could feel it in her bones.
She drew her knees up to her chest and watched the door. Booms meant something was happening outside, and something happening outside meant Overhaul might come and take her away. Her mouth went dry and she tried to swallow to make it better but it didn’t work.
Another boom. She ducked her head down behind her thighs, but that meant she couldn’t see the door anymore so she lifted it just slightly so she could see over the top of her knees. She braced her back against the headboard of her bed.
Boom. Boom boom boom. Eri shrugged her shoulders up to her ears to try to lessen the sound.
The door burst open, white light flooding in from the hallway. Overhaul’s figure stood in the doorway, the light casting his face in shadow. Just a tall, spindly shadow in the doorway. Eri almost convinced herself it wasn’t him.
“Come on, Eri,” Overhaul said in his fake-sweet voice. “We’re going on a little field trip.”
She pursed her lips together very hard and twisted her arms tighter around her knees. Another boom rattled her walls. She felt the tremors jolt up her spine.
“Eri.” Overhaul’s voice wasn’t fake-sweet anymore. “Now.”
Eri nodded. She untwined her arms. She scooched over to the end of her bed and slipped off it. Her bare feet felt cold on the floor as she padded over to Overhaul.
He always moved faster than Eri liked and she flinched when he bent down. He grabbed her under the arms and picked her up, and she tried to stop shaking so he wouldn’t be able to feel it. But she shook anyway.
BOOM. It was louder out here. Eri put her hands over her ears.
“A little field trip,” Overhaul said again. “How does that sound?”
It sounded bad. But Eri nodded and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to know where they were going.
Rei didn’t recognize her son anymore. He was taller than he had been back then, his hair was dyed black, purple scars laid tight over his skin. Touya had been young and clean and mischievous. This man was tired and jaded.
She’d been trying, through her mandated therapy sessions, to get over the guilt she felt. Guilt, she’d been told, was an okay emotion to feel, but she couldn’t let it rule her the way it had for the past several years.
But when she looked at what had become of Touya, she couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling of guilt crawling up her throat. It tasted like shame. He’d needed a mom, and she hadn’t been a good one.
At least, she thought, there was Midori-kun. Touya and Midori-kun didn’t seem to get along, but Rei didn’t miss the worried glances Midori-kun sent her and Touya every once in a while, checking that everything was still okay. She hadn’t missed Midori-kun pairing her and Touya up, either. It was rare, Rei thought, to meet anyone as effortlessly caring as Midori-kun. He couldn’t hide it even if he tried.
“Aha,” Midori-kun said as his uncle (who was terrifying) pushed open a secret door in the wall. “And you didn’t think this was worth mentioning when we passed it the first time?”
His uncle shrugged and said smugly, “I was letting you take the lead.”
“You’re very mean to me,” Midori-kun said, stepping through the door as his uncle held it open for him. “Very, very mean.”
“Uncle rights.”
“Unhinged,” Touya muttered. “Both of them.” He walked through the door to the secret passageway, Rei just a step behind. She would never lose him again. She would never let him out of her sight again.
The group walked down the new hallway, which was lit like a hospital facility, blaring white light on blaring white walls. It seemed like the sort of place a person would go to drive themselves crazy. A person could lose all sight of themselves here.
Touya glanced at Rei. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Well just break her heart in half and smash it up with a meat tenderizer. “I’m fine,” she said, smiling as warmly as she was able. “Are you?” His father was, after all, right upstairs.
He shrugged. “As fine as I can be with the kid in charge.”
More yakuza members charged up the hallway toward them. Rei braced herself, ice crackling at her fingertips. Ahead of her, Midori-kun stepped aside and said, “Please don’t kill anyone.”
His uncle glared at him. “I hate working with you. Let’s never do this again.”
“That would be my preference as well,” Midori-kun said, crossing his arms.
His uncle turned to face the hallway, squinted at the incoming intruders, and pounded a fist into the stone white floor. The ground rolled up under his hand and shot forward in a wave, cascading up and over the approaching yakuza members. It flattened them.
“I just said not to kill them.”
“I didn’t,” his uncle said. “I buried them alive. Lack of oxygen will kill them.”
A very long silence followed those words. Some of the silence was horrified, some of it was disapproving.
“You hear that?” Midori-kun said. “That’s the sound of no one clapping. Because no one is impressed. Get them back out.”
“You tire me,” the uncle said, and the ground cracked over where the yakuza members had been. They crawled out of the hole disoriented. The uncle walked forward, glaring at all of them, and started poking them each individually in the head. “Welcome to quirklessness,” he said.
“They’re probably into that.” Midori-kun led the group forward. “They’ve got this weird cultish obsession with cleansing people of their quirks. You’re probably their god.”
“Should we start acting like those two?” Rei whispered to Touya. “I’ll kill people and you’ll sass me for it?”
He snorted and then looked at her with a sort of awed expression, like he was just now seeing her for the first time. With another laugh exhaled out through his nose, Touya shook his head. “I’d rather we just be normal.”
“I’m not losing you again,” she told him, not for the first time. “You have to stay in touch with me now. You can’t get rid of me.”
He hesitated.
“I mean it,” she said.
A slight smile cracked over his scarred lips. “I know,” he said. “Yeah. I know.” He chuckled. “That kid. I can’t believe him.”
Rei couldn’t either.
When he was much, much younger, Shouto had found a hornets nest in one of the trees outside their house. He’d known not to touch it himself, so he’d gotten his father, who’d gone out to the tree and blasted fire at it. Hornets, of course, erupted from the hive in a frenzy. His father had been protected well enough by his fire to not get many bad stings, but Shouto would forever remember the image of his father up in flames by the tree, hundreds of angry bugs swarming around him.
This situation reminded him very much of that day.
There was his father, throwing fire into this old, traditional Japanese household, and there was a swarm of villains trying to take him down. More of them kept showing up. Shouto was technically not supposed to engage, but he sent a few waves of ice over to stop a few that tried to sneak up on his father from behind.
He’d never seen so much chaos in one place before, and he went to school with Midoriya Izuku, who was the culprit behind his presence here at all. The text he’d gotten from Midoriya was a simple, Hey, want to help me take down the yakuza?
And the answer had been an obvious and immediate yes. Then there came an explanation about some purple mist and a request to get Endeavour to go through it, which Todoroki had agreed to. Getting his father through the mist wasn’t even as hard as he thought it would be—Endeavour had basically lunged for it like it was a villain straight away and then Todoroki had followed him through.
Midoriya was nowhere to be seen, though. Todoroki guessed he was already inside. He wanted to follow, but he was busy saving his father from all these attacks that kept cropping up.
He got out his phone, absently sending another wave of ice over some guy with a crystal quirk. He didn’t have many contacts saved, but the class had a group chat, which he opened. Many unread messages greeted him, but he was on a mission. He turned around and took a selfie with the chaos behind him, his face flat, Endeavour raging in fire behind him, a great many yakuza members trying to shoot him.
Shouto sent the picture, his first ever message in the group chat. And then he texted, Is anyone in Osaka right now? Endeavour could probably use some help.
Everyone started typing at once.
The hallway twisted and warped in front of them. Izuku frowned, coming to a stop immediately and glancing at Oji-san to make sure he wasn’t the cause of this mess. He was not. That meant it was probably one of the yakuza members.
“Right,” Izuku said, trying to think through the next steps. “Oji-san, can you freeze the hallway somehow?”
Thankfully instead of making some sort of dry comment about being trusted to do things now, Oji-san nodded and did a similar move with the rock below them, freezing the hallway in place ahead of them. It stopped twisting, at least. Oji-san made an irritated noise. “They’re pretty strong,” he said through gritted teeth. “This might not work consistently.”
“We’ll use it until it stops working,” Izuku decided, shepherding everyone forward. “Aizawa-sensei, if you see the quirk user, can you erase it? He has to be able to see the walls to manipulate them.”
“If I see him,” Aizawa said.
They shuffled down the hallway together, buddies next to buddies (Izuku checked). Oji-san stopped every once in a while to regain control over the hallway, which creaked and swayed around them as they went.
“We could take it at a sprint,” Kurogiri said.
“You could just teleport us to the little girl,” snapped Dabi. “Why are you even here if you’re not going to be useful?”
“No coordinates, no teleportation,” Shigaraki said waspishly, and Izuku felt grateful for the first time ever that Shigaraki had been kicked out before Dabi moved in. Having the two of them in the bar together would have been hellish. “He can’t teleport off your wishes and dreams, loser.”
“Be nice,” Kurogiri said fretfully.
“I’ll be nice when everyone grows a brain.”
“Shit,” Oji-san said suddenly.
That was all the warning they got before the hallway gave a jolt and split in half. Aizawa, moving with reflexes only attained through years of dealing with Izuku’s bullshit, grabbed Izuku by the shoulders and threw him bodily out of the way of the split. The hallway shifted again and a wall crashed up between Izuku and Aizawa.
“Using Trigger is cheating!” Oji-san yelled at nobody, glaring at the walls.
Izuku finished his head count. Everyone was on this side of the wall except for Aizawa and Hitoshi. Well, fine.
“And you see,” Izuku said, “I did initially set everything up for this. Kurogiri, you’ve been re-allocated. The old buddy system is back.” Izuku opened Find My iPhone and located Hitoshi. He held the location up for Kurogiri to see—the two of them seemed to be moving rapidly down some sort of tunnel. “Go get them and then find us again.”
Kurogiri nodded and disappeared in an eruption of purple mist.
“It’s almost like I made the buddy system the way I did for a reason,” Izuku muttered, “before someone decided to change it for no good reason.”
“Gotcha,” Shigaraki said abruptly, and slapped his hand into the wall. Someone screamed from inside the walls and suddenly everything went still. The hallway stopped twisting and turning. The world righted itself.
“All right, then,” Izuku said. “Onward we go!”
Chapter 49: A Princess and a Lightning Boy
Summary:
Rescuing Eri, meeting a whole bunch of headmates, nearly dying. All in a day's work.
Chapter Text
The noises of people fighting got quieter the farther Overhaul carried Eri. She had her head buried in his shoulder not because it was safe in there but because she could pretend, if her eyes were closed and it was all dark and she had her hands over her ears, that nothing was happening at all.
She was pretending right now that she was a princess and she was getting saved from the castle, and the only way she would be very safe was if she kept her eyes closed and her hands over her ears. If she moved her hands even an inch, opened her eyes even a slit, then she wouldn’t be saved and she would be in Overhaul’s arms getting carried through the compound. So she kept everything tightly closed off so she could be saved.
“I’ll need you to go get equipment from the lab,” Overhaul told somebody. “It’s sounding like heroes. We’ll need a full evacuation.”
The response was muffled. Eri wanted to see who he was talking to, but her eyes were supposed to be closed. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see who he was talking to more than she wanted to be saved. She chose to keep her eyes closed.
Presumably that person left to go get equipment, which was an evil word Eri didn’t like, and it was just Eri and Overhaul again. She couldn’t be sure if that was true, though, because she was busy being a princess getting saved from an evil castle. No looking.
“Hmm.” Overhaul shifted his grip on Eri as he turned them both around. She wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending not to be here, she decided, and doubled down in her efforts. “I thought you would have been slowed down more,” Overhaul said. His voice rumbled in his chest and Eri held very still in case that would make it harder to feel it. She wanted to get away.
She heard a voice she didn’t recognize. Her eyebrows twitched together as she tried to make out what they were saying even though her hands were over her ears. It was a weird kind of voice, very low and a little scary. Rumbly, but in a different way than Overhaul’s voice.
Surely a little peek wouldn’t stop her from getting saved, she reasoned. Surely that wouldn’t shatter the dream.
Careful, she raised her head and cracked her eyes open.
A group of people she didn’t recognize stood at the end of the hallway. One of them was covered in green lightning. One of them was very, very tall. Eri let her eyes open even further, taking in the group. She let her hands drop from her ears.
“We’re here for the little girl,” the big tall one said. “You can stand in our way if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Overhaul made a not very nice face. “And what if I killed her right now?” he asked.
Eri knew he wouldn’t kill her. She knew that. But her shoulders started hunching up anyway and her body started shuddering. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut again. She shouldn’t have opened them in the first place.
“Clearly you don’t know who I am,” the big tall man said. He sounded amused. “That’s fine, you don’t have to. I’ve been banned from killing you, I believe, but I can make this painful.”
“I might even retract that ban, to be honest,” another, younger voice said. Eri squinted her eyes open and found the green lightning boy. “I call it the Dr. Tsubasa exception.”
“Jesus Christ,” someone muttered.
Overhaul put Eri down. He started to take off his gloves.
“No,” Eri gasped.
He looked at her, raising his eyebrows. “No? You don’t want me to kill these people?”
“No, I don’t,” Eri said, her heart pounding very hard, so hard it felt like her chest might crack open like an egg. She turned to the group of very nice but weird people that had come to save her and ducked her head. “Thank you very much, but I’m okay, and I’d prefer if you leave, please. Pretty please.”
She looked up. Her eyes met the green lightning boy’s. And then he did something strange. He smiled.
Eri blinked.
The green lightning boy crouched down, all the way across the hallway. “I have a secret for you,” he said.
Eri didn’t know very many secrets. She wanted to glance at Overhaul, but something kept her eyes still. She couldn’t look away. Right now, it was just her and the green lightning boy, and it felt safe. He had big green eyes and was smiling at her even though she was scared and even though he had nothing to gain from it. “A secret?” she whispered.
“Yeah. My uncle is kind of this really big scary guy,” he said, and Eri remembered the big scary guy who was standing right next to him. “And he’s not going to let anything happen to you. He’s not going to let anything happen to me, either. No one’s ever managed to beat my uncle in two hundred years, and Overhaul isn’t going to be the first one to. So everyone on this side of the hallway is very safe. Except maybe him.” The boy pointed behind him at a tall man with black hair, who rolled his eyes. “And that’s just because he’s the worst ever and no one likes him.”
“Would you fuck off?” the tall man with the black hair said.
“My point is,” the boy said, and it was just him and Eri again and no one else, “if you come down to this end of the hallway, you’ll be safe, too.” He pointed at Overhaul. “Not safe.” He pointed at the ground just past the big tall man with white hair. “Very safe.”
Eri thought that sounded nice. She took a wobbly step forward.
Overhaul’s hand on her shoulder stopped her and she froze. This hand had a glove on, but his other hand did not.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Overhaul said in his angry voice. “Eri is my daughter. She’s safe with me.”
“Can I kill him?” the green lightning boy asked, standing up.
“No,” the big tall man with white hair said.
Overhaul, impatient, bent down and slapped his hand into the ground. The hallway and several of the adjoining rooms exploded, sending the whole area into a landscape of pointed concrete. Eri flinched, but the spot she was standing on was untouched. She was fine.
“It was a good try,” the big tall man with white hair said. Eri whipped her head up to look. He, the green lightning boy, and all their friends were standing on a part of the earth that was still perfectly intact. Like Overhaul had missed. But Overhaul didn’t miss. “Really, it was,” the big tall man said. “I would be impressed if I wasn’t completely unharmed.”
“ How?” Overhaul hissed.
The next part got so chaotic Eri couldn’t keep track of what was happening anymore. Overhaul tried again and again and the big tall man kept making all his tries go wrong. Concrete rained everywhere and Eri ended up just holding her arms over her head and her eyes closed, hoping nothing hit her.
Something wrapped around her body and she was suddenly jerked forward. She flew across the whole world and fell right into the waiting arms of the green lightning boy. Overhaul made a noise that would have been funny if he wasn’t actively trying to kill everyone on this side of the hallway. “Hi,” the green lightning boy said. “So sorry I grabbed you like that. Um, Rei-san—”
“I’m on it,” said a nice, calm voice, and this lady with white hair kind of like Eri’s crouched down next to her and the green lightning boy. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said. “My name is Todoroki Rei. I’m this nice boy’s mom.” She pointed at the tall man with black hair who was the Worst Ever. “I’m going to get you out of here now. Do you mind if I pick you up?”
Eri had never been asked that before. She nodded. And then got confused because maybe that was the sort of question you were supposed to shake your head to instead, and she really did want to be picked up, so it was all very confusing. She lifted her arms to demonstrate that it was okay. The nice Todoroki lady smiled and scooped her up all gentle and nice.
“Thank you sweetheart,” she said. “That was easy, right? Now we’re just going to walk away. Touya-chan, you’re coming with me.”
“Agreed,” the green lightning boy said when the Worst Ever looked like he was going to argue. He had weird purply skin on his face. Eri touched her own face to make sure it felt right. “Buddy system, Dabi.”
“I hate you,” Touya-Dabi said. But he turned and walked with the nice Todoroki lady when she started carrying Eri away.
They walked faster than Eri thought they would, picking their way over the landscape. Overhaul shot stuff after them but nothing hit, either missing them completely or stopping at some sort of invisible barrier.
Eri watched behind her until the people were just specks. And then until they rounded the corner and she couldn’t see anything at all anymore. She buried her face in the Todoroki lady’s shoulder.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” the Todoroki lady asked.
Eri mumbled it into her shirt.
“Well, Eri-chan,” she said, and her voice was warm and kind. “It’s nice to meet you. Everything’s going to be okay now. Would you do me a favor and cover your ears, though? Midori-kun mentioned something to me earlier.”
Eri put her hands over her ears. But this time, she kept her eyes open.
Overhaul tried to call after the little girl, but it didn’t work, of course, because All for One’s nephew was a little genius. All for One was endlessly proud of him, and felt irritated with himself for squashing down those feelings for so long on account of being a stubborn asshole. There was nothing wrong with being proud of his pseudo-son. His pseudo-son had done and continued to do plenty to be proud of.
He was making up for his stubbornness now by being extra proud.
“I could just kill him,” All for One said.
“The law,” Izuku said, chopping one hand into the other in a way All for One had never seen from him before. He must have picked it up at school. “We can’t break the law, Oji-san.”
Izuku’s moral system was exceptionally confusing. He probably wasn’t even aware of the amount of contradictions he featured on a daily basis.
Overhaul was, well, overhauling the ground again now. With the little girl out of the way, All for One could start to let loose properly now. He planted his foot down and shot out spikes toward Overhaul, who batted them aside like they were nothing. Izuku, lit up in an atrocious green lightning that All for One wanted badly to steal from him, leapt forward and dove and twisted through the spikes to get to Overhaul.
Being on the same side as Izuku was quite nice, actually. Very convenient. Much easier than being up against him.
All for One fended off another blow from Overhaul. Although he wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, it was a bit difficult keeping Overhaul back. It would be child’s play if he could just get a hand on his quirk, but the chances of him getting close enough to do that and not getting torn into a thousand pieces were very low.
Tomura scoffed. “Your adopted son is going to get himself killed.”
“Nephew,” All for One corrected, but he checked how Izuku was doing. More than fine was the answer. He was acting like a pesky gnat in Overhaul’s business, giving All for One plenty of room to get a few blows in himself. Truly a team-up for the record books.
“Whatever you say.”
Izuku shot out blackwhip and swung around Overhaul’s head. All for One used this as an opportunity to get a real hit in on Overhaul’s spindly body. Overhaul staggered back, glaring.
“Now you’ve done it,” Tomura muttered. All for One noted that he hadn’t done anything useful in this whole fight.
“Enough!” Overhaul roared. He flattened a hand down on the ground and the entire space, floor to ceiling, rearranged itself. The old spikes retracted and new spikes appeared, a bumbling mess of concrete. A block of stone slammed into Izuku, knocking him to the side. He skidded a few feet not far from where Overhaul stood.
And All for One, who never froze under any circumstance, did exactly that. He froze. Not Izuku. Not Izuku, hurt like this, here. Not his Izuku. No, no, no no no no—
Overhaul marched over to Izuku, pulling on one of his gloves, and grabbed him by the back of the neck, lifting him up slightly like a ragdoll. Izuku was definitely unconscious, which was probably for the best. “Now,” Overhaul said. “Let’s talk this over like civilized people, why don’t we?”
Rage. That was the overwhelming emotion All for One felt, right alongside his bone-deep fear. It wouldn’t be hard at all for Overhaul to kill Izuku from there—his ungloved hand hovering dangerously close to Izuku’s face. All for One was fast. But he wouldn’t be fast enough to kill Overhaul before Overhaul could kill Izuku. If this was an ultimatum, All for One had already lost.
But like hell was he going to let anyone hurt Izuku and get away with it. Even if it meant acting like a fucking hero. No one got to hurt Izuku. Not like this.
He drew himself to his full height, letting his anger exude through every muscle in his body. “You are going to let go of my nephew,” All for One growled. “Right now. Or I am going to give you a death so painful it makes your nasty little quirk look like a cute party trick.”
“I’m calling All Might,” Tomura muttered, taking out his phone. “This is just ridiculous.”
All for One grabbed the nearest and most violent quirk. “I’m counting to three,” he said. “One.”
Kurogiri arrived in a flash of purple mist, Eraserhead rolling out of it, quirk already activated as he locked his gaze on Overhaul. All for One could have cried. He would be promoting Kurogiri. No, funding Kurogiri’s immediate retirement. He would give Kurogiri the best life money could buy.
“Of course he’s unconscious and being strangled by the villain,” Shinsou said, dropping out of the mist just before Kurogiri disappeared again. “I don’t know why I expected anything else.”
All for One felt so relieved he couldn’t even respond.
Everything was dark. Izuku couldn’t hear very well either. It reminded him, a bit, of being under Shinsou’s brainwashing. Sort of muffled—relaxing, but like everything was dampened in a slightly uncomfortable way.
He blinked, trying to clear his eyes. After a few attempts, his vision cleared.
It was like he was standing in the middle of the night sky. He couldn’t move—like only part of his body had formed. Everything from his nose down was gone, and he couldn’t do anything but stand and stare and listen.
Far down the way, he could make out eight chairs filled with seven people. He squinted to see them through the gloom.
“I think it’s my turn,” a feminine voice echoed through the space. “Frankly, Banjou-san had his fun, Yoichi-san’s fun is inherent, Toshinori-kun has his whole life ahead for fun, and I feel skipped. I want a turn.”
“It’s up to Yoichi-san,” another voice said, this one deeper and darker. Izuku made every effort to move so he could see better, but he really couldn’t. Like he wasn’t fully there at all. These, he presumed, were the previous holders of One for All in some sort of liminal space.
“Leave me out of it.” The third voice, which must have been Yoichi, said. He didn’t sound anything like Oji-san, even though they were related. “I’ve had it up to here with this. I can’t take any more.”
“Who knows what Yagi-san was thinking.”
“I’m taking my turn,” the feminine voice said. “None of you can stop me.”
“Take it then.” This was a new voice. “And everyone stop talking. He’s here.”
“Oh?”
Izuku sensed rather than saw all of their attention snap to him at once. He had so much to say, but his mouth didn’t exist and he couldn’t even tell if he had vocal cords at the moment. So he just looked at them and tried to convey everything with his eyes. His curiosity, his knowledge, his excitement.
“He’s smaller than I thought he would be,” someone said.
“Hey, kiddo,” the feminine voice—must be Shimura Nana, he deduced—said, significantly closer now although her physical presence hadn’t moved. “Time to wake up now. Don’t you think?”
Izuku jolted out of his own mind before he could even respond, snapping awake. A hand was on the back of his neck. He punched an arm out wildly in panic and felt his hand hit hard bone—a knee?
“You little shit!” Overhaul screamed, and grabbed him by the face.
A moment of terror.
But nothing happened.
“Get back!” Hitoshi’s voice screamed.
Izuku shot out blackwhip toward the voice and hurled himself out of range. His head spun as he moved and the ground came up too fast. He hit it hard on his right side. His shoulder slid over a lot of gravel until he skidded to a stop.
“I got him,” Hitoshi said, somewhere ahead. “Don’t stop looking.”
“Get him out of here.” That was Aizawa’s voice. “He’s distracting All for One.”
Izuku tried to get up but his body wasn’t cooperating right. The concrete spikes everywhere were rolling like waves in a storm, huge undulations. Izuku propped himself up with an arm and immediately sank back down again. Something was really wrong.
“Where’s Kurogiri?” Shigaraki asked from somewhere ahead.
Ah yes, the buddy system. Izuku tried to remember what the next step in the plan had been. There had been a plan. In the plan, Izuku had not had his neck grabbed by Overhaul at any point. He hadn’t been laying on the ground at any point. The world hadn’t turned into water at any point.
“I’m right here,” Hitoshi said, and a hand met Izuku’s shoulder. “You’re panicking, dude. Quit it.”
“‘Toshi-kun,” Izuku mumbled. “My head. It’s a magic eight ball.”
“How?”
“It’s got—”
The brainwashing took over and Izuku fell out of it again.
My turn. Shimura’s voice echoed through his head, rebounding again and again and again. My turn, my turn, my turn. Turn for what, Izuku wanted to know. The answer was right there, just around a corner in his thought processing, but his head wasn’t working right.
Well, if Shimura wanted a turn, she could have one, Izuku reasoned.
“—out of it,” Hitoshi’s voice said, clear again. “Snap out of it, Izuku-kun, you’re scaring . . . holy shit. How are you doing that?”
There were a lot of noises. Bangs, yells. The sound of concrete smashing into pieces. Oji-san saying something in his most creepy I’m super pissed threatening voice. Something ripping. Izuku’s head felt like it was splitting open. Full of molten lava.
“This works great, to be honest,” Hitoshi said. Izuku felt his hand wrap around his wrist. Funny, that was pretty much the only thing he could feel. The ground didn’t feel so sharp anymore. It didn’t feel like anything. Like he was laying on a cloud. “Don’t stop whatever you’re doing.”
Hitoshi started walking, tugging Izuku behind him. Izuku felt light as air. His head hurt like hell, but the rest of his body didn’t feel present at all. He imagined flying would be a lot like this.
“Kurogiri went to get the little girl,” he said. “Izuku-kun’s benched for sure. I’m just going to get him out. Shigaraki-kun, the buddy system, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shigaraki said. “Don’t let evil supervillain overlord do crime. I get it.”
“Meet you at the bar.”
“Be safe!” Aizawa’s voice shouted.
Hitoshi pulled Izuku along behind him. Izuku blinked the bright spots out of his vision, trying to ground. He was floating. He was— holy crap he was floating.
“Oh my god, Hitoshi-kun,” he said, sitting bolt upright in midair and immediately regretting it as his head gave a terrific screech and his vision went dark. He ignored all that. “I manifested another quirk.”
“Why is that the first lucid thing you’ve said to me?” Hitoshi grumbled. “Why am I not even surprised?”
“Oji-san!” Izuku yelled as Oji-san threw a big chunk of concrete at Overhaul. It hit its target dead on. “I manifested another quirk!”
“Proud of you!” Oji-san shouted back. That felt nice. Three words, making a huge difference in the heart of a fifteen year old boy. Very sweet.
Aizawa yelled something at Oji-san, something about keeping Overhaul visible, and Oji-san’s attention went back to probably giving Overhaul a long and very painful death. Izuku laid back down in the empty air again, because his head was spinning. “Oh my god. I need a notebook.”
“You need to calm down,” Hitoshi said. “And close your eyes. Your pupils are all dilated and it’s horrifying.”
“Another quirk, Hitoshi-kun! Do you know what this means?”
“What does it mean?” Hitoshi’s voice took on a weird, way-too-interested tone that should have been a red flag. Izuku was too out of it to notice.
“It means—”
Hitoshi brainwashed him for the second time. Izuku sank into a deep, dark sleep. The people were back again. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they were there, and he was there, and a world of opportunity was stretched out in front of him.
Chapter 50: The Dr. Tsubasa Exception (And Another Adoption)
Summary:
What to do with Overhaul, and what to do with Eri?
Notes:
*wails* we're almost done T-T
Chapter Text
As soon as Midoriya was out of the danger zone, All for One turned with a horrifyingly sharp smile to Overhaul. He’d been distracted, Tomura had noticed, with Midoriya around—prioritizing safety over results. Now, he seemed to have shaken off that mindset. His purpose was no longer split.
“Well, with the kids out of the way,” he said, which Tomura found offensive even though he wasn’t a kid anymore, “I can really wrap this up, don’t you think?”
Overhaul said something snappy and definitely not terrified enough. He tried to use his quirk again to exactly zero success.
“Eraserhead,” All for One said, “I am extremely full of respect for your quirk.”
Eraserhead looked a bit disturbed by this, which was understandable, but he gritted out a “Thanks,” regardless.
All for One made his way across the ruined territory, to Tomura’s continued confusion, toward Overhaul, who looked so sad and bedraggled without his quirk that it was almost tragic. Tomura trailed along after All for One, already discovering the second reason All for One hadn’t finished this earlier: he wanted the quirk. And probably, he didn’t want Midoriya to know he wanted the quirk. Luckily, Tomura now had Midoriya’s phone number and could very easily let him know.
“I can’t hold it forever,” Aizawa snapped. “Knock him out faster.”
“A moment,” All for One said. He brushed aside a feeble attack from Overhaul and grabbed him by the face.
Overhaul screamed. Tomura grabbed onto the back of All for One’s suit in case he tried to teleport somewhere to “do crime.” A very gross splattering noise ensued. Tomura elected not to look. He had an idea of what had happened without putting his eyes on it.
“I thought Midoriya-kun said not to kill him,” Eraserhead said, tromping over to investigate.
“Did he?” All for One said thoughtfully. “I must have misheard. Well, I can put him back.”
He did so. The scattered pieces of Overhaul spliced back together and, physical again, he gasped for breath, horrifyingly pale. “I should have killed him,” were the first words out of his mouth, which was a mistake. “The second I got my hands on him, I should have—”
He exploded again.
Eraserhead gave All for One a disgusted look. Tomura tightened his grasp on the back of All for One’s suit—if he was already breaking Midoriya’s rules, who knew what would be next?
“Ah, well,” All for One said, turning away. “The world is one terrible man less. And in a karmic sense of justice, he was destroyed by his own quirk. Fitting. I don’t think anyone will mind.”
“The legal system,” Eraserhead said and then, perhaps realizing the pointlessness of that argument with the given audience, stopped himself.
“How did Midoriya-kun word it?” Tomura said. “The Dr. Tsubasa exception?”
All for One twisted as much as he could with Tomura clinging to the back of his jacket and gave him an approving look. “Exactly that, Tomura-kun. Perhaps I un-adopted you too soon.”
“Don’t rush to take me back,” Tomura grumbled. “I’ve discovered therapy and trauma processing in your absence.”
“Hmm.” All for One studied him for a long, vaguely uncomfortable moment. Tomura endured it. Eraserhead finished picking his way over the hellscape to investigate Overhaul’s very dead body, or lack thereof. “Well,” All for One said finally, rubbing his hands against each other, “time for me to do crime while I have no supervision.”
Tomura cleared his throat and looked pointedly at his hand on the back of All for One’s suit.
“Ah,” All for One said. “But Tomura-kun, I raised you! Surely you’d be willing to make an exception this once. For everything I did for you.”
He couldn’t possibly be serious, except he was, very much. Tomura gave a dry laugh and grabbed the suit with his other hand too, just in case. “Midoriya-kun would be very disappointed in you. Best to leave while you still have a chance at saving your relationship with him.”
All for One glared at him. Tomura gave him his best smug smile in return. All for One sighed. “I’ll text Kurogiri.”
He did so. As they waited, the ceiling near the exit suddenly crashed in and collapsed. Tomura squinted through all the dust to find the source of the problem.
A big, booming laugh echoed around the space. All for One started texting Kurogiri much more frantically, and Tomura let a grin spread over his lips. Telling All Might they needed help was the best decision he’d ever made.
“I AM HERE!” All for One’s worst enemy called. Tomura chuckled at the expression on All for One’s face, which was mostly disgust and irritation. Eraserhead made an unhappy grumbling noise.
A wind blew through the terrain and the smoke cleared. All for One crossed his arms and Tomura, still maintaining his grasp on the back of All for One’s jacket, waved at All Might across the way.
“We’ve already solved the problem,” Eraserhead said, grouchy. “You’re late.”
All Might pointed a horrified finger at All for One. “Watch out! A villain!”
Eraserhead twisted to look at All for One, his expression flat. Then he turned back to All Might and said, “His nephew is one of my students and would be very upset if he killed me. I think I’m fine. You, on the other hand . . .”
“There’s a ban on killing All Might, actually, unless in self defense,” Tomura said, because Midoriya had just yesterday given him the full rundown of the Nemeses Rule Sheet. “So All Might is also safe.”
A portal opened directly in front of them, between them and All Might. All for One essentially fled through it, dragging Tomura along behind him. Tomura let go of his suit jacket so he wouldn’t be wrapped up in another mess.
“I’ll leave you in charge,” Eraserhead said to All Might. “Good luck.” And he also stepped through the portal.
Tomura looked at the portal back to the bar. He looked at All Might, who he trusted and liked. He stepped away from the portal. “I’ll help with cleanup,” he offered. His job with Midoriya and All for One was done. They could go play house on their own.
“I feel that playing rock paper scissors over the housing situation of a six year old is not the right way to go about things,” Hitoshi said, “but what do I know?”
Here they sat in the bar, all gathered around three tables which had been pushed together for their convenience. Eri was sitting in the center seat, sipping a juice box. Hitoshi and a freshly un-concussed Izuku sat in the center across from her. On one end of the table was Dabi and Rei, and at the other end was All for One, who had his fist extended, and Kurogiri. Aizawa, who was here to moderate, sat on Eri’s side of the table, pinching his forehead.
“This is the only way to go about things,” All for One said. “Todoroki-san?”
“I just don’t see another way to resolve it,” she sighed, holding out her own fist. “Two out of three?”
“If that’s the way you play,” All for One said. “If you please, Eraserhead.”
Aizawa sighed. His eyes blared bright red and his hair stood on end. He frowned straight at All for One. There would be no cheating here.
All for One won the first round with a rock.
The second round was a tie. So was the third and the fourth round. And the fifth.
“For the love of god,” Dabi said, dropping his forehead down on the table.
Rei won the sixth round with scissors.
Everyone’s gaze zeroed in on the competitors on the last go of it. The fists came down three times and then took their final form.
“Rock beats scissors,” All for One said triumphantly, dropping his fist down on the table. “I win.”
“Mom,” Dabi groaned. “Come on. You had one job.”
“Can we split custody?” Rei asked, already negotiating.
Letting go of his quirk, Aizawa sighed again, this one more violent than the first. “Need I remind us all that this discussion generally has huge legal issues and that neither of you will have proper custody of Eri-chan unless you go through the court system?”
“Legal shmegal,” Izuku piped up.
“I want so badly to expel you,” Aizawa said, covering his eyes with his hands. “So badly, I want to. But I’m afraid of creating a demon in the process.”
“Valid fear,” Hitoshi said, nodding in approval. An expelled Izuku would only mean trouble.
“I would be open to discussing sharing custody,” All for One said. “Perhaps she can spend time with you every other weekend. How does that sound to you, Eri-chan?”
Eri looked up from her juice box with very wide eyes. Her gaze found Izuku first, of course, who smiled and explained kindly what they were talking about. She looked at Rei next, and then to All for One. “Okay?” she said, and then looked at Izuku again like she wasn’t sure if she’d said the right thing.
She was very sweet.
“Good thing I enrolled Kurogiri in cooking classes,” Izuku said happily. “Welcome to the family.”
“I feel like I need to put a stop to this,” Aizawa said. He looked at Eri, and then at Izuku, who was watching him with his head slightly tipped to the side, a sure sign that this was a test and Aizawa needed to step carefully if he wanted to pass it. All for One had a visibly unconcerned expression on his face, a raise to one of his eyebrows as if this was vaguely amusing to him. “But,” Aizawa said and Izuku’s shoulders relaxed, “it’s seven against one, and I value my life. So I’ll leave it. But I will be checking in with you about this regularly, Midoriya-kun.” He glared at Izuku, who nodded several times.
“Another adoption,” Kurogiri said. “We need to have some sort of celebration.”
“Well, Midoriya-kun needs to get back to his internship,” Aizawa said. “And Shinsou-kun and I need to get to the police station and come up with a bunch of lies to feed Tsukauchi-san about what happened last night. Tsukauchi-san, who, by the way, will know we’re lying.”
“We’ll plan the celebration for later, then,” Kurogiri said. “We can invite all the Todorokis, Yamada-san, and Nemuri-san as well.”
“And All Might,” Izuku said.
Hitoshi looked to All for One on instinct for his reaction, but All for One was staring intently at Aizawa with an expression of great curiosity and interest and didn’t seem to have noticed the mention of his worst enemy, whose name and likeness had been banned from the bar. “This Tsukauchi-san,” he said, leaning forward. “He has a lie detection quirk?”
“Oh no,” Izuku mumbled.
Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. “He does.”
“How attached to it is he?”
“Very.”
With a disappointed huff like a child who’d been told they couldn’t buy a new toy at the store, All for One sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“We can invite Tsukauchi-san to the celebration as well,” Kurogiri said.
“Let’s not invite disaster into our house,” Dabi said. “Dinner is already stressful enough with these two. I can’t handle more of it.”
Eri yawned. Everyone’s attention snapped to her at once, and Kurogiri got up, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her to the stairs. “I expect the bar to be clean when I come back down,” he warned, and everyone started moving at once, Izuku and Hitoshi preparing to return to their internships, Rei and Dabi murmuring in hushed voices to each other about where to go from here, All for One pulling Aizawa aside, probably to pick his brain about UA’s schooling methods. Poor Aizawa.
“It wasn’t a complete disaster,” Izuku said, pushing a table back to its normal spot.
Hitoshi picked up two chairs and followed him with them. “You got very concussed.”
“A flesh wound,” Izuku said, but he was smiling so he wasn’t being fully serious. “I meant, like. We got Eri-chan out. And Oji-san didn’t even do crime. He was actually sort of a hero—don’t tell him I said that. And it was kind of fun, working with him instead of against him.”
“He murdered Overhaul.”
Izuku waved that off. Hitoshi didn’t understand how they had become friends. “That couldn’t be helped,” Izuku said. “It’s Oji-san. He gets carried away.”
“You guys are so weird,” Hitoshi muttered, tucking in the chairs with a loud screech.
Izuku cupped a hand around his ear. “What was that?”
Hitoshi went for more chairs. “Nothing.”
Chapter 51: On Friends and Families
Summary:
The debrief, and new changes. The bright future ahead.
Notes:
Sorry I'm a few hours late!! I forgot to post this morning and then was out all day. But I'm here now! One chapter left T-T
Chapter Text
“And then he just killed the guy.” Shouta pressed his hands into his eyebrows to ease the now ever-present headache. Before he met Midoriya Izuku, he hadn’t had this problem. “Twice. Like it was as easy as breathing. And then All Might showed up.”
“I am,” Tsukauchi said, “so confused.”
Shouta wished he could fix this problem for Tsukauchi, but in fact he was also endlessly confused and he had no answers.
Tsukauchi put aside his notebook. At the beginning of Shouta’s debrief, he had been writing stuff in it. Probably toward the part where Shouta got to the identity of Midori-kun, Tsukauchi gave up with taking notes, but he kept the notebook open for the pretense. The pretense was over now. There was no point in even pretending to make sense of this whole conflict.
“So the world’s worst supervillain,” Tsukauchi said, “is wrapped around the little finger of a fifteen year old.”
“Almost sixteen,” Shouta said.
“I was saying that more to clarify that the world is going to go up in flames and we can’t do anything to stop it. Is that correct?”
“Extremely.”
“Great.” Tsukauchi closed the notebook and slid it all the way across his desk. “I’m going to do us all a big favor and pretend you didn’t tell me any of that. I didn’t hear it, you didn’t say it, and we’ll all go on our merry way wondering how on earth the entire yakuza got destroyed in one night.”
“Midoriya-kun has been really emphasizing that All Might took care of the whole thing to rescue Endeavour, who stumbled into it on accident.” Shouta didn’t have to be as much of a genius as Midoriya to see that the kid was visibly setting up Endeavour to look terrible and his own uncle to get incredibly angry. However, he didn’t want to deal with this information, so he wasn’t planning on doing anything about it. He wanted a long, long nap.
“That’s the story, then,” Tsukauchi agreed, probably too tired to argue. “I’ll tell the vultures tomorrow.”
“Much obliged.” Shouta took out one of the two folders he’d brought and set it on Tsukauchi’s desk. “That’s a report full of lies that you can use. All Might’s should already be corroborated with that because Midoriya-kun is nothing if not great at networking. Shinsou-kun and I will work on his later.”
“Incredible.” Tsukauchi lifted an eyebrow at the second folder, still in Shouta’s hands.
“Don’t freak out,” Shouta said. He put the folder on Tsukauchi’s desk much more delicately than the first. “Midoriya-kun” (he was starting to hate saying the name because it was always followed by something unhinged) “has solved eight cold cases over the course of his life. Because.” Shouta had nothing to follow that word.
“Because of course he has,” Tsukauchi supplied.
“Exactly that.” Shouta waved a hand limply at the folder in front of Tsukauchi. “I made him write a report on each of them and a detailed apology letter for not bringing his findings to police attention earlier. I don’t know where he gets his information—it’s probably somewhere illegal, I’m not investigating—but he solved them. You can figure out how to spin it in court for the few that are still timely.”
“I’ll go through it,” Tsukauchi promised, “after I’ve slept and had a few drinks.”
Shouta completely understood this sentiment. He took up his coat and stuffed his arms into the sleeves.
Tsukauchi’s eyebrows furrowed. “Where are you off to?”
“Meeting a friend,” Shouta said, shrugging the coat over his shoulders. “I’ve had a very long couple of days and frankly if I hear the word ‘yakuza’ one more time I might scream.”
Tsukauchi’s lips twitched. “I’ll refrain from using it, then.”
“Thanks.” Shouta stood. “Good luck with going through all that.”
“I’ll need it,” Tsukauchi said.
Shouta left the police station two folders lighter. He hurried down the streets of Musutafu, weaving through the busy lines of umbrellas, and ducked into a cafe—one of his favorites. If Hizashi’s braided yellow hair hadn’t been easy to spot, Oboro’s mist head made their location in the back corner obvious, and Shouta ducked quickly into the one remaining open seat, shaking rain out of his hair.
“Some people bring umbrellas,” Kayama said.
“So many extra steps,” Shouta said, waving that off. “I don’t mind walking in the rain. It’s just a drizzle, anyway.”
She laughed.
“Well, we’re all here now,” Hizashi said, taking Shouta’s hand under the table and giving it a quick squeeze, as if to say hello. He looked expectantly at Oboro. “What’s the big occasion?”
Oboro smiled. It was harder to read his expressions now with all the mist, but just like before all his facial expressions started in the eyes. That was all Shouta needed. “I have really exciting news. Apparently due to my ‘incredible timing’ and ‘quick save’ in All for One’s ‘hour of need’”—many air quotes were used here—“All for One agreed to start working with my memories again. Izuku-kun’s really been pushing it, and he has this classmate at UA who’s volunteered to help, and we think it’s possible for us to get the memories back.”
“Which classmate?” Shouta asked, eyes narrowed, at the same time that Kayama said, “Izuku-kun? Is this Midoriya Izuku?”
Right. She’d never been looped in.
Hizashi brought her up to speed on all the updates as Shouta gave Oboro a stern look. He really did need to know which classmate “volunteered” to help, because by god if the name started with Sh and ended with insou Hitoshi he would actually start expelling people.
“Hatsume Mei,” Oboro said.
That was worse.
That was much, much worse.
Shouta decided to erase the last minute from his memory. He knew nothing of this. Hatsume Mei wasn’t going to work with Midoriya Izuku ever again. Their days of partnership were over.
“This is really exciting, Oboro-kun,” Kayama said, hugging Oboro as well as she could from the side and with his mist body. “Please keep us looped in on how it goes.”
“I will,” he said happily. “I think this is going to be a really good step in the right direction. And Izuku-kun also got me all these cooking classes for my birthday, so everything is looking up.”
“Our lord and savior,” Hizashi said.
Shouta shot him a dirty look. “Never say that again.”
“I’m really excited to start knowing you all again,” Oboro said, clasping his hands on the table. “I have my family now and I’m not letting go of them, but I really can’t wait to relearn about you all, too. I’ll just ask that you please be patient with me.”
Kayama made a weird cooing sound and hugged him again. “Of course we will. You’re our bestest friend.”
Shouta contemplated if he should ban Midoriya from being in Kayama’s class at UA on account of them both being chaotic types of weird. She could send him into a tailspin so fast.
“We’ll be there for you,” Hizashi said. “Every step of the way.”
Shouta didn’t have anything to add, but his feelings had already been made clear tenfold over the past year. He just met Oboro’s eyes levelly and silently, and that was enough.
“I hate you so much,” was the first sentence out of Fuyumi’s mouth when she met Dabi again after the many, many years apart. The second sentence, accompanied by a hug so tight Dabi couldn’t breathe for the entire one minute duration of it, was, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
So there was definitely some inner conflict there, but nothing Dabi couldn’t handle.
Natsuo just jerked his chin up in Dabi’s direction, locking eyes with him over Fuyumi’s shoulder, and moved on to the kitchen with his bags of groceries. So his brother remained the most simple and easy guy to get along with on the planet.
It had been hard to come to terms with a few things about this.
One, that Fuyumi and Natsuo were adults now and didn’t need a big brother anymore in the way that Touya had once been for them. Shouto still did, but he was also the weirdest kid Dabi had ever met (this coming from a guy who had lived with Midoriya for several years).
Two, that everyone in the family seemed open and willing to letting Dabi back in without questions and without conditions. They shifted around him like he’d been there the whole time.
Three, that his mom really and truly did mean that Dabi couldn’t get rid of her now, and this came with the expectation that he would move in with her and not live with the chaos gremlin that was Midoriya any longer. This had felt like a relief at first, and then quickly it had felt super strange and off putting (how did one function when there wasn’t a strange demon barging into their room all the time?), and then it had gone back to feeling like a relief.
Dabi hadn’t had a mom in a long time. Rei seemed extremely excited to make up for the deficit.
“Oh my god there’s a child,” Natsuo shrieked from deep inside the apartment.
“Don’t yell,” Rei scolded. “You know better, Natsu-chan.”
Fuyumi, drawn to the word child like the elementary school teacher she was, detached herself from Dabi and drifted after Natsuo, nose down on the hunt for the six year old.
Rei had decided it would be easiest to reintegrate Dabi into the family while also introducing them to Eri. Dabi had thought this seemed nice and convenient, and he was exceptionally pleased to find himself one hundred percent correct. Everyone would be distracted by the cute traumatized little girl and not looking at Dabi, just how he liked it.
Dabi shut the door and slipped after Fuyumi.
His mom’s apartment was nice. It was big (Midoriya had funded it, All for One had lectured him for draining the bank account, Dabi had eaten popcorn while watching the whole showdown) and modern. She’d already managed to fill half the walls with pictures of her kids and the other half of them with books, so she was doing well for herself.
Another thing Dabi hadn’t had in a while: a home. He’d barely lived in the apartment for a week now and it was already starting to feel that way. Somewhere his heart could land. Somewhere almost completely untarnished by a certain green-haired leech.
Eri was in the living room, just past the kitchen, and Natsuo was on his knees in front of her as she showed him her coloring book. Fuyumi settled down next to them, teacher face on, and Dabi leaned against the kitchen counter, watching them carefully. They really had grown up. For some reason, he felt like he’d fallen behind, somehow.
“Don’t be jealous,” his mom said, unpacking groceries from the bags. Even now, she could read him better than anyone. “You’ll be fine now. We rescued you from that ray of sunshine and brought you over here to the dark side.”
Rei had a very different perspective on Midoriya than Dabi did. She found this hilarious.
Shouto appeared in the hallway that led to the bedrooms. His eyes found Eri first, Fuyumi and Natsuo flanking her. He found Dabi next. They’d already met, of course, since they lived in the same apartment, but Shouto still always looked at Dabi like it was the first and last time they’d ever see each other. Maybe that was just how he looked at everyone—with this serious, blazing intensity.
“Hey,” Dabi said, throat feeling parched suddenly.
“Tell me honestly,” Shouto said.
Dabi could have sworn he heard his own mother mutter, “Oh, here we go again.”
“Do you think Midori-kun the vigilante is actually some sort of AI being built by a supervillain to throw the world into chaos?” Shouto asked.
The. Strangest. Kid. Dabi. Had. Ever. Met.
“I have evidence. And more questions than there are answers.”
“Soba for dinner, Shouto-chan,” Rei interrupted, because she was a saint sent down from heaven itself. “How does that sound?”
Shouto turned. “Very good.”
Fuyumi laughed at something in the living room. Eri, who might have been Dabi’s favorite person in the entire world, but he would burn anyone who so much as suggested it and he’d never admit it out loud, gave her a startled look, and then a sort of nervous half-smile. “I was funny?” Eri asked.
“In the best way,” Fuyumi answered warmly.
Natsuo looked up and met Dabi’s gaze. Another jerk of the chin.
Yeah, the whole family was fucked. A bunch of oddballs. Dabi would also never admit this on threat of death, but he’d never stopped loving them (minus his jerkface of a father—there had been a distinct stopping point to his love there). This weird crew of humans and their new unicorn pseudo-daughter.
“Help me with dinner, Touya-chan,” Rei said. “We need to build up your skills so you can help that poor boy have a proper meal sometime. It’s honestly impressive he’s lived this long.”
Dabi sighed but went to wash his hands. She had a point. And Dabi wouldn’t be able to escape visiting the kid for long. Midori-kun would drag him back into his life somehow, because that was just what Midori-kun did. He was the sun, and everything fell into orbit around him. Exhausting, but necessary.
And Dabi would never, ever, ever admit that he already missed the kid. Not in a million years.
“Here’s the thing, then,” Shouta said, massaging the ridge of his eyebrows, where his perpetual Midoriya-induced headache lurked. “He just can’t live in that place anymore. I’m actually losing sleep over it—don’t give me that smug look, I know. I know. I need him out of there. But I just—I just can’t adopt him. I won’t survive the experience. In more ways than one.”
“Are there multiple ways to not survive something?” Nedzu asked thoughtfully.
Shouta had a Nedzu-induced headache as well. That one sat in his temples. Both of them. They ached. “Can you just be helpful?” he groaned. “For once?”
Ordinarily, he would never stoop so low as to address his boss like this. These, however, were not normal circumstances. The end of his rope had arrived. Nedzu’s office was too bright and too full of puzzles for his current mood.
“Of course,” Nedzu said, more seriously. Shouta managed a calming breath. “I myself have been looking to keep a closer eye on Midoriya, in any case, and there is a simple solution to this problem.”
“Really,” Shouta said drily. He’d been trying to think of simple solutions for years now and had come up blank.
“We could implement a dormitory system,” Nedzu suggested, and there was the concrete, feasible idea Shouta needed to survive this school year. “Particularly after the Sports Festival attracted so much attention, we could argue that students are less safe because of the recognition they might face on the train. Most parents will probably see it as a convenience.”
It was genius, as one would expect from Nedzu. It also had a flaw. That flaw was that Midoriya Izuku’s parents were the problem, and they would not see it as a convenience at all. They’d see right through it.
“All for One won’t let it slide,” Shouta said. “He’ll fight it tooth and nail. I know he will.”
“We’ll appease him with something or other,” Nedzu said, waving a paw dismissively. “Leave that part to me.”
Suspicious, Shouta said, “It’ll have to be a big appeasement. You’ll have to bribe him or something. And he won’t take money.”
Nedzu waved him off again, the shit, a little grin revealing his tiny sharp teeth. “Leave it to me,” he said again. Shouta had a deep sense of foreboding and regretted bringing this up at all. “I quite look forward to speaking with him. Midoriya-kun has tamed the beast, hasn’t he?”
Shouta shot him a revolted look. “Never say that again.”
Nedzu cackled. “He certainly has. A wonder. There’s an irony to it, I’ll admit.”
Shouta saw no such irony. He decided he didn’t want to parse out the puzzle there and closed the conversation there. “All right, well. Figure it out, then. I’ll talk to Cementoss and Power Loader about the dorms.”
He already regretted this. But it was too late to stop it now.
“I’m not sure that this is a very good story,” All for One said, frowning at the current page, which featured a unicorn in a tutu surrounded by her new friends.
Eri’s fingers reached out for the corner of the page. She fought with it as it stuck to the next one.
“It seems unrealistic,” All for One continued.
Eri managed to get the page and turned it over before burrowing down again into All for One’s side.
They were curled up in Eri’s bed, she and All for One and Izuku. Izuku, who had been the one to suggest bedtime stories, had crashed almost the second he got into Eri’s fluffy pink bed, and was drooling on her pillow, a long piece of her hair trailing over his face.
She was nestled between him and All for One, her skinny knees tucked up to her chest, eyes alert on the page as All for One read aloud.
The story was vapid and full of ridiculous themes of sharing and making friends. All for One thought the unicorn should have left all those annoying hangers-on behind and forged her own path. The author apparently had different plans.
“She has a flower crown,” Eri mumbled, tracing the illustration with her fingers. “I want one.”
She said it and then scrunched up her shoulders like she was expecting to get scolded for that. All for One had plenty of experience abusing kids and knew a sign of fear when he saw one. He flipped to the next page. “Izuku-kun probably knows how to make one. He could help you.”
Eri’s tiny body relaxed the smallest margin and she said, “Izu-nii knows everything.”
“He certainly tries to. Now this says, ‘The unicorn and her friends ate apples and sang songs together until the sun went down. And the unicorn knew they would be best friends for all time.’”
That was the end of the book. All for One scowled, flipping back through it. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“That’s the end,” Eri yawned. “There is no rest of it.”
“I feel that she needs to be betrayed horribly for the story to be complete,” All for One said.
Eri made a soft humming noise. She said, “I don’t understand where she found all these friends. Do people just make friends like that?”
All for One wanted to tell her no, that wasn’t how it worked at all and the book was only setting unattainable expectations. But then he thought about Kurogiri. He thought about Izuku, and how even when they tried to work against each other they always happened to help the other. And Mitsuki and Masaru, who he still visited from time to time to complain about so-and-so’s parents over dinner.
“It does work just like that,” he admitted. “There’s no one and then there’s someone. And there’s no explanation for where they came from.”
“I want a friend,” Eri said, and her shoulders hunched up again.
“You’ll make some,” All for One promised. “We’ll find you as many as you want.”
“All,” she requested.
“Consider it done.” All for One closed the book. “Well, that’s over. I’ll need to carry sleeping beauty back to his room.”
Eri twisted to look at Izuku. She observed his slumber with some surprise. “He’s making my pillow wet.”
“We’ll flip it for you.”
All for One reached over Eri and scooped Izuku up. The kid’s head lolled back but he didn’t wake up. As evidenced by the big purple bags under his eyes, he didn’t get enough sleep and now his body was making up for it. He wouldn’t wake up now even if Kurogiri set off the fire alarm.
By the time All for One got back from tucking Izuku into his atrocious hero sheets, Eri had tightened herself into a ball and was lying with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She and Izuku had rooms right next to each other—All for One couldn’t have been gone longer than two minutes.
“I’m tucking you in,” he said so as not to startle her.
She startled anyway, unfurling like a leaf and staring at him with big red eyes. He or Kurogiri had done this every night since they adopted her, excepting the weekend she spent at the Todorokis’, and she still seemed surprised.
All for One pulled her pink bedspread up to her chin. He reached for the switch on her lamp.
“Are we a family?” Eri asked abruptly.
All for One paused, hand hovering in the warmth of her lamp, and frowned. “Of course we are,” he said. “And you’re an important member of it.”
She blinked. “Important member,” she repeated in a mumble.
“Yes. We love you very much.”
What, All for One wondered, had become of him? Saying such things. He was a shame to all villains.
“Oh.” Eri twisted her fingers around the blankets just under her chin. “I like that.”
All for One’s heart cracked. Eri was so careful with her words. Everything she felt simmered under the surface—obvious, if someone knew what to look for, but not vocalized. And this meant everything she did manage to say was something big.
“Good night, Eri-chan,” All for One got out.
“Good night, Oji-san,” she said.
All for One clicked off the light, dropping the room into a dull glow from Eri’s (unicorn) nightlight. He took a second, chest aching, to revel in the word Oji-san and what it had come to mean to him. And then he turned away and slipped out of Eri’s room, shutting the door softly behind him.
On his way down the stairs he checked his phone. He had a text from a number he didn’t recognize, which gave him immediate pause. Eyebrows contorting, he stopped halfway down the stairs and opened the text message.
Hello! it read. Midoriya-kun’s principal here! I’m thinking of starting a PTA at UA. I would be very interested in your thoughts!
Nedzu, All for One had always believed, was a very manipulative and powerful little creature. He was probably up to something, or at the very least intentionally creating chaos. This knowledge did not stop All for One from immediately responding that he would be delighted to be involved in such a venture.
Only the best for his nephew. And he could infiltrate UA in the meantime! A delightful prospect, even if it meant spending time with heroes.
He finished going down the stairs with significantly more pep in his step. A hopeful future unfurled ahead of him.
Chapter 52: The Inevitable Armageddon
Summary:
A few final revelations. One cycle ends, another begins.
Notes:
You may notice that I have turned this into a series. Now why might that be I wonder. Hm.
No haha in all honesty here’s what’s going on: the brainrot for a sequel is real, but the motivation is vaporized. So I’m making it a series now, so if people want to subscribe to the series they can, and then you’ll know right away if I post a sequel! I suspect I will. It already has a bare bones outline and a title. But it might be a hot minute before I post because I “have a job” and “have to be an adult,” as ridiculous as it sounds. I am full of free time at heart but not in reality. So. LONG STORY SHORT it’s a series, there might be a sequel eventually, who knows.ANYWAY LAST CHAPTER HERE WE GO
Chapter Text
For Izuku’s sixteenth birthday, he got a hug from Eri, an actually semi-decent cake from Kurogiri (the cooking classes were very helpful), merch of himself from Hitoshi, several really epic updates to his suit from Mei, a book of All Might conspiracy theories from Todoroki, a book on vigilante laws from Rei, a middle finger emoji from both Dabi and Shigaraki individually, an autograph on a limited edition poster from All Might, and his very own credit card from Oji-san (which he could tell was actually just a way for Oji-san to restrict his spending, but he appreciated nonetheless).
It was by far the best birthday he’d ever had.
They had another party in the fake apartment with his mom there and everything, and so many people were there that it was very easy to keep Oji-san from strangling All Might in his skeletal form and vice versa. Izuku just planted them on either side of the living room and very gently directed each one back into their corner every time one of them tried to approach the other.
The house was bustling with noise and activity. They’d ordered catering because while Kurogiri’s skills had improved, they hadn’t improved that much, and so the food was good and the company was better.
“If you had told me seven years ago that adopting a very annoying mystery caller would lead to all this,” Oji-san said when he, Kurogiri, and Izuku had a moment to themselves in his No All Might Corner, “I would have laughed in your face.”
“I wasn’t that annoying,” Izuku answered, but he knew he had been.
“Annoying enough that several tantrums were had,” Kurogiri said. “I witnessed all of them. In hindsight, you probably didn’t even know how many of one supervillain’s plans you were thwarting.”
Izuku laughed. “I’ve been a hero from day one, really. You couldn’t have stopped me if you tried.”
“I should have tried,” Oji-san said, putting his head in his hands. “Now you have One for All and everything is ruined.”
“Really convenient that my grandparents got sick just in time for you to adopt me,” Izuku said.
Oji-san stilled. He lifted his head slowly from his hands.
“Ah,” Kurogiri said. “You don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” Izuku asked, frowning. “What happened to my grandparents?”
Kurogiri and Oji-san looked at each other for a long time in some sort of silent battle. Out loud, Kurogiri said, “Well, I didn’t do it, so I don’t know why I would be responsible for telling him about it.”
Oji-san sighed. “I purposefully made your grandfather get sick so your mother wouldn’t move back.”
Izuku blinked. He looked around for his mom, but she was over in the All Might corner of the room, far out of earshot. Eri was on her lap, pulling her hair into tiny braids, so she’d be stuck there for a while.
“He’s fine,” Oji-san assured him. “I mean, I’m sure it’s not pleasant being sick, but I check in every few months to make sure he’s not dying. I could heal him at any time.”
For the first time in possibly forever, Izuku understood why everyone was always saying he and Oji-san had a strange relationship. For the first time, he had a good glimpse into the chaos as if he was an outsider. And it was admittedly a bit odd.
“You purposefully made my grandpa sick,” Izuku said slowly as he processed, “so that you could be my fake uncle.”
Oji-san winced.
A normal kid, Izuku supposed, would be angry about this. A normal sixteen year old would storm out of the house promising to never speak to their uncle again. Izuku wasn’t a normal kid. He snorted and said, “Well, my mom would totally freak out if she found out what I’ve been doing in my free time, and my grandpa’s kind of quirkist, so I guess I don’t mind. Maybe keep it up until I’ve graduated, honestly.”
The expression on Oji-san’s face could only be described as incredible confusion, concern, and incredulity. There was a good dosage of relief in there too, but mostly he looked like he couldn’t figure out if something was terribly wrong with Izuku or not.
“I don’t know why I expected you to be more upset.”
“I probably would have been when I was younger,” Izuku said, “but my mom could have come and visited me at any time if she wanted to. She could have let her sister take care of my grandpa instead. And you guys were there when she wasn’t, so you two are more of my parents than she’s been at this rate anyway. Seven years is a long time.”
Kurogiri’s eyes got all wobbly.
“Oh no, don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s a pleasure being your parent,” Kurogiri sniffled. “It really is. I couldn’t ask for a better kid.”
Oji-san nodded emphatically. “I’m glad to have raised you, Izuku-kun. There’s plenty more ahead.”
“More battles to fight,” Izuku agreed. “I still don’t intend on letting you get away with anything.”
“I don’t intend on letting you stop me,” Oji-san said, arching his eyebrows up.
“So we’re nemeses,” Izuku said, “through and through.”
“Give me a hug,” Oji-san said, opening his arms.
Izuku dove in, followed by Kurogiri. He hugged them so tightly he could almost pretend he didn’t hear Dabi mutter somewhere in the distance, “How are they so weird?”
Todoroki Shouto was convinced of one thing and one thing only: Midoriya Izuku was not actually human. Shouto had his bets on Midoriya being a fairy. That was his main guess. He didn’t know a lot about fairies, but from what he did know Midoriya seemed to fit the bill: magical, not at all what he seemed, and probably swapped out with a normal baby at birth.
If not a fairy, maybe an alien. For similar reasons.
“This is my twenty slide presentation,” Midoriya said, setting his laptop up on the desk. It was after school. Shouto’s driver was definitely waiting for him, Uraraka and Shinsou were hovering around, clearly curious (if confused), and Aizawa was asleep at the front of the classroom. They needed to leave, but Todoroki wanted more than anything else to stay.
The slideshow was entitled Twenty Ways You Can Spite Your Father Without Shunning Your Fire Side. Todoroki loved it already.
The first slide detailed why Shouto should go into Rescue Heroics instead of Combat and Uraraka took the seat next to Shouto, leaning in and embellishing on several of Izuku’s points ad lib. Shouto wondered why he’d never thought of this before. The rage that would overtake his father if Shouto decided to not be a daylight hero at all would be so sweet.
“Option two,” Midoriya said, switching the slide, “make a strong case for lowering property damage and casualties. Lobby for new laws.”
A fairy. There was no other way to explain the magic unfolding before him. Midoriya Izuku was not actually human.
The new slide had a picture of the vigilante Midori-kun on it and Shouto squinched up his face. It was a very good picture of him, and there weren’t a lot on the internet (Shouto had looked). He wondered where Midoriya had gotten this picture. “Option three is becoming an advocate for vigilantism. This one’s a bit self serving, I admit.”
Shinsou made an incoherent mumbling noise. He was pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Self serving how?” Uraraka asked.
“Well,” Izuku said.
Aizawa suddenly seemed very alert at the front of the classroom. “Do not. I forbid you from continuing that thought.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything!” he said.
Uraraka leaned forward, a bright light in her eyes. “Say what? What weren’t you going to say?”
Movements loose and jumbling, Aizawa started packing up his things, muttering, “I’m retiring. That’s it, I’m retiring.”
“Izuku-kun knows several national secrets,” Shinsou said. “He’s also pretty bad at keeping them.”
“Like that All Might’s his dad,” Shouto said.
Uraraka choked and Aizawa nearly tripped over empty air at the front. Shinsou gave Uraraka a solid pat on the back, his own eyes closed with denial.
“He’s not,” Midoriya wailed. “I promise he’s not. My dad’s in America. All Might and I aren’t related.”
“Well, now I don’t know,” Uraraka said, and Shouto almost thought he’d managed to get someone else to see the truth here, but the way her lips were twitching seemed to suggest she didn’t believe him. Yet. “That does seem like it would be a big national secret you’d be terrible at keeping.”
Aizawa departed from the room, slamming the door behind him.
Cheeks a fiery red, Midoriya slapped the button for the next slide. “Moving on!” he said, voice cracking. “Something else you could do is—”
“No, hold on a second,” Shouto said, a thought striking him. “Go back.”
“No,” Midoriya hissed.
Uraraka reached over and hit the back button. There was the picture of Midori-kun on the slide. There was Midoriya standing right next to it.
“You’re Midori-kun,” Shouto guessed.
Uraraka burst out laughing, burying her face in her arms. Her shoulders shuddered as she tried to contain herself. She didn’t believe him, again. But Shouto was dead serious.
“What!” Midoriya gasped, way too loud and way too suspicious to be believable. “No, I’m not!”
“You are.”
Uraraka managed to calm herself. She swung her head back and forth between Shouto and Midoriya, an expression of great delight spreading over her expression.
“I’m texting Kurogiri,” Shinsou muttered.
“It’s okay,” Shouto said. “I’ll keep it a secret. I’m indebted to you anyway, then.”
“Oh my god,” Uraraka breathed, and slapped a hand over her mouth to hide another laugh.
Midoriya, looking deeply uncomfortable, switched the slide again. “Okay, um, so the next option is doing an internship at All Might’s agency.”
Several Months and Many Discoveries Later
“What the fuck am I even watching?” Kacchan yelled at the TV.
Izuku stopped in his tracks and backed up a few steps, looking over half the class’s heads in the dorm common rooms. On the TV was the replay of his most recent battle with Oji-san, in which Oji-san had met Uraraka for the first time and had grounded Izuku for breaking Clause 10-A of the Nemeses Rule Sheet. Izuku couldn’t even argue, because he had been skipping school to fight Oji-san, which was indeed blatantly against the rules.
But he’d needed to stop Oji-san, so it was worth it.
This was the first fight Izuku had had with Oji-san in which the media had actually figured out what was going on, and the reporters were going back and forth with opinions as they watched the replay. Everyone wanted to know who Izuku’s uncle was, who Izuku was, and how this whole arrangement worked.
“In this clip,” one of the reporters said, “you can see the villain actually stopping the battle to greet hero students Deku and Uravity.”
The clip played. There was Oji-san, stopped with a bus held over his head. The camera angle was at a diagonal somewhat behind Oji-san, so it got Oji-san, Izuku, and Uraraka all in the shot. Izuku and Uraraka at this point had been backed up against the wall of a nearby shop. “Who’s this?” Oji-san asked.
“Uravity,” the Izuku on the screen said, lightning illuminating both of them in green.
“I didn’t know you had more friends,” Oji-san said. “Why didn’t you tell me? When are you going to have her over for dinner?”
The lightning faded out as Izuku put his hands on his hips. “If you’re just trying to convince her to be a villain, I’m not ever having her over. You can’t use this as an excuse to corrupt her. Hitoshi-kun’s had it bad enough.”
In the common room of the dorms, Izuku drifted closer to the couch so he could see better. It wasn’t often that he got into the news like this, and it was always interesting to watch his quirk from a third person perspective. Izuku learned more from watching videos of himself than he learned from All Might, sometimes.
“No, I was being genuine,” Oji-san said. “It’s very sweet. How durable is she on a scale of one to ten?”
Uraraka-san held out her fingers. “Pretty damn durable,” she said, grinning.
Oji-san threw the bus at her.
Ashido gave a whoop as the Uraraka on the screen caught the bus with visible ease and threw it away. Izuku was already moving by then on the screen, but the video quality wasn’t good enough to keep up. He was just a green blur.
“Girlboss,” Ashido said, shaking Uraraka’s arm. “That was epic.”
“Thank you,” Uraraka said, ducking her head. “All in a day’s work, really.”
“Complete bullshit,” Kacchan said, turning away from the TV and nearly running straight into Izuku. “Outta my way.”
“Sorry.” Izuku sidestepped, keeping his eyes on the screen as the Izuku there used blackwhip to catch a flying car and gently redirect it to the ground.
“Yo,” Kaminari said, “Deku. Your uncle is super weird but in kind of a crazy cool way. You should have him over for dinner. Here, I mean. Bakugou-kun can cook.”
“I will not!” Kacchan shouted over his shoulder as he left.
“Did you actually go over to their house?” Ashido asked Uraraka.
“No, I’m going in a couple days!” Uraraka announced. “I’m very excited to fully get to meet Deku-kun’s uncle. It should be very entertaining. I’ll bring back updates.”
“He’s been asking about it since the fight,” Izuku admitted, leaning over the back of the couch. “I think he’s probably more excited than you are. He’s all like ‘another opportunity to prove myself as an uncle!’” Izuku put that part in air quotes. “So he’ll probably go overboard with it.”
“I actually love him,” Uraraka laughed. “He’s so funny. I can’t wait.”
Hitsoshi wandered into the common room, took one look at the TV, and turned around again, muttering, “Nope.”
So Izuku steadily grew in popularity with the media and more and more questions circled amongst the populace of Japan about just what, exactly, was going on with this hero student and his super evil uncle. No one knew, not even Izuku. The situation was very complicated.
Two days after watching that replay in the news, Izuku received a text from his mother that made him come to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk on the way to class. “Oh no,” he said, reading it once, and then reading it again to make sure. There was no denying it.
“What’s wrong?” Uraraka asked. All his friends were a few steps ahead of him on the path, twisted back to look at him.
Izuku clicked on the link his mother had sent him to make double sure. The headline was: HERO STUDENT DEKU: NEPHEW OF A SUPERVILLAIN?
“Crap,” he said emphatically, going back to his messages. This was the end of everything, if his mother had found out. He should have been keeping everything quieter. He should have thought this through further. Out of everyone in the world, the one person that had the most chance of taking Oji-san down was Izuku’s mother.
And now she had a target to aim at.
Under the link, three blinking dots showed up in a bubble. Then disappeared. Then came back again.
Izuku could see her in his mind’s eye, reading through the article a few times, trying to figure out if it was true or just something the media had made up to cause a stir. He imagined her sitting with her reading glasses, typing out a text message. Is this true? she’d want to ask. Tell me this isn’t true. Your uncle isn’t a supervillain, right?
His mother knew Izuku’s actual biological uncle. She knew he wasn’t a supervillain. This was the end of everything. Izuku could see the end of the universe hanging around the corner.
The ellipsis animation bubbled across and across and across. His mother was still typing.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
He shut down his whole phone and dropped it into the bottom of his backpack. “We’re just going to pretend nothing happened,” Izuku said, marching on toward school. “That’s what we’re going to do.”
“What happened?” Uraraka asked, frowning.
“Exactly.”
“Your mom found out,” Hitoshi guessed.
Izuku gritted his teeth. “Nothing,” he said, “happened.”
For his peace of mind. For his eternal peace of mind and the sanctity of his life for the next couple years. Nothing happened. His mother would remain at the bottom of his backpack, and that would be all.
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