Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku grit his teeth when his alarm started blaring at him. He turned his back to it in the hope it would get the hint and turn itself off. He sat there trying to ignore it for a few more seconds before he pried his eyes open. All Might's shining grin drilled into him until he could no longer justify laying uselessly in bed.

"You win again, All Might," Izuku grumbled as he swatted at his alarm.

He dragged himself to the bathroom to fix his bedhead in an attempt to hide the evidence of him staying up till three in the morning on sketchy quirk blogs again.

After he finished up in the bathroom, he popped back into his room to put his uniform on and pack all of his schoolwork into his backpack. He decided to just carry his notebook in his hands, in case he had a stray thought over breakfast.

He scowled at the bruises littering his arms that became visible as he pulled on his shirt. "Stupid bullies," he muttered.

He hissed when his sleeve rubbed over the red sheen of a burn on his forearm. "Stupid Kacchan," he seethed a bit louder.

He took a second to glare at the floor and calm his thoughts before he headed down to the kitchen to help his mom with breakfast.

"Good morning, Mom," he said as he walked over to the cupboard to grab some coffee.

"Good morning, sweetie," his mom responded. "If you're looking for coffee, I hate to say it, but we ran out."

"Really?" Izuku groaned. Maybe it was a mistake to stay up late after all.

"Don't worry, I'll pick some up on my way home from work this evening." She replied and then, with a sly grin, added, "I'm sure you can go one day without a cup of coffee, Izuku. Besides, it's your own fault for staying up so late."

Izuku rolled his eyes slightly before he responded, "Yeah, yeah, Mom, just because you go to bed at nine doesn't mean I have to as well." 

He grabbed some plates and utensils on his way over to the table. He tossed his hero notebook down before heading over to the fridge to grab a container of orange juice. 

He had to maneuver around his mom, who was spooning some eggs onto their plates on his way back. Once he sat down, he poured some juice for his mom and then filled his own glass.

"Thanks for breakfast," He mumbled around a bit of toast.

"You’re welcome, dear." 

He noticed her eying his hero notebook with a hint of disapproval. He hastily slid it into his backpack. 

"You have your career aptitude counseling for school coming up in a few weeks, right?" She asked him.

"Yes…?" Izuku answered hesitantly.

"Do you have any new ideas for it?"

"Well, you know I'm going to put UA as my first choice no matter what. Other than that, I don't really know. I suppose I could put Shinketsu or one of the other hero schools on as well." Izuku rambled even though he knew that was exactly what his mom wouldn't want to hear.

"Honey, I know you want to be a hero, but you should maybe have some backup choices in case it doesn't work out." She had the same look of worry in her eyes that she always did when he brought up his dream of being a hero.

He scowled at the table, and then said, "I know I can do it, mom. I can get in even without a quirk. I'll just have to work harder, is all."

Internally he was questioning if that was true. He could theoretically get into one of the other schools quirkless as they have less rigorous entrance exams. That would also serve the dual purpose of avoiding Kacchan's ire in the future. However, he really, really wanted to go to UA.

She didn't look overly happy about it, but he knew she would try to avoid directly announcing her dissatisfaction with his choice. As he had predicted, she unsubtly changed the subject. "Speaking of your quirk, I think we should consider taking you back in to see a quirk specialist. It has been a few years since we last had you checked. Maybe something has popped up."

He sighed quietly before he replied, "You know that's pretty much pointless, mom. There's no way I'm getting a quirk at this point, and I refuse to waste effort hoping for one. We shouldn't waste our time going back to hear the doctor say the same thing." 

He stood from the table and grabbed his bag before heading over to the door. He stopped with his hand on the hand before giving in and tossing a goodbye over his shoulder. 

After the door shut behind him, he sighed once again. She kept insisting that a quirk could randomly show up. The toe joint was a very good indicator of quirklessnes, but it's wasn’t perfect. He could still theoretically have one, but the odds were so small that it would do him no good to wait at this point. And even if he did have a quirk, it would have shown up by now.

He kicked at a pebble as he walked past the old park that he used to play at before his quirk didn’t show up. After that, it wasn't worth the effort to even go, when it would just mean more opportunities for Kacchan and his cronies to beat him up.

Finally, he reached that last crosswalk before the school. He hurried his pace slightly when he saw Kacchan turning the corner down the road.

In the hopes of avoiding him until class started, Izuku took a detour to the bathroom. No point in tempting fate by sitting in class for a few extra minutes, after all. 

Once the warning bell rang, he quickly walked over to class and slid into his seat. The teacher gave him the stink eye for cutting it so close to the bell. But then again, he would probably find a reason to glare at Izuku if he was doing something wrong or not.

Morning classes dragged on as usual. The teacher lacklusterly droned about this or that. At some point, some kids started passing notes. It ended when one landed on Kacchan's desk, and he incinerated it with a quick blast of his quirk. 

Of course, for a future hero, the teacher didn't even bat an eye despite the blatant public quirk usage.

For lunch, Izuku took his food to a corner of the school near the bathroom he’d hid in that morning. This wing of the school mainly had second and first years, and they were all in class in that moment.

After eating, he headed back to the classroom a little bit early to avoid giving the teacher another thing to chastise him about. 

Izuku was slightly nervous about history after lunch, seeing as they were getting their tests back. He wanted his score to beat Kacchan's. He was pretty sure he had it, and if he did, then he would have finally taken the top spot in class back. 

The victory was sweet when he saw Kacchan's 97 compared to his own 98. And it was even sweeter seeing Kacchan notice the same thing. 

"Fucking Deku," Izuku heard Kacchan mutter when the teacher walked off to the other side of the classroom.

Unfortunately, the good feeling didn't last long since he knew that Kacchan would just take his anger out on him once class got out.

Izuku tried to rush out of the classroom when the bell rang but got slowed down by the rush of bodies out the door. He considered hiding in the bathroom again but quickly discarded the idea in fear of Kacchan catching on to where he always disappeared to between classes. 

He had managed to make it to the park midway between school and his house when Kacchan finally caught up to him.

"Why are you running away, Deku!?" Kacchan snarled at him.

Izuku nervously checked the light to see if it had turned green yet before responding. "I- I'm not running away, Kacchan, I'm just hurrying home, is all!"

"Yeah, right, you loser. Don't get a big head just because you scored better than me on some stupid test." Kacchan sneered at him before adding under his breath, "You only got that score since you’re such a fucking nerd anyways."

"Th-That's not true, Kacchan! I did better than you because I worked harder. That's all," Izuku said, nervous about defending himself.

Kacchan's scowl deepened at that before he shouted, "What was that! You think you're better than me?!"

Kacchan placed a smoking hand on his shoulder, and Izuku winced.

Kacchan leaned closer to him and said, "You don't have a snowball's chance of ever beating me at anything that actually matters." 

He shoved Izuku out of the way before heading to cross the road. He cursed when he saw that it was still red. 

While they waited, Izuku tried to subtly inch away from him. Unfortunately, Kacchan noticed his movement and turned back to him. His eyes traveled down to the notebook that Izuku was still holding on the off chance he saw any quirks on the way home.

Izuku saw Kacchan's weight shift an instant before he swiped at it and hopped back towards the road to avoid it. He moved the notebook out of the way when Kacchan swiped at it again. He seemed to be getting annoyed at missing if the furious expression on his face was anything to go by.

Izuku thought that Kacchan had given up when he relaxed, but it was a bluff. He abruptly darted forward, and Izuku failed to react in time. They had a brief tugging war, which Izuku promptly lost when Kacchan held up a sparking palm. Izuku waited for his quirk to go out and lunged at him to try and get it back before it exploded. Kacchan shoved a hand into his face and held him away from it.

"Give that back, Kacchan!" Izuku said, trying to fight his eyes, which had begun watering in frustration.

"Or what, Deku, are you going to cry on me?" Kacchan taunted.

Kacchan took a step towards Izuku and shoved him again. "You wouldn't be able to beat me for a hundred years, even if you had a quirk." Kacchan waved the notebook around tauntingly before pushing him again, "You will never be anything but some quirkless nobody, so there's no point in carrying this piece of shit around with you."

Izuku had to take a step back towards the road to avoid falling over.

"Just a useless Deku," Kacchan finished and shoved him one last time before turning to leave.

But as Izuku stumbled backward, his foot got caught on a bottle left lying on the sidewalk and was sent flailing over into the road.

Kacchan's eyes widened, and he screamed, "Deku, move!" as he rushed forward. 

It was only then that Izuku noticed a vehicle barreling at him. The last thing he saw before being struck by the truck was Kacchan's horrified expression. Then all he felt was burning pain across most of his body and a weird ripping sensation. And finally, the sensation of his mind being engulfed by all-encompassing darkness before being whisked away.

Chapter Text

Katsuki just stood there staring as it happened. One second Deku was on the sidewalk, the next he was lying on the road in a puddle of blood. He ran over to him, barely paying attention to where his feet landed. 

He stumbled to his knees next to Deku and put his hand near his nose to check for breathing. Nothing. He lowered his ear down next to see if he could hear anything. Still nothing. 

“Deku! Wake up!” He yelled as he lightly shook his shoulder.

He looked up frantically when he heard tires on the pavement. In the distance the truck was going around the bend. He felt anger surge through him, knowing that the driver did not even stop to see what they hit.

He began to taste bile in the back of his throat, looking at Deku’s lifeless face. His eyes had already taken on a glassy sheen. He moved closer to the body and started shaking him again, screaming, “Wake the fuck up Deku! Wake up! You can't have died to a goddamn truck.” 

He felt like an idiot when he realized he’d never even called an ambulance. With shaky hands he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 119. He barely noticed the bloody fingerprints on the screen as he brought it up to his ear.

“119, what’s your emergency?”

He tried to speak but the words got caught in his throat. Still he managed to tell the operator in a choked voice, “Send an ambulance...”

“Sir? Where are you and what’s your emergency?”

“ We are on… fuck!” Katsuki looked around desperately for a road sign. Spotting one, he told the operator the closest intersection. “How long until they get here?”

“I don't have an exact estimate on the time, it will likely be a few minutes until help can get there. But first, I need you to tell me what happened.”

“He’s not breathing, he got hit by a fucking truck and he’s not breathing. And he’s got blood everywhere…”

“Does he have a pulse?”

Katsuki lowered the phone from his ear and bent over to place his fingers on Deku’s wrist, feeling nothing. He moved them to his neck and dug in his fingers in an attempt to find any sort of pulse. 

“Come on you bastard you can't be dead.” he muttered under his breath. He felt his eyes start to burn, staring down at the blood still sluggishly seeping out of the split where Deku’s head had hit the pavement.

“What was that, sir?” The operator asked, sounding slightly confused.

“He doesn't have a-a pulse,” his voice cracked halfway through the sentence. He noticed the phone screen had tears mixed in with the blood. He dropped the phone on the ground and stared distantly at Deku’s lifeless face. He hardly noticed the emergency operator’s voice asking for him over the ringing in his ears.

He must have zoned out because he started out of his stupor to the sound of sirens blaring next to him. He looked up to see paramedics jumping out of the ambulance, two of them bringing over a stretcher. A paramedic crouched down to start assessing Deku's condition. 

She gently tried to pry his hand off where he had unconsciously grabbed onto Deku's shoulder. He squeezed harder before realizing that he needed to let go for them to have any chance of helping.

One of them, a man with two sets of eyes, walked over to him and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me sir but could you please identify him?”

“Deku,” Katsuki stated quietly.

“Deku? Any family name?”

“Shit, I mean Izuku, Izuku Midoriya.”

“Do you know his next of kin’s contact information?”

He felt his stomach drop when he thought about Auntie Inko, shit, he had just murdered her only son. She would be heartbroken. The paramedic lightly shook his shoulder when he saw Katsuki start breathing faster. “You need to take some deep breaths.”

Katsuki jerked away from him and started counting his breaths. He began holding it for several seconds and then letting it out slowly.

“Good, that's better, now can you tell me what happened here?” 

Looking up at the paramedic, he realized that if he told him what really happened he would basically be confessing to murder, accidental or not. Instead of responding he just stared back to where Deku was being loaded into the ambulance.

“Can you give me a parent or guardian’s phone number so I can call them to come get you?” the paramedic prodded.

Katsuki shook his head and took a few steps away from him. The paramedic tried approaching him again, but Katsuki had already made up his mind to leave after seeing the doors of the ambulance slam shut. He turned around and ran.

Not really noticing where he was going, he tripped a few times but never enough to make him stop. A mantra of ‘shit shit shit’ ran through his head as he ran away. He couldn't deal with this. He was never going to be a hero now, murderers couldn’t be heroes.

He had almost made it to the old creek they used to play in, when he heard something odd in his head. 

“Wh-where am I ? ”

A pause.

“What's going on, why am I running?” 

The voice sounded scared and confused, but other than that he couldn’t make out any details. Deciding that he was hallucinating, he ignored it and didn’t respond.

“Hey! Can you stop? Whoever this is running.” he heard the voice say. Under its breath, he heard it mutter, “Maybe my body was hijacked or something, or maybe a mind control quirk?”

“Hello?” The voice asked, this time a little louder.

“What the hell,” Katsuki panted, looking around to make sure there was nowhere else for the voice to be coming from.

“Kacchan!?” It said, sounding surprised, “What’s going on?”

“Deku!?” oddly enough, as soon as he recognized the voice as Deku’s it started to sound exactly like him. He stopped running in surprise, “Why is your voice in my fucking head, Deku!?”

“I don’t know! I'm as confused as you are. What happened?”

“You're dead, that's what happened.” he put his hands on his head and took a few steps backwards. “Now I'm imagining your voice in my head.”

“Oh, right, the truck.” Deku suddenly sounded much more forlorn rather than confused. “But if I'm dead, why did I wake up in your head?”

“What the hell makes you….” he started to shout, but then realized that there were a few families walking nearby giving him strange looks. 

“What the hell makes you think I would know?” he continued quietly under his breath. Turning round and walking down the stream away from the parents and kids, he asked Deku, “What is the last thing you remember?” He was still unsure that this was really happening.

“Well uh, you were yelling at me and you shoved me. I remember tripping on a bottle or something and falling into the road but that's about it.” Deku paused for a moment and then added, “I remember this weird tearing sensation, almost like I was floating away.”

Katsuki internally panicked, still thinking that he might be going crazy imagining the voice of his now dead childhood friend. He felt the sweat that had built up from his impromptu run turn cold at the thought.

“Well, there is an easy way to test it. I will say something you don't know, but I do, that is also something you can verify.”

“Fine, tell me something then.” Katsuki's heart was beating loudly, the frenzied pace amplifying the sound of it rushing past his eardrums.

He could hear Deku muttering as he thought about his answer, before finally responding with an excited, “Oh, I know! My hero notebook on page 35, there is a section on Kamui Woods. There should be a bit talking about if making wood makes his appetite increase towards the end of the page.”

“And where the hell is your notebook, Deku? That was a stupid idea,” He unconsciously gritted his teeth, even in his imagination Deku was still a fucking idiot.

“Hey! I am not an idiot, Kacchan. You do realize it's in your hand, right?”

Looking down at his left hand, he did indeed have Deku’s bloody notebook clutched in a white knuckled grip. He must have picked it back up after calling the ambulance. Feeling suddenly detached, he opened it up to page 35, and there at the bottom of the page was a section talking about Kamui Wood’s appetite.

“What the hell!” Katsuki burst out, “Why the fuck would you be in my head, Deku?” 

Deku was quiet for a few seconds, before responding, “I have a theory but it’s iffy. You know how I never got a quirk?” under his breath he muttered, ‘who am i kidding you never left me alone about it’ before continuing, “What if I have a quirk that is like some kind of mind transference or something?”

“Why the hell would it have never activated before, then?”

“Maybe it only activates on death?” He could hear the false cheer in Deku’s voice.

“But why would you end up in my head, then? Why not someone else’s?” Katsuki asked.

Deku paused again to think before answering, “I don't know, it could be anything. Maybe it was because you were closest to me or a similar age to me, it could be because you were the one to kill me or it might be that I have known you for so long. Without a way to experiment there would be no way to find out. I can only die once after all...” he trailed off gloomily.

“I wasn't the one closest to you, that would have been the truck driver. And there are plenty of people around here closer to you in age, you have always been young for our grade.” Katsuki, unfortunately, had a sneaking suspicion about the mystery behind Deku’s quirk but really didn’t want to say it.

He somehow managed to feel the sensation of Deku nodding even though he was nothing more than a disembodied voice. “Yeah, I agree, and I have known my mom way longer than you…”

Katsuki could tell from the silence that Deku had realized the same thing he had. After a pause, Deku continued, “like I said earlier, it could be anything really, Kacchan! There is no way to know for sure.”

“Cut the shit, Deku, I know you’ve already figured it out. Your quirk only activates upon death? Then it’s more than likely that how it decides which head you end up in relates to your death too.”

Deku’s thoughts were starting to feel sad, he said quietly, “You think it's because you killed me, don't you?”

Katsuki said nothing, just gritting his teeth and concentrating on walking.

“It wasn't your fault, Kacchan, there was no way for you to know what would happen.”

“Of course it's my fault! Your shitty ass quirk seems to think so anyway.” Katsuki was glad that nobody around him was noticing his one-sided conversation with himself.

“Well, we have no way to know for sure how my quirk works, so there is no reason to keep worrying about it.” Deku paused for a second before continuing, “Man it feels so weird to be talking about my quirk.”

“So basically, you have some freaky ass death quirk that only activates when you are killed, and puts your consciousness in the head of whoever did you in?”

“I really don't have very good luck do I, Kacchan?”

“The worst.”

“Hey, at least I'm not quirkless anymore!"

“And what a great way to find out, being fucking murdered!”

Izuku sighed dejectedly.

“Deku?”

“Yeah?”

“This is the worst fucking quirk I’ve ever heard of.”

“Yeah.” he repeated quietly.

Chapter Text

It had been about 20 minutes since Deku had woken up in his head, but it still surprised him a bit every time he would think something, and Deku would pipe up some reply.

“How long are ya going to be in here, then?” God, he hoped he would be able to do something to get Deku back in his body or something. That way he wouldn't have actually killed him.

Deku responded in a somewhat tart tone of voice, “How would I know, Kacchan? You know just as much about my quirk as I do, and there isn’t much body left for me to go back to at this point anyways.” switching to a more consoling tone of voice he continued, “And Kacchan, I don't really blame you for killing me. I know you didn't mean to do it. And just think, I’m kind of still alive so you’re not a real murderer anyways.”

“Dammit Deku, stop reading my thoughts!” it was creepy that not even his innermost thoughts were his own if Deku was paying attention.

Katsuki had left the park by this point and was aimlessly wandering sidewalks. It was difficult to navigate when his stream of thought kept getting interrupted by the nerd piping up about this or that. 

He knew he needed to get home before his mom filed a missing persons report on him or something, but how could he? When doing so would make it so everyone he cared about knew what had happened. He would have to face Auntie Inko and tell her what he had done. And she would know he had murdered her little boy. 

“What do I even tell her, Deku?”

“I don't know either, Kacchan. I never considered how I would tell my mother about my own death before today. And how would we tell her about this?”  

Katsuki got the impression of Deku waving his hand around and gesturing. He assumed he was referring to the cohabitation of his head. 

“She is going to be so sad. I don’t even want to try to tell her about my stupid quirk or whatever this is, I think we should wait a little bit for her to calm down before breaking the news.” 

Katsuki could feel the sadness leaking out of Deku in waves. It was a little concerning how much more sorrowful Deku was about his mom than his own dying.

“They are going to think I’ve fucking lost it. ‘Yeah, the kid that I have known since birth just gruesomely died in front of me, oh by the way mom, I suddenly hear his voice in my head!’ yeah that will go over well.” Katsuki quieted down to a low mutter as he rounded a corner to a more crowded intersection. Great, not only did he have him in his head but now he was forced to do a Deku impression while having a conversation.

“Kacchan, I just thought of another thing, we probably shouldn't advertise this. You know how badly mental quirks are treated. You remember that guy who could make everybody around him feel different emotions based on the colors he was touching?”

Katsuki did, the boy had been a year ahead of them and had been ruthlessly bullied. People were afraid of him. And scared that he would mess with their minds. The teachers had made it so he wasn't allowed to wear colored clothes. He also was forced to wear gloves all the time 

“Your quirk doesn't affect people, Deku, all it does is make you a disembodied voice." He didn’t want to think about all the people at school turning on him.

“All that boy’s quirk did was make you feel a flash of emotion for a few seconds. That didn't stop people from bullying him into the ground. Kacchan, my quirk is a voice in your head telling you things. People are going to be freaked out about it. Especially with the whole murder aspect of it.”

“I can't just not tell people about it, what about my parents? Or your mom? Can’t we tell them?” he knew it would be hard but they had to at least tell Auntie that Deku was still kinda alive.

“I'm just scared, Kacchan, what if they report it and somebody decides it would be better to get rid of me somehow?”

His parents would mean well but he could easily see them reporting it to the quirk registry. And if anybody important got involved it could ruin his chances of becoming a hero. As well as Deku’s chances of survival.

“You’re right, we can't let anybody find out," for now at least, "and we definitely can't tell anybody what really happened.”

“We will tell my mom eventually though. Maybe in a few months, after you’ve proved that you’re fine.”

“I doubt they would even believe me. They would probably just think that I'm crazy instead.” He kicked a can that had been left on the sidewalk.

He then paused when he felt his phone ringing in his back pocket. He reached back for it with the hand not holding the notebook and looked at the caller ID. It was his mom, and she had already called five times apparently. He must have missed it during the confusion of figuring out what the hell was going on with Deku.

“Kacchan, answer your phone.” Deku said, sounding nervous.

Katsuki didn’t know what the fuck he was going to say to his mom about this whole ordeal, but it would be easier to talk to her now. He tapped accept, but had to do it again because the dried blood on the screen was messing with the touchscreen.

Despite the conversations he had been holding with Deku for the last half hour, all he could get out was a subdued, “Mom…”.

“Where the hell are you?! The EMT said you ran off before he could talk to you.” She sounded understandably upset, “Honey you need to get home, your father is there waiting for you, I'm with Inko at the hospital right now.”

Shit shit shit, of course they already know about it - he sped up his walking pace a bit, “Yeah, ok I'm heading home now, I'm sure dad will call you when I get there.” he was about to hang up on her when Deku blurted out a question.

“How is my mom?”  

Realizing that there was no way his mother could have heard him through the phone, Katsuki repeated the question out loud.

“She’s… she is not doing so well Katsuki. This is all so sudden, no one could have seen it coming.” he could hear the tears in his mother's voice and found it disturbing as he had never heard his mom so much as sniffle before. She trailed off, obviously uncomfortable with the topic. “I have to go. I’ll see you soon kiddo, stay safe.” He heard the line go dead as she hung up.

Putting the phone back in his pocket, Katsuki rounded the corner to the last stretch of road before his house. “Do you really agree that I shouldn't tell them? I'm just gonna get away scott free after killing somebody?” 

This seemed to knock Deku out of his contemplation, “I'm sure we will tell my mom eventually, but I don't want you to be treated like I was or worse."

Katsuki felt a guilty lurch in his stomach at that. However Deku sounded certain about it, so Katsuki would follow his decision. If it was what Deku wanted, it was the least he could do to honor him. 

Deku paused for a second before continuing with, “And think about it this way - you have to make it up to me by becoming a hero, for both of us.”  

The firmness in his voice reassured Katsuki about his decision.

---------

The sun had been streaming in from his windows for a few hours now, but Katsuki had decided not to go into school for a bit to avoid his no doubt nosy classmates. Currently, Deku was trying to figure out additional aspects of his quirk. So far nothing had worked.

“Well, it is possible that the extent of my quirk could be mind transference upon death, and since there is no history of mind quirks in my family there would be no way to figure out more. It is a total mutation after all. I just feel like I should be able to do more than that.”

“God, don’t you ever shut up?” he muttered irritably under his breath. “I’m trying to sleep.”

He had since figured out how to communicate with Deku without saying everything out loud, however it was too much work for when he was alone and didn't have to worry about being branded as crazy.

It was actually rather strange how carefree Deku had been about the accident. Hell, Katsuki seemed to care more than Deku, and they were hardly on good terms.

“No, you're not sleeping, you're just brooding. Like you have been since I died.”

Katsuki scowled and bit out, “Why? The hell are you not bothered by this? I fucking killed you and you barely seem to care.”

“Yeah, I have been thinking about that too, I have a few theories about it.” sensing an oncoming mutter storm, Katsuki mentally prepared himself. 

Izuku started to ramble, “It could be that because I no longer have a body I don't have the same hormonal and emotional responses, but I doubt that since I still feel emotions just like I used to. It could be that I haven't fully processed it yet, or most likely I think it has something to do with my quirk. Maybe it makes it so I am less concerned with the idea of my own death.”  

The more Katsuki thought about it the more the third option seemed the most likely. “Quirks almost always adapt your body so you are not damaged from using it.” Katsuki said, deciding that was the most likely explanation for Deku’s nonchalant attitude.

He flexed his hands, noting how he had never blasted the skin from his palms despite letting off explosions that could blast through a tree like tissue paper.

Deku was quiet for a couple minutes before he finally said, “You should go get breakfast, Auntie and Uncle seem really concerned for you.”

Katsuki knew that Deku was right and that he might as well get it over with, so he angrily stood out of bed and stomped over to the door before going down stairs to find some breakfast. 

He walked past his mom’s office and noticed her intent on her work despite the bags under her eyes. He kept going until he found his dad at the kitchen table reading something on his phone. He too looked worn around the edges from lack of sleep. Both of his parents had been working to arrange Deku’s funeral as Auntie Inko was in no state to do so.

“Morning, Dad.”

“Good morning,” his dad responded with. He then placed his phone down on the table face down.

Katsuki gulped, his dad knew he hated talking over breakfast, and would usually keep reading until the food was gone before he started up a conversation.

“Katsuki, you need to eat more. I know you feel guilty about Izuku, but you barely eat anything and pace around your room all night rather than sleeping. This is not a good way to handle your grief.”

Katsuki snatched up an apple and started eating it angrily, his stomach giving a loud groaning sound in hunger. He wasn't trying not to eat. It's just that with all the confusion over Deku he could barely keep his head straight, much less remember things like eating. He barely even tried to sleep anymore, knowing it was futile. 

Izuku only slept for a few hours a night, and even though the nerd tried to stop them, his thoughts would get away from him and start zipping from one thing to another at lightning speed. It was a wonder Deku could even talk, giving the jumbled mess for a brain he had. But it definitely made it impossible for Katsuki to fall asleep.

“Well, why don't you tell the old hag that she looks like she hasn't slept all week.” 

His dad looked disappointed by his pathetic attempt at redirecting the conversation and sighed before saying, “Your mother is not handling it well either, she has known Inko since they were in kindergarten. And Izuku since he was born. Did you know that Izuku's first word was ‘Auntie’? She didn't let Inko live it down for years.” The small smile that had appeared on his face at the memory faded as the present reaffirmed itself.

Katsuki hadn't known that. He had known that his Mom and Auntie Inko were really close, but he didn't know how long they had known each other for. His mom must really be taking it hard. He wished he could tell them about Deku, but knew it probably wouldn't end well if he did.

His Dad removed his glasses to rub his eyes before replacing them. “I know you don't want to hear this and neither will your mother, but it would probably be good for all of us to talk to a therapist. Especially you Katsuki, I can see how much you blame yourself for Izuku’s death. I don't know all the details of what happened. But it isn't healthy.”

He grew angry at the suggestion that he needed help for this. “I’m not weak, Dad! I don't need a shrink!” 

His outburst probably didn't help his case but he already had one idiot rooting around in his head, he hardly needed another. He decided to leave before his father could talk about it any more.

His dad sighed when he got up to leave but didn’t try to stop him.

----------------

15 minutes later, he found himself at his favorite training spot, a small clearing of trees in the park near his home. It was far enough from the main paths that nobody would be able to hear his explosions. Plus the small creek was there for him to cool off when he got too sweaty to easily control his quirk.

“Hey, this is the spot we used to play at all the time when we were little!” Deku had started talking again about halfway to the park. On one hand he was annoying as fuck, but on the other he wasn't thinking about how his parents were going to think he was weak or something.

Ignoring Deku, he began his stretches and warmed up before he trained. Once he let off the first explosion, Deku realized what he was up to and went into instant nerd mode. “These explosions are a lot bigger than usual, Kacchan.”

Katsuki scoffed at the idea. Did the idiot actually think he went around using full powered explosions at school? Deciding to clear things up for Deku now that it was impossible for him to tell anybody else, he started explaining during a resting period, “I have to make those small explosions pretty often to burn up the excess sweat so it doesn't get all over everything and explode. Mom was pissed when my clothes started to blow up in the washing machine.” He smirked at the memory - ah, good times.

Deku’s chain of thought came to a halt, before he half yelled, “Wait! So all your sweat is explosive, not just the stuff on your hands?” He seemed excited about this for some reason.

“Yeah, but it's completely useless because I can't detonate anything besides the stuff on my palms.” he had considered the excess sweat but deemed most of it pretty useless and in the end more of an inconvenience than a boon.

Deku seemed outraged at him for this, “Are you kidding me, Kacchan? This could have so many uses, you could have some system to collect it to make bigger explosions!”  

Katsuki was a tad irked that Deku thought he had not already thought of that. “What do you think I'm some idiot? Deku, of course I thought of that! I was thinking I could have a gauntlet that collects the stuff on my arm to save for big explosions.”

Deku muttered some more about this and then said, “That's at least a good start. You could use some durable material so you could shape the explosions to different effects. Additionally I think you should have sweat collection and places to release an explosion all over your body. Think about it - you already use your explosions to fly, why don't you put the same mechanism in your boots and maybe at your hips or something? That way, your hands are free!” Deku kept going on about the details of such a device but Katsuki was liking the idea more and more.

He was going to need some sort of control mechanism for the devices, but this could open up quite a few options for combat and maneuverability.

-------------

Katsuki had been going to school for about a week now, and still the faces of the people around school pissed him off. The false sympathies, averted gazes and the total apathy of most of the student body infuriated him, but he knew if he had not known Deku for so long he might have reacted the same way. 

Of course Deku’s opinion on the matter didn't help him control his anger very much. “At least it’s reassuring that they are treating me the same in death as they ever did in life.”

Deku almost seemed to be enjoying having somebody to bitch to about all of the mistreatments he had endured his entire life. The irritation that Katsuki felt about said bitching seemed to only fuel him on. Just because Deku had forgiven him for accidentally murdering him did not mean that he was entirely forgiven for the years of bullying.

Deku, displaying his creepy ability to read Katsuki’s thoughts whenever he pleased, responded a little bit indignantly, “It's not that I haven't forgiven you, Kacchan! It's just that I feel like I can finally say whatever I want and there are no repercussions. It was never just you, Kacchan, there were others that bullied me too and the teachers never took me seriously, I got into trouble for causing a scene more often than the others did for beating me up.”

Katsuki knew that quirkless discrimination was a real problem even if Deku technically wasn't quirkless the whole time. However, he knew that the only way he was going to have an impact on anything was as an established hero that people listened to. He got the impression that Deku was smiling at his idea.

He had not brought up his and Deku’s cohabitation to anyone, as planned. But he knew with Deku’s funeral tomorrow, he would have to see Aunti Inko. He might be tempted to tell her, he would have to be careful. He would likely just not talk to anyone.

“We are going to be seeing Auntie tomorrow, what do you want me to say to her?” He knew that conveying Deku’s words to Auntie would be the least he could do to make it up to both Midoriyas.

“Tell her that you're sure that I wouldn't want her to be so sad at my passing and that I would want her to try to build her own life, one that I would be proud of.” The feeling of sadness that Deku put out whenever the topic of Inko came up was both hard to bear and reassuring that Deku’s quirk hadn't messed with his head too much. “A-also t-tell her that I love her so much and that she was the best mom I could have ever asked for.”

When they got home that evening, he noticed that his mom had hung up the black suit for tomorrow up in his closet. He set down his school supplies next to his desk and got started on homework, he only did the bare minimum because with both him and Deku knocking around in his head the problems were laughably easy.

After dinner and a shower he went to bed. Much like the rest of the week, it was not easy to go to sleep, but he was too stubborn to let his body decide when he would and wouldn't sleep, so he set Deku to counting sheep as he had found that worked even better than when he did it himself. They were in the thousands before he finally fell asleep. As he drifted off he heard a soft, “Goodnight, Kacchan.'' coming from Deku.

---------------

The day after Deku’s funeral, he was back at school turning in his stupid career aptitude form and cursing the teacher for wasting his time. He was glad the funeral was over, very few people had bothered to show up, only the Bakugous and a few old ladies that ran shops near Midoriya's apartment that Deku had been friends with. 

He had delivered Deku’s message, as well as any words he wanted to say to Inko himself. The day had been disgustingly cheerful with fluffy clouds and a warm breeze. He was kind of glad it was sunny though, doom and gloom wouldn't have fit for Izuku’s funeral even if he wasn't actually dead. Deku had been mostly silent that day, and Katsuki figured that it must be rather surreal to attend your own funeral.

The teacher, for some reason, had decided to read out some of the choices students made, as if he had never heard of the idea of privacy. The oohs and ahhs the extras made when the teacher stated that Katsuki would be going to UA felt hollow, especially after the teacher skipped over Deku’s form as if it was never there.

“It's probably a good thing he didn't say what my plan was, after all the class would probably just laugh at me, recently deceased or not.” Deku said.

Unfortunately, Katsuki had to agree with him on this. He knew all about Deku's hopes to go to UA. He didn't think that Deku would have been able to get in as he was without at least training for it. 

But that was no longer relevant. Him and Deku had been training almost every day, and he was amazed at the ideas given to him and found most of them useful. And Deku could notice things about his timing and movements better than he or any trainer ever could. It was amazing how fast he had started improving with the nerd along for the ride.

On his way home he heard an explosion in the distance but decided to ignore it. Deku, however, insisted that they go over to check it out. “Come on, we could learn something useful, maybe that will help us get into UA!”

“Fine! But we better learn something amazing from this, Deku, or I'm not going to the next random explosion we see.” Irritated at having to delay training, he turned down another road that took him though an underpass. 

When he was almost out he heard something move the hubcap behind him. He turned around and saw something oozing out. It was green with muck and sewage that had gotten stuck in it. 

Once it was completely out, he saw that it must be somebody’s quirk as the slime monster had eyes and as he watched, a mouth formed.

The slime guy grinned when he caught sight of Katsuki, “Ah, a perfect meat suit, there's no way he will suspect some random kid walking by!”

The slime suddenly surged forward and a tendril of the stuff grabbed onto his leg. Katsuki gagged at the smell. Remembering the new move he had been working on with Deku, he let off an explosion right next to his knees, the spark quickly igniting the sweat that had built up on his leg and blasted him away from the slime villain. The explosion itself did not do much to hurt the slime but it did get him far enough away that he could run.

He turned down a street that would take him to a crowded intersection in the hopes that some hero would be there. He hated being so weak, but he saw how little of an effect his explosions had on the slime and knew that whatever the villain had planned for him he probably would not be able to win. 

Deku was analyzing the villian to see if there were any weaknesses he could exploit. “Kacchan, if he catches up, try aiming an explosion at his eyes. They seem to be solid enough to take damage.”

“Fuck! Why are there no people around here? If that fucker catches up he better hope there is a hero around to save his sorry ass from me!” 

Right before he reached the end of the alley onto the main road, he tripped when a disgusting arm of slime grabbed his ankle. He tried to send an explosion into the villain's eye but the fucker was behind him so he couldn't see where to aim.

“Die, die, die!” he screamed as he let off explosions. 

Suddenly Deku shouted, “Kacchan, close your mouth! He might try to choke you or something!”  

Snapping his mouth shut, he let off another explosion in the hopes of alerting somebody nearby. He felt the slime going up his nose and tried to shake it out but could barely move at this point.

The slime villain was getting increasingly agitated for some reason and said, “Sorry kid, I don’t have time to do this the usual way with that stunt you pulled running away.” Katsuki could hear the smile in the villain's voice as he added “After all, it's so much easier to inhabit a dead body than a alive one - unfortunately, they start decaying after a day or two so I will need a new one.” 

Katsuki started setting off as big explosions as he could once he realized what the villain meant. He could barely hear Deku’s screaming in his head over the terror and rage at the thought of his looming death.

He felt the slime guy start twisting his head and tried to resist him, but knew it was pointless. He thought of his mother and father and how heartbroken they would be, he thought of Inko and how cruel it was for the families to have to lose both him and Izuku within a couple of weeks. His eyes watered when he realized he would never become a hero, he would just be remembered as some angry talented kid that was tragically killed by a villain. 

He saw a big blur with yellow hair and a booming shout rocketing towards him, right before he felt the slime villain give a final twist to his head. He heard a loud crack and then a tearing sensation and then nothing.

Chapter Text

Izuku tore himself out of the darkness as fast as he was able, but as soon as he fully came into consciousness he became aware of how terribly wrong everything was. 

None of the sensations he was feeling correlated to how he expected them to be. He struggled and tried to correct the sensations, but only realized he was unable to affect them. The events of the last few minutes played out in his head as he came to the terrible realization of what must have happened. 

Still groggy from waking, it took him a moment to orientate himself enough to peer out of the sludge villain’s eyes. It must have been only a few seconds from when he had died for the second time this week, because the scene in front of him looked almost exactly the same as it had from his last perspective.

That blur that Kacchan had noticed was indeed All Might, however instead of his signature grin he was scowling with a furious glow in his eyes. Izuku would normally have been excited to see his idol, except for the fact that he was now on the receiving end of the livid number one hero.

“How dare you, Villain!” All Might yelled at the sludge villain. As he said this he pulled back his fist. Izuku could feel the Sludge villain’s terror and knowledge that he truly had no way out. 

The villain dropped Kacchan’s body to the floor and tried to get out of the way of All Might's fist but was too slow. The shockwave hit the villain and ripped him apart. Izuku screamed at the immense pain of being split into a thousand pieces. Through the pain, he could feel the sludge villain’s confusion at his voice, but he couldn't care less if the villain noticed him or not.

Izuku desperately started searching for Kacchan’s presence. He didn't hear any thoughts, but he thought he could feel a growing ball of rage floating next to him. The relief he felt was instant, “Oh thank god, Kacchan is not completely dead then.”

In the real world, he could see and feel All Might scooping the sludge villain's body into two soda bottles at superspeed, and within a few seconds the sludge villain along with Kacchan and him were truly trapped.

Through the soda bottle sound was muted, but he could still see reporters and civilians crowding around the crime scene. Paramedics were flocking around Kacchan’s body, ineffectually trying to revive him. Finally, he felt Kacchan wake up and with him came furious screaming.

“What the hell is this! Where the fuck am I? I'm going to kill that slimy fucker and burn his stinking corpse!” Kacchan’s increasingly vicious threats seemed to be the last straw for the sludge villain.

“What the hell, why do I hear voices in my head? ” the slime guy seemed to be able to pick up the mental communication much quicker than Kacchan did. 

The slime villain's voice seemed to be the last clue Kacchan needed to figure out where he was, and what had happened. His voice took on a tinge of manic glee as he cackled, “Hahaha, oh you absolute fuck! You're screwed! You're stuck with me for the rest of your life. I'm going to make you wish you had never been born if it's the only thing I do!”  

Izuku knew that Kacchan was not lying, and they would have nothing but time to make it happen while they accompanied the slime villain to Tartarus.

“ Are you that kid I just killed? I thought you had an explosion quirk! And who is the other guy?” 

Izuku ignored the villain. He knew they had to do something quick if they didn't want to spend the rest of eternity in a cell. “Kacchan get your revenge later, we need to come up with a plan to escape!” he yelled.

“How the fuck are we going to do that, Deku? I don't know if you realized it but we have to get through goddamn All MIght!” Kacchan shouted back.

The slime villain didn't seem to fully understand his brain suddenly being host to two middle schoolers, but he did understand that they needed to escape. Somehow even his voice was slimy when he said, “Yeah kid, if you have any ideas I would love to hear 'em. ” 

All Might was handing the bottles to the police to transport to a secure location now. Izuku knew that their window of opportunity was running short. 

“Try unscrewing the caps from the inside.” he said. The villain tried but the slime had no grip on the caps, which had been tightened by All Might himself.

He could no longer sense Kacchan’s thoughts like he could when he was in his head, but he knew that Kacchan was pissed at the idea of the sludge villain going free. Kacchan yelled, “What the hell , Deku! Why are you helping him?” 

He understood Kaccha’ns anger at helping the villain but he also knew they needed to escape.  

“Kacchan you don't want to be stuck in a cell for the rest of forever. We need to get him out, maybe we can find a way to leave his head and turn him in, but for now we have to work together.”

Kacchan grumbled a bit before forcing out, “Fine but just this once. ” He went silent, thinking about solutions, before saying, “I feel like I can almost activate my quirk, the sensation is there it's just different...” he gave the mental equivalent of gritting his teeth, “Just about got it...”  

Suddenly they exploded, the bottles burst around them in a fireball. It felt like the explosion came from all of the slime at once. The police car came to a halt with the windows shattered and the door twisted from the blast. The sludge villain used the smoke and screaming civilians running around to slip out of the car and into the sewers.

-------------

Suran, the name they discovered belonged to the slime villain, had been on the run from the heroes for two days now, neither of them having given him a moment of silence since their untimely demise. Their latest method of annoying Suran was to argue constantly. It was almost fun, sniping at both each other and the villain.

Katsuki continued on from a previous discussion and went on to say, “You know, Deku, before, I thought that you had the worst quirk I had ever heard of. But that was just when you were stuck in my head. Now that I've had the absolute pleasure of being subjected to Slimy here’s thoughts for two days, I realize that it is far worse than I had previously imagined.”

Izuku quite agreed with Katsuki on that point. It was bad enough to be dead, again, but he also had to share a head with both Katsuki and the guy who had murdered him. “Just think, Kacchan, someday Suran will die and then we all can be stuck in somebody else's head forever instead!” he himself was trying to cope with that very thought.

“God, hopefully we get killed by a hero, so at least we can both do something we like.”  

Suran was getting extremely irritated at the two of them as well as sleep deprived. He finally shouted, “Will you two shut up for a few seconds!” He took a moment to collect himself and then said, “I'm trying to find a safe spot to sleep so that we all don't get arrested in the middle of the night.”

“Well if you didn't want to get arrested, you probably should have tried not murdering me, huh?” Kacchan replied in an oddly sweet voice, that was so unlike Kacchan that it took Izuku a few seconds to come to terms with it. He then decided that he didn't want to know. 

“I don't know, Kacchan, if you hadn't pushed me into the road then this all would have never happened.” Izuku knew that in the spirit of annoying Suran, Kacchan would not mind Izuku bringing up the Truck Incident.

The street that Suran was currently oozing down led to a beach filled with trash. He seemed indecisive but eventually just squeezed under a particularly large heap and relaxed himself into a puddle. “I bet the heroes would never expect me to stay somewhere so close to the crime scene.”

Kacchan chose not to let him have a single moment of peace and decided to chime in with, “Slimy, are you sure you could even choose a place to stay that isn't disgusting? I notice that there is an apple core and other garbage floating around inside of you, not to mention the sewage. Could you take a bath even once, please?” again with the sweet tone of voice that Kacchan was failing to pull off. His old childhood friend’s puppy eyes always had a bit too much murderous rage to truly work on adults. But he was just going to keep ignoring it.

Izuku sensing weakness added, “Kacchan, you know the poor guy can't help himself.” 

“Well he could at least try not to smell like himself.” Kacchan retorted.

Suran said in a slightly pleading voice, “I really need to get to sleep, so will you guys at least be quiet for a little bit?”  

Kacchan shot that idea down instantly, “And why the fuck would we do that? The more miserable you are, the happier I am!” Kacchan, despite not having a body, nonetheless managed to give the impression of a mad grin. Aaaaand the nice voice was gone.

“Actually, Kacchan,” Izuku decided to say after consideration. “I think we need to let him sleep, at least until the heat has died down some. If he’s tired and runs into a hero, we end up back in prison and this time it will be explosion proof.”

“Fine,” Kacchan spat, “But just for a few days. ”

-------------

Katsuki was idly floating around in the void of Suran’s mind, or maybe it was Deku’s Quirk? Either way, for once it was almost silent, if only for the occasional snippet of dreams. 

For the first time since he wound up in his murderer's head, the villain was not dreaming of the encounter with All Might. Having three separate perspectives on the event did not lend itself well to having quaint dreams. And wasn't that odd, the dreams seemed to share all of their minds for inspiration. If he paid attention to the slippery flashes, he could see places and people from both Suran and Deku’s memories.

A nasty teacher from Suran’s childhood and some bullies that were a year or two older than Deku and him were all congregating on the dreamer's perspective. Katsuki didn't bother to listen to what they were saying, but he assumed it was something unpleasant and therefore not worth his time experiencing. Besides, he was on the lookout. 

Peering through one of the Sludge Villain’s unblinking eyes he looked out a hole in the garbage pile. Deku and him had agreed that tonight was the last night that they would leave Suran in relative peace. All Might for the first time in the six days since the incident had been spotted in Tokyo stopping everyday crimes. 

It was almost flattering that the number one hero himself was so ruthlessly searching for the man who killed Deku and him, not that All Might knew about Deku. He guessed it was because All Might was only seconds too slow to stop Suran breaking his neck, and felt responsible for bringing justice.

He had talked it over with Deku, and was slightly surprised that that goody two shoes nerd was willing to allow him to get such a cruel form of revenge on Slimy. Hell, he had even offered to help in any way he could. It seemed that Katsuki had forgotten how much of a spiteful bastard Deku could be under all the stuttering and obsession with heroics. 

Plus, if annoying the hell out of Suran could keep him from completing overly heinous crimes, it was basically a public service. 

He knew that he only had a few hours left before he would have to sleep, and was planning on setting off his plan before then. Thankfully, as a disembodied mind he only really needed to sleep for a few hours a night. They did not get sleepy so much as detached from Suran’s perspective. It was disorienting for all of the senses they usually shared to drift away, as though experiencing them through a deep body of water. 

Any second now it would be dawn, and therefore the end of their agreement with the slime villain. He knew it was important to establish a good measure of trust with their host if they ever wanted to get something from him in the future.

He grinned as a beam of light slowly made its way down to the brownish green puddle of sludge currently hidden half under a wreck of a car. Finally it reached them, illuminating the debris and trash residue suspended in the slime. 

“ Wakey Wakey !” he crowed loudly into their head.

Deku startled out of the meditative trance that equated sleep for them. And then said, “ Oh, thanks, I wasn't having the best dream.” After getting a sense of his surroundings, Deku finally noticed the dawn. And along with that realization, a feeling of vindication floated off of him. Katsuki was pleased that Deku was excited to start too.

It took longer for Suran to wake up, but when he did it was with lots of grumbling and feelings of animosity. “What the hell do you two want? It's barely 6 in the morning.” The ripples going through the mass of slime calmed down again as Suran attempted to go back to sleep.

Katsuki knew that Suran had completely forgotten about their deal. As such, he took complete satisfaction when he screamed as loudly and as obnoxiously as he could. And since he no longer needed to breathe, he did not have to stop either. Deku added his whiny voice to Katsuki’s, making sure to harmonize in such a way as to make the sound grate on Slimy nerves.

Suran jerked out of the light sleep he had fallen into and started flailing around under the garbage. A half shorn car door shifted and fell, stabbing right through the center of the slime. Sadly, Suran did not seem to have noticed this development. 

After he figured the sound was coming from his head he attempted to scream over them “What the fuck are you doing? I thought the heroes had found us!”

Deku falling silent cued Katsuki into doing the same. Deku responded to Suran in an innocent stuttery voice, much like the one he always used in life, “W-well Mr. Slime Vi-Villain, it's just that since th-the heroes are no longer on our t-tail we decided to get re-revenge on you. ” 

Katsuki smirked at Deku's exaggerated stutter, it seemed that speech impediments were not just a problem for the living. 

Suran was confused at Deku's stutter and focused on that more than Deku’s proclamation of vengeance. “What's with the stuttering kid?” he almost sounded concerned.

Katsuki didn't want to the conversation to derailed too much, so he decided to pitch in with, “Forget Deku’s fucking stutter, didnt you hear what he said? Our deal is done, Slimey.”

“What! What deal, I don't remember making a deal with you!” he sounded more confused than he had any right.

Katsuki snarled, he had had enough of playing nice for this bastard. “ What, you didn't think I had forgiven you or something, did you? Did you forget how you fucking murderd me for no goddamn reason!”

Suran didn't seem to care. Instead, he began sliding his way out of the garbage pile, flowing around the jagged car door as he did. Katsuki seethed at the audacity of the bitch, oh he was not going to let Suran have a good day. 

Suran picked up the bag of clothes he had stolen from a clothesline a few days before, and pulled them over himself. The slime formed up into the shape of a large man. Katsuki had been surprised at how much fine control Suran had over the slime, he could pull it into whatever shape he wanted. But the villain seemed to be content just  being a disgusting lump. 

However, even with as much control over the slime as the villain had, he was unable to turn back into a human. The only human parts he had were his eyes and the mouth he could choose to manifest.  

As he walked down the street, passersby shuffled away at Suran’s stench. Katsuki was glad they were immune to the smell of the trash and the sewage suspended within himself. 

Suran was headed directly to the breakfast burrito cart a block away. As he walked, he moved the change and bills that were held at his core to the surface of his palm. The people ahead of them in line looked green in the face and seemed to lose their appetite for some reason as Suran settled in for the wait. 

Finally he reached the vendor. The blue haired man grimaced at the smell before putting on a strained smile and saying, “What can I get for you today, sir?”

Suran opened his mouth to answer but before the words could leave his mouth, Katsuki yelled as loudly as he could, “FUUUUUUUUCCKKK YOOOOOUUUUU!”  

Suran jerked away from the vendor and clutched his head in alarm.

The vendor leaned over the cart with a concerned expression and asked, “Sir? Are you okay?”

Gathering himself back up, Suran went to respond to the vendor, however he only got out “I’m fine tha--” before Deku returned with his god awful wailing from the morning. He stopped as soon as Suran stopped trying to talk. The villain didn't hunch over this time but he did grit his teeth. Giving up talking, instead he just pointed at the burrito and put the exact change on the counter. 

The vendor did not move to grab the soggy bills but did grab the closest burrito in range and handed it to them. As Suran walked away from the cart, he hissed at them under his breath, “What the fuck was that? Do you want us to get caught for acting suspicious?”

Katsuki just laughed at him before replying, “Well if you hadn’t been such a drama queen, nobody would have noticed a thing.”

Deku gave off the impression of nodding before adding innocently, “Me and Kacchan were just having a conversation, Mr. Slime Villain.”

Suran then began pondering where he should go for the rest of the day, so Katsuki started singing the All Might theme song to disrupt his thoughts. Suran’s teeth were gritted as he tried to think over the din.

Just as he seemed to get the hang of it, Deku started in with a different All Might song entirely.

Forgoing complex thought entirely, Suran turned down the nearest alley to eat his burrito. To do so he simply unhinged his jaw and shoved the whole thing down. The wrapper was tossed on the ground.  

Katsuki thought the food just sitting there in the  center of his body, slowly breaking down, was disgusting. But Izuku was fascinated by it, much like he was for all quirks.

The muttering was another thing that did not go away upon death. Izuku was observing the burrito as it dissolved, the whole process taking about five minutes. “Do you feel hungry when you need to eat? Because your body did not give any indicators typically associated with hunger.”  

“How the hell would I know, kid?, I just eat when I feel like it.” Suran replied.

“That's weird, I would expect there to be some indication, after all hunger is a very useful trait .” Deku muttered to himself.

The Slime villain’s temporary reprieve was over when Deku seemed to remember their plan. It was simple, they would just be as obnoxious and disruptive as they could for the rest of Suran’s life. Or till whenever they got tired of it. 

Now that All Might had stopped madly hunting his murderer, they no longer had to worry about distracting Suran. He knew how much it could interfere with a life having voices in your head, and they planned on being nuisances for as long as they were able.

Unfortunately for Suran, both Katsuki and Deku were extremely stubborn, and it was now his fault neither of them could be heroes.

Chapter Text

They had done all their planning in the dark hours of the night when Suran was asleep -  Katsuki and Deku deciding their strategies for as many situations as they could think of. They had also decided on shifts for sleep and breaks, so that there would be no time when neither of them were harassing Suran.

Katsuki remembers how hard it was to think about something when Deku had been talking in his head, and that had been when the nerd was being respectfully quiet. Katsuki doubted Suran would be able to do much more than walk around with them both going full blast.  

Katsuki and Deku were in the process of singing every All Might theme song in the order that the shows were released for the fifth time when Suran screamed, “Shut up! Please just shut up!” He didnt even bother to keep it in his head. Katsuki grinned. It was working.

After a few more hours of being obnoxious, Katsuki decided that he was going to sleep. He told Deku, “I'm going to take a nap now, don't let this bitch off the hook while I'm out.”

Deku replied with, “I'm disappointed in your lack of faith, Kacchan. I hate this guy almost as much as you do.”

Satisfied that the villain would not be having a good time, Katsuki let himself drift away from the surface. The darkness swallowed him until all of Suran’s senses, along with Deku’s voice, were barely there. He let his mind drift in the dark, confident that in a few hours it would float back up into the stream of thought that they all shared during waking hours. 

---------

After night fell and the streets became deserted, Suran abandoned the human way he shaped his face to interact with society, since no one was around to see that he usually only bothered with a shoddy pair of legs. Suran's filth was soaking through his clothing now, as he gave up on maintaining surface tension. All the contamination that Suran had picked up in the sewers and in various other dank places leaked out of him whenever he moved around and churned the gunk to the surface.

The hands he had formed stained the wall as he leaned against it, muttering to himself, "Shut up, shut up, shut up," over and over again. Suran’s voice was not nearly enough to drown them out - Deku's voice was loud and wailing as he screamed at Suran with all the mean things the people in the villain's dreams said to him. 

The hands lost cohesion as he pulled away from the wall and began walking out into the street. Suran walked in the middle of the lane, heedless of any cars that might be driving around since his body would be perfectly fine in the chance that a car managed to actually hit them. 

After a few minutes of walking, Suran stumbled across a hero patrolling the streets. Hastily he reformed his disguise before the hero could recognize them. She nodded as she walked by, completely clueless that Suran was a wanted villain. 

"You should go turn yourself in." Katsuki said quietly, hoping that Suran would hear the thought through Deku's screeching since it was so gentle. The villian moved his eyes over his shoulder to watch the hero as she retreated, then shook himself out of the exhausted haze he had fallen into.

Once the Hero was out of hearing range, Suran spoke back to him, "Why do you want me to turn myself in? I thought you guys don't want to go to prison?"

"Oh, I don’t, I was just thinking of how few distractions there would be in a prison. You would have no fucking choice but to listen to us." Katsuki answered.

Deku paused his screaming to add in, "She is getting away, Suran! Now is your last chance to come clean for all the horrible things you have done."

"They weren’t horrible! I was doing them to survive!" He cried.

"Well you could at least apologize to Kacchan, you did kill him after all." Deku said.

"Yeah, Slimy, you never even said you were sorry," Katsuki added.

"I’m never going to apologize to you assholes! You don't deserve it!" Suran yelled.

"Well you know what that means, Kacchan," Deku said before he started belting the first notes of the first All Might theme song of the series. Katsuki waited until he got to the chorus to join in, making sure to time his voice off from Deku's to optimize how horrible it sounded.

"No! Shut up! Don’t you dare sing those fucking songs again!" Suran screamed.

.......

It took until four in the morning for Suran to say something that stopped them cold,“If you two kids don't shut up I am going to kill the next person I see.” 

It had startled both him and Deku into silence.

“Oh that's right," Suran said in a cruel voice, "you two wanted to be heroes.” Suran grinned at having figured out a weakness of theirs. “Just think how heroic it would be to be directly responsible for killing an innocent person.”

Deku was the first to respond with a carefully measured voice, “You wouldn't do that, that would draw the attention of the heroes.” 

“Wouldn't I?” Suran replied in a mocking tone. “People get mugged all the time in these alleys, what's one more corpse for the heroes to identify?”

“We won't let you.” Deku said in the same voice he’d used to defend kids from bullies for years. 

“You can't stop me,” Suran said, “You didn’t think I would never figure out how to work around a bit of bad singing, did you?”

Katsukis voice came out in a low growl when he told Suran, “If you kill somebody, you know me and Deku will never stop. We will do this for the rest of your life, and when we get stuck in the next poor bastard’s head we will do it for another.”  

Suran laughed a little before saying, "But tha’ts the thing? You promised me you would do that before I threatened you."

Katsuki thought that Suran was probably slightly delirious from being up so late and sleeping so poorly the last few days. Additionally, he and Deku had been driving him crazy since six in the morning.

Suran was raving out loud by this point. He didn't bother to watch his volume when he said, “You don't think I’ll do it, do you? Well I will! I'm going to do it anyway, to show you I'm serious!”

Suran had found a mildewy alley to wait in. Deku and him had spent the whole time negotiating and threatening, to try and convince him not to do it. But Suran was bent on killing sombody, so nothing they said or did could stop him.

The alley was on the side of town with lots of bars, and a florishing nightlife. It did not take long for a drunk college-age kid to come walking towards them. Suran wrapped a slimy appendage around the handle of a knife, in anticipation.

As soon as the kid was close enough to see them lurking in the shadows of the alley, it was too late. Suran had already lunged with the knife, headed straight for the pulsing vein on his neck. Right before the knife struck, Deku screamed and the tentacle holding the knife jerked to the left, causing it to bite into the guy’s shoulder instead. 

He stumbled back away from them, before turning around and running back in the direction he’d come from. He started yelling right before he turned the corner and vanished.   

Suran was trembling with fear when he realized just what Deku had done. The knife clattered to the ground. After a moment Suran stuttered out, “What th-the hell kid, what did you do?!” 

Katsuki was surprised too, so he was genuine when he asked Deku, “ Yeah, Deku, just what the fuck did you do?”

“I don't know, Kacchan .” Deku's voice sounded scared. “ I just was trying as hard as I could to stop the knife and it did. I think my power might not just be mind transference.”

Katsuki felt excitement growing in him, “Does this mean we can take control of Slimy’s body? ” his excitement stopped when he realized something, “Why haven't you done anything like this before? Does your  shitty quirk only work in situations involving somebody dying or something? "

Deku was fast in responding with, “No it's not that, my quirk only activates on the holder's death, not anybody around me’s death... I hope.”

“Well then what caused it?” if they could figure out what caused it, maybe they wouldn't have to idle around in the head of  a villain after all. 

“I don't know Kacchan! Quirks can be triggered by anything!”

“Well use your creepy fucking brain and think of it before Slimy tries something else.”

Suran was terrified at this point. He knew that it was only a matter of time once they figured it out. “Wait, wait, wait you guys don't want to do this! Messing with somebody’s head can get you thrown into Tartarus!”

Katsuki ignored him and returned to egging on Deku, “Come on, nerd, think!”

Deku started to mumble, “It could have something to do with how long we have been with Suran, but that would not explain why it didn't happen with you. It probably has something to do with wanting it to happen really really badly. But Suran’s done plenty of things I didn't want him to do. But what's different now then before?”

Katsuki had an epiphany, “Hey dipshit, if it has to do with willpower then it makes sense. We have been chipping away at the slime fuck's sanity all day, he has to be tired.”  

“Oh my god, Kacchan, you’re right! We just have to out-willpower him!” he stopped to think for a second, “We should try working together! Kacchan, maybe you can help, if we both focus on it we can probably stop him from committing any more crimes.”

“Worth a shot, I guess, but one thing. Deku, if this works we won't be using this to stop him committing crimes, we are going to use this to get a body of our own. Permanently.”  He didn’t really care about the moral problems with that. Suran had killed him and was going to kill many more people in the future. He didn't deserve mercy.

Suran was panicking, his emotions in turmoil, and it felt like he might start crying. Instead he started wailing, “No! No no no, you don't want to do this, it's going to fail, or-or I'll kill a bunch of people or something!”

Deku was slightly hesitant when he asked, “ Are you sure Kacchan? What if it doesn't work?”

“Well, let's give it a try. I'll concentrate on making him listen to you, you try to make him do something.” He bent his will to make Suran obey Deku, concentrating on it as hard as he could. 

Nothing happened. 

Katsuki didn't think it was going to work, but then he felt a chunk of sludge give a twitch. 

“Kacchan it worked! ”

Katsuki started grinning when he realized that he and Deku might still be able to make something of their lives, and if taking out a villain permanently was the price, so be it. He made sure to rub it in and said, “Enjoy your freedom while you can, you barely sentient booger.”

---------

Izuku knew that it was wrong to torment somebody into complacency, and if it was just him trapped in here he might have been hesitant to go to such extreem lengths so fast. But he was angry, and Suran had pointlessly killed Kacchan. Besides, he didn't feel like it was really his choice to make.

Izuku had been watching. He could see snippets of Suran’s memories, and he saw how the villain had become one. The similarities between their childhoods were striking - Izuku was bullied and looked down upon for being quirkless, whereas Suran had been bullied for being disgusting and having a quirk that collected filth like a sponge. The circumstances may have been different but the insults and the looks on teachers' faces were the same. 

Izuku wondered if, had he not died, his life would have led him down the path of villainy out of desperation too. He definitely felt anger towards the system for encouraging children to be dehumanized for something so petty. It was almost enough for him to not completely blame Suran, since he might have ended up spiteful and angry too.

But then again, it wasn't just him in here, and a lot of Suran’s crimes were not done out of need but because he wanted to. And if Izuku was going to choose subjecting a clear villain to a life of idly watching, or subjecting two kids who both wanted to be heroes to the same, he was going to choose the kids every time. And it wasn't just selfish, he would do the same if it was just Kacchan that got to have something from it. And like Kacchan had repeatedly said, nobody forced him to be a murderer.

The more that he and Katsuki worked to subvert Suran, the more Izuku felt that this was the main purpose of his quirk. The mind transference was just the method that his quirk used to get into position, its true purpose taking control of a person and their quirk. He could feel the cords of willpower holding Suran in control, but he could also feel when their host's grip slipped and he could put his own mind in place. It took effort on Suran’s part to hold them both off, but he couldn't feel the cords, he could just feel it when Izuku took control.

In addition to the sensation of control over mind and quirk, Izuku could also feel the state of 

Suran’s psyche. He could feel how the insults Katsuki constantly threw at him affected him, and he could feel which ones caused his will to slip the most. When Suran was afraid was when Izuku and Katsuki could take the most control. 

But right now he wasn't using brute force to get Suran to listen; he was being subtle. Whenever the villain’s grip loosened he would slip his own control in but continue to move the limb as Suran wanted it to. Then he would wait for Suran to sleep, and move his body to wake him up. This strategy was not only about taking control, it was about making

Suran afraid to sleep. And it was working; he barely slept more than a couple fitful hours a night.

Wearing him down completely and taking the body all at once was the only way they would keep complete control. Otherwise Suran might be able to take some of it back. 

Suran was currently sleeping in a dumpster a fair distance from any main roads, so it was time for the next stage of their plan. 

Deku whispered, “Kacchan he just entered REM sleep now would be the most disruptive time to wake him.”

Kacchan sounded a little nervous about their plan but that was justified, after all if it went right it would attract the attention of the heroes. “Are you fucking sure we won't get caught?”

Izuku wasn't, but he replied in a steady voice anyways, “Yes, I’m sure, now just a medium size one. We just want to attract a little attention, not bring down half the city.” 

He felt Kacchan's quirk stir for the first time since escaping the police. It twisted up to the surface and sparked a few times. Katsuki grunted lightly, and then the lid of the trash can was blasted off in a furious fireball.

The sound was deafening in an enclosed space. Suran jerked up immediately. It took his frayed mind almost ten seconds to figure out what had happened, when he did he was livid but not as much as he was terrified.

“What the hell are you doing!” Suran screamed at them in his head.

Kacchan replied with a nonchalant, “Oh, you know, don't want you to get too comfortable now, do we? Besides, I was just looking out for this neighborhood’s property value. Every minute you were there the stench would cause it to go down.”

Suran was even more enraged now than before, and he yelled, “You are going to get us all thrown into jail at this rate!”  

Good, Izuku thought, the more riled up he was, the less he was paying attention as Izuku subtly subverted his control. When Kacchan helped, it strengthened Izuku’s own will, making it easier to push Suran out of the way. 

It had taken him a while to convince Kacchan to try this method, since his friend had been afraid of the risk that required, but Izuku had reasoned that the only thing big enough to scare Suran enough to make him not sleep at all would be this.

It took Suran almost 45 minutes to find a new spot to sleep, which happened to be a new dumpster. In the state of exhaustion that he was in, it took the villain less than five minutes to fall asleep. He was so tired that he didn't even consider that they would do it again. So once the odd flashes of dreams started popping up, Kacchan repeated the process. 

Instead of acknowledging the villain’s wrath this time, Kacchan was instead bending his fiery will to help Izuku. And together they were able to chip a little more control away from the villain. 

Suran was exhausted at this point, but he didn't stop to rest knowing that Izuku and Kacchan would just explode again. He couldn't stop either, because then he would fall asleep, so he chose to wander down backalleys instead until dawn. 

By the time the sun’s rays were peeking over the horizon, Suran was jumping at every shadow. He made his way to their stash of clothes at the beach and put them back on, ready to blend in with the people. He didn't sleep in them so as to not get them suspiciously dirty. 

Kacchan had begun insulting and generally being a nuisance again once the initial fear of getting caught had died down enough for the extra will power to be less useful.

Izuku took a break from trying to subvert control from Suran to tune into Kacchan's ranting. 

“You slimy bitch, even your mother didn't want you. She had her best day when she sent you off to school, if only because she wouldn't have to smell you.”  

Izuku had been feeding everything he learned about Suran’s past right to Kacchan, who, as with everything, was exemplary at tormenting people. The string of insults would go on for an hour or two and then he would switch to making obnoxious sounds whenever Suran tried to do anything. And while Kacchan did that, Izuku watched the network of determination that held Suran in charge of his body ever so slowly begin to slip.

It took them almot a week to wear Suran down enough that he could not fight off sleep any longer. The constant paranoia that he wouldn't wake up actually helped to wear him down faster, as well as to make his sleep more fitful.  

During the day, they kept everything overt so as not to draw attention. However they didn’t let Suran talk to anybody without making him twitch, and threatening him with little sparkles. This was for two reasons, one to make sure nobody got dragged into their mess, and two, to make sure Suran couldn't get help. By midnight, the streets were empty enough to start making his body twitch and trip, and to start making his quirk act out. They couldn't do much more than that but it was enough to wear the villain down further. 

They had only let him get about six hours of sleep total in the last week, and only one in the last two days. When Suran finally collapsed in a shadowed alley, it only took him moments to fall asleep.

“Kacchan, wait up a bit with the explosion, we don't want him to actually get caught.” Plus too much sleep deprivation can kill you, and that was the last thing they needed. Who knew what head they would end up in next.

Katsuki grumbled a bit before acquiescing. “Fine, but just an hour or so. We can't let him get his strength back.”

Once Izuku had deemed enough time had passed, they started up with the explosions again. Suran barely had the strength to be angry - all that was left was a rabid sort of fear. It took four repetitions that night to make him give up on sleep entirely.

Suran resumed his wandering. By noon he was hallucinating. Posters of All Might came alive, causing him to scuttle away. Anybody wearing a school uniform had their faces replaced by Kacchan's, something that unnerved Deku’s childhood friend to no end. 

Kacchan stopped his rant to mutter to Izuku, “Hey nerd, doesent it seem like the slime fuck is looking for somthing?”  

Alarmed, Izuku replied, “I hadn't noticed before but now that you mention it yeah, it does.”  

Katsuki didn't seem too concerned and Izuku hadn't seen anything in his memories that would affect their plan, so he told Katsuki to get back to it. Izuku had taken about seventy percent control, but it was getting harder the closer he got to completion. He was pretty sure that Suran knew he was close and was fighting him harder. 

Suddenly, Suran felt a burst of elation over the street he had just taken them down. It was familiar to him, and Izuku quickly realized why. The bar at the end of it was some sort of Villain hideout, and if Suran's memories were correct then they had somebody that could mess with quirks. Izuku couldn't let Suran get there, as if Suran's quirk got messed with, it might kill them. 

He yelled, “Kacchan we can't let him get to that bar!”

“How the fuck am I supossed to do that?”

“I don't know, just do something !” He gave as much control as he could over to Kacchan in case he came up with an idea before Izuku did.

Suran had realised that they had noticed, and had started running as fast as he could twords the bar. It was only a couple of blocks away.

Right as Suran stepped over a storm drain, Kacchan completely relaxed the Ooze quirk, causing them to flow down into the sewers before Suran even knew what was happening. The villain quickly took control back over his quirk, but during the time it had taken him to do that, they had already been washed a fair ways away from the bar. 

Suran slid up to a maintenance ladder and started climbing it, desperate to get to the bar, but before he could get all the way up, Kacchan exploded causing them to fall back to the ground of the chamber they were in. It was luckily deep and relatively secluded from the rest of the sewers. The slime villain tried to climb back up the wall with his quirk, but Izuku jerked it about until he lost his grip and fell.

Suran screamed in frustration. The loud tortured sound went on and on, echoing through the chamber, but the sealed hatch above them did not let any out. He tried to slide back the way they came to find a different way out, but Izuku had adhered some of the slime to a wall. If he wanted to escape it would hurt him significantly. 

Suran’s screams then turned into sobbing, and he begged them, “Please let me rest, just let me rest.” his consciousness started slipping into sleep but Izuku had enough control over his mind to yank it back up to awareness. Suran started crying again, “What do you want, just let me rest and I'll give you anything!” 

Finally Izuku could feel it - Suran had given up. His last hope with those villains was now unreachable. The villain knew that he would lose to them in a matter of hours now.

So, as gently as he could, Izuku told him, “Just let go. Let go, and Kacchan and I will let you sleep for as long as you like. Let go and we will give you complete peace.”  

Suran's will shattered, and with it his control over his body was completely withdrawn. As Izuku pushed him down into the darkness, his voice echoed out bitterly, “I hate you.”  

Izuku gave one last shove and pushed him down further than where he and Kacchan went to sleep, and then further still until his consciousness was barely noticeable. And just like that they were finished, having completely taken control over Suran, and with his mind suppressed Izuku doubted he would ever be able to take it back. 

He had expected to feel happy when they finally won, but all he could feel was melancholy for the cruel things they had to do. Even if he had been a villain, nobody deserved what they had done.

All he said to Kacchan was, “It's finished.”

Chapter Text

The first thing they did was to head back to Dagobah beach. It was the best place that they could think of that would both hide them and allow access to the ocean. Kachan in particular was offended by their smell. 

“I swear to god if we can't get the stink out somehow I'm going to drag Slimy back up just so I can explode him.”

Trying to calm him down Izuku reasoned “Come on Kachan I'm sure we can figure something out.”  

They were making their way through the storm drains as to not stand out. They had imperfect control over their new body at best. Izuku let Kachan take control so that he could focus on looking at their quirks. He had theorized that Explosion had sort of fused with Ooz. The new mechanism for creating nitro definitely was not the same as it had been with Kachan's sweat. Suran’s original quirk had two main components. The first was a mutation: everything except for his eyes and mouth on command were made of the same strong slime like substance. The second part of his quirk was to create slime as well as perfect control over the whole body. The creating slime aspect of it had been displayed when All Might had shoved them into the bottles most of his mass had been lost but it had only taken him about a minute in the sewers to generate enough to replace most of it. Izuku didn't know how All Might knew that only some of the slime was enough to contain him but he assumed it was the great hero's intuition. As All Might more than anyone has stopped enough villains to be able to get a good read on them. 

Forcing his thoughts away from All Might he started experimenting with  the creation aspect of the quirk. New pockets of slime started to appear, immediately they homogenized with the rest of the body. He tried again and this time kept a few pockets separate. When he drew one up to the surface he noticed that it was crystal clear except for a few speckles of a caramel colored fluid. He looked at the fluid he knew that if they had a heart it would have been racing. 

“What's got you all worked up all the sudden, Deku?”

“Kachan I'm not sure but I think we might be able to produce your nitro sweat on command. We need to get all the gunk out of this body so that I can see for sure.”

“What the hell do you mean we can produce it on command!? That would make my explosion sso much more powerful!”

Izuku did not want Kachan to get too excited in case he was wrong. “Hold on, hold on, let’s do some tests before we come to any conclusions.”

“Fine but once we get settled we are doing some experimentation.”

They finally reached a grate that lead out onto the beach Kachan relaxed his tight grip on their from in order to easily slip through the grate. He firmed up the soles of the slime they were using as feet as best he could so no more sand would get stuck. After making their way down around the pillars of trash they slipped into the water. At first as they walked into the water a cloud of filth drifted around them but as the waves continued to crash over them to the slime on thier surface was at least partally cleaned. Kachan released his grip on the slime and they splashed down into the water. The salt water thankfully dint burn thier eyes as Kachan began swimming away frim the shore. It took a few treis attempts at coordination but eventully Kachan was ablye to shape them simalr to fish in order to swim better. Their slippery formless bbody sliced through the water as Kachan got the motion down.

"wow this is actually really fun Kachan." Izuku said as they flowed the sandy sea floor deeper and deeper. It wasn't until it started to get a little dark from the depth that Kachan stopped swimming. He pushed them off the bottom as drifted up for a bt so the sunlight would illuminate the debris within them.   

They were floating in thirty feet of crystal clear water with nothing but a few fish to see in any direction. Izuku wanted to do this part so he asked Kachan for the reins “Hey Katchan I want to do this part. You watch out to make sure nothing sneaks up on us”

“Fine, but I'm swimming us back”

Ever so slowly Izuku pushed garbage and rocks out of the slime. It was tricky at first to have enough fine controls to move little particles within their body but it got easier. He felt a twinge of guilt over the garbage they were leaving in the ocean but figures it was nothing compared to the beach just over a half a mile to shore. Once all the physical chunks were gone they were just left with a murky green color. He started swimming and let the outer layer release into the water most of the slime stayed but all of the sewage and dirt came out. He rotated the slime on the surface in order to clean it faster. 

Kachan grumbled out “How long is this going to take Deku? I don't want to try swimming in the dark just yet.”

Izuku knew it was boring but it had to be done. He refused to walk around with sewage floating inside them with who knows how many diseases. Eventually he got to the point where no more contamination was coming out. Irritated he looked at the state of the slime. It was still a light murky green with steaks of who knows what still floating about. He tried swimming faster but got little results. He kept trying for another half hour. Even Kachan couldn't think of how to get out the last of it.

Then he remembered how the slime he generated in the tunnel was clean. He tried pulling them into a ball-like shape, with that done he sucked the eyes into the center in order to better observe this next step. He used the ability to create slime just at the very center, he purposefully didn't activate any aspect of Explosion. At the very center a crystal clear glob of slime started to form. It expanded further as Izuku pumped more energy into it. He released their outer layer to the ocean and watched it dissolve when no longer part of the body. He kept this process going until the quirk was exhausted and stopped producing mass. Once the last of the contaminated slime had dissolved he swam out of the cloud into the open ocean he could barely tell where they ended and the sea began. He pulled on Surans wayward quirk and manifested a mouth full of surprisingly clean teeth. The mouth curved into a big grin. 

Ready to test his hypothesis Izuku pulled Kachan out of his trance and said “Alright ready to test if we can produce nitro sweat like I think we can?”

Kachan was indeed very excited about this; he attempted to yell out using the mouth a garbled “Hell yeah!” nothing really came out but the intention was still there.

Izuku concentrated really hard on the creation aspect of the new quirk but only as it related to Explosion. Ever so slowly right at their center a tiny bead of nitroglycerin began to form. Izuku stopped concentrating after a minute or two, just like the part of the quirk that made the slime it felt like at least for now Explosion was getting worn out. The bead of nitro had grown to be the size of a small blueberry.

He had of course done research on Kachan quirk and because of this he knew that his friend did not produce true nitroglycerin. Kachan variety was way more powerful, just the small amount that accumulated on his hands was enough to make a massive blast. Additionally it was significantly less volatile. True nitroglycerin would have exploded if Kachan had so much as sneezed wrong. The substance Kachan produced needed a small spark to be ignited instead.

That being said, looking at the amount he had just created, Izuku knew that if he ignited it, it would be easily as large as Kachan's largest explosions so far. Kachannoticed the same thing “Holy shit.” he said in a strangely subdued voice. Kachan concentrated and created a second smaller bead of nitro. “ Holy shit! if I had this much fire power before I could have vaporized Slimy as soon as he grabbed me.” 

Izuku nodded. "We will have to be careful using explosions then. If it this much would be enough to beat Suran before I doubt that his body will be able to stand up to the explosions now. Your body suffered from the back lash and you were born with that quirk."

"It should be fine if we don't  make any explosions' too big." Kachan added.

Izuku noticed the sun starting to go down and said “Kachan lets get heading back to shore before nightfall”

The ocean felt amazing as they slipped through it. Having the garbage out felt like taking out a splinter. It hurt to lose so much mass but it was worth it. Once Kachan got within twenty feet of Dagobah Izuku reformed a humanoid form. It was significantly smaller now that they left all the gunk out to sea. Izuku knew it would probably take a few days to get up to the size of an adult male. Izuku tried to firm up the feet so that nothing could undo all his hard work. They got quite a few odd looks for being completely transparent except for the eyes. Additionally they were even shorter now than when Izuku had been back when he was still alive. As they walked down the path Izuku looked for some clothes. He realized that they were going to have to steal them because all of Suran’s money had been discarded into the ocean. Not that the six hundred yen would have gotten them any clothes anyways. Finally spotting a hoodie and jeans hanging on a clothesline Izuku reached up and snatched them. 

Kachan sputtered at the blatant theft. "Did you really just steal those!?" 

"We cant just go walking around like this! people are staring, and beside these are cheap clothes nobody will miss them," Hopefully.

"Who cares if they are staring at us. They wont recognize us if we are this clean."

“Kachan I know it's nice being clean but we cant be clear like this it attracts too much attention, even if they don't recognize us.” 

Kachan paused to consider this before responding “Yeah, let's just find a place to sleep and then we can worry about how we look in the morning.”

It took them an hour of searching to find an abandoned apartment with the piece of furniture they were looking for. Or at least the furniture that Izuku was looking for.

“For the last time I’m not having us sleep in a fucking bathtub! It's degrading.”

“I don't get it Kachan you know as well as I do that we will turn into a puddle as soon as we try to sleep. There is no point to trying to find a bed.”  He didn't want to wake up and have seeped into the mattress. He was exasperated that Kachan didn't see the merits of his idea. “Besides this way we won't collect any dirt and have to redo the whole go out to sea thing."

“Fine, but for as long as we live I won’t let you tell anyone!”

“Whatever Kachan, not like there's anybody I could tell at this point anyways.”

A somber mood took them both after that. They were both silent as Izuku used a damp rag he found in a half broken cupboard to wipe out the bathtub of any dust that had collected. Once that was done he removed the stolen clothes and stepped into the bath. Finally he let the slime fully relax and they splashed down into the tub. It was about a third of the way full.  With just a pair of bulbous yellow eyes floating within. With that done he let himself drift off into the darkness of sleep.

Chapter Text

Katsuki always woke up before Deku and took delight in waking him up. Deku seemed happy to see that Katsuki was able to take control of the body without Deku there to help. He had already gotten out of the tub and put on the clothes. Deku turned the slime generation back on. Hopefully it will have recovered from yesterday's usage. 

Deku was silent for a couple of minutes before he spoke up. “Alright we need to get something to make ourselves look less conspicuous. I'm thinking we could use makeup or something to make us look more like the standard. With how malleable the slime is we could look like anybody.”

Katsuki hummed in agreement before biting out “Yeah that’s a good idea except for one thing; how the fuck are we supposed to get enough makeup to cover the whole body? You just had to dump all our money in the ocean didn't you?”

Deku seemed peeved that Katsuki had noticed that, he rushed to defend himself “It was contaminated. I was not about to give somebody a bill that had been soaking in sewage. And besides I thought we could just walk around and find some.”  

Katsuki snarled “Do you have any god damn idea how fucking expensive makeup is Deku?! It would take us a week to find enough money to buy that much, not to mention we need to buy food too.”

Deku shrank on himself “ I didn't think about that Kachan, maybe uh, maybe we could ju-just take some?” 

“Well well well, goody little Deku proposing we shoplift?”

“What else can we do Kachan?! ”

Katsuki started laughing “Oh I didn't say we shouldn't, I'm just laughing because that will probably be your first crime. Makeup theft.” 

Deku walked them out onto the street and pulled up the hood as an afterthought. By the time they made it to a shopping mall he was sick and tired of all the weird looks they were getting. The floating eyes and wobbly steps did not lend them an upstanding look. 

Katsuki yanked control from Deku when he caught sight of a makeup store. He put their head down to avoid anybody seeing their lack of face before heading in. He idly pursued the isles until the store until the clerk got distracted by another customer. He checked to make sure his back was to the camera. It was hard to not make any sound as he grabbed a few bottles of foundation. He also grabbed a big brush to apply it with. He pulled the stolen goods into their core away from sight. Who knew this quirk would lend itself so well to shoplifting? Pretending like he didn't find what he was looking for he casually walked out the door. He was glad that the cheap bottles he had grabbed didn't have the sensors on them. Before leaving the mall they went into a clothing store and walked to the back, to see if there was anything they could use. A boy with a mop of black hair and bright red eyes was trying on shoes and had left a pair of bright red crocks that had pink flames crawling up the sides unattended behind him. As if just walking by, Katsuki stepped into the crocs and away without pausing stride. 

Now with shoes they look slightly less suspicious. He walked around for a minute or so to see if they could see anything else of use in the store. A distressed cry came from the shoe area, internally Katsuki smirked. It seemed Croc Boy had noticed his thievery. He continued, and on his way out he noticed a scarf and a pair of enormous black sunglasses. He grabbed both figuring he could use them to hide their distinctive features.

“Alright Kachan, that's enough. I don't want to become a thief.” Deku was nervous and occasionally took an eye to look at anybody who stared at them too long.

“Ok ok, I was just about to leave. We need to get something to eat though.” spotting the same kid they took the crocs from dramatically crying and hanging off his friend, a pink skinned girl, he casually approached. The boy was now holding a hotdog, likely the friend had gotten him one while he was looking at shoes. 

He heard the boy wail “I can't believe it Mina! Somebody stole my crocs! Who even does that?”

The girl responded with an incredulous tone of voice “Yeah, who would even want those monstrosities?” 

Ha! Katsuki thought, served the boy right for his terrible fashion choices. As he walked by he extended a thin tendril, barely visible as clear as it was, and grabbed the hot dog right out of the kid’s hand. By the time the kid whipped around they were already disappearing into the crowd.

“That was just cruel Kachan.” Deku said in a disappointed voice .

“Hey! Did you not see that sad excuse for an outfit? He had it coming.” He was still happy over how easy it was to acquire what they needed. He decided not to chew the hot dog to avoid having to see mush floating around in their stomach region. 

Making it back to their stolen apartment he took off their clothes and tossed them on the floor. He walked into the bathroom and stood in front of the sink and took out the brush as well as the bottles of foundation. 

“Alright Deku how are we gonna do this?” 

“Maybe just spread it around the face area and see how it looks?” 

Seeing no better alternatives he put a dollop on the brush and began applying it.  He tried to avoid getting any in their unblinking eyes. Deku noticed his difficulty and thoughtfully moved the eyes to their neck instead. “God that’s so fucking creepy.” he muttered under his breath. Once the face is fully slathered in a uniform ish coating he pushes they eyes back out onto the face and manifest their mouth.

“Kachan that's terrible! we look like somebody put googly eyes on a greasy balloon.”

“Oh god, that looks so shitty.” he tried to pull the face into a more face-like shape but it only enhanced how terrible they looked. The eyes were enormous and the mouth stretched almost ear to ear. 

“Deku this would draw more fucking attention than being clear would.” To both their growing horror the makeup started dissolving into the slime that made up their face. Before Katsuki could stop him, Deku had run over to the counter and let their face slough off into the sink. 

“Jesus fuck Deku! You can't just pull shit like that!”

“I'm sorry! I didn’t think how that would look until I saw it. I just didn't want to have to go back out into the ocean to clean up.”

“Well if makeup isn't going to fucking work maybe we can just dye the slime a color and call it good. Plenty of people have weird skin tones these days.”

Deku accepted this easily enough “what color do we want to be then?”  

Katsuki shrugged their shoulders, the motion looked completely unnatural in the mirror. "I don't know, just not fucking green.” They didn't want to share any resemblance to the slime villain.

Muttering Deku said “Well it has to be a dark color so people can't see anything we need to store inside, also so they can't see any nitroglycerin pockets if we need to fight. Let's just find something that will work and decide on a color once we get there."

He wrapped the scarf around their entire head except for the eyes, he then put on the large sunglasses. The hoodie and jeans came on next and then finally the regrettable crocs. He wished the kid they had stolen them from had left some more tasteful shoes unattended. 

He let Deku take control back at the arts and crafts store figuring the nerd would know more about it than him. They got to a section with calligraphy ink and started reading labels. Deku started muttering again, “I feel like any color we get might be at a little bit transparent..  our best bet is probably black.”  

One bottle in particular stood out. Katsuki grabbed it and brought it in front of their face for Deku to examine. “Oh Kachan that's perfect!” the ink was a metallic black it looked like obsidian or blackened steel. Katsuki reached an arm up to the shelf with the metallic black ink and syphoned about five bottles up their arm. The one Deku was holding got put in front so it didn't look like any was missing. Again he sneaked out of the store with no attention being drawn to them. 

By the time they were once again standing without clothes in front of the mirror the hot dog had completely dissolved. And After a day to recover their form was just under average height and width. The slime quirk was once again exhausted for the day and they would have to wait until tomorrow to get any bigger if they wanted to. 

“Alright I'm going to just start with the hand, In case we need to dump it.” Deku said. He shifted their left forearm into a ball and opened up a thin hole down to the center at the top. He took a bottle of ink and very carefully poured a tablespoon or two into the limb. He sealed the hole, careful not to trap any air within and churned the ball. It took about five minutes of vigorous mixing for it to be an even color. But when it was done it looked perfect. It was like a section of the slime was now obsidian, glossy but not transparent at all. The metallic quality of the Ink made the texture of the slime look like crystal or glass rather than the goo it was. He touched the off white of the counter to see if any came off, but the ink had dissolved into the slime completely. 

“Well Kachan what do you think, good enough for you?” Deku shifted the limb back into a hand shape noting the irregular form now that it wasn't transparent. He altered the hand to be more normal. After flexing it a few times he realized that they were going to have to practice natural looking movement.

“Yeah, that looks intimidating enough. Hurry the fuck up and do the rest.” 

Deku decided that it would be easier to do the rest in the bathtub. He let all but the already mixed forearm sink into the tub. After reforming the hand into a glob he pulled the eyes as well as both small beads of nitro up into it so they wouldn't get disturbed. He then extended a tendril over to the bottles and brought them to the tub. One after another they were poured into a crater in the slime until nothing was left in them. The mixing process was much harder in the tub. It also took longer, but by the time they were done the effects were well worth it.

This time when Katsuki manifested the eyes and mouth the grin in the mirror looked eerie instead of freakish.

---------------

They had decided to just lay low in the apartment for a couple days to recover mass as well as to sleep off any lingering effects of sleep deprivation the body might suffer from.  

Deku had been moping around and thinking about he and Katsuki' parents as well as the future. He blandly said “ I doubt we are going to be able to go to school, much less get a hero license anymore.”

“Yeah especially since we are wanted for our own fucking murder. Any hint that we are the slime villain and I doubt they will listen long enough to explain your shitty quirk to them.” Katsuki replied, sounding even more disappointed than Deku. 

“What are we going to do with our lives, Kachan? We can't return to our families and we can't be heroes, I doubt we could get a job…”

“We could always become a vigilante I guess… kick some ass, get famous, it wouldn't be the same as being a hero but we could still help people and shit.”

“We can't do that Kachan! That's illegal.” Deku sounded appalled that Katsuki had even suggested it. "It would also draw us back into the heroes eyes, which not be safe." he added

“Why the fuck not Deku?! You want to be a hero the same as me, and this might be our only shot!”

“How would we even do it Kachan? We have no idea how to be a vigilante.”

“Eh, how hard could it be nerd? After all I've seen idiots that call themselves heroes, it can't be too challenging.”

Deku paused to consider it, The quirks they had were almost perfect for heroics not to mention Vigilantism. “Alright I’ll think about it but we have to be completely unrecognizable as the slime villain though.”

Katsuki was glad that Deku would go along with it. It would be downright impossible without the nerds' cooperation.  “What are we going to do for a costume then?”

Deku didn't take long to think before saying “I don't think we should have a costume. It would detract from our fighting style as well as get destroyed by explosions. Plus if we needed to liquefy we wouldn't want to have to leave it behind.”

Katsuki was a little concerned by Deku’s lack of modesty. “Are we seriously going to run around butt naked?” 

Katsuki knew that if they still had blood Deku would be blushing. “Honestly Kachan it's not like we have anything to cover. Plus if we play it right I doubt anybody would notice.”

Deku walked them over to the mirror before pulling them into a familiar muscle bound figure. They didn't have quite enough slime so Deku hollowed them out. “How about this?”

Katsuki was not having it “We are not going out shaped like All Might, that would be disgraceful.” besides he had a better idea “Hey Deku have you ever heard of the pre quirk videogame slenderman?” grinning he stretched them out until they were around seven feet tall he lengthened the limbs and balanced proportions until they were shaped exactly like the horror creature. “If we play this right we can scare the shit out of criminals, that alone would make it worth it.”

“Yeah I saw it mentioned on some forums a few years back, this could work, though we would need to make it look less fluid of course otherwise the heroes might put two and two together.”  Deku began shifting around the slime, he formed scales on one arm and rocky protrusions on the other. Neither of the two looked good with their slender form. Finally he pulled their head into facets. It looked like it was a head shaped gemstone. The gem look went perfectly with the metallic ink. Soon he made it so their whole body looked like it had been carved out of a black diamond. The half dollar sized facets even caught the light like a true gem would.  

“We may look like a shitty ass rock now but nobody will believe it as soon as the criminals feel how gooey we are.” Katsuki was already brainstorming ideas. Maybe they could put shards of glass on the surface to make it feel hard or something.

“I may have an idea for that Kachan, you know how I was theorizing you must have a secondary aspect to your quirk that keeps your hands from getting blown off? Well we can try to get it to work on the surface of the slime.”

“How though? I have never noticed having weird hands before, plus they would get burned from the stove all the time."

"It is probable something you have to activate. Hmm try picturing your palms getting tougher.”

Katsuki concentrated on that very thing and felt nothing.

Deku was starting to go into nerd mode but that could be a good thing, “Maybe it is only active on your hands and since you don't have hands anymore....” 

Katsuki let off a few minor explosions in his palm but stopped when Deku screeched.

“Of course! It only happens when you let them explode. Start to let off an explosion but stop before it actually goes off.”

Katsuki did as asked and froze at the weird sensation of his hands. He touched them together and marveled at the texture. It was like the hard rubber of a basketball. It still was smooth like a crystal but it no longer was sticky and liquidy. He lost concentration and the texture sank back into the slime. 

He doubted that even if he had that ability to explosion proof the rest of his body back when he still had it, that he would have been able to keep the effect up for long. However with the struggle they went through with the slime villain his ability to maintain concentration had vastly improved. Additionally something to do with Deku’s quirk or having what was essentially three minds in one head their overall ability to think was greater than before, not a lot, but enough that with enough practice, maintaining the effect over their entire body should not be much of an inconvenience. 

“Hey Deku you know how I could add my will to yours to help take over Slimy?” he had an idea for boosting his concentration even further.

“Yeah, of course I do. I don't think I would have been able to take him over so well without your cooperation.”

Katsuki doubted it too. Deku’s quirk seemed to run on mental fortitude. And after all day of taking control away from Suran Deku would get tired and loose progress. Katsuki often had found himself holding everything in place for hours as Deku recovered. It had been an exhausting couple of weeks. Either way the concept should apply to quirks as well. “I'm going to practice solidifying different parts of slime you focus on keeping them in place.” 

Not bothering to wait for Deku to reply he started, he would harden an area and then stop concentrating on it. The section would remain as Deku kept it there. Eventually, chunk by chunk he had their entire surface area covered. He then focused on maintaining the effect. Deku sighed as Katsuki took away half the burden. They kept it there for about five minutes before a honking car outside their window startled them enough to drop it.

Deku seemed pleased with their progress. “Well once we get that working that will make it so we can hit things and not worry about blowing up. As well as make our quirk different enough that nobody will be able to connect us to the slime villain.” 

Thinking about how Suran had used Ooz Katsuki doubted anybody would put it together anyways. If they kept the body small enough as well as keeping its form together they would be unrecognizable. The only thing that would be the same would be the eyes.

“Hey nerd got any ideas about what to do about the eyes?”

“What’s wrong with the eyes?”

“They are bright yellow idiot, somebody might notice they are the exact same as Slime fucker”

Deku started scanning around the room for ideas. His gaze landed upon the sunglasses; definitely large enough to cover the distinctive yellow sclera. Katsuki was appalled. Those things were hideous, and had leopard print rims. “Oh! we could use those Kachan.”  Deku said, oblivious to his internal distress.

“We want to look terrifying, not like some old lady .you unfashionable piece of shit.” Katsuki said in a horrified voice 

“I'm not saying we wear them like glasses, the lenses are the same color as us now so we can just use the lenses to cover our eyes. Additionally we could move our eyes around and nobody would be able to tell.” That idea was actually pretty good, Katsuki had to admit. Deku walked them over to the glasses and used some slime to pop out the lenses. He then made a pair of eye sockets to retract the eyes into. Once there was enough space for the lenses to fit comfortably he placed them in. the edges were covered in slime to hold them in place. 

Katsuki was curious what they looked like now so he walked them over to the mirror to check. The effect was rather disturbing. Their head was completely  blank, with just a hint of human features. That combined with the impossibly still posture and inhuman proportions they looked like a monster. Struck by inspiration, Katsuki pulled the slime around the lenses into a vague eye shape. It gave the impression of eye sockets on their head. It also made the plastic look like another facet. Finally he manifested the grin. “Oh hell yeah! I'm gonna scare the shit out of so many criminals with this face.”

“I sure wouldn't want to meet us in a dark alley.” Deku said nervously. 

“We just need to practice and get our shit together. Then once we can move around in this new body I say we start going for patrols.”

Chapter Text

Dagobah beach proved to be the perfect training spot. The precarious piles of garbage were good for flying around and jumping to. Plus the smell they lacked a nose to notice kept pedestrians away. If anybody came to close they could just jump into the ocean and dart to a different section of beach. Plus the noise of the ocean drowned out the constant explosions. While Katsuki the got a hang of flying around using both his hands and feet. Deku was messing around with the nitroglycerin. He was trying out keeping tanks of Nitro within both the arms and legs. He uses a small tube from the tank to where the explosions were being produced. He was also experimenting with changing the focus of the blasts with different bell shapes. Depending on how wind or narrow the bell would change the properties of the explosion. Wide shapes made a similar wide explosion where the force was more distributed. Narrow barrels made a smaller explosion that went further and hit harder. 

“I would have never fucking guessed how well Explosion and Ooze worked together.” Katsuki said, sounding only a little peeved. The slime could form any shape they needed in moments. This allowed him to direct the explosion however he wanted. And With the solidifying effect from his quirk the slime maintains it’s form. Additionally with both of them he could focus entirely on maneuvering and Deku would manage the slime control. Whenever he needed a certain effect the nerd would have it formed by the time he went to ignite it. Deku's job was also to release the perfect amount of nitro. Gone were the days that Katsuki could choose to ignite however much sweat he wanted. Now he had to manually measure out the amount and get the explosive into position. Guess there were some downsides to the new body after all.

Along with the explosions they had also worked with moving the slime. Fortunately the hardening did not change how malleable the slime was. It still moved to their command exactly the same. Just like his hands did in his old body.

“Alrighty Deku we’ve been training for a few days, I say we go out tonight to see if we can catch any shitstains doing crime.” He looked down at their long claw like hands and flexed them a few times. Those criminals wouldn't know what hit them.

“Let's do it. I don't see any reason not to. I doubt this body can be injured through any conventional means.” Deku turned their head to the sky to check the position of the sun. They had about forty five minutes until sundown. Just enough time to go find some food to steal. Katsuki shimmied them into the same grungy clothes and shoes from before. The scarf came around their whole head except for the eyes which remind behind the lenses. By this point the shades were a permanent feature, the tint was barely noticeable, even at night. Suran had better night vision than a regular humans so it was nice to wear them. It also kept their eyes from hurting ever so slightly during the day.

Katsuki always made sure to target annoying looking people to take food from. It served them right for dressing like that. A large man with an unfortunate Mohawk had left his takeout container on a bench beside him. It was a  matter of simply walking up behind him, silently grabbing the box and then walking away. He had already poured the warm noodles into their mouth by the time the man's hollers were heard

……...

They stopped by the apartment to drop off their clothes. And then, finally their first time out as a vigilante could begin. They didn't have to go far from where they slept to find a shady looking neighborhood to patrol. They jumped from rooftop to rooftop, the dark ink allowing them to blend in with the night. 

Two hours later they had found nothing. Not even an old lady to help across the road. Katsuki was annoyed and complained loudly to nobody “Oh come on, when Slimy was in control he committed crimes all the time! How hard could it be to find somebody to pummel?"

Deku sighed, probably because this was not the first time Katsuki had regaled him with this particular complaint. He responded “It's a good thing Kachan, if there isn't much crime that means that people are safer.”

Katsuki didn't buy it “ Oh I'm positive there is a shitload of crime happening, we just don't know how to find it.”

“Let's just go to a different part of town. Maybe a place with a lot of bars would be good. Like that place Suran tried to kill that one guy.” Deku said.

They did go there. And after staking out the rooftops over a dirty looking bar they spotted somebody following a lady suspiciously. Katsuki took full control of the body and started stalking after the pair. The woman picked up her pace, obviously noticing the man behind her. They reached a spot where a few lights had gone out. The man pulled out a knife and pushed the woman into an alley. “Give me your purse and anything else valuable you have and I won't gut you.” the woman screamed, she tried to squirm out of the man's hold but stopped when he moved the knife closer to her.

Before the woman could reply Katsuki had dropped down silently behind the man. He reached a long fingered hand around the of the dipshit's neck. Their fingers easily wrapped around his entire feathery throat. The man jerked and whipped his head around to see what had grabbed him. He let out a frightened shout when they came into view. 

Deku was muttering about both of the alley's occupants' quirks. Analyzing them in case either tried to fight. The woman was emanating a blue tinted vapor from her hair and the man had some sort of bird mutation.“ The vapor is likely harmless otherwise it would have hurt the mugger. The man's mutation seems to be an owl so better vision and hearing likely.” Katsuki notes that neither would be a problem and threw the man against a dumpster a few feet away. The woman screamed even louder when she saw them looming a few feet away from her. Katsuki bared their teeth at her. She paled even further and backed shakily away. 

Turning away from the woman he stalked over to the man who was just getting to his feet. The guy lunges at them with his dagger. Katsuki lets it harmlessly sink into their stomach before pulling it in entirely leaving the man weaponless. The mugger goggled at where his knife had just been and backed up and said “Hey man no need for this I'll leave her alone, just let me go.” 

Deku said “Don't let him. He will probably be back at it come morning." The man's large unblinking eyes were rapidly moving around looking for a way out. 

Katsuki replied to Deku even as he walked even closer to the man “No way in hell am I letting a criminal asswipe like this get away scott free.” Katsuki suddenly whipped both arms out to grab the man’s head, he then brought it down on their knee. There was a loud crack as the man's nose broke. He released him to slump to the ground in pain. Deku took over and started zip tying his hands to a solid looking pipe. Deku then patted down the man to see if he had another knife he might use to escape. The search turned up a wallet, some keys and a battered phone. 

Deku muttered out “I'm going to call the police to come pick up the mugger.” before he did just that. The phone did not have a password so Deku got right to the calling app in seconds. While Deku was busy calling the cops Katskui sneakily siphoned the wallet and keys up into their torso through their arm. He knew Deku would not approve. But they really needed money at this point so the nerd could suck it.

He heard a click as the phone picked up on the other side. “ 119 what's your emergency?”

Deku went to talk into the receiver but nothing came out, they didn't have lungs or air. So of course they couldn't talk. With all the conversations they had in their mind Katsuki had never even noticed they never talked with a real voice. “Shit Deku! How are we going to call this if we can't even talk?” Deku had pulled some air into the head and tried again but the only thing that came out was a gurgle. 

“Excuse me but could you repeat that?” the 119 operator said, sounding a tad annoyed. Having no other options Deku walked over to the woman on the ground and handed her the phone. He stared at her in a way he hoped conveyed their intention for her to talk to the police. 

“Excuse me?” came from the phone in the woman’s hands. 

She put it shakily up to her ear and said “uh, um yes I'm here. Can p-please send help?”

“What’s your location ma'am” the operator asked sounding pleased to finally have somebody on the line

“I'm in alley on Simond avenue right by the spotted frog bar.-and-and some guy tried to mug me but this creature thing stopped him!”

She was staring right at them clearly afraid they were going to hurt her. “Please you have to send help it-it's still here. It’s standing right next to me.” 

Deku muttered to Kachan “well that's kind of rude. Just because we look scary doesn't  mean we aren't human.”

The woman kept on talking to the operator. Hearing a groan behind them, Deku turned around and saw the mugger trying to escape. Silently he crept over to him and stood before him. The mugger was preoccupied with his hands and doesn't notice them for a second. Eventually he saw their feet and slowly looked up until he finally reached their head. Being this tall had its advantages Katsuki thought. For one the Mugger had to strain his neck to look at them from that angle. The man started shaking and stopped trying to escape. Deku walked them back over to the woman to wait for the cops. He moved one eye and corresponding lens to the back of their head to covertly keep an eye on the man.

.............

 They had been waiting for the police to arrive for about five minutes. Kachan was getting antsy, He was worried about being arrested but Izuku doesn't want the mugger to escape. He also does not want to leave the woman alone with somebody who recently threatened to kill her.

The mugger starts struggling again but this time he does so silently. The man was keeping an eye on them. So he has a perfect view when Izuku turns around and shakes a finger back and forth slowly as though admonishing a child. The man lets out a little squeak of fright before going still. He does not try to escape again.

Izuku walks them into the shadow of the building to avoid the woman's freighted stare. Just because he is dead and has a seven foot tall slime monster for a body doesn't mean he has any less social anxiety. Kachan scoffs at him but doesn't move to re-take control. They had agreed that Kachan would do the fighting and Izuku would deal with people. He figured the choice between anxiety and blistering rage that a little stutter might be preferable. Though not being able to talk at the moment leaves Izuku with a sense of relief. 

Finally the Police car pulls up. With one last glare to the mugger Izuku reaches an arm up to the fire escape and lightly pulls them up. One more leap and they are out of any of the alleys inhabitants view. Before they leave for good Kachan throws the keys and wallet sans money and gift cards back to the ground. That way it would be easier for the police to ID the man.

The bright lights from the police car briefly illuminate them but Izuku is quick to duck down and hurry away. hopefully nobody saw them. Izuku takes them to a new area and begins patrolling again. 

They don't see anything else the rest of the night. And before dawn they call it quits. Izuku walks them back into their apartment and over to the tub. He uses the rag lying next to it to wipe out of any dust that might have collected throughout the day. Once it was clean he collapses right into it without bothering to remove any of the items floating within their chest cavity. Eh not like anything could hurt them. 

“Goodnight Kachan” 

“Tch, fuck off.” 

Chapter Text

When Izuku awoke he was surprised to see that Kachan was still drifting in sleep, especially because it was around noon. Izuku pulled himself out of the tub and formed a body. He made one that was shorter. Not quite as small as his real body had been but about average for their age. He decided to sort through the things floating haphazardly within them as he waited for Kachan to wake up. He was angry at Kachan for taking the wallet and phone but he knew they needed them. 

Once they were sorted and re absorbed, Izuku sat near the window. It only took fifteen minutes for Kachan to rouse after that.

He yawned and took partial control of the body in order to check up on their surroundings. “ Huh, you're up. That's a first.” 

Izuku shrugged with the body, a motion that had become much more natural in the days they had been familiarizing themselves with their new form. “Either way we need to work on talking today, seeing as that was our weak link yesterday”

Kachan did not seem pleased to not be able to practice combat but acquiesced none the less. “Wait a second! We didn't even use a single explosion last night!”  

“We probably shouldn't get used to fighting like that Kachan. That criminal didn't have a quirk that would help with combat at all. Plus he seemed really out of it.” Izuku said diplomatically  

“Yeah yeah.” Kachan groused. "Do you have any memories of how the pile of snot was able to speak? I don't remember him having any trouble with it.”

“Nope!” Izuku chirped. “We will just have to figure it out as we go.” He dug around in their torso for the phone and pulled up a diagram of a vocal track. He formed a pair of crude lungs to store air in, Thankfully the mouth that they could manifest with Ooze could include a tongue, so he didn't have to try and sculpt one with slime. He tried to form some vocal cords but wasn't really sure how they worked. Curiously he tried pushing air out. It came out a breathy wheeze. “Well better than the gurgle from last night anyways. Here you go form another voice track on the other side of the head that way we can both practice.” he said to Kachan.

He felt Kachan form something identical to his on the other side of the body. The voice continued to not take shape, since the vocal cords were not vibrating like they were supposed to. He wondered why not. After some contemplation he realized it might be Kanchan's secondary quirk involved. He relaxed the stiffening and immediately the vocal cord started flapping like a soggy towel in the wind. He cringed at the sound. It was like somebody with a wet cough. He added more thickness and shortened the length he re stiffened them until the cords started buzzing. It sounded nothing like a voice, but it was still progress. 

Once Kachan heard the sound he copied Izuku's new voice tract. Soon the air was filled with two notes that sounded unfortunately like a woodwind instrument. Izuku sighed with his new lungs and resigned himself to many hours of practice. 

.........

Katsuki  was sick of practicing with their voice. The result was still terrible. It was completely understandable but sounded off. Real voices had texture to them and inflection. Their's sounded as freaky as they looked. Like a saxophone decided to start taking. He said to Deku “Nobody's is going to take us seriously sounding like this Deku.” 

“Well if we can't make it sound normal without more practice why don't we go for scary.”

Katsuki shot that down with “Nobody will think we're scary Deku! They will laugh as soon as we open our mouth.” Katsuki repeated the sentence out loud. It sounded terrible. It was far too nasal. Unfortunately they lacked a nose to get rid of that quality. 

“I have an idea Kachan. Do you remember the spirit hero Specter? They talked through the voices of their spirits. Each voice alone was too quiet to be heard but all layered up it was said to be deafening. As well as scary.”

“We can't have multiple mouths Deku that would look ridiculous.” 

“I know, I know ,but let's just try it for now. Repeat a couple of words for a bit i'm going to try to match you.” 

Katsuki begrudgingly did so. He paused for s second to think out what to say before saying “Deku is an idiot, Deku is an idiot.” over and over. Deku scowled but obliged and started saying the same thing. He matched it up to Kachan's cadence. Listening to the combined voice was odd. The voices themselves had diverged as he and Katsuki tried different things. However combined they sounded similar to how a choir would. Only with two perfectly matched voices rather than dozens of imperfect ones. Deku formed yet another voice track slightly different than both of the others. He took control of Katsuki's voice too while he was at it. And then out loud in the layed voice he said “ How does this sound Kachan ?” 

“Fucking freaky thats how.” He sounded reluctantly impressed as well as irritated. “why does everything we do have to be so creepy? So much for being a cool vigilante, guess we'll just have to go all the way down horror lane.” 

"Your the one who wanted to scare criminals Kachan."

"Yeah, Yeah" Katsuki muttered

Deku combined all of the voice tracks into one mouth he added a few more with varying lengths and shape he replied to Katsuki “Well if you want to spend a few more days practicing we can try for a normal voice I guess.” Deku laughed out loud when Katsuki flinched at the sound. He laughed even harder when the angry boy recoiled even more at the sound of their new laugh. 

“No way, we are not wasting another day on this nonsense!” he sighed but added “ Just try not to talk very much.”

.......

It seemed their luck on the first night was just that. They didn't find a single occurrence that would benefit by having them interfere for the next few nights. By the time they finally did find anything they were both itching for something exiting to happen. 

The area by the bar was practically deserted. Perhaps all the ne'er-do-well s had been spooked by the police showing up a few days ago. 

So instead now they were walking around in a warehouse district, there were also some run down office buildings and shabby looking apartments. They saw plenty of shady looking people, but none of them were doing anything overtly criminal. Then they came across a meeting of some sort. Two groups of people were arguing over something. 

Their vantage point, crouched upon the roof above where the gathering was, offered a great view of the proceedings. Unfortunately the two story house proved to be too tall to comfortably hear to the ground. The two groups were distinct in what they were wearing. The members of one group all had on a black armband. The other looked to all be of European descent most likely Russian. 

Katsuki whispered to Deku “They must be part of gangs or something."

Deku muttered back “look at that big guy in the back,” The guy in the back of the armband guys whose skin resembles an alligator or some other lizard was holding a briefcase. The defensive formation around the man suggested whatever he was carrying was important. “It must be full of drugs or money or something. Let's wait until anything  happens to step in.” 

They watched for another ten minutes or so. The non armband guys turned out to indeed be Russians based on their accents. It was now possible to hear them, as both groups were yelling at each other. One guy activated his quirk and brought a sphere of nearby gravel and glass floating in front of himself. The armband guys responded by pulling out their own quirks as well as a few guns. The Russians gave one last yell before they started throwing their quirks at each other. 

Katsuki took that as his queue to assume full control and drop down into combat. Their long legs easily absorbed the force of the fall. The liquidity and shock absorbent quality of their entire body made it so that they rarely made sound hitting things. It was easy to sneak up and sweep the rear Russian to the ground. 

Leaping over him into the center of the fight he pulled up both hands and let out a weak wide angled explosions. The desired effect was achieved when the armband guys were knocked back. 

Deku shouted out “watch out for the guy to your left! His coloring suggest he might be poisonous.” Katsuki swung his gaze around and saw the man Deku pointed out. His whole body was covered in quills, they were a toxic looking purple instead of the brown that most animals had. He was prepared when the man launched half a dozen of the quills in his direction. He released an explosion directly in front of himself. It burned up the quills before they could get within a foot of their body. He felt one of the stone balls that guy from earlier formed impact the back of their head at high speeds. The impact only knocked their head forward. And damage to the slime was healed before anybody could notice. Katsuki grabbed the stone from where it was flying back towards its master and launched it with a focused blast. The stone hit the man in the stomach and knocked him off his feet.

Katsuki turned around to deal with the porcupine guy. The guy was preoccupied firing quills at the other gang. He let off a duel explosion from his feet in order to rocket towards him. Once he was close enough he blasted the guy back into a fire escape. Katsuki heard a snap at the collision. Most likely a broken rib. The man fell the floor gasping. 

The armband gang were gathering together in order to fight while the briefcase holder ran away. Katsuki decided he was top priority since he had all the evident, so he used to explosions from his feet to launch them up and over the hastily assembled group and then rocketed forward after then alligator man. He caught up to him in seconds and still midair grabbed onto the mans shoulder from above. He used a small explosion from one feet to kick off and flip their leg up and out in front. As soon as their feet touched the ground he used all their strenght but mainly the momentum from the aligator man's sprint to flip him up over their head and the slam him into the ground. 

The man wheezed from the force of his impact. Katsuki lazily kicked the briefcase away from him so that it wasn't in immediate reach. The man started rolling over and painfully trying to get to his feet, Katsuki decided they couldn't have any of that so he walked over and stomped down on the mans shin. there was a loud crack as the bone broke, the man stated screaming in pain and clutching his leg. He wouldn't be running away any time soon. Katsuki straitened back up to their full height and the tuned around to face the rest of the whimpering man's gang.

He walked menacingly over to the armband guys. They were starting to look twitchy. One guy with a small handgun shot them in the head. Thankfully it didn't hit either of the lenses and instead passed harmlessly through. The bullet dinged against a wall behind them. 

The man gulped when Katsuki didn't even pause stride at being shot. He whipped out one of their arms and ripped the gun from the man's hand. Thinking of a funny idea he opened their mouth and dropped the gun in. He discreetly moved to be in their torso but from the gang's perspective it would look like they had swallowed it. 

He laughed at the looks on their faces, Then jumped into the center of the mob and started letting off small explosions. One guy with fingers that extended in wicked points slashed at them. The slime where the fingers connect parted and then resealed just as fast. Katsuki grabbed the guy's face and threw him against the wall. 

It looked like Deku’s original prediction that they were basically immune to mundane attacks was turning out to be true. He was finding that most of Deku's predictions were turning out to be true.

 He released an explosion that was more shock wave than heat into the torso of another gang member, she went down with a grunt and started retching. He walked past the alligator guy as he approached the last armband gang member. He made sure to stomp on the guy's stomach to discourage another escape attempt. 

“This guy looks to have some sort of speed quirk. Based on how he was using it earlier I think it allows him to accelerate in short bursts to high speed. I don't think he is able to turn or cancel his momentum once he starts using it however. He also always tenses a little bit right before he activates it” Deku said.

“So you're saying to catch him midair then. Got it.” He saw the guys eyes dart between them and the fallen briefcase “just try it fucker” Katsuki growled in their head. The man shifted his weight forward just a little bit and Katsuki grinned “gotcha” the man shot forward trying to get by them and to the briefcase. However Katsuki snatched him out of the air as he passed by. He used the momentum from the man's quirk to pivot around and throw him to the floor. The man wheezed as his breath was knocked out of his lungs.  

He turned to the other gang where they were scrambling to help up their fallen friends and trying to escape. Sadly for them Katsuki had maneuvered to block the exit out of the alley. He advanced on them, once he was about five feet away he released a wide angle explosion that knocked a few of them off their feet. He turned to the closest gang member The air was shimmering oddly around her, almost like a mirage on a hot day. Deku started running analysis, he said  “Watch out for this one Kachan, judging by how the other gang was reacting she has an optical illusion quirk of some sort.” 

Deciding he didn't want to deal with any illusion bullshit he put both hands in front of himself and let off a bigger blast than before. The large explosion also served the purpose of keeping the other gang members busy while he dealt with the first goon. 

He saw the woman stumble. He let off another one and then leapt forwards through the still floating dust right into the mirage lady. He felt his shoulder connect to something solid and made sure to drag it down with him to the floor. He then jumped up and used her unfortunate position on the ground to land a kick on her side. 

However while his back had been turned a gang member had managed to sneak up on him. He felt a large impact on their lower back. The blow knocked them forward a step. He turned around and let off a small blast directly where he guessed the guy's face would be. Unfortunately the explosion did nothing as the man’s entire body was covered in stones the size of pebbles. 

Deku piped up again “regular blast probably wont work here Kachan. You're going to have to let off a big one, but watch out for the people behind him. We cannot accidentally kill somebody.” looking behind the pebble guy to where the porcupine guy was still unconscious. 

“Tch, especially since we don't know what will happen with your quirk if we kill somebody rather than if somebody kills us.”

Trying to think of a way to get past the stones he noticed a glint on the porcupine guys fingers. He relayed his idea to Deku and felt the slime around the fingers start to shift in preparation.  

With how fast and flexible their new body was it was easy to slip past the pebble guy. Of course the bright explosions combined with the darkness meant that none of Katsuki's opponents night vision was working properly.

He stepped back onto the porcupine guy's hand with his back foot. From Rocky's point of view it looked like they were standing defensively. However instead Katsuki had relaxed the slime on the floor and got to work removing the brass knuckles from the fallen gangster. Once they were loose it was a matter of moments to siphon the weapon into their right fist. 

He kept the pointed metal underneath a layer of slime to avoid the glint tipping off their opponent. He jumped forward and started letting off small blasts in the man's face to distract him. He slipped around to the man’s back and put his arm up. When the guy finally turned around to face them, he let loose a big right hook. The instance before the fist would have connected to the man's face Katsuki detonated the nitroglycerin pockets located right behind the brass knuckles. The added force of the explosion caused the weapon to slightly detach from the slime. However the effect on the pebble guy was extremely gratifying. 

Where the brass knuckles had impacted was now littered  with cracks and craters. The man tumbled down to the ground in pain. However he got back up after a few seconds. When he stood his stance was unstable and causing him to sway. Katsuki released a bright explosion in the guy's face and used his momentary disorientation to hit him in the diaphragm with the brass knuckles. The guy tripped backwards and fell to the ground a second time. This time however he didn't get back up.

The two remaining gang members didn't have obvious quirks. However Katsuki doubted they would wait so long to use them if they had usefully abilities. So he decided to jump right at them before they could prepare. He side kicked one if them in the shin and heard a crunch as the bone broke. The gangster went down with a scream. Finally he let off a concussive explosion at the last guy who went sprawling back onto one of his buddies. And with that every member of both gangs were incapacitated.

It took Katsuki about five minutes to zip tie everyone and another minute to pile them all up in a corner of the alley. He pointed an arm threateningly in their direction. One of them had a burner phone. Katsuki switched their own stolen phone for that one.

 He handed control over to Deku, who then dialed the cops and put the phone near their head. Before anybody could pick up the call Katsuki said  “Make sure to sound intimidating, none of your mumbling or stuttering nonsense.”

“I know Kachan. I know how important the right reputation can be.” Izuku said. 

When the phone picked up Izuku didn't give the operator a chance to speak before he blurted out in their shattered voice “ Hello, we have picked up a number of gang members in the midst of a brawl. If you could send backup that would be appreciated. ”

The operator took a second to gather themselves after listening to their disturbing voice. “Where did this incident take place? And how many individuals were involved?” 

Izuku used an eye to count the frightened looking gang members while Kachan used the other to look for street signs. He responded once he had both “ There are eleven members total and we are across the street from Vice Manufacturers.”

“ A couple of squad cars will be at your location within a few moments. What did you say your name was again?”

“ We didn't,” Izuku replied before hanging up. Izuku walked over to the briefcase to see if they could figure out what was in it. A thug went to st op him but froze when Kachan let off a few crackling pops from their hands. The briefcase was locked. But it was easy enough to open when he could just ooze slime into the mechanism and manually move the latch. Inside were dozens of vials of fluid. Definitely some form of drug. 

Izuku closed the briefcase and walked over to the alligator guy. He seemed to be the boss of the armband gang. Izuku bent at the waist until they were looking at where the man was propped up against the wall gingerly holding his leg. Izuku said in a voice quieter than the one he had used before “ Where do you and your gang make these drugs?”

The man spat at them rather than respond. Izuku idly dodged. Before he could interrogate further the police had arrived. The first police member stepped out of the car, leveled a gun at them and yelled “freeze!”

Izuku lifted the hand not holding the briefcase into the air slowly. The various gang members did the same. Well the ones that were conscious did. “Get on the ground!” yelled another policewoman” the order was for everyone but mainly directed at them as they were the only one mobile. 

Rather than complying Izuku walked over to the police officers. Inside he was freaking out but he knew they couldn't afford to comply with the police. Otherwise they would probably end up in a holding cell. The officers all looked scared of them and one yelled “Stop not any closer!”  Izuku stopped five feet from them and placed the briefcase on the ground. 

He said “ The briefcase we found, it contains drugs. Oh and a few of  these individuals will likely require medical attention.” 

Before the police could demand they get on the ground again Izuku had already moved to leap past them. He swayed to the side to get out of the line of fire and then used an explosion to get to the roof. He ignored the shouts behind him and focused on escaping. It wasn't hard being both nearly invisible in the darkness as well as completely silent. 

Once they were out of the range of fire Kachan blurted out “Nice going dipshit! Why did you say ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ now they are going to think there are more of us.” 

Izuku was distraught to realize that he had indeed said that. “Oh shoot, I didn't even realize that I said that. But I doubt they will think we have an accomplice. They will probably just assume that we are crazy or something.”

“Oh well that's way better then.” Kachan said sarcastically.

“I'm really sorry Kachan, but maybe they won't even notice, and there's nothing wrong with coming across a bit odd I suppose.” 

“Actually Deku I think we can use this, your absolutely still an fucking idiot. But if everyone thinks we are a nut job it will be even easier to scare the shit out of them”

“Why do you like scaring people so much Kachan?” Izuku asked nervously 

“Hah? why the fuck not? Besides, did you see those guys at the end? If they hadn't been scared they might have tried attacking again.” 

“Don't you think we are already scary enough?”

Kachan scoffed “Are you kidding nerd? None of those losers even wet themselves.”

Izuku sighed but decided it would be easier to just indulge Kachan in the long run “Well if you're sure you want to talk like that we could just use the Royal We.”

“The fuck is the Royal We.”

“Oh I read about it. Ancient kings in England used to refer to themselves in the plural. I think it had something to do with their divine right to rule or somthing. But either way, if we use it like that will make us seem either pretentious, crazy, or both.”

“If we talk all fancy like, they will never connect us with slimy. That fucker was about as sophisticated as a doorknob.” Kachan was immensely pleased with himself not only had he turned Deku's fuck up into an additional layer of their disguise, but it meant that he could potentially terrorize shitty villains even more than before. The Royal We or whatever the fuck Deku had called it would really fit with their slederman persona. 

They patrolled for the rest of the night before heading back to the apartment to sleep.

Chapter Text

A week of vigilantism later they had made some progress in finding crime. Now that they knew how to find it they were catching at least one crook a night. The police were getting used to them calling in and had it so that their calls all went to the same agent. Izuku had been careful when speaking, he still referred to them as multiple people but was clear to indicate that they were just talking about themselves. The operator was used to their eccentricities by now, so It made calling in much easier. 

Kachan and he were having a heated argument about their nighttime activities. Izuku said “I'm sick of it Kachan, we can't keep taking money from criminals. It's wrong. Plus we can't let the police or heroes think we are just some kind of thug.”

Kachan replied “What do you suggest then!? We need to eat, and I would rather steal from crooks than random people.” 

Izuku agreed with that but still his point stood “Fine, Why don't we get a job?”

“Oh you know somewhere that hires slime people that don't have any identification and/or are wanted for murder?”

“We can wear a disguise. And for the identification we can make up a story. Maybe about how we ran away from home or something.”

“Don't be stupid nobody will hire a runaway kid.”

“Yes they would. We just have to find somebody that will care about our story. And besides it is kind of true.”

It was kind of true Kachan thought bitterly, just because they had very extenuating circumstances they couldn't go home. He might be able to convince his mother and father of the truth now. But he couldn't risk it. He knew Deku wasn't ready either, despite how much it was eating him up inside.

“Fine, we will look for a job. What's your shitty idea for a disguise?”

“Lets go look around some stores and see if we have any ideas.”

All the clothing stores they visited had nothing that wouldn't be suspicious. They did snag some shirts and pants while they were there though. It was only when they walked past a large arts and crafts store that Izuku had a good idea. 

“We can use the slime and some props to make up a mutation. That would be the easiest way to disguise ourselves and not look too weird.” 

"yeah, sure. Just make it not look too lame."

Izuku walked into the store and started down random isles. He found nothing of interest in the first four. But the fifth one he di d. It had a lot of home decorating items. Including fake plants and strings of realistic looking vines 

“We can pretend we have a plant quirk that makes plants grow from our skin.” 

"I said I don't give a fuck, just decide already."

Izuku took Kachan's apathy to mean should go to town. With one last promise to pay the store back someday he started looting. Slime covered the fake plants and stripped them of leaves, all of them ended up in their center. After he got off as many as he could he went to the vines and absorbed a bucket full of them. Their core was getting rather cluttered with all the wallets and nitroglycerin and now the leaves making it hard to move anything around. He walked down the rest of the of isles to see if anything stood out to him. He grabbed some plastic skeleton hands, some driftwood and epoxy. Right as he was about to walk over to the register he saw a handsome pair of antlers sitting in a bucket with other bones and horns. Perfect. He grabbed those too, and noticed they were on sale. He paid for the antlers glue and hands with money stolen from various criminals. He would have paid for the fake plants too but there was no way they had enough. 

Once they got back to the apartment, Izuku got to work crafting their new civilian appearance. He put on the light blue button up and khakis. He had grabbed a few pairs of socks from a bin. But he had forgotten to grab new shoes so the unfortunate crocs got to stay. He took little pieces of driftwood and stuck them to the skeleton hands with epoxy. They ended up looking like nobby wooden hands While those were setting he placed all of the vines on the floor in front of them he sent the leaves to coating  their head and neck, they were densely packed and flowed over the whole head except for the eyes. He had removed the black lenses because their yellow eyes actually went with the leaves nicely. The vines were cut into hundreds of pieces and stuck into their head like hair. Izuku had run tiny tendrils of slime down each of the stems allowing him to control the vines a bit. He couldn't do much more than move them around though. Finally the antlers he stuck into the top of their head. Once the hands were done setting he filled the hollow bones with slime as well as any crevices between wood. He added more leaves growing around their wrists to imply that the leaves grew over their whole body. He told Kachan to check it out in the mirror.

“Now we look like we have some sort of nature quirk.” 

Kachan seemed pleased with the new look. "Wow nerd, this is your first idea that dint end up looking creepy."

......

There was a bakery that Izuku felt they might be able to get a job at. He had seen the help wanted sign on the door as they walked around. Additionally he knew the owner donated all of her spare bread to the homeless. He thought that it was probably their best shot. There is no way anybody would connect their vigilante persona to some random runaway working at a bakery. He opened up the door, and took  heave of breath. They would need to appear to be breathing after all.

“Here goes nothing.”

“Just don't mess up Deku, I don't want to have to go to interviews all day.”

“Sure thing Kachan.”

Izuku was nervous and dint really know what to do once he was inside. he fiddles with their hands and kind of just looked around awkwardly for a few seconds 

"Hello!" came a cheerfull voice from behind the register. "How can I help you today? " The cashier asked with a genuine smile.

 Izuku cleared his throat in order to settle his nerves a bit, as well as to make sure the voice they chose for this persona was working, and said “Hello I was wondering if Mrs. Mori was in today? I would like to speak with her if she is.” the voice came out fine. It was soft sounding, and on the quiet side.

Izuku moved one of the strands of ivy to the front in order to fiddle with it. The cashier stared a little at their plant-like appearance, before she smiled and said in an excited voice “oh you must be here for the job? I’ll go get Mrs. Mori right away! She will be thrilled.” Izuku awkwardly stood there. While she went to the back. 

Kachan apparently had had enough of sitting patiently and snarked “why are you so fucking bad at this”

Izuku said back slightly annoyed “You know I've always been bad at talking to new people. Plus my only conversation partner recently has been you.”

Kachan bristled,  “Are you saying I'm a bad conversationalist Deku? Because I'm fucking fantastic at talking.”

“I wouldn't go as far as to say bad, but..” Izuku hesitated for a second.

“But what!?” 

“You always sound either enraged or like you just found your least favorite person tripped down the stairs and died.”

“Yeah, and?” Katsuki said nonchalantly.

“How are we supposed to talk to terrified civilians if you sound like you want to murder them?”

Kachan scoffed “Simple ,I talk to the villains. You talk to the sacred wimps.”

Izuku just sighed, the poor police in charge of their case were going to end up thinking they were completely crazy. With the weird way of talking and multiple personalities as well as their appearance, their vigilante persona was ending up way stranger than Izuku would have ever intended.

“Look alive nerd, boss lady is here."

The cashier had indeed brought Mrs. Mori to the front. She had shoulder length greying blond hair. It was pulled back into a loose ponytail. She smiled at them and then asked “Mika says that you are here for the job?”

“Uh, yes.” Izuku said he nodded their head for good measure, causing the vines to swish a bit. 

Mrs. Morii smiled again and said “Well better follow me back to the office so we can have a proper discussion.”

To get to the office they had to walk through the kitchen. There were great big mixing bowls and sacks of flowers stacked in corners. As well as a very large table that the bakers probably used every morning before the shop opened. Izuku felt a pang of hunger go through them at the sight of half a dozen muffins left unattended. 

Finally they reached the office. Mrs. Mori took a seat behind a table stacked with papers and a coffee machine. She gestured for them to take the other chair across from her. 

Izuku began to fidget when he realized that she was studying them. She was looking at the craggy driftwood hands and the antlers. He probably should have pieced together a less conspicuous disguise. But oh well it sure looked nice. Finally she asked, “So I think it's best to start with names. I'm Yui Mori as you likely already know from the sign. What should a call you?” 

Izuku had completely forgotten about coming up with a name and stuttered out the first thing he could think of “Ivy, um you can call me Ivy.”

She raised an eyebrow at the clearly fake name but didn't mention it. “Well then Ivy why do you want to work here?” She asked.

That Izuku did know that “ I have seen how much you give back to the community and how many people you help. I have always wanted to be a hero but I can't because of my quirk.” at this he waved a few strands of vines around uselessly. He continued “And well, I thought that maybe I could help a little bit in a different way.”

Kachan commented with “you could not have been more fucking sappy if you had tried. God that was disgusting to listen to.”

Izuku ignored him and instead watched Mrs. Mori reaction. She seemed pleased at his answer. “Well that is a very lofty reason for working at a bakery. However I can't say it is a bad one.  Alrighty Let's continue.” she asked about ten more questions. Various things that were both related to work and not. Finally she said “ Well Ivy I think  am willing to offer you the job. All that is left is to fill out some paperwork and your tax forms. Do you have all your IDs on you? Otherwise you will have to come back." 

Izuku was surprised that Mrs. Mori had decided so quickly. She must really have needed a new employee. He also remembered to start panicking about not having any ID. He knew going into this that he was going to have to lie their socks off. He and Kachan had come up with their fake back story so he knew what to say, but it was still hard. He said in a very quiet voice. “I d-don't have any ID o-or anything.” he looked down at the table.

Mrs. Mori furrowed her brow and said “ like with you, or at all?”

Izuku felt terrible lying like this but he knew it was technically true. “At a-all” 

“What about your parents? surely they would have some identification for you.” she was sounding worried now.

“I-I ran away.” Izuku pulled some vines into his hands to start worrying with.

“God you sound pathetic” Katsuki added helpfully

Mrs. Mori sighed and said “Oh that's why you came here. Because you know I help people.”

Izuku was alarmed she had seen through them so easily. “W-w-well.” was all he got out before she cut him off

“Look kiddo, why don't you go to social services or the police?” 

“No!” Izuku shouted. He felt terrible for it and apologized “Sorry, it's just that I can't. I can't let them find me. And I have no way of getting enough food without them tracking me down.”

Mrs. Mori rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands and muttered “I shouldn't, I really shouldn't. Oh who am I kidding.” she looked back at them and Izuku made sure to catch their eyes in the light so they sparkled. She sighed and said “Fine. but you will work extra hard. I'm not going to be able to employ you full time to avoid suspicion. And if anything happens, it will be entirely your responsibility.” She pointed a finger at them to emphasize her point.

Kachan was incredulous and said “holy shit, I cant believe that actually worked.”

Izuku was surprised it had worked so well too. He snapped his hand up to their forehead and said "yes ma’am."

She stood up and grabbed some paperwork. She went to hand it to them before she realized that there was no point and put it down on the table. She sighed again and said “Just go home before I change my mind. You start tomorrow at seven thirty am don't be late." She opened the door for them and gestured for them to leave.

As Izuku walked them past Mika the cashier, she turned and mouthed “well?” at them. Izuku lifted his hand in thumbs up. MIka did a fist pump before waving goodbye as they walked out the door.

Chapter Text

That night they decided to try and follow the black armband gang members to try to find their hideout, rather than just tying them up to a streetlamp for the cops like they had been doing. The gang members didn't just walk around with the armbands showing, likely to prevent this very thing from happening. Luckily Katsuki had glimpsed one as the man had been putting on his jacket after leaving a broken down building. 

They decided to follow him instead of checking out what was in the building. So far the man has gone into a gas station to pick up a pack of cigarettes. But other than that he had just been calmly walking around randomly. It almost looked like he was trying to throw off a trail. Unfortunately for him They were not following on the ground but over the rooftops. 

Finally the man entered a building, it was two stories and had curtains on all the windows. Some of which had been broken and plugged up with boards. 

“We should stake it out to see if we can see any of the others.” Deku said to him.

“Yeah, but first I'm going to check and see if there are any doors on the other side”

“Sounds good.” This way if the gang got word of a tail it would be possible to catch more of them, should they come out a side entrance. 

After doing most of the lap Katsuki noticed a door that was particularly covered by some vines. It looked like it hadn't been used in a bit. Regardless he mentaly noted it down as another possible exit. 

Deku pointed their eyes at a building kitty corner to the hideout that would have a decent view of both doors. “Let's wait up there, we can see if anybody enters or leaves.”

Katsuki grunted in affirmation. He went around the building to the fire escape and climbed up to the roof. No need to be fancy when there were no witnesses after all. 

Katsuki sat down by the edge of the roof, and resigned himself to wait. He felt Deku grab one of the eyes and move it down to their core. He yelled out “What the fuck are you doing? I need that to see!”

“Well you only need one of them really.” Deku said a bit petulantly “Besides I have a good use for it.” He expanded an air pocket next to the eye. On one side of it he put the phone screen on the other he put the eye. He then extended a thin tendrill to the phone to turn it on and pull up the forum he was reading earlier.

“So you're just going to look at the phone the whole time I stake out?” Katsuki said incredulously. 

“Yup, but don't worry we can both look through both eyes so that way you won't get bored either. And I can help watch the building.” 

He guessed that they really didn't need both of them watching the building. He fully intended to steal the phone from Deku at some point, so that the nerd would have to do his time on the stakeout, while he got to browse the internet. 

A few hours later nothing had happened beside a few people going in or out of the building. Besides the original guy they had no proof that any of them were part of the gang 

Deku had found a couple forum posts talking about an unnamed vigilante that was reported to be extremely tall as well as having a creepy voice. Seemed their reputation was getting around. The first post was just a couple days ago and since they had been working as a vigilante for a few weeks now that meant that not many people had actually heard of them yet. 

They were suddenly startled by a low voice behind “Well, if it isn't our newest vigilante, didn’t expect to see you here.”

Katsuki whipped around to see a man in a black jumpsuit, he had yellow goggles and a long white scarf. Deku gasped in recognition “Oh my gosh Kachan that's Eraserhead!” he squealed fangirlishly for a second before he added “He is an underground hero that can erase quirks just by looking at them.” Katrsuki felt his nonexistent blood run cold at that, what would happen to him and Deku if their quirks were erased?

On the outside he simply stood up and tilted their head at the hero. Hopefully he wouldn't try to arrest them. When Eraserhead failed to add more Deku asked with their creepy voice “And why would you not expect to see us here Eraserhead?”

Eraserhead didn't flinch at their voice like most people did upon hearing it for the first time. Instead he looked at them for a few seconds before shrugging and saying in a bland voice  “All the reports say you are good at hiding, so I just assumed I wouldn't see you around at all.” 

Katsuki was a little miffed but he supposed the hero's logic was sound. 

“Oh and speaking of reports” Eraserhead added “What should I call you? I don't look forward to having to fill out ‘The Unamend Vigilante' over and over.

They were actually prepared for this, having come up with a name already. They needed to share it before the police stuck them with something awful. And this was as good a time as any.

Izuku placed a hand over their chest extravagantly and bowed slightly “You may refer to us as Gestalt.” The name Gestalt, was one they came across in literature. It is a German word that is used often in science fiction to refer to a hivemind or a collective of consciousnesses that function as one entity. It is also used in psychology, its meaning there isn't directly in opposition to their image so the name stuck.

When Deku lifted their head back up Katsuki could see that Eraserhead looked irritated at the dramatics. Sucks for him though, because they had already decided this would be part of their persona. 

Eraserhead took a step closer to them. Katsuki resisted Deku’s urge to back up. “ You aren't going to arrest us are you? ” Deku asked, trying not to let the nerves show in their voice. Which admittedly isn't hard with how freaky it sounded.

“I should be.” the hero said with a frown “But I’m going to give you a chance for now. There aren't enough heroes working around here as it is.”

Izuku moved their mouth into a smile and said magnanimously “Well then you wouldn't mind if we were to leave then. It's only that we just remembered we left our stove on at home .” Izuku took a couple steps to the fire escape and extended an arm to be able to swing over the side. Before he could, he saw Eraserhead's scarf float up and a flash of red as everything went black.

…….

Aizawa jumped a little in surprise when the vigilante melted before him. He didn't let up his quirk though, unwilling to let him escape. Still keeping his gaze locked on the puddle he crept closer. He nudged the goop with his foot and bumped a glowing phone out. There was an obscure forum loaded on the screen. Aizawa would have liked to see if anything else was in there but felt his eyes start to burn and had to blink. The puddle twitched a few times before it started to writhe and grow. The vigilante’s flesh was pulsating and twitching and it looked like hands were trying to reach out from odd places. Suddenly, with what looked like visible effort from the vigilante, it settled into the tall slender form he usually took.

Gestalt wobbled around a bit before facing his eyless head towards Aizawa. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out except for a wet sounding gurgle. The vigilante pointed an arm at him and it crackled a few times with sparks before it jerked down and away. Gestalt put both arms on his head and started rocking slighty as he muttered  “No no no Ka-.. no we cant hurt him .'' Then his entire body started jerking and losing form. The voice changed into a completely different sounding one. This time it was only a single voice. and it sounded normal enough “Ha you didn't think you could hold me down forever did you?” then the voice changed once again back to the myriad of voices it usually took, he said angrily “Die you piece of shit! I’ll kill you ” 

Aizawa took a few steps back in case Gestalt was talking to him but it seemed the vigilante was talking to himself. His body stopped twitching and smoothed back out. He stood up fully and serenely turned to Aizawa. He said in a deceptively calm voice that still made his skin crawl “We beg you to never do that again. It was singularly unpleasant .” 

Despite being unnerved at seeing somebody melt and then proceed to have a mental meltdown, Aizawa remained calm on the outside. Finally his curiosity got the better of him and he blurted out“What the hell kind of quirk makes you melt when it is erased?” 

Gestalt paused for second, before responding with “Ours apparently, All that we remember is that we ceased to exist and then we were waking back up to you poking us” 

He noted that Gestalt dodged the question about his quirk, instead he asked “And why did you start freaking when you woke up?”.

“Wouldn't you feel unnerved if you had experienced complete non-existence? What if we hadn't woken up when your quirk was removed? What if you had killed us ?” Despite the calm demeanor that Gestalt was projecting, Aizawa could see how unnerved he was. He decided to change the topic to the building that he was clearly staking out.

 Aizawa had discovered the location as a gang hideout, but had yet to catch any of its residents in a crime. So he was at a standstill on taking them out. Hopefully the crazy vigilante would have some sort of info on them.

“Have you seen anything of note?” he asked indicating the building 

Taking the subject change in stride Gestalt answered “We only know that one man wearing a black armband went in and has yet to come out. ” He was twitching a little bit, almost as though he were resisting something. However in the darkness and gem-like body it was barely noticeable.

“How much do you know about the Murk’s?” he needed to know before moving forward in case they didn't know what he was talking about. It chaffed to have to work with a vigilante. But there were no competent heroes that patrolled this area at night. And there was no way he was going to go through the effort of bringing somebody in without a lead. 

“Ah, so that's what they are called .” Gestalt said with a smile in his voice. “We have only met them briefly.”

Fuck, Aizawa thought before resigning himslef to catching him up to date. “Well they primary deal in Trigger , a dangerous drug that amplifies quirks. I haven't figured out who their supplier is. But I do know that they have very high quality products. I doubt we are going to be able to follow this all the way to the top, but we should still try ”whoever was manufacturing the trigger was very sneaky. The same drug had shown up in multiple different gangs so far. None of them had led back to the source.

“The man we followed must be a dealer then. Do you expect any of them to surface before daytime?” Gestalt was still twitching a bit as he said this.

“Hmm, probably not.” And if he did there would be nothing linking them to the Murk’s anyways.

“Well then if you will excuse us. We have some business to take care of. ” Gestalt said, already turning to leave.

“Wait.” Aizawa grunted. “Meet me here two days from now, same time.” if they were both in the same case might as well work together.

Gestalt cocked his head for a second before carefully replying with “Very well .”

With that, the vigilante  turned and jumped from the building. Aizawa heard nothing as he hit the ground. And when he checked over the edge, the alley was empty. He shook his head before going to the same spot Gestalt had previously been sitting and sat to stake out the building for a few hours until dawn just in the small chance that somebody did leave.

…….

Izuku had taken them down into the sewers and had barely gone a hundred feet before he had to stop. The effort of keeping the body in the right shape as well as having a polite conversation with a scarily competent hero as well as managing both Kachan and Suran raging in the background had taken every ounce of his willpower. Suran was trying to take control back from them, however ever since his initial burst of taking advantage of Izuku’s shock from getting erased briefly by Eraserhed, He not been at all successful. Now Suran was barely able to make the slime twitch. Every minute Izuku succeeded in shoving him a bit further into unconsciousness. 

Kachan had also been trying to take control of the body. He was infuriated at Eraserhead for their frightening stint with being unalive. Now he was content to just spit insults at Suran, who despite trying to free his body from them, still coward from Kachan.

Suran was angry and while Eraserhead had been suppressing Ooz’s control over his body he also had his mind free from the influence of Izuku’s quirk. His mental capacity had recovered for the most part since they had taken over. Except for his innate fear of Kachan, but that was understandable, everybody should be at least a little afraid of Kachan. Suran muttered angry little nothings under his breath but didn't reply to the insults. Kachan took his silence as an invitation to continue.

Izuku had had enough “Shut up! Both of you!” Kachan begrudgingly fell silent but Suran was still muttering so Izuku gave him a shove. “Kachan, I can't have you yelling like that when we are in vigilante mode. That's how we mess up and get caught.”

“Yeah yeah whatever, but next time I want to do some of the talking. We can't have anyone thinking we’re a  little bitch or something. And aren't you worried that ‘Gestalt' might give us away? I still think we should have gone with something actually cooll like King Explosion Murder.” 

“That name is kinda bad to Kachan, no offence.” 

“Shut up. It’s fucking perfect.”

“Gestalt sounds cool, and I doubt they will be able to figure out my power just from that.”

Suran was saying something about the name but Izuku had managed to push him far enough into the dark that the words were barely audible.

“I still don't think Gestalt is a good name for a badass vigilant” Kachan grumbled 

Izuku had resumed heading back to the apartment making sure to keep the outer layer of slime hardened to avoid anything nasty in the sewer dissolving into it. He would be sure to remove their outer layer of slime as soon as they got back anyway.

“Well we aren't really a badass vigilante yet Kachan. All they know is that we stopped a few muggers and fought in a small gang fight.”

“Dont forget fucking crazy” Kachan snarked 

“And that we might be a bit touched in the head, that is not enough to make one a ‘badass vigilante’.”

“Why don't we work with that Eraser guy to take out the gloomys or whatever the fuck they call themsleves?, then they really would be scared of us.”

Izuku sighed “weren't you listening to the conversation at all? That’s the plan.” 

Kachan seemed pleased “Fuck yeah!” 

……...

 The next night they patrolled for hours but failed to find any crimes to stop. It seems their luck from the first couple of weeks might be finally running out. 

Exasperated that the shout he heard was just a few drunks merrily making their way home, Izuku sighed “You would think there would be more crime during the night not less.”

Kachan was even more irritated about it than Izuku. He paused their body in front of a wall. He punched it rather than climbing. He groweld out loud with their actual voice “Why cant we fucking find anything. ”

“I don't know Kachan, maybe we should try to follow Eraserhead next time we see him. To try and pick up on some of his techniques.”

 Kachan resumed their course up the side of a building before replying, “What if he splats us with his shitty ass quirk again huh?” 

Izuku didn't think it would be that much of a problem, seeing as Suran only managed to escape because of his surprise. “It will be fine Kachan, he has no reason to. Besides he said he wanted to work with us, we could be silent backup.”

After an hour of futile patrolling they decided to check in on the Murks to see if anything had changed, the building was exactly the same. Only one person left the building the whole time they watched. The man that left looked like a higher up of some sort, so Kachan decided to follow him. 

The man took a winding path that led him to an abandoned park where there were a few people hanging around. The man walked up to a stout woman that had tattoos on most of her exposed skin. When he reached her he handed her something and she handed something back he nodded before continuing on his way.

“So should we follow the boss man or dealer lady Deku?” Kachan asked. Both of these people could potentially lead to valuable information. 

Izuku felt a little nervous suddenly being put on the spot “I d-dont know..um” 

“Quick,make a decision!” they only had a few seconds before the boss dude turned a corner.

“Follow the guy! He looks like he has more connections in the gang. And besides we can come back to see if that women is still there later”

Kachan jumped the divide between buildings, as he reached the end of the row he dropped down to the sidewalk below. All the lights were out on this strip of road so he wasn't concerned with being spotted. He caught up with the man right as he turned onto a main road. It was too bright to be able to move around freely in this area. So Kachan slipped down into a storm drain and followed the man from underneath. Every fifty feet or so there would be a grate or hubcap he could stick an eye up to check on the man's progress.

After about half an hour of tailing the man over rooftops, sewers, and alleyways the man finally stopped at a house. He pulled out his keys, opened the door and went inside. 

“After all that, the fucker was just going home.” Kachan sounded pissed off, all of that work for nothing.

“That's not true, Kachan now we know where he lives and we can find out who he is. Maybe it will help with taking down the gang somehow.” 

“Whatever, lets just check on fucking drug lady and see if she is still there.

She was not there when they made it back to the park. And they couldn't go find her because they had a shift at the bakery in a couple hours.

………...

Deku and Katsuki switched who would be working and who would  take a break every hour or so. Currently Deku was greeting a customer and Katsuki was looking up the address of the man they had followed. So far nothing had come of it. Most addresses did not have any valuable information available on the internet.

The copious amounts of fake foliage made it so even if one of their yellow eyes were missing, nobody would notice.  In case they needed it through, the phone was in the back of their head so that the eye could roll around to face the front as though nothing was wrong. The irony of having an air where their brain should be does not escape him. 

Katsuki waited for the customer to leave before talking so that Deku wouldn't mess up the conversation and make them look weird. “Are we telling that Eraser guy about the guy we followed last night?”

“Yeah why wouldn't we?’

“Because dipshit, if we do then he will just give it to some other hero and all of our work would be for nothing.”

Deku clenched the fabric of the jeans with their craggily driftwood hands. He thought for a second before replying hesitantly “He might not.. And even if he did he would be in the right. We are breaking the law.”

“Yeah, but we were the ones who did the fucking work tracking these guys down!"

Deku was sounding a bit exasperated and said “Well even if we didn't tell him, the address means nothing to us. We don't have the resources an official hero has to get information.”

Deku looked up at the clock and cheerily said “Oh looks like it's your turn to work. Make sure to not make any more customers cry.”

“That lady fucking deserved it!”

Katsuki switched with Deku for control over the body. Their coworkers were by now used to Ivy’s frequent mood swings. So when Katsuki changed their posture nobody blinked an eye.

…..

After work they stopped by a store to pick up a few charging bricks. The battery in their phone ran out often from being used near constantly. Finally they made it home to rest. The slime body got tired the same way that their old human ones did. It got harder to control and it felt like thinking through a fog.

After dumping all the components of their Ivy disguise in a dilapidated closet Izuku set an alarm for 11:00pm and melted in the bathtub. Both of them were unconscious within five minutes.

-------------------

Katsuki insisted on going to the meeting spot an hour early in case it was a trap. The stairwell going down into the building had a small roof covering it and the underside was completely shadowed. So once he had confirmed that nobody was watching he oozed up into the crevice, blending in seamlessly. 

They only had to wait for fifteen minutes before Earserhead arrived. The hero looked around before settling in to wait. He had the same Idea as them. 

Once he was turned away from the awning, Katsuki dropped down silently and stalked over to him. He was just a couple feet away when he stopped and said “You're here early, hero. Do you not trust us?” he made sure to talk like Deku had as Gestalt. It was best if they switched off regularly when speaking so that their discrepancies blended into each other.

Ereaserhead whirled around, eyes glowing red, before blinking when he noticed it was them. Katsuki only felt a flicker of nothingness and didn't notice any significant changes in their body’s position. So the quirk would only have been on them a moment. 

The hero looked irritated at being snuck up on. He said in a gruff voice “Where the hell did you come from? And of course I don't trust you.”

Izuku took control just long enough to put their hands on their chest and say in a faux sad voice “We're hurt .” Katsuki took control back from Deku and gave him a mental shove for not letting him speak. 

Earserhead ignored Deku’s dramatics and moved right on to business. “Well, have you found anything since the last time we met up?”

“Of course we did.” Katsuki crooned. “We followed a man who looked important, as well as found one of the gang’s dealers .” Katsuki walked over to the banister and looked out over the street as though what he said was unimportant.

 Glancing back at the hero he saw the man had raised an eyebrow. “Well, are you going to tell me where they are?”

Katsuki paused for a second before saying in a wistful voice “We would like to, but.. ”

Eraserhead huffed before saying “But what Gestalt? Spit it out. I don't have all night.” he sounded annoyed so Katsuki dialed it back a little 

“We dont want to be outed from the case .” Katsuki turned back to Eraserhead so that their eyless face pointed directly at him.

Erasehead met their gaze before nodding “I wasn't planning on keeping you out of the loop anyways but I will see what I can do on the police side of things for now.”

Katsuki nodded back before saying “We will show both locations, tell us if you can't keep up .” He then jumped off the side of the building. 

Deku discreetly moved one of the eyes to the back of their head just in case the hero really couldn't keep up. However there was no need. Eraserhead had grappled down using his capture weapon.

Without bothering to look back, Katsuki set a fast pace to the rundown park. It was much easier when he didn't have to time their progress to match whoever they were tailing. Eraserhead kept up even when he went up over rooftops, In order to go directly to their destination. Finally he dropped down into a shadowed alley near the park. Eraserhead was next to him a few seconds later.

“Look Kachan the lady is back!” he was right. The lady was about twenty feet in the other direction from where she was yesterday. This park must be some sort of dropoff spot. 

He pointed her out to Eraserhead saying “see that woman there, With the pink hair? She exchanged what appeared to be drugs and money with the man we tailed yesterday.”

It only took Eraserhead a few seconds to notice her, when he did he nodded. “Yeah, lots of dealers meet up here. Alright I'll keep an eye on her but for now give me the address of the man you tailed. And a description.”

He gave it and agreed to meet up again in a few days. Eraserhead gave them a different location than before so that they weren't always meeting right in front of a gang hideout.

Chapter Text

They kept regularly meeting with Eraserhead over the next couple of weeks. The hero had kept his word about including them in the operation against the Murks. Turns out that Erasehead was not the only hero in the case, another hero, Mr. Slash was also a part of it. Though they had yet to meet the man or even learn more about him than a grouchy “he's adequate” from Eraserhead. 

The two heroes along with the police had been working on a case against The Murks. Izuku and Kachan had been tailing everybody with suspected connections to dig up evidence. Eraserhead had given them a small and deceptively high quality camera to take pictures with. Unfortunately they were going to have to give it back afterwards.

At their meeting last night Erasehead had tipped them off that the raid was going to go down any day now, just a few more details to plan and it would happen. The rest of the people involved were peripherally aware that they had been working with a vigilante. Eraserhead wanted them to help with the raid and assured them that nobody would try to arrest them for the duration. 

Izuku mused about how the others were going to react to them on their way to Dagobah beach for some training after work. As they turned the corner to the beach Izuku was dismayed to hear voices coming from behind the trash heaps. 

“Those fuckers better not be trying to steal my training spot! ” Kachan snarled. After so long using Dagobah as a training and hangout spot, it had become more of a home than the ratty apartment they were still squatting in. Izuku would be sad if they couldn't come here anymore. 

“Let's go check it out. Maybe it's just some kids hanging out. ” Izuku tried to placate.

Kachan scoffed at the idea “Hah, more like junkies were gonna have to scare off.“

Kachan took control of the body and followed the garbage free path around a particularly large trash heap. He stopped at the sight that greeted them.

A large muscled blond kid perhaps a couple years older than themselves was running back and forth between the pile and a dumpster carrying trash. A man that was doing his best impression of a skeleton was shouting encouragement and advice at him. the aread directly around the pair was actually clean enough to see the sand. 

“Come on young Mirio, put your back into it!” 

Kachan started to turn around to leave when Izuku noticed a microwave teetering right above the teenager who was distracted by something buried in the sand. He yanked control from Kachan and leaped to tackle the boy out of the way right as it started to fall. “Look out!” He shouted. He was surprised however when his momentum took him straight through the boy. He felt the blond’s shirt get tangled in the antlers and cursed his decision to not change out of their Ivy disguise before training.

When he turned their head to look back he saw the microwave harmlessly pass though the boy even as he sunk into the ground a few feet. The boy then rocketed out of the ground butt naked from his clothes falling through him, he walked over to them.

“Hey are you alright? Thanks for the warning and trying to help!” The boy reached out a hand to help them up. Izuku took it before Kachan did something rude like refuse it.

“Uh, y-you're welcome.” Izuku stutterd trying to simultaneously look away from the still naked boy and get his shirt untangled from the antlers. Once he did he handed it back to him. He was going to say something more when Kachan beat him to it 

“Why the fuck are you naked? Googly Eyes?”

“Googly eyes?” the boy muttered and touched his face right below one of his eyes, and then said to them “ I don't think they are that odd, especially compared to you, no offence.”

“Hah? What that's supposed to mean-” Izuku stopped him from continuing by taking back control 

He decided to continue on Katsuki’s statement “a-and is your quirk some sort of g-ghost like state or permeability? That would be a great quirk for hero work; you wouldn't have to worry about attacks and walls would mean nothing to you. Oh looking at how you shot out of the ground does that mean you could use your limb like a railgun if you phased a dart or bullet into them?.”

The boy blinked with whiplash at their ever changing personality. He was about to respond to them before the thin man came jogging over.  “Are you alright my boy?” he panted at the naked boy. He turned to them and said “And thank you young man for trying to help, that was a very heroic thing to do.” Izuku brought a hand up to tangle in the vines hanging from their head. 

“I-It was nothing!” Izuku knew that had he been in his old body he would have been blushing. Kachan scoffed at his bashfulness but didn’t intervene in the conversation yet. “May I ask what you two are doing at the beach?” seeing motion out of the corner of his eye he turned to see the blond boy hopping around trying to put on his pants. 

The boy having succeeded in putting on his pants stood up proudly and declared “We are cleaning the beach..” he glanced at the older man who  looked like he would be blown over by a gentle breeze, and corrected himself “well, I am cleaning the beach while Toshinori-san is coaching me along the way.” he shook himself and added “Oh I forgot to introduce us, i'm Mirio Toogota but you can just call me Mirio and this is Yagi Toshinori.” Toshinori waved at them in greeting 

“Nice to meet you, I'm Ivy. I think it's great that you're cleaning the beach!” 

Internally Kachan grumbled “ Well great for everyone but the two of us that is.”  

“ Shh Kachan i'm trying to talk. ” he admonished 

Mirio enthusiastically grabbed their hand to shake, he didn't seem put off by the wooden nature of it like some customers at the bakery were. He said “Nice to meet you Ivy, and about my quirk, you were right it is permeability, though I haven't tried to railgun the idea yet.” 

Izuku awkwardly extracted his hand from Mirio’s. “What is your dad coaching you for?”

Toshinori started coughing and Izuku was distuberd to see blood coming up. Mirio started laughing for some reason. “Oh, Mr. Toshinori isn't my Dad, and he is training me for heroics!”

Izuku was mortified at his assumption. “B-but you two look so similar!” Then the second part of Mirios' sentence registered. He started to squeal in excitement but Kachan extracted control before he was embarrassed furthur. 

Mirio scratched the back of his head and said “I guess we do look alot alike.” 

Kachan seemed fed up with the conversation and abruptly blurted out rudely “I'm leaving.” before proceeding to do just that. 

Mirio called out “Goodbye Ivy! Hope we can see you soon.” his voice was muffled as Kachan walked them around the pile of trash. 

...

Deku sounded disappointed that he wasn't getting to ask more about his heroics training. “That was rude Kachan.”

“Whatever. He sounded like just the kind of idiot that could talk all day.” 

“Where are we going to train once they are done cleaning the beach?”

“Doesn't matter now, it’s gonna take em till the end of summer at least  to clean this mess at the rate they were going.'' Once Katsuki had walked far enough that the two good samaritans wouldn't find them he liquified and left all their clothes as well as their disguise hidden in an old cooler that was now empty. 

He could feel Deku move the eyes to land on a pair of ratty old trainers and briefly took control just long enough to snatch them up. “What the hell are you doing Deku? No way in hell am I wearing those disgusting wastes of rubber.”

“Nothing, some bleach can't fix Kachan. Unless of course you want the crocs to be our only shoes. ”

“Shut the hell up Deku, let's just do what we came here for.” Katsuki concentrated on the nitroglycerin pockets throughout the body and focused on moving one to their right hand. He was not as good as Deku at manipulating the slime precisely so it took a few moments longer than usual.

“Wait, maybe we should practice with sea water first in case we mess up. It's probably not a good idea to leave nitroglycerin just laying around on a beach.” 

Katsuki looked skeptically at the polluted water, unsure if he wanted to mess around in it. But decided that Deku was probably right. Even his more stable version of nitroglycerin could be easily ignited by the smallest spark. And with the amounts that he and Deku were planning on throwing around there is no way somebody wouldn't notice if it went off. “ Well if we accidentally let it off at least we will clear out a big chunk of beach for stripper boy .”

“Don't be rude Kachan, he can't help it if his quirk makes his clothes fall off. ” Katsuki ignored Deku and moved over to the water, he waded out a little bit to get away from the worst of the garbage and then plunged their arm in. Izuku used a cavity in the slime to slurp up a couple pints worth of seawater. With that done he walked quickly back to the shore. 

“Alright nerd, how much nitro should we use? I don't recommend more than a blueberry worth any more would be enough to level buildings and I don't think we want that kind of heat on us.” He watched curiously as Deku produced clear slime on their palms so that they could easily watch the process unfold

“Heh, literally. ” Deku laughed. 

“Shut the fuck up” God, there was a reson that Katsuki hated Deku, and it wasen’t just because he didnt have a quirk. 

Once Katsui deemed there was enough fresh slime he slowly separated a blob of sea water, as he said, he used less than a blueberry's worth. He was disgusted to see the greyish green tinge to the water as it came in contrast with the crystal clear slime surrounding it. And then even slower than before he raised the bubble up only keeping a millimeter thick membrane around it. The marble sized bead of slime and seawater was then lowered towards the ground. “Do you think we will be able to keep it in shape when it's not in contact with us, Deku?”

“Only one way to find out I guess.” with that he detached the glob, almost immediately the slime liquified and the water absorbed into the sand. He quickly put his hand back in contact with the detached glob. He could sense almost all of it and it happily rejoined the rest of the fresh slime. 

“Does it need contact with the main body? ” He asked Deku.

“It looks like it, but that begs the question: what is the main body? How does the quirk decide what part of us holds our consciousness, maybe it is all of us at once.” Deku rambled. “Remember when All Might destroyed Suran? He was in a million pieces and separated in two different bottles but was able to reform when we escaped. ”

Katsuki was curious as well and decided to test it. He tried to think with all his might that he and Deku were in their right hand. And then he severed it  from their body. To his shock he could still feel the slime in the hand but the rest of the body melted.

“What are you doing Kachan! You can't just do things without thinking about it. Quick reattach to the rest of the body.” he was already using their meger form to slide over to the large puddle of gunk. It felt weird being so small. 

“Chill out, it's not like it killed us or something.”

Deku huffed at that. “Well what if all the slime is dirty now that we are not focusing on keeping particles out.” 

Shit, he didn't consider that. When he finally reached the slime only around ninety percent was still responsive the rest just kinda sat there. After he had reformed, he poked the nonresponsive slime and found that it was basically just black snot. And there was indeed sand and small particles of garbage happily floating around inside them. They were going to have to do a deep ocean clean again soon as well as get some more ink eventually. They were probably overdue anyway. All the alleys and drains they had been crawling around in have been slowly accumulating filth in the slime.

“You just had to try it out immediately didn't you?” Deku snarked. “Well at least we learned that if it takes too long in between separations we won't be able to reclaim all of it.” 

“Why the hell did the slime choose the hand to be the ‘us’ and not the rest of the body?” it probably had something to do with him pretending his consciousness was in the hand rather than the head. But that didn't explain why Deku and Suran got dragged along too. He felt a chill when he realized that if Deku hadn't been dragged along his consciousness might have been lost forever.

“Well you were thinking ‘I am the hand’ so loudly even I could hear it Kachan, the quirk probably just goes to wherever the user identifies with the most. And since both me and Suran were not even thinking about it, your thoughts weighed the most.”

“I dont think think the grenade idea is going to work. We will never be able to keep the slime together long enough to detonate it far away.” he was irritated that it wasn't working. He thought for sure they would be able to get it to work after he remembered suran being conscious in both the bottles. However now that he thinks about it alot of the slime from the bottle without the eyes never reformed. They were very small when Suran was first running from All Might.

Deku was also disappointed “it would have been so useful though we could really control a battlefield if the explosions could come from anywhere.” 

“Give it a rest nerd, not every idea we have will work. ” but even before he finished saying that he had an idea. He repeated the previous steps with the sea water and lowered a slime/water marble to the sand he then used his explosion proofing to harden to the surface of the slime he then released ity as he had done before. Instead of melting immediately it sagged almost like it was made of saran wrap but then a second later it melted just the same as the unhardened slime had.  “Well that was useless.” 

“Actually from watching that I had an idea, you know how you used a tendril to lower it down to the sand? What if we just kept a really small thread of slime attached to it and used the connection to detonate it. We can always use the clear slime so that nobody can see it.”

Worth a shot. He did just that once the little pouch of sea water was on the sand Katsuki slowly started walking away from it. He created new slime to add to the tread rather than waste slame that had ink in it. 

After around twenty five feet he was surprised that none of the slime had melted. He could still feel the slime in the tendril but it was too thin to manipulate very much. Out of curiosity he tried igniting the little bulb. All he saw from where they stood were a few tiny bubbles of air form and started floating around in the seawater.

He could feel Deku’s attention zero in on the bubbles “hmm there must be trace amounts of nitro dissolved into the slime. That would explain the bubbles at least.”

“Did you fucking miss the part where your idea worked? We can use this for long distance explosions now.” Katsuki was a little miffed that Izuku didn't even take the time to acknowledge their progress and immediately started going into nerd mode.

“Oh I saw it, I'm just concerned over the implications. We need to be careful  about detonating these. They might leave some slime behind. And we just saw that even fresh slime has a little bit of your nitro in it. What if they connect it to you?”

“Oh come on they will know it's Gestalt's quirk and move on, besides I doubt anybody is going to be rooting around crime scenes looking for our slime when the only one that knows that's what we are made of is that nobody hero we are working with.” Eraserhead seemed like the kind of guy that kept what he knew to himself until it became relevant anyways. 

“Kachan it just takes one person analyzing it to see that our slime contains the exact same compound that your sweat did. A compound I doubt exists anywhere else in the world.”

Katsuki grit their teeth when he realized that the quirk registry had the exact compound his sweat contained listed on it. And neither he nor Deku had the skill to delete it. “We will just be really careful about it and make sure we don't leave any behind.”

They practiced with the nitro balls for an hour or two more; they could now throw them without detaching them from the main body, as well as slide the capsules around when they were far away from them. For flight and jumping around they could have the strings attached to their ankles with lots of slack ready to pull out at any movement. However keeping track of all the treads would be too much work to maintain mid fight so the technique would be shelved for now.

………

The next day at the bakery they received a text message from Eraserhead. The hero had managed to wrangle the phone number of the burner after much pestering. Izuku had been afraid that the Hero would use it to track them. But Katsuki had rattled it off before he could stop him, with the justification that if the hero wanted to track them he would have already done so.

The message simply read

 - Meet me at our usual spot, sting is tonight be there at ten. Be prepared, the police along with the heroes Midnight and Mr slash will be present. So try to be less horrifying than usual.

Katsuki stopped chewing out a customer to grin. Wordlessly he handed the woman her donut. He then went to the sink to wash his hands, he wouldn't want to be infected with stupid the day of the raid after all.

When the door had shut behind the customer on her way out Mika looked over at them “What's got you so fired up all of a sudden? Did she have a booger on her face or something?” 

“Fuck off extra.” Katsuki said happily, even he couldn't be angry when the prospect of exploding villains was only half a day away. 

Only a moment later Deku said to her “I'm sorry Mika I didn't mean that, anyways just some good news.” 

Mika didn't even blink at the tone shift. She had only taken a few days to get fully used to them and now didn't seem to care if they were crazy or not. 

The bell rang and in walked two middle schoolers, Deku was horrified to see that one of them was the guy they stole the crocs from.

Thankfully they were currently wearing the sneakers. The boy apparently had multiple pairs of crocs, as he was wearing a relatively tame neon green pair today. 

The boy got to the counter and said “Yo man! Can I get uhh... “ the boy paused to look at all the display cases. “I’ll get one of those monster cookies.” The boy smiled at them revealing a mouthful of shark-like teeth. The boy's friend, the same pink skinned girl from the mall, was still looking at the display case.

Katsuki made sure to glare at her to make her go faster while he grabbed Croc Boy his cookie. Katsuki shoved the cookie in its stupid paper bag as agressivly as he could manage without damaging it. He switched the target of his glare to Croc Boy as he stomped back over to the register. He gingerly held out the cookie by the tips of his finger to avoid making contact with the idiot. However his caution was pointless as the boy enthusiastically grabbed the cookie as well as their hand in the process. Katsuki made pointed eye contact as he unsubtly wiped his hand on his shirt. The boy's smile faltered a little bit but was back on moments later. 

The girl finally decided on her order. “Can I get one of the strawberry cupcakes please? They are so cute!” She squealed loudly. Katsuki stomped back over to the display case and pulled out one of the pink cupcakes. Mrs. Mori  had started to let him and Deku help make some of the pastries. She had been impressed especially by Katsuki's skills with decoration. He had tried to make the strawberry cupcakes have a dog with an explosion in the background. However with only various shades of pink available to him it ended up just looking like a really fluffy puppy. Every fucking customer that had bought one had thought it was cute. Disgusting.

He handed the cupcake to her and started punching in the order with more force than necessary.  Just because he was happy and excited for the raid tonight did not mean he was going to be kind to the cash regioster, fucking thing liked to mess up his orders. “Five hundred yen.” he growled. 

Before Croc Boy could pull out his wallet and pay, Raccoon Eyes had pushed her way in front of them and asked “Who decorates the cupcakes!? They are all so well done!”

“None of your fucking buisness” he sneered at her. 

Mika started laughing from where she was next to them doing inventory on the drink cooler. “Actually Ivy here is the one that decorated those cupcakes. He's pretty good at it.”

At this the girl squealed and grabbed their hands excitedly. She was bouncing up and down still holding their hands “Oh my gosh how did you get so good at decorating? They look so professional!” 

Katsuki wracked his brain for an answer, the truth was that he had always been good at cooking. His mom was a disaster in the kitchen and his dad always made bland things. So if he wanted to eat something up to his standards he had to make it himself. Instead of answering the Raccoon Eyes he just shrugged and pulled his hand out of her grip.

She wasn't deterred from her enthusiasm and added “Well I think they are amazing! keep up the good work.” After paying her and Croc Boy went and sat down at a nearby table.

They sat down and started having a conversation. Katsuki shamelessly listened in. Croc boy took off his school coat and rolled up his sleeves before starting in on his cookie. He only got a couple bites in before Racoon Eyes grabbed his wrist to look at something on his arms. He pulled them back to himself before she could get too close a look. 

“Are those jerks picking on you again Kiri?” She asked

He looked away and didn’t answer. 

“Do you want me to talk to them or something?” She said in a soft voice 

“I don't need you to fix my problems Mina. And besides they aren't picking on me. I just keep getting in their way.” He said in an irritated voice.

Deciding that it might look suspicious to just stand there listening, Katsuki got out a broom and dustpan and started to clean the floor around the tables. He drifted out of hearing before he meandered to the other side of the table. He could feel Deku listening to the conversation now too. And the damned nerd had the nerve to call him a gossip. 

Right as they walked by, Croc Boy burst out “Mina I said I’m fine! If I'm going to get into UA and be a hero I can take care of a couple of jerks all on my own.” 

That caught Deku’s attention. Before Katsuki could stop him Deku had taken control and started talking to the two middle schoolers. “You're going to be a hero? That's so cool! And UA too! That is where I've always wanted to go to be a hero.”  Deku said enthusiastically.

Croc Boy didn't look offended that they had eavesdropped on the two’s conversation. In fact he looked thrilled to talk to somebody else about it. He had a big grin on his face when he said. “Yeah both me and Mina are going to apply to the hero course at UA! You said you wanted to go to UA too, Does that mean you’re going to apply?”

Deku froze. And then started waving his hands around like he did whenever he got nervous. “Ah- W-well I mean I always wanted to be a hero but there is no way I could get in. haha” he blubbered out

Croc Boy looked curiously at them before asking “Why not?”

“Oh- well, my quirk is just kind of weak, not hero material at all.” To demonstrate he made the strands of ivy flop around a bit with some slime. 

And it was kinda hard to get into hero highschool when they were galavanting around in the body of a child murderer, Katsuki thought bitterly.

The boy said “Oh that's too bad then.” 

The pink girl was looking at them funny. Katsuki had had enough of Deku’s floundering. Besides they had come up with a schedule for a reason. It was Katsuki's turn to drive. He ripped control back from Deku and whipped around to glare at her “What the hell are you looking at Raccoon Eyes? Huh?” 

She lit up and pointed right at their face “That right there! Your personality just switched. What is up with that?”

At some point Mika must have wandered over because she started laughing. Before she said “Oh don't worry about that. Ivy just does that all the time, one moment he Is super shy and nice the next he’s a complete asshole. I’ve just learned to ignore it.”

Racoon Eyes seemed to accept that explanation and said “That's so weird, I like it!” She gave them a thumbs up. 

After the quick conversation Katsuki went back to milling around with a broom. Unfortunately neither of them said anything interesting before they left. Katsuki checked the eye Deku was using to look at the time. It had only been half an hour since Eraserhead had contacted them. The sting couldn't come soon enough.

Chapter Text

As they made their way to the new rooftop they had taken to meeting Eraserhead on, Izuku was checking to make sure they had everything they could possibly need. Zip ties? Check. Money in a ziplock bag? Check. Camera and phone? Check. Enough nitroglycerin to level a city block with some to spare? Check.

“ Kachan, why did you have to spend all day producing nitro? There is no way we will possibly need this much. ” Kachan was doing some last minute practicing with the vascular system Izuku had designed to move large amounts of nitroglycerin around. It was basically like the human system for blood but with fewer veins and contracting the walls to pump it around rather than using a crude heart. He had briefly tried the heart idea but found if they put too much pressure on the nitro it would start dissolving back into the slime for some reason. And since it was much thicker than blood it required quite a lot of pressure. Plus this way was much more precise. 

“ What if somebody has a quirk like Suran’s that is resistant to explosions, eh?”

“So your solution is even more explosions?”

“I don't think there is much that can't be solved with a shit ton of nitroglycerin, Deku. ” 

Izuku just sighed, unfortunately Kachan was probably right. 

“ Well either way we need to be careful around the heroes that are participating in this raid. Eraserhead said it was fine but I doubt they will be as cool with vigilantes as he is .”

“ Nothing they can do about it nerd, we looked up the law. They can't arrest us if we are with a registered hero. ” Kachan had spent the rest of their shift after Kirishima left, looking up laws about vigilantes and heroes along with those surrounding a raid. 

“ Alright we are almost there. Do you want to be in full control the whole time or should I jump in when I see something vital? ”

“ Nah I don't want you messing me up mid fight, just tell me something if you notice it. If you really fucking need to fine, but it better be worth it .”

“ Got it. ” Izuku was starting to get a little nervous, this was their first time actually fighting alongside heroes. Hopefully it went well.

……...

Katsuki quietly walked up the last step to the roof. Eraserhead was already there and looking straight at them so no jumpscares today unfortunately. Oh well, he thought, there will be plenty of gangster wannabes to scare the shit out of later.

Eraserhead gave them a onceover and seemed satisfied that nothing was amiss. “Good you're here,” he said brusquely “We have fifteen minutes before we meet the rest down the street.” He looked at them right where their eyes would be if Deku hadn't moved them to more strategic locations. 

Katsuki was a little miffed that the hero felt he had to walk them to meet the other heroes. But it was Eraserhead’s name on the line if they messed up after all. He was glad they had both practiced Gestalt’s manner of speaking, because it meant that he could also talk to people in case Deku froze up with anxiety, or started stuttering. It was odd that Katsuki could keep control of his emotions when he was pretending to be their vigilante persona. But he figured it had something to do with pretending to be somebody else. He tilted their head slightly and said “ Going to give us a pep talk before the show begins are you?”

“No, I’m here to make sure you dont fuck up infront of my peers. I don't want you trying to scare them. You need to work together with them so if they tell you to do something you do it, no hesitations.'' He turned around and gestured for them to follow him. He paused and said “Oh and try not to maim anyone, some of the thugs we have been finding have been beat up a little too bad. That kind of behavior won't be tolerated going forward except for extreme cases.”

“ Even when the vermin deserve it?” Katsuki grit his teeth thinking about some of the shitbags he and Deku had fought. The person that Eraserhead was probably talking about was the man they had found molesting a young girl. She looked like she was barely in highschool. He had given the man extensive burns and a couple broken bones, he most likely had to be hospitalized. He didn't regret hurting the man, he had fucking deserved it, but he regretted how much he lost his control in anger. It reminded him of how he used to hurt Deku out of irritation. And look where that got him. 

Eraserhead pursed his lips but nodded “I know it's hard, but heroes are not judges or executioners, we cannot kill or main anyone, outside of extreme situations. And if you want to be respected by heroes and the public both you need to present yourself as more than just a villain.

“ We will do better. We will also be on our best behavior around the esteemed heroes tonight.” Katsuki knew it probably would be better to have Deku drive for that interaction but couldn't have the nerd start fanboying and ruin the image he was working so hard to establish.

Eraserhead grappled down to the street and started walking. Katsuki was quick to follow him. He made sure to stay behind the hero and thus out of his eyesight. Just because he knew that Eraserhead wouldn't use his quirk on them meaninglessly didn't mean he wanted to tempt fate. 

Finally they rounded a corner and found Midnight and a guy dressed in a crisp white shirt and tacky apron that had to be Mr. Slash, along with about ten police officers. A man wearing a beige trench coat and a matching hat cut off speaking when he saw them approaching. “Eraserhead, glad you could make it.” he turned to them and said “And you must be the elusive Gestalt, you've been causing quite a stir recently. I am detective Tsukauchi, I will be the one running this operation.”

“ A pleasure detective. We hope we can be of use.” The officers all looked a little unnerved at their presence but the two heroes just glanced at them for a few seconds before turning back to the detective. 

The detective cleared his throat before continuing “As I was saying we are going to do this in two steps. We will have Eraserhead infiltrate the building though the north facing window, to check for any persons that could be used as a hostage. He will also report any developments he finds back to us. Once given the all clear Midnight along with Gestalt will enter through the south door. Mr. Slasht and five officers will go in the east door.”`He looked directly at them and said “Does this work well for everybody?”

Katsuki went to respond in the affirmative but Eraserhead cut him off “No, Gestalt should be the one to infiltrate, he has the most stealth capabilities out of everyone here.” 

Midnight cut in before Detective Tsukauchi could respond “How sneaky can a guy that's seven feet tall and has explosions for a quirk be?”

Eraserhead shrugged, “More than me, that's for sure.” 

Mr. Slash responded smoothly, as he stroked his goatee “I don't know if I feel comfortable letting a vigilante that none of us have ever met before have such a crucial role.”

“ He’s kinda right I wouldn't trust us either. ” Deku added in.

“ Shut the hell up, we agreed not to interrupt each other during conversations dipshit. ” he went back to listening.

Tsukauchi cleared the argument before it could happen by saying “If Eraserhead thinks it would be better to have Gestalt infiltrate than I am fine with it.” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a walkie talkie. He took a few steps and handed it to them. Wordlessly Katsuki took it. However he didn't move to put the radio into the slime because he was unwilling to display their liquid-like tendencies in front of so many people. Even if it was obvious they had some way of storing things, it didn't mean they had to show how. Eraserhead only said not to be scary, he said nothing about being mysterious. 

“Now just a few more things before we begin...” The detective went over the rest of the plan in detail. Deku had come up with a few things he wanted clarifide. Katsuki decided not to say them, to avoid looking like a nooby. He was sure they could figure it out when the time came. 

……..

They approached the building from the shadows. Katsuki looked up at the face of the building and at the window detective Tsukauchi had recommended. He looked for other possible entrances too just in case there was a better one. 

Deku ,who had been given permission to speak now that the briefing was done, said “ Kachan none of them would be able to see this side of the building from where they are positioned. We should just go in through the vent. ” Katsuki felt Deku angle the eyes directly at the vent for his convenience. 

“ Could work. But I don't think the gaps in the grate would be large enough for the walkie talkie. ” Eh it was worth a try, he slunk over the wall underneath the vent. He looked around discreetly to make sure nobody was watching before gooping up the wall. The slime easily slipped through the grate. Their phone neatly slotted through the gap as well as the sleek camera Eraserhead had given them. Suran’s eyes were oddly squishy so they fit through too. All that was left was the walkie talkie. 

“ Try bending the bars a little. ” Deku murmured. He smothered the grate in slime to avoid any sound escaping and began to tug on two of the bars. He grit his teeth in effort and finally the thin bars were just wide enough to fit the device through. He let the metal snap back into place and started oozing through the vents. 

It was disgusting in here. Every surface was covered in dust and spiderwebs. And there were more rat dropping than Katsuki cared to admit. At every vent they passed he paused to see if there were any people hanging around. So far he had only seen four, two of which had carelessly left their armbands on display. He made sure to silently take pictures of all of them. 

He moved onto the upper floors. It seems that everything upstairs was a living area. With a few kitchens and plenty of bedrooms. Some of which were occupied. Deku was mortified when they had stumbled across a couple that were using the bed for a different reason than to sleep. Katsuki nevertheless took a picture. “ What? Eraserhead told us to take pictures of anyone who looks like they could be a suspect. ” 

“ B-but Kachan you can't take a p-picture of people when they a-are.. well you know. ”

“ We dont have time to discus the morial implication of taking a picture of suspected criminals when they are fucking Deku. We still need to check out the basement to give the all clear to the cops .” 

“ I-I guess. ”

It took them a few minutes to find a vent that went all the way to the basement and when they did it was even more full of dust than the rest of the vents. “ Eugh this is disgusting, don't these asswipes clean their vents? We are going to have to go to the ocean and do a complete slime replacement because of this shit, Deku.”

Once it leveled out he looked around to find a vent. Eventually they came across one high up in a wall. Katsuki froze at the sight and was revealed looking through. The large room they found themselves in was manned by about five guards and all of them had guns, and what they were guarding was obvious. There were two cages attached to the walls. The people in them were of various ages with the youngest appearing to be a few years younger than them, and the oldest in her forties. The cells were both the same size but one had about fifteen people in it and the other only had five.

 After a few moments to take it all in, Deku gasped “ Kachan, the three in the cages on the right are probably quirkless .” Katsuki looked closer but couldn't see anything about them that would suggest that. Besides no obvious mutations they looked perfectly normal.

“ How the fuck do you know that? ”

“ Look at their feet .” Deku said  Katsuki looked at their feet and saw the same tacky red sneakers that Deku always wore on four of them.

“ Not many people know this but quirkless peoples feet are a different shape with the extra joints. There is only one brand that makes shoes that accommodate the odd shape, and all of them are bright red in solidarity. ” Deku continued 

Something wasn’t adding up “Why did you wear those shoes? you weren't even quirkless, in the end.”

“There is still a chance to have a quirk if you have the toe joint, it's just so small that the doctors tell people that they are quirkless so they dont get their hopes up. I never thought I would get a quirk.” 

Katsuki was cataloging everything he could about the room. There were three doors, one looked like it connected to the hallway, leading upstairs, one appeared to be connected to a room they hadn't seen yet. But the other would enter outside the building underground. It must be a passage. That was how they were smuggling people in without Eraserhead or them noticing. 

“Why do they have the quirkless ones separated?” Deku questioned himself, he then muttered “It's not just that they have them separated either, proportionally there are way more quirkless people here than there are in general. They must be specifically targeting them for some reason.” 

“ Aren't the Murks just shitty ass drug dealers?” Katsuki questioned 

“Well Eraserhead said they must be working with another gang since they aren't the only ones selling this brand of trigger.”

“So the Murks round people and trade em for drugs.”

“Maybe, we can't tell yet.” Deku’s consciousness was a tight ball of nerves   “Oh how are we going to save them without the guns going off?” Deku muttuted anxiously  

“Figure it out when we fucking get to it, for now we need to inform the others what we found.” Before using the walkie talkie they cased out the rest of the basement. Sadly there were no vent connections to the likely underground tunnel. However the room that was connected to this one had various firearms and a large safe in one corner. If Katsuki’s guess was right it would have all the profits from drug dealing. They would have to discreetly come back later. 

He decided to go halfway between floors to minimize sound. Why the detective couldn't have had them text he would never know. He plugged both ends of the tunnel with slime and then pulled out the walkie talkie. He pressed the button to talk and said “ We found something unexpected, but other than that everything is as we thought it would be. We have photographs of most people in the building.”

Detective Tsukauchi was the one to respond. He said “Good work, I'm not even going to question how you got photos of everybody. What did you find?”

“ The Murks seem to be human traffickers, there are twenty people in cages in the basement. From what we can tell there is a tunnel leading away from the building going south an unknown distance.”

The detective swore before asking “Are you in a good position to release and protect the hostages?”

If he and Deku could find a way to take out the guard without anybody getting hurt then yes they would be. “ We are.” 

There was about a minute of silence before the detective’s voice returned “We talked it over, we are proceeding as planned. Safety of the hostages is our top priority, try to keep anyone from going down the tunnel in the meantime. Without knowing where it leads to we can't stop anybody from escaping through there.”

“ Give us five minutes to secure the hostages before you begin. We wouldn't want the guards to be alerted.”

“Alright in five minutes we will enter the building and tell us if you need more time. Since you are in the basement you will have to hold out until help arrives”, The detective said. He could hear voices coordinating in the background. 

“ We shall endure. Good luck detective.” With that he re-stowed the walkie talkie in the slime and slid back to the grate looking at the hostage room.

“ How the fuck are we going to take them all out withought hurting any hostages. ” he grumbled he should have asked for more time, well to late now. 

“ We need to get them all at once .” Deku said. Katskui could feel Deku’s mind going into overdrive “We can use the nitro capsule method we developed at the beach yesterday. Probably by the ears to stun them.”  

“Don't forget about the gun's moron, we can put some nitro in the barrel to make it unusable, and then just plug up the gaps to make sure the explosion doesn't let off any bullets. ” The explosion would detonate the bullets most likely but if some of the impact resistant slime was in the way it would just trash the gun instead.

“ Yes, yes this could work, five guards each with a gun except the blond guy in the back he has two so that is six plus two for each guard's ears, sixteen nitro capsules. We need to get them into position without any of the gerd noticing.”

Deku took control of a section of slime, it would be easier to pay attention to what they were doing if they both were working. He started by creating fresh clear slime. He then extended millimeter wide tendrils and snaked them across the floor. He maneuvered the tendlis along the floor to follow the grooves between tiles so they were less visible. Once he reached a guard he would snake the tendril up the outside of their clothes making sure to keep to the side not visible to anyone else. The tendril would then worm its way into the gun and fill up the mechanism with slime. Keeping it all connected; he then split into two and rested the ends lighty on the guards shoulders. He and Deku repeated the steps for all five guards in the next couple of minutes.  

“ Alright Deku we have two minutes left, we are going to need a lot of slime for this next step since these blasts will only stun them. '' He started producing slime as fast as he could. They had not made very much in the last month since they had taken over from Suran. So it was very fast in being produced. Each tendril had a small bead of nitro at the very tip, primed and ready to explode. They had ten seconds left then five, he extended the beads up from the shoulders next to the ears. He solidified the slime in the guns to prepare for an impact. Then directly on time he exploded every capsule at once. 

The hostages all jumped at sound. But the effect on the guards was tremendous, they were yelling and clutching their ears in pain. With their eardrums burst their sense of balance was gone so they were falling over and stumbling. The guns were all smoking ruins with the bullets lodged into the barrels. Now for the next step Katsuki fazed through the vent cover and reformed into Gestalt. The fresh slime was extended from their hands like tentacles. He sent a pulse of slime down the thin strands and used the excess slime to shove it up their noses and into their mouths sealing their airways. Once the slime was in place he solidified it with his quirk to make it tougher to damage. However it didn't look like that was necessary. The guards were so out of it from having their hearing and balance shot they couldn't fight for air very effectively. It only took a couple minutes for every guard to be unconscious on the ground. He went around and zip tied them all thoroughly. He then moved the new slime to barricade the doorway and to alert him if anybody tried to enter the room. 

The hostages were all backed up against the far wall of their cages away from them in fear. He turned to them and said in his most calming voice that wasn't very calming from its nature of being in shattered harmonics as well as being said by Bakugou Katsuki “ We are with the heroes and are here to rescue you so do not be afraid.” The hostages all looked even more afraid after he had spoken. A few did perk up at the rescue part though.

He walked up to the cage with the quirkless people first and used slime to unlock the door; he then did the same with the other cage. He gathered all the hostages in one corner and said “We are going to wait for the heroes here. They are currently clearing out the rest of the villains. Do not worry You will be safe with us.” One of the hostages flinched at the sound of gunshots going off upstairs. Katsuki gestured at the sound as if to say ‘see’. “We must do something first but we will be back, we will know if anything tries to enter this room.”  

He walked to the door leading to the safe room. Deku hissed “What are you doing Kachan!? We need to stay with them.” 

The lock on the door popped open as easily as the cages had. “ We need money Deku, what if we need to bribe somebody or pay bail or something? We cannot afford to not have money. You saw how god damn important it is in the underworld. What if we need to go to that information broker guy? From what we've heard his rates are steep.”

“I thought we agreed we wouldn't steal!” Deku said angrily. This would be the point where flesh and blood Deku would have started crying.  

“These are fucking human trafficers Deku! There are no scumbags on the planet more deserving of getting robbed.'' He shut the door behind him so the hostages couldent see what he was doing. Just in case, there was a thin tendril of slime still connected to the stuff covering the door to the hallway. The safe posed to be a bit more difficult to open, but with the ability to feel every millimeter of the lock as well as google different techniques on the fly, It didn’t last long. As he expected there was a huge pile of cash in it. Most of it was folded and creased. Likely came directly from the junkies. He took about two thirds of the pile. That way when the heroes checked they would still see the safe locked and it would still have cash in it. He swung the door shut and spun the dial to make sure it was secure.

He made it back to the hostages and reclosed the door behind him. The gunshots were getting louder. He turned to the hostages and said “Nobody is in there. We should be safe until the heroes get here.”  

A couple minutes later he heard pounding on the door. The hostages looked frightened but didn't start screaming which was nice. He quickly darted over to the vent and slipped into it, it was a matter of seconds before they were located in the corresponding vent above the hallway. He kept the slime barricade connected with a thin strand. He also extended another strand under the door in case it got severed. There were two Murks banging on the door. They were likely trying to escape through the tunnel or else use a hostage.

 He repeated the steps he took earlier to take out the guards. He was getting ready to detonate the nitro when he heard shouting come from the room with the hostages. He cursed, before letting off the explosions. He smothered both goons' mouths with slime so they couldn't breath and then ripped the door open. He had unlocked it from the inside. He passed through the slime blocking the doorway and saw one of the guards pulling the door to the passageway open. He had not managed to undo the zip ties on his hands but he had managed to slip out one of his feet. He was stumbling horribly with his balance shot. 

“Fuck fuck fuck! Should we go after him Deku?!”

“We can't leave the hostages with the two guys behind us. They aren't unconscious yet. 

Deku was right, the safety of the hostages was not worth capturing one criminal. Besides he had gotten the man's face with the camera earlier, they would hunt him down eventually. 

“ Kachan before the heroes get here we should dump the extra slime. ” 

“Yeah, I'll go find the bathroom real quick .” As he recalled, the bathroom was just down the hall. After checking to make sure the four remaining guards were truly unconscious, he gathered up all the slime they had used so far and walked out into the hallway. One of the two murks out there was still twitching futile as he tried to get air. Katsuki removed the slime from the first guy and loomed over the other until he went still. After collecting the remaining slime he ungently dragged the two new guards and threw them on top of the others. 

 With that done he walked down the hall about ten feet. He brought every drop of slime with him. Deku extended an eye on a stalk to watch the hallway. After checking the coast was clear he began filling the bowl with clear slime and then flushing it. He only had about a gallon of undyed slime left when Izuku alerted him of movement down the hall. He quickly darted back to the room with the hostages before whovers shadow they had seen rounded the corner. He shut the door just in case it was another group of thugs. 

Realizing that the walkie talkie was unattended he went over to the vent and used an explosion to open it up enough to grab the device. 

He heard knocking on the door but decided to not leave the hostages alone for a third time. Instead he had them gather against the wall away from the line of fire should the door be opened. He readied his hands with nitro and pointed them at the doorway. 

Midnight's voice came through the walkie talkie, “Gestalt it's Midnight the coast is clear, open up.” 

He opened the door cautiously in case it was a trap, fortunately it was indeed Midnight along with Mr. Slash and four officers. Two of the police hurried over to the hostages and one went over to tidy up the guards. One officer cast an uneasy glance at them at the state of the guards. Every single one of them were uncoiuses on the ground with no visible signs of a fight besides the blood slowly leaking out of their ears. 

“ We were just about to call it in but a gang member managed to escape down the tunnel .” 

Mr. Slash nodded, and then darted down the tunnel. MIdnight spoke up “let's get these bad boys upstairs and into the trucks.” She then turned to the hostages and said “There are ambulances outside as well as phones to call family with. I would like you to follow us now. Do not fear, all criminal elements have been arrested.”

She opened the door and ushered the scared civilians out into the hallway. Midnight took up the front of the group, Deku and him followed behind. The officers were each carrying an unconscious villain. Kastuski had picked up the two remaining gang members leaving Midnight clear to fight if they ran into trouble. They made it all the way to the ambulances without anything happening.  

The bright lights of the police cars combined with the ambulances had attracted a small crowd of people. There was also a news van recording from behind the police tape. “Tch, there goes our mysterious edge. Now everyone and their cat will know what we look like.” Katsuki refused to acknowledge the cameras and instead walked straight over to the truck they were loading criminals into. The first truck looked to be full so he just dumped the shitbags on the ground in a heap. 

“ This might be good, if the public acknowledges us as helpful we might get a smidge more leeway when it comes to working with heroes and police.” Deku blathered. He was just about to go over to the detective to find something to do when he heard a shout behind him. He whipped around to see a villain who had been arrested by a different hero, had sliced through his binding with something silvery. He then leaped and landed about foot up on a metallic mist like substance that must be his quirk. The villain then started running away, walking on his quirk straight up into the sky. Katsuki looked around to see if Eraserhead was going to cancel out the man's quirk, but it appeared the Hero must still be inside.

 He growled but decided there was no other option but to display his quirk in front of the cameras. There was no way his pride could survive two villains escaping on his watch in one day. He readied the nitro in his feet and then rocketed after the man. He caught up in seconds. The man’s running pace was no match for their explosive based propulsion. 

He used a blast from his hands to whip around in front of the man cutting him off. He let off a little yelp of fear before whipping his weird ass quirk out and cutting through the slime of their chest. One of the veins full of nitro was severed and a few drops dripped out. Katsuki quickly resealed the wound and caught the drops before they could cause harm on the streets below. 

Deku seemed to have finished his analisis and began sprouting information relevant to the fight. “He has a certain volume of his quirk assigned to each limb. You probably only have to worry about the stuff on his hands as his feet are occupied with keeping him up. Oh and look out for his head that might count as a limb too.”

The villain's eyes went wide seeing the gash heal in seconds. His eyes then rapidly looked around for some way to escape. He dropped down ten feet or so and then set off at a sprint under them. Katsuki used an explosion to turn around again and then one more to catch up to the man. Katsuki grabbed onto his ankle being careful to mind the silvery fog hovering around it. He then used a combination of all his limbs letting off explosions to whip him in a circle and then fling him towards the ground.

 The man caught himself with his quirk but his arm snapped with an audible crack, he screamed out in pain. Katsuki fell down to hiss form where he was kneeling fifteen feet above the ground on his quirk, cradling his arm. Katsuki grabbed him by the face and used it as an opportunity to fill his airways with slime. Deku had formed two stubby winglike nubs on their back to let off explosions with. With four different sources of propulsion their flight was relatively stable. 

Katsuki tilted their head making sure their wide pearly teeth were fully visible to the man. His eyes widened in fear, He began desperately clawing at their hand with his non broken arm. The slices from his quik were shallow enough that by the time he went to cut them again they had already healed. Katsuki leaned into his face and said loudly in a sing-song voice “You didn't think you could run from us did you?” With all the man’s flailing he was quick to run out of oxygen and pass out.

Katsuki dropped down to the ground and dragged the unconscious villian back over to the cops. He was displeased to see that the news crew was still filming. The civilians on the other side of the police tape backed away as they approached. 

Katsuki noticed Eraserhead walking towards them and went to go to talk to him but stopped when he noticed Midnight briskly heading straight towards them, or rather straight toward the villains. “Why couldn't they have put quirk suppressors on these ruffians? Well better take care of this right.” She looked around to see who was nearby and then said to them “Don't breathe any in, unless you want to take a nap.” She lifted up the sleeve on her arm and let out a cloud of pearly pink fog. The vapor hung heavy over the unconscious villain further luling them into sleep. However it didn't travel much further than that. The fog pooled up to around their knees and harmlessly swirled around.  Katsuki made sure not to breathe even though they didn't have lungs. 

Katsuki suddenly felt content with their work and was ready to head home for a nap. He was roused from the comforting thoughts by Deku yelling “Kachan get out of the fog right now! look at our legs! ” Katsuki unhurriedly focused on the legs. He was concerned that the pink mist was dissolving into the slime even though it was hardened. That pulled him even further out of the haze that must have been caused by Midnight's quirk. 

 He took a few stumbling steps backwards but felt his concentration and control over the slime slipping. Fortunately Deku had enough mental capacity left to rip control from him and start running away. Neither of them were focused enough to hear the shouts of the heroes behind them. They had to get away before they succumbed to the quirk and turned into a puddle right in front of everyone. He turned into an ally and spotted a sewer cap. He lifted it up and dived in. Deku kept the cap slightly open and blearly from their spot on the wall they saw Midnight run past their hiding spot. Deku’s last thought before following Katsuki into unconsciousness was hopefully the heroes would think they disappeared mysteriously and wouldn't come back to check thoroughly. With all of his control gone his grip on the wall failed and he fell into the murky water below  with a disgusting splash.

Chapter Text

Izuku was roused from a deep peaceful sleep by the feeling of Kachan’s consciousness stirring. It took him a moment to catalog where he was but when he did it was with disgust. They were currently a formless blob bobbing down a sewer. He had no idea how long they had been unconscious for. And since The sewer was pitch dark there was no way to tell, hopefully it had only been a few hours and not a longer like he feared.

By the state of the slime it was looking more like at least a day had passed. The outermost few inches of slime felt exactly like it had when Suran was in control. It was disgusting, it felt like they had half the contents of the sewer dissolved in the slime. There were globs of some mushy substance that he didn’t care to identify. The walkie talkie was partially sticking out into the sewer water and thus ruined. But other than a few bills it seems most of their belongings managed to stay suspended in their core. Izuku was glad that all the money wouldn't go to waste. He detached the walkie talkie and let it sink to the bottom.

The movement in the slime woke Kachan up the rest of the way. He went through the same realizations that Izuku had. Finally he screamed in rage, “Why is this goddamn quirk so fucking disgusting!” Their phone lit up with a notification. By its light Izuku could see that most of their mass was completely contaminated with sewage.  

“It’s no wonder Suran was such a slob, we would be having to do a full replacement every week if we didn't have your ability to harden. ”

“This shit dissolves everything it touches its such a fucking pain. That's what happened with midnight her shity ass quirk dissolved into us and put us to sleep. No lungs fucking required.”

“I hope we weren't out for a long time. That wouldn't look good with the police.” Nervously he pulled the phone over to where the eyes were. He clicked the on button and the screen lit up. There were about fifteen notifications. All of them were from Eraserhead. There was even a voicemail labeled from a few minutes ago. That must have been what woke them up.

“Look at the date Kachan .” He said as he began to be filled with a deep sense of dread.

“Two fucking days! That bitch’s quirk put us out for two fucking days?!”  

There was no way that was right. Midnight quirk only worked for about twenty minutes regularly. Then the victim's metabolism would break down the compound and it would become inert. The less inhaled the faster you recovered. Unless of course you don't have a standard metabolism to digest with Izuku thought.  

“Kachan, I think we need to count ourselves lucky that we fell into the sewer. I bet the only reason we woke up when we did is that the water washed out most of the gas.” Izuku felt a little scared, if the pink haze from Midnight's quirk hadn't been washed out by the sewer water they might have been unconscious for a very long time.

“Fuck, we need to deal with that soon. But first see what all the messages from Eraserhead are.”

The first one just read 

-Why did you run off? Detective Tsukauchi still needs to talk to you. 

The next was 

-It's urgent Gestalt, you have valuable information that we need for the  investigation.

-Get back to me as soon as possible

-It's been almost a day, I'll be at our usual spot at 11 tonight, be there. 

The rest of the messages were increasingly angry and panicked. The voicemails were variations on the same things. This was not good. They had all the photos for the investigation. Additionally they knew the appearance of the crook that managed to escape. Their testimony would also be helpful. “What are we going to tell them, Kachan? If we tell them the truth they will know a major weakness of ours. ”

“Shit your right. I bet other toxins will work the same way. We don't even have the fucking choice of not ingesting them.” He swore again loudly and then said “Just say we reacted poorly to a quirk and were unconscious since the raid.”

=Eraserhead, We apologize for worrying you. Unfortunately we reacted poorly to a quirk used on us. We have been unconscious since the raid, and have just woken up moments ago. We can answer any questions you have, and we have the camera.

Deku used a hardened blob of slime to tap out the message on the screen he hesitated over the send button “ Anything else to add? ” 

Kachan scrutinized it quickly, and then said “No, just send it.” He did so.

 It only took a couple minutes for the Eraserhead to respond.  

-Where are you? I will come find you, I have a few hours until work.

“ Shit shit, the fucker wants to meet up now? ”

“ We won't have time to go out to the ocean to get clean. Not to mention go back to the apartment for new dye.”

Izuku had no clue where they were. So he quickly swam up to the surface of the sewer and glanced around for a pathway. He grabbed onto the side and slid up onto dry-ish cement.  He used the light from their phone to look around until he spotted a ladder leading up to the surface. He then formed up a human shape to climb the ladder but was disgusted to find that the green brown gunk dissolved into the slime made it harder to control. No wonder Suran looked like a blob monster all the time if this was how hard it was to move around dirty. The hubcap slid aside with little difficulty. They emerged in the middle of the street. Thankfully it was around four in the morning so nobody was out. 

They left sopping footsteps behind them as he walked to an alley. He texted Eraserhead the address of the closest intersection. He went to try and replace some slime to hopefully get rid of some of the stench but discovered to his horror that because they were so hungry barely any slime was produced. This was not looking good. He didn't want the hero to see them looking like a sewer monster. That would not go well with their attempts to differentiate themselves from Suran. But it seems like they might not have that choice. 

After desperately thinking about it for a few moments he noticed the relatively clean slime in their core. After all the phone and money had been preserved. “Ooh I know Kachan we can just invert ourselves with the sewer slime on the inside with clean slime on the outside.”

“ Absolutely fucking not! That would ruin everything in the core! And be disgusting as fuck. ” Kachan yelled

Izuku formed a hand and started wiping off sewage as fast as possible. There was a puddle forming that was most likely horrendously stinky at their feet.

“ Kachan we look like Suran did! What if he recognizes us ?” Izuku said nervously. Izuku took stock of their body, it was about seventy percent contaminated with slime. Unfortunately Kachan was right that almost all of the clean slime was being used to suspend the money and the camera. If he used his idea it would be obvious to Eraserhead that they had been stealing. 

“ He wont fucking recognize us. It's been months since anybody had seen Suran. And I doubt he was ever on the case to begin with. ” 

“ Oh this is so nasty Kachan .” The slime was not nearly as responsive as it was when clean, additionally it felt disgusting to have so much dissolved into what was essentially their body. He checked the time on the phone and saw that they wouldn't have much more time until Eraserhead got there. He did one final wipe with his hands to try and get as much filth off as possible and then hurried over to the spot he said he would meet Eraserhead at. 

It wasn't long before a cheap black car pulled up to the curb, headlights blinking out leaving them in the relatively darkness of early morning. Eraserhead slumped out of the car looking like he hadn't had any sleep that night. The hero had an angry expression on his face and did not look pleased to see them. 

“ Fuck, shit, shit, he does not look happy to see us. ” Kachan muttered.

Eraserheads nose wrinkled as he got close to them. His hand came up to hold it shut. He gave them a once over. He took a few steps back and after a second to think, said “Where the hell have you been? And why the hell do you look like you just crawled out of a sewer?” Because of his plugged nose his voice came out sounding nasally but no less intimidating.

Izuku looked away from the man and stammered out “ Well about that…”

The hero took another step back and said “Don't tell me that is actually sewage all over you.”

“Well.. ok we won't tell you then.” he could see instantly that was the wrong thing to say.

The hero's eyes flashed red very briefly and he took a few steps closer to them. He growled out “Alright you tell me exactly why you ran out of an active crime scene with evidence right now or I will bring you into the police like I should have when we first met. And whatever quirk you were exposed to you will tell me. No quirk registered at that hideout could have done that to you. I will know if you lie.” His eyes narrowed at the last part.

“What do I tell him Kachan? He will find out our weakness!” Izuku took a few steps back from the angry hero.

“Just fucking tell him. It's that or we go splat.” Kachan said bitterly.

“ It was Midnight’s!” he burst out.

Eraserheasd raised an eyebrow skeptically “Bullshit. Midnight's quirk doesn’t affect people for more than a couple hours

“ You saw our... unique biology the first day we met. The compound in Midnights quirk did not flush out of our system like it typically does in people. So it lasted for much longer. ”

Eraserhead crossed his arms in thought and said “let's say I believe you, why do you look like a sewer monster?”

Izuku was mortified that the hero was seeing them like this but he started to explain anyways “ Well you see, when Midnight’s quirk started to affect us we ran away so we wouldn't be arrested, unfortunately we fell unconscious right over the entrance to the sewer. We must have been floating in it since the raid. And since our body is primarily fluid...” Izuku spread their arms as if to say ‘see’.

Eraserheaed grimaced at the imagery Izuku's description inspired. “Well that’s an unfortunate drawback to your quirk. Did you at least manage to hold onto the camera? It should be waterproof.” Eraseread looked at them again, probably searching for where they would have left the camera and came up blank.

“ Oh, the camera, yes, we managed to hold onto it. Here” Izuku moved a glob of clean slime with the camera into their hand. He did his best to discreetly coat the outside of their palm with clean slime so the camera would not touch sewage. When Izuku held out their hand the camera was sitting in it like it had been there all along.

Eraserhead reluctantly grabbed the camera from them, however he seemed surprised when it didn't smell like the sewer at all. In fact the camera looked as clean as it had been the day he gave it to them.

“Well I won't question where you had this the whole time. I need to get to work soon. Meet me where we met up with the heroes before the raid tonight. I will have questions for you about the case.” Eraserhead said, sounding mollified.

“You’re not going to make us talk with the detective?” Izuku questioned. 

Eraserhead sighed before he answered. “No, all the evidence we need should be in the camera. And it's more pain than it’s worth to go through official channels to work with vigilantes. Better if you limit contact to pro heroes rather than the police, we have slightly more leeway.”

Izuku nodded.

Eraserhead pocketed the camera. He stood there for a second contemplating something. “I have decided I will keep your weakness to myself for now.” He said, looking at them firmly.

Izuku was surprised that the hero was willing to go on such a limb for them. “ Thank you Eraserhead. We will do our best to live up to your expectations in the future.” 

Eraserhead nodded and turned to walk over to his car. Before he got in he looked back at them and said “Oh, and Gestalt?”

“ Yes ?” Izuzuku responded hesitantly.

“You did good out there.” With that the hero got in his car and drove off.

Izuku looked at the ground and smiled. If he had a face it would be flushing with pride.

“Wow I can't believe the fucker he didn't even try to arrest us.” Kachan pipped in, done with his silence for the conversation. And there went the moment. 

“ Now get us the fuck to the ocean Deku, this is so goddamn disgusting.”

Chapter Text

All might stood a distance away and watched as the leafy boy, Ivy perked up at young Mirio’s greeting. He had been coaching the boy as himself and not as All Might to try and get to know him. In fact, young Mirio didn't even know that he was a hero, just an old friend of Nighteye’s. The boy had proven himself time and time again. With his willingness to clean an endless beach for no other reason than community service.

He was a goofy, cheerful boy that had a heart big enough to shine through in his every action. But for all the good deeds the young hero had done, it was his ability to inspire happiness in others that has made All Might finally decide to take him on as his successor. He hopes that the boy will accept, and that he will be able to bear the burden that this quirk represents. 

All Might feels a small smile form on his face as he sees the two talking. The boy Ivy hands young Mirio a donut from his workplace before waving and walking off down the beach to pursue some other activity. Young Mirio enthusiastically accepts and takes a bite. However when the antlered boy is out of sight he sadly places the donut back in its bag and puts it on a bench uneaten. Poor Mirio was on a strict diet of primarily protein to try and strengthen his muscles further. The boy was already strong but All Might wanted no room for error when he finally inherited his quirk. One donut would have been fine, but the boy’s friend brought him treats fairly often.

He turned and walked off, satisfied that young Mirio would be fine on his own for the day.  He pulled out his phone and typed out a message, he hesitated over the send button before finally biting the bullet and pressing it.

= I have decided that young Mirio will be my successor should he accept. I ask that you try not to sway him should he ask for advice.

He had been thankful that Nighteye had allowed him to get to know the boy, and had not pressured him to make a decision. He had been inscsant that they be introduced but had backed off as soon as that had occurred. 

Nighteye responded shortly after, even though it had been over a week since they last talked, his old sidekick acted like he had been waiting for the message, just as he always had.

-Of course, I understand that this is entirely Mirios' decision to make.

He decided to inform Gran Torino while he was at it.

-Ha! Finally decided to choose Nighteye’s brat

-He’s a good lad, Nana would have liked him

He was grateful towards Gran, the old man had been the one to  drag him out of the anger and grief filled slump that had him furiously hunting that villian after that boy had been killed. He had of course had people be killed in front of him before, countless times in fact. But usually they were in situations where his presence wouldn't have changed things. His weakness had never been clearer to him than when he had been barely a second too slow to save that child. A couple months earlier and he would have been able to beat the Sludge villain with ease. 

Most heroes had to face that they were not good enough to save everybody their whole careers, All Might from almost the beginning had been good enough. Even All For One had not managed to kill people in his presence. So the few people that had died because of him being unable to save them stayed with him. He still heard the crack of that poor boy's neck when he woke up from nightmares every so often. 

Gran had found him and told him to suck it up. Wasting his valuable time hunting a middling villain was pointless. Gran had convinced him to take his search for a successor more seriously. It was time that he accepted that he was weakening and that his time as a hero was coming to an end. This way he could at least shape the next generation. 

Thinking about his failures had made him sad, hopefully he would be able to cheer himself up for his big conversation with young Mirio later. He wouldn't want the boy to get any wrong ideas after all. He just had just one last person to inform of his decision, as well as his decision to keep teaching at UA this year despite already having a Successor. He had enjoyed his time teaching young Mirio, who knows maybe he will find himself a job moulding the next generation for when his quik finally burns itself out. 

He sent the message even though he was almost positive the rat had already figured out months ago what he would choose. He just received a smiling mouse emoji that confirmed his guess. Oh well, off to go put on his hero suit. Might as well make his big reveal to young Mirio dramatic.

……..

Sugi is pissed as he makes his way back from meeting with yet another small-time gang for a job. His quirk is strong, he can steal the breath of anybody within ten feet of him. Not the actual air, but the vitality they get from It. Whenever he uses it people near him run out of air and faint while he gets the equivalent of an adrenaline shot without the side effects. He had used it countless times in the past to subdue targets, and even as a way to subtly keep himself awake on long shifts guardian those sods the old boss sold for drug stock. After all they didn't need to be fully oxygenated if they were just lazing around in cages right? 

That was how he had managed to escape during the raid. He had pulled a little oxygen from everyone in the room allowing him to remain conscious despite being choked and get his feet in a position that made it easy to slip out of the zip ties. The extra vitality had also helped fuel his mad sprint down the tunnel and to freedom.

His left ear was ringing again. Ever since that freak had exploded his hearing or whatever had happened his ears had been bad. He could hear for the most part again, but his balance wavered sometimes. And like now he occasionally got ringing. He was glad that at least the rest of his pals would get to visit the doctor before they were shipped off to prison.

Ever since the Murks had been busted a few weeks ago Sugi had been searching for a new gig, nobody had wanted him though, saying that he was bad luck, or that he would bring the police down on them for being the only member of the Murks to escape. He thought it was bullshit, he had gotten out fine before, if the heroes hadn't caught him yet they weren't gonna.

He paused his step as he thought he saw a shadow move off to his left. The street was empty though just a few flickering street lamps and cracked pavement. He turned back and kept walking towards home. It was a nice night, some stars were poking through the light pollution and the wind was quiet. 

 He decided to stop at a vending machine by his house for a snack. As he waited for the chips to fall he stretched. His gaze briefly was in the sky, as his gaze fell back to the vending machine, from the bag thunking to the tray, he thought he saw a silhouette standing on a building. But when he jerked his gaze back, there was nothing. Just the dark starry night. He shrugged off his paranoia as not getting enough sleep and made his way back to his house. He kicked off his grimy shoes and locked his door behind himself carefully.

He sat down to eat his chips but found them too salty so he tossed them halfway through. He really needed to get to the grocery store, gas station takeout was not going to cut it for much longer. He decided to get ready for bed, figuring that the store would be less busy in the morning. As he went about taking off his grungy clothes and putting on a clean pair of boxers to sleep in, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. 

He washed his face and brushed his teeth as fast as he could before heading to his bedroom. He put his hand on the handle and pushed his door open. A large leering grin was waiting for him on the other side. The almost skeletal figure of Gestalt was looming just inside his doorway. He shrieked and ran backwards away from the vigilante. He started drawing on his quirk but found to his dismay that no extra oxygen came to his system. 

Whatever that thing was, it didn't need to breathe. He ran down his short hallway and quickly darted out the front door. He didn’t know where he was going; all he knew was that he needed to get away. His bare feet pounded on the pavement. He winced as a small rock dug into his foot. He glanced over his shoulder but couldn't see Gestalt following him. He didn't know if he should take that as a good sign or not. 

He ran closer to some apartment buildings and stole the breath of anybody near enough to be in his range. The extra oxygen flooded his veins and made his muscles stop screaming. He kept his breathing quiet as he slipped into an alley. It would lead to a complicated twisting chunk of streets and alleys that would be easy to lose somebody in. 

He wound his way through them a few more minutes before hiding behind some stairs. There were enough people nearby that he could lightly draw from that he barely had the breath at all. Even his heart was beating sedately not having to work hard to keep all his cells fueled. He watched the mouth of the alley for a few minutes until he was sure he wasn't followed.

Then he carefully crept out, he peeked around the corner and made sure nobody was visible in either direction, he didn’t have any clue where he should go to now. Right as he was going to step out a horrible laugh came from behind him. 

He spun around to see Gestalt standing right behind where he had been hiding. The vigilante could have been standing there the whole time he had been crouched watching to make sure nobody entered the alley.

“You didn't think you could hide from us did you?” Gestalt said mockingly.

Sugi felt goosebumps rise up on his arm at the creepy sound of the vigilante's voice. He started sprinting again, this time he could hear the soft pitter patter of Gestalt’s footsteps following him. He was being toyed with. There was no way Gestalt couldn't catch him. He had seen on the news how the vigilante could fly using his explosive quirk.

He ran and ran, eventually the footsteps ceased and there were just the sounds of his bruised and bloody feet hitting the pavement and his unlabored breathing.

He made his way to a busier part of town hoping that night life would deter his pursuer. The few people that he passed gave him strange looks for wearing nothing but his boxers. His sweat was beginning to cool and he started to shiver. He turned down a random street and kept walking, even though it was deserted. 

The tall figure he saw standing in an alley he passed barely registered before he was running again. He turned a few corners, but his feet were hurting and he must have mistepped because he tripped over something and fell to the ground. He managed to turn it into a roll at the last second, but still scraped his knee and shoulder.

He scrambled around and saw Gestalt calmly approaching him. He tried to scoot back but found he had backed himself into a wall. Gestalt crouched down in front of him. The vigilante put a hand on his shoulder and said “Don't worry, it will only hurt for a minute.”

Then Gestalt leaped at him, he felt as the whatever malleable substance the vigilante was made of shoved its way down his airways again. The vigilante was right, it did hurt. He could feel a terrible burning pressure all around him. He flailed around on the ground tearing at his face to try and get the slime out but it just slid uselessly through. Again he would have passed out from the lack of air but there were two sources of breath in the building behind him.  

His skin and airways screamed at him. Eventually he must have passed out from the pain because when he woke up Gestat was gone. All he could feel was the dull ache pervading his entire body. He could feel the residue of the tasteless gunk in his mouth and went to spit but found his body frozen. Then jerkily it stood up despite his will. His body sighed and started walking back to his house.

His heart was thudding in his chest from his fear but no matter how hard he tried his body moved without him. Eventually he walked himself through his still open door. Gestalt, who must have been controlling his body somehow, kindly shut the door behind him. Or unkindly, as now nobody would be able to hear his screams. 

Gestalt opened drawers and cupboards until eventually the pocket of his dirty pants yielded what the vigilant was looking for. His phone felt odd in his palm as it was picked up against his will.

Gestalt moved his grip on the phone around until it felt natural to Sugi, Gestalt moved his thumb to unlock the phone but the password buzzed as he had gotten it incorrect. The vigilante loosened his grip on Sugi’s hand and then moved to unlock his phone again. To his confusion his thumb moved to type in the first digits of his old password. Before clicking some random buttons. He realized that the vigilante was probably trying to use his muscle memory. Fortunately he had changed his password just a few days ago.

His voice sighed before saying “It’s a shame, we really had hoped that might work.” his hand casually tossed the phone on his bed. “Oh well, there are other ways of finding the information we need.” It was creepy to hear his own voice talking to him without his control. 

His body walked down the hall and started searching in cupboards again as it talked. “We would like to know who your gang was selling those people to.”

He felt whatever thing was forcing his body to move, relax it’s grip on his mouth and throat. 

“I ain't going to tell you shit!” He spat. There was no way he was going to sell out anybody, even if he barely knew who the one buying all those quikless fucks was.

Finally Gestalt found what he was looking for, a first aid kit. The vigilante sat him down on the floor and began cleaning and dressing his damaged feet. Once bandages were firmly wrapped around the wounds his body stood back up. It walked over to the door, grabbed his wallet and slipped into some shoes, not bothering to put on any more clothes.

He didn't know where Gestalt was taking him but it felt like his body walked for hours. It was probably only half of one. Eventually Gestalt paused and pressed his body against the wall almost as though hiding from something. “Now, the friend we are taking you to meet, well he doesn't like your kind very much. Those that prey on the weak. In fact he thinks that a little disease like you should just be burned out.” His voice said to him quietly.

Sugi felt as his body crept to the corner of the wall and then peered around it. He could see the bright light shining off the burning form of Endeavor as the hero munched on some sort of street food. Sugi felt his blood run cold, he had heard rumors that  Endeavor didn't bother with bringing in some villains, he just insinerated them alive. He had never put much stock in those rumors but if Gestalt was bringing him here there must be something behind them. 

Gestalt pulled back around the corner. “We want to know who you and your little friends were selling those people to. And if you don't feel like telling us I’m sure our friend would love to ask you as well. But he won't bother with being nice like us. We will give you to him in some dark alley where there are no cameras, no lawyers to save you. Your face is well known thanks to us. He will know exactly who you are and what you’ve done.” Gestalt peeked around the corner again and saw Endeavour moving on.

Villains everywhere knew Endeavour's main patrol routes. When you shine like a spotlight there's no point being sneaky. But despite knowing where he will be, nobody bothers committing crime in this area anymore. It's practically a death sentence. Gestalt cut through some alleys and climbed up a fire escape. 

Sugi felt something weird in his soul as Gestalt stood on the roof of that short little building. Gestalt was waiting for him to speak as he gazed up at the stars, waiting for Endeavour. Sugi understood the time limit that had been given to him. He either told Gestalt what he knew, or he would be dropped into Endeavours lap with nothing but a pair of shoes an arrest on sight warrant out for his head. 

Sugi could feel himself wavering. His voice began to speak again. “We’ve never felt what it's like to be burned. See, our quik makes us immune.” Sugi felt a small smile form on his face as an orange light began to get closer to them. “But we have heard that it is horribly painful.”

Sugi’s face continued to placidly smile even as tears started to drip down his cheeks. He felt as his finger tapped on his wrist gently. Time was almost up. 

The grip on his throat relaxed again and he decided to take his chances. “I don't know man, they wore these masks whenever they dealt with us. Our boss knows their group but we thugs just rounded up the quikless and whoever else we could nab and they would give us a month's worth of drugs to sell.”

His smile grew, “And? Is that all you know about them?”

His throat loosened again. “I think they use all the people we give them to test out some new drug they are making. I don't know what it is so dont ask.”

“We thank you for your cooperation, and by the way all the things we said about Endeavour were lies, his casualty rate is well within the industry average.” With that Sugi felt the same burning sensation as before begin even as his body jumped off the roof. Gestalt cushioned his landing somehow and ran at Endeavour.

Endeavour tensed as they came around the corner. Sugi felt his body walk over to the hero even as something goopy collecting on his back. All of a sudden he had control of his body again but his arms were held behind him by Gestalt’s newly formed body.

“Present for you Number two, be careful it doesn't take your breath away.” WIth that Gestalt gave him a heavy shove on the back causing him to stumble over closer to endeavor even as he heard Gestalt dart off into an alley.

Sugi looked up into the eyes of the Number two hero and didn't even consider making a run for it another time this night. He Just meekly put hands out in front of himself still holding his wallet with all his identifying information. At least prisons had to follow the law.  

Chapter Text

Five months later~~~

The sound of the rain hitting the nearby surf was making it a challenge to listen for any crime that may be happening. Though Izuku doubted that many people were out on a night like this. In the months since the sting on the Murks he and Kachan had gradually moved and increased the size of the area they patrolled regularly. They still bumped into Eraserhead every once in a while. But nothing as large as their first operation had happened since. Not all of the remaining Murks were rounded up. But enough of them were caught that the gang was essentially gone. 

With the weather warming up in late spring though, odds were that crime rates would go up again.

“What sort of fuckmunch would commit a crime in this shitty ass weather?”  Kachan bemoaned.

“The kind that know there are less heroes out in said bad weather.” Izuku replied feeling dejected. In their months of regular patrol he had learned the unfortunate truth that there were just not enough heroes out at night, and especially dingy areas like this. It was no wonder that Eraserhead was willing to put up with their criminal nature if it meant that one more body was patrolling away from the spotlight. Something he knew they avoided adamantly.

“The asswipes could at least have the courtesy to present themselves for a beating when there isn't a risk of drowning on solid ground.” Kachan swung one of their legs back and kicked a nearby can petulantly. 

Izuku Idly snatched it up with a tendril of slime and deposited it into a soggy recycling bin. He was trying to think of a reply when a scream came from around a building. Kachan started sprinting towards the noise as soon as it registered. Meanwhile Izuku moved their eyes from their face to their core where they would be more protected. 

Izuku involuntarily sucked in a breath when he saw the source of the scream. A giant man with muscle fibers growing on the outside of his skin was holding what looked to be a hero in the air by her face. Below where her boots were uselessly dangling was the body of another hero. Izuku doubted that he was alive judging by the massive hole in his abdomen along with his glassy eyed stare. 

Because of all the blood on and around the scene It took Izuku a moment to place them as the Water Hose heroes. The woman screamed again in pain as the villain began squeezing her head.  Her quirk was thrashing around her, some sort of hydrokinesis. The rain water was flowing in massive whips in the air, batting against the man, and leaving small slices in his muscles. 

Kachan let out a scream of rage and flew at the pair in a desperate attempt to keep the woman from joining her partner. The villain whipped around still holding the hero. Now that Izuku could see his face he recognized him as the villain Muscular. He had an enormous bleeding gash going through one of his eyes. The villain's single working eye widened in shock at seeing them hurtling towards him. He grinned and gave one last squeeze before they heard a terrible cracking sound and then a thump as the Water Hose hero's body was tossed to the ground.

“No!” Izuku yelled, willing the explosions propelling them to be bigger. Once they were in range of Muscular, Kachan unleashed a massive explosion directly in the villain’s face. Unfortunately since they were still in the air the explosion shot them away from him before they could attack again. Izuku felt the burning pit of rage inside of himself grow when he saw the last of the hero’s lifeless water-whips splash to the ground. 

Izuku was appalled to see Muscular standing unmoved and with only a slight singe to his skin and muscles when the blast cleared. 

“Damn, this bastard is tough.” Kachan seethed before jumping at the villain again and letting out another massive explosion. Thankfully he angled it away from the bodies on the ground.

Again Muscular brought up his arm to take the brunt of the explosion. Izuku saw the muscle on his forearm burn and sizzle before new ones flowed into place almost immediately. Kachan used a blast from one of their hands to get behind Muscular. He angled the next explosion at the ground to try and disrupt Muscular’s footing. The villain stumbled briefly but just hopped to new cement before it could hinder him. 

Kachan snarled and leapt after him. Instead of blocking the next explosion Muscular attacked instead. Kachan tried to dodge but the villain's fist was moving too fast and clipped their side. A large chunk of slime was torn off them and splattered across the wall near them. Izuku had forgotten just how much it hurt getting torn apart, but was quickly reminded. Kachan gasped in pain but recovered quickly. He jumped away from Muscular’s immediate range. Izuku moved slime from the rest of their body to fill the gap; he also started producing more to try and recover what they had lost.

“Any ideas would be appreciated Deku!”  Kachan yelled in their head . 

“Try to get some slime in his airways to cut off his breathing, that much muscle mass must use an incredible amount of oxygen.” It was the only thing he could think of that wouldn't cause immense property damage.

Muscular started laughing. “Is that all you’ve got, vigilante?” he called mockingly “I had heard you were some sort of boogie man. But I'm starting to get disappointed.” 

Instead of replying Kachan jumped forward and made it seem like he was going to try and get behind Muscular again but instead tried to throw slime at the villain's head. Muscular just batted away the slime and swiped at their head. The villain's strength made it so his arm moved faster than they could doge. The tips of his finger cut through the slime of their head and more of their mass was gouged out of them. 

Kachan used an explosion to get away from Muscular before he could retaliate again. But the villain just followed after them. Kachan released an explosion to switch direction abruptly. Muscular pivoted and jumped again, Inhumanly fast. This time he was quicker than Kachan and managed to grab them by the leg. His hand squeezed hard into their flesh and he pulled back towards himself and tore their leg at the mid thigh clean off. 

Muscular’s confusion as their leg melted in his hands and splashed dark mucus all over his legs and boots was the only thing that let Kachan get some distance. “Shit fuck shit fuck Fuck!” Kachan chanted in their head “What the fuck do we do Deku! There is no way in hell we can beat this guy like this!”

Izuku took a break from furiously reshaping their body to get enough slime to regrow their missing leg and repair half of their head that was missing, to say “I don't know! We don't have very much more slime we can produce today either so try not to take any more big hits” 

“Fuck off Deku! like you could do any better!” He eyed Muscular warily from about ten feet away. 

Muscular looked bemused as he tried to wipe the slime off himself. “You're a weird fucker aren't you?” he called out to them before leaping again.

Kachan went to jump back again but realized that the villain had backed them into a wall, so instead he used their one functioning leg to rocket up into the air. He had to use their hands to stabilize their now wonkey center of mass. They started hovering about twenty feet up with small rapid fire explosions. He then shouted to Izuku “ Call the Eraserhead or something! We need backup! ”  

Izuku sprouted a new arm and pulled one of their new burners from their torso. He flipped it open and clicked on Eraserhead's name as fast as he could. Fortunately there were only a few names in the contact list so it was easy to find. It was hard to handle a phone with Kachan flying around so erratically though.  Muscular only took a second to figure out where they had gone. His remaining beady eye tracked them through the air.

The phone had only gotten in two rings before Muscular bounded up to meet them. Kachan tried to knock him back with an explosion but Muscular just fell through it and slammed down his fist into the junction between their shoulder and neck. The blow landed like a freight train. It carved through their shoulder and the force of it tore their body almost in half down to below where a belly button would be on a regular person. They slammed into the ground with enough speed that they splatted out like a dropped piece of jello. Kachan grit their teeth at the pain but knew he had to keep moving. Fortunately Suran’s quirk was strong enough to hold together long enough to move backwards and stitch the two halves of their body back together. 

Kachan had miscalculated though. He had moved away from where Muscular’s original arc would have taken him and had not accounted for the punch changing his direction. Just as Kachan stood them back up on spindly malformed legs, Izuku heard a crash right behind them. “Look out! ” he shouted at Kachan, who turned around just in time to see Muscular deliver a massive upper cut directly to their torso. Which also happened to be where Izuku is currently viewed as their center of mass. 

It was like getting hit by All Might all over again. Their whole torso was shredded to pieces causing the slightly more intact slime in the appendages to melt. The last thing Izuku noticed through the agonizing pain of getting splattered all over the ground and a wall, was Muscular laughing and the two slightly charred corpses of what was once an amazing hero duo. Their vision tunneled as reality slipped away with their body giving up on being conscious.

……...

The storm had almost blown itself out by the time it’s fading thunder woke him from the uneasy sleep they had fallen into. Katsuki, was the first to pull himself out of gloom that encompassed them in unconsciousness. The immense pain of getting ripped apart by Muscular had faded when the scattered chunks of slime lost their connection to the rest of the quirk and decomposed into the mucus-like substance that all their old slime turned into. 

The anger that was simmering in him flared with the memories of what Muscular had done. He felt around in their remaining slime to take note of what resources they still had left. He was dismayed to find that they had barely more than half a gallon of slime remaining and only a single eyeball. The other one must have ruptured with the force of the Muscular’s punch and dissolved back into slime. It would take them hours to reform the eyeball. And they also required fresh clean slime to do so.  

The eye felt like it was floating in some dissolved slime but it definitely wasn't the chunk that held their consciousness. And worse, Katsuki had no idea where it was. 

With no other choice remaining to him he shouted into their head “Deku, wake the fuck up! We have a problem!” 

He felt Deku startle awake. “wha.. What's going on. ” he replied groggily.

Deku’s awareness started feeling out their slime like Katsuki had done just moments before. “Oh.” he said after realizing their situation.

“‘Oh’? That's all you’ve got to say Deku?! There are cops and heroes swarming this place! How the fuck are we supposed to get out without looking suspicious as hell!?” he yelled back.

“How long has it been since Muscular hit us Kachan? ” Deku asked.

“How the hell would I know? I just woke up the same as you.”   They still had vision from their eye, despite it being disconnected. It looked like it was still dark so it couldn't have been for too long. However the orange glow rising over the ocean implied that it would soon be dawn. 

They could hear a multitude of voices standing about twenty feet away from them. The eye was facing a couple of cop cars along the edge of where most of the sound was coming from. 

“Deku that bitch putting things in sample bags is coming straight towards our eye!” he yelled. Fortunately she noticed something else on the ground before she could notice their obnoxiously yellow eye just rolling around in a puddle. 

“We need to get it and hide before she sees it .” Deku said frantically. 

“No shit sherlock. How?! ” he yelled back. They were just a small blob of slime, blind and directionless. The only senses they had was the grit of the cement they were on and the sound of the police.

“Based on where it's looking I'd say that it’s probably over by those dumpsters. Then that raises the question of where we are. Assuming the direction that Muscular hit us in, I would guess somewhere between the dumpster and that cement building but really with the rain we could have been washed anywhere. ” Deku muttered.

Katsuki had an idea for figuring out their position. The light hits their field of vision mainly coming from the right side of their view. He guessed that the largest collection of noise was also where most of the light was coming from. He pinpointed the noise and then moved directly back from it until he bumped into a rough building that was almost definitely the cement office that formed the alley that held the dumpsters. He flattened out their slime to look as much like a puddle as possible and started slowly inching over to where he guessed the eye was.  

It took Katsuki about two minutes to finally feel the corner of the building. “Alright Deku what do we do next? ” He hadn't bothered thinking about the next step because he was concentrating on listening for any footsteps that might have been walking around near them.

“Extend a few small tendrils and wave them around until the eye can see one of them.” Deku responded.

He did so, making sure not to raise either one of them too far up in case the policewoman happened to be looking. The darkness and their color should keep them hidden but it didn't hurt to be careful. He got lucky a few seconds later when he caught a hint of movement through the corner of the eye’s vision. He stilled the slime and slowey moved one section at a time until he found which chunk they were looking at. Then ever so carefully he moved the small arm of slime towards it. Once it was safely in their grip he pulled it back to their center of mass and used it to look around. 

There were about six different police cars, all of them had their lights on. The woman collecting samples was not the only one documenting the crime scene. The bodys of the Water Hose heroes looked to be long gone, as well as any sign of Muscular. “Deku we need to get rid of all slime residue before these guys nab any .” 

“Good point, but there is no way they won't know we were involved. With all the explosion marks everywhere.” remarked Deku.

He used the eye to look around. There were only a few puddles scattered about. Most of their mass must have been washed away by the rain during their impromptu nap. Katsuki glided over to the closest one and started squeegeeing it to the drain. He then moved to do the same to all the other puddles in their likely splatter zone. The lights from Police cars reflected off of a few more small splatters that had managed to hold on. He quickly oozed over to them and gathered up the ruined slime to dump later. He raised their eye up on a stalk to a towering five or six inches and looked around one last time before deciding that it was time to leave. 

WIth the panic of escaping fading the reality of the situation hit him. The image of Muscular killing that woman flashed through his mind. How could somebody just casually murder sombody like that? He also couldn't help but think that if he had just been a couple seconds faster she would still be alive. Regardless of his internal turmoil he kept moving away, they couldn't risk getting caught.

They had just finished undulating their way out of the alley when he heard footsteps coming from their left. Katsuki spun their eye around and froze when he spotted Eraserhead stalking towards them. He could tell the moment the hero spotted them because he froze momentarily, and then started walking towards them at a faster pace. “Oh shit. ” he said “ Deku book it!”  

Unfortunately when one was forced to scuttle across the ground like a slug ‘booking it’ wasn't all that fast.  Deku had only managed to get them about ten feet before one of Eraserhead's boots stomped down onto them with a squelch. They could do nothing to escape as the hero had grabbed into the slime with one hand and held them up to eye level. 

Katsuki swiveled their eye towards their captor and glared at him, he did not look pleased. 

“And what are you up to? I haven't heard from you in weeks and I catch you trying to get away from an active crime scene looking even more suspicious than usual.”  Eraserhead looked them over critically and added “Why the hell are you so small?”

Katsuki was slightly impressed that the hero had recognized them like this so easily.

Deku made two tiny arms and used them to shrug. He was also in the process of forming a mini vocal tract in order to talk.

“Well?” Eraserhead asked, looking displeased with their silence. 

Once the final touches were added, Deku squeaked out in a tiny high pitched voice.  “We fought the villain Muscular and lost terribly, that's what happened. And we were just trying to get out of here before anyone stumbles across us looking like this.”. Since their size was so limited Deku was unable to form the choir of voices they usually spoke in as Gestalt.

Eraserhead’s expression darkened hearing the villain’s name before he sighed “We had a theory that it was probably Muscular involved in this, it’s in his MO. I'm surprised you even managed to survive a fight with him, not many people do.”

 Well if All Might wasn't able to kill them with brute strength Katsuki doubted there were any that could. Before Eraserhead could say anything else Deku piped up hesitantly  “Did either of the Water Hose heroes make it?” 

Eraserhead lowered them down a little bit and shook his head sadly. It didn't surprise Katsuki given the state the bodies were in. 

“We tried to stop him from killing her, but we were too slow.” Deku said sorrowfully.   

Eraserhead lifted them back up and made eye contact. “you can't beat yourself up about this too badly, Gestalt. Nobody can save everyone.”

“How can we? If we had been there just a moment earlier we could have saved her!” Deku said. Katsuki could feel the sadness and guilt coming from Deku. All he could feel was anger. 

“This is a harsh lesson that all heroes learn eventually. You need to figure out how to accept your mistakes, learn from them, and keep moving forward. If you don't, you will drown in your own guilt.” The hero said. He sounded like he was talking from experience.

Deku’s remorse was strong enough that their eye started to well up with tears. It wasn't often that Deku’s crying overflowed into their body. Eraserhead must have noticed their distress by the wane light coming from a nearby street lamp, because he looked away and then gently lowered them to the ground. 

“I trust you will be fine getting to wherever it is you go like this?” Eraserhead inquired.

“Y-Yes, we will be fine.” Deku said softly with only a single sniffle.

“Good. Contact me when you can, so we can get some more info on Muscular.” Eraserhead said with a note of finality. 

Deku nodded with they eye. And then in a soft voice he added "Please stay safe, Eraserhead.” With that they continued furiously scooting away.

Chapter Text

They slowly created more slime until they had enough to shape themself like a big rat-like thing and make their movement much faster. They were now scurrying along the shoreline to Dagobah beach. They had to leave their first apartment when a group of junkies decided to start squatting in it. The second place only lasted a few days before somebody else decided to move in. They had tried a few more spots before giving up and just living at the beach too stinky and gross for anybody else to dare encroach.

At the pace Mirio’s clean up effort was going they still had a couple of weeks before they would have to go house shopping again. Katsuki climbed up a large precarious pile of trash until they had a lovely view of the sunrise. “We have to beat that fucker Deku, I don't know how but one way or another we will win.”

“I agree Kachan, we need to get justice for the Water Hose Heroes as well as everybody else he killed. ” Deku’s guilt had been pushed away for the moment, and in its place Katsuki could feel a cold anger directed at the villain.

“First order of business is we need to get stronger and figure out counters to that goddamn overpowered quirk. ” Katsuki knew that their slime wasn't very strong. And his explosions did too much collateral damage to be used freely in populated areas. But one thing they did have was versatility. They just needed to come up with something.

Deku thought for a second before responding “We also need to find a way to track him down.” 

“Yeah,” Katsuki said. “ Remember that guy we keep hearing about? That info broker, Greeny or Grim or something? ”

“Yeah, Giran, I think. We will have to be willing to pay though, he definitely doesn't work for cheap. ” Deku replied.

“I guess we have no choice but to hunt down that fuckmunch first then. ” Katsuki groused.

“I'm sure it won't be too hard, he runs a business after all, and needs clients to find him somehow. And I have a few ideas we can work on before we fight Muscular again. ” Deku said 

They sat and watched the sunrise in silence for a few minutes before Deku added “We need to get some rest and food so we can start recovering. We have to work tomorrow afternoon.”

With that Deku slipped into the heap of trash and started crawling down. In the center of the pile was a large bathtub that they had cleaned out and thrown a tarp over. They had moved things around to give the space above it some support so it wouldn't collapse. Deku lifted the corner of the tarp and slipped into the bathtub. He turned on the little flashlight they kept in the tub and grabbed the plastic bag full of their things. He pulled out a protein bar and shoved it into their mouth to digest before turning off the flashlight and liquifying. They were both out in seconds.

…….

It was completely dark when Izuku woke up. The tarp and the trash above where the bathtub was buried made sure that no sunlight managed to get through to them. Kachan must have been up for a while now because they had significantly more slime then when he had fallen asleep. Izuku felt along a long tendril of slime that pushed under the tarp and up the heap of trash. He felt Kachan doing something weird at the end of it but couldn't figure out what. 

Right before Izuku was about to ask, he saw a flash of light come from where Kachan was messing. All too soon the brief scene the eye was seeing faded back to dark. Oh, he saw what was up, Kachan is reforming their lost eye. It always took a few hours to fine tune when they had to completely reform one. 

They had lost an eye a couple of times before. The first time a mugger got lucky and stabbed them right where they had hidden it. The second they were using a long tendril with an eye on it to spy into a building. Unfortunately somebody passing by had noticed the open window and shut it, cutting off the connection. By the time they found it six or seven hours later it had dissolved into useless mucus.

With some final cursing from Kachan, vision flooded into the new eye. It was blurry and faded in and out, but it was working. 

“Kachan ” Izuku called “We need to contact Eraserhead, you know how he gets when we forget to get back to him.”

“Finally decided to wake up .” Kachan replied. Before adding “We need to be careful getting out of here Googly Eyes is back at it.'' The vision from the new eye was getting crisper and Izuku could now see Mirio was indeed running back and forth between a pile of trash and a dumpster. It seemed like his teacher wasn't here today.

It was easy enough to stay out of view of the hero in training by just emerging from the pile on the side out of his view. Izuku crawled into a totaled car that was half sticking out of the heap and opened the glove compartment. At the very bottom was where they kept one of their backup burner phones. He activated it and entered all of the phone numbers they used often from memory. 

He shot off a text to Eraserhead telling him about the new phone. The hero wouldn't be surprised, they had broken multiple since they started working with him. 

Eraserhead asked them a few more questions about their fight with Muscular, but they didn't have anything new to add that the police didn't already know so Eraserhead said there was no need for them to have to talk with the police. They couldn't just go waltzing into a police station after all. 

“Alright Kachan now that we have that taken  care of, lets go try to track down that info broker.” Izuku said. 

“Don't forget about work dipshit .” Kachan spit back. 

Oh that's right, they had a shift at the bakery later that afternoon. They still had a few hours so they could at least get started. They probably didn't need to still be working at the bakery, they had a regular income from working and still had a lot of money from that heist. Since they lived in a trash heap the only thing they ever spent money on was food, and new cell phones. 

“Alright let's start with that drug dealer with the shark mutation, he usually works during the day right? ” Izuku asked.

“Sure, that louse is due for a scare anyways, wouldn't want him to go forgetting any of our suggestions .” Kachan said with a grin. 

They left drug dealers alone for the most part. The only times they stepped in was when they tried to sell to kids or started hassling people. The dealers didn't seem to mind a small chunk of their customers being cut off if it meant they got left alone. In the months since Kachan and him had gotten started they had done nothing but cultivate their reputation as some horrifying monster. 

Izuku went to form their shape into Gestalt’s by now distinctive look when he realized they were still short on slime. He activated Ooze to create more but found that it had already been mostly used up. “Kachan, did you use up all of our slime already?” Izuku asked 

“What do you think I was doing all morning while you were sleeping in nerd?” Kachan replied  

Izuku sighed mentally and went to crawl back to the bathtub to grab some more protein bars when Kachan stopped him. “Don't bother, I already ate them all. ” He said unrepentantly.

“Wait, all of them? We are supposed to save some for emergencies!” They couldn't regenerate slime unless they had a steady food supply 

“Don't get your panties in a twist, we can just buy some more after work, oh and before I forget.” Kachan extended an arm back into the car and grabbed a bottle of ink from under one of the seats. He threw the cap away and chugged the bottle. 

“Kachan! Don't litter, Mirio is working hard to clean up this beach and you just add to it? ” He said aghast. 

“What? That dweeb is doing this as some sort of training, I'm just helping him out.” Kachan retorted.

Izuku stopped him from tossing the now empty bottle too. He pulled it into therr mass and held onto it to throw out on their way to where the dealer liked to hang around. After thoroughly mixing the ink and making sure it had all dissolved, he tried again at shifting into Gestalt. He had to hollow out their head and torso as well as make the whole body spindlier than usual but in the end it was close enough that nobody would notice.

“We need to be careful about getting into fights right now. I doubt we have enough slime to withstand the recoil of any explosions.” He said.

Kachan just nodded his agreement and started heading towards the street. On the way out he snagged the cheap poncho they used as a half ass disguise. “ Deku, we also need to get some new sunglasses. The lenses didn't make it last night .” 

“We can just stop by a convenience store on the way there .”He responded.

…….

One food cart burrito and a cheap pair of sunglasses later they were ready. They had shoved the poncho behind some trash bins. It only took them about ten minutes of prowling around alley ways to find their dealer. Kachan crawled up the side of the building the guy was leaning against. They were right above the man, just waiting for his current customer to leave. The woman, who looked like some business lady on her lunch break discreetly pocketed the bag handed to her and then scurried off.  The guy with the shark mutation pulled out his phone, likely to wait for his next customer. Kachan grinned as Izuku dropped down right in front of the man. 

The dealer jumped at the movement and then paled when he saw who decided to pay him a visit. He tried to take a step back but couldn't because he was already backed up against a wall. Instead he raised up his arms in front of him and said frantically “H-Hey now man, I did everything you asked me to! I haven't been selling to kids or nothing.”

Izuku casually stepped back from the man now that he was properly intimidated and said “Ah, that's good to hear. However that is not the reason we decided to drop by” He snickered internally at the pun.  

If the man heard it he made no sign, he let out a breath and relaxed a little. Izuku couldn't tell where he was looking, because his eyes were the solid black of sharks. But by the subtle movement his head made he probably was looking around the alley to make sure they were alone. He looked back to them and said shakily “Well then what do you want from me?” 

“We have seen you refer some of your clients who are looking for specialty requests to a man named Giran. We would like to meet with him.”  Izuku said it casually in order to not scare the man too badly. They needed his help.

Shark guy gulped and said “I ain't no snitch!” 

Izuku winced internally, thinking about it he could see how the request could come across like that. “You misunderstand. We do not make this request as a vigilante, but as a future client.” 

The dealer still looked uneasy. But didn’t respond so Izuku took that to mean it was safe to continue “Either way, you don't have a choice in the matter. Give the message to him that Gestalt would like to meet.”

The man grit his teeth before saying “And what's in it for me, why should I be your errand boy huh?”

“Besides the money he likey gives you for referring new clients we think the fact that we patrol this neighborhood allowing your clients to come here and not get mugged is payment enough.” Four months ago there is no way somebody dressed as nicely as the lady from earlier would have dared venture to this part of town.

“Fine, I'll deliver your message.” The man spat. 

“Very good, meet us here at the same time the day after the next with the details for our appointment.” Izuku smiled at the man before he strolled out of the alley. As quickly as he could he ran to the next and hid, in case the man checked. Always good to keep people on their toes. 

“Well that went well” he said to Kachan. 

“Yeah” Kachan said, “almost too well, hopefully the fucker will actually show up.”

Kachan rolled an eye to the back of their head and used some slime to turn on the phone. “ Shit!” he swore, “We have a shift in half an hour. And we still gotta go get all those fucking leaves on.”

“Oh shoot!” Izuku said he had totally forgotten about their shift. Kachan ran as quick as they could without anybody seeing them and grabbed the dark blue poncho. Izuku compressed the body till they were a normal height and made their surface smooth. Thus no longer looking like their wanted vigilante persona Kachan proceeded to book it back to Dagobah beach. 

Izuku made sure that Mirio wasn't looking their way before Kachan ran straight to the broken filing cabinet that they stored the Ivy disguise in. Kachan threw off the poncho and moved it into a drawer while Izuku shimmied into the leaves and casual outfit. He grabbed the wooden hands and shoved them into place at the end of their sleeves. Kachan ripped the hands from his control before he was even done moving slime into position to complete the look. The hands plunged back into the cabinet and grabbed the antlers. Kachan then turned and started running towards the bakery as he slammed the antlers into their head crookedly.  Izuku made sure to kick the cabinet closed as they went by.

While Kachan focused on not hitting people, Izuku subtly adjusted their antlers and leaves to make sure everything looked right. He removed the lenses and hissed a little at how bright the afternoon light was. 

Kachan threw open the door and ran into the bakery right as the clock hit two. Mika looked up the cookie jars she was refilling and waved

“Cutting it a little close, don't ya think Ivy?” she said cheerfully. Kachan just grunted at her before making his way to the back to grab an apron and clock in. As they were walking back up to the front Mika tripped holding a tray of cupcakes. The pan landed on its side before tipping and landing with the frosting side down. Mika just stood there looking at the ruined batch of cupcakes for a moment, before burying her face in her hands. 

Izuku had a spark of inspiration, took control from Kachan and rushed over to her. “Oh don't worry Mika, I'm sure we have enough cupcakes to make it through the evening. If you want I can clean up the mess so you can still help customers.” He said with a smile.

"Are you sure?" She asked. When he nodded she added "Thanks, you're so sweet,” She hesitated briefly before heading back up to the front.  

Izuku picked up the tray and stacked the now ruined cupcakes back into it. He carried the tray to the back of the shop. He looked around to make sure nobody was looking, and instead of throwing out the cupcakes he started shoveling them into their mouth as fast as he could.  When you aren't limited by a throat you can eat very quickly. 

“Ew Deku, those were on the floor!” Kachan yelled in disgust.

“Kachan, we literally live in a pile of trash .” He said 

“Yeah, but we don't eat the fucking trash !” Kachan yelled

Izuku was in the process of scraping the only slightly dirty frosting into mouth when he replied. “We need all the calories we can get if we want to stand a chance against Muscular any time soon.”

Kachan shut up with that. Izuku put the now mostly clean tray in the sink for later and rinsed off their pink stained hands. Izuku moved some slime down into their legs to make room in their torso for the copious amounts of cupcakes. With that he went up to the register to start his shift. 

…….

He looked up at the window as somebody walked by and saw Croc Boy or Kirishima as he had insisted they call him. The bell rang as he entered.

“Hey Ivy! How's it going bro?” Kirishima asked 

“It's going great, Kirishima!” Izuku responded. 

Kirishima raised an eyebrow at them. Izuku tried to think of what he had done that garnered that.

“You're not going to call me Shitty Hair? Awesome! I get nice Ivy today, that hasn't happened in a while.” He said enthusiastically. 

Kachan had bestowed the nickname Shitty Hair onto Kirishima once he realized the Croc Boy was not insulting enough.

Izuku awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Haha yeah, you get nice Ivy today, angry Ivy is taking a nap,” he lied. In reality Kachan was scouring the internet for anything that might help them against Muscular. 

Izuku decided he wanted to change the topic and said “So how's the hero training coming along? You have entrance exams coming up soon right?” he felt a little jealous that Kirishima got to try out for UA but he knew that it would be impossible for them to go as they are now.

“Yeah, it's going good.” Kirishima said and then flexed his arm to demonstrate said progress. “Man, I'm starting to get nervous, only a bit more than a month away.” 

“Do you want your usual then?” Izuku asked 

“Sure bro!” Kirishima cheered 

Izuku grabbed a monster cookie that had a large percentage of red MnMs.  He handed it to him as Kirishima put the exact change on the counter. 

Kirishim took a big bite and then looked at his watch, his eyes widened momentarily. “Ah shoot, I'm going to be late for meeting Mina. Well, I will see you next friday man!” he shouted as he ran out the door. 

Izuku busied himself with wiping down the counters as he waited for the next customer. He had just put the rag back in the bucket when Kachan suddenly shouted “ Holy shit! ” Izuku was momentarily startled. He calmed down and tried to ask Kachan what his outburst was about. 

“What? Why did you shout ?”

“Just watch this Deku .” Kachan replied 

Kachan used a bit of slime to slide the dial back on the video he was watching in the back of their head and then pressed play. Izuku watched as an explosion went off on the video. It did look bigger than Kanchan's usual ones. But not enough to warrant Kachan’s outburst. The camera cut to a few minutes later when the camera panned to see the results of the explosion. 

Kachan played the clip a few more times and then watched the video out as the commentary explained what had happened. After the video had finished they were both quiet for a few seconds before Kachan started cackling madly.

Izuku was aghast “Oh Kachan no ,”

Kachan kept laughing before he wheezed back “Oh Kachan yes!”

“Look what it did to that tank! ” Izuku screamed

“Exactly! Look what it did to that tank! Haha oh Muscular is so dead when I get a hold of him. ” Kachan said still with a hint of mania in his voice 

“That's the problem Kachan! This would probably kill him .” Izuku said desperately. “ And we definitely wouldn't be able to use this close to any buildings.”

“Oh fuck off Deku we can be careful. ” Under his breath he added “And besides he would deserve it.”

“Alright we can look into it, but we still need a way to not damage any of the surroundings. ” Izuku sighed and then went to help a lady that had just walked into the shop. Well if this worked out it would take care of there not doing enough damage problems. Unfortunately they still had plenty of other things to address of before they could even think of fighting Muscular again.

Izuku waved to the lady as she walked out the door. He then looked at the clock, and nudged Kachan to do the same. Wordlessly he handed control over to Kachan who went and grabbed the mop and started aggressively cleaning the floor. Mika smiled at the change in demeanor as soon as she noticed. She shook her head and went back to work. Izuku picked the phone up where Kachan had left off. Nothing to do but research till they could go out again.

Chapter Text

With the trash heap on Dagobah beach dwindling to practically nothing they had been forced to retreat far out to sea to find a place to practice that wouldn't be observed by others. Izuku carefully monitored their slime as Kachan shakily hovered a few feet above the large waves rolling beneath them. He was attempting to stay level with the surface even as it rapidly moved up and down. The idea was to simulate fighting with Muscular while holding him up in the air away from buildings so he couldn’t hurt anyone.

To make things even harder Izuku was whipping thin tendrils of slime to try and hit them in the face with the idea that the whips represented Muscular’s punches. Kachan used explosions and tried to bat the tendrils away or dodge. However the explosions caused them to move and the punches threw off Kachan’s balance. More than a few times they had been flung into the roiling sea or gone spiraling off before Kachan could correct their flight 

“Come on Kachan if you can't keep up with me how are you going to dodge Muscular?!” Izuku shouted. They had been at this for hours and were both fed up with the lack of progress. 

“Shut up! There are just too many things to fucking keep track of! ” Izuku managed to sneak a tendril of slime and tap their chest. Kachan’s explosive defence came moments too slow. Izuku was sure that Kachan would have been able to keep up with him had he been on solid ground, but with the added variables of staying airborne and keeping level with the sea the challenge became near impossible.

With a wordless shout of anger Kachan turned off the explosions in their feet and they plummeted the short distance into the ocean. Izuku retracted the slime whips as they would do nothing but irritate Kachan now. 

“There's got to be a way to keep up with everything.” Izuku said. It was more for himself than Kachan but any ideas would be welcome at this point. 

“We just got to get that fucker away from anything that could be broken. ” Kachan spat.

“Well the only place I can think of was the air, but I don't think we will be able to keep both ourselves and Muscular airborne. And besides, even if we could manage to stay up we would never be able to keep a hold of him for long .” Izuku responded as he furiously wracked his head for an answer.

“Let's try again with you doing the flying.” Kachan growled.

They had tried to outsource the flying to Izuku before but it ran into a different problem of not having coordination between the arm explosions and the feet ones. Without the instantaneous communication they quickly lost control of their flight and tumbled into the ocean.

This attempt was no different, Izuku began hovering above the sea, and then extended  tendrils to try and tag Kachan again. It was hard splitting his concentration between hovering and fighting. The first explosion Kachan used to dodge, Izuku was able to correct for. He made the next few be obvious so that he would be able to predict what Kachan would do, and managed to keep aloft. He knew muscular would be moving faster and harder than even his best attempts so he ramped up the speed. Barely a few seconds later he corrected for an explosion Kachan never used as he had ducked instead. They went shooting off and slammed right into the face of an oncoming wave.

Izuku allowed them to float upon the surface and gaze at the distant sea birds. “See, there is no way we would be able to keep that up in a fight. ” Izuku bemoaned 

“Where else can we take the fucker then?” Kachan said angrily.

They had been unable to think of a solution so far. They couldn't fly and keep Muscular up and fight at the same time. They couldn't bring him out to sea since they would lose their main advantage of being able to fly and move around quickly. Plus underwater explosions were a terrible idea as they were buffeted around madly with every attempt. They might just have to bite the bullet and fight Muscular wherever they found him, and try to minimize property damage. 

“We just need to get him somewhere  he can't hurt anything, just for a minute or two, just enough to really let loose.” Izuku murmured. His gaze shifted up to the clouds floating gently so far away, and an idea began to take shape. 

Then a timer went off on their phone and it started buzzing. It was suspended within their core causing the sensation to be uncanny. It was a reminder to get back in time to eat and go patrolling for a bit with enough time left to sleep. They had work and they were meeting back up with that drug dealer tomorrow. Uhg they just didn't have enough time.

…...

Katsuki ran out of the bakery and made his way to Dagobah Beach In a mirror of their mad rush to the bakery from the other day. Instead of running to their shift from a sketchy alley, they are instead going there as the destination. But first they have to drop off the Ivy disguise. When the beach came into view Katsuki was irked to see that another large pile of trash was gone. The buffer between their home pile and the clean portion of the beach was vanishing. Googly Eyes must be working overtime now that it was summer and he didn't have school. 

Katsuki made the familiar trek around heaps of trash to the car and cupboard where they kept their various things. After depositing the disguise and picking up some zip ties just in case, they were ready. The poncho was not as effective now that they were back to full mass. They couldn’t compress themselves nearly as much. It was good enough though because nobody looked their way as he walked them to the same alley they had met the drug dealer in two days earlier.

He stashed the poncho as Deku reformed the facets that made up their form as Gestalt. He decided to stroll into the alley in full view rather than sneak up again. Katsuki was glad he did because as he came around the corner it was apparent that the dealer had brought somebody with him. The weasley looking man standing next to the awkward looking dealer glanced up as they walked closer. He had on a purple suit and matching glasses. The man’s grin widened as they approached.

“That’s the sketchiest looking guy I have ever seen,” Deku stated internally.

Deku took control for the conversation, as was their agreement. Deku turned to the dealer rather than the new guy and said “And who might this be?” 

The man spoke before the dealer could respond. “I'm Giran, nice to meet you.” He said in a smarmy voice that matched his appearance. He held his hand out to them to shake

Deku placed their hand on the Girans and shook as he said “ We are Gestalt, a pleasure to meet you as well”

Giran retracted his hand and shook his head. “I had heard that it was creepy to hear you talk, but guess I didn't quite appreciate how much so.” Before Deku could respond he continued on “Anyways, Riku here tells me you want to do business. What can I help you with?”

Deku hesitated to respond with company and then shot a pointed look at the dealer, or Riku as Giran had called him. 

Giran sighed and said “Yeah, yeah, I understand.” He handed the man a few crisp bills and then added “Now scram.” The dealer nodded before he scrambled out of the alley. Deku nodded at him in thanks.

Giran spoke up again “Just so you know I have some friends hanging around just down the street. One bad move on your part and you will have a whole lot of trouble on your hands.” Katsuki discreetly moved an eye to look down the alley, he saw a few mean looking street toughs lurking around just barely in view. 

Deku smiled at the man and said “ That is perfectly reasonable.” They could probably beat all that rabble in a few minutes. However in the time it took them to do that Giran would get away.

“Good, now I will ask again, what can I help you with?”

Deku paused for a second to think before speaking “We would like to locate the villain Muscular.”

Giran raised an eyebrow “The serial killer? I heard that he mopped the floor with you, that desperate to go again?”

Katsuki swore, he then said to Deku “ That police report is not out yet, there is no way for him to know that unless he has a mole in with the police.”

“We will need to tell the police when we get the chance, But they probably already know based on how flippant Giran was about telling us that.” Deku replied. Externally he said to Giran “ Well? Do you know how to locate him or not? If not we will quit wasting your valuable time.”

“ Oh I know how to find him,” Giran said “ I’m just wondering how you are going to afford it.” The man took the hand not holding his cane and rubbed his fingers together in front of his face. 

They had brought most of the money they had stockpiled through their job and various villanus donations. It was currently floating around in rolls secured with rubber bands in their torso. “We have money if that is what you want.” Deku said.

“I always do like money, and I would be willing to sell you the information. But I was thinking.. a little something else.” The man put his hand back into his pocket and leaned forward leering at them over his tacky glasses. 

The angle really pronounced the gap in his teeth, and Katsuki couldn't help but think how easy it would be to suffocate him using slime by it. Katsuki could feel Deku’s uneasiness but the nerd replied in the same measured voice he had been using the whole conversation “And what could we offer you besides money?” 

Giran shifted so that he was leaning against the wall. “You like to present yourself as some big bad monster, but from what I have managed to gather you’ve gotta be real clever. Always having a creative counter to every quirk thrown your way, being able to slip away night or day. I'm guessing you are good at picking up on stuff.”

“ That is all very flattering, but what does it have to do with our payment to you?” Deku said. 

“Simple, I want you to find info on people for me.” Giran said with a grin. “Tell you what, if you can give me the quirks of these people,” he pulled out his phone that had four semi grainy pictures on it “I will give you what you need to find Muscular, or you can just pay me the regular amount and we can all be on our way.” he said the amount and Katsuki’s eyes widened, that was most of everything they had.  

“It doesn't seem to us like your regular clientele would be able to afford such prices.” Deku spoke in a carefully measured voice to try not to give away anything.

“Well my usual customers aren't looking for info on S class villains, I try my best not to piss off dangerous people.” Giran said, still holding out the phone for them to look at.

That was fair, Katsuki thought. Deku must have thought something similar because he held out their hand and asked  “ May We look at your phone more closely?” Giran shrugged and handed it to them. Deku clicked on the first picture and zoomed in. Katsuki was a little peeved at how much better Giran’s no doubt fancy phone’s screen responded to the slime than the cheap phones they kept having to buy. Katsuki vaguely recognized two of the people they were looking at. 

“ Well I know the quirks of the first and third guy already, and I think I know where the fourth guy is. We could pretty easily track down the second lady and figure out her quirk, so I say we take Giran’s deal rather than pay.” Deku muttered.

“ Ask him if we can still pay the regular price if it turns out we can't find all of them.” Katsuki said to Deku.

“If for some reason we are unable to find the quirks of any of these individuals would we still be able to purchase our information directly?” Deku asked out loud.

Giran took back the offered phone and said “Of course! Hell, I’ll even offer you a discount for anything you do find.” 

“ Why do you care so much about knowing their quirks that you would be willing to antagonize someone like Muscular?”

“ The folks in this picture aren't just common riff raff, they are all important to something. And all of them have quirks they don't want somebody like me knowing, but don't you concern yourself about that. Just know that If you get this for me, we’ll be even.” 

“ When do you expect us to have the information by?” Deku sounded a tad weary. This was an odd deal to get, and suspiciously easy.

Giran had an obnoxious grin again. “I'll have it as soon as you want your info on Muscular.” He tapped the phone in his hand and said “Here I'll give you my number so we don't have to meet in some dank alley next time.”

Deku whipped their hand out and discreetly palmed the phone from within their arm. He made it look like the phone had been snatched out of thin air. Giran spared a glance at it before rattling off his number. Deku typed it in, and then just as covertly hid the phone away again. Both of their hands were in full view.

Giran picked up his cane from where he had rested it on the wall and looked like he was getting ready to leave. “Oh by the way, I already have a full dossier on one of those people so I will know if you give me bad info.” His voice darkened and he made eye contact as he said this. 

His phone buzzed a second later in his hand. His eyes widened as he read it. 

Katsuki already knew what it said, seeing as he had watched Deku type it out with slime inside their torso a second before. It simply read 

=Thanks for the warning 

Katsuki took control back from Deku and made sure they had their most unnerving grin on. He waved a little with their hand and then walked off in the opposite direction than where Giran was heading.

Chapter Text

Izuku followed the man depicted in one of Giran’s photographs, This was the man that Izuku had at least recognized. His name was Laborn, and he worked at a pharmaceutical company. Izuku had seen him getting coffee at a cafe across the street from Kachan and his favorite hotdog stand. So far the man had yet to use even the slightest hint of a quirk. 

They had purchased an All Might hoodie and some new sunglasses to further their disguise. It was easy enough to tail him through the late morning foot traffic. Eventually The man turned into a large fancy building, the place where he worked. It looked like it took ID to get in. So Izuku kept walking. He stopped a half block down and sat down on a bench to not look suspicious. 

“ What do we do Kachan? We can't follow him in. ” Izuku hissed.

“ Just do what we did to the murks and ooze around in the vents. ” Kachan said

“Uhg, that was so nasty ” Maybe it was a good thing they had fallen into the sewer for a nap after that. They would probably have had to take an ocean bath either way.  

After stalking him on the internet they knew that Laborn worked in shipping and receiving. And so his office should be on the ground floor by the cargo area. Nothing he had done seemed off so far, so Izuku had no idea why Giran wanted to know his quirk. Probably for blackmail for something.

Izuku walked to the back of the building and saw a truck backed up to the cargo door. He didn't want to have to ditch the new All Might hoody, but there is no way they could sneak around in vents wearing it. As soon as the worker moving boxes had disappeared inside to drop off his next box Izuku slipped out of the hoodie, jeans and their ratty white tennis shoes. He also discarded the sunglasses. They had decided that they weren't going to bring the cell phone just in case they needed to make a discreet get away. Izuku slunk past the truck and slipped in the open door. He immediately made his way behind some shelves and out of sight. Kachan spotted a vent opening before he did. 

Izuku walked up to it and oozed through the mesh, it was a tight fit for the eyeballs but with a little shove they managed to squeeze through. He was glad they had left the cell phone behind. The vent system seemed to at least be a little cleaner than the ones they had to use in the past during their vigilante activities. It was only full of dust and spiderwebs, rather than the hair and mouse droppings that most places had, perks of a high-tech company, he guessed.

Izuku made his way to where he had remembered seeing some offices on the shipping floor as that was most likely where their target would be. The vent continued along the floor for a while and then turned abruptly straight up. It was easy enough to cling to the surface of the vent and squeeze his way up. The vent split into a few directions once it straightened out. Izuku guessed that the other branches led to different floors as well as the lobby. Instead Izuku made his way across a vent that probably went along the ceiling of the shipping area. He lengthened their body to around fifteen feet in order to distribute the weight enough to not collapse the vent. 

The vent made it way down again, Izuku followed it until he saw a vent opening was just up ahead. Izuku looked out and saw a short hallway with some offices in it. Just where he wanted to be. Every time they passed a grate he would look out and read the name on the placards outside the door to see who each of the offices belonged to.

About halfway down the hallway they saw a door that had Laborn written on it. It took around a half hour of trial and error to find a vent that actually led to Laborn’s office though. Finally, they stumbled upon aa path into his office after taking a particularly circumspect vent that traveled all the way through the lobby first. It opened up right above his desk in the top corner of his little room. It was too far to make out exactly what was on his computer screen, but they could keep watch on most of what he did, and almost certainly notice if he activated his quirk. 

Laborn was answering emails and filling out paperwork for most of the morning. Izuku really wished they could have brought the phone, they could be researching ideas and refinements for their strategy against Muscular. But instead they got to watch a boring office worker do boring office things. 

Finally, about an hour before lunch there was a knock on the door. “Come in!” Laborn shouted. A lady wearing a hairnet and scrubs walked into the room with a cart holding a few stacks of cases. 

“Good morning Mr. Laborn, I have all the defective products from this morning for you to go over.” She made small talk with him for a minute or two and then left. 

After she was gone he went to the cases and started pulling out items along with paperwork. He read and filled out paperwork for each of the items. About half of them ended up in shipping boxes to be returned to the manufacturers and the other went in a box to be disposed of. Throughout the day two more shipments of defective goods went through his office each time the deliverer would grab everything to be returned, and leave the stuff being disposed of. 

At the end of the day there were five total boxes left in the office. Laborn went over to two of them and drew a red circle. He loaded them onto a cart and started packing his stuff for the day. Izuku rushed through the vents to get to the shipping area before him so he could see where he went next.

They got there just in time to see Laborn wheel the cart out the back door. Izuku looked to make sure there was nobody around before slipping out of the vent and following him. He only opened the door a crack before slipping out. Izuku walked them over to a shadowed corner. The street lights illuminated the whole area behind the building. So he had a decent view to watch Laborn make his way to the dumpster. He mauvered the cart to a stop and began placing items into the trash. Something about the cart's position looked a little off though.

“That fucker! ” Kachan shouted. “He put the cart so that the dumpster blocks the security cameras. ” Izuku checked, and saw the cameras were indeed being blocked. And since Laborn worked so late hardly anybody would be around to see. A van that had been parked around the corner opened up a side door and two people walked up to where Laborn was loading the dumpster. They casually picked up both boxes marked with the circle. One of them put an envelope in the crate. He nodded at Laborn and then they both walked back to the van. 

Laborn pocketed the envelope, and then brought the cart back inside. He was only in there for a brief moment before he came back out the door. He locked it behind himself and then started making his way home. Izuku trailed him.

“ No wonder Giran wants blackmail on this guy. He seems like some sort of medicine smuggler. '' There had been syringes and bottles full of all sorts of things that had been put into those two boxes. 

“ We are’t fucking after him selling stuff on the side, we still haven't seen him use a quirk yet. Maybe he will slip up once he gets home.” Kachan said.

They infiltrated his house and watched him putter around for a few hours. He didn't do anything suspicious. Finally around eleven Labron received a text that had him cursing. He scrambled to his closet and pulled out a backpack and ran out the door. They just barely managed to sneak out after him in time to follow. He ran for a few blocks and Izuku kept to the rooftops to stay out of sight. The man looked over his shoulder forgetting to look up before ducking into an alley. They watched him from over the edge of the roof and saw as he pulled out a dark leather jacket and pulled it on. He then pulled out a motorcycle helmet from the bag. As Izuku watched, he saw the helmet looked like it was a stylized skull, with vents on the side. 

Laborn shoved his bag behind a trash can and stood up. A dark fog-like substance started to pour out of the helmet. 

“ Oh my gosh, I recognize him! That's the villain Grue. He has a quirk called  Darkness generation .” Izuku said excitedly.

Kachan had started laughing “ Giran must not know that Laborn is Grue, otherwise he would have already known his goddamn quirk. What all does he do? We need to fucking milk this.”

“He is involved in all sorts of heists and robberies. His quirk is really good for that kind of stuff because people say that it also absorbs sounds, and is disorientating to be in.” Izuku listed off.

And Kachan was right, Giran was only asking for a quirk, this info would doubtlessly be worth more.

Izuku followed Grue as he jogged out of the alley figuring that they might as well figure out as much about the villain as they possibly could before handing the info over to Giran. They had already had all  they needed on the other two people they had been tasked to scope out. Maybe if they gave Giran something like this they wouldn't even need to bother wasting more time hunting down the last person.

Grue took a few odd turns before his path eventually led him to the old run down warehouse district they had first met the Murks in. He walked up to a group of people the Izuku could now easily identify as mooks. There were five of them in total, and they lightly chatted with Grue as they waited. Two more people that Izuku recognized as fairly well known villains joined the group over the next few minutes. They began loading up a van with tools and various weapons. They were probably going for a heist as that was what Grue was known for.

Izuku snapped a photo of all the people as well as the license plate of the van. Their cheap cell phone had a decent enough camera that managed to get at least recognizable photos of all the faces.  

As they got into the van and got ready to pull out Izuku said “ Well Kachan I think we have everything we need on him, do you want to find the last lady or do you want to just contact Giran now? ”

“What! We're just gonna let them all go ?” Kachan sounded angry 

“Kachan we need that information on Muscular.” Izuku said.

“ You're just letting an entire group of villains go for some information?” Kachan questioned 

Izuku’s conscience clenched at the reminder. “I'm sorry Kachan but I think stopping a serial killer like Muscular is more important than stopping a group of thieves that rarely even hurt people.”

“It still seems like a shitty thing to do. Why don't we stop them and still give the information to the weasel? ” Kachan asked. 

“ He wouldn't care about a quirk for somebody who was locked up in prison. ” Izuku responded.

“Your probably fucking right. Godanmitt!” Kacahn yelled. Izuku felt like doing the same. Conflicting morals were always tedious in his opinion.

Kachan sulked the entire way back to where they had stashed the clothes and phone. After redawning the All Might hoodie Kachan started texting all the info they had to Giran as Izuku walked back to the beach. 

It only took him a few minutes to reply.

-That was fast 

-Really Laborn is Grue? How did you find that out?

“How should I respond, Deku?”

“Just tell the truth, but leave out the stuff about the vents,” Izuku replied. They wouldn't want to reveal too much about their quirk to somebody like Giran after all.

=Just some light stalking, we eventually saw him change into his alter ego in an alley

Izuku decided to go out on a limb and sent an additional message

=Since we found more than you asked about Laborn, do we need to find the quirk of the last person?

It took another minute or two for Giran to respond

-Everything you sent checks out, and Grue is a pretty big player, so knowing his identity could come in handy. Sure, I'll consider us even.

Another message sent it was the address and name of a bar

-Muscular visits here pretty frequently. This place is a hangout for all sorts of unsavory individuals. Keep in mind that he only goes on fridays. Since I'm telling you about it I expect you to follow the rules of the establishment and keep any fighting outside.

“I think we should respect Giran’s rules and leave the bar alone even if it has criminals in it, so that we can work with him again in the future.” Izuku reasoned 

“Fine but if those little villain rules get in the way of us catching the muscle fucker then I don't care about burning a few bridges. ” Kachan spat.

Izuku looked up the address of the bar and was relieved to see that it wasn't the same one that Suran was desperately trying to get to all those months ago. Finally he sent the reply 

=Very well, we shall respect your request. It was good doing business with you

No reply came. Izuku checked the calendar on the phone and saw that it was a Saturday. They had a week to get ready for their fight against Muscular. 

Chapter Text

Katsuki was cursing at the sheet metal sitting in their lap. Never before did he miss having muscles more. Their slime was extremely versatile, but it had distinct limitations. It was too soft for things that requirked a lot of force in one spot.  He was using wire cutters to try and cut out the shape they needed from the metal. Every time he went to squeeze the handles the slime would deform around them. “Fuck!” he screamed out loud, and then chucked the wire cutters at the clean sand in front of the bench. 

“Maybe we should use some rope so you can apply more pressure to it?” Deku said.

“It doesn't seem like you are having very much luck with that, are you Ivy?” came a cheerful voice from over their shoulder.

He swore again and whipped around to see Mirio standing behind them smiling. He felt Deku covertly reabsorb the slime they had coated the driftwood with to protect it.

“The hell are you doing here Googly Eyes?” Katsuki snapped.

“Well I have been here every day for the last year. I think the real question is what are you doing here? Are those Packman you’re cutting out?” he laughed. And tried to get a closer look at the piece of metal, with seven circles that had a triangle taken out drawn in sharpie.

“There not fucking pa… you know what sure, yeah, I’m cutting out packman, lets go with that.” He didn't want the hero wannabe to be butting into he and Deku’s private business. Their very Illegal, destructive, private business. 

Mirio scratched the back of his head before saying “Would you like some help? I don't mean to be rude but it looks like you are having a hard time.”

Katsuki gestured to the discarded wire cutters and said “Knock yourself out.” If the loser wanted to offer free labor, who was Katsuki to turn him down?

Mirio picked up the wire cutters and sat down on the bench next to them. He grabbed the sheet and set the plyers into position. He squeezed them and they cut into the metal, he managed  to get all the way through but shook out his hand afterward in pain. “Do you mind if I use a new aspect of my quirk? It is just that I have been trying to fine tune it and this would be perfect training.” he asked.

Deku stole the mouth before Katsuki could respond and said “I thought your quirk let you pass through things, how would that help with using wire cutters?”

Mirios' eyes lit up before he said “Yeah it's really weird, one day a few weeks ago my quirk just started acting differently, for some reason it enhances my strength now too. But I can't use all of the strength without hurting myself, that's why I have doubled down here. I have been training and strengthening my muscles with this beach!”

“That's so cool! I wonder why it only showed up now, and I wonder how it relates to permeation.” Deku's muttering tapered off under his breath, lightly tapping the leaves on their chin as he thought.

“Well here goes.” MIrio said. His hand started to glow with pulsating lines of yellow energy. The effect faded after a few seconds, and then with the strength from his quirk Mirio effortlessly cut through the metal. It was like watching somebody use scissors on paper. Once he cut out all seven of the circles he went back and cut out the triangles. “There, all done, anything else you need help with?”

“Um, Actually do you think you could bend those into a cone for me?” Deku stutterd out. They were originally just going to get a hammer from a hardware store but if Mirio could just bend them it would save them a lot of time and effort.

“Sure, I guess I can try.” Mirio responded, he seemed a little confused to the purpose of what he was doing. But thankfully he didn’t question it.

Katsuki watched Mirio struggle to bend the metal while avoiding cutting himself on the sharp edges for a minute or two. 

“Hey Kachan, it's time to eat again.” Deku's obnoxious voice came from inside his head.

“Im so sick of eating fucking penut butter.” He complained to Deku.

Regardless of his newfound distaste for the stuff, he reached into the grocery sack at their feet and pulled out a new jar of peanut butter. After tossing the seal into a nearby trash can he pulled a spoon from their pocket and started methodically shoveling it into their mouth.

“Yeah well it's the cheapest most calorie dense food I can think of and it's your turn to do the eating.” unfortunately they couldn't just absorb it, Ooze only started digesting things if they were consumed with the mouth. Which he guessed was nice since none of their phones or other stuff ever got digested. But it still sucked when one was trying to choke down almost ten thousand calories of peanut butter every day. Deku probably would have him eating even more but had calculated that relationship between the amount of slime they could generate and more food had diminishing returns. 

It was annoying but for their current plan they were going to need a lot of mass. And they were going to need a massive amount of nitro, which took even more calories to generate than slime. They had already called out of work for the next week. Katsuki knew that his coworkers were idiots but he doubted even they would miss if Ivy put on a hundred pounds every night.

Mirio paused what he was doing to look over at them. He looked confused as to why they were eating peanut butter with a spoon. His face took on a concerned appearance when he glanced at their bag and saw five more jars. Katsuki was quick to kick the plastic over so you couldn't see into the bag. Mirio opened his mouth, probably to ask a dumb question so Katsuki beat him to it.

“Mind your own fucking business.” He said preemptively

“But I didn't say anything?”Mirio said.

“Yeah but you were thinking about it. Dumbass.”

“Alrighty then, moving on. Well I have finished one, does this look good?” Katsuki snatched the cone and took a closer look. The centimeter thick metal was a little dented and had some obvious fingerprints in it from where Mirio had squeezed a little too hard, but otherwise it was perfect. Katsuki grinned.

He rummaged around in the bag and pulled out a can of fizzy juice he had bought to wash down the taste of peanut butter. He quickly mourned its loss and offered it to Mirio. “I will give you this if you fold the other six to look just like this.”

“Deal!” Mirio said. He opened the can and took a sip. He placed it next to on the bench and got to work folding the other cones.

“Alright nerd, since Googly Eyes just instantly took care of that problem, what's next on our todo list?”

“Well, we still need to buy the paracord, but that will have to wait until we have ditched the Ivy disguise. We will need all the slime available for that. And on that note we need to find a new hiding spot for everything. Mirio will probably be done with the beach by next week. I think we should stash it where we stashed all the money.”

“But first I say we go and test this.” Katuki said as he lightly tossed the copper cone up into the air.

……

The shockwave from the explosion instantly tore apart the hand and most of the arm that they had released it from. It reverberated through them and buffeted them away from where it was released. The fireball and vaporized water then collapsed in on itself from the pressure of the sea, sucking them back towards where the initial blast had occurred. A second smaller shockwave hit them from the force of the implosion. 

Katsuki hissed and cradled the ragged stump of what was left of their right arm. The pain was awful, but not as bad as the full body splatter that Muscular had delivered last time. 

Once all the bubbles had cleared and the dust had settled he swam them back down to the seafloor to see the result of their experiment. It was perfect, almost exactly like the diagrams and pictures had shown them. The only problem was that to use it, they would lose any slime at all close to the epicenter. Katsuki's quirk allowed them to explosion proof the slime. But with close to a cup of pure nitro, even his quirk was hopelessly overwhelmed. 

Katsuki’s malevolent cackles accompanied them all the way back to shore.

……..

The All MIght hoodie they had purchased was the largest the official Mighty brand offered. And they were quickly filing it to capacity. The jeans were suffering a similar fate. Rather than buying some proportionate footwear they had decided just to shape their feet to look like shoes. They only need to maintain this much slime till Friday anyways. The only item of clothing that they hadn’t stored away with their money was the medical mask and sunglasses currently on their face. 

Izuku walked into the hardware store and made a beeline to the rope section. He browsed until he found what he was looking for, paracord. A strong rope made of thousands of woven nylon fibers. He picked up the largest bundle the store sold and then grabbed the remaining three rolls on the shelf. He brought all of them to the counter to be purchased. The cashier looked a little nervous about their large figure and suspicious face coverings, but he still rang them up. 

It was midday, however Mirio had mentioned he had an internship that he went to on wednesdays. So the beach was deserted for them to deposit the clothes and swim out into the ocean. They didn't specifically need to do this in the ocean. But it was the only place they could really spread out without getting weird looks.

Once they were deep enough, Izuku abandoned all pretense of a human form. As they drifted leisurely with the current Izuku let about twenty tendrils of slime extend outwards. With their form this spread out it was easy to see the eddies of water sway the dark slime. The arms drifted around them in a halo. Swimming in the ocean like this  was easily one of the best things to come from dying repeatedly.

Izuku snapped out of the whimsical mood he had fallen into and pulled the first bundle of paracord from their center. He unwound it from the bundle and coiled it up into a loop. He  used one of the arms to hold it in place and make sure it wouldn't come unwound. He then used a second arm to apply tension to the end of the rope. Thankfully the wire cutters could cut the rope with significantly more ease than the sheet metal from the other day. He cut the cord to leave the fraying fibers exposed.

 He counted out eight separate strands of fibers that made up the weave. He split two of the arms into eight and then grabbed a bundle with each one. Then slowly at first he laborosly began to unwind the rope. The ends of the unwoven cord were syphoned up into the arms, keeping them separate and untangled. Once the cord passed out of the unweaving arms it was then in Kachan’s jurisdiction. Who then combined the fibers and coiled them up. 

They spent the next three or four hours laboriously unwinding and keeping track of all of the individual threads. Once all four bundles were done they began the next step. Izuku reformed the humanoid shape and began winding the loose fibres up each of the limbs and torso. He left the final coil of fibers separate and stored them in the center. The fibers were not super organized and were kind of a mess. Not to mention it would be a pain to store anything while they were in place. Hopefully they will work though. Izuku moved around and tested everything to make sure their range of motion was completely preserved. Then he re wound the fibers into a neat bundle and pulled them to their core for storage for the last day until friday. 

Izuku swam them up to the surface to check the progress of the sun. They still had about an hour of daylight, so Izuku decided to have some fun out in the ocean. The slime streamlined out into a more hydrodynamic shape. He then proceeded to swim around rapidly and chase fish until it was getting too dark to remain out to sea. 

……

Izuku woke up with a groan on Friday morning. He shifted around to check the time but stopped when he heard a loud creak come from the trash supporting the bathtub. They had continued producing slime as they slept, but it seems that the bathtub had been filled all the way to the top. Unfortunately they went completely liquid during sleep so slime was dripping from around the edges, and spilling down onto the trash. Poor Mirio was going to have to pick up slimy, mucus covered garbage when he finally got to this section of the beach. 

Izuku went to crawl out of the bathtub to leave for the day but underestimated their new weight. The trash heap gave one last tortured groan before the bathtub tipped over and poured their still liquid body all down the pile. Izuku quickly solidified in order not to pick up garbage.

“What the hell are you doing nerd ?” Was Kachans good morning.

“Kachan it's almost noon, we need to get ready .”   

“Shit! All that swimming must have tired us out yesterday, I told you to leave that fucking dolphin alone!”

“It's not like it matters. Not even Muscular would be at the bar before noon .” And he hadn’t been bugging the dolphin, It had wanted to play too.

Izuku looked back at the bathtub that had been their home for months. The tub had become loose and was hanging sideways. “ We will have to fix that when we get back .”

“If we get back, ” Came Kachan’s sullen response.

Izuku lumbered them down the street and tried to be subtle with their massive size, despite his efforts a few people still looked their way, thankfully people were usually satisfied with a second glance to confirm their first impression before moving on with their lies. Deku finally approached the area that housed the bar Giran had sent them to. Izuku scouted it out for a second a saw that it looked just like any other place people would go after work. After confirming that everything was as they expected Izuku retreated down the street a ways. he crawled up onto the roof of a building with a good view of all the streets leading to the bar. He oozed them out onto the the roof to not be visible and dropped the clothes down into the alley. After double checking they had everything they would need Izuku settled in to wait.. Any minute now Muscular would show himself, any minute they could finally have justice for the Water Hose.

Chapter Text

They had been vigilantly watching the road leading up to the bar for a few hours. The dreary sky had since begun to rain, must be a curse of fighting Muscular, Katsuki thought. Both he and Deku were watching the road instead of taking turns looking at the phone like they usually did on stakeouts, they couldn't afford to miss seeing the villain right now.

They shouldn't have bothered, because when Muscular finally did appear it wasn't hard to spot him. He was dressed in civilian clothes so most people probably wouldn't recognize him, but his massive frame and bulging muscles made him hard to miss as he was making his way down the lightly populated streets. 

Deku pulled out the phone and pulled up Eraserhead’s contact. 

=We are engaging with Muscular

He also sent the address. Katsuki checked the time while they had the phone out, four oclock. Hopefully the Hero would get the message in time to send backup. But they couldn't afford to pre worn the hero in case somebody interfered and risked tipping off Muscular. That would also be a breach of their deal with Giran, to spread any of the information he had given them.

Deku moved to put the phone back into their toso when it buzzed angrily

-what! Disengage. Wait for backup, it will be there shortly 

It buzzed again

-don't fight him alone you could get yourself and everybody around you killed

Katsuki glanced at the phone before shutting it down. He opened a gap in the paracord weave to pass the it through. The cords were quickly moved back into place. The fibers were much more organized since the last time they had tried this. They made up a cocoon around each of the limbs a couple centimeters below the surface.

Katsuki stood up to their full towering height. Katsuki guessed they were probably around eight feet tall. A bit higher than their usual form as Gestalt. The height was the only similarity to the shape they usually took for vigilante activities though. Katsuki dropped off the building and hit the ground with a thud. 

Their usual soundless steps hit with a muffled thump with each long stride. People all around them froze as they neared. Most started backing away, a few started screaming and even fewer pulled out their phones to take pictures. 

“Idiots!” Katsuki snarled to Deku.

He had to give them some credit though. Their Anti Muscular form as Deku had taken to calling it looked very strange, and intimidating. It was huge, with three sets of wide arms running down their torso and another pair coming out of the back of the shoulders. The two arms on the back were massive, they hung down all the way to where their knees would be regularly. They had forgone a head after deciding that it would just get in the way. 

Their legs were also much bigger than usual, and instead of tapering off into feet they insead got wider as they went down. Giving the unfortunate appearance of having bell bottoms. Their strange appearance couldn't be helped, they need all the features of this body in order to carry out their plan. Katsuki let off a few explosions into the air to scare off any pedestrians that were too stupid to run when they came stomping down the street.

Muscular turned around at the commotion, the eye that had been gouged out had been replaced with a prosthetic. The villain took a second but he grinned when he recognized them as Gestalt. “Come to fight me again!?” he laughed. 

After one last sweep to make sure that there was nobody close enough to be in immediate danger Katsuki used the pair of arms on the back to propel himself at the villain. One of the arms in the front released a small blast that was mainly just light and noise to momentarily distract Muscular. At the last second he released another explosion to the side to dart around and behind the villain. 

Katsuki then lunged and grabbed him from behind, around the torso. All three arms wrapped around him, and fused together to hold him as securely as possible. The fourth and final coil of paracord that had been set up beforehand flowed through the arms and started winding around the villain, binding them to Muscular. The fibers were all spread out so that Muscular couldn’t destroy them all at once.

As Deku was getting the fibers into position Katsuki was doing two things, the first was using small tendrils of slime to let off explosions in Muscular’s face to harass him. The second was that he lifted Muscular above them so that his feet were in the air, depriving him of all leverage. 

Muscular immediately began hitting the slime wrapped around his torso and tearing through the fibers. They probably only had around a dozen seconds before he would be completely loose. Once Muscular was lifted up and in position he switched with Deku what sections of slime they would control respectively. This next step had too many moving parts for him to do alone. He continued to harass Muscular as well as tried to shove slime down his nose and throat. Muscular just grew some muscle to cover his nostrils and used his supernatural strength to clamp his mouth shut.

Deku fused their legs together carefully, making sure to preserve the intricate nitroglycerin channels and tanks that were set up there. The slime touching the floor flattend out and the legs wobbled until they were just one long, flared trunk holding up Muscular. It had been seconds since they made contact with the villain. They had practiced relentlessly to make sure this step could be completed without a hitch.

“Ready!” Deku shouted. 

Katsuki did one last sweep to make sure nobody was close, he internally apologized to all the windows nearby as well as people’s eardrums. And then Katsuki shouted back “Punch It!”

The first set of explosions took them level with the second story buildings surrounding them. The second set that went off a fraction of a second later easily doubled that distance. The bell shape that they had formed their legs into had small divots running in a circle around the rim. Each one was directly across from another, forming a set. The small dishes were there to partially contain, and direct the explosions. Each explosion was large enough to rupture the slime that released it, that was why they only let off a pair of explosions at a time. 

Once a set of explosions went off and the slime realising it was subsequently destroyed, the next pair of ignition points would go off, then the next. This gave Deku time to repair and get nitro into position. There were twelve total thruster dishes, each with a trail of pea sized nitro beads leading to it from in their legs. After one was used the next glob would be put into position just in time to explode again.

They were accelerating at an alarming rate, causing the slime of their trunk to compress. Once they were pretty far above the buildings, Katsuki used the two large arms that were not being used to hold Muscular to blast them slightly sideways and pointed towards the ocean. Their new direction would take them up and over the sea. 

Muscular had managed to tear through about half of the paracord binding them to him. Katsku knew as soon as he got free the fight would be on for real. 

“ He is almost free Deku, we need to get higher! ”

“ I'm giving it everything we've got Kachan!” 

Each blast rocketed them faster. The reason they were holding Muscular the way they were was to serve as a windbreak, even now the slime that was wrapped around him was getting blown off by the force of the air blowing past them. Their torso was getting more and more squished as the drag from Muscular increased with their speed.

Katsuki could see the coastline behind them shrinking as they got further up. Katsuki hoped the raindrops impacting Muscular hurt from how fast they were hitting. All the sudden vision cut off as everything went grey. They must have entered the cloud layer. A couple seconds later they burst through into the dazzling sunlight. Deciding that it would be seconds before Muscular was free, Katsuki extended the long arms at their back and started letting explosions off the side to send them into a fast spin. And then to accelerate them even faster he pulled the arms in. Using the centrifugal force to accelerate the spin to a maddening rate.

“ Hah!, Sucks to have an inner ear bitch!” Katsuki crowed.

Despite probably being entirely disorientated with dizzyness Muscular managed to tear through the last of the paracord. He slapped his arm down behind himself and hit them. The force of the impact caused them to be ripped from Muscular and flung about ten feet apart. Deku immediately cut off the thrusters so that their arc would roughly match with Muscular’s.

Katsuki extended the back arms and used explosions to neutralize their spin as well as correct the course to match Muscular. Since they were going so fast when the thrust cut off they were still going up at an incredible speed. Muscular was using his arms to hit the air in large blasts slowing down his own spin. Eventually he slowed down enough to try and locate them.

Katsuki reformed one large pair of arms on the front to match the ones on the back rather than the set of three from before. Those were only to get a good grip on the villain. He also split the legs back in two for easier mobility. 

Katsuki didn't give Muscular the chance to recuperate. He aimed an arm directly at the villain's face and let off almost a grape's worth of nitro. The explosion was massive. Way bigger than anything he ever used on the ground. Big enough that it would have destroyed any buildings in the dierect vicinity. 

The explosion flung them away from Muscular rapidly. Katsuki used the two arms on their back to correct their flight and close in on Muscular again. He must have seen the explosion coming at the last second because he had his arms up blocking his face. Katsuki was kinda glad the Deku was so preoccupied maneuvering slime and repairing the damages from using such large explosions. Even now he was busy reforming their missing fingers, so he didn't have to see the result of the last blast.

All of Muscular’s hair and clothes had been completely incinerated despite being soaked from the rain and cloud cover. His skin was an angry red and blistered from being burned. The distance and short time in the fireball were probably the only things that kept him from being burned worse. Katsuki had never been one to concern himself with modesty, so personally he didn't give a shit that they would be fighting somebody who was naked. Hopefully Deku could save his inevitable embarrassment till after they had beaten the villain.

As Katsuki watched, muscles started growing out of his skin, even covering his face. In seconds his whole head was cocooned in them, as well as the rest of his body. Making the entire thing just as indestructible as his torso. 

“The fucker was holding back on us last time!” Katsuki spat. “It's a good thing so were we.” With that he bade Deku to prepare the first charge. One of the copper cones was moved to the surface and Deku started extending the cone on an arm. Behind the cone was about a cup of nitroglycerin evenly coating the entire back face in a thick glob of the explosive. The arm was extended longer than all the rest of their arms. They had learned from their trials not to get too close. 

The interior of the cone was facing out towards Muscular, With the back in towards the arm. It was easy to catch up to Muscular because he had no source of propulsion. Any time he tried to hit the air like he did to stop spinning he would just buffet himself and start somesalting through the air, furthering his disorientation. 

Kastuki braced himself with two small explosions behind and released a larger one at Muscular. His face contorted in pain as the outer layers of muscle protecting him were burnt off. Using his pain as a distraction Katsuki flew around behind him. He used the new arm with the shaped charge in it to grab onto Musculars thigh. He tried to line up the direction of the cone with where he assumed the villain’s femur would be. If they couldn't hit a bone this would be useless. Once the slime was secured, keeping the arm with the charge in it in place, Katsuki lightly tossed himself away as far as the arm would reach. Then he detonated it.

Shaped charges work by essentially functioning as an explosive lens. Concentrating all the energy hitting the liner (in their case the copper cone) and accelerating it into one supercharged jet. In pre quirk times these shaped charges were used to easily pierce through more than a foot of armour grade steel. 

Katsuki had watched videos of Muscular shrugging off bullets, so even through the pain of having one of their arms ripped apart from the backlash he grinned at seeing blood fly out the back of Musculars leg once they had finished getting blasted away from the villain. That trickle of blood meant that the jet had pierced all the way through.  

Katsuki couldn't hear anything over the roar of the air rushing past the but he assumed by looking that Muscular was yelling in pain. Deku began regrowing the arm and had replaced the used up liner with a new cone. From the wind and the various explosions going off they had already lost about a sixth of their initial mass. Well within their acceptable range. The villain's leg started to move as the muscles refilled in the gap. “Shit! We missed the bone.” Muscular gould regrow any muscles he lost but he couldet fix his bones. That was why Katsuki had targeted them.

The wind buffeting them was getting less and less as they were slowed down from drag and from fighting gravity. They were still moving upwards but their arc was beginning to level out. 

He used another explosion to fly at him again and tried to line up the next shaped charge. Muscular saw him coming at the last second and punched. The hit grazed one of their legs but the paracord fibers did their job. The force of the blow tore through the fibers but they were strong enough that the slime wasn't blasted away. That specific spot would be weak if they got hit there again. But they didn't need to take too many hits.

 Katsuki started rapid fire twisting and weaving around the villain trying to get him to lower his guard. All the while he snaked the arm with the shaped charge down around their shins. It struck much like a snake just as Katsuki used an explosion to jolt away. The shaped charge went off. This close Katsuki could hear Muscular’s howl of pain after they cleared the fireball. But Katsuki could barely appreciate it over his own pain. The arm had been obliterated agan but one of their legs had been too close and had also been partially destroyed. The massive explosion had ignited some of the nitro that was still in the leg and made it even worse. 

Katsuki used a few small explosions to increase their distance as Deku repaired their limbs. Unlike Muscular’s hits, their explosions burned through the paracord when it was exposed. Meaning their reformed leg now had no protection from being splattered.

 All of a sudden the wind quieted slightly and they seemed to hang in the air. They had reached the apex of their arc finally. Katsuki took a fraction of a moment to admire the clouds and beams of sunlight reflecting off suspended ice crystals. The sound of the wind returned as they began falling. Muscular was falling faster because he was denser and because he had positioned himself aerodynamically to try and get away. 

Poor Muscular couldn't shapeshift or use explosions though so it wasn't hard to catch up. Katsuki flung out a tentacle to grab his ankle, and pull them close. Muscular screamed as their hand grabbed onto where the shaped charge had pierced his shin. If it still hurts they must have gotten through the bone. Now he just needed to disable his other three limbs and they would be set. 

“This could have been so much easier if we had just gone for the head. ” he lamented to Deku 

“You know as well as I do that we can't kill anybody, not even villains like him unless it is the only way to save somebody.” Deku replied

“ Oh I know, I was just saying it because it would be easy.”   They wouldn't even need a shaped charge. They could just use a regular old gun, one shot in the eye and Muscular would be a goner. 

He was forcefully ripped out of his musing when Muscular hit them again. It tore the fibers in their shoulder but otherwise they managed to mostly stay together. Katsuki used some small explosion to start spinning them again. Hopefully Muscular would be dizzy enough that he would be easier to hit. Katsuki extended the arm with the fresh shaped charge and darted it at one of Musculars shoulders. However the villain saw it coming and swatted at it before he could get it in range. The end of the arm along with the cone and nitro were splattered out into the sky, gone. 

Fortunately Deku had already prepared another shaped charge. It whipped out and attached itself to the Muscular’s forearm. Katsuki barely had time to push back before Deku detonated it. Most of the blast was shielded by Muscular, the villain was thrown at them and Katsuki grabbed onto him. He was cursing agan so the charge must have hit one of the bones in his forearm.

Deku started preparing their second to last shaped charge. But before he could finish they were plunged back into the clouds. Katsuki couldn’t see anything but he felt Muscular moving around. He tried to maneuver himself away from where the villain could hit but must have guessed the relative position wrong because he felt a hand grab into their torso and then a fist collided with a different chunk of their torso. The villain got a lucky hit because the hand collided right into one of their hidden eyes, rupturing it instantly.

Katsuki furiously tried to pull them out of Muscular’s grasp but found the hand that grabbed them had burrowed its way into their chest and gripped onto all the fibers. They had no way to pull free.

“ Kachan use the next shaped charge! ” Deku screamed.

Before Katsuki could respond they burst through the clouds and back into the rain. It was weird to see the raindrops falling next to them, matching their speed. They would have to do this again when they weren't in the process of fighting a deranged superpowered serial killer.

Katsuki pulled the tentacle with the cone to the front and tried to line it up with one of Musculars limbs. With only one eye it was kind of hard to gauge the distances though so his first pass with the arm missed. Muscular saw the near miss and backhanded the tentacle, losing them another liner cone. Shit they only had one left. Between the thrusters and the shaped charges they didn't have enough nitroglycerin to let off any more.

Muscular began to hit them again and again, each time ripping more of the fibers. Katsuki began firing as many explosions off as he could but the Villain’s muscles could regrow as fast as he could burn them off. If this turned into an endurance match they would lose. Each hit weakened the fibers eventually they would get blown apart like last time. Already their mass was getting sprayed off. 

Muscular let loose a wide angled punch that was more shock wave than raw hit. It displaced their slime and caused all their fibers to become visible for a split second. It also shattered their remaining lens. Leaving their bulbous yellow eye on display, where it had previously been hidden by their hip. Katsuki tried to cover it with slime as fast as he could but Muscular must have seen it because he instantly lashed out right where it had been. The first hit missed by a hair, the second was way off but the third hit dead center blinding them completely. 

“ Shit, shit! What do I do Deku!?” He yelled in panic. They now had no way to aim at Muscular and no way to tell how long it would be until they impacted the ocean. All they could sense was the sound of the rushing wind and the pain and Musculars meaty fist impacting them over and over. Katsuki screamed as one of their legs was ripped off. The slime was instantly claimed by the wind. Each hit gouged out larger chunks of slime. Deku cried out as one of their arms joined their leg’s fate. 

“Use the shaped charge. We still have one left! ” Deku managed to reply through the pain. 

With more than half their mass gone and more going each second it was hard to gather enough nitro to coat the cone but he managed. He had no idea where Muscular’s main body was, so he went for the only place he did know. He placed the charge on the forearm digging into their chest. They must have only hit one of the forearm bones the first time, Katsuki lined up the shot and grit his teeth preemptively before letting off the blast. It hurt even more than the last ones did because it was let off so close. The first thing he felt was the supersonic shards of the jet rip through their torso after passing through Muscular’s forearm, the next was having most of the slime on their right side be ripped away from the force of the blast.

Muscular must have been flung away from them. Because he could no longer feel him holding onto them. In fact he could no longer feel anything besides the wind and pain. There was no way to see what happened to Muscular, without eyes. So Katsuki prayed for the best and prepared himself for the impact with the water in however long it took to fall from the clouds. 

“ Well that went well, ” said Deku sarcastically.

“Shut the fuck up Deku, he wiped the floor with us. There's no way we could get him again with this now that he knows our strategy.”

“Oh man this is gonna hurt.” Deku said in response. He was probably referring to their imminent impact with the ocean at terminal velocity.

Katsuki braced himself, but he did it too soon though, because they fell for about thirty seconds before finally hitting the sea. It hurt like a bitch. Not as much as getting literally torn apart but easily worse than anything either of them had experienced pre-death.

Their momentum must have carried them pretty deep because of how cold the ocean felt around them. He tried to swim around but found that they had absolutely no sense of orientation blinded like this. 

“Kachan, stop swimming! We have no idea which way is which. So we can't move or risk getting even more lost.” Deku said frantically  

It was eerily quiet around them. Too deep to even hear the waves or storm above them. There wasn't even the sound of fish to distract them, and of course, the phone had been obliterated once again. 

Katsuki bit back his inner panic at being completely blind and directionless. And then suppressed his ever present rage at being literally glued to Deku for the rest of eternity and bade himself to wait patiently and serenely until they could regrow one of their eyes.

“...”

“...”

“ Man it sure would be nice to have an inner ear right about now .”

“....”

Chapter Text

They had been drifting blind in the ocean for hours. Muscular had either escaped or drowned, since their last contact with him had been when Kachan had let off the final shaped charge that blew them apart. 

Izuku was trying to reform an eye. The problem was that it should be working, but no matter how many times he changed the focus or dilation nothing was coming through. It must be the middle of the night, with the overcast skies and being deep underwater it was no wonder it was pitch black. Kachan was having the same problem, so it wasn't just him.

“ Well this is doing jack shit. ” Kachan complained, “ The steroid snorting bitch could be right in front of us and we would have no way to fucking tell.”

“Well seeing as we are pretty deep in the ocean he would have to be thoroughly dead to be floating right in front of us. ” Izuku had extended multiple tendrils of slime to see if he could feel anything. None had reached either the surface or the bottom. He had felt a few fish or seaweed brush by though.

“Well until dawn comes there is not much we can accomplish. Why don't we get some sleep until then.” Izuku reasoned. 

It took him a while to fall asleep from the adrenaline of the fight, and the fear of blindly drifting in the unknown. But eventually he managed to drift off into a deep sleep. His dreams were filled with falling and the sensation of being torn apart. Except it wasn't the slime body but some homunculus of he and Kachan’s old bodies. The body was swearing and wiggling around. Kachan’s voice sounded so real. He felt a pinch and a rip, followed by more cursing. It took him a moment to realise that the swearing isn't coming from a dream but from the real Kachan. 

“Back off you endangered fuck!” Kachan screamed. Izuku could feel him flailing around and swatting at things with slime.

Izuku noticed that there was now light coming in through the eyes. They must have drifted up to the surface because the predawn light was illuminating the sea clearly enough that Izuu could see the turtle casually ignore Kachan’s slime whip and take another bite out of their side. That must have been the pinching sensation that had woken him.

“Oh no, Don't let him eat us! ” Izuku said as soon as he recognized the situation.

“What do you think I'm doing! The fucker won't leave us alone .” 

“We are probably really bad for it seeing as we have nitroglycerin and paint dissolved in us .” Thankfully Kachan had already bundled the remaining scraps of paracord in the center so the turtle couldn't eat them and choke.

“That’s what you're worried about? Not the fact that this villain turtle is helping Muscular and trying to finish us off?”

“He is not helping Muscular, Kachan, he probably just thinks we are jellyfish. ” Izuku replied. “And turtles haven’t been endangered in over a hundred years.” he said referring to Kachan's earlier comment.

After another thirty seconds of watching Kachan try to shoo off the turtle without hurting it, Izuku took control of the slime and swam them away from it. The turtle started swimming after them sedately. Izuku refined their form to be more hydrodynamic and swam away further. It followed for a bit but then seemed to decide they weren't worth it and swam off in a different direction. 

Izuku swam up to the surface and began looking around. They bobbed up and down with the waves but Izuku could faintly make out the shoreline in one direction. He began leisurely swimming in that way. It took them an hour or so to get to shore and then another swimming down the shore to locate Dagohbah. By the time it came into view it was already midmorning. Izuku was careful to keep under the water and out of view as they approached. 

The beach had been getting more and more popular as the trash disappeared. So they usually tried to not surface here anymore if they could help it. But their next stash of clothes was another mile or so down the coast and Izuku didn't feel like swimming that right now. 

As he got closer to the last remaining trash piles Izuku felt his heart break, there, as they watched was Mirio Toogata dragging the massive bathtub that had been their faithfull home for months over to the dumpster. With one superpowered heave, it disappeared over the lip, gone forever.

Well there went their one connection to this place, he decided to head for the clothes stash down shore afterall

……..

The wind lighty tugged at the edge of their hoodie as they sat atop a business building.  Izuku had their legs dangling off the edge of the building kicking back and forth leisurely. They hadn’t bothered with a disguise or even with covering up their eyes. Just the hoodie and some sweatpants. 

“So how are we going to do this?” Izuku asked aloud. Ivy’s voice, a soft mix of both Izuku and Kachans old voices, was carried away in the breeze.

“We are going to have to fight him again.” Kachan replied.

They had seen clips of the villain dragging himself out of the water in a crowded area of shoreline. The heavily injured, naked villain had lighty scuffled with some nearby heroes before escaping. Thankfully nobody was hurt. 

“ Hmm ” Izuku agreed, they wouldn't have much of a choice. Muscular was notorious for hunting down anybody who challenged him, until either he or his opponent were dead.  

“ We won't be able to beat him, Deku. ” Kachan said. Izuku was glad that Kachan had matured enough this last year to be able to admit something like that. Dying had changed them both.

“I know. We will need to find some other way to win.” Izuku looked down at the pavement three stories below. There was a paper bag floating down it in the wind but besides that it was empty at this time in the afternoon. 

“And how do you propose we do that huh? We launched that fucker miles up into the sky and hit him with enough explosive to level a city block. What more could we do to him than what we have already done?” Kachan said skeptically.

He was right. Muscular had beat them twice. He was already well aware of their tricks. They wouldn't be able to get the upper hand on him in a  fight again. “ You're right Kachan, we won't be able to fight him again.” 

“Well then what the hell are you getting at nerd?” Kachan interrupted.

 “I'm getting there. Your explosions were useless against Suran,  All MIght even hit him with an ultimate move, and he still escaped. And yet in the end we still won. I'm saying we tried fighting it out, but we haven't even considered using our strongest weapon.” 

“No way in hell. I'm not letting us get offed to test out your freaky quirk.”

“I'm not saying this to test it! Think about it Kachan, we have read every single piece of news surrounding Muscular since he first appeared on the villain scene. Every time he loses a fight or gets injured he goes on a killing spree. You heard Eraserhead after our first fight. Heroes don't survive confrontations with Muscular. And now we have twice. He is going to be pissed and it will be our fault for enraging him.” 

“Alright I’ll fucking play along. So if we decide to use this plan, big fucking if since its a stupid ass plan, how would we even do it? If Muscular was able to kill us he would have done it already. No amount of punching is ever going to be enough.”

“He doesn't need to punch us to death, I say we tip him off about our vulnerability to poison, he's probably already figured out that brute force isn't gonna cut it.”

Kachan was silent for a long second before he responded “ Just how long have you been thinking about this Deku?”

“Since I first found out about how weak we were to Midnight, I knew that we would face somebody someday that we couldn't beat and this was a good way to go about it.” 

“Shit, all the way from back with the Murks? How do you know it will even work? For all we know because you are planning this it will invalidate your quirk.”

“Think about it Kachan, it isn't intention that matters, you were actively trying to get me to move out of the way when the truck hit me. All that matters is if it is your fault the death occurred.” 

“That's creepy as hell.” From the tone of Kachan’s voice Izuku could tell that he was coming around to the idea. “What were you planning on doing about our luggage? ” Kachan said, referring to Suran.

The mechanism the Izuku was using to suppress Suran was actually using his body to do so. Izuku essentially put him to sleep and then cut off his ability to receive input via his quirk. They had messed around with it and found that Izuku was unable to suppress Kachan for long. At best he could kind of mute him and when concentration waned he could easily slip his way out of the hold Izuku's quirk had on him. Izuku had much more control over the body than the mind. “Well we haven't really been suppressing him for months, I say we just bribe him to help, that way it will be even easier to take over Muscular.”

“Fine, It's worth considering at least. Bring up the shistain, let's see if he’ll cooperate.”

Izuku carefully unraveled the veils of his quirk wrapped around Suran’s mind. Ever so slowly he could feel a consciousness flowing into the mind that had been uninhabited for months. Finally he was there, still cut off from all bodily function but allowed to experience again. He was still asleep, and hadn't noticed the change yet.

“Hey fuckmunch! Wake up!” Kachan yelled.

“Huh wha- what's going on?” Suran said, sounding confused.

“You wanna make a deal with us? ” Kachan said in the creepy, nice voice he used to torment Suran.

“Uh- um, no? Not really, do I have a choice?” Suran had never gotten over his fear of Kachan. After they had completely destroyed his will to live he had just turned into a lump that sort of just sat there.

“Fuck no.”

“Yes”

Izuku and Kacchan responded at the same time.

“I mean sort of, let me explain my plan and then you can decide if you will help.”

……..

Izuku was fiddling with an intricate web of slime between their fingers as he finished up explaining his plan.

“Man you’ve actually thought this through Deku. Well asshole, Will you help? ”

“Sounds to me like you twerps need my help Ka-chan.” Suran said mockingly. 

“What did you just call me!? ” Kachan screamed back

“Uh- um nothing, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Yes, I will help. But I want thirty hours of cell phone time for payment.” Surans brief bout of confidence was ruined the second that Kachan raised his voice.

“Thirty!? Don't expect more than ten. ” Kachan said bitterly.

“I won't do it if I only get ten. I would rather just go back to the dark place. Thank you very much.”

“Fine, twelve. ” Katsuki spat.

“Twenty five .” Was Suran’s hesitant rebuttal.

“Suran you can have fifteen hours of cell phone time and that's final. Remember we don't need you for this, it would just be a nice bonus.” Izuku said in as firm a voice as he could manage. Which wasn't actually all that firm. He lifted his grip on Suran’s mind so he could get a glimpse of what the villain was thinking. He got a sense of excitement and acceptance. He re-tightened it, he didn't like experiencing two streams of thought at the same time. His quirk made it so it wasn't hard to keep track of, it was just hard to tell himself apart sometimes.

“Deal. ” Suran said. 

“You're going to have to wait until after we have subdued Muscular though. We still don't have a cell phone.”

Izuku swung their legs back over the ledge and stood up. He gazed one last time through the window of the fashion store across the street at Bakugou Mitsuki as she passionately yelled into her cell phone. He felt a pang of homesickness but pushed it down and stode to the other side of the building. Rather than take the fire escape he just jumped off the ledge. The slime absorbed the force of the impact and only a slight sound escaped the shock absorbent quality of Kachans quirk. It was nice to be back to their regular size. It had been a trial in grace to get anything done when they weighed upwards of five hundred pounds. He stood up and shoved their hands into the hoodie pockets and started walking down the alley. They had their own murder to plan.

Chapter Text

Goto Imasuji, otherwise known as the villain Muscular, grit his teeth as he limped down the street. Even through the medical boot the bone in his shin still ached terribly with every step. It was tedious but almost any doctor or person with a healing quirk that was willing to work with villains sucked at their job or had some bizzare limitation from their quirk. Like the one that he had visited, only able to ever heal an injury ninety percent. And then the remaining ten percent took longer to heal than the time to heal the full injury naturally. A real pain in the ass, but worth it for major injuries like he had gotten from that creepy vigilante. 

The hero commission did an excellent job of keeping track of people with useful medical quirks. And making sure they ended up in legitimate hospitals or as heroes. 

His left arm was in a sling to match with his right foot. He could still use it and augment it with his quirk but it hurt. He reached his destination and pulled open the door, a rich smokey smell wafted out as he entered. None of the patrons currently dining or talking with various staff members spared him a glance. Perks of having a forgettable face as well as wearing loose clothing. He made his way to a booth tucked in the corner. 

He sat down across the man whose entire sense of fashion began and ended with pimp. Giran looked up at him and then shooed away the handsome looking lady that had been murmuring into his ear. Most likely one of his employees whose job was to go around charming people and pick up little tidbits of information.

Giran grinned at him “So you made it out! quite the fight you had, all over the internet.” 

Goto grunted before replying “Cut the shit, did you send that freak my way?”

“And if I did? You’re the one who comes to me looking for people to pummel.” Giran replied.

That was true, Giran did set him up with plenty of jobs where he could use his quirk and kill people to his heart's content. “A little warning would have been nice.” 

Giran sat back in his seat and took a pull from his cigar. “Everything turned out alright in the end though, you got out just fine.” He paused and looked Goto up and down taking in his casts and burnt off hair. “Well mostly fine” he revised.

Giran leaned forward and said in a slightly quieter voice. “Say, you wouldn't have happened to have, you know, finished the job this time would you?” he gestured with his cigar causing a bit of smoke to waft Goto’s way

Goto grit his teeth at the reminder “Nah, I hit him way harder the first time we fought, turned him into a splatter on the wall and he was back at it within the week.” It was irritating that he had won both times but the vigilante continued to live. 

“Ah well, that's unfortunate.. for you."Giran said.

Goto decided he had gotten everything he came here for today. He didn't feel like taking any jobs right now with his injurys, so he beganto stand up to leave. He shin ached as he put weight on it.

Giran held up his hand to indicate that Goto should pause. "Before you go there is some gangster looking for you, she has some huge grudge against Gestalt or something, either way, she says she knows some way to kill him” Giran gestured over to the bar where a brunette was awkwardly nursing a cup of beer and talking to patrons. “She has been hanging around here for a couple days waiting for you, no clue how she knew to come here.” 

“Oh? And how does she recommend that I kill that thing?” Usually he would disdain at having to rely on others to do his job for him, but Gestalt was really starting to piss him off.

“Dunno, she called me a bitch and said she wanted to tell someone who would actually use it and not just sit on their ass.” 

Gotto snorted, Giran probably would hold onto information like that until somebody who was willing to pay a high enough price came along.

He stood up and walked over to her, not bothering to say goodbye to Giran. He had gotten what he came for, confirmation that it had been the info broker’s doing that he had gotten targeted like that.

He roughly put his hand down on the lady’s shoulder causing her to spill her drink a little. “So, Giran says you're looking for me sweetheart?” She spun around to look at him, revealing the tinted glasses she wore. She nodded hesitantly and then jerked her chin at the door.

“Not here.” Was her curt reply. Probably wise, seeing as this was an info brokers den.

He followed her out the door and then over to the side of the building. She cleared her throat before saying “Before I tell you shit, I wanna make sure, you’re gonna kill that fucker right? Not pussy around and waste my time.” He assumed she was talking about Gestalt, and not some other person.

“And why do you care if I kill some random vigilante?” He asked  

She sneered at him, an ugly expression that made her overdone makeup even more obvious. “That bitch put all my friends in jail to rot, you ever heard of the Murks?” He recalled doing a few jobs for them in the past. Though it has been awhile since they came up.

He shrugged, before answering her first question “Yes I intend to kill him. One way or another, I don't like it when people get away from me.” 

She grinned “Good, well I guess I'll just get straight to it, when I was getting the hell out of dodge after the police started raiding our place I saw something. Gestalt walked into a cloud of some sort of gas, and it knocked him right out, he didn't even breathe it in, it just hit his feet. The fucker is weak as shit to poisons I think”

Hmm that was interesting, he could definitely use this. He would have to go back to Giran to get the right poison. He turned back to the ex gang member and asked “Is that all?” 

She sputtered, “All? I just gave you a way to beat that thing and you say 'that's all?'” 

“Why wait until now to tell somebody this?”He asked. 

“To be honest I didn't really give a shit before. It wasn't until I saw that video that I really remembered.” She shrugged. She must be referring to the video some foolhardy civilian had taken of Gestalt grabbing him and rocketing up into the sky. It had been hard to tell in the heat of the moment, but the video managed to capture the truly obscene speeds they had been traveling at. The video cut off when they had been just a blazing blip that disappeared into the clouds. Thankfully then fell out of them too far out for any camera to capture.

Well it seems she had used up all her usefulness. He smiled. And then quick as a whip grabbed onto her throat with his good arm. “I don't really like your attitude. In fact I think you're just about the worst kind of person, lacking conviction and relying on the strong to fight your battles for you.” he tightened his grip. She gurgeld trying to say something but couldn't with her windpipe closed off. He lifted her off the ground and laughed at her pathetic attempts to kick him. 

She uselessly clawed at his hand trying desperately to get some air. He was a little weirded out by the texture of her skin but wrote it off as her quirk and too much makeup. Gradually her struggling slowed until her body went limp. As her head drooped he caught a glimpse of her bright yellow eyes before they were hidden by her eyelids. He held her like that for a minute or so to make sure she was thoroughly dead before tossing her corpse to the ground partially concealed by the dumpster from random passersbys. Not that anyone in this part of town would care.

He made his way back inside to Giran. The man had received a plate full of steaming food in the time he had been gone. He sat back down, before asking “You wouldn't happen to have any poison I could use would you?”

“Well I'll be, Muscular wanting to use poison?” he asked, laughing, then he paused and his eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait poison? Really? That's so simple.” He started laughing again even louder.

He usually wouldn't want to use something as cowardly as poison, but Gestalt was pissing him off. Goto clearly had won both their fights, so at this point the vigilante deserved to die, and he decided he wasn't going to be picky over how.

“So what happened with that Murk lady?” Giran asked.

Goto huffed before he simply replied “gone.”

Giran rolled his eyes. “Really? She might have been useful to me.”

“I dont give a fuck what is usefull to you or not, she was weak, so I kiled her.” 

“Well either way, you won't just need poison if you are trying to assassinate somebody. And I sadly have no idea what Gestalt does when he is not out vigilanteing so you will have to catch him out when he is patrolling.” All the sudden Giran snapped his fingers “I have just the thing for you!” he waved over one of his employees and whispered in his ear. The waiter scurried off to carry out his new bidding. 

While they waited Giran began to eat his now slightly cold meal. He was about halfway done by the time the waiter came back holding a small box. Giran scooted over so that he was sitting next to Goto rather than across from him before opening the box. Inside was a peculiar little device. It looked like a metal tv remote but with only one button. It was also smaller. It would easily fit in a hand discreetly. 

“So this little thing is a pneumonic launcher. Different forms of it have been used in assassinations for hundreds of years.” He lifted the device out of the box. He turned it to Goto so that he could see the side, where there was a little switch cleverly hidden. “You pull this catch here to prime it. And then once it's ready just point this end at your target,” He pointed to the end facing away from them that had a few triangles painted on it indicating the direction. “It will shoot a tiny needle that's been dipped in ricin, a potent toxin, into whatever you're aiming at. It's so small and quiet they will barely even notice that you shot them. Be careful though it doesn't have a very long range and the needle will be stopped by armour and thick fabrics.”

That probably wouldn't be a problem Goto thought, seeing as Gestalt seemed to essentially be naked.

“How long will it take to work?” he asks 

“Hmm, given Gestalt’s unique biology I have no idea. For regular people it usually takes one or two days though.” It would be irritating to not witness the vigilantes' death, but it didn't really matter in the end. 

“How much do you want for it?” he asked. He did plenty of highly paid jobs through Giran. And kept most of it with the man out of convenience, so it wouldn't be hard to pay him for anything.

Giran said his price.

“That much! why?” 

“Well the poison and device aren't actually that hard to get. I'm charging you for the inconvenience. Me and our pal have a working relationship. He is useful to me, so I'm charging you for his expected loss in value. And the only reason I'm willing to sell him out like this is because I have been working with you for a long time.” Giran made pointed eye contact with him as he said this.

Goto gruted. “Fine, I'll pay. Take it out of my account.”

He went to snatch the device out of Giran's hand, but the info broker waved it out of reach at the last second. “Goto, you be careful with this, I don't know what it is but something about that vigilante gives me the creeps.” with that last slightly ominous warning he placed the dart shooter back in its case and handed it to him.

Goto pocketed the device and made his way out of the building again. On his way past the alley he looked and saw that the body of the lady was gone. He kept walking, writing it off as Giran’s people working fast.

……...

Katsuki slumped his way into the bathroom of a gas station after making his quick getaway from that alley. He couldn't believe that bitch Muscular had just strangled them after he gave him all that good info. Well attempted to strangle, it was hard to asphyxiate someone who didn't really need to breathe.

“Man he really didn't like you!” Suran cackled. It was annoying having the villain conscious. But he was surprisingly helpful. For example their disguise that Katsuki was currently removing. He and Deku had tried the makeup route in the past but had never gotten it to look right. Suran had shown them his technique of using photographs to get the right proportions. With an eye that could shift around and multiple angles it was just a matter of fine tuning until you got a passable facial structure. Plus the makeup didn't absorb into the slime too badly when the surface was solidified with Katsuki’s quirk.

“Shut it! We got the info to him, that's all that matters. ” He stuffed the brown wig into a bag for future use and then re-shaped their proportions to look more male. 

He looked into the mirror, without the wig, they looked odd. The makeup only continued a little past the hairline. So the rest of their head was still the same shiny black as always. 

“Kachan you're gonna have to dump it. ” Deku said.

“Why cant we just use fucking makeup whipes like regular a regular human being!? ” He didn't want to just empty their face into the sink like last time they experimented with makeup. It gave him the creeps.

“Kid, my slime sucks up anything like a sponge. Haven't you snots figured that out yet? ” Suran said condescendingly.

Deku replied before Kastuki could. “You're kinda a hypocrite for calling us snots.”

“And yeah, we have noticed you quirk, it's a real pain in the ass.” It took tremendous effort not to pick up all the filth they came into contact with.

Deku snatched control from him and released their face into the sink. Katsuki watched in disgust as the bonds between the slime broke down and then started draining down the pipe. Deku turned on the water to hasten the process. 

“Alright, now we just wait for him to kill us. Hopefully he got the message. I don't know how he will do it, so we all have to be on our guard.” Deku walked them sans disguise out of the store, waving to the clerk as he left. The man looked a little confused to see a completely different person leave the bathroom than who went in.

Chapter Text

Izuku grabbed onto the railing on top of the water tower in order to peer over the edge and look around. They came to this tower almost every night for the vantage it gave over a large chunk of the city. After reassuring himself that there was nothing overtly criminal happening in the immediate vicinity, Izuku sat down against the center pole and began to eat a protein bar.

“Uhg this is so fucking anoying, how long does it take for that fucker to just get it over with already. ” Kachan complained.

“Never thought i'd agree with the brat, but I think the waiting will be worse than actually dying. ” Suran said, sounding bored.

“ And how the hell would you know that huh? Out of the three of us you are the only one who hasn't actually died .” Kachan bit back.

“ Well seeing as I will be stuck in the back of somebody's head either way I don't want to do it all uneasy, like we are now. ”

Izuku decided to join the conversation “Well you have no experience to base that opinion on, it could be completely different being in the back of somebody else's head.”

Suran paused to think about it for a second before responding “Well then, is it ?”

Izuku sighed “No, not really.”

“ See! My point stands! ” Suran crowed triumphantly.

In the five days since they had brought Suran in on their plan the three of them had been bickering nonstop. Kachan and him were understandably pissed over being murdered, and Suran definitely had justifiable reasons to dislike them, what with the body theft and all. But really at that point it was just karma for the villain. 

But despite all that, they still functioned very well, perhaps even a bit better with Suran’s added intuitive knowledge of how Ooze worked. Additionally Izuku's still unnamed quirk seemed to function better with more minds flowing through it, the ever so slight delay from sending commands to when the body responded had diminished even more with Suran’s awakening. Plus it was a relief not having to expend effort suppressing him all the time.

Izuku finished the bar and neatly folded up the wrapper to toss later. He jumped from the tower down to the roof of the building supporting it and then again to the ground. The slime of their feet and shins deforemd from the impact but was fixed again within a couple steps.

Izuku continued wandering around, it was a quiet night, undisturbed except for the sound of insects and the occasional dog barking. Eventually their wandering took them over to the part of the city they had first met Giran in. They usually stopped by here to check in with some of the locals in order to keep up with the latest going ons. One of whom was the shark headed dealer that had first introduced them. He was only out at night on weekends so they made sure to stop by then. 

“It's kinda suspicious that there have been no murders reported of Muscular since our fight.” Izuku said, he paused for a second before frantically adding “I'm not complaining or anything, it's just weird .”

“Don't worry kid, neither of us would ever confuse you for being anything less than a perfect boy scout.” Suran said and started cackling.

“ He's hopefully just focused on trying to hunt us down.” Kachan paused “Not that it should be at all difficult for the fucker seeing as we have kept the exact same patrol route all week!” Kachan yelled angrily.

Especially since they had found out the connection between Muscular and Giran. The info broker had been kindly apologetic as he explained that he had sent them to Muscular upon the villain's request. He had of course denied a refund for the info they had given him as payment. The info broker had laughed as he told them the amusing situation he had found himself in of having two clients actively fighting against each other, he had decided to play both sides to the fullest (and most profitable extent) rather than neither. 

They had managed to sneak their subterfuge plot right under Girans nose, as far as they could tell he had no idea that they were the ‘Murk lady’ who had tipped off Muscular.

“He should know all about your patrol route if he is working with that rat Giran” Suran added. He had yet to elaborate on why he had such a bitter attitude to the Info broker.

The conversation continued as they stopped by various spots, they talked to a couple homeless people and tossed them some bills for anything useful they could tell them.  

Finally they rounded a corner and turned into the alley that usually hosted Riku the dealer with the shark mutation. As they approached Riku turned to them hesitantly. He was shaking and had beads of sweat dripping down his face. Which was weird because why would a shark have any need to sweat. Izuku wrote it off as the human part of him keeping him cool outside of the crisp ocean depths.

Izuku loomed over the scared man, who gulped nervously before saying “N-nothing new to tell ya man, everybody has been quiet this week”

“ Oh man, how come I never figured out how to scare people like this back when I was in control. ” Suran said wistfully.

“Because your stupid as fuck, you ugly bitch. ” Kachan replied instantly. He then added “But it is weird how scared he is, he is a wimp but usually when we visit he doesn't look like he is one ‘boo’ away from pissing his pants.”  

Izuku agreed, something wasn't right. He felt his nonexistent heart flutter a bit as hope began to grow in him.

“Why are you so scared, Riku? We have done nothing to ever harm you.”

The man gulped again before stuttering out “O-Oh nothing, you know just a little hot out is all.” And while it was hot, being summer and all, this time of night there was enough of a cool breeze blowing off the sea to chase off the heat. The shark hybrid raised one flipper-like hand to fan himself with. Izuku saw ever so slightly as the man's head moved as he glanced up. 

Izuku moved an eye as discreetly as he could to the top of their head. Above perched on a fire escape was a silhouette.

“Oh hell yeah! It's a trap.” Katsuki yelled.

Izuku tried to keep on looming as naturally as possible but he stiffened ever so slightly when the villina had come into view.

A booming laugh echoed from above them and was accompanied by a thump as Muscaul hit the ground right behind Riku, who let out a shrill squeak and started quaking even harder than before.

Muscular had a terrifying expression on his face, he was laughing in what seemed like mirth but his eyes showed deep seated hatred that he glared at them with. “Oh your good Gestalt, it's almost a shame to have to kill you.” His expression grew to be almost manic “But I won! I beat you so you deserve to be dead!” He reached his good arm out and grabbed the dealer by the neck. He pulled the man closer to himself. Riku slammed his eyes shut in a futile attempt to get away from Muscular. 

Wordlessly Izuku handed control over to Kachan, who immediately took a few steps closer to the villain. He slammed an arm directly on Muscular’s chest right above his muscle shrouded heart. He had shaped the arm to look exactly like the ones that had shaped charges held at the tip. 

“Let him go Muscular, this fight is between you and us” Kachan said .

Muscular glanced down at the appendage held over his heart, and laughed. He tightened his hold on the dealer who let off a grunt at the pain. “You're bluffing, no way you would use that here, you'd kill this guy even faster than I could.” Izuku saw a small glint of something metallic from where Muscular’s injured arm rested in a sling. He felt the slightest prickle down in their side but when he used an eye to glance down nothing was there.

Kachan was glaring down at Muscular, trying to think of a way to get Riku out. This close it was plain to see how much taller they were than the villain, though Muscular was doubtless triple their size, given how spindly they were. 

Kachan was startled as Muscular threw Riku right at them. Kachan was forced to remove the hand pretending to be a shaped charge off of Muscular in order to catch the flailing man. 

“Though I don't want to risk it, that would really fucking hurt.” Muscular said. That didn't really fit his MO, he had never really shown self preservation before. Always jumping into  fights head first. Izuku didn't have time to contemplate it as he saw Muscular arm begin to cock back for a punch.

“Look out Kachan!” He screamed.

But even as he said tha Kachan was already pulling Riku into the slime and jumping away from Muscular. The shockwave from the hit stil tore through a lot of mass and through them forward. Kachan used some slime not smothering Riku to catch the dealer. He jumped up and flung them out of the alley with an explosion. Once he had created some distance between them and the villain he disgorged Riku who was coughing and somehow looking even more scared than before. 

“Run!” Izuku used the mouth to say at the frightened man, who didn't have to be told twice before bolting  

Now that the hostage was taken care of, Kachan turned to face Muscular who was calmly walking out of the alley towards them.

“ Oh man, that really fucking hurt, I dont get why you guys put yourselves up to this.” Suran contributed in a whiny voice.

“ Shut the fuck up! I'm trying to fight !” Kachan screamed back even as he was rapidly flickering their eyes around trying to catalog everything in their surroundings.

Izuku gave Suran a warning shove into the dark to keep him quiet. 

Muscular stopped at the end of the alley and raised his voice to shout “So Gestalt, are you going to take me up into the sky again and blow yourself to pieces!? Or are you going to admit that you cannot beat me?” Muscular casually hit the building that made up the alley. Half of it was blown away in an instant. The other half crumpled in on itself. Izuku was relieved to see that there was nobody inside of it at this hour. 

“Kachan we can't fight him here, too many people could get hurt.” Izuku said hesitantly. 

“ But the fucker hasn't even tried to poison us yet! He had the perfect chance back when we were close, why didn't he fucking take it? ” Kachan replied, sounding extremely agitated.

“Kachan, I hate to say it but I don't think he is going to poison us. I think we should run before he causes any more damage trying to fight us.”

Kachan gave off the mental equivalent of spitting. “Fine! But I'm not looking forward to having to find a new way for him to kill us.”

“We shall do neither, villain. ” Izuku said to Muscular before Kachan launched them up into the air with explosions. Muscular was yelling angrily after them but they were quickly out of range for him to jump.

“Fuuuuuck! Why?! He had every chance! ” Kachan yelled as they landed in the ocean. 

They had thought up a ton of different scenarios in which Muscular could have poisoned them, everything from a dark to a poisent coated knife, they even prepared themselves to not avoid any toxic gases that could have been thrown their way.  

“ Oh well, let's just get some rest, we can think of something new at work tomorrow.”  Izuku said, even as he dreaded the idea of starting over again.  

Izuku took control back from Kachan. He turned on the phone that they had purchased the day before. They had yet to put in any contacts, but its light was good enough to illuminate the little bottle they had suspended inside them. It had some bubbles of air floating in water trapped inside. It works as a way to tell up and down underwater at night. Which was important as they were currently sleeping out to sea. 

“I dont get why we can't just go back to that one place.” Kachan complained as they swam further out. 

“We could, but I don't like the idea of sleeping with a bunch of people all around us.” Deku said.

“Oh please, everybody there knows to leave eachother alone. That's practically the whole idea of the place.”

The building Kachan was talking about was an old apartment complex that was run by people with villainous quirks for those with similar quirks that couldn't find a place to stay. The idea was that if all the scary looking people stuck together everyone else would leave them alone. It was nice enough, it's just that it made Izuku uncomfortable to have a bunch of people around them while they slept. They had only gone there for the coldest nights of the winter, when they would literally start freezing to the ceramic of the bathtub. 

“This will work for a while, Kachan. ” Izuku said with a note of finality.

They were in the process of house hunting, with their income they could probably afford a cheap apartment. But It was a tedious process. So they would just stay here until the whole ordeal with Muscular was over. 

Izuku swam down until he hit the seafloor. He then ingested a big rock he found laying in the sand. The weight causes them to go from perfect equilibrium with the water to heavier. They were now  firmly anchored to the seabed. The high surface tension of the slime made sure the rock wouldn't slip out of them in their sleep. Izuku released his hold over Ooze, and they started to drift in the gentle current, but stayed clumped up well enough.

He didn't bother with a goodnight. He simply turned off the phone and joined Suran in sleep. Kachan was soon to follow him.

Chapter Text

“Oh, I know! Why don't we get a device that injects poison when a button is pressed and then somehow slips it into Muscular’s pocket, so when he sits down it will trigger the device and kill us?” Izuku said

“Thats stupid, where they hell would we get somthing like that? And how would we even get it into his pocket without him noticing.” Kachan retorted.

“Heres one kids, why dont we dress up as some super hot babe and then seduce Muscular and get him to try to drug our drink, but we switch his drugs to real poison so instead of getting wasted we just fucking die! ” Suran said enthusiastically.

“Why the hell would you even say that! That's even more convoluted than Deku’s idea. Not to mention disgusting!” Kachan yelled.

“You're not supposed to dis people ideas during a brainstorming session Kachan, didn't you ever learn that in highschool? ” Suran said sullenly.

“How dumb can you be? No I fucking didn’t. Because you killed me !”

Izuku held their head in their hands and then dragged them down their face. The argument had persisted the whole time at work, and had continued even as he walked around the city for some fresh air.

“Alright! I say we take a break from thinking up ideas for now.” Izuku shouted.

Both Suran and Kachan settled down, with some grumbles. It was mid afternoon and they had nothing to do until nightfall. They had already eaten lunch and there wasn't much more they could practice without equipment or someone to spar with. So Izuku had decided to just walk around. They passed shops and groups of kids hanging out. Izuku briefly considered stopping in an arcade but decided that it wouldn't be much fun. After a while Izuku felt a slight chill when they walked under a shadow. He glanced up and was surprised to see that his wandering had taken him to UA. The building was quiet as it was summer, but there were still a few students milling around. 

“ Why did you take us here, Deku? ” Kachan asked.

“I don't know, maybe I was just feeling a little wistful.” Izuku sighed and then continued on, walking past the gate. When he was about fifteen feet away he heard a familiar laugh behind them. He peeked over the shoulder and recognized Mirio and his skeleton of a teacher whose name they had all forgotten coming out of the gate.

They hadn't seen Mirio since before their big fight with a Muscular a couple weeks ago. It didn't seem like a long time but they had seen him almost every day as he cleaned the beach. They had grown used to the jokes he played on his teacher as well as the conversations they shared with him as they passed by on their way to work. Him and Eraserhead were pretty much the only people they ever saw outside of work. And Eraserhead was just someone they worked with occasionally.  Despite having two consciousness literally sharing his brain Izuku felt a pang of loneliness go through him. He turned their antlered head down and continued walking away. It was stupid to have come here.

“Ivy! Hey Ivy, slow down!” came a  shout from behind him.

He turned around and came face to face with Mirio. “Hi, fancy seeing you here.” Izuku said.

“Hey man! It's been awhile, what have you been up to?” Mirio asked with a big grin.

“Oh not much, just working.” He replied.

Mirio’s teacher had caught up to them, he waved a bit in greeting. 

“Well we were just about to go get a coffee. Would you like to join us and catch up?” Mirio asked 

“umm ..” Izuku didn't know what to say, on one hand he really would like to catch up with the two of them, but on the other hand they still needed to figure out how they were going to get Muscular to kill them. 

“ Say yes nerd. ” Kachan muttered 

“ Really? I thought you didn’t like Mirio. ” Izuku replied

“I don't, but his teacher is some kind of retired hero right? We should pick his brain .” 

That was actually a really good idea. “Sure! I would love to.” He said out loud. 

…….

Ten minutes later they were sitting down at a cafe, and Izuku had hot chocolate. “So Mr. Yagi you’re a retired hero right?” Thankfully the barista had asked for his name and refreshed it in their memory.

Mr. Yagi put down his cup of tea “Not exactly, I work very closely with heroes but more as an advisor or secretary, though I did do quite a lot of field work back in my day as well”  He said with a chuckle. “Why do you ask young Ivy?”

“Well I was wondering, did you ever have to lure a villain into a trap? How do you do it and get them to do what you want without them noticing?”

Mr. Yagi's eyes momentarily widened, before he laughed a little “well yes actually, we did so quite often as a matter of fact. Mostly with hostage situations or getting fights out of populated areas. Now as to how, hmmm” he took a sip of his tea as he thought “Well it all comes down to what the villain wants. You're never going to be able to trick your way into making him do something he wouldn't want to. You have to think about what motivations your villain has and set your trap to appeal to those.”  

“Do you have any examples you would be able to share?” Mirio, who had been closely listening the whole time, asked.

“Let me think, well a situation that comes up pretty frequently with villains is that they often commit crimes out of desperation. Society is not kind to a lot of people. So oftentimes if you offer counseling and help getting a foothold in life you can convince villains to turn themselves in. Of course this doesn't always apply but it is still appealing to the villain's goals by giving them what they want, survival, with an easier way to get it than committing villainy.” After his story Mr. Yagi went back to sipping his tea.

“Well thinking about it that way, what does Muscular want?” Izuku asked his roommates.

“Well that's obvious, he wants to fight and kill us, as well as everybody else he meets.” Kachan suppli ed

“And he goes about getting what he wants by hitting things as hard as he can. He has tried to punch us every single time we see him so maybe we do something that has to do with punching.” Izuku pondered  

“Oh man I just had the most fucking obvious Idea.” Kachan said, sounding exasperated with himself,  “Why don't we just put little pill capsules with poison in them and carry them around. So if Muscular punches us it will burst the capsule and voila.” Kachan was grumbling to himself muttering about how it would have been so much easier just to do this the first time without the need for all the subterfuge and disguises. 

“ Oh dang. That is way simpler than the first idea. ” Izuku said.

Out loud he said “Thanks Mr. Yagi, that actually helps a lot!” 

“Really? I don't know what a kid like you would need that advice for, but I'm glad it helped either way.” He smiled warmly at them. 

They continued to idly chat back and forth for about an hour. Eventually Mirio had to leave for his internship and Mr. Yagi excused himself not long after. Mirio gave them his phone number so they could keep in touch. Izuku made sure to memorize it, knowing their history with phones.

……..

Katsuki tripped over the dustpan as he went to sweep the other side of the room. He managed to catch them on a counter but a piece of driftwood on their hands chipped off and tumbled to the ground. 

Mika, who had been organising shelves, turned around at the noise, her eyes widened at the chunk of wood sitting innocently on the floor. Katsuki snached it up and shoved it in their pocket as fast as he could but it was too late Mika was already rushing over.

“Oh no! Are you alright? It doesn't hurt does it?” She asked, looking at the chunk of wood that was now missing from their right hand. Thankfully it didn't expose any glue or obvious fake additions.

“I'm fine.” He grunted “Just uh.. molting?” he said in a questioning tone 

She quirked an eyebrow “Really? I don't really know much about your quirk but I didn't think trees or plants or whatever you are molts.” 

“I’m not a fucking tree, damnit!” He shrugged, “It happens sometimes, don't worry, it'll grow back.”

“Yeah a bit of wood glue and we will be good as new.” Deku said . 

After throwing off Mika, Katsuki made his may to the back of the shop to dump the dustpan in the trash. They had not eaten breakfast this morning with the intention of eating a big lunch at the bakery but as his gaze landed on the sandwich they had prepared he found that their appetite was gone, in fact it felt slightly nauseating to even think about eating.

“Are you sure you're ok, Kachan? That is the third time you have tripped this morning.” Deku asked with worry thick in his voice.

“I don't know, nerd, I think we might be getting sick. I told you to stop eating those nasty ass floor cupcakes!”

“Oh yeah, like the floor is the worst thing we come in contact with on a daily basis.” Deku snarked back  

“I saw a spider crawling around on one of them! It probably laid eggs in it or something.”

“Oh please, spiders wouldn't lay eggs in a cupcake.”  

Before Deku could lose himself in a rant about spider egg laying habits Katsuki cut him off. “Well either way I'm assigning blame for our illness to you. So suck it up.”

Katsuki went over to the rack to hang up the dustpan but found that their hand was shaking so it was hard to line up the little notch. It took him a few tries but he eventually got it. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost three, so he went up to the front to prepare for Shitty Hair's arrival. 

His feet made a squeak as he walked across the freshly mopped floors, he looked down and saw that they had grabbed the crocs this morning instead of the ratty sneakers. Shit, they made sure to never wear these on friday in case Shity Hair stopped by and recognized them. They must have really been off their game all morning. 

He heard the bells of the shop ring but he didn't look up, too focused on shifting slime to cover the distinctive pink flame pattern and illegible golden signature that had been scrawled on the side the whole time they had had the crocs. He tried to make it look like regular black crocs but the slime was too shiny. 

“Hey man! How's it going?” came a cheerful voice from across the counter.

Eh, they were good enough, he looked up and made sure to have a glare on his face for his greeting “you came back.” he said in a deadpan voice “again, how wonderful.” Gestalt’s eccentric personality had rubbed off on Katsuki more than he had anticipated. He found himself with an increasing taste for dramatics lately. 

“Oh hey angry Ivy, I haven't seen you in awhile. “

“I'm still the same person, dumbass,” he said even though that wasn't exactly true.

Kirishima put a hand on the back of his neck awkwardly “I know, sometimes it just doesn't feel that way bro.” he laughed a little bit. “Anyways I’ll just have my usual. 

Katsuki narrowed his eyes at him but wordlessly went to grab the cookie. However on the way back to the counter he was hit by a sudden bout of dizziness and stumbled forwards. The bag and cookie hit the counter and then slid off onto the floor. Katsuki had grabbed the counter to keep himself up, but was still having trouble balancing. Little vision spots were floating past his eyes. 

“Kachan, something isn't right!” he distantly heard Deku shout. “Look at our hands.” He did so and saw that the slime that they used to move the plastic skeleton that formed the scaffolding of the fingers was dripping slightly. It wasn't the usual mucus that old slime turned into though, it almost looked like the slime was breaking down and the ink and water that were dissolved within were coming out of solution. 

“Hey man are you alright?” Kirishima asked.

Katsuki squinted at him and mumbled out “Yeah, I'm just not feeling the best, is all.”  He rubbed his eyes to try and clear the vision spots. It helped a bit, but he was dismayed to see that a plastic leaf had stuck to his hand as he pulled it away. More melted slime had stuck it to the driftwood. 

“Kachan we are losing control over the slime. I can't stop it from breaking down, I don't know what’s happening.” Deku said frantically 

“Ask Slimy if anything like this has happened before,” he replied. He reached behind himself to untie the apron and quickly tossed it onto the counter before it got stained by the ruined slime.

Mika must have heard the commotion because she came running from the back to check what was happening. 

Kirishima was looking a little frantic “Mika what's happening, is he alright?” 

“I don't know, he said he was molting or something earlier. Ivy I think you should probably go home, you aren't looking too good.” 

Katsuki went to reply to her but found the slime in the vocal tract had broken down so there was too much fluid in order to properly talk. He tried to cough to clear it up but all that came up was the same black liquid as before. So instead of replying he just nodded to Mika and started walking out the door.  

“Hey Kirishima, I know this is a big favor to ask but do you think you could help Ivy get home? I would do it but I dont have the keys to shut down the bakery in the meantime.” Mika said nervously behind where Katsuki was stumbling out the door.

“Sure, I can do that.” Kirishima responded.

“Kachan! Suran is getting delirious and isn't really responding. I don't know what to do.” Deku said, sounding even more frantic than before.

Katsuki felt Deku’s will flood the body and help to take some of the burden of keeping it together. He was so preoccupied with trying to catch leaves before they could fall off that he barely noticed when an arm wrapped around their side and flung one of their hands around a shoulder. Kastuki glanced to the side and saw Kirishima's worried face looking down at them. Kirishima's face made a clack sound as one of their drooping antlers collided with where he had hastily raised his quirk.

“Hey man, where do you want to go? Should I take you to the hospital?” Kirishima asked. Katsuki was starting to get delirious but the word hospital registered clearly and he desperately shook their head. A hospital was one of the worst places they could end up. Instead he pointed in a direction that would take them to some random shelter they had visited a few times.

Kirishma nodded and started helping Katsuki walk in that direction.

“Deku, I think I know what’s happening, Muscular must have poisoned us after all. Don't some poisons take days to kick in?”

“Yeah, I can think of a few. But when could he have poisoned us? I don't think he made contact with us at all the whole time. Well except for the fake shaped charge.”

A memory of a glint of metal and the smallest prick of pain flashed through Katsuki's mind. “It doesn't matter now, we have to assume that he poisoned us. Are you ready nerd?”

“I don't think I am, Kachan.” Deku whispered. 

Katsuki was glad they didn't have to breathe, because Deku’s panic would definitely have them hyperventilating otherwise. “Well too bad, it's happening.” Ah shit Suran was out of it, hopefully his mind would clear when their consciousness transferred over to Muscular.

Katsuki managed to squirm out of Kirishima's hold, he stumbled a bit and started running away swaying side to side as the slime in their legs struggled to hold them up. As much as he found Kirishima annoying, he didn't deserve to see somebody he saw as a friend die right in front of him. Katsuki remembered all too well what that felt like. 

He heard Kirishima's shouting getting closer as he desperately chased after them. Katsuki glanced back and saw the sloppy trail of black footprints and fallen leaves leading right to them. There was no way he was going to be able to outrun Kirishima like this. 

“Suran, wake up! ” Deku screamed in the head scape. He felt Deku’s consciousness viciously dragging the villian out of unconsciousness. “Suran, remember the plan! Be as quiet as you can when we wake up. You got that?”  

Suran mumbled his response so Deku shook him again “ I said I got it, sheesh, now let me rest m-tired.” 

Katsuki felt one of the antlers fall out, it clattered to the ground behind them. He chose to keep running rather than go back for it. The second antler felt out in front of him. He decided to try and catch it but overextended and tripped. 

Kirishima caught up a few seconds later. He put his hand on their shoulder and gently shook it. “Dude why are you running? You seriously need to get to the hospital.” 

When Katsuki glanced up he saw that Kirishima had grabbed the fallen antler. Man this sure was shitty timing.

“ Oh no, poor Kirishima .” Deku lamented.  

Katsuki glanced around for an escape. His spotty vision zeroed In on a storm drain just a few feet away. If he could get there he could pull most of the leaves and clothes through leaving behind as little evidence as possible. It took all of his and Deku’s combined effort to drag themselves over to the drain. For a few seconds they just rested. Then Deku took control and lifted up their head to look at Kirishima, he coughed a couple times to clear their airways and used the last of their rapidly dwindling control over the slime to say “I'm so sorry Kirishima, be a great hero for me ok?”

“Come on man, don't talk like that. I called an ambulance, y-you're gonna be fine alright?” Kirshima gave them a wobbly shark toothed grin.

Katsuki felt the eyeballs starting to break down. He knew they were out of time, so he gently took control back from Deku and let their body melt into the drain. Thankfully it was one of the ones with the horizontal bars and not the criss-crossed ones so he managed to drag the shirt and pants down through it, all the leaves followed all that was left were their shoes, that didn't quite fit through. The last thing Katsuki saw before the darkness of death tore them from this world once again, was the horrified yet befuddled look on Kirishima’s face as he grabbed for their shoes while the last of the slime fell away. Revealing the truly hideous crocs that they had stolen from him all those months ago. 

Chapter Text

Aizawa clenched his phone in his hand as he glared off into the night. He had called and texted Gestalt for days after his foolhardy fight with Muscular. The vigilante had lost or had phones destroyed often enough in the past for Aizawa to be used to the delay but never had Gestalt taken so long.

He had come to their most frequent meeting spot in the hopes that Gestalt would show. But he was left looking at the new office building under construction where the Murks used to be alone. He paced back and forth on the roof furiously for a few minutes before calling it quits. Gestalt wasn't going to show.

Aizawa knew Gestalt was probably dead. The last anyone had seen of him had been when he disappeared into the sky with Muscular. However Muscular had come back whereas Gestalt hadn't. He had managed to survive his first confrontation with the villain, but Muscular was known for fighting people with quirks that would be a bad matchup for him in order to prove himself.

Heroes had been trying to catch Muscular for years, but the villain had proven himself to be extremely cunning, and chose his fights wisely. Aizawa would not be surprised if he had found a way to kill Gestalt. The thought stung, but he pushed it away, the crazy bastard was probably just skulking around in a sewer or something.

Aizawa clenched his phone again as he slowly made his way down the fire escape remembering the text Tsukauchi had sent him. The commission had ordered them to step up their attempts at arresting Gestalt. They had unofficially been working with the vigilante for months and the commission had been fine with looking the other way. As they always did when small time heroes worked with low key vigilantes. But Gestalt had rocked the boat too far this time, the commission has now officially ordered Tsukauchi to lead the investigation to apprehend Gestalt as he has the most experience. Aizawa could probably get away with working with him in the future as he was little more than a small number on the commission’s paperwork, but the detective could not.

He was trying to warn Gestalt before Heroes that had always looked the other way in the past started trying to arrest him on sight. But the damned vigilante wasn't getting back to him.

…..

The next day as he was getting groceries his phone buzzed. It was from the detective.

-Got something on Gestalt, could use your insight when you have time. If you are busy, stop by the station later.

Another text came with an address, it wasn't too far from where he was now so he handed his half full shopping basket to an employee and then hurried out the door. It was a short ten minute drive to the location. When he got there, there was a small crowd curiously looking over the police tape, as well as an ambulance and a couple police cars.

He walked through the small crowd glad that he was in his civilian clothes so nobody would be looking at his costume. He looked around for the detective as he ducked under the police tape.

He saw him crouched down talking to a boy who was seated on the curb with a blanket throw around his shoulders. As Aizawa got closer he saw that the black haired boy looked absolutely miserable. His red eyes were swollen and puffy from crying and he had snot running from his nose.

He decided that he would let the detective finish talking with the distressed kid before he went over and continued looking around the scene. He saw a trail of sloppy looking footprints as well as leaves leading up to a storm drain. He crouched down next to some of the footprints and got a closer look. His eyes narrowed as he saw what they were made of. Black gooey looking liquid, it even had the exact same metallic sheen to it as Gestalt. He refrained from touching any of it because this was still an investigation so he didn't want to tamper with anything.

He walked over to the officer peering down into the storm drain that he had seen work with Tsukauchi before. The guy had some sort of matching quirk, he could find if two things were from the same source. It made him excellent as a detective because he was able to match up samples taken from a crime scene with suspects in moments. The only reason that Aizawa would have been called here so fast was if this guy had found some connection with this whole mess to Gestalt.

As Aizawa crouched down next to him he startled from where he was shining a flashlight down into the drain. He had a vial held in his off hand that had a few drops of a similar black substance to what was all over the road.

“Anything down there?” Aizawa asked.

“Not that I can see, and since it's been raining so much recently I doubt anything is left either.” He answered.

“So I'm assuming all this is all Gestalt’s?” he asked, gesturing to the foot prints.

The officer nodded, “Yeah the footprints, the leaves, crocs. Everything is registering as Gestalt’s to my quirk.”

Aizawa felt relieved, at least now he knew Gestalt survived Muscular. Maybe they had stumbled across the vigilantes civilian persona. He went to pick up the crocs but the officer grabbed his hand before he could.
“Uh, I wouldn't touch that if I were you. The boy over there said that he collapsed and then melted right in front of him, we think he was poisoned, so I don't think you want that on you.” The officer said.

Aizawa pulled back his hand just in case the officer was right. He had seen Gestalt melt before, so he wasn't convinced that was a good reason to say he was poisoned, but he hadn't shared that with anyone yet.

The boy's parents arrived and walked him out of the tape to a waiting car, Tsukauchi handed a card to his mom before she hurried off after her son. Aizawa walked over to him and asked “So what happened?”

The detective looked over to him before replying “we don't have much to go on yet, i'm surprised you managed to get here so fast.”

Aizawa grunted “I was in the area. So what was up with that kid?”

The detective sighed before answering, “He says he was walking his friend home since he started getting sick. Shortly after they left he started to collapse and then started trying to run away from Kirishima. Oh, Kirishima is the name of the boy I was talking to and the one that melted’s name is Ivy. Kirishima says that Ivy started talking like he was dying and said goodbye and then melted down the drain there.” Tsukauchi pointed to the storm drain that still had the crocs on it. “We called you here because from what we can tell Ivy was Gestalt, or at least heavily connected somehow.”

“What records do you have on the Ivy boy?” Aizawa asked.

“Well that's just it, Ivy doesn't exist. No records of that name or quirk are anywhere in the system.” Tsukauchi answered.

“So what do you need me for?” Aizawa asked

“I actually expected you to come later so I don't have anything for you yet, we still need to run some tests and catalogue everything and clean up the area if there was poison or a disease involved somehow.”

Aizawa didn’t like the sound of that but made plans to meet back up at the station later once more information had been gathered.

…..

The table was cold under Aizawa's cheek as he laid his head on it for a brief rest while he waited for Tsukauchi to get done gathering files or wherever the detective was doing. Finally he looked up as the door opened, the hushed conversations happening between a few officers cut off as the detective walked in.

Tsukauchi sighed as he sat down, he gathered his files up before he started speaking. “After Gestalt’s recent involvement with the villain Muscular as well as his subsequent rise in popularity, the hero commission has tasked me with tracking him down and arresting him.”

One of the officers scowled as he heard this, Aizawa was glad the detective had informed him ahead of time so he could be on the lookout. Aizawa wasn't surprised, the commission had done this to vigilantes that were powerful and showed predisposition to working with heroes before. They would hunt them down and make a big show over capturing them and then slap a new costume on and send them to work under a hero that could keep them reined in. It didn't work as often as it did, since most of the time vigilantes had good reasons for not wanting to work as traditional heroes.

The only reason the commission had been so lenient with Gestalt before was that he had been very helpful towards them and was completely willing to work with heroes. His cooperation was to the point that Aizawa wondered why he didn't just go about it the normal way, he could be so much more effective with more resources.

Aizawa narrowed his eyes at Tsukachi’s grim expression, there was more. The detective began speaking again after a few moments for the people in the room to come to terms with this development. “Unfortunately we won't be able to mount an investigation to find Gestalt. As far as we can tell from the information collected today the individual known as Gestalt is dead.”

Aizawa grit his teeth, but didn't say anything as Tsuchachi went on “We have the account of Ivy, or as we know him Gestalt melting. In addition to this on examination the substance he leaves behind that we think is his body contained a toxin in it. All his symptoms that his friends and coworkers described line up with those of the toxin so we can pretty accurately say that he is dead.”

“Do we know who killed him?” An officer asked.

Tsukauchi’s face darkened again “Sadly no, the toxin, ricin, is extremely deadly but what makes it so popular for poisoning people is that it takes days to work, making it almost impossible to figure out who the suspect is.

“It was probably Muscular.” Aizawa added, he had warned Gestalt to leave that man alone. He was ruthless and extremely powerful, but more than that he had connections to all sorts of underground rings as he worked for them often. There was no doubt in Aizawa's mind that someone like that would be able to assassinate him.

Tsukauchi nodded at him before he continued. Aizawa leaned back in his chair and zoned the man out. He felt unreasonably sad about this, he had done his best to teach Gestalt. As much as he had felt skilled he also had felt inexperienced. Somewhere along the line Gestalt had almost begun to feel like one of his students, which was reinforced by how immature the vigilante felt sometimes.

Eventually Tsukachi finished so Aizawa went to leave, the detective caught up to him on his way out. “Eraserhead, Wait up!” He called.

Aizawa stopped and turned his tired eyes to glare at him. Tsukauchi sounded sad as he spoke “I know you don't want to hear this but you really can't blame yourself for this, He acted all on his own.”

Aizawa sighed “I know, I just wish he would have at least listened.” With that Aizawa left.
He continued with his patrol from earlier, the warm night air was quiet and peaceful. It was quiet enough that he was alone with his thoughts. He wished it wasn't.

Chapter Text

The time it takes for Izuku’s quirk to latch onto its next host must be dependent on how far away the two bodies were at the time of death. Because Izuku was drifting in an endless void for long enough that he was able to gain consciousness within it. He could feel the minds of Suran and Kachan closely interwoven with his own blanketed by what must be his quirk.

 The sensation he got from it was the same as what he felt when using his quirk. Ropes and coils, a flowing mass of will. It was wrapped all around them protecting them from grasping fingers of death. 

Then he sensed as they came into contact with something different. He felt as their minds settled into the new body and then merged with it. It was now almost impossible for Izuku to imagine that they had ever been separate. One second he was just a mind adrift, the next he felt the bumpy crust as his hands picked up the sandwich that was visible through his single eye and took a bite. The flavors felt a little off, just as they had the last two times he had awoken in a new body.

Still slightly delirious from before, he marveled at the sensation of having a solid body again. He was quick to put a stopper on the stream of thoughts flowing through Muscular’s head. No longer buffeted by the anger and longing that was at the surface of the villain's mind he could feel Suran and Kachan’s minds begin to stir. He kept a tight hold on them as they awoke to ensure that they would stay quiet and thus keep their presence from Muscular hidden.

After he felt their minds settle and come fully conscious he carefully released them, both stayed silent. He gently loosened his control over his quirk to Kachan until they had a balanced grip over it, and then hesitantly he handed a portion over to Suran. Suran had proven to actually be pretty adept at manipulating Izuku’s quirk. Probably because he had battled against it for so long before they had successfully stolen his body. 

Now that everything was in place they began to work. He blanketed Muscular’s whole being in his will. He was just getting a feel for how everything moved together. He was astounded at how much power he could feel in Muscular’s body. Each muscle felt like energy ready to be released at any moment, each one carefully balanced by others so that his whole body moved seamlessly.

 He also was feeling out the man’s quirk. Where Kachan's felt like a trigger ready to be pulled, and Suran’s had just been the sensation of his body of slime, ready to do his bidding. Muscular’s felt like power, like strength ready to be released as soon as the user bade it. In a heartbeat it would make every strand of muscle pull order of magnitude harder and in perfect synchrony. And when its force saturated the existing musculature it would overflow and create more. 

As gently as he could he began replacing strands of Musculars' will  with his own. He kept the limbs moving exactly like the villain bade them to, so he wouldn't notice. It was extremely hard though, Surans network of control had been like ropes, Muscular’s felt like steel cables. Definitely movable but much harder than they were expecting.

As they worked Izuku watched Muscular finish his sandwich. He pulled a few bills out of his pocket and tossed them on the counter. He then pulled up his hood and walked out. It felt nice to experience the hot breeze on their face. Surans body had a very muted temperature sense. Every other step brought a dull throb from Muscular’s right leg. Must be the injury from their fight. Izuku knew he shouldn't feel satisfaction at another's pain, but it was hard not to for somebody as horrible as Muscular. 

The next few days were surprisingly tame, Muscular didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He visited the gym, he ate and slept. Izuku did his absolute best not to pay attention as the villain showered. On the third day Muscular woke up feeling satisfied with himself. He ate breakfast and headed out. It didn't take Izuku long to figure out where he was going. All too soon they walked into Giran’s restaurant. All the tables were empty except for the booth in the corner where Giran was doing paperwork over a coffee.

The sketchy info broker looked up at their entrance and sighed. “What do you want, Gotto?” he asked, sounding annoyed.

Ah, so that must be Muscular’s name. Muscular didn't bother to sit down. Instead he just crossed his arms and grinned. “I shot Gestalt with that dart you gave me, I was just coming in to confirm that he is dead.” 

Giran flicked his gaze up briefly before going back to his paperwork. “Well if you shot him he should be dead since there isn't an antidote for ricin. I'm guessing you shot him six days ago?”

Muscular grunted. “Yeah, but how did you know that?”

Giran just sighed again “Really? You’re asking me that. And your mans dead. Nobody has seen him all week, So that's as close to confirmation as you’ll probably ever get.”

Muscular’s eye narrowed “Why are you so pissy this morning?”

Giran snorted “Because, I was just involved in one of my clients murder. I don't find the concept very appetizing. And since I’m having to fill out tax forms at eight thirty in the morning.” 

Muscular just grunted again. Izuku felt a brief flash of anger come from Muscular directed at the info broker but nothing more.

“Well if that's all you wanted, feel free to leave, I don't have any work for you today.”

Muscular turned on his heel and strolled out. He walked into a corner store and bought a can of beer. But as he was drinking it Kachan did something with his lungs that made him inhale some of it and he started coughing. Even though it was amusing, Izuku gave Kachan a little warning shove.

After his coughing fit had subsided Muscular pulled out his phone. Izuku was dismayed to see him pull up one of the forums he used to keep track of heroes on. One by one Izuku saw him pull up dosiars on local heroes. He looked at their common patrol routes and fighting ability. Eventually Izuku saw him settle on a hero called Momenta. There were a couple videos of her fighting but not much was clear since things were flying around like crazy and nothing was behaving like it should.

Izuku was scared that the reason he was looking up heroes was to find his next victim. He would make sure to discuss this with Suran and Kachan that night as Muscular slept.

Muscular spent the rest of the day researching Momenta. It didn't take Izuku too long to find the patterns of what he was looking for during his search. And based on that and what he would probably do with the information Muscular had seen during the day he guessed that Muscular would try to ambush the hero either tomorrow or the day after next, as those were both times she patrolled a relatively secluded area. 

That night after Muscular had returned to his apartment and gone to bed Izuku flexed his quirk. He could feel that the three of them had gained a fair bit of control over the villain but not enough to amount to much. Izuku waited until Muscular had fully descended into a deep sleep before he started talking.

“We need to do something about Momenta. I don't want to stand by and watch as he murders another person right in front of us.” He whispered quietly, doing his best to not wake Muscular.

“How? Weve only been able to chip away at a tiny fucking chunk.” Kachan said 

“Well from the videos we watched she moves extremely fast, and so does Muscular, so if we disrupt him at the right time we can probably keep him from killing her.”

“But he will notice that. I thought we were trying to stay under the radar. “ Kachan questioned 

“He probably will notice, but he won't be able to figure out where it's coming from, at least at first.”

Before Kachan could reply  Izuku shushed him as he felt Muscular begin to stir. He must have heard them talking. Thankfully he didn't fully awaken and drifted back into sleep quickly after. As quietly as he could he whispered “we need to be more careful, only say something if it is really important from now on. Kachan since you have the fastest reflexes you do the interference tomorrow, me and Suran will focus on maintaining what we've gotten so far as well as helping you. “

They had already planned their sleep and breaks before they were even poisoned. They usually had two of them working and one resting at any given time. It was now Izuku’s turn to sleep.

…………….

When Suran had murdered Katsuki in cold blood he had thought that there would never be somebody that he could grow to hate more. But as Muscular prowled the early morning streets searching for another hero to kill right in front of them he decided that he had been wrong. His fury seethed through him. At least Suran had a reason to kill him, terrible though it may be. He could feel his anger burning him up and he wanted nothing more than to use one of his explosions to destroy something, preferably Muscular’s face. He was glad that he wasn't trying to take over Muscular at the moment because he wasn't sure he would be able to do so while remaining subtle.  

Muscular pulled out his phone to check the time. Katsuki cursed to himself, making sure that nothing bled over into Muscular’s awareness. There was only a half hour before Momenta was reported to usually come through this part of town. He could feel Muscular flexing his muscles and flooding them with his quirk. Probably warming them up for the upcoming fight. 

Hopefully Momenta turned this murderous fuck into paste. He doubted she would be able to though since Muscular was in a tier of his own when it came to brute strength. From the videos she looked like a heavy hitter too. But that might just as well be angles and editing trying to make heroes look good. Damn he wished Muscular wasn't such a light sleeper, he probably would have been able to get all sorts of useful analisis for the upcoming fight from Deku.

He ran through what he knew of the hero, her quirk let her mess with the masses of things or something similar. She could affect herself as well as anything in a radius around herself but not other people. Other than that all he had been able to pick up was that she hit like a truck and bounced off of hits rather than getting hurt.

He was knocked out of his planning by the sensation of Muscular shucking off his cloak. He quickly focused his attention through the villain's sight. Shit, he could see her coming around the corner a couple blocks down. Muscular quirk flowed over his skin and muscles started to grow to cover him from head to toe, it seems the villain didn't feel like playing around with his food today. 

Muscular crouched down slightly and leaped at the hero, a feral grin on his face. The jump took him soaring into the air easily clearing a block. He used the force of his landing to bound up into the air again. His arc took him straight for the hero, she must have seen him at the last second because she managed to raise her arms up in front of her face to block the hit. Muscular aimed his punch straight at her stomach. It landed on the rigid armour covering her torso, instead of punching through like Katsuki would have guessed it to, insead she was flung back at a ridiculous speed. He would have expected her to keep flying for quite awhile with how fast she was going but she slowed down to a stop within about twenty feet. Katsuki noticed that she hung in the air and drifted down extremely slowly until suddenly she dropped the rest of the way normally.  

Muscular bounded after her clearly not put off by his first attack failing. Momenta jumped to the side to dodge Muscular causing him to fly right past her. As soon as he landed he swung around to jump for her again, careful to keep his leap small enough that he could maneuver when she dodged. The air around them started to feel heavy and dense. It didn't slow Muscular down much except for making him fall slower. Momenta seemed to not be affected by change in air pressure but she also wasn't jumping into the air wildly instead jumping sideways. 

Katsuki could see the shimmer in the air as it condensed around their feet. It kept getting heavier and heavier. He could see the super heavy air flowing out of Momnenta’s range rapidly expanding as it was no longer being pulled down so hard by gravity. Muscular wes catching on to her evasive maneuvers quickly and was getting closer with each leap. RIght as he was about to catch her all the air she had been condensing exploded as she released her power on it. It fogged up briefly and cast buffeting winds in all directions. 

She must have snuck up on him while he was momentarily distracted because Katsuki felt a massive impact hit their side. It didn’t manage to get through Muscular’s defenses but it would probably leave a bruise. Muscular was flung into the air by the hit. Out into an area with calm air. Momenta was quick to follow. She must have nullified her weight again because her jump took her easily twenty feet into the air. 

As she flew at them Kastuki felt Muscular unclench his fists. He must have realized that hitting her would be useless. She could just make herself the weight of a feather and go flying off before the impact could do any damage. Muscular hit the ground with a grunt as it flared the pain in his leg. Momenta landed seconds behind.

Katsuki could see how Momenta had her heavily armoured fist held back most likely to gain more momentum as she swung it forward. Muscular saw it too because he twisted to the side at the last second letting her fist swing past. His arm shot out, quick as a snake, and latched onto her extended forearm. Shit, If he landed a hit when he was holding her she wouldn’t go rocketing off again, Musculars fist would cleave straight through her. 

She desperately started tugging to get away but was unable to free herself. Muscular pulled her forward to unbalance her, and Katsuki noticed that she probably only weighed a pound or two. As she stumbled forward Muscular swung a fist at her helmeted head. At the last second Katsuki put all his effort into making the fingers that were gripping her start twitching madly, so when the hit impacted she ricocheted away unharmed. 

Kastuki could feel a flash of confusion and irritation, course though Muscular. He looked down at the hand and flexed his fingers a few times as though to assure himself they still worked. But he quickly turned his attention back to the fight. Momenta looked shaken from her close brush with death but kept jumping and dodging all the same.

Now that Muscular was used to her quirk and fighting style he caught up to her fast. Right as he was about to catch her again Katsuki made the muscle in his right leg spasm causing his leap to go wild and him to crash face first into a car. Muscular started cursing loudly as he pulled himself out. “What are you doing to me, woman!?” he screamed at her. 

“I don't know what youre talking about, but know that backup is on its way so you should surrender.” She replied in a curt voice. 

Muscular ignored her attempt at getting him to stand down and resumed his attack.

Muscular’s glee at fighting was quickly being overwhelmed by his anger. Every time he got close to catching the hero, Katsuki would spasm some muscle or throw off his aim letting her slip away. He tried not to do the same thing twice so that Muscular couldn’t try and resist it. It was hard to force him to do anything with so little of his total will power subdued. Katsuki could quickly feel his own strength waning as the fight carried on. 

His concentration must have slipped for a second because Muscular managed to grab her ankle. Katsuki tried to flex his finger out of the grip but found that Muscular was resisting him. The villain squeezed, the heavy armour on her leg gave way with a loud crunch first and then she screamed as her bone followed with a snap. Before the villain could mutilate her leg furthur Katsuki felt Deku’s will flood into his own. One finger after the other unclenched until Momenta was able to pry her ruined leg out of his grip. On one leg she pivoted around and landed a hammer fist blow straight onto the junction between Muscular’s neck and shoulder. He was slammed into the ground so hard his face buried itself into the concrete. 

Muscular ripped himself free and bellowed in rage. “Who the hell is doing this!? Show yourself you filthy coward!”  He didn't keep pursuing the hero instead he was wildly searching around for the culprit causing his body to malfunction. 

Katsuki took the chance to see what Deku’s intervention cost them. Almost a quarter of all the progress they had made was gone in the brief span of time Deku wasn't maintaining it. Damnit. He wormed his consciousness to hold onto what Deku was currently commanding, hoping the nerd would get the hint. It took a second but eventually Deku released his will and took over for Katsuki on interference duty. 

It chaffed having to give up like that, but he knew that with Momenta’s injured leg they would have to interfere more than ever to keep her alive, and he was out of energy. Katsuki noticed that she had started compressing the air again. He felt Muscular cough a little at the weird sensation of the dense air filling his lungs. Once Muscular stopped looking around for the culprit to his muscle spasms he refocused his attention on the hero. 

Deku was tripping Muscular left and right to give Momenta a chance on one leg. She was shooting off at the same speed but was having a harder time catching herself. He figured out why she had weighed down the air again when she used her hands pushing through it to change directions and stabilize herself. Almost as though she were swimming. 

Muscular screamed in rage at his feet tangled together once again, causing him to faceplant. He angrily pulled himself to his feet and looked around for his prey. But he spun at the sound of an approaching vehicle. The sleek looking car slammed to a stop and four hero’s poured out. Muscular must have calculated the odds of winning, especially with his newfound inability to keep his limbs under control and decided to save his fight for another day. He quickly bounded away, two heroes tried to pursue but were unable to keep up with his enormous speed and were quickly left behind.

Chapter Text

Muscular’s response to losing a fight was apparently to drink his sorrows away. After escaping the Hero's he put on a shitty disguise and made his way to some dingy bar. Katsuki wasn't an expert on alcohol but it seemed that Muscular was drinking more than average, the bartender's face as he poured him yet another shot corroborated Katsuki’s theory. It seems the effects of the alcohol translated over into the minds sharing Muscular’s body because Katsuki felt his thoughts begin to slow and a pleasant hazy feel took over his mind. They didn't seem to be as affected by it as the villain was but it was enough that Katsuki feared it might undo some of their progress in subverting him. 

After Muscular’s head began to spin and Katsuki was beginning to become unsure of if they should even bother putting the effort into taking over, Muscular stood up from the bar and stumbled his way home. Katsuki almost giggled when Deku caused Muscular to trip over air and land on his face for the nth time that day. But at the last second he remembered himself. Muscular grumbled and got back to his feet slowly. He carried on getting home.

Muscular was unconscious the second his face hit his pillow. The bed seemed unreasonably comfortable but Kasuki valianty stayed awake. He could feel Deku’s consciousness falling asleep and was quick to say 

“ Deku, come on, wake up buddy .”

“ Shut up Kachan, it's my turn to sleep.” Deku responded grumpily.

“No no, don't sleep. It's probably gonna be easier to take him over when he's drunk like this. ” Deku still radiated anger but roused himself nonetheless 

Katsuki felt around his will and indeed noticed that it was easier to remove Muscular’s control over his body than usual. Both him and Deku worked as hard as they could but eventually they joined Suran and Muscular in unconsciousness, unable to continue through the combination of inebriation and fatigue from a long hard day.

……..

The pulses of pain that spiked through Musculars head in time with his heartbeat was a dual edged sword, Izuku thought. It weakened the villain's control over his body as he was distracted, but it also served as fuel to his rage. He woke up around midnight after passing out ten hours earlier. He didn't even bother to try and find a good fight, he just re-donned his cloak and started prowling around blood lust thick in his mind. 

The pain from the hangover pales in comparison to the strain of forcing the villain to comply with so much effort. Izuku knew that Muscular was a serial killer and was going to kill as soon as he could. All they could do was to take him over as fast as they could and hope they could let his victims get away in the meantime.  

Izuku felt a spike of dread go through him as a Muscular finally stumbled across another person. The Villain approached the middle aged man and grabbed him by the shoulder to turn him around. The man seemed a little drunk and disoriented but was cognizant enough to realize what sort of situation he had stumbled into.

Muscular narrowed his eyes and growled out “What's your quirk?”

The man tried to pry the hand off of him uselessly and started trembling instead of answering.

Muscular roughly shook the man, who winced at the motion “I said what's your quirk?! Answer me!”

The terrified man gulped and said “I- I can a-align things, I can algn things, that's all.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes to center himself. When he opened them he was trembling less. “Hey man, I have kids, please let me go.”

“Tch, I dont give a shit about your kids. Can you fight with your quirk?” 

“N-no , of course not!”

Izuku could feel disgust flooding through Muscular “Useless, not even good for a fight.”

“Then you’ll let me go?”

Muscular glanced around briefly and then turned back “Nah, at least you'll be good for a little stress relief.” 

Izuku felt terrible seeing the look on the poor man's face as Muscular cocked back his fist. When the hit flew Izuku felt both Kachan and Suran tug on the fist as well as himself causing it to go wide and instead impacting the wall.

Muscular started cursing again “How long does this fucking quirk last?” He was pisssed now. As he pulled back his arm to try again Izuku could feel him straining to keep his arm under control. It was significantly harder to throw off his aim the second time. He could feel Muscular grin through his fury “I've got you now, you bastard.” Muscular must have figured out he could feel the coils of Izuku’s quirk because he could feel where Muscular had tightened his control over where they were planning on effecting next. 

This isn't good, if Muscular figured out how to sense the quirk then they wouldn't be able to sneakily take him over, they would have to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of power. And Muscular wasn't conveniently running from the cops like Suran had been, so there was no paranoia to exploit. 

Muscular’s will condensed over his arm, almost locking them out completely. Izuku could feel Kachan tugging at the villain's leg trying to get him to step back, but they could barely do more than make things twitch right now so it was in vain. 

The man that Muscular was trying to kill was desperately trying to get away. He had started hitting Muscular again and again, but they bounced off. Muscular hadn't even needed to cover himself in the protective shell of his quirk. He simply used a small flash of his power to strengthen his natural musculature.

As he pulled his arm back for the third time Izuku knew they wouldn't be able to make him miss. He did the only thing he could think of and liquefied Muscular’s arm using Ooze at the last second. Muscular’s befuddlement over his hand harmlessly splashing into the man's face would have been comical in any other situation. 

“The hell?” Muscular said as he pulled his hand in front of his face to examine. Izuku didn't have control over the slime section any more than he had before, so he felt as Muscular started moving the slime back and forth, testing it out. While he was distracted Izuku flexed the muscles in his off hand letting the man shimmy free. Muscular didn't bother with more than half assed swipe as the man ran off, to preocupide the crystal clear goop that had replaced his hand. 

Izuku was kind of fascinated when Muscular activated his own quirk on the slime and strands of muscles started growing within, attaching to themselves and forming a  grotesque useless blob of slimy flesh. Izuku decided that was enough experimentation on Muscular’s behalf for today and turned off Ooze.  The hand reformed perfectly and the muscles realigned themselves to follow the contours of his hand in seconds. 

Muscular’s bafflement didn't last long as he figured out whatever had turned his hand to liquid was the same thing that had been messing him up all day. Once again he angrily looked around for a perpetrator. “You filthy coward!” He screamed. Muscular started flexing his hands and feeling around for Izuku’s quirk. “Dont like me killing people eh?” Muscular murmured to himself “Maybe i'll just have to force you to show yourself!” he yelled, probably so his mystery saboteur could hear.

Muscular’s anger had taken on a manic edge as he furiously searched for another victim. It didn’t take him long to stumble across a young couple. Muscular leaped at them as fast as he could, The girl pushed her boyfriend out of the way and tried to dodge but Muscular managed to clip her side. She cried out in pain from the impact. Muscular clamped his hands over his ears as a piercing wail filled the air, he quickly grew muscle fibers to cover the opening to his ear and whipped around. The boy was pointing his hands in their direction, the source of the noise. 

As Muscular leaped for him Izuku liquified his feet causing him faceplant. The girl rushed over and the two ran trying to get away. Muscular focus zeroed in on his feet and forced it back into flesh, Izuku was dismayed that he could do that. Muscular leaped after the pair, hands extended out in front of himself to grab them. Izuku tried to re liquify his hands but Muscular must be focusing on keeping them solid. 

Suddenly Izuku felt a family tugging sensation in Muscular’s hands and a large explosion threw them back from the escaping civilians. After Muscular landed he turned his hands towards himself to examine the new development. Kachan let off another large explosion that hit the villain directly in the face. 

Izuku felt the searing pain of their face burning. Muscular turned his hands away from himself hastily and started looking around again. All the sudden  he froze in place as he put the pieces together. Slowly he started trembling with rage. His hands flexed and twitched until finally he screamed “Gestalt!! You're dead! I fiscking killed you, You're dead!” 

Well it was a good run, but now that Muscular had figured out how Izuku’s quirk worked there was no point in keeping quiet.

“Oh Gotto, you may have killed us, but we are far from dead.” Izuku said clearly into Muscular’s mind.

“Wha- Who said that”  

“We did!” Izuku said again.

Muscular went to put his hands on his head but thought better of it when they started sparking. “Get out of my fucking head!” 

“Wait, why the hell did you blow our cover Deku?” Kachan asked.

“Yeah, what the hell kid, I thought we were being sneaky. ” Suran said 

“Because he has already figured out the quirk, no point in keeping it a secret now. ” Izuku replied.

Muscular was walking around at random  trying to figure out what was happening. His mind was filled with a burning rage and even the smallest traces of fear “Why the hell are you in my head Gestalt!?” 

“This is what you get for being such a piece of shit.” Kachan said. And then ignited Musculars hand causing the recoil to wack it into his face.

“I won, I killed you, so you should be dead.” Muscular said, his voice was shaky with rage. 

“How hard is it to get through your fucking head. We, dont, die.”  Kachan taunted.

“ I shot you with that poison. How did you survive?” Muscular questioned sounding incredulous. He was definitely taking this worse than the last two people to wake up with this quirk.

“Oh, we didn’t, that poison worked like a champ by the way.” Izuku said casually.

“If you died of the poison, how are you here?” Muscular groweld

“You know how it is sometimes.” Izuku replied, trying to sound annoying.

“Get out of my head!” he yelled again.

“No can do, bitch. We’re stuck here.”   Kachan crowed. And to rub it in, Kachan liquified a chunk of slime on the back of Muscular knee and used it to let off an explosion, temporarily buckling the villain’s leg. 

“For how long?” Muscular asked, starting to sound slightly distraught.

“For fucking ever.” Kachan replied.

“Yeah you're stuck with these little shits for the rest of your life.” Suran added.

“Suran that isn't right, he wont just be stuck with us for his lifetime. He will be dragged along to our next host when he dies, and then the one after that. ” Izuku corrected.

“Oh yeah, forgot about that .”

Muscular had sat himself down on a bench, probably so Kachan couldn't knock him over. “What the hell, why do you sound different? Are you multiple people?” He questioned.

“Why do you think we always refer to ourselves as ‘we’ dipshit?” Kachan snarled.

“Because you're goddamn crazy!”

“Nope, we use it with complete accuracy.” Izuku piped in.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He asked

“You have the fucking nerve to ask that! ?” Kachan shouted.

“I'm guessing it’s because you disagree with me killing people?" Muscular said with derision. He had a nasty snear on his face.

When they didn't respond imediaty his grin grew. "In that case I'll just have to do it more until you leave!” Muscular shouted and broke out into manic laughter.

“We can't .” Izuku said 

“Too bad!” 

Izuku knew that Muscular was twisted but it was entirely different to feel the man's mind coming to such sick conclusions. At least Suran was sane when they took him over, at least at the start.

Muscular got off the bench and started hunting again. He moved areas regularly so that heros wouldn't catch on and put a stop to his fun. They all did their best to keep him from finding anybody. When he did they would use explosions and liquification to keep Muscular preoccupied so that he couldn't kill anyone. There were a few close calls and many broken bones but so far all his victims had managed to escape.

Every moment they were using tricks and activating quirks to cause the villian pain or just to distract him. He couldn't kill people when his lungs were filling themselves with slime. He couldn't chase inocent civilians when there were explosions going off on his leg, every one agrivating the wounds that had yet to heal.

With each confrontation his iron will was gradually worn down. And there was only one of him and three of them. He was slipping. The progress was slow, but it was also invitable 

They tried their best to keep him awake that night like they had done with Suran to hasten his mental decay. Muscular didn't bother with fighting back he just took some sleeping medication and knocked them all out.

Chapter Text

Muscular laid low the next couple of days, probably trying to keep the heat off himself. It was a mistake on his part because when he was busy fighting they couldn't make progress, but with him just lounging around his apartment they didn't even have to bother with wasting effort activating the various quirks. 

Kachan had discovered a special kind of joy when he figured out that if he activated Musculars quirk and twitched the muscle right it would cause a charlie horse. It hurt them just as much, but Izuku liked to think that he and Kachan both had developed a very strong pain tolerance. And neither of them cared if Suran hurt as well.

Muscular seemed to figure out that they made more progress taking him over when he was sedentary after he drifted off watching television and his own arm started strangling him. 

He went back to prowling alleyways and side streets searching for people on their own, or in small groups. He only attacked one or two times, and ran as soon as a he saw a hero. He never attacked in the same place twice so that no patterns could be found. but each time he got better and better at working around their interference. Even as they gained more and more total control, Muscular was figuring out their patterns and adapting.

…….

It was almost noon, four days after they had revealed themselves, that Muscular had truly realized the hopelessness of his situation. They would be with him forever, slowly chipping away at his psyche, until only they remained.  

Izuku would have felt bad, if Muscular hadn’t been one of the worst human beings he had ever met. The villain laid on his couch staring up at the ceiling for hours. Izuku could feel the despair crushing him and he knew Kachan could as well. They exploited Muscular’s misery in order to take even more control from him.  

Finally he got up from the couch and stumbled over to his kitchen. He flung open cabinets looking for something, finally he pulled out a big glass bottle full of some amber liquid. After ripping off the cork he took a long swig of the stuff. It burned as it went down his throat but undeterred he quickly took another large gulp. Izuku held Kachan back from making Muscular choke like they usually did whenever he tried to eat or drink, because he vaguely remembered that he was easier to subdue when he was drunk. 

Muscular hastily shoved a cap on his head and made his way out the door. Izuku sighed with relief when he noticed that Muscular grabbed his wallet, he probably was just going for groceries and not another murder spree. 

Kachan was laughing because Muscular had brought his booze with him and was taking swigs as he walked down the crowded sidewalk. People were shooting them dirty looks all over the place. The looks increased as Muscular started talking to them out loud.

“Oh man it's not even afternoon and you're already drinking? Might as well just give up and hand control over to us now.” Kachan cackled

“Shut up!” Muscular yelled back, keeping his volume down slightly. 

“Pfft, why should I? Not like anybody but you can hear me.” Kachan replied.

Muscular took another sip. He wasn't drunk yet, but Izuku could feel his thoughts getting slightly jumbled. Muscular, being much more used to alcohol, was fairing a bit better than them. 

“I'm going to make you regret this.” Muscular mumbled to himself.

“How?” Izuku asked, hoping that because the villain was tipsy he would let his plans spill.

Muscular didn't reply, Instead he crossed the road as the walk light turned green. He walked over to a trash bin and dropped his half empty bottle into it. Izuku was so perplexed by the villain doing something as courteous as throwing something away that he didn't even feel when Muscular primed his quirk. 

It happened so fast that none of them could do anything about it, Muscular turned on his quirk in his legs and jumped as hard as he could into the road at an oncoming bus. It left cracks in the cement he jumped so hard. Muscular used the brief second he was airborn to completely coat himself in muscles, so when the oncoming bus hit him it was the vehicle that took the brunt of the damage. Muscular jump had him soaring straight into the engine, which exploded on impact. 

The bus screeched to a halt and flipped over. Cars in the intersection desperately swerved to avoid a collision. And Izuku heard more than one crash where cars impacted one another.

 Muscular clawed his way out of the ruined bus and flopped to the ground coughing from fume inhalation. Out of the corner of his eye Izuku could see the bus driver crumpled over the steering wheel dead. There was blood running down from his head and shattered glass everywhere. At least some of the people in the bus must have survived because Izuku could hear screaming coming from within the burning wreck.

Izuku had no time to despair over who else might have been killed when Muscular tried to leap at civilians who were screaming and trying to escape. They liquified his shins, the slime unable to withstand the strain of Muscular’s quirk buckled before he could jump at anyone. Muscular barley even stumbled before he settled his will back into his legs and forced them to turn back to flesh. 

Muscular was tipsy enough that their reactions were slightly impared, but not enough that his fighting ability was lessened. In fact his own rage mixed with the alcohol seemed to have increased his ability to fight them off in a fast pace fight, if only temporarily. This must have been his plan all along.

Muscular screamed into the sky and it came out sounding almost like a roar. His shout turned into laughter until he ran out of breath. He heaved shallow breaths erratically before he centered himself and returned to hunting frightened civilians.

Right before he made contact with them, they were encased in wood. This must be from Kamui Woods, Izuku thought. Good, the heroes were here. Then he felt a spike of dread, killing heroes had been Muscular’s main hobby for years. Muscular gleefully tore himself out of the wooden prison and made a dash for the hero.

Kamui Woods’ eyes widened as he realized who he would be fighting but narrowed as he focused in on the fight. Kamui was strong, Izuku knew, maybe not as strong as Muscular but he definitely could hold his own until backup arrived. Springy wood exploded as Muscular hits shredded it, causing slivers to go flying. Muscular would have gotten a splinter in one of his eyes if it hadn't already been replaced by a prosthetic. 

Kamui managed to catch Muscular around the ankle and lift him up into the air depriving him of leverage. Izuku was briefly hopeful that it might be able to contain them, but had reality reasserted when Muscular’s ironhard will ripped Ooze from Izuku's grip and activated the quirk on his leg. They slipped from the wood’s hold and fell to the ground. Muscular released the quirk and started chasing the hero again. 

Izuku knew that Muscular could control the slime, but had figured that was the extent. But thinking back it made sense that each one of them had access to all the quirks. Suran had been messing around with Explosion and Kachan had no trouble turning on Ooze after all. 

Izuku could see Kamui getting tired as the fight continued. He was having to produce a huge amount of wood to slow Muscular down, this must be a drain on his entire system. Izuku felt a searing pain on their right shoulder, when Muscular looked down there was a gash that started healing as soon as he focused his quirk on it.  

Muscular looked up to see the hero Mr. Slash standing twenty feet away, holding a large butcher's knife. If Izuku remembered right from the raid, his power was to project the edge of any blade he was holding a very long distance. Izuku had briefly seen him using it to slash tires and ruin clothing to keep people from getting away. Izuku saw Mr. Slash hack at the air with his meat cleaver and another gash appeared on Muscular’s chest. The blade must be razor sharp to be able to cut through Muscular’s muscles. 

Muscular jumped in order to avoid a grasping branch of wood. Kamui had used the brief respite to catch his breath. Muscular had switched his target to Mr. Slash as he seemed to be the easier target. Muscular thickened the muscles on his face until his remaining eye had enough mass surrounding and protecting it that Mr. Slashes cuts wouldn't be able to inflict damage easily. 

Muscular dodged and weaved the two heroes while stubbornly holding all of their wills at bay, limiting their sabotage. Finnlay Kamui slipped up and Muscular sprinted at Mr. Slash, he grabbed the hero by the collar of his slightly unbuttoned dress shirt. The material must be made out of something stronger than cotton, because it didn't tear in Musculars grip. 

Mr. Slash smoothly grabbed something at his belt and stabbed a long thin blade directly at Muscular’s eye. The villain turned his head causing the blade to bury itself in the muscles protecting his face. Muscular used his off hand to grab the knife and toss it away. Mr. Slash’s hand darted for a pocket knife at his belt but Muscular used a brief flash of his quirk to slap his arm, breaking it instantly.

Mr. Slash grit his teeth at the pain and started trying to kick his way from. Muscular responded by slamming Mr. Slash into a street post not even bothering to turn on his quirk, because he knew they would turn him to slime. Even though Kachan liquified his arms the villain still kept slamming the hero's head into the post, over and over. Mr. Slash had blood dripping down from his hair and his eyelids were fluttering in the effort to stay conscious.

Izuku knew that if he didn’t do something fast Mr. Slash would die right in front of him. He did the only thing he could think of. He formed a bead of nitroglycerin right in the center of Muscular’s brain.

“ Stop!” Izuku screamed “You stop now. Or I will detonate this and kill all of us, right here! ”

Muscular must have felt it, because he froze, still holding Mr. Slash. 

“What.” Muscular said, deadly calm.

“I said if you try to kill him I will explode your head and kill you. In fact if you try to kill anyone again I will kill you. ” Izuku was afraid, but felt his voce solidify.

“You wouldn't, You would die.” He said still in a serious voice.

“ I’m willing to die to save someone. ”

“Why?! You would lose if you did that.” 

“Some things are worth more than winning and losing.”

Somehow, even through the blood running down his face and the countless bruises Mr. Slash managed to look confused at Muscular’s one sided conversation. Izuku could barely hear Kamui woods demanding that Muscular release his fellow hero, unable to move because Muscular had a hostage. Muscular started laughing again.

“I don't believe you!” Muscular bellowed  “You don't have the resolve.”  

And he was right, Izuku was fully willing to die in order to save someone. But he would never be able to kill them when that meant he would be killing Kachan too. Even Suran, who he hated with a passion, he would feel bad killing. So he watched helplessly as Muscular resumed bashing Mr. Slash into a pulp. 

Izuku felt like crying in relief as blue denim fibers wrapped around Muscular’s torso and lifted him into the air. Best Jeanist leveled them with an icy stare. 

“Normally it is frowned upon for heroes to kill, In fact I find it extremely distasteful. But I think in your case it wouldn't be hard to find an exception.” The hero said coldly. 

“Oh man, it would mean looking like a complete pomp for the rest of our lives, but we could be an actual hero! Come on asswipe do somthing stupid so he kills us!” Kastuki cheered.

Izuku actually found himself agreeing with Kachan. It would be cruel to Best Jeanist to subject him to this quirk. But it would take care of Muscular as well as give Izuku and Kacchan a way to live their dream.

There was no way that Best Jeanist’s costume was made of normal denim, unless it was being reinforced by his quirk. Because the fibers restraining them were holding up to Muscualr’s thrashing. 

Izuku could see Kamui woods and paramedics rushing over to the comatose form of Mr. Slash. The police were setting up a barricade to keep people out. The fibers holding them in the air were digging into their flesh painfully tight. Izuku was nervous for when the police put quirk suppressant cuffs on Muscular. How it would affect them? But figured they would probably survive, as they had survived Eraserhead. 

Best Jeanist looked away from Muscular for a single second and the villain struck. He used Ooze to form nitro all down his back and then detonated it. Most of the fibers burnt and tore and the rest Muscular simply liquified and squeezed out of. He dropped to the ground and then sprinted in the opposite direction. Best Jeanist would definitely win in a fight every time, but he was no match for Muscular in speed, quickly the villain escaped arrest once again.

Chapter Text

It had been almost two weeks since Muscular had killed them, and they had a large portion under control most times. Muscular had quickly learned how to use the slime so there wasn't much point to liquifying him beside to weaken his punches and leaps. 

Muscular was spending an increasing amount of time intoxicated, he used it to fall asleep, and probably just to drown out their voices. Either way once they learned how to somewhat function in that decreased mental state it started to get easier and easier to take him over. 

He was getting paranoid and jumpy just like Suran had towards the end, he also was having bad mood swings and was making increasingly rash decisions. It all culminated when he went out hunting in the middle of the afternoon. He didn't even bother putting on a disguise or a shirt; he just went out and started angrily stumbling around. 

As casually as he could Izuku took Muscular’s arm and shoved it into his back pocket. He didn't seem to realize anything was amiss until Izuku quickly activated Muscular’s quirk and smashed his phone to pieces. Muscular started howling with rage. 

“That's it! I'm killing the next sorry sucker I see if it kills me!” He didn't seem to realize that he could talk to them in his head. None of them had corrected him because it was hilarious to see all the faces people made when the villain raged to himself in public.

“Don't you remember? Even that won't get rid of us. ” Kachan taunted.

Muscular stumbled into a wall and gripped it. The brickwork started to crumble before he shoved off and swayed down the alleyway. 

He turned a corner to a scene of four teenagers making fun of and shoving around another. The boy they were laughing at was lanky and had purple hair that stuck up in all directions.

“Don't tell me you're actually going to take the entrance exam next week, Shinsou?” One boy taunted. 

“Yeah, don't you know that U.A doesent take villains?” another asked as he started laughing. 

The purple haired kid, Shinsou, had his head down and his fists were shaking as he clenched them at his side. He looked like he wanted to retort, but for some reason was keeping his mouth shut.

Another boy shoved the him and he stumbled back into the wall. The whole group were laughing and looked like they were about to leave when Muscular came around the corner. He was laughing too, but where the kids were cruel and mocking his was crazed.

They all backed away and started to look scared as they slowly recognized him. His picture had been all over the news the whole week as his attack on the bus was made public. His step only faltered a bit when Kachan turned his whole leg to slime. Izuku was using tendrils growing out of his face to let off small explosions and try to gunk up his eye. Muscular just swatted them away and continued advancing towards the group. 

“Aww kid don't worry about it, being a villain isn't all that bad, just look at me. I'm doing fine!” He screeched the last part. Since with no dye in the slime and just a few globs of blood contaminating it, his bones and a few organs were visible through where parts of him had been liquified.

Muscular ran forward without activating his quirk to avoid smashing his fragile boneless slime legs and jumped at one of the bullies. The kid barely managed to dodge back in time. Another kid whacked him and all the sudden their vision was now flavors and sounds were made out of color, the whole world still made since, it was just disorienting to have complete synesthesia. 

Muscular managed to sneak a brief flash of his quirk past them and used it to punch out and cause a blast of wind pressure that hit the kid with the synesthesia quirk and sent him flying into a trash bin. The kid cried out and it sounded like a mix of orange and reds before the quirk faded and normal vision returned. Muscular turned to the rest of the group. The purple haired kid had shoved the others behind himself and was standing protectively in front of them. 

“What the hell do you want man? Just leave us alone!” He shouted.

Muscular grinned at the boy, which must look grotesque with half his face being clear, and ran straight for him. Unfortunately Muscular had the group backed into a corner, so they couldn't escape. Izuku tried to trip him up but Muscular managed to overpower him and keep his balance. Muscular was already expecting the explosions so he managed to compensate for the change in momentum. Kachan was limited by having people nearby and wasn't able to use large explosions to further disrupt the villain.  

The boy stood his ground and kept firmly in front of his bullies even as Muscular grabbed him around the throat and began to squeeze. The kid uselessly clawed at the arm. The boys behind him were petrified in fear and were unable to do anything. Izuku tried with all his might to get Muscular to release him but was unable. Izuku felt Muscular’s remaining eye begin to water from his own sorrow.

Muscular was still laughing as he answered the kid's earlier question. “Me? I just want to kill you-” His voice cut off as his entire body froze. The boy heaved in a breath as Muscular’s hand lossend slightly. It was still clenched so the boy was unable to get out but he was no longer dying.

It was the oddest sensation, Izuku could feel the effect of whatever quirk the boy had used to lock Muscular out of his own body. Where Muscular’s will had felt like steel cables this quirk felt like solid diamond, encasing Muscular’s mind, utterly unbreakable. Oddly enough the three of them were not included in the quirk and were still free. 

“ Holy shit, This kid just saved us a lot of work. ” Suran cheered as they flowed their wills into Musculars body. But as Izuku moved their hands away from the boy's throat, whatever quirk holding Muscular inplace shattered. The boy's quirk must be unbreakable from the inside but fragile to outside influence.

Muscular shook himself awake and was fast in resuming his chokehold on the boy. The teenager's eyes were wide with both fear and incredulity. Izuku didn't think Muscular realized much about the kids' quirk, probably just writing it off as more bullshit from them. Because he didn't seem any more frightened than before. 

Izuku wracked his mind for what he could do in this situation but didnt come up with anything. It seemed that Muscular had finally gotten lucky. And because of that another innocent life was going to be lost.

…... 

Shinsou Hitoshi cursed as he looked at the time on his phone. It was eleven thirty, half an hour after his favorite cafe to study at stopped serving breakfast. Uhg, he would just have to make due on an empty stomach and coffee. He would have come earlier if he hadn't slept in from staying up so late worrying about the entrance exam. Even thinking about it caused a spike of dread to go through him. He only had four more days until it was time.

He shoved down his worry and mentaly went over his list of subjects to study. He knew that the written test was supposedly just as hard as the practical. He was confident that he could pass it though. And at least get into the general course. 

After ordering a sweet monstrosity of a drink he made his way over to his table to drink it. He decided to check the news before buckling down. He pulled up his phone and saw that more reports of that villain, Muscular were coming in. He had watched the news of him fighting three heroes and was unnerved that the crazed villain had managed to escape from the current number four, who was supposedly one of the best at apprehension in the business.

The villain had been attacking people at random, all statements said he was acting strangely. twitching and talking to himself. People were warned to run on sight as he was a violent, unhinged, serial killer, and had a super strong quirk.

The bottom of Hitoshi’s drink made a disgusting slurping noise as he finished it. He shook it and sucked one more time to get the last dregs and then put the cup down. Nothing else big showed up on the news, besides more speculation that All Might would be teaching at UA this year, so he turned off his phone and got to work studying.

A few hours later he knew he needed to get home before his mom went ballistic over him being gone, and left the shop. It was a nice day out, he decided, hot, but not overly so. He took the long way to avoid getting home for a bit longer when he saw some jerks from his old middle school. He tried to duck his head to avoid attention but they saw him anyway. 

“Hey man, Long time no see.” The leader of the group, whose name Hitoshi had forgotten, called.

Hitoshi ignored him, hoping he would get the hint and leave. But he had no such luck. The boy called again louder “Hey Shinsou, Over here!’.

Hitoshi sighed, before turning around. “What do you want?” 

The boy kept his mouth shut, unwilling to respond to anything he said. He felt a pang of anger go through him, but he was used to people being afraid of him for his quirk.

One of the boy’s cronies who’s name Hitoshi actually remembered for some reason added “Man it's kinda rude that you would talk to us like that, what if your quirk went off?”  Hitoshi pressed his lips together visibly so they could see. He could explain that his quirk is highly limited and that they would snap out of it as soon as somebody bumped them. But he knew that would be a waste of breath. They most likely wouldn't see eachother again, so if he went along with it they would probably just leave him alone.

“We haven't seen you around,” The leader said again, what was his name? K something. The boy glanced at the study books that Hitoshi was holding. “Trying to get into some big fancy school, are ya?” Kama, or Kuma. He grabbed the books from Hitoshi who just let him. He rifled through them. “Wait, these are UA study books. Are you really trying to go there? No offense man but you never did the best in school. How do you expect to get in?” Yeah Because getting good grades was a great way to get accused of cheating. Nothing good came of it besides a stain on his records. The boy handed him back his books which had been all ruffled and disorganized. Oh that's right Kuda was his name. 

As Hitoshi went to take them, Kuda dropped the books. The boy put on an apologetic expression “Oh, I'm sorry man. I thought you had already grabbed it, whoops.” Hitoshi grit his teeth and bent down to pick up his stuff. A pamphlet that had previously been buried had slid out. 

Cronie number three picked it up and read “UA Hero Course Practical Exam, What to Expect and How to Prepare” the pamphlet itself had been pretty useless, talking about refining your quirk application and physical fitness. Hitoshi knew it was a load of bull, knew that all that mattered was a strong quirk in the end. But he couldn't help buying it. He needed to get in, it was all he had ever wanted was to be a hero.

“Don't tell me you're actually going to take the entrance exam next week, Shinsou?” Cronie number one taunted 

Cronie number two piped back “Yeah, don't you know that U.A doesent take villains?” 

He was shoved back into a wall by cronie number three, Kuda just stood back and watched with an amused glint in his eye. They all started laughing but stopped when they heard somebody come around the corner laughing as well.  

The man that came around the corner was cackling in a horrible tortured sounding voice that was almost eclipsed by the small explosions going off around his face. To Hitoshi's horror, he recognized this man. He remembered seeing on the news as he killed ten innocent people by crashing a bus and causing a huge car accident in an intersection and then went on to beat a hero half to death. 

The mans laughing cut off “Aww kid don't worry about it, being a villain isn't all that bad, just look at me. I'm doing fine!” He screeched.  

The villain was grotesque to look at, half his flesh looked like it had turned to goop. With tendrils of the same fleshy slime flying around and getting into his own way. Hitoshi could see Muscular’s ribs and a few of his organs through his torso.

Muscular ran at them. Hitoshi felt his stomach roil as he saw one of the villain's legs bend the wrong way and then fix itself. All too soon Muscular was among them and swung his massive fist straight at cronie number two who jumped back with a yelp. Hitoshi saw Kuda slap the villain's back and scamper back as fast as he could. Kuda had some sort of sensory quirk if Hitoshi remembered.

Muscular shook his head to try and clear his vision. When that didn't help he turned around to face Kuda, He swung his fist and sent a wave of pressurized air that caused Kuda to go flying into some trash cans with a cry. The villain blinked a couple times and turned back to them.

Hitoshi barely remembers moving in front of boys that had been bullying him a few seconds earlier. He did remember spouting the first bullshit question to pop into his mind in the hope that he could brainwash the villain. It didn’t work though because the next second he was being choked. This close he could see how the villain's skin was cracked and blistered from the explosions that were still harassing him.

Well, this is it, he thought. He shouldn't have bothered trying to get into UA. He was just going to be another statistic reported on the evening news when eventually some hero finally catches Muscular.  

“Me?” Hitoshi hears Muscular mutter, and didn't even realize at first that his quirk recognizes that as a valid target before Muscular screams “I just want to kill-” his quirk latches on and he can feel it sink around the villain. Completely encasing him in his own will.

He takes a second to catch his breath, and notices the potent stench of burning meat heavy in the air. He manages to fight down the impulse to gag. What should he order? He couldn't just send the villain to the police, there was no way they would have been prepared to handle someone like Muscular on such short notice. The memory of him escaping Best Jeanist briefly popped into his mind. 

All of a sudden he felt the strangest sensation through his quirk. Muscular was moving even though he was still completely subdued. He felt as Muscular’s hands gently released his neck. But the motion snapped him out of Hitoshi’s quirk and the villain clamped down his hands again. He was too slow, he could have said anything in that brief span but now his chance is gone. 

He kicked and punched as hard as he could, but his hits did nothing but injure his own hands. Muscular for some reason was gritting his teeth in effort. Which didn't make sense as it probably shouldn't be hard to choke out some random kid. But nonetheless he saw as Muscular arms began to shake and his fingers started twitching. His hand loosened its grip just enough for Hitoshi to suck in some air. 

This was his chance, he had to get him to respond, he had to say something “Ho-” he coughed “How did y-ou get out?” He barely managed to wheeze 

Whatever was keeping Muscular from strangling him seemed to give out, his hands re-cinched themselves around his throat. Hitoshi could feel his head getting heavy from the lack of blood flow to it. If Muscular responded he would only have a second to give a command. What could he say that would prevent him from killing all of them?

Hitoshi could see Kuda fumbling with his phone trying to call the cops probably. The strain on his neck increased as Muscular lifted him up into the air. He flailed with his legs trying to kick the villain.  

The arms holding him shook slightly as Muscular started laughing again. He lifted Hitoshi up to eye level and he could see the madness swirling around in the villain's eye. 

“Oh kid, you picked the wrong guy to try that mental shit on-” Once again Hitoshi’s quirk took hold of him.

Hitoshi grabbed onto his arm and pulled himself up enough to gasp in a breath. And then as fast as he could before the villain broke free of his quirk again he said the one thing he could think of that would let all of them leave this alley alive.

“Kill yourself.” 

It came out raspy and quiet but he could feel the tug on his quirk indicating that the command was recognized.

Muscular’s gaze went glassy and he stared out in front of himself, for a brief moment he was still before his head burst in a gory explosion. Hitoshi felt blood and viscera splatter all over himself. And barely managed to catch himself as the villain’s headless corpse that had been holding him up previously, collapsed to the ground with a wet sounding thump. 

He could hardly process what he had just done, oh god he had just killed somebody. Globs of blood were splattered all around the alley. Muscular’s corpse was gone from the shoulder up. He blinked as something dripped past his eye.

Ever so slowly he turned around to face the boys he had tried to protect. They were all splattered with gore too. Just less so from being further from the explosion. Hitoshi took one look at the absolute horror written across their faces and threw up.

“Oh damn, that is just naaasty.” came an amused sounding voice from inside his head.

Chapter Text

He didn't even hear the voice, too preoccupied with having just gruesomely murdered somebody in front of four people that had been in the midst of discriminating against him and would likely have zero qualms against reporting his illegal quirk usage to the police.

Kuda had his phone pulled away from his head as he gaped at the scene. He was furthest from the blast having been tossed away previously by Muscular. Hitoshi could hear the faint voice coming from the phone. Probably the emergency operator. 

“I- It was the only thing I could think of.” He said, trying to be loud enough that they could all hear him. His voice was still rough from where he had been choked.

They all flinched at his voice. Probably scared from what he had just done to Muscular.

“Alright first order of business kid, make sure none of these goons snitch, if you wanna make it big for us as a hero your gonna need to sweep all cases of adolescent murder under the rug.” Said another indistinct voice. It sounded different than the previous one but he couldn't figure out how since they didn't actually have a timber. It sort of gave him the impression of sliminess though.

Again he ignored the voice. But he did need to make sure they didn't tell anybody the wrong thing. “You guys aren't gonna tell the cops right?”

They were starting to look scared again. Cronie number three apparently was more afraid of his perceived threat than his quirk because he immediately blurted out “We won't tell nobody.” he looked to his friends and they looked between each other hestitanly before nodding. 

“Alright, you're probably going to want to leave before the police arrive, no offense but you’re kinda walking around with half the crime scene splattered all over you.” Said another voice. This one was soft and apologetic, but still textureless and vague. 

Instead of replying to the disembodied voices or the group of bullies he just nodded and then ran in the opposite direction. He needed somewhere to clean off. He winced at the footprints that were being left behind him. Hopefully as the blood dried they would stop making a trail.

“There's a shitty park or something near here, you should go jump in the pond and get all of Meatheads brains off of you.”  Said an angry voice that he recognized as the first one to speak.

Hitoshi decided to follow the voice’s recommendation even though he was still in the process of fervently denying their existence.

He made sure to stay out of peoples lines of sites. He didn't know how he was going to explain being covered in gore. After a minute or so of running the park came into view. It looked large enough and had plenty of tree coverage that hopefully it would be secluded enough to let him clean off in the pond without people noticing.  He waited until the coast was clear and made a dash for the thicket of trees. The pond was small and marshy, and looked like it was thick with mud and algae. But it would have to do. He took a breath to try and slow down his rapid breathing and then jumped into the pond. 

It was surprisingly cold, must have been spring fed. He stood up in the waist deep water and began hastily scrubbing himself. He dunked his head under and was disturbed to see the water turn red from his hair rinsing out. He wrote off his hoodie that had taken the brunt of the gore as a lost cause and vowed to toss it in the trash as soon as possible, for now he just turned it inside out.  He slogged his way out of the pond. He was coated in mud up to his ankles and did his best to shake it off, but he was still soaking wet and had pond scum stuck to his pants. Better than blood he guessed. 

He was glad that the sun was still up, he probably would have gotten cold otherwise. He started walking away from the pond staring off into space. Now that he wasn't frantically trying to cover his tracks it was starting to sink in just what he had done. Instead of going home he crawled into the play structure when he passed and cured up in a plastic crawl tunnel. He wrapped his arms around his knees and just sat there. 

He probably would have stayed there in his soggy stinking hoodie for who knows how long if he hadn't been shaken out of his daze by a gentle voice.

“Hey, it’s ok. You did what you had to, to survive.”

“Yeah, it was fucking awsome, just one second it was kabang! No more Muscular.” The gruff voice said. 

“Kachan you're not helping,” The first voice admonished.

“Yeah kid, have some tact.” Said the one that gave the greasy feel.

“Oh like you're one to goddamn talk, Mr. I kill middle schoolers as a hobby” The one that the nice sounding voice had called Kachan, snarked back.

He had enough, “Who are you people!? And what are you doing in my head?” 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, long story short Deku’s quirk… uh we haven't actually named it yet, but it makes it so whoever kills us gets us stuck in their head. And then whoever kills them brings all of us plus them onto the next guy and so on.” The angry voice called Kachan said.

“Yeah I’m really sorry that you got stuck with us, but I’d rather this than Muscular killing you.” Said the nice one 

“Wait, so Muscular murdered you before? That's why you were in his head?” That would explain why the villain had gone on a rampage and had been acting so strangely.

“He didn't murder us! We let him kill us.” Kachan huffed.

“Kachan it took us two days to even realize we had been poisoned.” 

“Shut up Deku! it went according to plan. ” 

“But, yes. He did kill us before, that's why we were in his head.” The gentle voice whose name was apparently Deku explained. 

And he had killed Muscular making him the next host for this weird collection of minds.This was too much, Hitoshi just wanted to study in peace, why was all this happening. “Wait, I get how you ended up in Muscular’s head, but how did you guys all get in one body in the first place?”

Deku was the one who responded “Well Suran, the other guy you heard, is a villain who killed Kachan trying to steal his body, and before that Kachan accidentally pushed me in front of a truck which started this whole thing.”

There were many parts of that statement that warranted questioning, but he needed something else answered from before. “Why was Muscular covered in goo? And why were there explosions? And on that note why did his head just fucking explode like that?!” 

“um, well you see, my quirk doesn't just drag along consciousness, it also takes with it the quirks of everyone in the collective.” Deku answered nervously.

His eyes widened at the implication, “So that means-”

“Yeah, you sorta have five quirks now?” Deku said, voice trailing up as though asking a question.

He didn't believe this, “Prove it.” 

He felt an odd tingling in his palms and turned them around to look, they started crackling with small pops of light. Almost like delicate little firecrackers. Oddly enough it didn’t hurt his hands in the slightest. He gulped, alright so there was no way he was imagining this. He actually had another quirk. 

“How do I get you guys back to your own bodies then?” He asked instead of contemplating the other part of this quirk.

“ Oh boy, we are about two cremations and a sewer away from that ever happening. ” Kachan said with only a touch of humor in his voice.

“Who else is in here?” he asked. Just to be sure that nobody else would be popping up.

“Oh it’s just us three, and Muscular now too I guess. But don't worry about him, I'll keep him in the dark for a while. So you can get used to us.” Deku said. 

He would have plenty of time to figure out everything later, for now he needed to get home. He pulled out his phone which thankfully was waterproof, and saw that it was getting late. 

…….

He ignored the wide berth people gave him on the train, probably from the stench of half dried pond scum still coating him.  

When he got home he was careful to open the door slowly to avoid making any noise, it was in vain because his mom was sitting in the living room with a careful eye on the door. Her eyes scrunched up as he walked in. 

“Where have you been? I have been worried sick about you!” She shouted, long purple hair flailing around her as she stood up.

He realized that he no longer had his books to brandish as proof that he had been studying because he had dropped them in the alley. Thankfully nothing in them would be identifiable to him but they were all as good as gone.

“I was just studying at the cafe, you know I go there all the time. What's the big deal?” 

“Well then, why are you filthy like that?”” She gestured at the mud and gunk covering him from head to toe. Her voice had lost the melodic quilty that signified she was using her quirk, She lost control over it when her emotions got the better of her.

“Just some jerks, they uh, pushed me in a pond.” it was close enough to the truth that she wouldn't bother looking into it. Hopefully.

She puffed up in indignation, “And what pray tell caused them to do that?”

 He averted his eyes, unwilling to go into detail. They had this argument before, he would rather not have it again. 

Her eyes narrowed again “You were carrying around those filthy hero books again wernt you? You know heroes will bring you nothing but pain my little songbird, why do you keep chasing them?”

His mother hated heroes, well it was more she hated the result of their existence. They led to people placing quirks into categories and lauding strong heroic quirks and shunning ones like theirs. She had a quirk just as villainous as his, in fact hers might even be worse. Bewitch let her make her voice and everything she said sound like the absolute truth. People would believe the sky was orange if she explained it to them with it on. And it didn't fade after she turned off her quirk. The people that heard her had to relearn things the hard way. 

He didn't have the energy to debate this right now after his day, insead he just turned his shoulder and went up to his room. He heard her huff behind him but thankfully she let him go. She probably realized he had a hard day somehow.

“Man, whats her fucking deal? ” Kachan asked as he shut his door.

He explained her quirk to them. They would hopefully understand.

“ That’s really sad, what made you decide you wanted to be a hero anyways? ”Deku asked after a pause to think.

“Dunno, it’s just what my heart has always wanted.” He shrugged, knowing they would be able to feel the motion.

“ I get that, when I still thought I was quirkless I still wanted to be a hero too.” Deku said compassionately.

They shared a moment of silence to commiserate.

“Alright enough moping around, you trigger happy fuck, you say you wanna be a hero. What’s your plan for getting into UA with a non combative quirk?” Kachan said abruptly.

He decided to ignore the jab and said carefully “I applied to the general ed course, because I've heard that people can get into the hero course through the sports festival if they do well enough.”

“Hmmm, I have decided to veto that plan because it’s shit. Alright new plan, you say your quirk mutated somehow and use that as an excuse to use some of our quirks and get into the hero course the real way.” Kachan said as though it was a given that he could pass.

“What!? No, I can’t do that! People don't just get new quirks like that.”

“Pfft , sure they do. We have.... an acquaintance that has permeability as a quirk and then boom suddenly one day he has super strength too. If Googly Eyes can do it, so can we.”

“Do you just insult everybody, all the time?” Hitoshi asked.

“Yes he does, you’ll get used to it. But Kachan is right ,you can use this as an opportunity to get into the hero course straight off. Alright give us your family history we will come up with something.” Deku said, talking faster with every word.

….

“Oh and my great grandfather on my father’s side had the ability to change the color of his skin like a squid. There, that is everybody in my family tree that I remember, are you satisfied?”

Deku had started muttering about ideas quietly by the time he had reached his first aunt. “ On both sides of the family there are things related to voice, there also seems to be more than one aquatic themed mutation. Your mothers voice could almost be related to a mermaid, that combined with your fathers ability to shapeshift his vocal cords to copy sounds feels like a good combo that we could definitely pull off but that wouldn't help getting into UA, maybe just shapeshifting in general? But that wouldn't fit with your current quirk at all.”

“How would we be able to pull off shapeshifting?” He asked, confused. Wasn't their abilities to make little explosions, turn into a liquid, and get super buff?

“Here use this quirk .” Deku cut off his rant. Hitoshi felt the presence of another quirk flood into his awareness. He focused on his hand and after about a minute of concentration it began to melt into a crystal clear fluid. He marveled at it and began moving it around. It felt nothing like a hand but he was still able to control it freely. He could see how they could take on shapes with this. But it looked nothing like shapeshifting. 

“ God this would be so much easier if we could just show the Idiot. ” Kachan complained.

“Kachan, we have no right to demand Shinsou give us agency of his body. And give him a break, he has had these quirks for hours, we had them for ten months.” Deku admonished before continuing. “That’s a good start. This slime will dissolve just about anything, so we always used paint to color ourselves however we want. You will have to go out and buy some tomorrow so you can practice.”

Hitoshi briefly mourned his meager allowance but knew that if it helped get him into the hero course it would be worth it. He experimented with the Ooze quirk for a bit longer getting the quirk to liquify up to his shoulder before chickening out and instead switching to Muscular’s quirk, Muscle Augmentation. He would have expected it to give him the heebie jeebies considering where it came from but didn't. Kachan had explained that being a side effect from Deku’s quirk, That made it harder to feel distressed over dying and losing or gaining bodies. He told him how none of them had felt uncomfortable or discontent with their new bodies even though by all accounts they should have. 

He could feel Muscle Augmentation flow through his entire body, making all his existing muscles stronger. After they were filled to saturation he could feel new muscles growing. He looked down at his arm and saw that it was corded with muscle. He punched his fist into his hand to test it and winced at the impact. He released the quirk and the new muscles faded, leaving behind his regular spindly arm. His skin ached from where it had stretched to accommodate the growth. It subsided quickly but it made him hesitant to try it again.

“That must be why Muscular worked out so much, so that he wouldn't have to grow new muscles inside and damage his skin. He just added the new muscles on the outside instead.”

He would have to stick to just augmenting his normal muscles then. No way he could walk around with Muscular’s quirk displayed on the outside of his body.

As he talked with the two of them he paid attention to their voices. Deku’s stuttering and shyness kinda reminded him of a girl in his homeroom class. She talked like that whenever she got up the nerve to answer questions. As he listened, Deku's voice started to sound more and more like the girl from his class, huh, that's weird. Kachan’s voice sounded grouchy and angry just like he would expect it to. 

“I just realised you guys never told me you’re names.” He said.

“Yeah, and we ain't gonna! ” Kachan replied. “Don't want you stalking our families or something creepy like that.”

“ I wouldn’t do that !” 

“Well I aint telling, your not the only one in this head so suck it up.” Kachan said 

He proceeded to bully Deku into agreeing with him.

“Alrighty time to get to bed, songbird.” Kachan mocked, using his mom’s nickname for him “I’m waking you up at the asscrack of dawn to train so better get to bed now. ” Hitoshi looked at the clock, it was only nine. How was Kachan expecting him to fall asleep so early?

“I have insomnia, there's no way I will be able to go to bed now.” He was about to go back to experimenting when Deku said.

“Oh! I can help with that! I never used it on Muscular because it was easier to take him over when he was sleep deprived but I can make you fall asleep really fast, and you don't have to worry about us taking over in the night. You will be able to feel it if we do.”  

He was a little skeptical of giving any control over the people in his head, but the idea of a good night's rest was too alluring to ignore so he hesitantly agreed. He laid down in his bed, and then felt as his mind was slowly wrapped up in folds of darkness. He barely had time to appreciate how soft it felt before he was unable to stay conscious.

Chapter Text

“No! No! You have to move it in sections, if you try to flex the whole limb at once you're gonna accomplish jack shit!”

Hitoshi huffed, as he pulled the large purple octopus arm that he had shifted everything below his right shoulder into. It wasn't actually an octopus arm, it was layers and layers of muscles, there were four main muscle strands that ran down the entire length of the tentacle giving it most of its strength. And then there were more layered on top connecting to themselves and moving in different directions to give the arm a full range of motion. Finally the whole thing was coated in varying shades of pastel purples, the color that made up the suckers was almost white with how light it was. It was based on real life octopus musculature. They had been studying relentlessly after deciding on what his new ‘random mutation’ power set would include. They were still arguing back and forth over the name for his new quirk. 

His allowance was almost gone after buying various colors of purple paint at the art store.

“I say we call it Kelpie, they are a mythological creature that have both the ability to shapeshift and hypnotism.” Deku said.

“Well Sirens actually have a hypnotic voice. Not just fucking lights or whatever the hell kelpies have. That would make so much more since with Brainwashing. Plus I don't want our quirk to be based on a horse, that's fucking lame.”

“But if we did Kelpie we would be able to shift into more than just fish though.” Hitoshi added. He kept trying to get the nine foot long tentacle to flex right in order to whip it at the innocent tree he had been practicing on. And not just gently thump into it if he didnt flex the various muscles in the right order at the perfect timing.

“Kachan just because you don't like horses doesn't mean you can bias this conversation. Hitoshi it is your choice but know that I and since I am acting as warden Muscular and Suran also think that you should choose Kelpie.” Suran wasn't being suppressed like Muscular was, he was just kind of drifting around quietly. He had quickly grown bored of his training and decided to sleep most of the time instead. Deku had warned him that Muscular wasn't completely suppressed, he was just muted. He was still conscious and completely aware of what they were doing; he just couldn't talk to them. Deku had warned him that it wouldn't last, maybe a week or two. 

“Fine, we will go down and update the quirk later. Is this good enough for training?”  He was managing to crack the tree with every other hit.

“Are you kidding? That weak ass shit wouldn't be able to beat a preschooler. Keep working on it. ” was Kachan’s helpful reply.

He was getting irritated, why were they expecting so much from him. Sure Muscular’s quirk was strong and he could pair it with Ooze, but without the ability to beef up like the villain had it wasnt that useful. And Ooze was next to useless just making his limbs weaker and more work to move around. Not to mention keeping track of all the colors and keeping them looking realistic while simultaneously keeping them from sticking to stuff. 

“Why can't I just use explosions? They seem way more useful than Ooze.”  He complained. 

“Absolutely not. You can't use explosions around people, Shinsou  they would recognize us.” Deku said. 

“ Recognize us? What is that supposed to mean?” He questioned

“Oh shit, Deku, I just realized we forgot to tell him.” Kachan said suddenly 

“Oh gosh you're right. Shoot! ” Deku agreed.

“You forgot to tell me what?” He said with a touch of iratation in his voice. He thought he was done with surprises.

“Oh, nothing, we'll show you later, just keep practicing for now. ” Deku said dismissively 

“Well I need to go home. I told my mom I would have lunch with her.” It was petty but he was sick of not making any progress and needed a break. The enhancement that he could get from using Musculars quirk on his regular muscles should be enough to pass the exam anyways. He didn't know why they were being so adamant he had to use Ooze too. 

…….

Hitoshi was laying on his bed with earphones in, watching a video on his phone. On the screen shaky cellphone footage showed a massive eight armed creature stomping down the street. It was firing explosions into the air to scare off people before it began fighting with the person he now recognized as Muscular. 

“Wait, that thing is you ?” he had of course heard about the vigilante Gestalt before. The guy had practically been an urban legend by the time he disappeared a month ago. It was hard to correlate the immature, bitchy voices in his head with the terrifying creature going toe to toe in a fight with an S-class villain.

“Still think Ooze is useless?” Deku asked as the footage showed them gracefully dodging and weaving around Musculars punches. The vigilante grabbed the villain and heaved him over their head. The windows all around the fight shattered from the soundwaves as Gestalt shot off into the sky holding Muscular in front of themselves. The camera followed until they were nothing but a blip of light disappearing into the clouds.

“We used Ooze way more than we used explosions, most fights it was all we needed. Plus if you learn to control it you will be able to shape your voice however you please. Think of how useful that will be to get people to respond.”

“I'm still getting over the fact that you guys were Gestalt, are Gestalt.” He had thought that Kachan had been talking out of his ass the whole time. But if he really had this kind of experience it would be in Hitoshi's best interest to take their advice. 

……..

The lady at the quirk registry gave them a flat stare. “I'm going to schedule you for an appointment with a specialist, changes this extreme will need evidence and an evaluation. I'm sorry but I can't just change it on your word.” 

He nodded, it made sense really. He hoped that nothing would pop up at UA registering a major quirk change just two days before the exam. He walked over to the sitting area and pulled out his phone. He was watching videos and reading stuff about Gestalt, mainly because it gave him ideas of what his quirks could be capable of, and that it embarrassed the hell out of his headmates. 

There was a video shot in an alley of Gestalt in their regular form holding somebody in the air by his face, it looked like they were simply holding the man but Deku had informed him that they usually filled people's airways with slime until they fell unconscious. It was apparently very effective because they used it all the time. 

Hitoshi would have kept looking up old footage if he hadn't heard his name called. He pocketed the phone and followed the lady holding a clipboard to a large room with a desk in it pushed to one side. The man sitting behind the desk was studious looking and had scales running down the sides of his neck, he gestured for him to sit in the squishy looking chair across from him and thanked the nurse who deposited the clipboard and left the room.

The doctor smiled at him, “Hello it's nice to meet you, I am doctor Endo.” The placard on his desk read he was a quirk specialist.  

The man scanned the clipboard briefly, he had probably already read everything on his file before Hitoshi entered. 

“So, this is a pretty major change in your quirk. Were there any recent stressors in your life that might have triggered it?”

Hitoshi thought back to being strangled by a deranged serial killer days ago and responded “Nothing serious,” but then he had an idea “Well I did fall into a pond briefly, I'm not the best swimmer so I did panic but it was no big deal in the end.” 

The man hummed. “Well that might have had something to do with it, especially given the aquatic nature of your quirk, I took the liberty of looking up your family history, and while this is unexpected I dont think it is entirely out of left field.” 

Good, Hitoshi thought, that was exactly the conclusion they wanted him to come to. 

“So to sum up what you submitted, you say that you are now capable of shifting parts of your body into different shapes, but only have a few forms that come easily to you right now?” The doctor asked.

“Yeah, but I've messed around with it and figured out that I'm having a hard time forming anything with bones or just hard tissue in general.” He shaped his hand into a purple horse hoof to demonstrate. He had hardened it with the Kachan’s explosion quirk to make it not sticky. He tapped it against the desk and it squished slightly instead of knocking like one would expect. 

The doctor learned closer to get a better look, before leaning back and asking “would you show me the octopus form you said was the easiest for you?” He nodded and focused on his arm until it turned to slime. It maintained its purple color when he activated and deactivated ooze, somehow storing excess slime and anything dissolved in it. He concentrated on shaping the limb into the octopus shape and then began the arduous process of growing the muscles into the right position. Damn octopuses having the most overly complicated musculature, and damn Deku for suggesting them 

He realized he had closed his eyes in concentration but opened them to see the limb that now extended several feet past where his fingers had been before.

“The arm appeared to be fully formed. Why did you have to keep concentrating on it?” Doctor Endo asked.

“Uh well I had to make sure it was shaped right on the inside. Or else it wont work.” Hitoshi said.

The doctor had him attempt a few more shapes and demonstrate the strength limits of the limb with various equipment stands scattered across the room. He also had Hitoshi demonstrate his ability to alter his voice. Hitoshi awkwardly fumbled through changing his voice into some bird noises and ringtones. Those were about as complicated as he could get at the moment without more practice. The doctor looked at him sympathetically when he tried to copy his voice and it came out sounding wet and gurgly

He turned of Ooze and awkwardly explained "well that one will take some practice since I have to move everything manually." 

The doctor hummed in interest "I am assuming that you need to move everything manually for all your shifting then?" When Hitoshi nodded hesitantly he continued "Well that will give you more flexibility with your quirk than I think you were imagining once you get it al figured out that is."

Oh they had imagined it all right, they just didn't want anybody else doing so. Thankfully the doctor wasn't interested in thinking about the details, he spent a few minutes filling out paperwork and taking a few notes. 

Eventually the doctor said “Well it seems to be just as you submitted, I bet there will be lots of developments as you learn more, be sure to update the registry as you do. Have you thought of any names for your evolved quirk? I doubt Brainwashing will cut it anymore.”

Shinsou scratched the back of his neck and said “Yeah, I was thinking Kelpie? They are a water creature with hypnosis and shape shifting.” 

The doctor smiled kindly at him “I think that fits excellently, vague enough to allow room for growth but close where it matters. Very well I will update your quirk registry to Kelpie. Good luck.” 

Hitoshi took his leave and made his way back to the park to practice more with the new quirks.

"Deku we spent all that time coming up with a name for our new hypothetical quirk that doesn't even exist while we have never even tried to come up with a name for your creepy ass death quirk." Kachan grumbled as Hitoshi was climbing up various trees using nothing but the octopus arms.

"Oh yeah your right Kachan, hmm well do you have any ideas then? I don't even know where to begin maybe Death Snatcher?"

He froze in his climbing halfway up a tree. "uh guys maybe not right now? we need to focus on training for the entrance exam." please please take the bait he thought. 

But it was in vain, Kachan didn't even notice his protest over his own furious spluttering. "Death Snatcher! Godamn Death Snatcher? you managed to take one of creepiest, most metal quirks I have heard of, not a complement, sound lame. Absolutely not how about something cool like Lord of Death." 

Hitoshi did his best to ignore them as he continued to practice. They came up with increasing lame and violent names for Deku's quirk and eventually ran out of ideas without settling on something they both liked. Unfortunately they found more things to argue about, Hitoshi was beginning to except that he wouldn't get to experience peace and quiet again for a long, long time.

He attempted to work with an additional set of arms but found his coordination suffered for it. He was just going to have to stick with two for the test. He practiced as much as he could the rest of the day and the day after but Kachan wouldn't let him train the day before the exam stating that he needed to recover to be at full capacity. He went to bed that night uneasy, he felt only somewhat prepared and he hoped it would be enough.

Chapter Text

He wore his baggiest stretchiest clothes for the exam with the hopes of covering up any slip ups he may have when shifting. He saw the boy that interrupted Present Mic standing strictly at attention as he waited for the exam to start. A girl with a short bob was nervously fiddling with her fingers. The creepy blond kid that sat next to Hitoshi that had started monologging after the presentation was going around shaking peoples hands. He approached Hitoshi and held out his palm. 

“I didn't get the chance to introduce myself earlier. I'm Monama, nice to meet you.” The boy came off as slightly condescending but Hitoshi wrote it off as his face. He went to shake the boy's hands but realized that his arm was already shifted. He went to awkwardly shake the tentacle but the boy pulled his hand away.  “Er, that's alright.” He had a weird look on his face before moving on to the next person.

“What a douche,” Kachan said.

“Dude you really need to stop judging people on how they look.” Hitoshi replied internally  

Before Kachan could retort, Present Mic screamed “Start!” Lots of the contestants winced at the noise and covered their ears but Hitoshi had found that ever since killing Muscular he didn't have any problems with loud noises. Some residual mutation carried along from Kachan, Deku had explained.

He ran off with the herd of people and started looking for robots. He used Muscular’s quirk to strengthen his legs and he shot ahead of most people. He stumbled a bit, unfamiliar with the increased speed but managed to keep his balance by flailing the massive octopus arms. He hestitanly approached a one pointer and used the arm to whip it. He must have mistimed it because it only left a small dent. Before he could try again the robot exploded in a beam of light. Some ditzy french guy winked at him before running off.

“How rude. ” Deku muttered.

Hitoshi jumped at another robot, a two pointer and managed to wrap his arms around it. The musculature in octopus arms was weird. With no bones to use they could barely push more than a few pounds. But pulling? Hitoshi felt satisfaction roll through him as the robot was squished to scrap. He had to reform the suckers that had been squished along with the robot before pulling away but that barely took a few seconds. He ran around searching for more robots but was dismayed to find them mostly destroyed. The fidgety girl with the bob released four robots that had been floating above her. 

“Alright, that makes twenty five, gotta get more.” She said to herself.

“Stop gawking and get your ass in gear! you‘ve already wasted five minutes! ” Kachan screamed. 

Hitoshi managed to crush a couple more robots, but was having a hard time focusing with all the action going on around him. He was getting more and more panicked. He missed the next robot entirely and in his lapse a blue laser destroyed it, this time it had come from the kid that sat next to him, Monama. 

He was getting panicked, he probably only had ten minutes left. Damn it, he knew he was never going to make it in the hero course, strong quirk or not.

……

Katsuki was getting really fed up with Shinsou’s shit. They had gotten a golden ticket into the hero course and now he could see it floating away in the breeze. “Alright shitstain, that's enough, shove over it's my turn to drive.”

“What!?” Sitoshi shouted in his head. “No way, this is my body, I'm not letting you have it! ”

“Oh relax, I'll give it back afterwards.” God, if they wanted to steal Shinsou’s body they would have done it already. The kid’s insomnia would have been a piece of cake to exploit. 

“No! ” Hitoshi said adamantly.

“Look do you want to get int the fucking hero course or not? Cus what you’re doing now won’t cut it.” 

He could feel Hitoshi wavering. Deku added in “I know you don't trust us Shinsou, but don't you trust that we want to be heroes just as much as you?”

Katsuki grinned as he felt Shinsou’s resistance falling  “Fine. but I want my body back as soon as the exam is over." Katsuki felt Shinsou relax his grip the rest of the way. He slipped in to take control from him. 

He cracked their neck and shook out their legs to get a feel for them, then he turned all of Shinsou's skin that was covered by his clothes to slime.

“What are you doing? ” Shinsou yelped in their head.

“You'll see shithead.” Kastuki said out loud. He took advantage of Shinsou's newly slimed skin and beefed up the musculature within. Then he grew a second pair of octopus arms behind the first. 

“Kachan to the left, the buildings are denser so most students will have avoided that section.” Deku murmured, already running commentary of the scene like he did during fights as Gestalt.

Katsuki did one last wiggle to acquaint himself with their new form and ran at the building. He leaped and got almost halfway up, the first set of arms grabbed onto the building digging into the stone work and sticking with slime. Katsuki used them to pull him far enough to grab the top edge of the building with the second set of arms. The muscles heaved and they went flying up and onto the roof. He ran and jumped to the next and then dropped down in the plaza below them that had multiple robots ripe for the taking.

He pulled a superpowered tentacle back and then whipped it forward. The tip broke the sound barrier with a crack as it snapped right onto a three pointer. The head of the robot was blasted off. Katsuki winced as the slime and muscles at the end of the tentacle were ripped to shreds. Damn, he hadn't missed the lovely sensation of being torn apart. Oh well, it would fix itself soon enough. Deku began mending the injured arm as Katsuki began hunting more robots with the others. He used the incredible strength provided by Muscular’s quirk to hop around between robots ripping heads off and destroying them with supersonic tentacle whips.

 They had tried to do something similar to the whips as Gestalt but had found the slime too weak to accelerate enough to do any damage. It was only when they had the paracord that they had been able to pull off the move. Even then they couldn't get it going fast enough to do any more damage than a middling explosion. With Muscular's quirk in the mix though, they no longer had that problem.

“I see now why you were so adamant. I practiced the tentacle whips,” Shinsou said drolly as the three pointer exploded from one perfectly timed strike.

Katsuki jumped at another building and used the tentacles to pull him over it, not even bothering to touch down on the top. There were a couple robots on the other side so he destroyed them and kept hunting. 

He eventually was forced to meander back to where the other contestants were by the robot concentrations. He felt a searing heat go past his head and whipped around to see the copycat boy, as Deku had analyzed his quirk to be, looking slightly guilty.

“Watch it dipshit! You almost hit me!” He screamed at him.

“Sorry, I didn't realize you weren't paying attention.” The boy said.

It’s not that he wasn't paying attention. He just kept forgetting to turn his head. He was so used to Deku manually moving the eyes around to keep anything relevant in view. He was starting to get really fed up with Shinsou’s obnoxious bones.

He felt the tugging in his mind that indicated Shinsou's quirk recognized the boy as a valid target. He grinned at him and latched in the hook, his eyes went glassy.

“Move.” The boy obediently stepped aside. Katsuki made sure to check him with his shoulder as he walked by to snap him out of it. He wanted to be petty, not ruin his chances of getting into hero school. 

Robots were starting to get scarcer as the test continued. He noticed the boy following him. Probably cus he realized that they were good at sniffing out fresh targets. Katsuki looked up when a tremendous crashing noise filled the air, there was a gigantic robot walking towards them. 

He cackled as he realized it was the zero pointer, look at all the extras running away. He was about to keep hunting when he heard a cry behind him. He angrily mourned the potential points he would be losing, but after months and months of listening for this exact sound he couldn't not help.

He sprinted over to the girl and saw her pinned by a large chunk of concrete. Shit, her leg was definitely broken. He wiggled a tentacle under the slab and started lifting it, he paused when the girl cried out again. 

“Sorry,” She panted. “It's just when you moved it dug in.” He saw a hand reach out and tap the girl. He spared a glance to see Copycat looking slightly panicked. Damn extra kept following them around. 

The robot was almost to them. He adjusted his grip and lifted the concert hoping it wouldn't dig into the girl's leg but figured it would be better than getting turned into a pancake by the zero pointer. Would they end up in the head of whoever built the robots, or whoever sanctioned the exam? He wondered. 

“Godamnit, this better be worth it.” he heard Copycat mutter to himself before the boy darted out and tapped the zero pointer's foot before it could crush them. Ever so slowly the massive robot began to float up into the air. Kastuki whipped out one of his non occupied tentacles to whack the robot and help it along. Copycat suddenly looked extremely queasy and looked like he was going to faint. He groaned “How do I turn it off, bubbly girl?” 

Thus dubbed Bubbly Girl looked up and gasped, “Tap your finger together!” she demonstrated by doing so herself. Purposely missing with her pointers. 

Copycat shakily brought his hands together but couldn't get his fingers lined up properly with how bad they were trembling. He stumbled and fell to his knees and started barfing. Bubbly Girl army crawled towards him keeping her broken leg in the air. As soon as she was clear Katsuki let the cement drop with a crash. She made her way to Copycat and tapped him. He floated up, but she had grabbed his sweatshirt and dragged him over to herself. And then still laying on the ground she manually moved his hands together. 

All of a sudden the Zero pointer crashed to the ground throwing dust everywhere. The girl was huffing as she brought her own hands together to release Copycat. She then copied him and threw up right onto his stomach. He had passed out so he didn't notice.

“What’s with it and throwing up in front of us recently?” Deku wondered.

“And that's all folks, make your way to the exit.” Came Present Mic’s amplified voice.

Per his agreement with Shinsou, Katsuki immediately released all his control over the body. Which promptly collapsed like a puppet with it's strings cut.

“God dammit man,” Shinsou muttered as he slowly stood himself back up. He stood around waiting until some teachers came to check on his two injured peers. He had turned his arms back to regular. Katsuki laughed over how dismayed he was when he realized his sleeves had been shredded leaving his gangly arms on display through the now hoodie tank top.

“Oh my gosh, that’s Recovery Girl! ” Deku squealed. “She is so cool!” She made her way over to them and kissed each on the forehead. Katsuki felt the various muscle strains and one sprain heal themselves and drain Shinsou of his meager stamina. 

“Tut, tut,” She scolded, “This is a nasty case of quirk overuse.” She said, gesturing to Copycat who was groaning on the ground clutching his stomach headless of the puke all over himself. Bubbly Girl had fallen asleep as soon as her leg healed. Katsuki was kind of disappointed, her mortification after throwing up all over Copycat had been hilarious.  

Shinsou was quick to say goodbye to Recovery Girl and scurry out of the training ground. “How the hell did you get so good at fighting? That was insane!” Shinsou muttered to himself quietly as he made his way to the changing room. 

“Ten months of beating the shit out of criminals will do that to ya.” Katsuki replied.

“And Kachan has always been really good at fighting.” Deku added in. 

“Bitch I'm good at everything. ” Katsuki made sure to clarify in case Shinsou got the wrong idea about him only being good at fighting.

Deku had to manually shake Shinsou awake with his own arm when he nodded off on the train. Naturally it scared the shit out of him. What a wimp, Katsuki thought.

Chapter Text

The week spent waiting for the results was stressful not because Hitoshi was worried but because Deku was. It filled up the entire head, making all of them feel a terrible sense of dread. Kachan said that he hadn't even gotten like this before fighting with Muscular. Hitoshi had taken to pacing around his room, hoping that movement would lessen the miasma.

He heard a car drive off and rushed to his window. It was the delivery man. He ran down the stairs and grabbed the envelope sitting on the doormat. He was quick to rush back to his room and open it. 

He was startled by the massive form of All Might that suddenly filled his room. 

“Congratulations young Shinsou!” The hologram boomed “You have passed! In the beginning you were a little unsteady, but as the exam progressed you showed remarkable skill in gathering points. But destroying robots was not the only parameter of our test. You see, we also score you based on how you interacted with and helped your fellow contestants” A listing of scores filled the screen briefly. Hitoshi was shocked to see his name highlighted in fifth place. In first was Monama with a similar score to his in the category called combat points  but significantly more of what were called rescue points.

He only had time to briefly glance at the second place person and saw it was some kid named Kirishima with an absurd amount of rescue points and an average number of combat points. The hologram continued “Now I'm sure you are wondering why you received so many less rescue points than young Monama? Well the judges decided to lessen your score for your recklessness earlier in the exam.” Footage of when Kachan had been in control was pulled up. It was strange to watch his body leap around decimating robots with a grace he knew he didn't have. Shrapnel was flying everywhere, narrowly missing other examinees.

“That's bullshit!” Kachan screeched “I made sure nothing hit anyone!”

All Might was still talking “However, nobody was hurt and you selflessly moved to help your fellow contestants leaving us no choice but for us to reward you for your heroic behavior! Young Shinsou, Welcome to your hero academia!” The hologram cut off. 

Inside the envelope were forms with more information as well as a stack of papers for costume ideas. He set everything aside and just layed down onto his bed. He was too busy reveling in his own victory to bother with paperwork right now. Kachan and Deku’s joy was joining with his own. He never thought that he would get this far. He couldn't wait to start.

……….

It was ten thirty at night the day after he got his acceptance letter. He was standing at his window as he took a deep breath. “You guys were a vigilante right? Can you go for a patrol and show me how to fight?”

He was ashamed of his performance at the entrance exam. And after seeing how well Kachan could fight he was wondering what else he could learn. Deku did say it was incredibly easy to learn stuff when you could feel every movement the body took as it did something. That was how they had such an intuitive grasp on Muscle Augmentation, the two weeks they had spent stuck in Muscular’s head had allowed them to see it in use. 

“Sure!” Deku said excitedly.  “But you're gonna have to let us take over until you get used to it.”  He was willing to do that, in fact he expected it. 

“And we can't go out for too fucking long, Your gonna maintain a healthy goddamn sleep schedule if it kills me” Kachan added. Hitoshi had gotten more sleep these past two weeks than he had as far back as he could remember. Kachan was like an angry alarm, making him go to sleep and wake up at the same time every night and wake up exactly eight hours later give or take some to account for his sleep cycles.  

“What are you, my mom?” before Kachan could retort he added “Alright so how are we gonna do this?”

“Well we won't be able to go out tonight, you will have to go buy some ink so we can color ourselves like Gestalt. It might be suspicious if we are suddenly purple instead of black. ” Deku said hesitantly.

“I don't have any more money,” he said flatly. And it would be a pain to get his mom to buy him any without a good explanation.

“Oh! We have money from before, you should go get some of it to use. Technically I think it's yours now anyways.” Deku responded.

That perked him up. He would be if glad he didn't have to rely on his meager allowance. He let Deku take over and sneakily guide him out his window. He felt odd just feeling his body move all on its own. Deku said this was how they experienced the body when he was in control. Deku shifted his legs to slime and dropped to the ground soundlessly. It was only when they were halfway down the street did he notice Deku had forgone shoes. Looking down in the streetlight he could see his feet were shaped like sneakers, and purple.

Deku stretched and breathed in deeply as they walked. “I sure have missed moving around on my own. ” They continued for a bit in silence.

“You know what Deku ?” Kaachan asked suddenly.

“Hmm?”

“I think I'm starting to miss those goddamn crocs, they were hideous and an affront to fashion everywhere, but they were with us from the start.”

“Yeah, and our feet didn't seep into them like with other shoes."

Deku kept walking, they chatted back and forth the whole way. Hitoshi had forgotten what it was like to experience silence. There were always some voices talking about somthing.  That thought gave him an Idea "Are you guys still trying to come up with a name for Deku's quirk?"

"Yeah, do you have one?" Deku asked.

"Well there are always a lot of voices in my head and you guys never stop talking.. so what about Choir? it would also fit with Gestalt's voice." He said.

"Ooh that is a good one." Deku said.

Kachan was silent for a second but then added "That is a good one. But isn't the main part of Deku's quirk the subjugation aspect? I think the name needs to reference that somehow."

Well it was worth a shot Hitoshi thought. At least when they argue about this in the future he could participate.

Eventually Deku approached a beautiful pristine beach. Hitoshi was confused, he thought they were going to where they used to live to get their money. He voiced his concern “Wait, what are we doing here?”  

He felt his face curl up into a grin. ”Oh, you’ll see” It was a little odd to hear his own voice talk to him. He felt as the rest of his body melted into slime, Deku oozed around the clothes and pulled them into the center of what had been Hitoshi’s chest. As Deku glanced down Hitoshi could see how his entire body was purple now, he could also clearly see the different chunks of slime that had been stained with different colors. He was a mottled patchwork with his entire body shifted like this. He felt as his body smoothly walked out into the sea and then dived under. Deku briefly maintained a humanoid shape and then slowly morphed into something more suited to swimming, the streamlined form cut through the water like a knife.

By the light of the full moon, and the enhanced night vision that was carried along with Suran’s quirk, he could see stones and plants growing from the sea floor. If he hadn't been keeping track of Deku's eye movements he would have missed it. There was a neat little trail of rocks and patches of weeds. Deku followed it out for what felt like an instant to Hitoshi, but was probably more like a half an hour. When Deku briefly glanced up and Hitoshi became aware of just how deep they were. The dark of the ocean had blotted out the stars but he could still see moonbeams slicing through the gloom faintly.

Deku eventually approached a large rocky chunk of seafloor. He nimbly darted between pillars of stone before alighting down next to a normal looking rock. However when Deku lifted it up it revealed a crevice that looked like it lead further into the stone, Deku squeezed them in. He felt an arm form and fumble around until it landed on a button. Deku pressed it and light flooded the little area they were in. A little little waterproof flashlight was wedged into the rock so it would provide light evenly. The crevice opened up to a decent sized cave. He could reach across it lengthwise if he pleased but it was big enough to float around in. 

There were various things floating at the top of the cavern in airtight zip lock bags. Knickknacks, some protein bars, a decent number of clothing items. What really caught his eye was the rusty safe sitting on a little shelf in the rock. 

Deku swam over to it and opened it carefully. The door was angled down slightly and Hitoshi saw why. The safe was filled with stacks and stacks of baggies full of cash. The bags were squeezed so all the air was out, but enough remained that the bags gently floated to the top of the safe. Deku grabbed a few and siphoned them into their torso. And then shut the safe. He turned off the light and swam back out to sea. The crevice was hidden by a rock again and Deku nimbly swam back towards the shore.

“Where did you guys get all that money ?” He asked 

“Well we stole half of it from villains, the other we earned working at a bakery.” Deku responded.

“Deku! Why did you tell him that? What if he figures out who we were. ” Kachan said.

“Oh relax Kachan he wouldn't be able to figure anything out. And now that we know him I doubt anything bad would come of telling him our identities.”

“ I know that Eyebags is probably alright but what if Suran or Muscular get in control one day? Or what if they tell the next scumbag to off us? I just don't think it’s fucking worth it”  Kachan replied.

Deku sighed. "Yeah, your probably right. Sorry Shinsou, you're just gonna have to keep calling us by our nicknames."

Deku walked out of the surf and spat out the clothes and money. Deku dressed quickly and then released Ooze, causing Hitoshi’s regular form to reemerge. Deku hadn't gotten the proportions right so the slime shifted a bit to accommodate. After everything was situated Deku started walking them home. Kachan took over for a bit so he could stretch his metaphorical limbs. After successfully re-entering his room Shinsou took his body back. He was careful to hide the baggies of money in his sock drawer.

“Alright, so tomorrow we need more ink and to get a cellphone, is that all?” he asked.

“Maybe some zip ties too, and you should buy some calorie dense food. We get torn apart pretty often so you're going to want to be able to regenerate fast.”

“Wait, wait, wait, What do you mean torn apart!?”  

“Anyways you should probably get to bed soon, it's getting late.” Deku completely ignored his previous statement.

He continued to try and get an answer out of them but they ignored him by bickering about costume design instead. About five minutes in, Deku seemed to remember that he had insomnia and definitely couldn't sleep through petty arguments happening literally inside his head. A brief moment later Hitoshi was out like a light.

…….

He regained consciousness to the strangest thing, most of his body was sleeping and he definitely had been previously but a tendril of slime was holding his phone in front of him and his eyes were glazed over staring at it. Literally, there was a layer of fresh slime coating the surface of his eyeballs so they wouldn't dry out from being constantly open. He stayed still hoping they wouldn't notice he was awake. He felt a giggle come from Suran as he scrolled past yet another photo of a puppy. 

Hitoshi accidentally blinked his eyes out of habit and felt the goopy slime drip down his face disgustingly. Suran’s consciousness instantly retreated from controlling his body and the phone dropped and hit his face. He sat up and rubbed the last of the goop from his eyes before remembering he could just absorb it and save himself the trouble. 

“Ugh! Are you guys just controlling my body while I sleep?! What the hell! ”

“Shinsou you're awake!” Deku responded. “And yeah, kinda. But what else are we supposed to do just watch you sleep for eight hours a day?”

“Why don't you just sleep too? ” he questioned incredulously. 

“Our consciousnesses only need a couple hours of rest a night. We usually spend the rest of the time looking at our phone.”

“You mean my phone. ”

“Well either way, we owe Suran fifteen, well I guess thirteen now, hours of phone time for helping us take over Muscular.” Deku said.

Hitoshi felt around in his mind, he could feel Suran and Deku awake, Kachan felt like he was sleeping, and the blob of consciousness that was Muscular was still lightly veiled. Hitoshi's eyes felt weird, probably from staring at a phone unblinking for who knows how long. Ugh whatever, he decided to just move on with his day, he had to go get supplies with all the money they picked up last night.

A couple hours later Hitoshi was the proud owner of a bag of ink bottles, some cheap sunglasses and a new prepaid phone. His hand moved without his command, typing in contacts and setting up preferences. He guessed that they had done this many times before with how mechanical the motions were.  

He hastily shoved it in his pocket before he rounded the corner to his house. He was stealthy going up to his room even though it was a perfectly reasonable time to be out of the house. His mom should still be asleep right now so he should be safe. 

He went to the bathroom instead of his bedroom. “Alright what now?” he whispered. 

“Let Deku do it dumbass, you would probably mess up all the purple slime.” Kachan said back a normal volume. 

He slipped aside and let Deku gently take control. He was dismayed when the first thing to happen was Deku climbing out of his clothes. “What the hell! What's with you and stripping all the time?”

“W-well it’s just that it's really hard to mix slime with clothes in the way.”  Deku stammered.

“Can’t you at least turn to slime first?” It was embarrassing but Hitoshi had been valiantly closing his eyes every time he went to the bathroom or showered for the past couple of weeks.

“Just accept it Deku, we all know you're a streaker. ” Kachan mocked.

“Kachan! You know it's more practical, slime gets everywhere and ruins clothes all the time. ” Deku said, flustered.

“Chill out nerd, I'm just giving you shit. ”

Deku turned to slime and finished undressing and then tossed Hitoshi’s clothes into the corner. Hitoshi cringed at Deku chugging a few bottles of ink as his body stepped into the tub. Then Deku did the strangest thing, a glob of slime that didn't have color yet was pulled from the center of Hitoshi’s mass and held separate from the rest. Where Hitoshi’s body had been was now a crumpled shell of slime still somewhat holding its shape to maintain the different color patterns.

The glob of untinted slime grew as more slime was produced at the center. Hitoshi could see from where his eyes were positioned on the purple husk that the ink was floating within the clear slime. Once the mass grew to be about half of the size of the purple slime it began to churn and mix in on itself.

Hitoshi knew that if this wasn't the result of murder and clearly a link to an infamous vigilante he could get so many internet points for recording the process. 

Once the globe was fully mixed the purple shell collapsed inwards until it was the shape of a thin figure. The now metallic black slime flowed around the purple until Hitoshi’s regular proportions were back. Except for with all the new slime created his body felt bigger than usual. His eyes pushed out so they could see through the black slime and then he felt as his whole form stretched until the top of his head brushed the ceiling. Hitoshi watched amazed as the surface of the slime rippled and hardened until it was covered in diamond-like facets. 

Deku hunched over to get out of the shower without hitting their head on the shower curtain bar. Hitoshi marvel at the figure that started back at him in the mirror. It's inhuman proportions looked nothing like his own. His arms now dangled down to his knees with long wicked looking fingers hanging further still. The only thing that was off were his eyes. They still were Hitoshi’s purple. The mouth that manifested was not his own however. It was wide and leering with teeth much bigger and pointier than his. 

Deku reached up and poked an eye. It squished unnaturally. “Well that confirms my theory.” Deku said “Most if not all mutations from the bodies of the original quirk holders were carried on to your body Shinsou.”

“I only noticed the loud noise protection from Kachan and night vision from Suran, What else is there?”

“Hmm, well Suran’s eyes are squishier than normal eyes. It probably has something to do with how they can be reformed out of slime. I know Muscular must have had reinforced bones and tendons for his crazy strength to not break them all the time. But other than that and the hearing I can't think of anything.”

As Deku was talking, the lenses were popped out of the sunglasses. Hitoshi wondered why Deku sunk his eyes further into his head. but was answered as the lenses were placed over top the eyes, covering them completely. They blended in seamlessly with the rest of the semi transparent dark slime. Deku moved around a few times to confirm that everything worked and then removed the lenses and reformed the dark slime ball that was reinserted into Hitoshi’s chest where it was swallowed by purple slime. Deku half assed his shape back into what his real body looked like and pulled on his clothes before turning off Ooze. Hitoshi watched in fascination in the mirror as his body's size shrank and shifted as it turned back into human. A moment later he was looking at himself in the mirror.

“Deku, What happens if we get knocked out? When we go unconscious we will just turn back into Shinsou?”  Kachan questioned

“Oh no, you're right. He will be naked!” Deku gasped 

“No, you idiot! People will know that Shisnou is Gestalt. ” Kachan yelled 

He had an idea “Why don't I just have a mask on under the slime so if I turn back I will have my face covered, and maybe some shorts or something.”

“That could work, But we should really try our best to not let that happen.” Deku murmured.

Hitoshi felt Kachan take out their second phone and start texting somebody.

“What are you doing Kachan?” Deku asked.

“I'm texting Eraserhead. It's been awhile since he's heard from us, he'll probably want to know that we took out meathead.”

“yeah he will,  I think the last time we were in contact was right before our big fight with Muscular.”

“Eraserhead, like the underground hero?” Hitoshi asked

“We work with him and a few other underground heroes pretty regularly.” Deku answered.

Hitoshi didn't know how to process that he would be casually working with his favorite hero sometime soon in the future. So he just nodded as though it wasn't a big big deal.

Kachan read over the text and then pressed send.

=Eraserhead, it's us. We have some information we need to discuss with you.

The reply did not come until about an hour later while Shinsou was lazing about in his room reading comics.

He jumped when he heard the sound of the new phone buzzing lightly on his bed. He grabbed it and saw that it was a text from the the contact named Goggles 

-Who is this? and how did you get this number?

“What should I say?” He questioned 

“Here let me do it.” Kachan said as he took control of Hitoshi’s thumb

=It is us, Gestalt. 

-Gestalt is dead, who is this really

“What?! Why does this fucker think we are dead? ” Kachan said, sounding offended.

=What could we say to convince you of our identity?

-When we first met, what did you ask me to never do again?

=We asked that you not use your quirk on us, as it turned us into a lifeless puddle on the ground.

-damn, it really is you. Meet me at our usual spot tonight. You have a lot of questions to answer.

“What does he mean? Is he going to arrest us or something?” Hitoshi questioned.

“He’s probably just upset over how we handled Muscular. ” Said Deku

Hitoshi was startled “how would he know of our involvement with Muscular? ”

“He is probably talking about our fight before and not the incident with you.” Deku answered

Oh, that made sense. They had a while until they would have to leave so Hitoshi decided to go to the park to train, he would have to use these quirks in the heroics course soon.

Chapter Text

He got home from training at the park just in time for dinner. His mom and dad made smalltalk about their days. Apparently his mom had run into an old friend of hers at the grocery store. Hitoshi was hesitant to ask for help with some of his UA paperwork in fear of ruining the good mood. He wasn't sure his mom's exact opinion on him going to hero school, but he doubted it was anything good. His dad, at least, had congratulated him on the day his acceptance letter had arrived.

After dinner Hitoshi went up to his room and goofed around for a few hours. Once it was dark enough to be a reasonable time to go to bed, Hitoshi went downstairs for a glass of water and wished his parents goodnight. Now they wouldn't check his room later since he was supposed to be sleeping. They knew that if on the off chance he did manage to get to sleep such an interruption would wake him up.

He heard his parents go to bed in their own rooms. He waited for a half an hour and then he gave the go ahead to Deku.

Deku took control again, liquifying and inverting the colors so that black was on the outside, and purple sequestered in his core. He had purchased a black pair of running shorts and a cheap thin fabricked ski mask. Deku put them on and covered them with a thin layer of slime. They were there in case for some reason Ooze turned off. He didn't have all the tools he would need yet, the only things he had on him was the phone and roll of duct tape. He hated the feeling of things floating around in his abdomen but Deku had assured him he would get used to it.

Deku kept their size small until they were a fair distance from his house. Then the lenses slid over his eyes as he stretched into the spindly form of Gestalt. Hitoshi had expected patrolling to be more exciting.

Deku walked deeper into the city, away from Hitoshi’s neighborhood. As soon as the building got denser Deku climbed up a building to get a better view looking around. 

“We have a few hours until we have to meet Eraserhead, I think we should spend our time till then scouting out this area. ” Deku said.

“It’s too fucking bad that Droopy’s house is so far from our old route.” Kachan 

Deku hummed noncommittally before running for the edge of the roof. Hitoshi braced himself as his body fell, but no pain heralded their landing. If he focused he could feel how the slime’s structure deformed slightly but not enough to overcome the strength of Suran’s quirk.

Deku swung up onto a fire escape and ran up it, but jumped to the next building rather that take it to the top. “Alright Shinsou, pay attention to how everything feels as I patrol, especially how me and Kachan use the quirks. ” Deku said.

Hitoshi paid attention, man this really was a much better way to learn. He could feel every single motion Deku made, with the muscle memory acquired from this he imagined it would be very easy to replicate.

“Do you think I could try this for a bit? I’ll scoot over if anybody shows themselves” He asked.

“Sure! ” Deku, who was climbing up a building said.

 Hitoshi took control and briefly stumbled at the unfamiliar sensation of being completely malleable. It took him a moment to orient himself with the alien proportions. But with his experience from riding along it didn't take too long to climb the rest of the way up.

  “You're like a baby deer!” Kachan laughed.

 He jumped into the air a few times and ducked and weaved from imaginary opponents. He then carefully ran at the edge of the building. His nerves failed him at the last second and he came to an abrupt stop before he could jump. He looked down, a fall from this height would not kill him, even if he was in his regular body. Heck, he had watched as Deku made jumps like this not five minutes earlier.

“You got this.” Deku said. “Me and Kachan have easily made jumps from ten stories up.” Hitoshi imagined that they would splatter from that high, but chose not to comment.

He felt the weird system of tubes they used to talk in that ridiculous voice flow with air as he breathed in deeply. His breath whistled going in as the vocal cords were not designed for airflow in that direction. He swallowed his fear and stepped off the roof. His landing came naturally, and the impact was absorbed easily by their long legs. He stumbled for a second and then kept on patrolling. He tried to imitate Kachan’s predatory stalk to some success.

“Alright Bambi, times up. You have fucking all day to have a body, my chance.” Kachan said before he took control and stalked down an alley.

Deku and Kachan switched back and forth for an hour or two showing him all sorts of tips and tricks as they patrolled. Hitoshi cringed when a terrible sensation came from his torso, but Kachan just nonchalantly pulled the phone from his chest and tunnred of the one hour warning alarm.

“Deku, which way is the new place he makes us meet again?” Kachan asked as he crossed through a park.

“Hmm, from here? Let me just..” Deku snatched control from Kachan and looked around for a few seconds. “There.” The eyes were pointed at a building pretty far in the distance that looks just like all the others to Hitoshi, but must have been some sort of landmark because Kachan immediately began making his way towards it. 

A few minutes later Hitoshi noticed an anxious feeling coming from Deku, he was about ask what was the problem when Kachan barked “ Spit it out nerd, I’m sick of your fucking nerves ”

Deku sighed and then asked “Kachan, you remember what to tell him if he asks about the fight right? Oh and make sure to tell him about the mole in the police.”

“ God fucking damnit Deku! Yes! You only reminded me about eight times.” Kachan responded, sounding exasperated. They had gone over lots of ideas for any questions Eraserhead could possibly ask them. 

One thing was bugging Hitoshi though “If you’re so worried about Kachan messing up why don't you just do the talking Deku? ” 

“That's because Deku can't lie for shit.” Kachan answered. 

“ Oh” That made sense.

Hitoshi felt his stomach flutter when Kachan leaped across a gap that he had no chance of making. Halfway across he heard a small crackle and then a pair of explosions from his feet took them the rest of the way to the next building. Kachan carried on running across rooftops and jumping between buildings. When he reached the building that Deku had used as a landmark he turned down a road and continued.

Kachan’s assurance earlier must not have been enough because Deku continued with the worrying “ Under no circumstances can he find out Shinsou’s involvement Kachan, remember that.”

“I know Deku. Jeez, we have been over this.” They must really be used to each other since Kachan didn't sound all that annoyed, and Deku seemed to trust him well enough despite the warnings.

“Why is that so important? What would happen if one of my classmates told them about me?” Shisnou asked. 

“We would have to fucking hunt down whichever shitty cop is in charge of your case and convince them otherwise. ” Kachan said in a tone that implied that better not happen.

“They probably didn’t though, if the cops knew you killed Muscular they would have arrested you already.” Deku added.

Hitoshi doubted that, “They wouldn't have arrested me, it was clearly self defence.”