Chapter Text
Chapter 3: Filth
Overhaul knew that was the moment everything spiraled out of control.
Eri tried to escape, again, and this time bumped into some witnesses that they would need to dispose of. It should have been quick and clean, but the boy had not panicked or shown any sign of fear. That led Overhaul to think the green-haired teen wasn't a civilian. Maybe a hero student, with a decently strong quirk if he thought he wasn't in danger. Arrogance, which would be corrected soon enough, but he called in the rest of the rabble just in case, and to also deal with the floating woman who was still holding Eri.
Then the shift, that little shuffle in posture that was almost imperceptible but occurred when even a simple animal prepared to fight, and Overhaul and all the others understand that wasn't an egocentric hero wannabe.
The thing standing before them was a killer, the likes of which you only saw in the depths of the underworld. His unfortunate meeting with Muscular came to mind. That beast pretending to be a man looked at Overhaul the same way.
Like he was prey.
And then the intensity of the stare hit them like a punch to the gut. The thing that looked like a boy, but was just as much a monster as all of them, armed itself and prepared to use its disease. The light show was secondary to the way his voice started to buzz at the base of their ears, as if the very sound of it were electrically charged.
Of course, that was the moment one of the disposable ones decided to cause trouble. Rappa recovered the fastest, laughing and dashing in with a cocked fist, "That's it, let's FIGHT!"
The monster just watched his Bullet approaching with disinterested eyes. When Rappa threw a punch, so fast the air cracked with the movement, he just used his free hand to bat it aside with casual contempt and surgical precision. The short movement was still enough to kick up a whirlwind, and Rappa was lucky his quirk mutated his shoulders to reinforce them, or his arm would have popped right off.
The monster, the Elden Lord, stepped into Rappa's open guard and buried his fist into the taller man's gut. A blink, and Rappa shot through the air, passing by Overhaul and almost making him stumble just from the speed he was traveling through the air. With a loud crash, Rappa smashed into the wall so hard he cracked the concrete. The Elden Lord, not finished, made a flourish with his sword that literally stirred up the air, and with a casual movement, he batted a mass of boreal wind at Rappa.
The visibly frosted air impacted the man and froze him to the wall, which was the only thing that kept him standing. Just the first punch was enough to make Rappa black out.
Things just got serious.
—
Izuku once more hoisted his sword over his shoulder, eyes scanning his surroundings. His foes finally understood what they were fighting, or at least, they understood Izuku wasn't some helpless kid. The truth, the sheer size of the trouble they were in, was not something they could comprehend. How could they? They never saw a man holding still the night sky. They never saw a serpent capable of devouring the world. They never saw dragons that could simply command time to stop.
Izuku had. He saw. He recorded. He conquered. And that's why he did not hesitate.
Hesitation was defeat.
The Elden Lord bolted, having seen one of the men who followed them outside, the one who thought he was clever, hiding inside a doll, slipping into the ground. He came for Izuku, trying to be subtle, but the vibration moving through the floor was a tell that Izuku knew how to exploit. Anything that could hide from sight forgot people had more than one sense. With a casual movement, Izuku thrust his hand into the hard ground and grabbed a head. Before the man could scream, Izuku pulled him out of the floor and raised him to his side.
Keeping his eyes locked with the leader, Izuku started to squeeze. The man screamed, clawing at the hand holding him fruitlessly, as his bones started to-
CRACK!
Izuku dropped the unconscious man, having used just enough force to crack his skull without killing him. Still staring at the leader, Izuku dusted his hand on his pants while walking closer. He was fine with whatever order the Yakuza wished to go; none of them would be standing by the end anyway.
—
Ranni watched the events unfold with detached irreverence. She knew her Lord's triggers, and hurting the powerless and innocent was a sure way to stoke his rage. It was a testament of his self-control that none of his foes were mortally wounded. She was not impressed with the mettle of the band opposing Izuku, but as he had said, they were vermin with delusions of greatness crawling in the gutter.
Three others attacked together, trying to press her Lord with numbers. A loud crash of the resulting collision made the child in her arms whimper.
The girl was terrified out of her mind, crying ceaselessly while holding onto Ranni as tightly as her little arms allowed. The Goddess of the Dark Moon, for all her power, felt momentarily lost on what to do. Then, the memory of past times, of her mother holding her, came to Ranni's mind unbridled. "Hush now, nothing you fear shall trouble you while I am by your side, child." Familiar words to hear were almost foreign to be spoken. Still, Ranni felt a pang of longing she was quick to bury back into the depths of her heart.
"I-I'm sorry! I don't want to die. But he will die. You'll die too. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The girl sobbed, voice wet and afraid.
Somehow, that stole a chuckle out of Ranni. The girl looked up at her, red eyes redder with all her crying, confused as to how Ranni could be laughing. Up there, floating away from the chaos ensuing, the woman gently ran her fingers through Eri's matted white locks with a borderline carefree amusement. "Listen now, child. The foolishness you speak of is nothing but nonsense. You will not be hurt tonight. I will not be hurt tonight. And my Lord…" Ranni trailed off, looking down with almost sadistic delight. "He is the one the men who tormented you should be afraid of."
Eri tilted her head, confused at the woman's words. "But… But he's nice." It was a distant and almost forgotten concept to her, but the girl still remembered somewhat what kindness felt like.
Ranni smiled. It was not a kind smile. "Take this as a lesson, child. Always fear a gentle man's wrath."
—
Izuku dodged a fist covered in crystal formations by a hair. A distant part of him was trying to identify what form of gem that would be before he twisted and slapped the man aside with the flat of his blade, eyes already on his next target. The man, a blond with casual clothes you would see anyone on the street wearing, clicked his tongue and extended his hand.
"Let's see if you're tough without your little toy-" His words were abruptly cut off as he touched upon something he shouldn't. The same absolute cold that soothed Izuku's soul lashed at the man, freezing his arm solid. "AAAAARGH!" He fell to his knees, clutching the solid block of ice that was once his arm. Muscle, blood, and bone cells died before the wrathful cold of the Dark Moon.
Izuku huffed, "Keep your hands to yourself." He backhanded the downed man away. Just then, the third one leaped at his back, thinking Izuku was distracted. The lanky man with a sack mask on his head lunged teeth-first, drool escaping his mouth.
Rolling his eyes imperceptibly, Izuku simply brought his left leg into a backward arc that nailed his sole right on Sack Face's jaw. The man's mouth closed violently…chopping his tongue off.
The man fell back, and Izuku tried to clean the blood on his face with the back of his hand. Urgh, he tried so hard not to get blood on himself and the clothes Ranni picked up. For all his grumbling, he liked them a lot. Of course, while he was distracted thinking all that, Izuku was still fighting off the Yakuza goons who thought they had a chance. With a large guy that tried to grab him, getting Izuku's heel ringing his gong, while an older man raised some type of barrier to try trapping Izuku in place.
Actually, that was a good test. Izuku focused his mind on the emblem he remembered by heart, sculpting his very will into a determined shape, until the Dragon Communion Seal manifested on his left hand. It was just a subtle crimson glow to anyone looking, but who knew what it was, understood that glow was just a sign of a symbol with so much meaning attributed to it that it became a mark on reality itself. Izuku tried to pull forth the power of dragons…and found nothing.
The fire.
The rage.
The hunger.
It was all gone. No, it just had never even touched Izuku's original body to begin with. All the Dragon Communion he practiced, all the hearts of drakes and true dragons he devoured in ritualistic fervor, had been lost with his body of the Lands Between. All those powers he gained, lost. The extra oomph that his favorite Sacred Seal gave that branch of Incantations was now completely useless.
Izuku sighed with a weary resignation, then shifted gears to another branch of spells. He snapped his fingers and grasped the spear of lightning that manifested from the quickly fading image of an Eternal Dragon, six more forming over him. He threw, and the floating effigies released, the seven stakes of lightning hitting the same spot and punching through the barrier.
In a blink, Izuku was behind the older man, who fell bonelessly. A good chop to the neck did wonders; he just hoped he didn't crack the guy's spine by accident.
Izuku stepped back, dodging a small-caliber bullet to the dome. He raised his weapon and blocked the rest with the flat of the blade, grimacing at the sound of metal on metal(?) and the sparks that flew. Izuku would need to do some maintenance once they get home. He knew the Darkmoon Greatsword was his best and favorite weapon, but it was also a wedding gift from Ranni, and Izuku hated getting it scuffed. Which was counterproductive, but he digressed.
Another round, another clang, another burst of sparks. But then, the man stepped back, "What is your weakness?"
Izuku blinked blankly, feeling the barest pings of the Broken Rune of Harmony, "Guess."
The man stumbled back and almost fell thanks to his overcoat. "How did you resist my quirk?!"
"Fuck you, that's how." Izuku dashed in, parried three more shots, then brained the mind-controller wannabe with the pommel of his weapon.
And that was the moment the world tilted to the side. Izuku simply planted his feet and looked up at the shirtless man reeking of booze, clinging to the pipes on the wall.
"Feeeeling tipsy?" He slurred out.
Izuku rolled his eyes at the Yakuza goon number whatever, "I had worse." Alcohol had nothing on the burn of a Cracked Crystal Tear, or the misery that was the Scarlet Rot. With a quick turn at the hips, Izuku slashed with the glowing Darkmoon Greatsword, sending a crescent of cold Moonlight at the drunkard. It impacted somewhere a couple of palms under his spot, on purpose. The resulting explosion of glacial power was enough to take care of the problem nonlethally. "Next."
He was not usually so arrogant or talkative, but c'mon! They were having a nice date, and those guys ruined it and his good mood just to put on this pathetic show? Where was the grit, the conviction, the expression of willpower that would make Izuku actually have to concentrate on the fight instead of sulk in his head about how his Ranni time was ruined? And how those idiots were hurting a little girl. And how messed up his own world was.
Urgh, Izuku hated being stuck in his head. That place was depressing.
—
It was obvious the moment her Starlight disregarded the battle he was in the middle of. His movements became almost mechanical, not dropping in efficiency but becoming disinterested, like a servant repeating the same chore for the millionth time and letting their body do the work while their mind was elsewhere. Ranni saw it before, in the fights that weren't truly engaging to Izuku, like a class he already knew the contents of. It was hardly surprising to have a good student become distracted if not challenged.
And these Yakuza were not at all challenging to her Lord. Thugs without a drop of creativity to utilize their powers would be what Ranni would call them. And for all his anger, Izuku did not take pleasure in the punishment he delivered.
Her Starlight was not one to take joy in violence. In showings of skill and technique, in demonstrations of tactics and clever tricks, yes. However, causing harm to another was not something that he condoned, much less appreciated.
So, the display below them had nothing for them, Izuku and Ranni alike. He did not find anything worth his focus, and Ranni did not have that intense focus to entertain herself with. "This has proved most disappointing."
The girl in her arms disagreed. Eri watched the nice man dismantle the sources of her nightmares one by one without a single scratch. The bird man that hurt her and she could do nothing about fell one by one like broken dolls, while the nice man kept standing.
He didn't die.
Maybe he-?
Eri's train of thought came to a screeching halt as Overhaul and Chronostasis moved, the only two still in the fight besides the nice man. Overhaul touched the floor, making it burst and then reconstruct into sharp spikes that rushed at the nice man.
Eri felt her heart stop.
Ranni kept her indifferent stare, "Pathetic."
The nice man stomped on the ground, and everything in front of him broke. The spikes, the floor, even the air shook as if something had ripped pieces of it. Eri's red eyes shone with awe as the nice man put his foot down and told Overhaul's power "no", and somehow, it had to listen.
The cold hand on Eri's head brushed her hair with chill fingers, "Calm now, child. It is almost over."
The pain was almost over. Did that mean Eri would not have to die anymore? She would like that.
—
The pincer attack came like clockwork. Izuku blocked a couple of bullets from the cloaked one, while the leader rushed in. This time, Izuku was ready when he touched the ground and leaped, just in time to not be caught when footing vanished.
Of course, the cloaked one thought Izuku was helpless while in midair and attacked again, this time with an…arrow line of silver hair? Not the weirdest thing Izuku had thrown at him, but still up there. Of course, Izuku had to quickly and painfully show how wrong his enemy was by dodging. How? By utilizing what he learned from the Divine Beast Dancing Lion in his venture in the Land of Shadow.
With 30% of One For All powering his movements, each twitch of his body produced gusts of wind, so it was easy for Izuku to utilize the wild and elegant movements he copied from the Dancing Lion to twist and seemingly step into the air itself to move. He sailed through the air with speed and grace, appearing right above the cloaked Yakuza. With the same violent dive Izuku was once in at the end of, the boy stomped on the man's face, breaking his mask and dragging his head through the floor.
And then, there was one. One who tried to get the jump on Izuku when he had his back turned. He thought the last one who tried that would serve as a warning- oh, that was what the lead villain was going for. He wanted Izuku to counterattack, which meant he had a plan. His quirk probably did not work only on inanimate matter, which meant one touch from his hands, where he had to have contact to use his quirk, and it was game over.
Clever, but not enough. Izuku turned and, with a fluid and well-versed movement, slashed the Yakuza leader's arm off.
It was a clean cut at the elbow, which was frosted over so that the man did not bleed to death. Izuku was trying his best not to kill anyone unless truly necessary. He would like to put his days of killing, killing, killing behind him.
Oh yeah, disarmed man in front of him. And no, Izuku did not at all feel bothered by the pun. "This is a good time for you to give up and stand down."
"You! You'll pay for this!" The man dashed, but to his cut-off arm. He grabbed it, and in a burst of blood and flesh, his missing arm was restored. Or at least most of it.
His elbow was still frosted, the remade joint locked and brittle. That seemed to surprise the masked man, who tried to heal himself again, only to have the same result. "How?! Even if I separate the atomic structure before reconstructing it, the ice still clings to the reformed cells. That's impossible!"
Izuku chuckled despite himself, "Ice is commonly seen as the solid state of water, but many fluids in a solid state are considered 'ice' and called as such. If air, when chilled enough, can become ice, what else do you think can too?"
"Absolute zero? No, even then, I could move the molecules, so they should not still be frozen." The head Yakuza tried to understand what the monster before him had done while still trying to unfreeze his elbow.
"A little more ontological than that. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll have a lot of time to figure it out in whatever hole they throw you into. Try to understand that hurting kids is also a big no-no, 'kay?" Izuku offered in a conversational tone, before he bolted, floor bursting from the strength of his steps.
The Yakuza only had time to reach out…for one of his fallen men. Both exploded into a bloom of gore that flowed and formed a new entity, a monster with four arms and twice the height of a person.
His left lower arm still had a frosted-over elbow.
Izuku…was not impressed. He did not bat an eye at the transformation or the violation of the still living man's body; he only kept his eyes trained on the leader's, still yellow but now bloodshot. The Elden Lord somersaulted into a front flip, a perfect Lion's Claw, but one that would end short of reaching the villain. Just as he planned, the crescent of energy that his blade released flew forward like a shark's fin parting the waves.
The villain tried to move out of the way, but still got his left forearms chopped. He screamed but grabbed the flying limbs and reconstructed them, with more frosted parts added.
Izuku moved in to attack, but the villain leaped back and slapped a hand on another downed man. More gore, more arms, and the leader became an even bigger monster. He tried to attack from multiple angles, but his frozen arms got in the way. Izuku weaved by the hands, and the resulting terrain shifted with calm focus. Then, in a blink, he struck and severed more limbs.
"Argh, stop!"
"Did you stop when she asked?" Izuku rebuked and pressed on, making the man scurry back in a hurry. "Where was your mercy when you were hurting a child?!"
"She is not so innocent, bastard!" Another body added to the pile of flesh. "Her damn quirk killed her father! How many more would it have been if I hadn't contained it? How many more until everyone realizes this disease will destroy the world?!"
"Save your self-righteous crap for someone who buys it." And Izuku mutilated the abomination with clinical precision and efficient brutality. "Who are you to dictate the fate of mankind?!"
"I'm the only one who can! I took the name Overhaul not just because of my own quirk, I did it because I'm the only one in a position to change this rotten world!" More and more and more bodies were dragged and added, until the whole group was fused to the villain, Overhaul.
And the Elden Lord was still not impressed. "You truly are a shortsighted idiot then." Izuku had been holding back from using too much of One For All on anything but movement. He took off the kiddie gloves, "You are nothing but one delusional sociopath in a long list of names history forgot. Just another corpse to the pile." He swung his blade, and the resulting arc was like a Waxing Dark Moon.
From the right side at the waist to the left on the shoulder, cut. But the resulting ice held Overhaul together, raging and screaming, but trapped.
"You…YOU! Do you have any idea what you are doing?! Without me, this world will-"
Another slash, now a frozen X was marked on the towering mass of flesh's torso, its multitude of arms useless. "You can lie to yourself as much as you want. It does not change anything." The Elden Lord stepped closer, pulling his fist back, hand sparking with not only power, but Order. "This is the end of your ambition."
The Elden Lord struck, not at the body, but at the very presence that confirmed the monster that Overhaul became existed at all. And at that attack, at that denial, the villain came undone.
Standing in the center of a pool of blood and viscera, Izuku sighed. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Still, a certain degree of magnanimity was expected from a hero, so with that in mind, Izuku brought his arms up and away from his body, Dragon Communion Seal in one hand. He did a movement like scales turning, or clock arms moving backward. The Law of Regression, at its most absolute, unmade the changes the Yakuza suffered. Once again, around Izuku was a group of unconscious men, no worse for wear than when they started.
Now, a simple cast of the bastardized Mist of Slumber Incantation he created by trying to copy the pro hero Midnight's quirk, and that guaranteed those guys were not getting up today.
Izuku looked up, locking eyes with his Moonlight. She floated closer, dropping her protection, "Is that the end of it?"
"Almost." He looked at the shocked, silent girl in Ranni's arms. She was looking at him in awe, and at the downed men with a complicated set of emotions no child should know. "We should call the heroes and the police to deal with that, but that would cause us a lot of headaches that I don't feel like dealing with right after our date."
"What do you propose then?" Did Ranni even realize she was still holding Eri protectively? On second thought, that was a can of worms Izuku also didn't feel like dealing with today.
"I have an idea."
"That is most concerning."
"Oh ye of little faith. Anyway, how comfortable are you in being carried by me?"
"Carried how exactly?" By Ranni's tone, any of the wrong answers would end with Izuku in the dog house for the foreseeable future.
So of course, he boldly stepped closer, dismissing his weapon to the same place not quite physical, not quite spiritual that housed their bond. With deft movements, he put his arms under Ranni's knees and back, picking her in a bridal carry…with Eri on top basically lying on the woman.
The Goddess was amused, so Izuku was safe.
"This is acceptable. What do you have in mind?"
Izuku smirked. He always wanted to try that. "A stylish exit." He snapped his fingers, still glowing with the sacred seal formed by his will.
To anyone who saw it from a distance, it was as if the heavens had shot down a pillar of lightning. The resounding thunder masked the cave-in of most of a street.
Compared to that, the speck of green that flew up and away was an afterthought. But to Ranni, being carried by her Lord while he walked on the very sky, as they smiled down upon the world, and as the moon above seemed so close they could raise their hands and touch it, that little moment meant everything.
The child in her arms gripped tighter, then started to silently cry once again. Before she could say anything, Izuku whispered to the girl, "Hey, Eri, want to see something amazing?" With childish curiosity, the girl looked back at the one who saved her with her wet, ruby-like eyes. The boy turned his head up, making the girl follow his line of sight to the full moon above them.
She gasped in awe, "The moon, it…it's…" Eri failed to come up with words to describe the celestial body, so large from up there it seemed greater than anything under the sky.
"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" Izuku turned his eyes to Ranni and smiled, a heartfelt, sincere, loving smile.
"Yes. It really is." The child agreed.
—
Inko had not had an easy time in a long while. Work problems. Marital problems. Government problems. All of it piled up, resulting not only in Inko but also in Izuku suffering from the stress. Add the fact that Izuku was quirkless, and it seemed as if the world itself was out to get them.
She tried her best, but between trying to take care of the house while working on her online commissions to put food on the table, Inko had not supported her boy like she wanted. While she could have cut back and used only the child support to handle the bills, that would not have been a good position to be in. Not after…
Oh, but things had turned for the better. Inko might not have had much luck with her marriage, but Izuku did not have that problem.
Multiverse shenanigans. Inko thought the time she and Mitsuki had ended up in a giant tree and helped a baby dinosaur and a belt-wearing lizard to find their resolve and fuse into a giant robot knight to save their world would be the end of it, but no, sir! Inko knew that the number of quirks that messed with alternative universes was actually something like 1 in 50.000, which was more common than healing quirks, but still. Just what was their luck?
Well, Izuku apparently went on his own little adventure with swords, magic, and dragons. He even went through the fantasy cliché of the knight saving the princess, marrying, and living happily-ever-after. It was great, and Inko thought Izuku and Ranni were adorable together.
Of course, they had to go over the typical song and dance after a trip to another universe. Paperwork, medical exams, more paperwork, and the probationary period of surveillance before Izuku and Ranni got the all clear. After that, they would still need to stop and fill out the forms so their union could be recognized, but neither seemed to be in a rush, or care, for that matter.
Izuku smiled ten times more when he was with Ranni, and the woman obviously cared deeply for Inko's son. Their own relationship was still a bit strained, with Ranni respecting Inko but remaining…professionally distant? She didn't seem to know what to do any more than Inko, but both had the tacit understanding not to do anything that would put a strain on Izuku.
The poor boy was now dead set on becoming a hero. Gone were the days when he only took notes and dreamed; now her boy was so assured of himself it was almost intimidating. Still, under it all, he was still her baby, and Inko just wanted him to be happy. That was why she didn't push much about this whole situation dropping on her lap, or even their impromptu date.
Oh, Inko would need to have a talk with Izuku. Deciding to have a date right on the next day with no plan or idea of what he was doing was not a good idea.
Now here she was, worrying about those two being late. Did they miss the train? Did they get into trouble? Were they having too much fun?! She wasn't ready to be a grandma yet! Or, maybe- NO! Focus. It was still too early.
Oh, what was she even thinking? Inko started pacing in the living room, both to clear her head and to psych herself up to call them. "Yes, I can catch them at a bad time, but maybe that's for the best. Yes. I can do it. I'm an adult, and I have to be responsible. Yes, I just need to call them." She pulled her phone from the table with her quirk, "It's fine. Just do it." Inko kept staring at her contact list, fingers shaking but not actually moving. "I can't! It will be so awkward!"
As the Midoriya matriarch was having her meltdown, the front door opened. Inko heard that and sighed in relief, thankful that she would not need to risk a call. She went to the entrance to greet the couple with a smile, "Hey, you two, I was getting worried…" Inko trailed off, seeing the little girl in Ranni's arms.
"I told you two not to have too much fun!"
—
Izuku landed softly, shoes crunching the sand under him, "Okay, I think no one saw us." They were once again on Dagoba Beach Park after Izuku "flew" them over. While his speed was no joke, a person with actual flight abilities would still have him beat. Still, it was enough to get the trio away from the trouble and prying eyes.
"I remain of the belief we could have used a spell to hide and gone through the traditional path to arrive here." Ranni, still held by Izuku, pointed out simply.
The boy rolled his eyes and helped his Moonlight to stand up on her own, "I'm not gonna risk it. There are a lot of places with security against invisibility quirks, and more than that, I don't have a catalyst to use Sorcery. My old one probably went kaput along with my other body."
"We do need to correct that matter."
"It's on the list, along with getting a new Sacred Seal…"
Ranni turned to him with half-lidded eyes, "Oh dear, what now?"
"I have an idea for later. Anyway, how's our little tagalong doing?" He turned to Eri, who was still clinging to Ranni.
"I'm fine." The little girl answered in a small voice, doing her best to make herself as small and unobstructive as possible while still attached to her newfound source of safety. What she didn't notice was that Izuku caught the slight shivering of her body.
The boy felt like hitting himself. Of course, a barely clothed five-year-old would be cold after getting dragged through high altitude at high speed. "Wait a sec, I have something for you." He quickly pulled open his backpack, grabbing the jacket Ranni had originally gone out in before changing to her yukata. "Here, this will keep you warm."
Ranni raised an eyebrow, but did not comment. She knew very well how her Starlight did not think before throwing himself into helping others. Yes, the jacket was hers, and he should have at least asked, but Ranni could not keep it against him when she knew he did not even realize it, and after going through with it, he would and-
"Oh! Uh, it's okay, right?" He looked at her with an awkward little smile and cheeks red with embarrassment.
Like clockwork. "I see no reason why it would not. However, be more mindful, my Starlight." She helped to put the jacket over Eri's shoulders, seeing the girl quietly turn her eyes from Izuku to Ranni, and back, while not knowing what to make of their banter. To be fair, Ranni herself did not know what to make of their casualness most of the time.
While that happened, Izuku went to close his pack when he caught sight of one more thing Eri would like. Picking it and hiding the object behind his back, "Hey Eri, do you want to see something cool?"
Remembering the last time he asked something like that, Eri nodded, "Yes!"
Izuku smiled and brought forward the little narwhal plush he won at the festival, "Here, it's a unicorn whale!" He gave her a silly grin before handing Eri the plush. "It's the perfect companion to a unicorn girl, right?"
She stared at the beady eyes of the doll before slowly picking it from Izuku's hands. Eri touched her horn, then the narwhal's, and tears slowly gathered in her eyes. "Why do I have a curse like that? I don't want to make anyone vanish again."
That made the young Elden Lord's smile soften, "It's not a curse, Eri. It's a quirk, and like any other quirk, it can get out of control if you don't know how to use it. You're a kid, no one expects you to have a handle on it already. What happened wasn't your fault; it was an accident. It wasn't anybody's fault." He gently brought a hand to her head and caressed her horn. "The responsibility of those who carry power is a heavy one. We have to learn how to wield it, so we can make sure it does not hurt us or others."
"B-but… But what if I can't control it? Will I hurt someone else again?"
"No one expects you to learn alone," Izuku spoke his hypocrisy with a perfectly straight face, feeling a slight pull from One For All, maybe the Vestiges reminding Izuku of his double standards. "You don't have to do things alone. If you can't, it's okay to ask for help."
Ranni interrupted before Izuku could continue, "Of a student, we only expect the willingness to learn, child. If you wish for guidance, ask, and whoever accepts to tutor you will be responsible for the rest." What she did not expect was for the girl to turn to Ranni with her bright red eyes.
"Can you… Can you teach me how not to make anyone else vanish?" Her tone, small and insecure, was still like a hammer to Ranni's mind.
She was no teacher. She was no caretaker. She was no mo-
Izuku slipped closer, a smug smirk on his lips that annoyed Ranni to no end, "Looks like you got a fan."
"You were the one to save her. If anything, she should be your responsibility."
"You're the one still carrying her." He pointed out, while his grin widened. "And the one who kept her safe while I was on trash disposal duty."
"...You are an insufferable fool, do you know that?"
Somehow, Izuku's smirk stretched further, "I'm your fool." He pulled from the aether the Darkmoon Greatsword, lifting it to catch the moonlight and glint an ethereal dark blue. "You dear fool, eternal!" He cackled, stepping away from the blast zone.
Ranni would strangle that miscreant one day. With a sigh, she started to walk to the beach's exit, "Come, child, let us leave."
"Hey, wait up!" Izuku hurried back, but Ranni ignored him. And kept at it for most of the way back while Izuku whined.
Finally, at the door to the family apartment, Ranni glanced at Izuku, "How do you plan to explain to Lady Inko what had transpired?"
Izuku chuckled at how Ranni still made sure to refer to his mother as if she were a queen, but only when the woman wasn't there to hear it and protest. "Bold of you to think I have a plan. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing." Without giving Ranni a chance to chew him, Izuku unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Inko was quick to greet them, "Hey, you two, I was getting worried…" She trailed off, seeing Eri in Ranni's arms, still hugging both the woman and her new narwhal plushy.
"I told you two not to have too much fun!"
—
Toshinori sat down on his living room main couch with a tired sigh, "Thank you for coming, Gran."
The old man, still dressed in his white and yellow hero costume, leaned back on his own couch, facing Toshinori's, and gave his old student a sharp stare, "You have some nerve, brat. You don't call me for years, years! Then out of nowhere, you call me up and demand I come all the way here." Gran Torino gave an unamused huff. "This better be good."
"No, it isn't. It is the farthest thing from good you can imagine." Toshinori felt like hitting himself for how monumentally stupid he was. If his successor hadn't pointed it out, would Toshinori have gone his whole life without knowing? Would he have left his unfinished business to someone else? The thought alone made his nonexistent stomach churn.
"What the hell are you all moppy about? You're too old to be sulking like a teenager." Torino rolled his eyes, but when Toshinori only remained deadly silent, he got serious. "Fine! What could be so bad? Did All For One come back from the dead or something?"
Silence.
"No. Shut up. You can't be serious." Gran Torino's incredulous denial quickly turned into anger. "You punched that bastard's brain off his damn head! You saw the body! You saw the damn body be cremated for fuck sake!"
"I didn't see the body being cremated. I just saw it being taken to be cremated." Toshinori still couldn't believe he failed there, at the home stretch. "And I just learned that this was a horrible, terrible mistake."
"Stop kicking yourself over it." A new voice joined them. Having let himself in was none other than Tsukauchi Naomasa. The detective had a collection of files and a tablet under his arm, a serious frown on his face. "We were all dealing with the fallout, and you were fresh out of surgery and missing multiple organs."
"You two can't actually believe that monster is alive. He was missing half his fucking head!" Gran felt his blood pressure spiking. "What makes you idiots think he's still kicking?!"
"This." Tsukauchi put the tablet down on the center table, already playing a video from a security camera. It was part of the sealed archives of anything relating to the All For One, that of the transport of the body to cremation, showing the gurney with the body bag being pushed down a necrotary's hallway. In the middle of the footage, the camera malfunctioned for exactly 7 seconds before turning back on. "See the problem?"
"Why the guy pushing the gurney didn't move for seven whole seconds, where the camera 'coincidentally' decided to die, and went back to walking when it was back on. The timestamp shows the seconds passed, so it wasn't just a problem on the video." Gran Torino, now with a deadly calm, listed off the obvious problem on the footage. He was not some smart-ass who had super intelligence, but he was an old war horse who did his fair share of detective work over the years. Torino could smell a whole fish market on this, so fishy it was. "Bastard, he actually managed to pull the wool over us."
Toshinori nodded, "Yes, and while I'm currently praying to every single one of the eight million Kami of Japan and whatever other deity I know to this be some of his old fanatics recovering their master's body to enshrine like the god he pretended to be, we are not that lucky. My money is on not even hell wanting that monster." While the chance of All For One surviving wasn't zero, the safe bet was to assume he was out there somewhere and biding his time to come for round 2.
"Never took you for the spiritual type." Tsukauchi idly commented while pulling more documents to corroborate their findings.
"Blame my successor." The hero admitted with a chuckle.
That got Gran's attention, "Well, I'll be… So you finally found the ninth?"
"Yes. Or more accurately, he found me." Twice, because somehow, Toshinori was lucky enough to have the one coming back from the other side just to all but spell to Toshinori that he needed to shape up. "He was actually the one to point out I didn't do my due diligence when seeing All For One off. And now, here we are."
"You told him about it right off the bat? I thought you would stall, seeing we thought him dead." Tsukauchi knew his friend, and All Might, for all his speed, had a problem with dragging his feet when the subject was important conversations. Just look at the situation with Nighteye.
"I, uh, didn't." Toshinori was not eager to go into the topic of the Vestiges, or what they told Izuku during the transfer. Thankfully, that was the moment his phone went off.
"A PHONE CALL IS HERE! A PHONE CALL IS HERE!"
Gran shot him a flat stare, "'You serious?"
"Sorry! Just let me- oh, it's actually him." Speaking of the devil… Toshinori felt it would be for the best if he never used the turn of phrase with Ranni within hearing distance, at least not when pointed at young Midoriya. "Just give me a second." He accepted the call.
The older hero and detective watched as Toshinori could not even get a word in before the voice from the other side bombarded him with a barrage of words. After a minute, Toshinori held the bridge of his nose, "Excuse me, what?!" Another whole minute of hearing to the line, before he signed. "Look, don't go anywhere and don't talk to anyone else. Stay put, I'll be there in a minute." He hung up.
Torino raised an amused brow, "What did your brat do?"
"If I understood it right, his date was interrupted by a criminal organization he just single-handedly dismantled. And now he has a rescued child in his house and has absolutely no idea what to do." Toshinori summarized the best he could while getting up and going for his truck's keys. "Is that how it was with me? This weird mix of pride and exasperation that just leaves you really tired and feeling very old?"
"Yes. Welcome to the club." Gran Torino also stood, grabbing his cane and going for the front door. "Now come on, let's go see how bad the damage is."
"I have to go too, right?" The detective asked with a knowing sigh.
"Yup."
"I'm not getting to ride shotgun, right?"
"Nope."
"Dammit."
—
Izuku opened his door to the sight of Yagi in his gaunt form, an old and hunched old man in a hero suit, and the dictionary picture for when you look up "police detective". "In my defense, it was not my fault."
All three of them gave him flat looks. It was Yagi who asked, "And how do you take down a crime syndicate by accident?"
"By literally stumbling onto it. We were just coming back from our date, and then the next thing I know, multiple Yakuza are tragically tripping into my closed fist…or my sword." Izuku stepped aside and gestured with his head. "Now please come in, or the neighbors are gonna think I'm some type of delinquent who got in trouble with the law."
"Kid, you are in trouble with the law." The old man chuckled while entering the apartment and taking off his boots, which Izuku noted had holes on the soles that matched the ones on his feet. Some type of propulsion quirk?
"Don't mind Gran Torino, you're not actually in trouble." Yagi tried to reassure him.
"Yet. As an officer, I have to advise you to cooperate." The last member of the group butted in. "Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa." He offered Izuku a polite bow that the boy returned in kind. What? Respect was earned, but manners were free.
"While I will do my absolute best to answer your questions, try anything funny and you are not gonna like what happens," Izuku warned.
The detective raised a brow at Izuku, "Are you sure you should be threatening me?"
"Oh, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm just gonna kick back and watch my wife do her thing. Anyway, tea?" Let no one say Izuku was a poor host.
Naomasa stared at the boy's back as he went to the kitchen, probably to get started on said tea. Turning to Toshi, he whispered, "Did he say wife?"
"Yup."
"Isn't he fifteen?"
"Yup."
"And why are you not commenting on said wife apparently threatening people?"
"She did it to me enough times that I learned to pick my battles." Toshinori was scared of a very small number of people. Ranni made the list with just her glare. Suppressing a shiver, Toshinori dragged his friend along, "Now let's get going before Torino starts a fight."
They moved to the living room, where Ranni was sitting on the main sofa with a beautifully made yukata while holding a small girl who tried to hide her face while keeping an eye on the new guests. Gran had stopped by their side, giving both a measuring look that quickly softened at the state of the girl.
Izuku, along with his mother, chose that time to come over with a kettle and cups for everyone. "Yagi, Detective Tsukauchi, old man, I don't know, this is my mother, Midoriya Inko."
"H-hello." Unlike her completely nonchalant son, the woman looked two seconds away from a panic attack.
"Oh, hi there, lassy." Gran adopted his "harmless elder" voice and greeted her with a smile. "This little one seems to be in a bad state. I know it is a bit much, but could I bother you by asking to bathe her?" He waved a hand to show her tattered clothes and loose bandages, but on a close look, presented a suspicious lack of wounds. "Kids of this age are easy to fall sick, you know how it is."
And just like that, the Midoriya matriarch was both mollified while at the same time she squared up in a way only a mother could. "Of course. I didn't want to miss welcoming you when Izuku told me he was getting in contact with his coach, who had ties to heroes." She shot her son a look, who answered with a little smile that showed he knew exactly what he did and had absolutely no regrets. "But it would be best if I made sure little Eri is taken care of. Can I trust you two to handle things?"
It was obvious she was asking mostly Ranni after the stunt her son pulled, and the other woman simply gave a dignified nod before trying to separate from Eri. Key word being trying. The girl was holding onto her as her life depended on it, which Ranni noticed but did not understand why, "Let go now, child. You need to get cleaned."
Eri refused to release Ranni, but she was also too scared to say anything with all the people watching her. That was when Izuku came to her side and gently coaxed the girl to look at him. "Eri, it's okay. You see her?" He pointed at Inko. "That's my mom. She took care of me since I was even smaller than you. She helped me to grow big and strong like I am now." Izuku summarily ignored the snicker at the "big" part. "She's the best. If you go with her now, she's gonna take care of you just like she took care of me when I was your age. I promise you'll be a-okay."
The little girl looked at Inko for a long moment, the woman giving her an encouraging smile while tears filled her eyes at her son's words, then she turned back to Izuku, "Promise?"
"Knight's word!" He smiled at her. "And a knight can never go back on his word."
"Why?"
"Because if he does, his princess will be very mad at him." Izuku traded a glance with Ranni, seeing her very placid expression. "Very, very mad."
Eri turned to Ranni, as if asking for permission. The Goddess only offered a nod, but that was enough. Slowly, the child let go and slipped out of Ranni's hold, standing on her own and walking to Inko. The mother, having raised a shy boy, knew what to do. Without saying anything, she offered a hand, and when Eri accepted, she guided the girl away while speaking in a low tone to help soothe her nerves.
The occupants of the living room waited for the click of the bathroom door closing before starting. Gran Torino was the one to speak first, "Okay, brat, that bought us enough time to get the gritty details out of the way before your mother has to hear anything. Now spill it."
"What Gran is trying to say is that you can feel free to speak to us, Young Midoriya. On your own time." Yagi shot the elder a look before sitting down on the couch beside Tsukauchi, with Torino taking the final spot with a grumble.
Izuku, first of all, filled the cups of his guests. Then he filled the cup for his Moonlight, then he filled and threw back his own cup as if it was something much stronger than tea, and not nearly as hot. "Okay, from the top. I was having an absolutely amazing date with my absolutely amazing wife, Ranni, who can corroborate my story, when a child ran into us while we were making our way to the station to come back." He plopped back on the couch beside Ranni and let out a long-suffering groan. "That was the part where we calmed down the child and realized she looked like a victim from a slasher movie. When we found her, Eri was only wearing a tattered medical gown that showed she had multiple bandages on her limbs that were doing little to treat her wounds."
"Wounds she doesn't have anymore." Torino pointed out.
"I healed her after getting home."
"How?"
That actually got Izuku to stop his tirade. Turning to Yagi, he asked the man with a tilted head, "How much did you tell them?"
"We only learned you existed right before you called this big lug." Torino was the one to answer, making Yagi chuckle awkwardly.
Izuku facepalmed, "Yeah, sure. Great! Anyway, I got treated to the good ol' multiverse experience. Was sent to a dystopian fantasy-esque place called the Lands Between. Got roped into a civil holy war where multiple Demigods were fighting for their 'rightful place' as the ruler of everything and everyone under the light of the Erdtree." He gave them a flat look. "Imagine a tree twice the height of Everest that glowed and was the symbol of a God's providence and dominion over the land."
Gran Torino sighed, sounding his age for a change, "And here I thought your trip to fight a Kaiju was bad enough. Great, so you learned how to heal people over there?"
"Yeah. Healing Incantations are great to make sure you don't die after fighting a dragon, a giant, a mutated dog that looks more like a T-rex, or a damn giant lobster." At the last one, he shot Ranni a glare.
"I still do not understand your vendetta against simple prawn." Ranni, who had been examining the three men's reactions carefully, answered her Lord without diverting her eyes from them.
"You would if you got shot out of the saddle by a lobster sniper five kilometers away." Izuku hated Liurnia just about as much as he hated the Lands Between in general. Nature just had to show she was the meaner one, and in a land of eldritch horrors, that was saying something. "Back on topic, Eri was hurt and scared. That was when a guy with a plague doctor theme showed up with his groupies. We knew they were villains. They knew we knew. We skipped right to the part where we have a long and profound conversation with our fists as the medium, and I showed I'm a great conversationalist."
Detective Tsukauchi took that moment to interrupt, "You know what you did was illegal, right? Engaging a villain or criminal while utilizing your quirk is against the law."
Ranni now joined the conversation properly; her Lord needed his actions defended and his detractors brutally put down. "The Good Samaritan laws grant that when in the defense of another, actions taken that prevent damages caused to the well-being of yourself and others are acceptable. The addendum of the utilization of quirks voids said laws' protection, unless a clear threat against one's life is presented and avenues of escape or communication so as to request help are denied." Ranni listed without a single change of tone, as if she were reading the definition of said laws from a book. She had not been idle while in this new land, and more than that, she studied the structure of power so as not be put on the back foot in the games played by those who had said power.
The detective gave her a surprised stare, but nodded, "That is correct. Can you guarantee you had no means of de-escalation?"
Izuku locked his eyes with Tsukauchi's and said without hesitation, "The leader had a direct contact matter reconfiguration quirk. He opened the street and dropped us in what appeared to be a secret facility under the compound he and his men were using as a base. He clearly said he was gonna kill us to keep quiet, and that he was hurting Eri in a weird scheme to get rid of quirks. They were Yakuza, and the ones dealing with the new wave of Trigger. I was surrounded by hostiles, underground, and the guy just spoke too much to let us leave alive. Do the math." Izuku leaned forward and locked his hands, the red glow of his seal manifesting. "Under the law of ownership of multiversal paranormal objects and disciplines, anything brought from another universe with paranormal nature is considered a quirk or quirk-adjacent under the law."
"That only means all your tricks are still a quirk for all intents and purposes." Torino huffed and crossed his arms, urging the boy to get to the point.
"That means all my tricks were under the clear legal area of being trapped and threatened. Be it the Incantations, my sword, or One For All, all of it had a green card to be used to wreck those idiots the moment they decided a cage death match was a good way to finish the night." Izuku opened his arms in what was the middle point of a rude gesture and a shrug. Ranni so owed Izuku for making Izuku do all this song and dance. They could just tell Yagi everything and let him deal with it, but no! They just had to seem in control of the situation.
Izuku didn't have control even of what he wore anymore. Why the heck did he need to look like he had his life figured out?
Yagi, having let that play out because he saw the way the couple had looked and did not want a repeat from the day before, finally rejoined the conversation. "While I'm glad everything worked out, I still have to ask, how bad was it? You never used One For All before, so I'm understandably worried."
"For the other guys or me?"
"Yes."
That actually made Izuku shrug, "Not a scratch on me, but I did notice that at thirty percent, my joints started to lock up a bit. I might need to keep to twenty until I work that out. The Yakuza were fine if beaten until their boss, Overhaul, decided it would be a great idea to use them as biomass to turn into a giant monster with way too many hands." Because the Godrick school of thinking was not just one from the Lands Between, and Izuku hated it. "I beat Overhaul, used an Incantation to turn the pile of flesh into a pile of unconscious criminals, and then used another to knock them out for a day or two."
"Then you called for help?"
"Then I blew up the ceiling in a way that would catch everybody's attention and make somebody check and find the OSHA violation those guys were committing, along with whatever crimes against humanity they were hiding down there." Izuku tried his best not to think about it because if he did, there was a non-negligible chance he would go back and nuke the place to the ground. "But again, we all are in on some state secrets with One For All and whatnot, so let's focus on the important part."
"And that would be?" Gran Torino took in a deep breath and somehow managed not to fly off the handle. He still had many things he was pissed about, but he would make them known later, after they settled this mess.
"Eri. What happens to her now?"
Silence. Heavy, uncomfortable silence. Izuku held his stare at the trio sitting opposite Ranni and him while keeping a lid on his slowly growing annoyance. He understood that Gran Torino and Detective Tsukauchi did not know them or what they were capable of. They had reason to doubt them from their perspective, and they could freely do it; Izuku was not so egocentric as to feel entitled to how other people think. What got on his nerves was that they had a much more sensible problem, and they were wasting time with posturing and decorum.
Well, Izuku was officially out of patience. Sorry, Moonlight, but he was going off script. "Okay, let's stop this circus. We know that quirk trafficking usually means the person's said quirk is attached to is nabbed out of the margins of society, or they are just a kid with barely any identification to begin with. Money's on Eri not existing in the system, so she's basically free game to anyone with less than good intentions." He started to list on his fingers before anyone could protest. "Not limited to other quirk traffickers, villain groups, the government, or the HPSC." Izuku gave them all a flat stare. "Because we all know where we live."
Yagi cleaned his throat, "Young Midoriya, while I understand why you say that, it is not like that-"
"Lady Nagant." Izuku cut the hero off. "An acclaimed pro hero who was the face for the HPSC, suddenly murders the president at the time, and then gets instantly shipped to Tartarus without so much as a trial. Just then, suddenly, mysterious cases of heroes and villains and politicians getting assassinated basically stop overnight." He tilted his head while rubbing his neck exaggeratedly. "Do I need to keep going?"
Torino snorted, "Damn, the brat actually has a brain. And here I was worried you would have chosen another meathead like you." The elderly hero laughed while leaning back on the couch. It was not a nice laugh. "Yes, brat, you're right. The government is corrupt, the Commission has more skeletons in its closet than a graveyard, and everyone who thinks they're anyone would love to grab the apparent source of the souped-up Trigger flooding the streets, even if said source is a little girl who should not know the world is not a nice place. You are up to your neck in shit, and you sure as hell don't have a paddle. What do you propose then?" He stared down the kid, daring Izuku to surprise him.
Izuku stayed silent for a single second, then decided that, screw it, he was doing something stupid again. He just hoped he would not land himself in the dog house for long. "How okay are you guys with altering public records?"
Tsukauchi sputtered, "That's illegal!"
"Shut up, brat. I saw you shooting a man's balls off, you don't get to complain about messing with some papers." Torino shot the man with a glare that could melt steel.
The detective did not back down, "That time was an emergency, he was coming at me while on fire, I had to shoot."
"I remember the academy teaching to go center mass, not for the family jewels."
"I missed."
"No, you didn't."
While the two bickered, Toshinori tried to understand where his successor was getting at with- "Ah, you want to make it seem like Eri came with you two from the Lands Between."
The greatest reaction came from, surprisingly, Ranni, who turned to Izuku sharply with a cold and very annoyed glare. "No."
"C'mon, one person more, one person less, it's not all that much in the grand scheme of- No, that's a bunch of crap." Izuku did not even try to entertain the notion that he was asking for something small. But he knew he was asking for something right, and that was enough for him. "The point is, Eri has no one, and I take personal offense to that. We put on the papers she's ours, and suddenly the world has to go through us before getting to her, and I like those odds."
Ranni was not moved by his altruism, "And what, will you take personal offense to every child dealt a bad hand by fate?"
Now it was Izuku's turn to seem unimpressed, "You know very well that the answer to that is yes. Yes, I will. I will take as a personal offense every single thing wrong with the work, and I will fix it with my own two hands if I have to." At her cold, he did not back down. Izuku knew his Moonlight needed someone to chop her on the head and explain that upstanding morality was never a bad thing. "You know me, you know it's true. You also know very well I'm asking for your help, and I will understand if you choose to keep out of this, but I'm not giving up. I'm asking for you to do this with me, but if you don't, then I'm doing it alone."
"So, my opinion has no weight on your decision?" Her tone did not change, but her frigid tone was literally frosting over the air around her.
Izuku did not react when ice crept over his side, "It has all the weight here. If you said you don't want to do this, I'm not gonna force you. I'll do this on my own, and I'll make sure it won't trouble you." He leaned forward, face frosting with the cold. "But I still think this is the right thing to do, so I'm gonna do it. I told you already, it's not a matter of pride, it's not a matter of ego, it's simply the right thing to do. I could turn away, but then I would not be myself, and I prefer dying than giving up ever again."
Ranni kept her glacial anger going for another second before she relented. That same stubbornness was what saw her Age of Stars installed and her life freed from the clutches of her Two Fingers. It was why she accepted Izuku as her Lord Consort in the end. Being offended by it now would be the height of idiocy. And calming herself, she understood that Izuku gave her a choice in the end, and he was willing to sacrifice himself to respect it. "You are most vexing when you want to be, my Starlight. Fine, fine! You want to proceed with your foolhardy plan? Then I will accompany you, but know that I will handle matters at my discretion."
"Thanks, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, and without you, I would be in big trouble," Izuku admitted without a speck of shame, gently linking his hand with Ranni's.
The Goddess sighed profoundly, but at the end squeezed back her Starlight's hand and nodded to the trio who had watched the couple's quick argument. "Pardon our lack of decorum. Now, how soon can you alter the public records to add Eri to the register of multiversal registration?" Something Ranni still found ridiculous, but played along for her Starlight's sake.
Yagi, seeing the danger had passed, coughed a concerning amount of blood and went back to the topic at hand. "Are you two sure? This will be a big responsibility. There are other ways."
"How many of those other ways do you actually trust?" Izuku asked, and Yagi's silence was his answer. One could not become the top hero of the world without learning how it really worked. "There's that. So, we're going with our plan. Don't worry, I'm sure from all the many, many stupid ideas I had, this one is the most harmless."
Ranni again squeezed his hand, but not fondly this time. "You do understand you, and by consequence me, will be responsible for a child, do you not?"
"I said most harmless, not the best. I just count my lucky stars that I won't have to deal with an orbital laser." Which was saying a lot. "C'mon, I'm sure we will manage."
Izuku would later remember those words and regret ever taunting fate. And much later, he would look back to them and admit that no matter what all the filth of society said or did, he was right. They managed it just fine.
Look, I don't even know anymore. We were supposed to have finished the Entrance Exam in the last chapter, but the characters decided to do their thing, and I'm just writing the damage report. So yes, Izuku decided to style on the Yakuza and establish his way overleveled to most of MHA by now. We get a glimpse of just how deep the hole goes on the conspiracy front, on all fronts. Eri gets rescued and kinda adopted? Ranni is not really on board with the idea, but Izuku has a chronic problem of getting involved in other people's problems, which is, by extension, Ranni's problem.
I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I blame the idiots in the discord server. See you guys when I see you. Later!
Oh yeah. Also, of course, here are the good hearts that threw a coin to their author and are still supporting me. Applause for the great:
Sleppt, Guipa, SilverZero90, Godeater23, Thomas, Matthew Merrill, Veonix, and kennine.
My most heartfelt thanks to you all!
Also, join the discord and the rest of the idiots that make crap like this happen (Remember to delete the spaces!)
discord . gg / stAGY4V