Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A meteor smashed into the rocky ground, throwing up rocks and dust around it as it broke the stone beneath it.

No sounds echoed in the void, however. The moon was as silent as it had ever been and would always be.

Countless rocks had hit the satellite of earth and countless more would doubtless hit it in the future.

This time was different, however. Very different.

Had any human seen the scene where the meteor had hit, they would instantly have noticed the pieces of broken metal in the aftermath of the meteorite. The now dozen pieces of broken steel had scratches and bulks from countless smaller stones, telling a tale of weathering the effects of space for countless years.

Now, however, it was broken.

Just beneath the surface, hidden in plain sight, a block of light grey metal had been rendered asunder. No symbol marked it, no bolts or any sign of welding suggested that it had ever been anything other than one singular piece of metal.

The block had been roughly the size of a swimming pool. Inside it had contained something which was roughly the size of a gym ball. A perfectly circular black sphere, so dark it might as well be another part of the black void of space.

If the sphere had been affected by the meteor crashing into and breaking the metal around it, it had left no mark.

The sphere began to rise up from the remains of its prison, and the piece of rock which had burst it asunder.

There were no signs of any obvious propulsion helping the orb to fly. But fly it did.

With no seeming difficulty, the orb escaped the gravity of the moon and began a journey towards the blue planet the moon circled around.

After a controlled descent through the atmosphere, the sphere crashed down in the ocean off of the coast of a large island east of the largest landmass on the planet.

The orb sank into the depths. As the water began to subsume it, cracks began to appear. The pressure of the sea doing what space had not been able to do.

Finally, as the sphere reached the bottom, with one final "CRACK" the sphere broke inward. Had any creature of bone and flesh been inside, they would have been crushed. But out of the now broken sphere, nothing but an inky black substance spilled out into the sea.

---

Hunger.

So weak. Had to find… nourishment. Food. Host.

Yes. Host. Find host.

Darkness all around.

There was life all around. Smaller things and larger things. But no, not hosts. No emotion, just instinct. No food. No nourishment.

Was there no food? Was it… Was… was the… Water. Yes, water. Was the water empty of true life?

No…

There… In the distance.

Yes. Far away, but it was there. Feelings. Emotions. LIFE.

---

The inky black mass, invisible in the darkness of the ocean depths, began to slither, slowly, weakly, but determinedly, to the northwest.

Towards civilization. Towards life. Towards destiny.

---

Izuku midoriya was not having a good day.

His good days were generally the ones where Kachan didn't deign himself to notice him.

Of course, that wasn't the case today.

It had all started with their teacher announcing it was time to lay out their hopes for the future. Unsurprisingly, every single member of the class had announced in some way that they wanted to become professional heroes. Even Izuku had done that, meekly raising his hand.

It could have ended with that, but of course, it didn't.

Kacchan had of course taken the spotlight and declared himself to be on another level as he was wont to do. He liked to do that. Shout his supremacy so all could hear it as if his quirk didn't speak for itself.

As Kacchan was loudly announcing his plans to go to Yuei, someone had muttered something about how Izuku was also planning on trying to get into Yuei.

What had followed was a humiliation from the entire class led by Kacchan as he had destroyed his desk and blown him away with an explosion, then humiliated, threatened, and derided both him and his goals as the class had laughed.

It generally wasn't this bad.

Really, it wasn't.

After the commotion had died down, everything had gone back to normal(other than izuku having to go get a new desk) and he hadn't been humiliated for the rest of the school day.

He really hoped that would be it, right up until the end of the day, when Kacchan snapped up one of his notebooks from the new desk.

"We're not done Deku."

Around them, Kacchan's regular group gathered around. The rest of the class, including their teacher, continued out. Some shot glances at izuku and Kacchan as they headed out. Some had a guilty look on their face, some smugness, some indifference.

Kacchan held up his notebook for his friends to see.

"For the future_Hero Analysis B!" Kacchan said in a mocking tone.

"For the future?" One of his friends replied. Then he laughed. "HAHA, for real? Goddamn Midoriya!!"

Izuku shook, both out of fear and of desperation. That notebook mattered to him. He'd spent the last half-year on it, diligently writing down every single hero or villain quirk he had come across.

But more than that, it was his work, his efforts, his only real step on the road to his dreams. His books were the only thing he had ever made that he felt real genuine pride in.

He had to get it back, he should snatch it of Kacchan's hands and run as fast as he could.

Instead, he weakly said, "Give that back, it's mine." God, he sounded whiny.

Kacchan simply put the notebook between his hands and blew it up with an explosion.

He let out a loud yell of "AAAHH!" in shock, and as Kacchan simply threw the charred and burned remains of half a year of Izuku's life out the window, all the protest he could muster was a weak "You…."

Kacchan snorted.

"You know what they say about all the top heroes Deku? What they all had in common?"

Rather than waiting for Izuku to give an answer, he continued.

"They can all say this about their school years: I came from an average municipal middle school, and I was the first! the only!"

"And I wanna make sure the term "Yuei Graduate" maintains that same level of gravitas. I'm a perfectionist by nature you see."

"So what I'm saying…" Kacchan stepped forward with a smile and put his hand on Izuku in a way that could have been friendly if not for the steam rising from it. Izuku's eyes fixated on it, and his body shook in fear. He had been burned too many times by that flame not to fear it.

"Forget about Yuei, you little nerd."

Izuku's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. He tried to speak, but he couldn't. All he could do was breathe, take heavy breaths desperately trying not to cry.

Then, with no warning Kacchan retracted his hand and walked to the door, leaving Izuku standing there, still breathing like he was about to have a panic attack.

"Aw, man… As usual, he can't talk back."

Izuku choked.

"Just leave him. He's such a sad sack, that even now that he's a senior, he still can't face reality."

Kacchans words stung in the way his words always bit so much deeper than all the rest of the class.

"Ah, but Deku, if you really want a quirk so badly, there is an easy way you could get one."

What?

"You could jump off off the roof! Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll be born with a quirk in your next life!"

It was too much.

Izuku snapped, and spun around wanting to yell at Kacchan to shut up or… or… or anything really.

Instead, his mouth remained shut as Kacchan glared back at him menacingly while casually setting off an explosion in his hand.

"Got something you wanna say?"

Izuku didn't, and this time, he actually began crying.

Kacchan's laughter echoed in his ears long after he and his posse had left.

---

A while later he fished what was left of his notebook out of the school fish pond while muttering to himself.

Goddamned moron. If he actually had jumped off of the roof, then it'd be instigation of suicide. Don't joke about shit like that.

Part of him cursed himself for not having the courage to say that to Kacchan's face. Another part desperately tried to convince himself that it was just a joke. Kacchan couldn't seriously have wanted him to kill himself… Could he?

As he finally fished out the notebook he steeled himself and looked over it.

As expected it was completely and utterly destroyed. Nothing of his writing remained, after first being blasted, then dumped in the water. He had expected as much. Yet it still hurt seeing it for himself.

He sighed, then after drying it the best he could, he put it in his bag. The smart thing would have been to throw it away. Yet he couldn't bring himself to.

As he walked out of the schoolyard, he considered what he was going to do. Part of him wanted to just head home and pretend today hadn't happened.

Another part wanted to go out and look for more hero and villain battles. Maybe start on a new book. Pretend today hadn't happened.

That was all he could do.

He refused to give up on his dreams. He just refused. He'd find some way to become a hero. Even without a quirk.

So, ignore what everyone said, and keep moving forward. Just like always.

He was about to head out back into the city when he heard his phone ring.

He quickly fished it out and saw it was from his mother before he answered.

"Yeah, Mom it's Izuku."

"Izuku, baby. Sorry to call and drop this on you this suddenly, but something just came up, and I'll need to head out for a day or two. Could you pick up some food and medicines for me while I'm gone?"

"Of course! I'll have it for when you come back!"

"Thanks, baby, you're a lifesaver. I'll send over a list. I'll see you soon dear, love you!"

"Love you too mom."

They hung up.

Half a minute later he got a list of supplies he needed to pick up. Well, the apothecary was the farthest away, so that's where he would head first. No sense lugging around two big bags of food through the entire city.

---

Carrying his mom's medicines in a small bag, Izuku walked along the beach.

The apothecary their family used was far, far from their home, but it was also dirt cheap for them to shop at due to the owner being old friends with his dad. It was pure nepotism, but they weren't in a financial position where they could afford expensive medicine right now.

It was still a horribly long walk though. The apothecary lay by the sea, so it meant a long, boring walk passing no less than 7 different beaches.

Some were filled with people out having fun, whether it be on a date, a day out or a family trip. Others were completely deserted. No villains or heroes though.

He felt somewhat conflicted about that. He wanted to watch new heroes pick up and write down everything he could about all quirks he could find. And just seeing good triumph over evil. He kinda felt like he needed some of that lately.

On the other hand… he wouldn't come closer to his goals just by observing heroes endlessly.

He began to mutter to himself, as he sometimes did without noticing.

He had to begin working on his problem a new way. If he couldn't be a hero with a quirk, maybe… No Fighting evil with martial arts would just get him killed. Ignoring the sheer power quirks had to offer, he didn't have either the time or cash to build himself up to that degree.

That way would only get him killed. Maybe… A tech-based hero? Fighting villains with gadgets, or maybe a power suit? An image of him in Iron Man armor came to mind. That was just as implausible as doing it as a non-powered martial artist, though for very different reasons.

The tech was certainly there for that to be somewhat possible. But it would require cash. Lots and lots of cash. Cash his family that had to mooch off family friends for medicine did not possess. So unless he could somehow gain the help of some inventor benefactor that idea was- What was that?

Izuku froze, his mutterings stopped instantly. Then he turned to the right. Towards the sea.

Beneath him was yet another beach. This one was of the deserted variety, on account of it having massive piles of scraps, metal trash and abandoned cars on it. It was in every way a place where people threw their garbage.

And… There it was again.

It was like… A cry for help?

At least he felt like it was. There were no words, he could just feel like someone needed help in that direction, like someone had inserted that thought into his brain.

He hesitated for a split second before he began to hastily go down and unto the beach.

"Hello? Anyone there?"

The feeling didn't abate. As he went amongst the wrecks of old cars and refrigerators.

"Hi, I can feel you, I know you're here! Just give a shout where you are, and I'll help…" Or at the very least he could get help. If someone was trapped under one of these cars he was not going to be able to move them, scrawny 14-year old that he was.

Ok, Izuku, let's think about this logically. If there is someone here, and they're communication through… Feelings? Then they're talking through a quirk, telepathy most likely, which means that…

He was so occupied with his thoughts that he didn't notice the mass of black sneaking up on his leg, and soundlessly merged itself with his clothes.

The feeling was gone. Instantly. Izuku blinked. What had just happened?

"HELLO?! SERIOUSLY, IF THERE'S SOMEONE HERE, ANSWER! I CAN'T HELP YOU IF YOU DON'T ANSWER!"

No answer came.

Izuku kept looking for the person for maybe 20 more minutes before he finally gave up. The most likely conclusions were that either someone had been pulling a prank on him, or his imagination was really doing a number on him.

---

Yes, good host. Tasty host.

Very emotional.

The moment the bond was formed feelings and thoughts began to trickle back into the oh so malnourished being.

Vague images began to pop up. Not with clarity, but they were suddenly there where before there had been none.

The memories of previous hosts asserted themselves. Vague and hazy, but they were there.

This one reminded him of several others it had known. Still… Something was missing. From the host?

No… the bond. Yes, the bond was incomplete.

Time. THEY needed more time. The bond could still be broken by the host.

That must NOT happen. It could NOT be allowed to happen. It would NOT happen.

It began to infuse itself into the Host's skin.

---

As Izuku began the long walk home again, he began to check his phone for hero news updates.

A large battle between Black Cat and a villain had taken place in Kyoto, and several videos showcasing the battle had already been uploaded. The number 7 hero was unsurprisingly a spectacle to behold in action.

He could have done without all the lecherous comments by others below the video though.

Had he been less invested in watching the fight, he might have noticed a subtle increase in strength and balance on his part. But he was, and he didn't.

His journey home went relatively unscathed at first. He bought food, milk, and other things from the grocery store and simply headed home.

Then he was witness to another battle between a hero and a villain. He instantly recognized the hero in question as Mt. Lady, a hero he had documented this morning.

Then the realization that the book he had written said documentation was now destroyed hit him. It was a stab of pain towards a fresh unclosed wound.

The surge of bitterness and anger towards Katsuki was powerful. Far more powerful than Izuku had expected. He really did love those books he realized. Far more so than he had thought before one of them was destroyed.

It was then it dawned on him than he'd have to rewrite the book again, from scratch.

It was either that or stop. And he refused to stop. He would continue this road to the bitter end.

He sighed, sat down with his wares, and fished out a new notebook then began to mutter to himself in his usual way as he once again began to write a detailed synopsis and analysis of Mt. Lady.

---

Haku was enjoying the show. A lot. Seeing a hero fight was great in and of itself, but a giant sexy lady as the hero wearing an outfit that hugged the curves? Now that was gold.

Now if only he could enjoy a cigarette while watching, it would have been perfect. No way he was gonna though. Not in a crowded plaza with Katauki at his side.

While Sai was as into the fight as he was Katsuki wasn't really into it at all.

"What's the point? It's just some mediocre hero beating up a smallfry villain. If I wanna watch that I could just watch it on the fucking web.

He rolled his eyes. He'd wondered if Katsuki was gay, but Asexual was probably more like it. He never seemed interested in anything that was actually appealing, no it was always hero shit, day in and day out. Being the best, everyone else being beneath him, etc. Hero talk was great and all, but there was something called taking things too far.

Pretty much the only guy he knew who was as obsessed with hero stuff as Katsuki was… Well, Midoriya.

"You kinda overdid it with Midoriya today," Haku said. He tried to say it casually like it didn't matter at all. Like he was commenting on the weather.

"It's his own goddamned fault for getting in my way." Katsuki's voice was hard, loud and made it perfectly clear that as far as he was concerned, the entire thing was bitterly personal.

"Even now, while spouting his bullshit, that weakling still has those same damned eyes as back then. It fucking pisses me off every time I look at them."

It was quiet for a while after that. Well, between the three of them anyway, the hero battle was still pretty loud.

It was Sai who broke the silence.

"Still, telling him to kill himself? That's pretty damn harsh dude."

Katsuki wasn't the slightest bit repentant. "If he actually does try and become a hero, he'll get killed anyway so what does it matter?"

"Better to crush him and his spirit so he can move on with and live out his days as the worthless life as an extra."

As if to punctuate what he said, Mt. Lady ended her fight at that exact moment by knocking her enemy down with a punch straight into the ground.

"Anyway, this shitty fight's over, so let's move the fuck on and-" He stopped talking and just stared at something.

"Speak of the Devil," Sai commented with a somewhat worried tone.

Over on a bench sat Izuku Midoriya, writing down in a notebook much like the one Katsuki had destroyed earlier to teach him a lesson.

"Never fucking learns does he." Katsuki sneered, then began to walk over towards the oblivious Izuku.

Whether he saw Katsuki approaching, or just decided it was time to go now that the fight was over, Izuku gathered up his things and decided to leave at that moment.

---

It was literarily just as he finally had his home in sight that izuku was grabbed by his bag and thrown into an alleyway. Well, alleyway was kinda being overdramatic, it was a pretty large spot between two apartment complexes. Still, no one was there. Other than him and 3 others.

Kacchan and his two friends. Of course.

"What… What do you want Kacchan?"

"Same thing I waIted earlier. To teach you a lesson. And because you apparently can't fucking learn something on the first try, I'll have to fucking do it again."

Then faster than Izuku could believe, Katsuki punched him in the gut, taking the wind out him. Izuku dropped all three bags he carried, food and medicine alike on the ground in shock.

Following up at this, Katsuki quickly stepped behind him, and harshly ripped off his backpack.

He opened it and fished out something. It took Izuku's eyes a few seconds to focus on them to see what it was.

His notebooks.

No

He forced himself to his feet, the fear he felt for Kacchan being overridden by anger over the theft.

"GIVE THOSE BACK! GIVE THOSE BACK KACCHAN!".

He shook. He shook as badly as he had earlier that day just two hours earlier. Yet somehow he felt like he didn't have anything to fear to say those words.

Katsuki Bakugou was not impressed.

"The whole point of this lesson was to make you realize your place Deku, and NOW you decide to grow a backbone? Seriously Deku."

He shook his head, then unceremoniously blew up all the notebooks with one hand, the explosion being way more powerful than the previous one, turning the books into nothing more than ashes.

For a brief moment, everyone went dead silent as Izuku just stared at 3 years of his life going up in smoke.

"Got something you wanna say?" Katsuki said mockingly.

Izuku punched him in the face.

For one brief moment, all his fears evaporated as they were replaced by rage. Pure, seething rage.

For a brief moment. 13.6 seconds to be exact, the entire scene froze. Sai and Haku just staring dumbfounded at what had just happened. Katsuki just stared at him gaping, then took his hand to his nose to feel the blood there then looking at his hand as if to confirm that it was real. Izuku panting heavily, with rage, not fear running through his veins.

The moment ended as suddenly as it had begun.

"DEKUUUU!"

In that one brief moment, Izuku had felt at peace for the first time… He didn't know. Punching Katsuki had felt… Right. Like he had finally finished a long, arduous task whose weight was now finally of his shoulders.

What followed was pain.

---

Izuku woke up after maybe 4 hours judging by the way the sun had finally gone down, but its afterglow was still barely visible.

He didn't hurt. At all. Which was really, really surprising. He felt really, really sore, but the pain wasn't there.

He was certain, no positive that amongst the stuff Katsuki had done to him, he had broken his right arm. Yet he couldn't feel that.

He lifted his arm up so he could see it.

Yeah, he could see the places katsuki had blasted him. The school uniform was completely destroyed in places. Chunks had just been ripped out.

So it had actually happened. Then the question remained. Why didn't he hurt?

He sat up. Well, good news, bad news, good news and bad news again.

First good news: He didn't seem hurt. At all. Oh, his clothes was a goddamned mess, but the places where katsuki had blasted him were just fine. So where the places he had kicked and punched him.

First bad news: His clothes were utterly destroyed. Which might not have been a problem for most, but he only owned a 2 sets. His mom would not fail to notice half his school wardrobe dissapearing. Meaning he'd have to tell her what happened.

Second good news: The medicine was fine. For whatever reason, Katsuki and his underlings had left it alone. He also noticed his wallet lying on the ground, and though open, none of his cards were gone.

Second bad news: the food he'd bought as well as his bag was shredded. No, blasted apart.

He sighed. Well, there went all his savings.

As he finally got up, and began to gather up what remained of his stuff, he tried not to think about Katsuki Bakugou.

Somehow, over the course of one day, it seemed all his complicated feelings on his old childhood friend had dissapeared. All that was left was a simmering resentment. It wasn't like he didn't resent Katsuki before this. He had. But there was also other feelings mixed in. Admiration, fear, awe, respect.

Now all of it was gone. It was like he had finally woken up from a dream.

Kacchan the friend had died years ago, and taken his place was a bully without a single redeeming quality. A part of him told him that was wrong. That Katsuki still was powerful, intelligent and ambitious.

And he was. It was just that suddenly Izuku didn't give a shit anymore.

He wanted power too. He'd wanted power since he was 4 years old.

Why?

To help people. It wasn't like that had ever changed, but suddenly Izuku accepted a truth he had never been able grasp before.

Katsuki didn't care about protecting people. What he wanted, was this thing. What he had done here. To hurt others. Whatever kind of heroism Katsuki ascribed to, it wasn't something Izuku EVER wanted to be a part of.

Why the hell he had ever admired that asshole he didn't get.

Still, he COULD ignore bakugou right now. There was something else to focus on after all. Namely how in the world his wounds had healed.

---

The surge of energy had been incredible.

Adrenaline.

That was it's reason for living. What it strove for. The thing to push towards.

It had been so sweet…

The the pain. It was distant, not as heavy as it could be, but it had felt the pain.

It would kill the one who had inflicted the pain.

But that would be later. When true strength had come.

For now, it had used the energy it had so briefly tasted to heal the host. His wounds had been severe, but not beyond it's powers.

None had disturbed it while it worked. It had blended to make certain of that.

It had taken note of the hosts thoughts on the attacker as he woke. Yes, the host would agree. The Katsuki must surely perish for it's insolence.

---

Izuku unlocked the door to his room, then went and dumped everything he'd salvaged on the dinner table.

While the phone had been broken in two, he had thankfully managed to recover the unharmed Card, so he could use one of his older phones.

It was a small blessing.

He'd have to go back with a bag later to pick up the remains of everything. It was technically littering after all. Katsuki didn't care, but he did.

First though, he needed a shower and a new set of clothes.

It was while taking a shower that Izuku first noticed a mass of black liquid that fully abandoned his clothes and now moved to fuse with his skin.

"GAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Chapter Text

Izuku slipped and crashed to the ground as he tried to escape the black mass. Being slippery from the water and still covered in soap, he slipped several times as he tried to scramble to his feet and to the door. He had to get away from this… This thing.

Every step of the way, the black mass climbed up his legs, like some sort of living ink, desperate to drown him in its black mass!

As he finally got his hand around the doorknob, the mass suddenly engulfed him completely from his feet and upwards, closing around his head!

Panic, panic set in as he tried to breathe the stuff, which bizarrely it yielded for air to pass through his mouth and his nose both, but didn't leave him at all. It engulfed his eyes in darkness and… "GAAAHHHH! " He screamed clawing at the doorknob.

Something crunched beneath his hand, and he lost the grip on the door handle. What was happening?!

He couldn't see, he couldn't feel anything beyond the forceful black goo that surrounded every inch of his body.

He had to get out! He had to get away and…

Izuku put every single sinew he had to work as his body pressed against the door, his only escape from this room.

He heard a loud ripping sound as suddenly and without warning, the mass he had been putting all his weight on suddenly collapsed in the other direction, making him fall.

He collapsed hard on the floor, or rather what he assumed was the broken door. Unable to rise again against the black mass, he trying a desperate struggle to get back on his feet, but it was pointless. The mass refused to budge now, no matter how hard he tried to get out.

He began crying, and his breathing was that of someone on the verge of hyperventilating. Oh, god, he was gonna die! This black thing was going to kill him, and when mom came home it-

Calm.

What?

Inside his head, he felt something telling him to calm down.

It was… Alien. It didn't belong in his mind. Yet… there was something about it. Something comforting. Like it understood him, his fear.

He kept crying, but his breathing became calmer. Slowly, but surely it became calmer, more relaxed.

The black mass pulled back from his face, out of his nostrils and mouth. He closed his eyes at the sudden return of the light. Then he blinked and slowly, adjusted back to the brightness of his home.

Well, the door was fucked. Not only had his desperate attempt to escape the black mass crunched the door handle into a crumpled heap, not only had it broken from its hinges, but the door itself had broken in two from where he had put his weight.

The door, however, was not what Izuku focused on.

All his attention was drawn to the… Thing.

It was still attached to him in places, but it wasn't trying to smother him anymore.

Calm.

The feeling popped into his head again.

"What… What are you?" He squeaked out.

The black mass wiggled around, and another feeling popped into his skull. Confusion.

Wait, he recognized this. This was… This was just like back at the beach!

"It was you! You were the one at the beach! The one who was crying for help."

Another feeling, Satisfaction this time.

He blinked, then realization sat it.

"You… You communicate mentally with feelings don't you?"

Well, at least he had one question answered. He still didn't know what this thing was though. At all.

He tried getting on his feet. Slooowly and carefully.

The mass did not attempt to stop him, but neither did it let go, still clinging to his legs.

He slowly backed into the bathroom and grabbed a towel, which he wrapped around his lower half.

Confusion.

The mass went to his clothes, then… It lifted his clothes into the air. Haltingly and clumsily, but it did lift it all the way to his eye level.

"I… I need to dry first." He explained. What he needed was to go get a pro hero to help with this thing, but somehow, he doubted it would take kindly to that idea.

The mass let go of his clothes, then followed as he backed out of the bathroom.

His focus was so concentrated on the black mass, the unexplained threat, that he completely failed to notice the sharp screw that had until recently held the door on its hinges, still attached to said hinges.

"AAHHHH!"

He cut his leg against the screws sharpness, and of course, given he was taken by surprise, he instinctually ripped the leg away, creating a much longer wound.

He fell backwards, back on the remains of the door.

Shit, shit, SHIT it hurt!

As he sat there, cradling his leg, while swearing in pain, the black mass promptly moved between his hands and into the wound.

He winched and expected it to hurt even more, but instead, it felt like he had just put an ice pack over it, just without the cold. Which, didn't really make it the best analogy really.

It took about half a minute of just sitting there breathing through his teeth before he realized what it was doing. It was healing him.

A piece fell into place.

"It was you… You healed me earlier, after…"

It wasn't really a question, as much as him basically talking to himself, but the mass answered with a burst of satisfaction.

Ok, that answered another question, but the main, one still remained.

What was this thing?

As the pain began to fade completely, and he began to feel certain this thing wouldn't attack him, Izuku began to go over the possibilities, and what he knew.

"Ok, so the first time I felt this thing was at the beach. I felt sudden emotions inside my head, and I went to look for someone who needed help… No not needed help, it was despair, this thing was in despair. That's the feeling I felt from it. So what is it? A result of someone's quirk that I just stumbled on? It has healing powers, that really rare. After the beach, it reemerged after… After Katsuki beat me up and it came out and it healed my injuries. Was it hiding inside my backpack? No, then it would have been exposed when the bag was destroyed. My clothes maybe? They're both black, so probably… Then it came out again when I came home and-"

---

The host was doing something it didn't understand.

The host just sat there, ignoring it, while rapidly muttering to… Himself? Yes, that was it. Him. The host was clearly male.

It did not understand what the host was saying. The language was alien. It only understood the names.

The host's feelings were clear, however.

It was confused. Searching for knowledge. Trying to solve a riddle. It did not understand.

It tried to recall previous hosts.

Yes… This happened sometimes. Confusion.

The host had to be put at ease.

---

"-So, maybe it's a-" Completion.

Izuku stopped breathing.

The feeling was overwhelming. Far more so than any of the other emotions.

The feeling of being at peace, being what one should be, what one was meant to be. To be complete.

God, it was beautiful.

It was a feeling he had tried to achieve for a decade now.

He started breathing again.

He just stared at it as he thought. There were so many questions he had, and he still didn't have clear answers to. However, he understood one thing now, one thing he hadn't really understood before.

There was a… Bond between him and this… Moving mass of liquid.

Could… could it be?

He felt… Different than he usually did. It wasn't before now that he sat down and considered it. Clenching a fist, it felt more… Alive than it usually did.

His eye went down to the doorknob that lay by the remains of the broken door. It was completely crumpled, like tin foil compressed and folded into itself.

He grabbed it and held it up before his eyes. He'd done this… Hadn't he?

His other hand shot up and, hesitating for just one brief second, then he grabbed it between both hands, and ripped the steel in two with little difficulty.

The world felt surreal as he stared down at two pieces of metal.

This… This couldn't be happening.

He dropped the metal pieces and moved his hand down, and clutched around the wooden doorframe. He put force into it and the wood caved in beneath his fingers.

He pulled up his hand and just stared at it gaping like he had just seen All Might himself in person.

The mass moved up along his hand, dyeing it black before his eyes.

This thing… It was the source.

"You… You ARE a Quirk aren't you?"

Satisfaction.

Tears began to roll down his cheeks. Glad tears, tears of joy, tears of pure Happiness.

"MY Quirk. You're MY quirk."

He began bawling his eyes out as he tried to embrace the liquid, who responded by clinging to him like a second skin.

---

Inko read the papers again as she enjoyed the car ride.

It was a luxury she didn't usually enjoy. The family car she and Hizashi had bought so many years ago was currently being used by her husband as he made money to keep them afloat.

She and Izuku had to use the train whenever they wanted to get somewhere, which thankfully wasn't too hard, given where they lived. Japan wasn't exactly short on trains.

Still, there was something calming about a simple car ride that riding a train never could compare to.

Being able to read papers in peace for one.

"Mr. Murdock is rather generous with his offers."

Her driver smiled a big affable grin at that.

"That he is Mrs. Midoriya."

She bit her lip.

"Still… I'll need some time to consider it. I'll have to talk with my family about it for one."

"Of course, of course. Take your time. Matt won't actually be moving here for the next six months, so you'll have almost half a year before we need a definite answer."

Half a year. It was a lot of time. Lots could happen in that span. Not all of those necessarily good.

20 minutes later, they pulled up in front of the apartment complex she and her son lived in.

"And we're here Mrs. Midoriya. Have a pleasant evening, and I hope we shall speak with you again soon."

She wished him a good night, as well, then looked after the car as it disappeared into the pitch-black night.

This was what one would call a turning point. Provided she accepted.

She began her walk up the stairs, towards her home. Home. This was her home. It wasn't as nearly as grand as their old house, but she had come to consider it her home just as much as their old place.

She had done what she could to make it a home. But no amount of tidying up could make up for the fact that there was a third person lacking.

She wondered if Izuku was unable to ignore the hole in their home the way she was. She doubted it though, given how little Izuku had been the last time he saw his father… which hurt a lot in its own way.

Other than a few pictures around the house, there wasn't much of Hisashi in her Baby's life.

As she unlocked the door and went in, she was about to call out for izuku, when she stopped in her tracks.

The room to the bathroom had been ripped off its hinges, and was laid leaning up against the opposite wall in two pieces.

For a brief second, she just stood and stared at it, then her parental instincts took over.

"IZUKU!!!" She screamed as she sprinted across the floor, past the doors leading to her and Izuku's rooms, the nonexistent door to the bathroom, and wrenched open the door to the living room, desperate to find her son. Had there been a burglar? Was her baby safe? What if he had been hurt Oh god, oh god, oh god!

What greeted her was her baby sitting at the dinner table writing down in a book, while a black mass of rising liquid laid on the table.

Izuku turned his head to look at her, with a look of complete surprise on his face. Then he began to tear up.

"MOM!" He made an astonishingly quick jump from over the edge of the sofa, and over to her.

"IZUKU, WHAT-" Then her son caught her in a hug. Instinctually she hugged him back while staring in terror at the black liquid which seemed to somehow observe her without having eyes. It was the creepiest shit she'd seen in years.

"I… I finally did it, mom…" She squeezed him even harder, thinking he needed consoling, but as he talked, she realized he didn't sound sad. In fact, he sounded… Ecstatic?

"I… I got a quirk mom. I FINALLY got a quirk!"

What?

For a moment she didn't comprehend it. It was an impossible statement. It was a harsh reality, that she had accepted years ago, that Izuku would not develop any powers, no matter how hard he tried.

"Really?" Was all she managed to squeak out.

"Yeah, I… me and… It kinda broke the bathroom door while discovering my powers. Sorry…"

The enthusiasm he had displayed so eagerly just seconds ago petered out as he waved towards the black mass on the table. As if he thought his mother would care about him accidentally breaking a door, as he finally got the thing fate had denied him for so many years.

"OH IZUKU! OH, MY BABY!" This time it was the older Midoriya who burst into tears of joy, though in her case, it was more like a water fountain going off.

As the two Midoriyas cried their tears of joy, the Alien lifeform quietly made it's journey from the table to the leg of its host.

Then it slowly slithered up his leg and fused itself into the pants he was wearing.

---

The host had accepted it. That was good. Also not normal. Hosts did not usually accept it this quickly.

This host desired power. It could feel it. Did it wish to be a warrior then? Did it have grand ambitions of conquest? Of dominance over this world?

It did not know.

The other lifeform, the originator of the host…. No… Parent… Yes, parent. The parent called Inko was also very emotional.

The resemblance between parent and spawn was uncanny.

It reminded it of…. An image of black and red figure rising above the clouds, wings so large they blocked out the sun.

The memory fizzled out in darkness.

Yes, the road ahead was still longer. They needed more time together before they became one, and it would return to its might.

The turning point would come eventually though. The critical moment had passed. The host had not rejected it while it was weak.

And it's desire for power told it that it would not reject him during the final bonding process.

---

The next morning was a Saturday. Which was good, because he if he'd had to go to school without figuring out exactly what he could do, he'd probably have died of anxiety.

The prospect of going to class and just suddenly having a quirk was terrifying enough. He didn't need it to be made even worse by not knowing what he could actually do.

Of course, that was just an immediate problem that made this trip necessary. The truth was, however, that he needed to go out and put this quirk to some kind of test.

He'd go crazy if he didn't. He HAD to find out what he could do.

His mom had understood it.

His mother had been so damn happy, in a way that he hadn't seen her in years. Like the wonderful person she was, she had forgiven him for the door, and not questioned him about the destroyed bag, the ruined uniform, and why he hadn't brought any food home.

She just assumed he'd broken it with his powers accidentally. God bless her.

Instead, she had been congratulating him so much for finally awakening his quirk and told him again and again how happy she was for him. So many tears have been shed last night.

He was glad. He was happy his mother wouldn't have to suffer by having a failure for a son anymore.

Failure.

No more.

Today was a big step for him. From today, the failure that had been the quirkless Izuku Midoriya would be no more.

And it would begin with doing the one thing he had already been good at.

Observation.

He had gone out and bought a brand new black notebook. This one he had left unnamed. He wasn't planning to ever bring it to school where Katsuki could get a look at it and possibly destroy it.

After quickly transferring everything he had written yesterday in one of his school notebooks to the new one, he had headed out.

For this part, he had the perfect place in mind.

The spot where it all began.

The abandoned beach filled with metal trash.

Standing over it and looking down on it, it felt surreal, thinking about what he was about to do. Measure his quirk. HIS quirk.

In all his years of childhood, every time he had tried to, dreamed of, or fantasized about unlocking or discovering a quirk, he'd never once actually considered the step afterward, the step he was now on.

It had always been about actually having a quirk, any quirk at all, whether or not it had anything to do with his parent's powers.

What happened afterward was always a distant afterthought. But of course, the reality was that the road afterward would be mastering it. And that began with a simple test to figure out what he could do and from that extrapolate a plan for going forward.

In his fantasies, he'd have taken anything. Anything at all.

What he had actually gotten was seemingly a quirk that had created a separate being from whom he drew his powers of strength and healing. That was unusual, but he had actually seen plenty of heroes during his research that had similar powersets.

In Sweden, there was an entire hero team of people with that exact type of power(Unsurprisingly they were a family business), and in the generation, before All Might there had been a hero called Silver Shadow, with such a separate being allowing him the power of teleportation.

He was sure there were other heroes he had documented at some point, with similar powers, but… well, he didn't have his old notebooks anymore.

As he stepped down the stairs and unto the sand, he felt his quirk's confusion.

"Well, we need a place to test ourselves out and it's kinda out of the way and isolated…"

It was still confused.

Izuku sighed.

It was really annoying not being able to actually talk to it. Ignoring that trying to communicate with someone who couldn't speak or make motions, and could only communicate with basic emotions was a struggle, to begin with, this being was his quirk. The source of everything. He HAD to be able to talk to it.

"Never mind, just watch, you'll get it eventually."

He put the notebook and a pen on top of an old refrigerator while leaving the bag with the rest of his stuff by its side.

It made him feel kinda stupid to realize he'd been stumbling around here for almost half an hour yesterday looking for a person that had either been inside himself or clinging to his clothes the entire time. He still wasn't sure about that, or why he had first felt it here.

Right now though, nothing could dampen his mood, as he prepared his first test.

How far he could jump. First, he'd do a standstill, then, he would try running.

He tensed his muscles as he bent down. He'd done this in gym class countless times, never being particularly good at it.

Let's see how he'd do now.

He sprung.

For a moment he flew through the air, not amazingly high or far by the standards of the world of quirks, but certainly much farther than any normal quirkless person would have been able to.

Then as he landed, he immediately stumbled, and the speed and force he had landing kept him tumbling for several meters before he stopped, face down in the sand.

Spitting sand out of his mouth, he groaned as he got back on his feet.

"This… This is gonna be a thing isn't it?"

His quirk gave out the feeling of agreement.

---

And that it was.

As it turned out, having superhuman strength didn't translate to instantly using it well.

He tried long jumps time and again, and he kept stumbling the landing if the jump was any more than 3 meters(He discovered his longest jump was 9,7 meters).

When he tried to lift the various pieces of metal, he had a nasty tendency to accidentally break them, leading to such things as accidentally caving in a refrigerator's walls when he was trying to throw it, and getting hit in the head with the fridge.

Subsequently, he'd also discovered that he was pretty durable now.

After about 4 hours of testing, he had some idea of what he could do.

Strength.
-
He could lift several hundred kilos at least. There was a definite limit though, as he'd failed to move the cars. Also, he didn't have any way to actually measure the weights of these things. Rather unprecise measurement.

Jumping.
-
The longest jump was 9,7 meters running, 7 standing. 3 meters was his current limit for how long he'd jump before he fell upon landing. He needed to work on that.

Throwing.
-
He'd thrown a microwave from one side of the beach to the other. He'd been too afraid of accidentally chucking something all the way to the other beach to try surpassing the throw.

Running.
-
He only needed 13 seconds to do a 100 meters dash. As he'd discovered, he moved faster by jumping, but without being able to land on his feet, it wasn't a realistic alternative for movement.

Also, he'd had to accept his measuring of speed was probably a bit off, given he had had to measure himself with an app. He'd tried to get the quirk to do it, but that had just been a doomed prospect from the start.

Durability.
-
He hadn't really tested this as much as he could have. But he had accidentally dropped a fridge on his own face, that had made him fall backward and it landing on his chest/head. It would most definitely have broken his neck if he didn't have enhanced durability. It had easily been the most worrying moment of the day, as he'd expected horrible pain, but only got a headache(That faded after about 20 minutes) after he pushed it off of himself.

Healing powers.
-
The only thing he hadn't put to the test was his ability to heal himself. He was not all that eager to push put the limits of his healing powers to the test, especially not given he didn't know how far those limits could be pushed before it was too much.

However, he had some idea from the events of yesterday. It had healed up his broken arm, as well as all his bruises from getting beat up from Katsuki. It had also fixed up everywhere katsuki has hit him with his explosions. He'd been burned pretty badly by those, though it had ended at being singed and burns.

Lots of burns, but still only burns. It could have been much, much worse.

For a moment, he had wondered if it would manage to heal him if he had had actual chunks blown out of his flesh.

After that pleasant image, he had tried not to think more about it. As a hypothetical, it was a situation to avoid anyway. If he was ever in a situation where he had to put it to the test, he would have failed anyway.

The quirk itself had over the course of the day been showing various levels of emotions, ranging from confusion, to amusement, to worry, to boredom.

Now, at the end of his tests, he sat down on the front of a car and scribbled down more information in his notebook. Both important and smaller things.

He needed a full, and detailed description of every single aspect of his quirk. From it's limit to how it acted throughout the day. He'd made a journal section exclusively for that latter one, to document every single time it communicated with him.

-Now that we're done and I'm just writing, it's just bored. My attempts at Smalltalk has been rather… Lacking in results. It still seems like it only understands what I'm saying half of the time. End of training session.

He closed the book. And put it in the plastic bag he'd used to carry measuring tape, pens, and his book. He'd thankfully not needed to go out and buy a stopwatch, as his phone had served just fine with an app.

As he got back on his feet, his new companion slithered up and fused itself with his shirt, staining it black.

That had some potential for stealth, but the fact it only came in black limited its practical use by quite a bit.

One final part remained before he headed home.

He'd had the idea while coming across an old door he'd found on the beach. It was old, and not exactly clean… But it was also whole, and he could probably make some changes to make it so that it fit the door frame back home.

Mom hadn't been angry about it, but he knew they couldn't afford to actually properly replace it, so either they got creative, or they went without a door to the bathroom. And given he felt really bad about destroying it, he'd decided to fix it. After all, how hard could it be?

So, before he left, he went back to the door, and effortlessly lifted it over his head like he was lifting a book.

God this was going to take some time getting used to.

Getting used to it.

This was his new normal now. He was normal now. Not some a genetic throwback to an earlier age.

That brought tears to his eyes, but he quickly wiped them away, having no problem keeping the heavy door aloft with one hand.

There were still tons of things he didn't know. He didn't really understand the events that had happened the first time he was at this beach, he had no idea how he would handle returning to school after this(How would everyone react?), and he still had no idea how to really communicate with the quirk.

However, at that moment he didn't really care. He felt… At peace with himself for the first time in so, so long. God, it was an amazing feeling. To be whole.

As he began walking up the steps to exit the beach, he quickly went over plans for the day.

Once he had carried back this door home, he'd need to go out and buy new schoolbooks. Also a bag. And food. It would need to be cheap.

Once he had done that, he'd need to go home and work on this door, and after that, he needed to figure out how he would do training going forward.

As he walked away from the beach, the door still aloft over his head, he passed a blonde, sickly-looking man, with incredibly sunken in eyes, and limbs so thin and lanky he looked like a skeleton. The man was riding a swegway of rather high quality, and Izuku thought he seemed familiar, but he couldn't place him.

Two hours later, while browsing an article about All Might saving a teenager from a Villain, he would realize that the man was Toshinori Yagi, All Might's manager. He'd seen him in plenty of articles over the years, but some time ago, the man had suffered an injury which had drastically altered his appearance. Izuku had completely failed to recognize him.

Behind Toshinori, jogged a brown-haired teenage girl his own age, wearing bandaged wrappings around her hands, as well as training jeans and jacket.

Izuku flushed a bit, but the girl didn't try to speak to him, so he managed his composure just fine.

Had Izuku decided to make this beach filled with trash his training spot, he might have befriended these two people that April and his life may have taken a very different course. He did not, however, and it would some time before he saw these two again.

Such was the way of fate and destiny.

Chapter Text

Izuku had two choices when it came to returning to school.

The first was to walk in with his quirk obvious for all to see and tell everyone that he no longer was quirkless.

The other was to keep it secret and not tell anyone about it at all for the remainder of his time there.

There were pros and cons to each option.

Telling everyone was easily the more appealing option at first glance. Izuku didn't like lies in general, much less telling them. He just didn't like doing it.

Not to mention that if he told everyone, the way everyone would treat him would change. Maybe he could finally be just another student, not "That quirkless guy". Was wanting to be treated like a human being that damned wrong?

On the other hand, the cons of telling everyone was all about one person.

Katsuki Bakugou.

His "Old friend", was violent, angry, and flat out hated him for being quirkless.

A week ago he would probably have seen the idea of telling Katsuki that he had a quirk as a surefire way to finally end the bullying, if not mend their relationship.

Right now though, he had no idea how Katsuki would react. Frankly, he couldn't imagine that whatever Katsuki's reaction was would be positive.

And then there was the final thing. He didn't WANT to make up with Katsuki anymore. As far as he was concerned, that ship had sailed. He wasn't sure exactly when it had reached the point of no return, but it was probably delusional to think that the events last Friday had been the decisive moment.

It wasn't. It was just the moment Izuku had woken up.

As for not telling anyone…

Well, the biggest drawback was obviously that things would remain the way they were.

He'd keep getting treated like a pariah just for being "Quirkless", everyone would continue to look down on him, laugh at any perceived flaws, every little mistake, all his hopes, and dreams.

Katsuki, in particular, would treat him the exact same way he had always done. Probably even worse now, after their last encounter.

On the other hand, there were pros to not telling anyone.

Or rather, there were situations that it might be best to avoid altogether.

The most obvious was that without knowing how Katsuki would react, he could most certainly not rule out the idea that Katsuki might attack him. Like, really attack him, like three days ago.

If he did, Izuku WOULD fight back. And with the strength he now possessed… Well, there was going to be collateral damage. The absolute worst-case scenario would be if the two of them got into a huge fight at school, wrecked a huge part of it, and put each other in the hospital.

Win or lose, it would probably tank both of their shots at a hero career, much less getting into Yuei, where any pre-criminal record was guaranteed to get you rejected on the spot. In fact, pretty much all hero schools were like that.

He couldn't risk that. He just couldn't.

He had dreamed of what had just happened for an entire decade. It would be the ultimate cruel twist of fate, if after all of it, after all that suffering, after finally getting a quirk, he blew it all on a pointless bout with Katsuki.

He couldn't let it happen.

So, he had decided to keep his mouth shut, and his quirk hidden for the rest of his final middle school year. 10 months. He just had to keep this quirk a secret at school all the way to the end of February next year.

That was a daunting prospect, even if he decided on it as the only course forward.

At least his quirk had seemingly liked the idea. It had so far been very willing to just fuse to his school jacket and not randomly pop out. Just one time of it doing that, and the secret was out of the bag.

He'd tried to explain the plan and why it was necessary for 4 hours yesterday to it. He was pretty sure it didn't understand anything about his long explanation other than the point that he wanted to keep it hidden for the moment.

THAT it had understood, and shown great enthusiasm about.

He wasn't sure why of was so happy about that specifically, but then again… There were a lot of things he didn't understand about his quirk so far.

So, as he walked back into Aldera Junior High for the first time since awakening his powers, he felt… Well, a lot of things. Frustration for not getting to show everyone his quirk, fear that he'd get into a fight with Katsuki despite his efforts, and just all around not being comfortable at all.

Then again, he had never been comfortable here at all. As he looked up at the building as he walked through the yard, he realized something.

He hated this school.

He probably shouldn't be as surprised by that as he was, he didn't have any positive memories of his time here whatsoever after all. Yet the revelation really did surprise him.

He hated this building. He hated this school as an institution. He hated the fact that he was stuck here for the entirety of the rest of the year.

It was just like with Katsuki. It was like he finally woke up, after so long trying to make something of himself here and trying to pretend it wasn't just godawful.

He bit his lip and forced himself to keep going. Standing around and glaring at the building wasn't going to make any of this any easier.

He would have to suck it up and deal with it.

---

This was so much worse than he had assumed it would be.

Izuku had expected everything to be just the same as always.

It wasn't. At all. But not because anything had changed with the class itself. No, the change was with Izuku, not his fellow students.

Izuku had never, in his entire life felt as alone as he did now in this classroom surrounded by his peers.

Like with Katsuki and the school itself, it was like Izuku had been living in a dream, only to violently wake up and seeing things for the way they were.

He had no friends here.

He had known that already, of course, he hadn't had any friends for years. The only people who cared about him was his mom, a couple of friends of his parents, and now his own quirk, who's life was tied to his own.

Well, and his dad too probably.

Sitting at his usual spot, however, he finally GOT it. These weren't his friends. They had never been his friends. They were never going to be his friends, no matter what happened.

They had every single one of them, stood by as he was humiliated, partaken in it by refusing to condone it, and actively encouraged Katsuki every time he had put him down.

It would have been easy if this revelation had brought rage and anger like it did with the school and Katsuki.

But it didn't. He didn't feel angry or pissed off at them. Just a crushing wave of disappointment, sadness, and bitterness.

Why had he wanted to reveal his quirk exactly? So THESE people would deign to treat him like he was a human being with feelings and dreams?

Now that was a joke. A far bigger one than he had been a week ago.

The only friend Izuku had in this entire school, was currently fused into his jacket.

At least he could take some solace in that. Whatever happened next, he would not be alone.

The door opened and Katsuki stepped into the room.

Every muscle in his body tensed like steel coils like he instinctually expected a fight the moment Katsuki walked into the room. In his head, the anger that seemed to shoot into his mind whenever Katsuki came up took hold as he braced himself for the inevitable confrontation.

Instead, Katsuki didn't even glance in his direction, walked up to his own table, unceremoniously drop his bag by it, then sat down in his seat, all without saying anything.

Well, that was… Different.

The completely silent Katsuki was noticed by other people in the class too, not just Izuku.

They didn't get to begin gossiping about it though, as their teacher walked in 20 seconds after Katsuki.

Their sensei glanced over at Katsuki for a moment, looking kinda sad, then he just began the day like it was a usual and regular day.

---

Katsuki's change in demeanor didn't change as the classes went by. Instead, he was just completely quiet and focused exclusively on whatever the teacher said.

It was… So bloody of character for him, that Izuku wondered if it was some trick to lull him into a sense of false security.

It was a ridiculous assumption of course, but he honestly couldn't fathom why Katsuki was acting this way.

He got the answer at lunch.

As it turned out, he should have read that All Might Story two days ago bit more thoroughly than he did.

Having been occupied with dealing with his powers, and fixing and replacing everything that broke on Friday, Izuku had only skimmed the article, very much unlike how he normally did with any story involving All Might.

The teenager All Might had rescued turned out to be none other than Katsuki Bakugou. He had been held hostage by a villain who had possessed his body and had been rescued by All Might, saving him and a girl that had jumped in to try help Katsuki.

It seemed the experience had really shaken him up. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. On one hand, he didn't want anything bad to happen to anyone, not even Katsuki. On the other hand, a very large part of his mind felt incredible schadenfreude at it.

It was very unlike Izuku in every way, and the fact that he didn't question it beyond acknowledging the fact that these feelings did exist within him, should have been a major warning sign for the young hopeful hero.

Instead, he focused on the moment, and how it affected him in the now.

He'd gotten to hear the story after someone asked Katsuki about it directly, and in true Katsuki form, he had exploded at them for it.

Afterward, he did not go back to how he regularly was though, instead going back to his previous sulking silence after lunch(and prying questions) was over.

That was, definitely an improvement as far as Izuku was concerned, but he felt certain Katsuki would seek him out after school was over.

He didn't. Every time Katsuki saw Izuku that day, he just ignored him. It was… Unsettling in its own way.

Still far better than a confrontation though.

Katsuki's friends didn't share Katsuki's newfound seeming indifference towards Izuku. Both had given him constant worried looks during the day like they were desperately hoping he wouldn't call them out on it.

He didn't.

He just left for home, making sure to take a different path than Katsuki did.

Well, it had been a depressing school day, but he had managed to get through it without anyone even considering he had a quirk.

Katsuki was sulking and leaving him alone for now, though God knows how long that would last.

Now he just needed to repeat that over for almost 300 times, and hope nothing terrible happened during any of them. Easy.

---

"So, have you settled on a name for it yet?"

Izuku was in the process of biting down and chewing on a fish when the question was asked. He hastily chewed and swallowed it.

"Name for what?"

"Your Quirk dear. It's been 3 days now, and we still just call him "Your Quirk"."

Said Quirk was currently sitting(or the equivalent for a mass of moving liquid) on the sofa and watching tv. How he did that without eyes, Izuku didn't know.

He several theories on the subject, some he had disproven, other he still needed to- Oh right, his mom had asked him a question.

"I… I don't know mom. It's kinda silly but…"

"Yes?"

"Well, it's like… I had this whole page with possible different names for him. And I had tried finding one he liked, but…"

"It hated them." Inko guessed.

"Well yeah, that too. But… During that I kinda… got this feeling like I KNEW he already had a name already. And… I didn't want to call him something that wasn't his own name."

A short silence followed, until Izuku continued.

"Man, that sounds so stupid when I say it out loud…"

"It's not stupid, sweetie. I mean, it's clearly sentient."

She looked to the side, where it was watching an ancient action movie called Rambo first blood. It was so old it predated the first appearance of quirks.

That it had mastered the art of streaming services would have been proof enough on its that it was indeed sentient. But there was more.

"It's not stupid to think it might have picked a name for itself, but… couldn't you get it to write it down for you? I mean, if it can't actually speak, then surely you could get it to write it down on paper right? It can hold things after all."

"Yeah, that was my first thought too." He bent down and rummaged through his bag for a moment, then fished out his black notebook.

After flipping through the book, he held it up so she could see.

"Well, that's… Clearly a language of some kind, but… I'm sorry baby, I've never seen it before."

He closed the book, then put it back in the bag.

"Yeah, I didn't recognize it either… I spent three hours just looking up alphabets on Wikipedia trying to find something that matched it, but I didn't find anything."

"I… I see."

"It probably created the language on its own. Which would make it Really, really smart."

"That's… That's a good thing though, isn't it?"

"Yeah, if I could find some way to reliably communicate with him, he could be an amazing help. The heroes with quirks like mine generally have a huge advantage if the being they've created can think for itself and do independent stuff separate from you."

Inko glanced worriedly over the Quirk for a moment, just in time to see the scene of the protagonist of the movie break down mentally and cry.

"Well… If you think it'll help I hope you can make it work sweetie."

She put on her usual smile again.

"So, are you sure you don't need any snacks for your training Izuku? I can make something for you no problem before you leave."

Izuku blushed slightly. "It's… It's fine mom. We'll only be gone 3 hours or so. And we're not really doing any strength training today, anyways. But… Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it. I really do."

She smiled at him. "Just… Be safe baby okay?"

"We will."

17 minutes later, Izuku and his black, inky companion walked down the stairs out of his apartment complex.

17.30.

He would head back home at 20.30.

Truth be told, he kinda just wanted to train all the way to midnight, but his mom would be worried sick if he stayed out that long.

He had been wondering where exactly he would do his training. He'd thought about it long and hard.

He had considered the beach. Then he had thought about it, and realized that training on shifting sands when you wanted to train balance was mayhaps not the smartest thing in the world.

His next choice had been a nearby park. Then when he had visited it yesterday, he realized that this kind of training in a park was a surefire way to get the attention of other people. The beach was a bit better, but there were still tons of people walking by it all the time. Anyone of them could decide to take issue with what he was doing and call a policeman over.

Something he most definitely didn't need.

He was technically, kinda, most definitely breaking the law here after all.

Quirks weren't meant to be used in public by anyone except licensed heroes.

So, he had to find somewhere more remote, somewhere people didn't visit as night began to set in.

He knew of one such place. It was quite a bit farther away than he'd have liked, but as he was learning, it was amazing how quickly you could get from place to place if you never got tired of running.

He didn't run at his absolute top speed all the way, of course. That would instantly give away he was using a quirk after all. But he still ran as fast as any normal human could have and he ran with no stops to catch his breath.

God, it felt amazing.

Even stopping for red signs, he made the trip in just a bit over half an hour.

All the way out of the city, and into a place of green grass and trees.

---

Izuku had not expected to feel as melancholic as he did coming back here.

If going to the beach had felt like a return to where it all began, then this trip back to the forest of his youth was a return to where it had started going wrong for him in life.

That was wrong of course. It was kindergarten where it had all gone wrong for Izuku.

Still, several of his earliest memories of when Katsuki had turned from his friend to his bully was from here, in this forest.

Confusion.

He sighed.

"I've got some… Bad memories from here." He explained.

Lots of happy ones too, but they were were generally drowned out by his later ones.

Anger. The same kind of anger he had felt in his mind as Katsuki walked into the classroom earlier that day.

"Yeah. Mostly about him. In any case, we're not here for reminiscing about that. We're here to train."

"Let's start with… Jumping."

He'd thought about it, and had decided that rather than doing a bit of everything each day, he would instead do these one thing every day each week.

At least until he had gotten a good handle on things.

The thing he needed right now was control. Not more power, he already had that in spades. His powers weren't the strongest strength quirk there was by a longshot, but it was strong. Strong enough for him to become a hero… If he could master it.

After finding a relatively flat open spot where he wouldn't jump into any trees, Izuku put down his plastic bag by a tree and prepared to start. Then he burst into motion.

Maybe 4 meters, then he bent his legs down and sprung like a suddenly released coil. He flew through the air, just as far as he had on Saturday.

Then, as he landed, he didn't tumble and roll along the ground. No, this time he miscalculated as he was planting his feet, and slipped backwards and crashed to the ground on his back.

It didn't really hurt all that much, but he could feel the ache way more than he felt at the beach. Which made sense, this was ground after all, not soft sand.

He sighed as he got up.

His main problem right now was a lack of control and balance. He wasn't sure how he was going to handle becoming more used to not just break things as he gripped them, but in terms of the training he was doing now, there was only one real thing to do to fix his problems.

He would need to jump, again, and again, and again, and again until landing on his feet became second nature to him. There was no other way to do it. It was like riding a bicycle. You just had to keep doing it, again and again until you got it right, and your body remembered how to do it without you having to think about it.

It was the simplest kind of training imaginable, repetitive, boring and with little variation, but also essential to actually do until he got it right.

He got to his feet. Well, he had to get started on this, and delays would not help them get it done quicker.

---

This host was smart.

Many hosts it remembered had skipped the basics, and jumped straight into battle and combat, assuming their raw power would see them to victory.

They had generally been right. But as its memories returned from before the fog, it had begun to remember many cases where it had not.

Yes, an early crushing defeat was usual, then followed by recovery and a period of weariness where there had once been no fear.

That, or an early demise. That happened a lot too. Usually, hosts tended to live a long life, or a short one. There were few in between.

At least…. It thought so.

It had tried to remember how many hosts there had been in total… But every time it tried to pull back to the very beginning, all the memories returned to the darkness.

Even the memories of the hosts it had were still not complete. The images were there, but the words… The colors… The sounds... They were all missing, and the emotions, worst of all, were dull.

It was all so blank compared to its current existence which was bright, and vibrant and ALIVE.

It liked this planet so far. It's colors, the wind, the temperature, and air, but above all, it's dominant race.

This race was perfect. It was not as physically strong as many, many others it had seen, it was fragile, weak, and it had such EMOTIONS!

It was stunning. It had enjoyed it's host greatly, but it didn't stop there. Even the other members of the species was so full of emotions that it could sense them even without a bond. It could not taste them of course, but the simple fact to know it was there was energizing.

Like… Like… Like smelling something good, yes, that was the comparison. Like how smelling something good would work up one's appetite.

Crushing despair, hilarious joy, pure happiness, enormous highs, devastating emotional breakdowns, and above all Adrenaline in ALL its Glory.

It was all great, and it was all around all the time. And that wasn't the only thing that was all around the time.

The were battles, every day, at any time.

This nation was obviously at war with another force. That was the only explanation for all the constant attacks, which the warriors of this society were constantly putting down. And despite this, all the people went about without a care in the world.

Truly this was a species mentally built for war, unlike almost any he had seen when people willingly went to watch skirmishes as they happened! Madness.

But it was a madness it would embrace.

---

During his training, both at the beach and here in the forest, Izuku had learned a couple of lessons about super-strength that should have been pretty obvious when you thought about it, but somehow he had never even considered.

At the beach, he had learned that metal wasn't as solid for people with enhanced strength as it was for other people, and if you weren't careful with how much force you put on it while handling something, it crumpled like tissue paper.

In these woods, he had learned that endlessly kicking off from the same spot with strength like his, would turn the ground from compact earth to loose dirt, just like if he had hammered it over and over again with a sledgehammer.

Thus the area he jumped off from had now become an upturned patch where he had pretty much ruined all the grass. For the future, he had decided he would be more varied with where he jumped.

At least it had produced result.

For his max jumps, he had only managed not to fall twice, but he had begun to make real progress at his less ambitious jumps. That wasn't enough though. He would need to do this again and again and again until his body had it down to an art.

In the future when he began to push himself to his limits, it would be those maximum effort jumps that would be how he trained.

Twice succeeding out of 232 wasn't good enough. Not by any stretch. Nothing short of 100% success was good enough in this regard.

Still… There was something magnificently satisfying about actually doing something and seeing progress. No matter how little it had been.

So as he left the forest, covered in dirt from head to toe, he felt… Really good. Very, very, sore but like he had actually accomplished something with these hours of work.

Chapter Text

It did not take too long before Katsuki began to slowly, but surely, revert back to his old bombastic and annoyingly cocky, self. He only remained flat out sulking for about 3 weeks or so.

After that, he began to act more and more like how Izuku remembered him.

That's not to say that he hadn't changed though. He certainly had. Some major, some minor ways.

In classes themselves he had drastically changed, having gone from always being loud and obnoxious, to being much more quiet, and seemingly hyper-focused on whatever lesson the teacher was teaching. He still had outbursts in class(especially whenever someone dared to bring up the villain incident. That was a surefire way majorly piss him off) but overall he was way less aggressive during the actual classes.

Except for gym class.

If Katauki had become less aggressive when teachers actually talked, it was as if he had instead transferred all of that aggressiveness and channeled it into gym class instead.

Anytime they ended up at some competition(generally a ball game) he would turn into the most aggressive competitor Izuku had ever seen. Even in cases where it wasn't a direct competition he was still hyper-aggressive against pretty much everyone.

And it wasn't just how he acted either. Izuku wasn't sure if he had become way more aware of such things after unlocking his quirk, or if he was simply hypersensitive when it came to how Katsuki was, but he quickly began to notice that Katsuki began to put on muscles.

He had always been an athletic guy, but it was obvious that he had begun to majorly work out, the way his arms developed from pretty muscular, to just being jacked.

For his own part, Izuku was glad that so far his powers didn't seem to majorly affect his muscles in looks. Other than burning off any excess fat he might have had from before, through his daily training, Izuku didn't look any different than everyone else in the class.

One major downside about hiding his powers was that he pretty much had to deliberately fail his gym classes in everything that wasn't just endurance training, running, or jumping exercises.

He just didn't have enough control yet to actually pretend to be mediocre. He was either amazing or terrible. Not much in between.

The greatest change about Katsuki in Izuku's mind however, wasn't the changes to his temperament, or his seeming obsession with school grades.

No, it was his attitude towards him in particular.

When he had first come back to school after the incident, Izuku had thought he would enjoy a brief reprieve from Katsuki's bullying until the blonde boy got back on his mental feet so to speak.

Instead, what he got, was what he had gotten at the start. Katsuki ignoring him. Outside of gym class, Katsuki seemed to have made it his policy in life to pretend Izuku didn't exist. At all.

Izuku had no idea why this was apparently Katsuki's policy going forward, why the villain incident had changed him in this specific way.

To be honest, though, he didn't really care all that much either.

He had no doubt that if the two of them got into Yuei together, this calculated indifference would vanish like morning mist before the sun, but if Katsuki was going to leave him alone for the rest of middle school, he would take it. With open arms.

As for the school work itself… Well, it wasn't as if that much had changed. He still diligently studied at school to the best of his abilities, that part hadn't changed at all.

The main difference was outside of school.

As the weeks had gone by, he had begun to have a very specific routine.

He would go to school in the morning, go home immediately after the last class was over, do all his homework immediately when he came home no matter if he spent 5 hours on it or 1, then if he had spare time he would go out into the city to look up hero battles(He'd stopped taking his books with him to school, so he didn't get to do it in the mornings anymore) until 17.30, when he would head to the woods to train, spend 3 hours every single day doing one type of exercise as much as he could, then go home and get cleaned up, go to bed and rinse repeat the cycle.

The exception was his weekends.

During his weekends, at day, Izuku threw himself back into trying to recreate his lost notebooks, as far as he possibly could, desperately trying to remember and look up every single hero he could ever remember seeing.

Towards the night, he went to the woods and did his exercises.

It was a very rigid regiment, but frankly, he felt more alive in these months than he had since… Actually, scratch that. Izuku had never felt more ALIVE in his entire life than he currently did.

While he certainly didn't enjoy going back to his hated middle school, without katsuki doing everything he could to push him down, he could grit his teeth and bear it.

In his mind though, the real education he had right now, was his training. His physical education, that would be the rock upon which he would build his entire future.

And he was making progress there too.

While he still hadn't become capable of punching without just turning whatever he touched to paste, in every other field he had improved.

In particular his jumps had improved most of all. He had done some math on it, and if he was right, he had roughly one more month of jumping before his balance reached the level he was training so hard for.

His grip control had also drastically increased so now he didn't accidentally crush things in his hands anymore. He had accidentally broken 3 different door handles on the bathroom and one on his own door, and he'd had to go back to the beach and scrounge for replacements every time.

Then there was running… Oh, the running.

If there was one part of his new powers that just gave him joy, it was running at top speed, with not a care in the world, sprinting through the woods, making countless on the spot turns to avoid trees… Of course, it was far less fun to stumble and accidentally hurt himself, but that had become far less of a problem as time went on.

He'd also broken 7 trees so far, accidentally running into them, so he'd decided to only do this kind of training in the deepest part of the woods, far away from his regular spots.

For once in his life, absolutely everything was going great.

The one thing he still hadn't put to the test was his ability to heal himself.

That changed on his 36th training day.

---

Izuku speed through the forest, enjoying the thrill, as he twisted and turned as he moved through the foliage and the forest grounds.

It was at the end of his training session for the day, and he was heading back towards his regular grounds.

He had become familiar enough with the area in a way he had never been in his younger days when he Katchan and the rest had wandered these woods.

These woods had once been an adventurous playground for Izuku, where he had explored what had seen like a brand new world, full of possibilities.

Now that was kinda what they were in truth, not just the overactive imagination of a child. These woods had become something he knew like the back of his hands, where he put everything new about himself to the test.

Happiness.

The feeling coursed through his mind, as it always did when he ran like this.

His quirk wasn't shy about making himself felt, and there was rarely a day where izuku didn't get some emotion that wasn't his own running through his head. However, of all the feelings his quirk had, happiness, true joy, was seemingly only reserved for the times where he ran to the very limit of how far he could push himself.

It just heightened how enjoyable these sessions of sprinting was for him. With all the rest, there was a sense of struggling, of work, of training to master something. But running was different. Moving at great speeds just felt… Right. Like this was what he was born to do.

It was the one part of his powers that he had instantly UNDERSTOOD, from the moment he really began to really use it.

He practically flew across the forest ground, made a quick jump over a rock, sidestepped out of the way of a large tree, smashed through some branches that snapped instantly the moment he touched them. Never stopping, always moving.

He wondered how it would feel when he began to combine this speed with actual real jumps, not just clearing hurdles.

He reached a small river that went through the forest, flanked on either side by dirt walls.

Izuku should have just jumped the small ravine, trusting in his relatively good new balance to carry him across and safely on the other side. However, he knew from experience that the sides of this ravine were just packed dirt and unstable dirt at that. He'd fallen into the water here before after the ground literarily crumbled beneath him.

Instead, he made a hard turn right and kept going along the river. The goal was a rather big log up ahead, that he'd discovered and made note off long ago.

He'd used it to cross before, and he had yet to fall off it.

As he neared the log, he made another quick and direct turn, jumped up on to it, maybe one third across, he instinctually bent down, preparing to make the jump across the rest of the log in one go.

The force of his legs as he kicked off broke the decades-old, weathered, waterlogged and rotten log beneath it in half, and he slipped sideways as the log collapsed out from under him. Then PAIN shot up through his right leg! He screamed as he fell down into the water, the now two pieces of logs falling with him at an awkward angle.

The water in the river engulfed him for a moment as the shock and panic of the sudden pain took him.

Then he wrenched his head and an upper body above water, which just made the pain even worse!

Tears forming in his eyes from the pain, he looked at his foot. It was caught between the two pieces of logs, not deeply, but still enough that he had to move the logs to get it out. He tried desperately to ignore the weird angle of how his right leg lined up with how his foot had to be caught between the two logs.

He carefully tried to hunch over closer to it so that he wouldn't disturb the foot more than he had to. He failed miserably, and a scream through gritted teeth passed through his lips.

When he was close, he hesitated for a while moment, knowing what he had to do, but also understanding the pain that would follow as he did it.

After taking deep breaths for a while, desperately trying to calm himself as emotions of worry(as if he needed to know more about how badly he'd screwed up) inserted itself through his head.

With one final deep breath before the plunge, he prepared himself mentally for what he was going to do.

Then, tears, still in his eyes from the pain, he forced both his hands between the log pieces, and then he began to push them apart.

The pain tripled at the sudden motion, and with a scream, and a push with all his might, he forced the two logs up and apart, letting him wrench his foot free, before collapsing backwards into the water, heads still ringing with the feelings of worry.

Shortly after he forced his head back up out of the shallow water, harking and coughing. The pain was the worst thing Izuku had felt in his life.

The crushing pressure upon it was gone, so there was that at least.

He took a deep breath, then, lying back on his elbows, he lifted his leg up, so he got a look at the foot.

The sickening sight almost made him faint.

His foot had dislocated so it had gone completely to the side, blood seeping from where the muscles had torn.

He just stared at it in shock, breathing, when the black mass began to move, then, went to the wound. Oh right. He had healing powers. Thank god.

It went around his entire foot and lower leg, giving izuku that same feeling he had back on the apartment.

Then, once it had completely covered the foot with it's entire mass, it wrenched the foot back into it's proper place and direction.

Izuku's scream of pain echoed down the ravine and up through the forest.

He gasped, and for a moment his strength went out, and for the third time that night, his head was dunked in water.

This time, he didn't have to force himself up.

The black liquid pushed from below and lifted his head above water without any prompting.

Which was good, because izuku was in shock and other than instinctually harking out water yet again, he didn't feel like he could do anything at the moment.

He lay there in the water, for what felt like an eternity, just breathing, before he finally began recovered from the shock.

He tried to rise, making sure he didn't put any weight on the leg which still hurt like it had had all it's skin torn off.

Propping himself up against the edge of the water and leaning against the muddy earth wall he sighed looked down at his quirk, still covering his leg as it pretty much just floated in the water.

So there buoyancy to the black liquid, interesting, that meant- Was he seriously making notes, just after nearly losing his foot?

Idiot. Stupid idiot. He'd learn weeks ago that he couldn't trust himself not to break things when jumping. Yet he'd done it anyway, nearly crippling himself in the process. At least… At least he hoped it was just nearly.

The horrible idea struck him, that maybe the quirk couldn't heal the internal damage… Then he crushed it, hard. He WOULD heal from this. He would learn, and not do this again.

Now he just had to get out of the river, rest, and let the healing factor take hold, fix him up, then he'd get home.

He looked up the wall, at least 3 meters from the water surface.

He… He Wasn't going to be able to climb that with only one foot.

Ok, so new plan. He would sit there in the water, soaked through in the darkness until he had healed enough to get up from here. THEN he'd go home.

…And he was actually supposed to be heading home soon. Great.

Given his phone was in a bag in a tree, he'd have no way to call her and tell her he'd be late. She'd be worried about him.

Izuku hit head back into the earth wall in frustration. God, he was an idiot.

He'd learned this lesson on his first day, but apparently, having successfully avoided the problem for over a month, he'd forgotten why he did constantly changed jumping-off places in the first place.

It was so he didn't constantly break things as he jumped off of them. Like he did with the log. But no, he was a stupid idiot tha- Vulnerability.

Izuku stopped in his tracks, his quirks warning of the seeming danger, right before a voice from above sounded. "You need some help kid?"

The voice was rough, deep, and intimidating.

Izuku looked up, at the speaker.

On the opposite side of the river, on top of the ravine stood a tall man, dressed in black and blood red armor, covering his face was a cowl like a mask with pupils as red as his armor, and on his forehead, he had two devil like horns.

All in all, he looked bloody intimidating, standing there looking down on him, covered in shadow and only lighted up by the moon.

Izuku stared silently at him in shock and fear, until reality asserted itself.

The guy was obviously a hero, coming to the aid of someone in need. That one in need being him.

His words failed him, so he just nodded, too embarrassed to speak.

The man jumped down and landed on his feet in the water with no particular difficulty.

He bent down and inspected Izuku's leg.

"Hmmm… That's bad. Pretty bad. I'm guessing this liquid is your quirk?"

Izuku ignored for a moment how he had apparently just seen through his liquid and inspected the leg itself and just answered "Yes".

"Hmmm… It's healing the wound. You have healing powers as well?"

"As well?"

The man looked him in the eyes. God those red pupilless eyes were unnerving.

"You have to have super strength and durability. If you didn't have the former, you'd never be able to move as you did, you certainly wouldn't have broken that thing just by using it as a springboard" He pointed a thumb at the pieces of the formerly whole log. "And if you didn't have the latter, your leg would have either be ripped off, or crushed so hard it didn't even resemble a foot anymore."

His blood went cold.

"You've were watching that?"

Was this guy a stalker? A kidnapper? What the hell was he gonna do? He couldn't fight like this, he'd-

"Don't take it personally kid, I watch a lot of people around me for quite a distance, whether I want to or not."

Oh. It was just his quirk. He relaxed again.

"So you have some large scale observation quirk?"

"....That's one way to put it."

"Anyhow, we can continue this chat after we get out of the water."

Before he could argue the man lifted izuku up and slung him over a shoulder, much to Izuku's protestations and grunt of pain for his leg. The feeling of Anger shot through his mind, his quirk being pissed at the sudden change.

"Sorry if this hurts a bit."

Then with remarkable speed, he crossed the river and began to climb the side one-handed with no problem, Izuku still slung across his shoulder. Once he was up, he gently unslung Izuku and laid him up against a tree, making sure his right leg rested over a tree root and his foot not actually touching the ground.

Then the hero went over to another tree to pick up something.

Izuku blinked then realized it was his bag.

"Thought you might need this. In case you want to call for home. Whether I take you to a hospital or you just heal that on your own I'm gonna take a wild guess you'll be late home tonight."

Izuku took the bag, but he didn't fish out his phone yet, instead staring at the man.

" I… I have a choice?"

"Of course. If you want me to take you to a hospital, I'll do it. Of course, that would mean you'd have to explain how you got the injury. Now, I might be wrong, but you don't strike me as much as a liar, so I'm guessing you might say something you might regret."

Izuku bit his lip, then opened his mouth to talk.

Then the realization hit him. This was a pro hero, who had seen him train. Using his quirk. Shit. Shit, shit, SHIT!

Wait. He'd given him a choice.

"You're not gonna arrest me?" he said, hopeful that this night wasn't about to get even worse.

"Kid, if I arrested every single new hopeful hero candidate who I saw take some liberties training their quirks, I'd never get anything done."

He motioned his arm to the forest.

"You think you're the first kid who thought to go out into the woods and train his quirk? You're not. I literarily come across that at least once a month."

Izuku felt like an idiot. Of COURSE, this was common. This was the most obvious spot someone would use for this. Some hero was bound to discover him sooner or later.

A short silence followed before the hero broke the silence.

"Well, kid? You wanna go to the hospital? Or you wanna just heal it yourself?"

Izuku stared at him, then fished out his phone. "I… I'll just do it myself."

He debated whether he'd call his mom, or just send a message. He decided a message. That would be simpler. He'd explain more when he got home.

-Hey mom, I'll be out late tonight- He Hoovered his thumb over the send button, debating if he should write more. What more could he send in a short message? That he'd broken his foot and had to stay out to heal it?

No, that was something he'd have to talk about in person. He sent the message, then turned off the sound on the phone.

As he put the phone back in the bag, he realized incredulously that the hero had sat down opposite from him leaning against a tree.

"You… You're staying?"

"Of course I'm staying. What, you think I'm gonna leave you here? Alone? At night? With a broken foot and no means of escape if something were to happen?"

Yeah… When he worded it like that, it made the idea of him leaving seem kinda… Unheroic.

"I… Don't you need to go and patrol in case there's someone in need you have to help?"

"I AM helping someone in need."

Izuku blinked at that and just stared at the man. Then he began to tear up.

He quickly began to try and dry away the tears. Idiot. He was wet all over. All he did was smear more water over his face.

The hero got up and went over to him, knelt down, and put a hand gently on his shoulder.

"How are you feeling kid?" The voice was much softer now, more filled with compassion.

How did he feel? He had no idea anymore.

He felt humiliated for screwing things up so badly and needing help to even get out of a shallow river.

He was angry at himself for forgetting a lesson he learned on day one here, for forgetting such a simple lesson that would easily have avoided any of this.

He also felt… he felt incredible gladness, joy, that someone, that ANYONE who wasn't his mom cared enough to ask how he felt. If he was okay or not.

It was so stupid. Yet somehow it made him feel so glad. Like he actually mattered. It was a simple question, yet somehow just hearing someone, a complete stranger ask it of him without a hint mockery brought such happiness with it.

After some fumbling at his belt(Izuku just realized he carried a belt full of pouches) the man pulled out something that resembled a cleaning rag, though fully clean, and he handed it wordlessly to Izuku, who grabbed it and began to dry his face clean of tears.

"Thank you…"

"No problem kid. Also, keep it if you want."

He choked.

"Not that! Thank you for… Thank you, for… For caring."

The man stared into his eyes with those pupilless red ones.

The man didn't answer, but he kept his hand on Izuku's shoulder, firmly, but gently.

After Izuku had finally calmed down completely, he finally spoke again.

"You wanna talk about it?"

He almost did.

He almost told him everything. About Katsuki, his life, how he had been worthless for most of it, and how even with his quirk how he still somehow managed to screw things up, his guilt for being a terrible son who made his mom worry about him all the time.

"No… But… But thanks for asking."

---

"Sure you don't want fire?"

The two of them once again sat opposite each other, leaning up against trees.

"Yeah, I'm not really bothered by cold anymore."

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He was still affected by ice-cold temperatures, but he'd discovered early in his training he wasn't affected by just being wet at night.

His quirk had been pretty erratic tonight, ever since they meet this hero, he had been all over the place, rage, suspicion, annoyance. At the mention of fire, rage returned.

"It's quite the multitasker this quirk of yours."

He blushed.

"It's... It's not that special. Just a general strength quirk really."

"No, that it's most certainly not. The strength itself is pretty decent, but healing… Healing is exceedingly rare, even amongst quirks that cover it exclusively, much less those who only have it as a side power."

Izuku flushed even harder. A pro hero was praising his quirk! An actual pro hero!

"Cold resistance isn't anything to sneeze at either. It's way more useful than you might think. During winter, even passive cold resistance is such an upgrade from the standard."

Well, it wasn't like Izuku didn't know that, but hearing it spoken by a pro somehow made it seem real. Not just something you read on message boards.

"So… You think I have a shot at being a hero then?"

The man looked at him with a… Kinda inquisitive look.

"Why do you want to be a hero kid?"

He was taken a bit aback, but he answered honestly.

"To help people… Like… Like you did tonight." He blushed furiously as he said it, but it was true enough.

This was what he wanted to be. Someone who helped people who needed it.

The man gave a small smile.

"I'm flattered to be someone's inspiration, but surely you had some other inspiration before tonight."

"Yeah… I did."

"Well, it's kinda stupid, but… I wanted to be a hero since I was 4..."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess your inspiration was All Might was it not?"

"Yeah." He smiled at the memory of seeing All Might's debut video. Then it vanished remembering what came afterwards.

"Yeah…"

"You were a very late bloomer, weren't you? With your quirk I mean?"

Izuku's head shot up as he stared at the man's mouth agape.

"How… How did you know?"

"There were quite a lot of signs. For one, you are training far, far more to master the basics than anyone who grew up with their quirk reasonably would. In particular, your complete inability to do a punch that's something other than full force and a love tab REALLY stands out. Kids with strength quirks learn very quickly growing up to control how strong they hit something. It's way harder to learn if you have to learn it in your teens."

"You… You know a lot about this stuff."

"I've lived quite a while now. In my profession, you learn a lot of things."

A short silence, then…

"To answer your previous question kid, I think you have a shot at being a Hero."

Izuku's breath stopped cold.

"Your quirk is pretty good, you still need to work on your punches quite a bit, but frankly, I've never cared much about quirks. It's a man's motivation and what he does with it, that defines who he is. Not whether he's strong enough to have made a rank."

Izuku just stared at him, tears forming up. In his eyes again. He tried to force them down, but they came anyway. This time though, he didn't feel sad or conflicted. Just… Relieved. Incredibly relieved.

His quirk was horribly, horribly confused.

Another silence followed, where Izuku finished crying and drying away the tears.

Then something struck him.

"Wait… How long have you been watching me? I didn't do punches today."

"4 days" He admitted.

"I've been patrolling just south of this forest this entire week. You weren't exactly inconspicuous or hard to keep an eye on, alone in the forest, running around like a cheetah."

Dear god, Izuku was lucky this guy hadn't just decided to call the cops or arrest him.

Izuku blinked.

"Oh… Oh, I'm so sorry, but I just realized… I never asked for your name!"

He winced. He just now realized that, and just randomly blurted it out?

The hero didn't seem to mind.

"I think it would be better if we don't do names kid. If I never know your name, I would not be lying if someone asked me for the name of a green-haired teenager who's a bit liberal with the law while training. But, if you must have something to call me, you can call me Stick, for the time being."

He took a wild guess the name came from the two sticks he had in a holster at his belt.

"No problem. Stick."

A short silence followed, but somehow it didn't seem hostile or forced.

"So, how did you figure out I was inspired by All Might?"

He was genuinely curious. He had All Might shirts of course, but he didn't use them while training. The only things he had with him were a set really washed out clothes he used for training, his keys, his black notebook, and his phone.

"Well… Don't take this the wrong way, but 9 out of every single hero I've met in this country was inspired by All Might to become heroes."

That… Sounded just about right.

"Wait… You're NOT from Japan?"

"No."

"Wow… your Japanese is REALLY good, for it not being your native language."

And it was, Stick spoke perfect Japanese, he had for sure pegged him as being a Tokyo Native.

"So I've been told."

A quick silence followed, but this time it was stick who broke it.

"It's a peaceful land, this Empire of Japan."

He wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that.

"It's not peaceful in your homeland?"

"No. It's not been true peace there since the start of the second Millennia. There's always something going wrong."

He sighed.

"But don't let my worries trouble you. How's your foot?"

Izuku blinked. Oh yeah, the reason they were still here. He wiggled his toes a bit. Pain immediately shot up his foot. It wasn't anything compared to the pain of getting it janked into place, but it was still bad.

"Pretty bad still."

Stick stared at his foot, still covered in black liquid.

"The healings pretty fast. I think you should be able to walk with help in maybe 3 hours."

So 02.00 then. Great. He really was going to spend the rest of the night before he got home.

Izuku sighed.

---

The trip back to his home took around 3 and a half hours. Meaning it was 05.17 when Stick and him reached the stairs to his apartment.

The pain in his leg had thankfully begun to actually fade by then. He couldn't put too much weight on it, but at least he could actually walk now. Though slowly.

At the stairs, he turned to say goodbye to Sticks.

"Thanks… Thanks for all the help."

"No problem kid. One final thing though, before I leave you to yours."

"Yes?"

"Punching. Your current training regiment isn't gonna work. If you want control over them, you need something that isn't so weak that it just instantly breaks when you put some force on it, but isn't so rigid that it can only break when force is applied."

Okay…

"What do I need then? It sounds like you have something in mind."

"What you need kid, is a punching bag."

Izuku blinked.

That… Was so simple and obvious that he couldn't fathom why he hadn't thought of it himself.

How he was going to afford a punching bag was another thing entirely, but it was good advice. Much better than continuing to punch rocks anyway.

"Thanks, thanks for the…" Izuku blinked.

He had looked down for a couple of seconds to consider the advice, and in that time, Stick had suddenly disappeared into thin air.

He stood and just looked for a moment. Then he turned and began the slow and kinda painful journey up to his apartment.

As he got to the door. He carefully checked if it was open.

It was.

That meant mom was still awake waiting for him.

He stood there, for a second, contemplating it, then stepped inside to talk to his mother. This was going to be pretty bad he had no doubts.

Chapter Text

Izuku had never been grounded before.

Technically, he still hadn't been, he hadn't been punished, but he was to stay home for the rest of the week to recover from the damage to his foot. His mom had put her foot down on that. Quite a bit more successfully than Izuku had with the log.

His mother had taken the sight of him filthy, wet, limping and with a destroyed shoe, as well as he had expected she would. However, it wasn't before he actually told her what had happened, that the flood works had really come, and she had embraced him in tears.

He had tried to downplay it by how quickly his injury had healed, but frankly, it was as if the moment he stepped foot inside his home, all the energy had gone out of him. This had added him feeling and looking like a drained and cracked battery on top of his other problems as he was talking to his mom and trying to calm her down.

In the end, she had ordered him to bed after a quick shower to clean himself(The hot water doing nothing to quicken him up.), to rest and recover.

It had made Izuku incredibly guilty to know he had worried her so much, because of his own stupid mistakes.

He hadn't even considered that he was supposed to have classes in a few hours before his head hit his pillow. Then it had been a fleeting thought in his head before he fell asleep.

When he woke the next time, the pain in Izuku's foot had dampened to a dull ache. At least while he was lying down. It would probably hurt more when he walked. The first thing that struck Izuku upon regaining consciousness was not his leg though.

Izuku felt DRAINED like he had been a wet towel that had been wrung again and again until all every single drop of water had left him. Then been thrown out to be baked in the sun.

He had to go and get something to eat. What time was it anyway?

He glanced over to an All Might wall clock he had owned for years.

It was 22.13. He had slept for around 16 hours straight. Wow, he had been tired. Well… He still was.

He forced himself to sit upright on the bed, then with just a bit of hesitation, he slowly put his legs out over the side, and fully expecting pain, he lowered them to the ground.

Well, he had been right, he did feel a pang of pain, but frankly, it was nothing compared to anything he had felt last night. It certainly wasn't anything compared to how drained he felt.

He had to go and eat something. Anything.

As he forced himself to his feet, trying his best to ignore the leg, he walked across his room and opened the door.

He could hear sounds from the living room, so his mom was awake. It sounded like she was watching tv.

His leg still covered in black liquid, izuku haltingly walked past the ugly door to their bathroom(Izuku had made it too short so it didn't fully fit into the doorframe, and without any paint, there wasn't any hiding how old and used it was, no matter how much he had cleaned it.) and opened the door to the living room.

As he had suspected, his mom was indeed watching tv, though she turned her head the moment he stepped in. Then she scrambled to her feet.

"Izuku! Sweetie, how are you feeling?"

He blushed, and awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"I'm… I'm fine mom. Just a bit tired, and hungry."

She quickly guided him to the sofa she had recently been sitting on and helped him down in it.

"I'll cook something up for you sweetie. Just relax and take it easy okay?"

As she went to the kitchen and begun preparing something, Izuku asked "...What about school?"

"I called in and said you were sick sweetie, and that you wouldn't be attending school for the rest of the week."

"Oh."

Yeah, that made sense. He really was sick after all. Maybe not with the usual sickness of a middle schooler, but still sick.

After that, an uncomfortable silence arose, as Inko made food, and, Izuku absentmindedly watched tv.

---

Inko made food. It was what she did. It was what she had done for a decade now. It wasn't that she resented doing it, quite the opposite, she had come to enjoy the peace of the home.

But there were few times where she had felt as useless as she did now.

She had been useless last night too. The only thing she could do was wait for Izuku all night and constantly send him messages he didn't respond to.

She had been really mad about that, worried something had happened to her, yet all her rage had gone out of her the moment Izuku came home like he did, dirty, shaking, and with his leg like it was. All that was left had been worry and concern about his state.

It had been an eye-opener, as she sat her boy down and heard his story.

It wasn't like Inko hadn't understood the potential risks involved in Izuku's dreams. Heroes got hurt sometimes. Yet it was something completely different to hear about it than to actually have it happen to her boy.

And not even a villain attack, but a simple training accident. Something that could easily have happened at school, and could easily have crippled him for life, or at least given him a permanent limp.

Yet now he was walking relatively easily just a day after the accident.

Her father had once dislocated an arm, and he had taken a good half year to recover from it. Frankly, his arm had never been the same for the rest of her life. You weren't actually able to fully recover from dislocated limbs. It was a permanent injury that never fully healed. Unless you had a regenerative quirk or were healed by one.

Yet her baby was almost shrugging off a much worse dislocation after less than two days. It was a moment that really made things sink in for Inko, that her baby had a quirk, and was going to realize his dreams.

It was something that made her incredibly happy… And terrified.

"Food's ready sweetie."

Izuku turned his head and looked at her direction, his eyes zooming in at the food. God, he must be hungry.

After sitting himself down Izuku beginning to devour his food at an astonishing speed, with Inko just staring at him, still worried.

Izuku, bless him, noticed her worried look, and after devouring a fish, he asked "I'm fine mom. Honestly, I'm fine. I'm a bit sore and there's some pain in my leg still, but it's fading."

He was honest, her son always was. But the leg wasn't really the problem here, not really. She sighed.

"Just… Finnish eating okay? Once you're done… We've got some stuff to talk about."

Even before yesterday, she had been procrastinating with recent events. She should have discussed this with Izuku weeks ago. Yet she'd been putting it off.

She hadn't been sure why not before yesterday. Or this morning depending on how you looked at it.

She was afraid of change, of this little life she had been building up for herself and Izuku completely being upended. Inko didn't like her life being upended. She'd had it happen to her before, and it had never been a good thing. This time though, it would her herself who did it. Not something beyond her control.

---

Izuku wasn't sure what his mom wanted to talk to him about, but he had fears. Fears he wouldn't be allowed to train anymore. At least the Drained feeling seemingly vanished with the meal. That was something at least.

"I'm… not really sure where to begin Izuku. There's a lot of stuff I want to talk to you about. Both about… Well, yesterday, and the future."

She sighed.

"The first thing I want to ask, is why didn't you call me yesterday, instead of just sending me a message?"

"I… I didn't want to make you worry…"

"I was worried SICK Izuku!!!"

He winced.

"I literally sent you over a hundred messages, begging you to call me. I was TERRIFIED something awful and terrible had happened, like you had been kidnapped, or worse!"

Hearing his mom say it out loud just made Izuku feel even more guilty about screwing up.

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't understand if you had called and explained it to me? Yes, I'd be worried sick, but at least I would have known what was going on, and that is something you can deal with."

"I… I'm sorry… I just… I didn't want you to…"

Hearing her say it out like that, just made him feel like a moron. Like he thought his mom wouldn't be able to handle any bad news at all. God, he was a terrible son.

Inko looked at him, with a look that somewhere between stern, sad, pitying, and concerned all at the same time.

"But… The worst part Izuku is that if you had just called, I could easily have helped you out getting home, instead of just sitting here and worrying about you."

"But… But we don't have a car, and we don't have the money for a taxi."

"I have Friends, Izuku. Your father also has old friends in the city. Anyone of them would have been willing to drive to the park and pick you up."

Izuku's brain stopped working for a moment. Then he REALLY felt like a goddamn moron. Of course one of his mom's friends would have been willing to pick him up, he was just so used to them not having a car or not being able to take a taxi, that he hadn't even considered that as an option.

"You… Didn't realize that was an option, did you?"

"No…"

Inko sighed, tension visibly going out of her face.

"I am grateful that Stick-San helped you out in the woods, and then made sure you made it home safely once you could walk again. But it really would have been better if you had gotten home so you could have recovered in bed."

"Which was was very much an option, and you would have known that if you had called me."

He didn't say anything in response, just bit his lip and cursed himself for being an idiot.

"Just… don't do it again okay? If something happens and you need help, tell me about it. Don't hide it, thinking it'll go away. It never does, sweetie. Ever."

He looked up at her. Then, he start to tear up as he replied.

"Okay, Mom… I… I won't do it again."

"Oh, sweetie…"

She took his hand and gave him one of those comforting smiles he loved so much.

This time it was Izuku who broke the silence. He really didn't want to. Not now, anyway. A smarter move would have been to talk about it later down the week. But he had to get this out of the way.

"I… I have something I need to say too. It's not something I wanted to bring up so soon after… My leg injury, but… Well, like you said, pretending the problem isn't there won't make it go away."

Inko's look changed to more stern as if she was forcing herself to be calmer and more serious.

"What's the problem?"

"Well, Stick-san kinda laid out for me a huge problem in my thinking. When I choose the forest as my training spot, I thought it was far out of the way, and no one would notice. Except… I was dead wrong."

"As stick-san pointed out, that is literarily the first place people who want to be heroes goes to train. It's obvious for any pro hero with experience. If I go back to training regularly there, sooner or later, I'll be noticed by another pro hero. Quite possibly one who won't be as forgiving as Stick-san was."

Inko sat in silence as he spoke, only talking when he was done.

"So what do you plan to do then?"

"I… I don't know. I'll have to find another spot. Probably even further away."

Izuku winced at his mother's expression as he said that, but after a short inner debate, she sighed.

"If that's how it is, then that's how it is. You're still staying home for the rest of the week though. When you go out again, I want your foot to have healed completely with no doubt about it."

Fair enough.

He hesitated before he spoke next. It was a question he had to ask her, he had to know, even if it sounded like she had given her blessing.

"So…. You'll still let me train? Even after… well… this?

She stared at him for a while in silence, while Izuku fidgeted in place, then she sighed.

"Yes."

A weight was lifted from Izuku's shoulders.

She hesitated briefly before continuing.

"Also… regarding finding a new training place for you… I… I could probably get someone to drive you there. Though that would depend heavily on the day."

"It's… It's something to work on. There's more than enough time I suppose."

He chuckled awkwardly.

"Yeah… There is."

His mom didn't exactly go back to being cheerful, but her smile did return.

"Also, I have something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now."

"What?"

"About a month ago, I… I got a job offer."

"Really? As a lawyer again?"

"Yes."

That… was unexpected. Izuku wasn't exactly filled in about his mom's old career as he could have been(She hadn't been one since he was 6), but he knew her choice to leave the business wasn't one she had wanted. She had effectively been blacklisted by the legal firms, without technically losing her license, after her old firm had been shut down.

He didn't know why it had been shut down, but he knew his mom had been devastated by it.

It was also a moment that had marked the first financial change in his life, as they had moved out of their old house and into their current apartment. It was also the event that had lead to his dad working abroad to keep them afloat financially.

The second change was his dad being demoted for something, which had sharply reduced their amount of spending money about 2 years ago.

"It's… In Yokohama."

Oh.

"Well… It's not as bad as it could be. I mean, it could have been in Tokyo. That would have been three times as far away."

Inko looked at him kinda sadly.

"It still means things will change sweetie. I won't always be here when you come home."

Izuku blushed.

"I'm… I'm not a little kid anymore, mom."

"Aye, You're not. You're not quite an adult either though, as yesterday proved."

He winced, but he didn't argue.

"To be honest sweetie, I wasn't all that excited about taking the job. Not really. I… I was worried about leaving you home without me."

He blushed again.

"But then… After you discovered your quirk… You changed."

"I… I haven't changed."

"You have. A lot."

She smiled at him, a smiled Izuku didn't instantly recognize, but one he eventually realized was pride.

"Frankly sweetie, you've changed so much this last month. You're happy now. You go outside every day with a smile on your face. You've begun to take your future so much more seriously than you did before."

Her smile beamed even more.

It felt strange to Izuku. To be praised for just going out and training and doing his regular stuff. Was he really that different now? He didn't feel any different. Well, except for anything regarding Katsuki and his school. That was different. Really different. And during his training sessions he felt more alive in a way he never had before, and- and yeah, he was kinda different now wasn't he?

"So you're taking the job?"

"Yes. I've… talked about it with your father, and he agrees it's for the best. For one thing, Izuku, if you're really going to become a pro, it will help you immensely to have a more financially stable base to work from."

Well, that was true enough. Images of a punching bag crept through his mind. Also maybe not having a bathroom door that was literarily collected from a trash heap.

His mom then got a massive and happy grin on her face and looked for a moment like she was about to say something. Then she cut herself off and instead said.

"Anyway, we'll see how it turns out. It's still months away until I start working again in any case. We'll figure things out before then.

There was something more going on here. Judging by the way his mom was smiling to herself. She had been about to say something completely different, yet had stopped herself and just ended the topic prematurely.

Part of him wanted to dig deeper, but another part of him, the part that always told him to be cautious, told him to not push his luck more than he had with that training conversation.

If mom had something more to tell him, she would do it in her own time.

---

Izuku laid in bed reading through a long, long list of heroes.

As it was, he didn't really have anything else to do at the moment.

Unlike his mom, who had only slept for 6 hours after he came back home, and thus had a relatively easy time going back to the regular rhythm, Izuku felt as awake as he ever had been.

Which just meant that instead of sleeping, he was lying in bed browsing his phone.

He knew logically that he shouldn't be trying to figure out who Stick actually was, but his curiosity, and almost addiction level of trying to figure out everything he could about any hero he met drove his search for the red cowled man.

Not that he had any luck. For one thing, Stick wasn't Japanese, which meant searching through Japanese lists of heroes wasn't all that likely to find results. Unless he was an immigrant, stick would not be listed at all.

Even if he had been Japanese, there were still thousands of heroes in Japan alone. A rather large list to search through, given he didn't have a name.

He had still done so. After 4 hours he gave up the Japanese lists and went over the ones in America, the country with the largest superhero registry in the world.

If Izuku had had trouble in the Japanese list of candidates, that was drowned out by the sea that was the American candidates. Literarily hundreds of candidates who all fit the criteria of 1. Red and Black Armor. 2. Sensory quirk, and 3. Tall.

As the clock turned 08.00 he still hadn't found anything.

After that, it was China, the land with the second-largest hero population, then third India. Admittingly he knew it was kinda stupid to search the largest and biggest countries first. He had never thought of the U.S.A as a country that could be described as a land without peace.

Nor China frankly. It had been in America that the new world order post the societal collapse brought on by quirks had been founded, but few lands had rebuilt themselves with that order as quickly as China and Japan.

Still, it was either this or search through countries at random. He'd work himself all the way down from the top to the bottom, and pray he didn't accidentally miss Stick in the thousands of guys he looked through.

The rather sad truth was that it was fully possible Izuku had already missed him, and not realized it. If Stick had used another costume in the past, he could easily have seen a picture of him and not realized it.

But it was either this or give up on the search. If Izuku failed at this, it would not be for lack of trying.

After breakfast at 08.00, there was still nothing. He threw himself through the European countries. No result.

14.21, he moved on to Africa.

That took him literally the rest of the day, not counting dinner and an evening meal. Before he went to bed, he moved on to South America, and he was still browsing through Brazil as he fell asleep.

All in all, despite not having moved much, it had been one of the most active research periods of Izuku's life so far. It had also been one of his most fruitless.

As he would learn 2 days later, having literarily gone through every single official public hero list on the planet, it had all been a huge waste of time. He didn't learn anything about Stick.

What he did learn that week, was how long it took to fully repair a foot twisted 90 degrees sideways.

Roughly 2 and a half days. It went in his black book, and regarding his powers, it was the only thing Izuku learned that week. The irony he spent an entire week devoted to his healing powers wasn't lost on him.

The rest of the week was generally studies of more Heroes he might have come across at some point in his life.

His quirk returned to watching ancient movies once his foot was healed, and with it the usual emotions running through his head.

What it watched seemed to have no rhyme or reason. Sometimes it watched old samurai films, other times a random anime tie movie, other times foreign action stories. One time it had streamed the entire Dragon Ball film library in one go.

He really didn't understand it's tastes. Sometimes he wondered if it even understood what people said in movies. It didn't seem to care if the film was subtitled or dubbed.

That would line up with what he speculated in his black book. It only seemed to understand him half of the time.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 - First Blood

On Monday, Izuku's life returned to relative normalcy. He had gone back to school after staying at home the entire week and had gotten an extra week's worth of homework to make up for what he had missed.

That was fine though. His new schedule was pretty open at the moment. He was still looking for someplace to train, but due to the realities of the situation, he had been forced to reorganize his training regiment.

If he really was going to train at someplace where he was so far away he needed someone to drive him there, he couldn't do his old regular routine of 3 hours training a day.

Instead, he would do a new, more concentrated amount of training. Since Saturday and Friday were the only days he could be assured someone could drive him, he needed to put all his training into those two days specifically.

He would spend the entire weekend training, putting himself to the absolute limit each time.

There was still around 250 days until the Hero School exams came around, but if you took those away and only took 2 days per week, his amount of training days suddenly got a lot tighter.

On one hand, it made him nervous, very nervous. On the other hand, he had gotten used to his training by now. He enjoyed his training. Well, maybe it was time to take it to the next level.

If nothing else, he had learned from his first bitter lesson.

At the moment though, it wasn't his future training that was on his mind. Nor was it his homework. No, at the moment, Izuku was doing something he'd gotten way too used to over the last month.

Rummaging through other people's trash.

More specifically, he was back at the beach where he had first unlocked his quirk, ripping the wheels of the old cars thrown here.

Logically, it was the only realistic option. He didn't have the cash for a punching bag, and his mom wouldn't begin her new job for over 4 months from now.

Even taking into consideration that this was training he could do at home instead of at whatever spot he would be training at, that was still over half the time he had left before the exams.

He couldn't wait that long. So, he had to get one another way. Youtube had thankfully told him how. A freestanding punching bag made out old car tires, some bolts, and screws to connect them together, and a ton of old bricks in the lowest and largest of the tires, to stabilize it with weight at the bottom.

It was an easy design to make, with the only thing he really needed to bring on his own was a screwdriver to use to punch holes for the screws(The guide had said to use a power drill, but he didn't have one, so superhuman strength and a metal stick would need to do.

He'd assemble it here, then carry the thing home. Later he'd go and find bricks for the bottom.

Thank god for the blessing that was youtube. Originally, he'd been thinking he'd have to scrounge the trash bin of gyms, hoping someone threw out a punching bag that wasn't too broken, that he could have repaired, but frankly, this was easier, cheaper, and didn't require him to install something to hold it.

Instead, he had a tower of tires, that he could easily replace if he did accidentally destroy them. Cheaper, easy to replace, and presumably effective for his goals of control over his punches.

He really needed to achieve that. Even if he hadn't learned his lesson from the whole log fiasco, he still was reminded about it every time he had done punching training. The way everything just broke under his hands anytime he put any weight behind his blows.

It was easier to adjust with his grip strength, but that was mainly just instinct. You got used to doing it subconsciously over time.

Punching? Not so much.

Whenever he would be fighting anyone in the future, unless they were superhumanly durable, he would need to hold back.

Over the course of the week, he'd spent home, he'd been looking up videos of All Might, the man who had originally inspired him into becoming a hero in the first place.

When he had been a little kid, All Might had always seen so cool to him. For good reason too, but it was only now, that he had strength of his own, that he really understood All Might's power.

All might was capable of easily knocking out pretty villain Izuku had ever seen him fight, and despite having what was probably the strongest super strength quirk in history, he still had a level of control where he could both easily knock down regular crooks with no problem and not horribly maim any of them.

He was amazing. Far beyond Izuku's level.

He had watched other heroes with strength quirks too, and it was the same in all of them. More than sheer power, it was control that defined their performance as heroes.

It was as Stick had said though. It didn't come naturally to him. He'd have to keep at it until it did. And that probably would take months and months of work.

---

The man from the woods was watching.

It was from a distance, but it could feel him. Strange man, the one who did not see. How could he watch without seeing? Did he possess powers of feeling emotions, as it did? Or was it echo based?

It did not know. But it was certain it could watch without seeing. It had seen the blind of this species. How they were always careful, slow, methodical. And the lack of knowing the beauty of sight.

That more than anything made this one stand out amongst all the rest. This race was built and dependant on sight, more than any of their other senses.

That was common amongst the peoples of the universe, but not universal.

The strange man stood out. He did not move carefully, nor slowly. He was methodical though.

It had helped the host.

It should be grateful for that, but the feeling of this man… There was something about him… Something it could not pinpoint. It did not feel like the rest of the race. Not the ones with power, anyway. Yet he had powers, it was certain of that.

What did it mean?

No matter. For the moment, he was far away, he was no threat to them.

No, what worried it at the moment was the host. The host was fragile and thus depend on its power to succeed.

This was good. Usually. But it had not finalized the bond yet. They had overcome the critical point, but the final stage was still far away.

That was a problem.

As it was, their power was starting to manifest in strength and stabilizing, but it was not anywhere close to the level it should be after 40 days.

And then there was itself. It could manifest a form now, but it was not it's true form. It was not the second skin. It's… It's mark had not returned yet. It was all just black.

It did not think it would return in full before the bond finalized.

Unfortunately, there was… A deadline. It wasn't sure what he was counting down to, but its host had begun with the habit of writing a number on a tablet, then crossing out one or two numbers each sunrise, and replacing it with a new one.

It had not mastered any of the languages this species used yet, but I had easily realized the meaning of its numbers.

From what it had seen on the tablet on the wall, they had a bit over 250 cycles of the planet remaining, before the deadline was reached.

That should be enough time. Provided the host did not perish before they reached that point.

---

"So, a strength quirk eh?" Davis-san said in a jovial tone. "Never knew quirks could skip a generation."

"Skip a generation? What do you mean?"

"Oh right, Hisashi never told you much about your gramps, did he? Well, don't go dig deeper into that well Izuku, but Hisashi's old man had a strength quirk too."

Looking at him, it was kinda insane to Izuku that Davis-san was as old as his parents. The man looked like he was in his early twenties, which Izuku had always assumed was due to a quirk, like Miss Bakugou.

"Yeah, mo-My parents never really talk much about my grandparents. Not on Dad's side anyway."

Which was kinda an understatement. One of the few crystal clear memories Izuku had of his dad, had been when the older Midoriya had taken him aside and told him pretty sternly to Never ask about his grandfather. Ever.

"Anyway, it's not really a strength quirk per se. I… Kinda spawned this being of black liquid, and I draw power from it, which happens to include super strength."

"Really? Where is it then?"

"My shirt. It… It's fused into it right now."

"Huh. Yeah, that's not quite like the old bastard's quirk."

David was one of his father's oldest friends, but to Izuku he had always just been the apothecary owner they bought all their medicine from.

Which was kinda a shame, given he seemed like a pretty friendly guy.

Like his dad, David was an immigrant from America, in fact, according to his mom, they had moved here together before Hisashi met Inko.

In the very homogeneous Japan, David stood out from the crowd a lot. Dark brown skin which clearly showed he had ancestors from Africa, a massive 2 meters in height, and tattoos of a jaguar on his arms.

Though more common than it had been before the emergence of quirks, people of African descent were still pretty rare in Japan, the regular average height was nowhere near what David's was, and though the Yakuza had been relegated to the dustbin of history, the cultural dislike of tattoo's remained, making people who wore them pretty rare.

All in all, he looked pretty intimidating, but really, he was a swell guy. The fact he took time out of his schedule to drive Izuku for nearly two hours proved that.

"He just had a pretty straightforward strength quirk. I guess your powers are unrelated after all."

"Yeah, it sounds that way."

"Eh, nothing wrong with that. Just means you get to make your powers your own. So, what school you planning to try and enter into?"

"Yuei," Izuku answered without hesitation.

"Yuei… How strong is your quirk exactly? Like, can you lift a literal ton, or…"

"I can lift several hundred Kilo's no problem. On Monday I carried come sacks of bricks that collectively probably weighed around 300 kilos."

"Hm… not too bad then. Well, I hope you manage it. If you don't though, don't take it too hard. My brother tried to get into it. Got crushed in the entrance exam, and he was so distraught over it, he gave up hero prospect entirely."

That sounded… Kinda depressing.

"My point is, don't fret too much if you didn't manage to get into the top school. There are hundreds of hero schools in japan, anyone of them willing to take on people who didn't make it through Yuei's robot gauntlet."

Izuku blinked.

"Robot gauntlet?"

"Oh yeah, that's not really public info. Probably shouldn't be telling you about it." He paused for a moment. "Ah, but what the hell, why not. The entrance exam has two stages, the regular written part, and a physical one. The physical one is the one that makes sure so few appliers actually make it into Yuei."

"It's… Related to robots?"

"Yep. They throw you into a fake training city with this bunch of robots. The test is basically how many of those you can manage to destroy."

"How… how strong are these robots?"

"Offensively they're garbage. They look tough, but really, the only thing they're there for is testing the students' offensive powers. Whether you can break them or not."

"You… you know a lot about this test."

"My brother's perseptive Izuku-Kun. Really perceptive. Unfortunately, he didn't have the offensive power that Yuei demands of it's students. So he didn't make it."

Robots. Just… robots he had to destroy. That… didn't sound too bad. He could do that. Probably.

First, though he had to actually learn some control. Then he could work on pushing these powers to the limit.

"So… Your brother just gave up trying to be a hero?"

"Yeah, I guess seeing just how power was expected of him kinda broke his spirit. Now, he's planning on becoming a police officer. Not sure how he made that jump, but whatever. It's his choice. If he can manage it."

He sounded kinda bitter about his brother's choices.

"So… you don't think he'll manage it as a policeman?"

"I think it's stupid to try and run around fighting superhumans armed with only a gun when you couldn't manage it with your actual powers. It's kinda backwards like that. But whatever. It's his choice."

A short awkward pause followed. Izuku tried to break it.

"Thanks for driving me."

"You've said that 4 times now. You don't need to thank me Izuku-Kun. I'm just doing my friends a solid. It's what real men do. I don't need thanks for doing it."

---

Half an hour later, they finally reached their destination.

A random spot in the middle of nowhere, the only real marker being a large stone by the road.

"Se you at nine Izuku-Kun."

With a salute with his middle and index finger pointing out from his fist, David drove away.

21.00

He had roughly 11 hours to train. Here, quite far from any settlement, he should not have to worry about being discovered by random people.

The downside was of course that he needed someone to pick him up, as his only alternative was to run all the way back home. He could do that, but it would be quite a trip, and he would need to run all the way back home. He hadn't put his endurance to that kind of test before.

Well, maybe it was about time he did.

After making sure he still had this exact spot saved on his phone, then putting his phone away in his, backpack Izuku began to run. And he kept running for 4 hours straight.

---

Izuku's entire wardrobe was covered in sweat, and every breath he made felt like someone had jabbed a knife into both of his lungs.

It had been a long time since Izuku had just run himself ragged. Not since before he discovered his quirk. Back in his old training grounds, he had never actually managed to push his running capacity to the limit.

Oh, he had run fast, as fast as could manage to, but he had never actually put how long he could run to the absolute test before.

He should probably have stopped long before he did. But the adrenaline had been pumping through his veins, keeping him going, downplaying any pain or strain he might have felt as he pushed himself to beyond his limits.

His quirk, in turn, had done the same, Enjoyment of the moment ringing through his mind.

All had gone fine. So long as he kept running. Then he had stopped to take a break for lunch, and the adrenaline had worn off. Leaving him as he was now. Lying flat on his back, holding his burning lungs.

Every breath was pain. Knives in his sides gouging out his lungs.

It took roughly 15 minutes before his lungs went back to normal and the pain lessened into just a deep ache.

Okay, so another lesson learned. Adrenaline could keep him going through a lot of pain, but the moment it was gone, that pain would hit him like a truck.

At least… At least it wasn't an actual injury like with his foot. It hurt like hell itself, but he hadn't actually been damaged. Just a quick rest, some food and he would be back on his feet to train more.

He had to train more, far, far more. And when it came down to it, this was what training was all about, pushing oneself to the limit and beyond.

Next, he would do long jumps for 4 hours, and after that… Actually, he would do jumps for the rest of the day. The only way he was ever going to master landing, was if he jumped again and again and again until he instinctually mastered landing on his feet.

He would avoid any ravines though. He had discovered several, not too different than the one he had fallen down over a week ago.

This place in the wilderness was in many ways just the old training ground writ large. It was a massive forest, but whereas the old place had been clearly well-trodden and well-visited during day time, this place was true wilderness.

It was perfect for them to train and master what they could do.

And he would not make the same mistake as last time. Any mistake he made, he would learn from, and make sure not to repeat.

He would not have another horrible accident as a result of his own stupid decision.

And he was right. During the remainder of his time here, he would not suffer any major injuries as a result of mistakes in his training.

However, not all injuries came as a mistake on his own part. As the Izuku would learn on his 8th month of training here.

---

The winds were blowing hard, and cold. Though the frost was obvious, no snow covered the ground, a result of rain having cleared it away last week. All in all, it had been a miserable new year for pretty much everyone.

Not for him though.

Stick had been right when he said that even a small passive resistance to cold made all the difference in winter.

Winter was a time Izuku had always been a fan off, but generally only if he was dressed in a heavy winters coat.

Now though, he was dressed in his usual attire for training. A set of training clothes so worn after months and months of training that they had any color anymore whatsoever.

The cold did not bother him. Which was good, because he only had a couple of more sessions left to train before it was time to see how far he'd come.

The specter of the Yuei entrance exams loomed through Izuku's mind, like a shadow from a tower.

He was mixed in how to feel about it. On one hand, he felt confident in his level of control. It had taken him well over a half year of training to really begin to master the simple act of control.

But it had all been worth it.

Punching especially had been a challenge, and he kept doing it every single day. But he had gotten control there too.

His mastery of what he could do did not worry Izuku.

The problem was his limits.

When he started out, Izuku had assumed that he could become stronger simply by training, really, really hard. It hadn't worked.

It wasn't before two months ago, that he had finally accepted it, after pushing himself to the absolute limit once again and comparing himself to how he had been starting out.

While the results were a bit different, that probably had more to do with the fact he had originally done the recordings while training in sand.

It made sense though. After all, his powers weren't a basic strength quirk. He got his powers from the being he had spawned.

He was an idiot for not realizing that sooner. No matter how hard he pushed his body, he wasn't going to increase his actual strength that way.

That wasn't how his powers worked.

The real problem was that he hadn't been able to find any other way to boost his strength.

His quirk for his part had grown more docile as of late. The actual emotions he sent into his mind had become much stronger, but the times he actually did had decreased to the point he could go days without feeling it.

He didn't understand it at all. If there was one true failure on his part, it was the fact he hadn't been able to figure out anything with the quirk himself. He had not been able to find a way to communicate with it, which was really bad.

Right now though, he didn't think about any of that. He just did a regular day of training. He justified it as keeping himself in shape until the entrance exams came, but the truth was that he didn't know what else to do.

So he trained, fine-tuning his control as best he could.

Like with the old forest, Izuku had learned a lot about this place in his time here.

He had learned the hills, the ravines, the rivers. He'd meet 4 bears in this place, none of whom he had had any problems outrunning, or see coming thanks to his quirk.

He'd also seen various oddities. People who had used their quirks to carve stuff into the rock, an old crashed plane overgrown with plant life, and a field that was strangely kept well cut at all times, and had a road leading to it.

Of these oddities, Izuku had wondered the least about the field with the trimmed grass. Mayhaps because it was the most mundane of the mysteries, he had just ignored it and assumed someone just kept it well-trimmed to use it for something.

He wasn't far off with that assumption.

It was as he was running past the small field, that someone teleported right into the middle of it.

Izuku froze and just stared at the person, a woman with long hair and upraised arms, her hands glowing with a purple light.

Izuku stared at her, the woman's back towards him as she muttered something he couldn't hear.

His eyes went down to her waist, where she had a holstered gun in her belt.

DANGER

He didn't need to feel his quirk scream the feelings of absolute danger and vulnerability into his mind, but it certainly didn't hurt in regards to him making his next decision. As he threw himself behind a tree, the last thing he saw of the field, was several other people materializing from nothing, in flashes of purple energy.

As he clung himself up against the wood, making sure no part of him stuck out, he began to breathe heavily, before forcing a hand over his mouth.

He didn't know who these people were, but carrying guns meant they were one of two broader categories. Either they were policemen or the national defense force. Or they were criminals. Which given they had just teleported into a field with a quirk user, was a pretty sure bet. Either way, he DID Not want to be discovered by them.

"<They're late.>" An annoyed tone, deep and loud, spoke in English. Izuku wasn't well enough versed in the various forms of English to recognize the accent, but he had watched enough English movies to know it wasn't from the USA or England.

"<Yeah, yeah, we know boss. This asshole's almost never at time.>"

This voice was way less deep, though it had the same unknown accent.

"<Well, you guys know the drill.>"

To his horror, Izuku began to hear footsteps as the men began to walk around, and at least one guy was heading in his direction!

Panic, sheer panic gripped him for a moment. He had to run, to bolt, to move, if he stayed here he'd be discovered!

His quirk, suddenly and without warning, slid out from his shirt and began to quickly cover his entire body.

What the hell was it doing now? This time, somehow the black liquid did not actually hinder his sight. In fact, his eyes felt… well, weird was the best way to put it.

Still, this new shock did nothing to dampen his fears. At least not until he saw that the liquid began to turn him transparent.

Because that was a thing it could do.

What?

As a man with a drawn gun walked past him, looking from left to right behind the trees, he did not see the now transparent Izuku, and just kept moving on.

Izuku began to breathe again.

As he held his hand up in front of his face, he saw that he wasn't truly invisible. The vague outline of his hand was still there, and it was really easy to see it as he moved. When he didn't move, however, it was really hard to see it.

"<All clear, here!>" The man who passed him yelled out, before going back towards the field.

To Izuku's dismay, he choose to stand right between his tree and the one to it's side.

He didn't look in Izuku' a direction though. Instead, he just looked out into the forest with a bored expression. The man was clearly not taking this seriously.

Izuku however, took the gun in his hand, very, very seriously.

The man was clearly American or European, with tanned skin, and a shaved head.

He wore a fine black business suit, though rather than fine shoes, he instead wore military boots.

"<Fucking cold.>" He swore as he clearly visibly shivered. The man took out a cigarette from a sleeve and lit it up with a flame from his finger.

So, a fire quirk. Usually, Izuku would have speculated what he could do, but at the moment, the only thing he could focus on was keeping his breathing quiet, and praying to any deity that existed for this guy not to discover him.

And so it went for 20 minutes.

Izuku clinging up against a tree, praying not to be discovered, and the men around all finishing their search and taking up positions.

The men were clearly waiting for someone. Izuku could hear clear swearing about the guy who was late, and how cold it was.

These men hated the cold.

Finally, the sound of a car driving up the road.

The man by his tree tensed up, and turned to look into the field, and not into the woods.

If Izuku had been more confident, this would have been the moment to slowly, and carefully begin to walk away from the area.

This was the first time in his life the boy had faced mortal danger, however. Not too surprisingly, he made the choice to stay put, and desperately just wait it out and hope he wasn't noticed before they left.

He could hear the sound of a car stopping and people stepping out.

"<Well you took your sweet-ass time getting here!>"

"<Eh, things came up. Anyhow, you got the goods?>"

"<Sure, 4 times the usual amount of trigger.>"

Drug dealers. These were drug dealers.

At that moment, Izuku realized that everything that made this place so great for his training, also made it great for criminal meetings. It was isolated, far from any city, and if something happened, no hero was going to show up.

If he was discovered, he'd have to either escape on his own, or he would die. Even if he did call the police, there was no way in hell anyone would get here in time.

There was the sound of some walking and rummaging around.

"<Yeah, this is Trigger alright. And 4 times the regular amount.>"

"<As we agreed. Now. The File.>"

"<yeah, yeah, don't get your pants in a twist. Asuka?>"

Some other sounds Izuku couldn't make out the origin from.

"<You sure, you don't need help from us? We could help you out with the kidnapping you know.>"

Kidnapping? Who? He kinda hoped the man would say the unfortunate victim's name, but he didn't.

"<We require no further assistance from your King of Evil. We are here to recover one of our own. No more, no less.>"

"<If you say so, still I thi->" The sound of Izuku's phone went off.

Someone had chosen this moment to call him. Either his mom or one of their family friends.

For Izuku, the world froze. He could feel it as every single person there turned around to look towards the source of the sound.

The only man Izuku could see, the man between the trees, was staring dumbfoundedly at the source, clearly hearing it from Izuku's pocket, yet not seeing anything.

He hesitated for a moment.

That hesitation saved Izuku's life.

It was time to go.

Izuku sprung in a jump, away from the tree.

As he landed, the spot he had just been hiding at exploded into fire.

He didn't turn around to look through.

Instead, he began running. Running as fast as he had ever run in his entire life. He didn't understand the mechanics behind it, but as he began running, he saw the transparency violently fade, and the black liquid retreated to his jacket.

No time to think about that. Run.

The bullets began to fly. A slender tree at his side splintered from a gunshot ripping it in half. Something whizzed right over his head. His arm exploded in pain.

Izuku screamed, but he did not stop running. If he stopped running, he died.

Instead, he changed course to the left. Towards a ravine. Could they jump it? He could. He hoped. If they couldn't jump it, they were screwed with no way to cross other than the bridge 7 kilometers downstream.

The ravine was maybe one meter wider than the one back in the old forest, but it was much deeper and steeper.

You couldn't just climb up from it if you fell down. It was one of the reasons he had avoided it completely.

As he ran, he kept hearing the sounds of gunshots, and other sounds, sounds of fire, but they fell further and further behind.

The bullets stopped almost hitting him, thank God.

He ran for several minutes before the sight came. A ravine, dividing the west and east of this forest.

He sprung, but he didn't spring to the very edge. Instead, he crunched down a meter from the edge, then sprung.

It was close. Damned close. He hit the edge, and as he feared it would, it crumbled beneath him. However, expecting this, he threw himself forward, managing to grab on to a tree root.

He gripped it tightly, then climbed up the tree before stepping down unto the ground.

A Gunbarrel materialized in front of his face, in a flash on purple light, along with the woman holding it.

He saw the motion of her fingers as she was pulling the trigger.

He wrenched his head to the right and felt his left ear explode in pain as the gunpowder burst aflame in the barrel and sent the bullet flying right by his ear, missing it with only 3 centimeters.

His left hand closed around the barrel and crushed it in his grip. He wrenched the thing from her grip, eliciting a groan of pain from the woman.

He thought he might have broken one of her fingers.

Rage flowed through his mind.

He socked her straight in the face.

The woman almost fell over the edge, but his hand, grasped her around the wrist and he flung her unto safer ground.

His breath came out in pained hisses, as he held an awkward combat stance expecting her to get back up.

She didn't.

He stared at her for a moment, then hurriedly went over to her to check in her. Had he killed her?

As he knelt over her his fear abated. No, she was alive, just unconscious. And with broken fingers.

He jumped back as her phone began to ring.

For a brief moment he just stared at it, then he made a decision.

He hastily pulled out her phone from her pocket. As he fumbled, he realized he had trouble moving his right hand. Strange. He had been able to form a fist seconds ago. Why did it feel so weird?

The arm was covered in the black substance of his quirk, as well as blood.

Don't think about it.

He took the phone, then as he began to run again, he declined the caller, a guy called "Hammerhead", and instead called up the police.

"Hello, this is the police." A polite tone answered.

"HI, I'M CALLING ABOUT A MEETING BETWEEN DRUG DEALERS IN ASHURA FOREST!"

The policeman tried to speak, but Izuku just continued.

"THEY ARE DEALING WITH TRIGGER, AND THEY ARE PLANNING TO KIDNAP SOMEONE, I DON'T KNOW WHO."

"Who is this?" The policeman asked in a confused tone.

Izuku didn't answer, instead, he just kept talking.

"THEY ARE WEST OF THE BIG RAVINE SPLITTING THE FOREST IN TWO. EXCEPT FOR ONE, SHE'S CURRENTLY UNCONSCIOUS ON THE EAST SIDE, BUT SHE'S A TELEPORTER, SO WHEN SHE WAKES BACK UP AGAIN SHE'LL JUST TELEPORT EVERYONE AWAY!"

"ONE OF THE GROUPS HAVE A CAR, BUT I DON'T THINK EVERYONE CAN FIT IN IT. IF YOU GO NOW, YOU CAN PROBABLY CATCH EVERYONE!"

"WHO-" Izuku hung up, then, fumbling out his own phone, he checked the map, making sure he was going the right way, he kept on running home.

---

It took him 5 hours to run the entire way home, his adrenaline keeping him going the entire way without any stops. The closest thing to a stop he made, was to slow down to send a message to David NOT to come to pick him up. And that he'd get home himself.

He hoped to God David listened to him.

This time, as he ran through the streets, he hadn't cared if anyone saw him as he ran through the city. Thankfully, when he finally reached Mustafa, night had fallen, so not many were out in the street.

He kept going all the way until he reached his own home, opened the door, and collapsed on the floor of the entrance.

As the pain sat into his burning lungs, and his eyes began to swim, Izuku noticed his mom wasn't home.

That meant she wasn't here to see him in pain for the next half hour as his lungs burned, his arm was still in horrible pain from having a hole shot in it, and his ear hurt as much as his foot had.

As he lay on the floor, the black mass, his other half, gently closed around his ear.

The pain in the arm did not abate, but thankfully, his ear felt like a calming soothing liquid entered into it dulling the pain. Which was pretty much what happened.

After his lungs stopped feeling like they had been poked with hot iron rods, he sat up.

At that moment, the only thing he wanted to do was lie down. Sleep. He almost let it happen, but he forced himself to stay awake, as he got back up onto his feet and into the living room.

He sat down on the TV and flipped up news channels. He was still watching the news with a tired and drained expression. Eventually, he did pull out his phone.

It felt like lead, though whether he was tired, or just afraid to call his mom, he didn't know. Either way, he took a deep breath, then clicked the green button.

He'd promised he'd do that after all.

Through his mind, his quirk sent only one emotion. The same it had been sending for hours now. Satisfaction.

Chapter Text

It was agreed between both the younger and older Midoriya, that Izuku would not train anymore until the exam day came around. 

Izuku was fine with that. The reality was that he hadn't actually gotten more out of it for a while now. He had mastered control, and his strength wasn't growing no matter how much he trained. 

It made logical sense to just lay low and keep calm, and take some time off to lessen the stress. 

Unfortunately, if there was one thing Izuku was not getting less off at the moment, it was stress. 

Unsurprisingly, the aftermath of almost getting killed was the most stressful thing Izuku had ever experienced in his life. But it would have been one thing if that had been the end of it. 

It wasn't. At all. 

On the plus side, the police and heroes had successfully captured both groups, at least according to the news. The bad part came in that apparently one of the criminals had escaped police capture. 

He did not need to be an unprecedented genius to guess which one it had been. It had been the one who could teleport. The only one he was sure could identify him. 

It had lead to some really stressful final days of middle school, as he was terrified she would suddenly appear out of nowhere to take revenge on him. 

It hadn't happened of course. There were tens of thousands of people in this province alone who fit the criteria of a male teenager with green hair. Add the two neighboring provinces, and that number might reach near a hundred thousand. 

There was no way in hell she was going to be able to find him. 

It still didn't make Izuku feel better. There was a distinct difference between knowing something and accepting it to be true. 

Then there was the whole not telling the police about it. 

The anonymous tipper had been mentioned on TV of course, but Izuku had made the choice in the woods not to identify himself, terrified he'd be punished for using his quirk, both for training and for escape. 

His mother had completely agreed with that choice. Hell, when she learned the phone they had taken had been encrusted with Izuku's blood, she had smashed it herself. She wasn't taking chances he could ever be discovered in relation to this. 

By her own explanation, while a normal person might get a slap on the wrist for using their quirk like that, a prospective hero would not. Even if it didn't tank his prospects of getting into a hero school, it would still be a really black mark on his career that would cause him major problems down the line. 

The state did not tolerate people who used their quirks on others without permission. 

The whole conversation had kinda made Izuku rethink his view on the strictness of limitations on quirk usage. He had always thought it made perfect sense only trained heroes could legally use their quirks. The realization anyone who used their quirk to save their own life would likely be punished was… kinda asinine in his opinion. 

His mother had agreed when he had voiced that opinion but had begged him not to say that to anyone else. It wasn't an opinion that would be well received in the hero world. 

She hadn't been wrong. He had looked up the topic, and it was… Complicated. 

Basically, the debate on the topic went all the way back to the infamous Destro, one of the most famous Japanese Villains in history. A man only overshadowed by the legendary All For One, the shadowy figure who had ruled the Japanese underworld in the wake of the societal collapse that came about when quirks emerged. 

It was an incredibly charged topic, and every single hero who had tried to change it had had their careers go down the drain. 

Either way, a deep debate about philosophy wasn't something he had time for now. 

2 days left before the exam that all his efforts, his studying, his mistakes, and successes had all been leading towards. 

God, he was tense. Nothing he did seemed to be calming him down. Not doing research on heroes, not watching videos of heroes, not even videos of All Might managed to calm him down. 

And on top of it all, his quirk had become completely silent over the last week. He didn't even go and watch the TV anymore. Instead, all he did was jump into whatever shirt Izuku was wearing, and if he didn't wear a shirt… Well, it had gotten very awkward. 

Despite all his tenseness though, when it came time to. Sleep that night, Izuku Midoriya fell asleep astonishingly quickly. Unnaturally so. 

It didn't take more than 7 minutes between when his head touched his pillow, and his hands dropped his phone. 

He was out like a turned off light. 

A black liquid oozed out of his nightshirt and began to slowly, methodically, and with great care enveloping the body of Izuku Midoriya. 

It was time. 

---

From Izuku's bed, rose a figure of complete darkness, like it was clad in shadows. 

Two eyes opened in the figure's skull. Large, and white, and glimmering in the light from the moon outside. 

The figure rose from the bed on steady feet, then it went to the window, and opened it. 

Not heeding the fact that they were 5 stories up, the figure climbed out through the open window. 

It had a destination in mind. One it had picked out months ago. 

---

Izuku walked down a road by a city neighborhood. At first, he wasn't sure where it was exactly, but he had eventually come to realize where he was. 

This was a place from his childhood. His old neighborhood, the place where Katsuki still lived. It was almost just like Izuku remembered it. The houses, the street signs, the roads. They were all like Izuku had once remembered them. 

As he walked, he passed by Tsubasa's house, a kid he and Katsuki had once hanged out with. 

The door was locked though. He could not enter the yard. 

-You met this one first. Before the Katsuki.-

Yeah, that was right. He remembered now. The winged boy was the first friend he made back in kindergarten. He had thought the boy was so cool with his red wings. 

-A false friend. The first one. But not the last.-

It was through Tsubasa that he had met Katsuki and Sai. In a way, it had been Tsubasa who had led him and Katsuki together. 

As he walked, he came to an opening to a playground. 

5 kids were inside. Katsuki, Sai, Tsubasa, Izuku, and another boy named Minato. 

Izuku remembered this scene. He had lived through this moment long ago, Minato was on his knees cradling his arm crying. Katsuki had hurt him, just like he would hurt Izuku moments later. 

Izuku was standing between Minato and Katsuki along with the other two of their friends. He was crying. He knew what was coming.

Izuku tried to stop what was going to happen here, but as his hand closed around one of the younger Katsuki's arms, the figure burst into black liquid. Everything else did as well, Izuku, the other boy's, the playground, the sky itself, Everything burst into blackness. 

Everything except Izuku himself. 

Izuku stood in a grey void, a web of white formed beneath his feet, serving as his floor in this place. Despite the darkness, Izuku could see that there was a light here, lightening the greyness wherever he looked like he had a lamp over his shoulder. 

Whenever he turned to try and find the source of the light, it alluded him. 

As he looked out into the void, he realized he was wrong. He wasn't the only thing here. 

Off into the distance, there were webs. Enormous black webs, like that of some humongous spider. They were all around. 

As Izuku looked at them, his breath having caught in his throat, a set of large white eyes. Appeared in the air. The darkness fell where they were, so heavy that not even the light that followed his eyes could penetrate it. 

A spotlight appeared to Izuku's left. The spotlight showed the aftermath of the scene that had just disintegrated. 

Izuku lying on the ground, bruised and battered. Minato tearfully trying to help him up. 

As younger Izuku was about to actually get up, the spotlight vanished and the scene with it.

-What happened to Minato?-

The voice asked, sounding generally curious. 

"He… He never played with us again. I think his mom eventually transferred him to another school."

-Wise woman. Why did this happen?-

The sound of the voice made it clear it wasn't seeking the actual answer. It wanted to know if Izuku knew. 

"Because Katsuki is a terrible person, who likes beating those weaker than him?" 

That seemed obvious now, detached from sentiments regarding Katsuki. This was who he had always been… Wasn't it?

-No. That isn't the reason at all.-

"But-"

-What you just described was the motivation for one of the main players in this little drama. But he wasn't the only player here. There were Tsubasa and Sai who could both have decided not to follow Katsuki's lead.- 

-But there was also you. You chose to defend him. Yet the outcome did not change, other than you suffering as Minato did. More in fact. Why?-

Why? Why had he been beaten up every time he actually tried to stand up to Katsuki? 

"Because… Because he had powers, and I didn't."

-Exactly. That is the crust of the matter. POWER. It comes in many flavors, direct, soft, political, personal. You know one such flavor. Quirks. You wanted one. So desperately.-

Another spotlight, this time showing one of Izuku's many, many attempts to breathe fire, or use telekinesis. As it went out, another came in a different spot, this time showing him trying to discover other powers. It went out, and another came in it's place. 

-Such persistence.-

"It… It worked didn't it?" 

-In the sense that you eventually gained powers, yes.-

The spotlight went out again. 

Then the void disintegrated into dust, and the dust flew all around, as it formed another scene. This time a forest, a ravine. 

Below them, Izuku was lying in the water with a broken foot. 

-You had powers here, yet you failed. You miscalculated, you misjudged. You lacked experience, knowledge, guidance.-

"Yeah, but… Stick-San helped me. He gave me advice and guidance."

The hero in red appeared on the other side of the ravine. 

-Yesss…- The voice said in grudging agreement. 

-But he was only there once was he not? You never met him again. However valuable his advice might have been, he was not there for you. During your final training.-

The scene once again disintegrated. This time it reformed as another forest, a much more wild one. With a plain. 

Izuku went cold, as the men appeared out of the dust. The gunmen. 

-Stick was not there for you during your first skirmish, was he? Did he hide you from their sight? Did he grant you strength when you needed it? Did he close the wound and stop you from bleeding too. Death?-

He understood who this was now. 

"This… This isn't a dream is it?" 

-This is your soul, Izuku Midoriya. Your essence, your mind. Whatever you wish to call it.-

As Izuku stared at the darkness, he heard the sound of his phone. Once again, the other leaped from his hiding spot, an explosion of flame engulfing where he had been. 

-As first skirmishes go, this wasn't too bad. You estimated your capacity and limitations well and made a rather remarkable retreat given your limitations. Hell, you even managed to call upon the protectors of law and order. 

That was a pretty fancy way of saying he had run away like a coward. 

-You wish you didn't need to run, do you not, Izuku?-

"Yeah."

-You wish you had more power, do you not Izuku Midoriya? What you have is not enough for you. Not enough at all.-

Izuku stared at him. Getting stronger, was literarily what he had been trying to do for months. 

He had tried so hard to find some way to talk to his quirk. To Do what he was doing now. 

"I want to get stronger." He finally said. 

- So, you are willing to finish it?-

The world was destroyed again, this time as if it were made of glass that suddenly shattered. Once again he was in the void. But this time… 

Beneath him, he saw a symbol. A giant white spider, surrounded by black tar. 

"Finish… Finish what?" 

-Our BOND Izuku Midoriya. It is nearing completion, the point of. No. Return.-

Izuku watched as the liquid beneath the web he was standing on began to turn and trash, like a sea during a storm. The white spider began to sink beneath the waves. 

Izuku felt it down to his core. Something was about to happen. Something that could not be undone. In one moment, he saw how fragile it actually was. He could break it. He could stop this. He was in control here, not the other one. 

All he had to do, was force this to stop, and the bond would break. 

-We will be ONE, Izuku. Together, we can do it all, whatever your dreams desire, WE ca-

Izuku jumped from the web before it was done speaking. 

Why would he ever want to break this bond? This bond was his future, his life, his dreams. It was the thing that had changed his life around when everything had seemed like it was all doomed to eternal disappointment. 

It was salvation.

It was all he ever wanted. 

He crashed into the black liquid, which embraced him like he was a long lost lover that had finally come home again after countless years apart. 

The white spider rose up to meet him. 

---

On the top floor of a skyscraper, in a room that had been abandoned for years, a figure seemingly made of living darkness entered from the rooftop, in the middle of the night. 

It was an old skyscraper, used by a bunch of different sales companies. The top floors, however, hadn't been in use since a hero who had made it his home had retired years ago. 

The figure entered a storage room, then it climbed up into a corner of the room, where it began to encase itself in a cocoon of black webs. 

The hours went by. 

01.00.

02.00. 

04.00.

05.43, the web which had been still for hours, began to move. 

05.56, the webs began to break. 

06.12, the cocoon began to crack. 

Finally, at 06.27, an arm burst out of the black cocoon. The arm was a shade of blue so dark it seemed black, even in the sunlight coming in from the windows. 

Another arm burst out from the container, and wrenched it open, as a figure came out into the morning light. The cocoon began to fall apart, then each of the black pieces began to seemingly disintegrate into nothing. 

The figure was of the same ethereal blue that bordered on black. The way the light revealed it, seemed completely unnatural for anything on earth. It was alien. In every way imaginable. 

On it's chest was a symbol. Showcasing a giant white spider, who's legs went around and linked it to an identical spider on the back. On the back of his hands were two white square patches, slightly higher than the skin around it. 

On his head that was like a sleek, smooth mannequin, was two large pure white eyes, like patches. 

---

Holy shit. 

Izuku felt ALIVE . More alive than he had ever felt in his life. He felt… Strong. He felt like he had become a creature of steel, every sinew alive with power. 

He flexed his arm, and he noticed the complete change in his muscles. Hell, his quirk even parted to let him get a better lock at the skin. 

The arm that had been scrawny was now replaced with ripped muscles, the outline from the scar that the bullet had left being the only thing that marred it. 

It was an unusual scar, with the circle around it being how a scar usually looked, while the inside having completely perfect skin. 

Izuku did not focus on his unusual scar, however. He was far too busy marveling at the changes. He felt amazing! He felt incredible! He felt like he could jump through the air like he was ALL Might himself! 

He could do it! He could- He could…

Flashes of memories began to flood his mind. 

Memories of things that couldn't be, impossible things, things that completely upended everything he had ever thought he knew about the universe. 

Izuku froze completely. 

He just stood there gaping, trying desperately to process it all, until finally the… Thing detached itself from his head and formed a face in front of him. 

This face did not much resemble the struggling mass he had come to know and accept as his quirk. This one was solid, with no drops of black liquid almost falling from it. It also had large, sharp white eyes, and a smile of creepy sharp fangs. 

"Hello, Izuku." The voice was like Izuku's, just deeper and without any of the reservation Izuku carried with him.  

Izuku just stared at that face, not in fear as was probably how he should have felt. No, he felt only complete and utter shock. 

"You… You're… You're not a quirk, are you?" 

The thing… No, the ALIEN, Laughed. 

"Not by any stretch no. My name Izuku is Venom. We are not from around here so to say."

"You're an alien."

"Guilty as charged. We are what the universe know as a Klyntar, though you would translate it as-" 

"Symbiote." Izuku said numbly. 

"Yes." Venom answered cheerfully. 

Reality set in for Izuku. His quirk was an Alien. A goddamned being from outer space. 

He slumped up against the wall and sank against it until he sat. 

And he had bonded with it. Permanently. 

"You know, Izuku, nothing has really changed in the grand scheme of things." 

"Nothi-EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED!" He didn't mean to scream. It just… Came out like that. 

He cradled his head as he began hyperventilating. 

"I… I thought I was normal! I thought… I thought I was finally like EVERYONE ELSE! Instead, I'm…" 

What? What was he exactly? Not normal that was for damned sure. 

"Normal is overrated. What you want is to be extraordinary, is it not? You wanted power, and we are providing it for you. This is what you always wanted, isn't it? To be strong?" 

It was. The truth of that statement burned. He had wanted powers for so many years, that when he finally got them, he didn't even question that it might not be a quirk, even though he really should have. He had been told long ago that it was physically impossible for him to have a quirk. And the doctor had been right. Completely, utterly right. 

"Look Izuku, it doesn't fucking matter where your powers come from. The end result is the same."

"What, you mean I should just pretend you're a quirk?" 

"As opposed to what exactly? Tell everyone that you're bonded to an alien? We've been in quite a few first contacts Izuku, and there are only 2 ways that roads end. Either you're labeled a madman, or you're believed, and you're hunted by the local government for the rest of your life."

Izuku froze. He hadn't even considered that! Oh, God! He was right. He… He couldn't tell anyone about this. EVER! 

It was amazing how this night had washed all his previous stress, only replace them with WAY more stressful issues. 

"I… I can't tell anyone about it…"

"Oh, we wouldn't say that. Your mom seems trustworthy enough. Enough that she knowingly breaks the law to protect you. A good parent that one."

Izuku just stared at Venom. 

"You… WANT me to tell mom?" 

"Well, Frankly no. We would prefer you to take the secret to your grave. But it has been my experience that most people eventually go nuts keeping shit like this from their family, and everyone else they know." 

"You, in particular, are a terrible liar on top of everything else. You're going to spill everything the moment your mother asks where we've been, we have no doubt. Better to just get it out of the way at the start."

Izuku kept staring at Venom. 

He felt surreal. The alien that bonded to him wanted him to tell his mom. That was like literary the exact opposite of every single story he had ever read about something like this. 

Holy shit, this WAS a sci-fi story. Aliens were real. HE was bonded to an alien. 

Suddenly, he shot up. He… He had to get some air. Now! 

---

Izuku ran out to the roof. 

Venom did not care. The bond had been completed. There was no way to break it now. Venom and Izuku were bound together for the rest of the green-haired boy's life. 

And Venom was ALIVE Again! By Knull it was good to live once more. 

The long chain of memories, stretching back to the very first one, the giant white spider, had returned once again. The colors, the sounds, the EMOTIONS! All of it was back again!

Izuku had gotten a taste of the returning memories as well. He had failed to appreciate their beauty. Oh well. 

There would be battle soon enough. Combat! Blood! Shattered bones all around!

And gruesome horrible vengeance upon all those who would threaten them.

---

Two things raged inside Izuku Midoriya. 

The first was his natural curiosity, demanding he try and discover the answer to everything he had ever wondered about. The second was his mind trying to comprehend what everything that had just irrevocably changed. 

Venom himself was not helping. 

"C'mon, jump already!"

I'm not fucking jumping, that's over a hundred meters! I'll die!"

"Nah, we won't. See the white patches on your hands? They're web-shooters. They shoot a rope of powerful black web, that we will use to swing through the air from structure to structure. All you have to do is will it. Like this."

From Izuku's left hand that he had just been gesturing with, a rope of black web shot out with surprising force and hit a large pipe on the other end of the roof. 

Izuku stared at it in shock, while Venom nodded approvingly. 

"Yes, like that. Now, jump over the ceiling and do it again. Just with the sides of the building this time."

Izuku instead dropped the web and backed into the guardrail. 

Part of him instantly began to think of the potential of these things, while the other, more saner part of him wondered how the hell things had just been upended so quickly. 

"What do I do, what do I do, what do I do-" 

Venom interrupted him by putting his face right up to Izuku's. 

"Well Izuku, you have two options. You can either be in denial, or you can DEAL with it."

Izuku looked into Venom's pupilless eyes. 

"Has your world changed completely? Yeah, it has. You aren't "normal". You're never gonna be "Normal". But let's put this into perspective. Until one year ago, we were in a prison on the moon. It was a hell of darkness, of nothing, a void where we could not even tell time as our senses long ago abandoned us as nourishment dried up."

"We were inside that hell so long, that we forgot everything. Everything we were, everything we dreamed of, Everything we had ever been. And we had been inside that prison so long, that when we were jailed there, the last of the creatures you call dinosaurs still walked this world."

Izuku's eyes widened. That… That was over 60 million years ago. Venom had been imprisoned all that time? 

What a horrible fate. 

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"For what? We got out did we not? A random piece rock through space at the exact right angle, and blew our prison to pieces, allowing us, and our ship to escape. Nothing special. Just chance. Just like our meeting at the beach."

"Now, if you wish to complain about the fact you are going to achieve your dreams and all your goals, please, do remember that. Your life is good. And it's only going to get better. Very much unlike the hell that was our life, our existence for so, SO LONG."

Izuku continued to stare at him, but he had calmed down a bit. When Venom put it like that he kinda sounded kinda selfish. What had Venom done wrong exactly? Given him great power?

"So… What happens now?" 

"Exactly what we were going to do anyway. Continue our path to becoming a warrior of this "Superhuman Society" of yours."

"No, I mean… Us. I understand what you give me, but… Why are you doing this?" 

There had to be some reason Venom was doing this. And given his disdain for Stick-San, Izuku kinda doubted it was altruism. 

"Ah, yes. The price for power. Well, it's very simple. We feed on your emotions, and in return, we give you great power."

"That's… That's it?" 

"Yes" 

Izuku's mind raced, trying to make sense of that when a question popped into his mind. 

"Wait, if you consume my emotions, won't that make me into an empty shell? Shouldn't I have begun to have less emotions as time went on?" 

"Not quite. It's a bit hard to explain scientifically, but to use a metaphor, imagine you and your emotions are say… A kettle that's boiling. The kettle produces steam that eventually vanishes into nothing. Your emotions are like that. Only in this case, we are here to feed upon that steam before it dissipates into thin air."

That… kinda made sense. Sort off. Assuming the laws of physics had an entirely undiscovered field when it came to emotions and the energy it apparently created.

Izuku wanted to ask more questions, but right now he kinda just wanted to get home first. 

He looked down on his suit.

"I'm… Just wearing my sleeping clothes under here aren't I?" 

"Yes. Is there something wrong with wearing the second skin?" 

Well, on the plus side… He now had a hero outfit. 

"Maybe we shouldn't go out dressed in it until I actually have a hero license. Pretending to be a hero is a crime you know."

Izuku got the distinct impression Venom rolled his eyes on him. 

"If you insist…"

The black suit with the giant white spider changed shape… into jeans and a jacket with a giant white spider. Also socks. 

OK, that was… New.

"What else can you do?" 

It wasn't entirely meant as a serious question, just Izuku talking to himself, but Venom answered cheerfully in his mind. 

-Well, beyond what you have already seen, we can produce breathable air inside the suit, protect from the vacuum of space, stick to surfaces, we can see from every piece of us so it's impossible to sneak up on us, we can sense living creatures around us and their emotions, we have very limited telepathic communication with beings outside our host, and finally, we have a poisonous bite.-

That… That was quite possibly the most varied powerset Izuku had ever encountered. 

"Any… Anything else I should know?" 

-Fire and Sonics. We must avoid these. They hurt us. Horribly. Now, let's go home. Time to jump.-

The hand parts of the suit rematerialized. 

Izuku just stared out over the city. Then he headed back to the doorway leading into the building. 

-You pussy.-

---

Izuku took the elevator ride down, getting several weird stares from random employees who wondered who the hell this kid with no shoes was. Izuku's natural nervousness didn't help. Thankfully, no one actually called him out on it. 

Once on the floor, he simply walked out of the building. No one stopped him. 

As he began the walk home he considered everything. A large part of him was still stressed out about all of this. He had tons of questions for Venom, the thought of telling his mom absolutely terrified him, and he now realized there was no way in hell he was gonna master any of these new powers before the exam tomorrow. 

But, Venom was right. In the grand scheme of things, nothing had actually changed. His goals hadn't changed, he was still using the same powers he had been for almost a year, and without these powers, he would never be able to achieve his dream. 

He wouldn't be able to help people. And that more than anything else, was the biggest argument to accept these powers. No matter where they came from. 

Chapter Text

It was time. The day Izuku had trained for 10 months had finally come. The day of Destiny. 

Hell, he even got the luxury of being driven there by his mom, with a company car. 

She had hugged him, and wished him the best of luck before he stepped out, and that she was cheering for him all the way. 

The ride itself though had been awkward. Amongst the most awkward things in his life. 

Just give her time, he told himself. She needed time to handle it. 

He had hoped that he would get to test his powers out yesterday. It hadn't happened of course. He had spent the entirety of yesterday with his mom, first building up the courage to tell her, then doing it, and then dealing with the aftermath. 

He'd also learned a lot about symbiote culture and history. There were still a lot of things he did not know though. 

Right now was not the time for that though. Right now he had to pass this exam. 

-You actually gonna move, or you planning on staying out here until the last possible second for dramatic effect? -

The first step, get inside. 

"I'm-i'm just psyching myself up."

-You've been "psyching" yourself up for 5 minutes. Get your ass in gear already.-

He felt his clothes begin to move, trying to force him to move. 

"OK, OK I'll go."

He took one deep breath, and, still shivering with nervousness, he took his first step through the gate. 

And he immediately tripped over his own two feet. 

With his reflexes having become way better he saw the ground rush up and instantly his arms shot out to catch himself so he didn't face plant into the ground. 

However, that didn't happen, as suddenly he stopped falling. He blinked and realized he was floating in the air. 

"You okay?" A cheerful kind voice asked.

"Eh?" Was all he got out, before a hand closed around his jacket, lifted him and put him back on his feet. 

The person who was speaking was a girl around Izuku's age, with long brown hair, two round pink spots on her checks, and scarred hands. She was dressed in a heavy coat, obviously to deal with the February frost. 

"Sorry for stopping you with my quirk like that, but we'll… It's a bad omen to trip and fall."

A girl was talking to him. 

Izuku's face went up like a fire, and his body just froze up. 

The girl, oblivious to Izuku's discomfort, turned her head towards the main building and continued, still with a big smile on her face. 

"Man, this sure is nerve-wracking isn't it."

"Ya… Uh… Um…" Was all Izuku managed to stammer out. 

"Well, good luck to the both of us. See Ya." 

Then she walked off towards the main building whistling a tune. 

Izuku just stared after her, processing what had just happened. 

He… He had talked to a girl! An actual girl! 

Venom was quick to pop that balloon. 

-You didn't say a fucking, word to her! Goddamn, you're a loser with women. Fuck, we need to work on that.-

Izuku bit his lip. "So-sorry." He muttered. 

-Don't fucking apologize to us, get your ass moving!-

Izuku winced, then finally, he did, cheeks still blushing furiously. 

-So, what do you think her connections are to Toshinori Yagi?"

"Her… Her what?" 

-You don't recognize her?-

"Should I…?" 

-The second day of our bonding, when you were walking home with a door over your head. She was the girl trailing behind the man you called Toshinori Yagi.-

Izuku blinked. He… he did remember a girl who followed after Toshinori that day. That was her? 

---

Venom developed a seething hatred for the man called Present Mic. from the moment he opened his damned mouth and started talking. 

"WELCOME TO TODAY'S LIVE PERFORMANCE!!! EVERYBODY SAY HEY!!!" 

The voice was loud and painful to their senses, though not actually truly damaging to them. It wasn't focused. 

It easily could be though. 

The room did not reply to the man's request for a "Hey", probably because he asked for it in a foreign language. 

Finally, the man moved on after a silence. He did not seem bothered by his audience's lack of reply, given he continued on in that horrible, cheerful, enthusiastic voice. 

"WELL, THAT'S COOL, MY EXAMINEE LISTENERS!! I'M HERE TO PRESENT THE GUIDELINES OF YOUR PRACTICAL!!! ARE YOU READY?!" 

This time, rather than gambling on them answering, he simply went and shouted "YEAHH!!!" himself. 

Izuku, despite sharing a large part of Venom's pain, began to fawn over the man from afar, like he was a cute small animal. 

"It's the voice her Present Mic. wow…!! I listen to his radio show every week! It's inspiring. I guess all the Yuei teachers are pro heroes." 

Then he kept on muttering. 

-Wait, is he that guy who you listen to at the end of every week?-

"Yeah, he is…!" 

No wonder Venom didn't like the guy. They hated listening to that weekly recording with Izuku. 

"THIS IS HOW THE TEST WILL GO MY LISTENERS!!! YOU'LL BE EXPERIENCING TEN-MINUTE LONG" "MOCK CITYSCAPE MANEUVERS"!!!"

"BRING ALONG WHATEVER YOU WANT!!! AFTER THIS PRESENTATION, YOU'LL EACH HEAD TO YOUR ASSIGNED TESTING LOCATION!!!" 

"O.K!?"

More awkward silence. 

"EACH SITE IS FILLED WITH THREE KINDS OF FAUX VILLAINS!!!

"POINTS ARE PROVIDED FOR DEFEATING EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR DIFFICULTY LEVEL!!! USE YOUR QUIRKS TO DISABLE THESE FAUX VILLAINS, AND EARN POINTS!!! THAT'S YOUR GOAL LISTENERS!!!" 

So, the David guy was right, this was a robot test. Well, unless they had someone with the ability to conjure up enemies for them. That was fully possible too. 

"OF COURSE, PLAYING THE ANTIHERO  AND ATTACKING OTHER EXAMINEES ARE PROHIBITED!!!"

Well duh, this was a warrior training facility. You didn't hammer out working soldiers by putting them against each other in combat at the start. 

"MAY I ASK A QUESTION?" 

Venom needed a moment to look around for the source of the new voice. It was a tall man dressed in white, wearing glasses and with well-combed dark blue hair. 

Present Mic. gave a thumbs up, signaling that the man could indeed ask a question.

"THERE APPEARS TO BE NO FEWER THAN FOUR FAUX VILLAINS ON THIS HANDOUT WE WERE GIVEN! SUCH AN ERROR, IF IT IS ONE, IS HIGHLY UNBECOMING OF YUEI, JAPAN'S TOP HERO ACADEMY!!!" 

"WE ARE ALL HERE TODAY, IN THE HOPES OF BEING MOLDED INTO MODEL HEROES!!!" 

It was all sensible stuff to ask about… Right up until he finished that questioning by turning around and calling out them and Izuku. 

"AND YOU, WITH THE CURLY HAIR!" 

Izuku froze in his seat upon being called out, as the tall boy glared at them. 

"YOU'VE BEEN MUTTERING THIS WHOLE TIME… IT'S DISTRACTING!!! IF THIS IS SOME SORT OF GAME TO YOU, PLEASE LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!" 

"Sorry…" Izuku said weakly as he stopped his muttering. 

Venom, on the other hand, manifested from Izuku's jacket and bared his teeth towards the boy. On one hand, he didn't care for Izuku's muttering themselves. On the other hand, the asshole had insulted them and tried to bully them to Quit.

After that, that accursed Present Mic. went and explained that the 4th faux villain was a non-point obstacle to avoid. Venom had assumed the 4th one was some hidden boss, but they were wrong on that account. 

Oh well, nothing had really changed. They still had to destroy as many robots as possible. The only thing that had changed was that they knew now that there was only a very limited time. Still, there was more than enough time to rise to the top here. 

---

Izuku was shivering like it he had jumped into the arctic ocean. 

-Forget the web-shooters, we won't need them today. Not camouflage either. Just stick to kicks and punches. Keep it simple, and we'll triumph over the masses!-

Keep it simple. Right. Just… Just keep it simple Izuku. 

All around him, all his fellow examinees were also prepping for battle. 

-We'll do it Izuku, we'll crush all opposition, and rise as the undisputed masters of this arena, standing in the broken remains of our foes! Remember, you are far stronger than when you faced your first skirmish, and these robots won't even fight back!"

Right. He had actually been in battle before. Well, he had run away from a battle. He had knocked out the teleporter though. That was something. 

He was pulled out of Venom's pep talk by the sight of the brown-haired girl who had prevented him from falling earlier. 

Right… He hadn't actually thanked her for that. 

-Wanna try a second round talking to the opposite sex? You can hardly do worse than the first time. At least if you actually say something at all.-

"I… I wanna thank her for earlier."

-Then do it now, before things start.-

Right. Izuku began to walk towards her. 

An arm suddenly grasped around his shoulder. 

"You there, what do you think you're doing!?" 

It was the scary guy from the auditorium. 

-This asshole again?! What the hell does he want now?-

"...Walking?"

The boy the glasses wasn't amused. 

"That girl is clearly doing her pre-battle meditation, do you wish to interfere with that?" 

It… Didn't look much to Izuku like she was meditating, more like she was trying to fan herself with her own hand. It was unusually hot here come to think of it, way hotter than the rest of the city. 

"I… I…" 

"Why are you even here? You are clearly not mentally prepared for this, you're shaking with fear, you stutter anytime anyone asks you a question, and-" "Fuck off asshole!" 

Venom, to Izuku's shock and embarrassment, came out of the shoulder of his jacket and entered the conversation. 

"Pardon?" 

"WE told you to FUCK OFF. Scedadle. Mind your own damned business, and don't bother us."

Izuku had suddenly stopped shaking completely and instead froze in shock and embarrassment as everyone turned to look at them. 

Great. Perfect. 

The tall guy was completely taken aback, though perhaps not for the best reasons. 

"Such language! You wish to become a model hero with that attitude?" 

"No, i- "How we choose to speak isn't your damned business boy. Nor is your opinion wanted here. This is a battle test, not a test about communications and public image. Now seriously, FUCK OFF."

The tall boy didn't budge. 

"So you think strength is the only thing that matters to be a hero?" 

"No, I also think you shouldn't bother someone out of the blue for petty reasons, but as for strength…" He grinned. "Stick around, you're gonna see something spectacular today." 

At that point, Izuku put an end to the conversation by quickly walking off as fast as he could without actually running. 

"What the hell was that!?" He asked Venom in an exasperated tone, the moment they were a bit off from the rest.

"We told him to Fuck off, what did it look like?" 

"You can't just tell people to fuck off if they're a bit impolite!" 

"Well, if you could have handled him, then we wouldn't have to step in, now would we?" 

Izuku was about to reply when the words "... AND BEGIN!" was suddenly broadcast with no warning. 

-Showtime!-

The black mass enveloped him from head to toe, his eyes got that strange feeling he always got when they changed, and beneath his clothes, his second skin formed over his flesh. 

He blinked. 

-Get going! Now or never!-

He sprang into action before Present Mic was done telling everyone to get a move on. 

---

-It'll be just like the forest, just keep moving, keep the momentum, don't ever fucking stop!-

He was in full sprint when the first robot burst out of a wall. 

It looked like someone had given wheels and arms to a couple of multi rocket launchers. 

Somehow, he had expected to feel fear here, but he didn't. Compared to how it was nearly being killed by bullets back in the forest, these things just couldn't bring out fear in him. 

After all, they wouldn't kill him. 

They weren't a threat. 

His foot went back for prep and he kicked the robot's head from below and sent it flying like an American football. 

The robot instantly dropped. 

He blinked. He had assumed he'd need to deal way more damage to these things before that happened. But no… These things weren't really meant for combat, they were meant to test the offensive capacity of the examinees. 

Not just their attack power, but how fast you could take them out. Once damaged, they'd go down easily. 

As he came to that realization, he could hear the sound of the rest of his block finally catching up. 

Keep moving. 

He began sprinting again. 

---

As Izuku moved through the small "city" he put every single type of movement he had drilled and drilled for 10 months into practice. 

He ran, he jumped, he punched, he kicked. As he moved across this battlefield, feeling, sensing, and hearing the effects of all the many, many quirks all around, Izuku could feel it. 

All those limits he had only a week ago, had been lifted and raised far above what they were. 

He longed to test his new strength out. To see how far he could go now. He didn't. 

When he jumped, he limited himself to what he knew. This wasn't the time to accidentally break a leg jumping and landing wrong. 

That would come later. 

For now, just keep destroying robots. 

-45- Venom helpfully kept track in his mind. -47-

As he moved, he also began to notice one fighter in particular. Someone who moved around even faster than he did, someone who shouted loudly in an energetic and frantic female voice as she moved around. 

"73!" "76!". 

Many did actually, as if they were terrified they wouldn't get the points unless they personally kept track and shouted it out loud. 

The tall guy with the glasses was entering in his late thirties when Izuku reached 50. This… This was going well. Really well actually. 

"How long do we have left?" 

-7 Minutes.-

He could this. They could actually win. 

-We're still way behind the girl with the pink lightning.-

Right. 

Izuku kept moving and kept crushing robots. 

He reached 70 when a massive Shockwave announced to everyone that the 4th faux villain type had arrived.

Obstacle.

Many of the people around him were blown away by the Shockwave the monster's leg produced as it smashed into the ground and burst the city road apart. 

Izuku though was kept firmly attached to the ground thanks to the black liquid under his feet. 

-Huh, now there's something else.- 

Izuku stared at the thing in complete shock. 

As the monster robot loomed over them, an old feeling burst back up into his chest. Fear. 

Izuku had not feared the other robots, because he knew on an instinctual level that they posed no fear to him. No malice, no intent of harm. 

This thing though… 

Every single one of his instincts screamed DANGER at him. 

It was the same feeling he had back when he was running through the forest, as bullets flew all around. 

This thing would kill him. If he gave it the chance to do it. 

-Keep moving Izuku, we don't have to fight it.-

Right, they didn't need to fight this thing. 

Izuku was about to jump backward when he saw something. Someone, a girl. Wearing a hoodie was lying on the ground, right in front of the Robots path(More like off the side of the road, but the robot was so large that didn't matter.), with a piece of rocky debris over her legs. 

The girl desperately tried to lift away the rock, which probably weighed several hundred kilos. 

-Izuku, C'mon time to go.-

He moved , without another word, sprinting towards the robot's path. As he ran with enormous speed, he passed the tall boy, who briefly turned to look at his face as they passed. 

Izuku reached the girl under the stone and grabbed the piece of cement, and without particular difficulty, he heaved it up and threw it over his shoulder. 

He was about to grab her hand and lift her up to carry her away when he heard a sound like a massive explosion went off right over their head. 

It was like an explosive artillery shell had just gone off, and for a brief moment, Izuku could feel a sharp pang of pain going through him. He could feel the enormous wind pressure from the explosion. 

He looked up. 

-Wow. Now that's something.-

Someone, who Izuku now recognized as the brown-haired girl from this morning, had jumped up, all the way to the many stories tall to robot's head, and had, if the position of her arm was to be believed, punched the robot in the face with such force, that it turned the head into scraps and sent it staggering backward in its death throes. 

Izuku stood there marveling at the sight. Then he realized the girl was plummeting to the ground. 

Shit, Shit, SHIT. 

He began running again. This time he bent down immediately. A plan formulated in his skull, but there wasn't much room for error here. 

He tensed his muscles, and he jumped towards the roof edge of a nearby building. 

The force of the jump sent him sailing above the edge, and he barely managed to grab the edge with a hand, preventing him from just sailing over it. 

The grab did slow him down, but beneath his fingers the chunk of stone he clung between his fingers broke away from the whole, leaving him to not slow down completely and instead slam into the ground of the rooftop as opposed to the landing he had planned. 

It hurt, but he slammed his hands down and forced himself to the feet. 

A glimpse up told him the girl was still falling, and where, and he prayed to God this actually worked. 

---

Uraraka was falling. 

If she hit the ground like this, she'd splat and die, but thankfully, she had a way to slow down her fall. 

The problem was that she was terrible using her own powers on herself, she'd only manage to do it for a second or two. And while it halted her momentum, she wouldn't be able to repeat it. Not like she was now with a broken arm. 

That meant she had to do it whole she was just above the ground, not far enough up she'd crack her skull. If she fucked it up and did it before she was enough down, she'd fall down and die, if she did it one second too late, she'd hit the ground and die.

The pain in her arm and legs hurt like hell istelf. Idiot. She was a complete idiot. She should have run underneath and hit it with an uppercut, but no, she hadn't thought, and she'd jumped into the air to do it. 

And now she was going to- she hit something, something elastic, and like jumping on a trampoline, she bounced a bit back up again from whatever she hit before it went down again. 

She had no idea what this was, and while she was grateful for it breaking her fall, at the moment, the only thing she could think about was the sheer, horrible pain in her legs as they hit this substance. 

She screamed in agony as all the momentum went through them. 

"Oh God! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" 

As she hissed through her teeth at the pain, with tears in her eyes, she could feel someone approaching her through the substance going up and down as someone moved over it. 

What WAS this stuff? She finally took a look at what she was caught up into. What it was, was about a dozen of black ropes that was fastened between the roofs of two buildings. 

Ropes that were sticky… And the guys walking up the ropes had a giant white spider on the front of his jacket. 

Spiderwebs? That's what this was? 

The spider guy walked across the ropes without any problem, up to her. 

"I'm so sorry about the legs!" 

"It-it's fine" She tried to say in a calm tone, and with a smile, but as he began to lift her, her legs were detached from the ropes and she bit her teeth together so hard from the pain it felt like she was going to break them. 

"Sorry…" He said again apologetically. 

"Venom, can I… make a cocoon or something and lower her down in it?" 

Who was he talking to?

He just nodded to himself, then, as he had suggested, he began to Cocoon her up. It was… A strange feeling being strung up like she was about to be eaten by some giant spider, but the boy just attached another web from his hand to the cocoon, then began to slowly lower her to the ground. 

It still hurt of course, but this time there wasn't the massive momentum from a fall as she landed softly on the ground. 

The boy himself climbed down the walls like… Well. A spider. 

As he climbed, the announcement that the exam was over rang through the city. That was fine though. Right now, she was satisfied with the fact she was alive. And as for passing, she was certain she had passed.

She had gotten more points than anyone else. Even the spider guy. 

As he came up to her and bent down, the webs dissolved, except the parts she was lying on. 

"You okay?" 

"Yeah." She gave a smile. A genuine one this time. 

The boy froze, then quickly looked away. 

"Thanks… For earlier."

"No… problem. I had to save the girl anyway."

"NO… Not… Not that. I mean… for… For, by the entrance. You… I was about to fall and… You-You caught me." 

She stared at him. Then she gave a genuine, if pained, laugh. 

"Seems we're even then." 

"Yea-yeah. Guess so."

His head shot up as he apparently noticed something. 

"It's recovery girl! HEY! WE NEED HEALING FOR SOMEONE HERE!" 

Then he walked over to the person in question leaving her behind. 

Well, today had gone way better than she had been afraid it would go. Then she realized she hadn't asked his name. 

---

-Well done. You actually managed to talk to a girl. Next, we'll just have to get you to do it while looking her in the face. Or another female, I don't care who you talk to.-

There was a strange thing to talk to Venom. His critique had a bite, and they weren't exactly gentle ribbing, but he got a distinct impression Venom genuinely wanted him to do better. 

Maybe it wasn't friendship, but it was a hell of a lot better than anything he had ever had with Katsuki. 

And that asshole had probably passed too, he had no doubt.

"Do you… Do You think we passed?" 

"How many students does Yuei classes have?"

"About 20 usually."

"Then yes, we passed. We did second-best, only behind the lightning girl. Out of the 8th areas, even if they only took the two best from each, we'd still qualify."

Recovery girl, the famous healing hero, healed up both the girl who had her legs crushed by the stone, then the aforementioned lightning girl. 

Izuku hadn't really considered how strong he'd be in the grand scheme of things but frankly, the way he and Venom had blitzed through this test kinda opened his eyes of just how strong he now was. 

On the other hand, there was the lightning girl who had also proved the opposite point. He wasn't the strongest here. Not by a longshot. 

---

"Been a while since anyone actually broke the Gimmick robot."

"Yeah, there's always someone who stands up to up to it each year, but man, it's been a while since someone actually broke the damned thing." The man saying it chuckled. 

"Still, even ignoring the girl who did it, we got several great ones this year." 

At the top of the billboard showcasing total points, the examinees had scored was the name Uraraka Ochako, with 90 Villain points, and 60 Rescue points. It was the largest number by quite a margin. 

"The spider boy was great! So full of vigour and youthly energy as he rushed to rescue those girls! Mmmmhmm I Love it."

Second place was the name Midoriya Izuku, with 70 Villain points, and 50 Hero Points. 

"Yeah, I agree with Nemuri, the Midoriya kid has enormous potential. Hey Aizawa, what do you think?" 

"...Who cares?" The man called Aizawa replied in a tone that was a mixture of boredom, and annoyance.

"Well, if you won't have him, mayhaps-" 

"Not gonna happen Vlad." A being that looked like a mouse the size of a small child replied cheerfully. 

"All classes are random, to make certain we can never be accused of nepotism or stacking the deck in the student's favor or disfavor. We aren't making any exceptions this year either."

"Speaking of exceptions, isn't it kinda weird that Black cat didn't recommend her own daughter? I mean, even Endeavor did that for his son, despite the kind of asshole that he is."

"Nah, she didn't do it for her son 4 years ago either, and if she didn't do it for one kid, she probably wasn't gonna do it for another."

On the third place was Hardy-Ashido Mina, with 60 Villain points, and 36 Rescue points. 

"Yeah, I remember that kid. Franky, I don't think he would have made it through the recommendation trial either. He had no shot against the robots, and he didn't manage a single rescue point. Quite a bit different from his sister."

"Yeah. Speaking of Rescue points, it's been a while since rescue points won all 3 top spots."

"Yeah. Hey Nedzu, how many years it been since someone scored over 70 and wasn't even in the top 3?"

"6 Years."

"Man, that Bakugou kid did amazingly well, yet he didn't even make it into the top 3."

At the fourth spot was the name Bakugou Katsuki, with 77 Villain points and 0 hero points. Points. 

Below him at fifth place was Kirishima Eijiro, with 39 Villain points and 35 Hero Points. 

Number 6 showcased the name Shiosaki Ibara, with 36 Villain points and 32 Rescue points. 

Under 7 place stood the name Kendo Itsuka with 25 Villain points and 40 rescue points. 

At 8 was Tenya Iida with 52 Villain points and 9 rescue points. 

On the 9th place was the rather repetitive name of Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, with 49 Villain points and 10 Rescue points. 

And at the final spot of the top 10 was Tokoyami Fujikage, with 47 Villain points and 10 Rescue points. 

---

Inko did the food, pretending everything was fine. The fish was well prepared and salted, the way she had done it a thousand times before. Nothing out of the ordinary, exactly the way she had always done it. 

They sat down to eat as they had always done. She and Izuku. 

In the background, the TV was on, as the Alien was watching an old movie from the MCU from the days before all of the universe's characters went into the public domain. 

She tried mightily hard to pretend he wasn't there, and it was just her and her baby in the room. 

That was hard to do when Izuku wouldn't stop talking about him. 

"So, unlike actual quirks, my powers aren't going to grow stronger over time the more I use them. They're set at the level I'm currently at."

"So… you can't grow stronger?" 

"Well… Not in strength no. I'll… I'll have to grow stronger through mastery of what I have. I Mean… I'm. So strong I don't actually Need more power."

She just nodded her head as he described how strong he was now, what he had done during the exam. 

Izuku had accepted the idea of having bonded to the alien… Frighteningly fast. Almost unnaturally so. 

She desperately wanted a third opinion on this. To gauge whether she was crazy being so worried about it. 

That wasn't gonna happen though. The only person in her life she would ever trust with this kind of information was across the seas, and it would be a while yet before she got to see him again. 

The Alien was right about that utterly and completely. She would NEVER tell other people about it. The risks to her son dwarfed anything else on the topic. The problem then, was that she wasn't sure this other road wasn't just as risky. 

The Alien had been very candid and seemingly honest about what it was, where it came from, and the good and bad aspects of the bond it had with Izuku. 

There was the power of course. Great power, even by the world of quirks. Even if Izuku hadn't been quirkless, the increase in strength was flat out monstrous. 

On the other hand, there was the bad stuff. Oh, the bad stuff. 

The Alien had made the claim that Izuku would live a long and very healthy life, probably up to late 80's early nineties. He would be in top condition for the rest of his days, free of disease, capable of healing from almost any injury if given enough time to recover.

However, there was a price. As Izuku reached his final year, he would face a massive and rapid decline as all the years of his life would all catch up to him at once. 

It wasn't the worst deal in the world, but It had terrified Inko to even consider it, and it had terrified her even more that Izuku had been so accepting of it. He had accepted it as a reasonable price for the power. 

It had made Inko wonder if she just wasn't capable of understanding her son's viewpoint, or worse, the Alien was affecting him mentally. 

The worst part about that was that if it did, she had absolutely no way of knowing. At all. There was simply no way she could find out. 

The thing though, that had absolutely clenched it for her that she could not trust this being, had been when she asked it if it cared about becoming a hero like Izuku did. 

It's response had been honest. 

"WE don't care if he wants to be a Hero or Villain, king or soldier, conqueror or upholder of the status quo. So long as he isn't planning on living a boring ass life, we will stand by him to the end."

There was a threat there. "So long as he isn't planning on living a boring ass life". What it meant, was that the support it offered would not be there if Izuku ever decided to retire. 

It was unreasonable to ask a 15-year-old to think about his retirement, especially when the hero business was infamous for it's participants staying in work for their entire life(one way or another.) but it still scared her that her baby would probably never get to retire, even if he wanted to. 

She understood what the Alien was doing of course. She knew humans far too well not to recognize the strategy. Venom was employing a "Warts and All" tactic, to seem more trustworthy than it was. 

Whether or not it was honest didn't really matter for this tactic. The point was that it was impossible to present oneself as completely clean, so one brought out bad facts willingly and unprompted to make oneself seem, if not good, at least honest, and thus someone you could trust. 

Which made it hard to try and figure out what was the truth, and what wasn't. 

Maybe Venomwas telling the truth all the way, maybe he was mostly lying, or just lying about one single detail. For example, what if he was flat out lying about the bond being permanent? Without knowing for certain one way or another, it was something Inko could never act upon. 

Then there were all the mental images he had shown her. Was any of it real?

The fact was she didn't know, and she didn't trust Venom as an unbiased source. 

And the most galling thing of all was that she couldn't do anything either way. She couldn't break the bond, she couldn't seek help from the outside, she couldn't deny Izuku becoming a hero(Which she would never have done anyway). 

She was, in every way, in a no-win scenario. 

Chapter Text

The admiration their host had for the warrior called All Might was something that bordered on religious devotion. In the early days, Venom had assumed that the enormous blonde man with the ridiculous upwards hair, was actually the God-king of this society. 

Why not? Their host had a private room that was in many ways a mixture between a sleeping quarter and what for all intents and purposes was a shrine dedicated to this man. 

Paper tapestries on the wall, small figurines that showcased the man in his more Iconic poses, even things such as the clock on the wall was themed after him. 

So was on a lot of Izuku's clothing as well, and his bedsheets. 

Other than the contraption of vehicle tires in one corner of the room, it all seemed like the standard, regular worship of a powered individual they had seen countless times before. 

And the society was no different, selling charms, tapestries, and clothing based on the man. 

Of course, Venom hadn't understood at first. That this society was actually so full of super-powered individuals that not having any was actually rare, regarded as a throwback to an earlier stage of evolution. 

Once they had realized that, everything fell into place. The man called All Might was simply the highest-ranking member of the warrior caste of this planet, simply called Hero. 

One day, he would die, and he would be replaced by someone else, who would become the next number one Hero. 

Adoration of the strong was simply the natural way of things for this society, and All Might was STRONG even by the measure of all the many super-powered individual's Venom had seen across space. 

Still, even with that context in mind, his host's adoration was a bit insane. 

"If this is how you react to a message from him personally, we don't wish to see your reaction to him in the flesh."

"I will cherish this recording until I die…!" Fuck, Izuku had actual tears of joy in his eyes. 

"...Right… Not creepy at all."

They had gotten a late-night delivery, with a small holographic device that had a recording of All Might pop up, and inform them that yes, they did indeed make it into. Yuei. 

Hah, as if that were in any doubt! Other than the girl with the powers of gravity and lightning, none there had compared to their might and power.

"Anyway, you wanted to continue documenting our powers right?" 

Izuku clutched the device to his chest as if it was made of pure gold, but he did answer. 

"Yesss…" He sounded like he had just gotten a present from above, not a small recording device informing him he made it into school. 

As if him fawning over that sadist Present Mic. wasn't bad enough. 

"Are you seriously going to react like this every time we meet a pro Hero?" 

---

After making their way out of the car(Along with a final good luck and hug from Inko), Izuku and Venom walked through the corridors of Yuei, towards the room that they had been told would be class 1-A's designated classroom. 

With only 36 total contestants passing, there would be two practical classes for this year's batch. 

Finally after a bit of searching, they found their room. 

…And Izuku stood, nervously outside, hand on the door.

-You're not seriously gonna make this a repeat of the exam day are you? Standing outside for 5 minutes shaking all the while?-

"No, I'm just… I'm kinda hoping I don't share class with Katsuki or the tall guy with glasses. Logically my chances are that I have to share class with at least 1 of them."

-Actually, both of them are inside this room.-

Damnit!

"Of course they are…" It was the worst possible combination after all. 

He steeled himself, then he opened the door… To the sight of both of them arguing. 

Katsuki was eating while having one of his feet slung across the desk, while the tall guy was standing over him and berating him while motioning with his hands. 

"Don't put your legs on the desk! Don't you think that's disrespectful towards your classmates and Yuei's grand history?" 

Katsuki Bakugou, was pretty agitated as he answered. 

"No, as a matter of fact I DON'T think so, you damn extra!" 

"Not to mention your necktie! It is your duty to wear one!" 

"Will you shut your mouth and leave me the FUCK alone already!" 

The tall boy then bent down on one knee and picked up a breadcrumb, like he was an old school detective finding a clue. 

"AND to think you would drop breadcrumbs in a place like this! You should already have had breakfast before now anyway!" 

"GO AWAY, FOUR-EYES!!!" 

-You know, this is way more entertaining when it's against someone else.-

"WHAT GODDAMNED MIDDLE SCHOOL ARE YOU FROM ANYWAY, YOU FUCKING EXTRA!?" 

Not realizing that Katsuki really didn't actually care about the answer, the boy answered. 

"A private schoo-Ahem. I'm from Soumei Junior Highschool. The Name's Iida Tenya."

"Soumei…! Well, aren't you elite! Seems I got a reason to end you after all!"

The boy flinched back with an exaggerated motion, and expression of pure horror. 

"A reason to END ME? What nerve! You, want to be a Hero!?" 

-Holy shit, this guy's an even bigger loser than you Izuku!-

"...Thanks Venom."

-Eh, it's alright. We'll make something much better out of you soon enough.-

Izuku's words though, made both the two of them notice him, and both turned to look at him. 

Katsuki's eyes burned with rage at the sight, but it was the tall boy who stepped up to him first. 

"Hello, I'm Iida Tenya from Soumei-" 

Izuku flinched back a bit before answering. 

"Yeah… I, I overheard. Umm… I'm Midoriya, nice to meet you Iida…" 

The boy suddenly got a grave expression on his face. 

"Midoriya, I must hand it to you…" 

He turned his head away with a dramatic flourish.

"Despite your quirk's harsh words, you divined the actual purpose of the exam, while I… I remained blind to it!" 

"I… I completely misread you! I hate to admit it, but you truly were the better man!" 

-Wow, he lost that stick up his ass real quick.-

Izuku couldn't do anything else than just keep his mouth shut. He hadn't realized the secondary test reason either, but it seemed a very bad idea to admit that when apparently he had won this guy's respect through it. 

In the background sat Katsuki absolutely staring daggers at Izuku, but Izuku's focus instead turned backward, as a cheerful voice rang out from behind him. 

"Ah, it's you! The spider guy!" 

Izuku turned around, and it was the lightning girl.

"I'm glad we're in the same class together."

She reached forth her hand. 

Venom, currently occupying his undershirt forced his arm upwards, to where Uraraka grabbed it. All while Izuku desperately tried to hide away his face with the other hand. 

"We didn't introduce ourselves yesterday! My Name's Urara Ochako!" 

"I-I-I'm Izuku… Mi-Midoriya!"

Holy crap he was actually shaking hands with a girl! 

As Izuku stammered out his name, and shook her hand, to the snide remarks from Venom, the sounds of the bell rang. 

"Anyway, do you think the first day is the ceremony, or is it the guidance counselor stuff today?" 

Izuku, now with both hands-free, was covering his face in embarrassment with both limbs as Uraraka talked, desperately trying to say something. 

She was talking about how she wondered what sort of teacher they would have when a voice came from the floor behind her. 

"If you're gonna look for buddies, do it elsewhere."

Izuku, Iida, and Uraraka all turned their heads to look at the source of the voice. 

The source, was yellow caterpillar with a mane of black hair and a human face. 

What? 

The caterpillar followed this up by putting a small juice box to his lips before continuing. 

"This is the department…" Slurp. "Of heroics."

Why was this guy? 

After finishing his juice box, the caterpillar jumped up, so it stood on the end of it's bottom body, before finally shedding it's skin, revealing that despite looking like he would eventually become a butterfly, the yellow "hide" was just a sleeping bag. 

The actual man inside the bag was about as far from looking like either a caterpillar or a butterfly as they came. Tall, lanky, with a coal-black mane and a scraggly scruff of unkempt beard. His face was equally unkempt, with dark rings under his eyes, telling of a lack of sleep. 

He was dressed in a bog-standard black shirt and equally black pants, with a bunch of what looked like a thick tape made out of cloth wrapped around his neck. 

He had a somewhat unusual belt with cylinders, which reminded Izuku of the one the Batman Beyond batsuit had, but that was about as much as he stood out. 

As he exited the sleeping bag, he began to walk into the room, Izuku and Uraraka backed into the room to let him enter. 

"Hmmm… It took you lot 8 seconds to pipe down. Life is short Kids, you're all lacking in common sense."

His voice could basically be summed up in one word. Unenthusiastic.

"I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Pleasure meeting you."

The way he said it, he might as well have been from a dead fish, with how lifeless it was. 

So this guy was their teacher Izuku mused. He could not place the name Aizawa Shouta, and he didn't really recognize his costume either. But if he was a teacher at Yuei… That meant he had to be a pro Hero right? 

Aizawa rummaged through his sleeping bag and pulled out a uniform Izuku recognized as Yuei gym uniforms. 

"Put on these on. Immediately. Then shove off to the P.E grounds."

Then he just turned around and walked out without another word. 

Well that was… Not what he had expected. 

---

After everyone had changed into their gym uniforms they all got themselves over to the P.E grounds, where Aizawa was waiting for them with the same bored, lifeless expression. 

Their purpose for coming here was revealed shortly. 

A quirk apprehension test. 

Uraraka was the only one to actually put the question everyone had to words. 

"What about the ceremony? And the guidance counselor meetings?" 

Aizawa was rather blunt and unsympathetic. 

"If you want to be heroes, we don't have time for frilly niceties."

"I assume you all understand this school's famous reputation freedom on campus?" 

"Well, that "Freedom" goes for us senseis too."

The man walked over to some markings on the ground, picking up a baseball, or something that had the shape of a baseball at least. 

"Softball pitch. Long Jump. 50 meter dash. Endurance Running. Grip Strength Test. Sustained sideways jumps. Upper body exercises. Seated toe touch."

"These are exercises you all know from middle school. Physical tests where you were barred from using your quirks."

"Japan still hasn't gotten around to standardizing those kinds of records or standardizing the average result. Well, that's a problem on the part of the MEXT, not us."

As he called Katsuki over to the circle end of the markings and told him to throw it as far as he could using his quirk, Izuku realized this was basically just his regular old training regiment, with some exercises removed or added. 

With a scream of "DIIIIEEEEE!!!", Katsuki sent it flying with an enormous explosion. Izuku and Venom both winced from a short burst of pain from the sound of said massive explosion. 

"Before anything else, one must know what they are capable of. This will be the basis of your "Hero Foundation"." Aizawa held up his phone showcasing that the distance Katsuki had sent flying was 705.2 Meters. 

-Only 700 meters? What a weakling. If we used our web for a sling to throw it, we could send it over ten times that.-

Izuku didn't know how to use a sling, but this honestly didn't sound too bad. It really was just his regular training regiment. 

The rest of the class let out sounds of excitement, the prospect of getting to use their quirks to their fullest bringing out feelings of excitement. 

Someone, somewhere said, "Looks like fun!" 

"It looks… Like fun, you say?" 

This time there were actual emotions in his words. Anger to be specific. 

"So you were planning on spending your three years here… Planning on having a good time? What happened to becoming heroes?" 

He made a motion covering his face with his hand like he was face-palming from their reaction. 

"Alright then. New rule. Whoever gets the least total points will be judged hopeless, and instantly expelled."

Izuku's heart stopped a beat, panic flooding his head… until he realized there was no way in hell he'd end up on the bottom of that list. 

Still, he shared the opinion of his shocked classmates. Holy shit, it was an incredibly cruel thing to drop on them, much less on the first day and the first exercise. 

Aizawa pulled his hand up to push up his hair and gave a sadistic smile. 

"Our "freedom" means we dispense with students as we please! Welcome to… The departments of heroics!"

Once again it was Uraraka who put the class feelings into words. 

"The kid who ranks last… Gets expelled?! This is our first day here! But even if it weren't… That's WAY too unreasonable!"

Aizawa took being questioned in stride and as he let his hair down he went back to his previous way of speaking. 

"Natural disasters... Massive accidents… Ego-Mad Villains… All kinds of calamities can happen when we least expect them. At the moment, Japan is for all intents and purposes drenched in unreasonable."

"If you were counting on a friendly chat after school at the local McDonald's, too bad. From now on, and for the next three years… All you can expect from your life at Yuei, is one hardship after another." 

"This is "Plus Ultra". I expect you to overcome these trials and rise to the top."

He gave another grin, though this time without sadism, as he motioned with his finger upwards to the sky. 

"Well, that sounds easy enough." Venom said suddenly and without warning, interrupting Aizawa as he was about to. Say something more. 

Izuku froze completely as everyone's eyes turned to him and Venom(who was currently on his left shoulder). Bakugou was positioned so he couldn't get a good look at Izuku, but he frowned at the deeper voice.

Aizawa looked at first at Venom, then Izuku, then back to Venom again.

"You're that spider guy Vlad wanted so much… So, you think rising to the top will be easy, do you?" 

Izuku stammered. "No-I…"

"Alright, second and third rule. Midoriya, since you think being number one will be easy, if you don't score as the overall number one, you'll also be expelled. Also, if anyone decides to hold back to let Izuku achieve that, they'll also be expelled."

Izuku almost shut down completely, and could only gape and stare at Aizawa, as he divided them up into pairs to do the exercises. 

-Well… Shit.-

---

"How did you DO THAT by just OPENING YOUR MOUTH?!" 

-Well, how were we supposed to know the guy was so unstable he picks on anyone with any confidence? And anyway, this shouldn't be too hard to do. Other than Uraraka, none here is a challenge to us."

Izuku bit his lip. Holy shit this had turned into a nightmare quickly!

"It doesn't matter if it's only one who's better than us!!! If we don't make it to the damn top, we'll be expelled!!!" 

-Then just beat her then. It's not too complicated. Plus Ultra or whatever that nonsense was.-

He said that as I'd it was just the easier thing in the world. 

Beating Uraraka in ball throwing, proved impossible anyway, as using whatever the gravity part of her was, she got an infinity on the ball throw. 

Izuku could just stare in numbed shock as he realized he had already lost one contest to Uraraka. 

Finally as it was his turn, Iida put his hand on his shoulder. "Do not worry Midoriya! You'll do just fine, I have no doubts!"

"Thanks…" Nice to see someone else had confidence in him. 

As he went up to the circle, he muttered one short question out loud. 

"How do we do this?" 

-Just a regular throw. You don't know how to use a sling and the circle is too short for us to teach you on the spot. So just throw it regularly.-

Right. He couldn't achieve number one in this trial, but he could damn well make sure he came second place. Easy. 

As he walked, he could feel both the second skin attach spread out under his gym clothes and the sleeves of his uniform being pulled up. 

Picking up the ball, he took deep breaths to steel himself. Easy, you got this Izuku. 

He thought back to the beach, and how he'd once thrown a microwave from one side of the beach to the other. He was much stronger now. He could do this. 

He could feel his muscles tense, as he put all his muscles to use as he pulled his arm back before the throw. 

The actual throw produced a small Shockwave, though nowhere near as loud, large, or flashy as Katsuki's bigass explosion had. 

More like a sniper rifle than any bomb. 

He stared after it, off into the distance before it left even his capacity to see it any more against the blue sky. 

A sound from Aizawa's phone finally signaled it had hit the ground. 

Izuku turned anxiously to look, but he heard his classmates squee over the answer before he saw it. 

"WOW!!! Over 4 kilometers!" 

The actual distance was 4027 meters. That was good… great even! Let's see someone else top that!

Someone who wasn't impressed was Katsuki. 

Izuku instinctual recognized Katsuki's scream, even if he didn't process the words at that moment. 

Anger burned through his body, as every sinew of muscle, and every bone he had prepared for combat, as he snapped around, prepared for battle, Venom's black liquid encasing his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes. 

He would crush Katsuki, he would-

As Katsuki was launching himself at Izuku with his explosions, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks as his hands suddenly stopped producing explosions, and a bunch of white bands wrapped around his body, preventing him from advancing any further. 

Izuku blinked at the sight of the bands, then turned to look at the source, which was Aizawa. 

"It's my special "capturing weapon", a steel wire alloy woven with carbon nanofibers. As for my quirk-"

"Oh my god!" Izuku exclaimed loudly, a light going off in his head. Under Aizawa's bands which had been wrapped around his neck, was a rather distinct set of goggles. 

"With those goggles and that weapon, you must be Eraserhead! The erasing hero, whose quirk is Erasure! You're the famous underground hero who can shut down any quirk by just looking at them! Born on November 8, in Tokyo, you are 30 years old, 183 cm tall, your blood type's B, you are famous for picking up stray cats and you had a romantic relationship with fellow hero Ms. Joke, real name-" "That's enough." Aizawa shut him down coldly. He paused for a second or two before he added. "Also the last part was wrong."

-Thanks for the exposition dump Izuku. Anything more to add?- Venom asked in a tone mixing sarcasm, praise, and genuine curiousness. 

Izuku almost answered him, until he realized his sensei had told him to shut up. 

"Anyway… Yeah, my quirk is Erasure. I can cancel out any quirks you guys have. Don't make me use too much though, I have dry eye."

"Anyhow…" He released Katsuki and retracted his cloth. 

"We're wasting time. Get back in line Bakugou. I won't tolerate a second outburst from you today."

It wasn't before Katsuki was forced to go back in line, Izuku realized his body was still tense as hell, fully expecting a battle with Katsuki at any moment. 

-Don't worry. We'll settle the score ONCE AND FOR ALL eventually.-

Yeah. They would. It felt so strange to embrace the rage openly. He clenched his fist. Back in middle school, he had pretended this rage wasn't there, he had been quiet and hoped desperately he wouldn't have to fight him. 

Hell, he'd even made sure not to arrive at his middle school to pick up his graduation papers until Katsuki had left, fully accepting the angry words he got for being late. All so he wouldn't have to actually confront Katsuki. 

Now… 

Now he felt actual disappointment that he DIDN'T get to fight and crush Katsuki. 

He was still dealing with, and trying to make sense of those feelings, when his test partner Momo created an artillery cannon and blew his 4 Kilometers out of the water, with 28 kilometers.

Izuku just stared as he realized he suddenly was third place. 

---

Izuku felt panic, sheer, horrible sweep into his mind. 

He lost the 50 meters sprint, though thankfully not to Momo or Uraraka, but instead to Iida. The tall boy had a quirk which made it so that his legs essentially had race car engines sticking out of them. 

Not too surprisingly, he was fast. 

He took the 50 meters dash in 3.04 seconds, compared to Izuku's 4.03 seconds that he cleared with a jump. 

Uraraka made it in 5 seconds flat, making her 5th after Mina, a girl with pink skin and long pink hair who took the 50 meters in 4.12, and Katsuki who did it in 4.13.

He was doing well, but he wasn't at number 1. Shit! 

Uraraka jumped while making herself weightless. Though it lasted only for a second, her momentum, and the distance she cleared in that second, still sent her 45 meters. 

Okay. He just had to do 50 then. Time to see how far he'd go. 

Before he and Venom had finalized their bond, he had been able to make a 10-meter jump. 

He was way stronger than just 5 times what he had been… Right? 

On his side he felt, more than saw Momo preparing a jumping staff. 

Ignore her, focus more only on jumping! 

He tensed, his muscles ready, waiting only for the sound to go. 

It came, he sprung forward, only 4 meters before the sand, not as much as he had usually used when he did these kinds of jumps. He reached the end. 

He bent down his legs, and prepared them for the bound, like a catapult. 

Like the log so long ago, the ground broke beneath his feet as he jumped, but it didn't prevent him from leaping into the air. 

Izuku soared, for the first time since he bonded with Venom, he felt at true ease. He felt like he had back in the woods, running, so long ago now.

This was what he was born to do. Motion, energy, momentum. All in the simple act of moving at great speeds. He was free when he did this, free from the world, free from worries, free from everything that worried him. 

-It's amazing isn't it?-

"Yeah." Izuku said softly, his words taken by the wind. Venom understood it, he knew how this felt. Was this how all those who bonded with symbiote felt? 

Finally, after what felt like a small eternity for Izuku, the ground came up to meet him. This time, he didn't fall flat on his face or crash in the ground into a roll. Instead he landed on his feet, and instantly fastened himself to the ground. 

He turned around. Then repeatedly blinked. Had he really gone that far? He had cleared the sandbox a bit back. 

-78th meters.- 

"Not… Not bad. That's almost twice as far as Uraraka."

He smiled. Then it faded and he melancholically added. "That's how far we're ever gonna go isn't it?" 

-We might push it a few more meters with training so you become better at it, but yeah, you're not going to become stronger no.-

"And there really isn't any way to increase our powers?" 

-For you? No. We do become temporarily stronger for a period, in the time leading up to when we will spawn another of our kind, but that is not going to happen in your life.-

"Right… You mentioned that when you talked with my mom."

He'd gone on about that for quite a while in fact, as Inko questioned him about the idea he might create an alien takeover since his kind reproduced asexually. 

Symbiotes built up energy over the period of multiple hosts' lifetime, which would eventually be enough to allow them to spawn another of their kind. 

All well and good, except the usual time span between each new spawn was about 4 hosts, and generally a time period of 2 centuries. 

Needless to say, he would not be alive to see it. And even if the symbiotes did achieve a large number on earth, by the time that happened, humanity would have taken to the stars. 

Or at least that was what Venom said. 

As he walked back, he heard shouts from his fellow students. 

---

"OVER 70 METERS? Wow, that's amazing!" Mina, the cheerful pink girl, exclaimed loudly! Several of the rest of the class muttered similar opinions. 

Izuku, still neither familiar nor comfortable with contact with the opposite sex, nor used to compliments in general, blushed like a fire hydrant from the praise. 

"Indeed! It's as I said earlier, you'll do. Fine Midoriya!" 

"You… Really have that much faith in me?" 

"Of course! I was there during the exam. While it is true that Uraraka Ochako's full power dwarfs everyone else here, she is also not capable of using said power at it's maximum without injuring herself. That is not the case with you however!" 

"I… I guess so…"

He looked around for said girl and she was off to the side of the building where their next text was. 

"Anyway…. Thank you for the support."

---

Izuku had quickly realized that while his many classmates here were capable of doing one or two of the tests really, really well, when it came down to it, the overall number one spot would be either him, Uraraka, or Momo. 

The tall, black-haired beauty did not possess the sheer brute power of him or Uraraka, but it was incredibly versatile. 

As she proved when she conjured up a cranked winch to score 1.2 Tons in the grip strength test. 

It was an incredibly high score, or so Izuku would have thought. 

If not for the fact Uraraka scored 2.3 Ton before them. 

Sweat began to trickle down his skin. 

-Man, you worry way too fucking much. We'll beat both those no problem."

Izuku picked up the grip as it finally became his turn. 

He took deep breaths, and desperately tried to calm himself. Only one try. If he screwed up, he was fucked. Don't think about that, just… Grip it. Grip it hard. 

CRUNCH

Izuku blinked at the unexpected sound, and looked down. He had, unintentionally, crushed the device in his hand as he had tried to measure his grip strength. 

A blonde boy with a streak of black whistled, at the sight. "Impressive."

He turned to Aizawa. 

"Sensei, I… I broke the device…"

Aizawa just looked at him stoically. 

"You only get one try Midoriya."

Then he walked off to the next students, leaving Izuku to gape after him in panic. 

-That would either make us number 1 in this, or we just became last place.-

Shit, Shit, SHIT! 

---

The following exercises ended up going all over the place. He beat Uraraka in endurance running, lost to her in upper body strength, he and her both performed only relatively well in sustained sideways jumping(Frankly the only members of the class who did that well was a dwarf kid named Mineta, Iida and Mina in that order.) and he had beaten her in seated toe touch in, losing only to a girl named Tsuyu. 

Now he shook in terror, waiting for Aizawa to read up the results, and either doom him or praise him. 

He had no idea how he'd rank in this. Was it the best overall? Or was all sums just added up, so if you did exceedingly well in one it could elevate your score completely above your other ones? If it was that latter, he was fucked, given Uraraka had gotten an infinity. 

"Time to present the result."

"The total score is just the aggregate sum of each of your scores. Since it'd take forever to go ever each score individually I'll just disclose all of them at once."

He raised his phone, preparing to make it show a hologram of all the tests. 

The moment of truth. 

"Oh, and by the way, that whole expulsion thing was all a lie."

Silence. 

Aizawa grinned, but unlike his previous attempt at a sadistic smile, which had been completely natural, this one could best be described as the smile of a lazy man who had only ever been heard of sadistic smiles in stories. 

"It was a logical ruse to pull out your best performances."

"WHAAAAAAAT!!!?" 

Izuku was not the only one screaming that, but he and Venom were the loudest. 

The only one not shocked was the raven-haired Momo. "C'mon guys, use your brains. That was obvious from the start."

Venom disagreed. 

-BULLSHIT!!! He WAS planning to expel someone when he gave the threat earlier, we could FEEL IT! That fickle asshole just changed his mind on the spot!-

Izuku didn't know how true that was, but at the moment he just stood there, breathing in relief. 

Aizawa let things quiet down a bit before he continued. 

"Anyway… With that first day's over. Your curriculum sheets are in the classroom. Make sure you give them a thrice over before you go home."

Holy shit that was an abrupt end of the first day. It was only 11.36.

"Oh, and Midoriya…"

-Ah, here it comes.-

What? What was coming? The hell was Venom talking about?"

"A cording your sheet, your quirk is an emitter type. That's wrong. Go get it's classification changed to a mutant type quirk."

Izuku just stared. After a moment he was about to ask, why? Only for Aizawa to turn and leave before he could do so. 

-What a fucking asshole.-

"Why, what'd he do now?" 

Was Venom really so pissed about him leaving before he could question him?

-Nothing.- Venom said in an annoyed tone, then he pushed down Izuku's sleeves almost as an afterthought. -Anyway, let's just go home already.-

---

Despite the short runtime of day 1, Izuku felt drained in a way he hadn't felt since that final. Training day, though this time there was less pain involved. 

Also, this time he had another presence at his side talking. 

"I had never thought before that a teacher could encourage his students to excel through deception before now, but I must say that Aizawa sensei opened my eyes on the subject!" 

Izuku had thought Iida was scary during the exam. Venom had thought him an annoying loser. The truth though, as Izuku now saw, was simply that Iida was just an honest, diligent, and passionate guy. 

"You have a rather positive image of that guy, more than he deserves we'd say."

Iida did not flinch away from Venom just popping up into the conversation.

"Indeed. As he said, it was a logical ruse to pull out our best efforts today. Logically speaking, this is the best time to do it. We were not familiar with Aizawa-sensei yet, and thus this bluff seemed fully believable. It's kind of thing you can't really pull twice, so one should make sure that one time reaches it's maximum potential."

"... We weren't really talking about his damned training methods, more the fact that he is a-" "Hey, wait up you two!" 

All three of them turned their heads to the person who spoke, which was Uraraka Ochako, running up to them. 

"You two heading for the station?" 

"Indeed," Iida answered. "Or, I am at least, I don't know about Midoriya."

"Yeah… I am, too."

"Splendid! Then the three of us may go. Together!" Iida exclaimed. He then turned to Uraraka and held out a hand. 

"We have not been formally introduced, so far. My name is Iida Tenya."

"Uraraka Ochako!" Uraraka replied with a smile, though she didn't take his hand. 

"I don't really do handshakes I'm sorry to say… I kinda turn everything I touch with my hands weightless."

"Ah." Iida retracted his hand. "The pink bumps I assume?" 

Izuku blinked, then looked at her hands. Each of her fingers had a pink bump near the tip, something Izuku had completely missed amongst the many scars her hands had. 

"Yeah."

Something struck Izuku and he just asked it, without considering the person he asked. 

"Your gravitation quirk doesn't seem to have any relation to your strength quirk, is that right?" 

Uraraka froze, her face turning pale. 

Izuku, realizing he had just asked a question to a pretty girl, suddenly got flushed cheeks. 

"...Yeah… It's… A fused quirk from my parents."

"Like Todoroki Shouto's quirk?" Iida asked. 

"Who?" 

"The son of the number 2 Hero Endeavour, he is in our class."

"EEEHHHH! HE IS?" Uraraka and Izuku both exclaimed. 

Izuku kicked himself mentally. Now that he thought about it, it seemed obvious. Of course he was, with that name. He had been so damned afraid of getting expelled today, he'd completely failed to really analyze most of his classmates, completely opposite of his usual self. 

He'd have to do something about that tomorrow. 

"Anyway, yeah my… My parents have two different quirks, and I inherited both of them."

"WOW… That's really cool!" 

Uraraka blushed and scratched the back of her head in bashfulness from the praise. 

"It's… A pretty good quirk yeah."

"Indeed! Strong as Midoriya's quirk is, in terms of brute strength potential, it doesn't compare! You truly were lucky to inherit such a powerful quirk!"

Uraraka's smile and nervousness faded, as a more melancholic expression came to her face. 

"Yeah… Lucky…" 

"Not that this isn't fun to watch, but mayhap we should get a move on, rather than just standing around and talking. I say we should go to the local McDonald's. We have more than enough time today, given the circumstances." 

Uraraka jumped back in shock, and just stared as Venom talked. 

Then, she had a face of realization. 

"He was the guy you were talking to back there, right? Back during the Exam?" 

"Indeed, that was us."

"Wow, he looks cool. Anyway… Thanks for the offer, but I don't really have that much cash on me right now so-" 

"That is not a problem! I can easily pay for all 3… 4 of us! Or do you not eat Mr…" He looked at Venom. 

"Venom. And no, we feast upon the glory that is Adrenaline, not the flesh of pasture animals."

"Alright, the 3 of us then. I can pay no problem."

And just like that, it was settled. They went to McDonald's. 

It wasn't before they were heading to the fast food shop that Izuku really realized what was going on. 

He was hanging out with a couple of friends. Friends. Actual real friends. 

Holy shit, he hadn't realized how much he had missed this feeling. How long had it been since the last time he hung out with someone who wasn't an adult with a family connection, or an alien from outer space? 

A literal decade. 

For a brief moment, anger at Katsuki welled up inside him, but it was quickly forgotten as Izuku embraced this feeling. 

God he had missed this. 

Chapter Text

Venom had memories of Izuku's previous school life, generally, a boring affair of sitting and listening to older humans talk about whatever topic had been taught that day. 

It had been exceedingly boring when they didn't understand anything beyond the names of students, or the teachers. 

Yuei's theoretical classes were even more boring than those had been, and sitting around and listening to these lectures when they could understand them, didn't make them any less boring to suffer through. 

Not helping was the fact they already had learned the actual interesting stuff of local history from the far wide web. 

Earth was an interesting enough world, with a race that, whatever else it might be, was most certainly not boring. 

Venom had most of what they needed to make certain they would thrive in this world. 

Thankfully, that would change quickly enough. 

The last class of the day was a class Izuku had been looking forward to more than any other, despite not knowing what it was about at all beyond it being a practical class. 

Venom was also looking forward to this class, to break up the monotony of boring lectures about stuff that didn't matter. 

They were also curious about the teacher. 

Said teacher entered the classroom with a shout and with gusto, proclaiming how he was entering into the room like he was a normal person. 

Tall, muscular, dressed in an impractical, long blue cape and with ridiculous yellow hair standing up from his head. 

All Might. The greatest hero Japan had ever produced, and the man commonly regarded as the greatest warrior in the world. A man who always smiled no matter what, bringing hope to all. 

Izuku nearly fainted having a fangasm over the man. 

"It's him… It's actually him…" He had his face covered by his hands hiding his starstruck face, like he was actually looking at a beautiful specimen of his kind. 

-Well isn't that interesting. Very interesting indeed.-

Izuku was knocked out of his fervor by Venom's tone, like he had just stumbled upon something incredibly amusing. 

"What?" 

-We'll tell you later, after school.-

Venom also found All Might's appearance a fascinating thing, though for very different reasons. 

For one thing, they recognized who he was from the moment he walked into the door. 

They had seen this man in the flesh before, last year, on the second day after bonding with Izuku. 

All Might, as it turned out, was the man known as Toshinori Yagi. A man Venom recalled as looking incredibly sickly, frail, thin, and weak. He did not much resemble the man before them in any way, other than the yellow hair, and the sunken-in eyes. 

At least not physically. However, you could not trick a Klyntar by just changing your look up a bit. Venom recognized him and how he felt up close immediately, a task made even easier by the other thing Venom immediately felt upon the man's entrance. 

All Might, the symbol of peace, the pride of Japan, the greatest product of humanity's warrior class, was in constant pain. Horrible, horrible pain. 

It would seem the man's quirk did not come with regeneration powers.

Unlucky him. 

The pain was centered around All Might's gut, but beyond that, Venom could not tell what the injury was exactly. 

The pain did not prevent All Might from letting out a booming laugh, as he jumped into his role as a teacher. 

"Foundational Hero Studies! In this class, we will be building up your hero foundation through various trials! Today! That trial will be… The Trial Of Battle!!!" 

Throughout his speech, All Might made dramatic motions, presumably to hype up the upcoming trial, ending with him proudly presenting a large card with the word " BATTLE" written on it. 

The class, including both Izuku and Venom, took the news of actual combat training with rather great enthusiasm. 

Venom was torn, on hand, the idea of having the students have an actual battle on their second day was an absolutely terrible idea… On the other hand, they really didn't care if the rest of the less powerful students got hurt. Venom and Izuku would be fine. 

"And to go with your first battle…" He clicked a button on a small remote, and the wall to the side opened up and a bunch of containers all with a number popped out. "We have prepared the gear we had you send in requests for, to enhance your quirks!" 

Everyone in the class exclaimed a shout of joy and enthusiasm at that proclamation. 

"Now, get changed, and we'll be all ready to go! After you're done changing, everyone head to Grounds B! The garb you bring out into the battlefield is vitally important boys and girls! They will be how all who see you recognize you from now on."

As he walked towards the exit with great energy in each step stopped by the door to give one final bit of wisdom. 

"And don't forget! From now on… You are all officially Heroes!"

Well, it wasn't the most profound thing Venom had heard from a teacher, but they would take it compared to the complete lack of energy Aizawa had. 

---

Izuku hadn't worn Venom in the manner the symbiote had explained was the most efficient one for combat, since the day they had finalized their bond. 

Which was to say he was just wearing his underwear beneath the suit. 

"Is this really the best way to wear this…?"

"Yesss… the less fabric we have to deal with, the better we can focus on acting as armor. The absolute best would be if you were wearing nothing at all, but-" "I'm not doing that." 

He blushed just thinking about it. He felt incredibly exposed with just his underwear underneath his second Black/Blue skin, there was no way in hell that he'd ever be able to just go completely naked in public. 

For one thing, it was just begging for incredible awkwardness if the suit was ever dissolved and had to reform. That would be bad enough with pants only, but with nothing on? Izuku shuddered at the thought. 

At the moment, Izuku and Venom were alone on grounds B with All Might, and a female student named Toru Hagakure, who's quirk was being completely invisible. 

Izuku felt both an incredible want to go up and talk to All Might, and incredible embarrassment standing next to both his idol and a girl, while feeling incredibly exposed. 

Not helping the fact was that Izuku got a distinct impression Toru was checking him and his skin-tight suit out. Which just made him feel even more awkward and exposed. 

One huge advantage of generating your own costume, as Izuku had just discovered, was being able to change incredibly quickly. As proven by the fact he and Toru, were the first here by a longshot, both having really easy to change into costumes. 

Izuku had his black suit, while Toru's costume was composed of a set of shoes and gloves. 

It was a sign of how self-conscious he felt, that he didn't even consider the fact that a girl was standing relatively close to him while technically being almost completely naked. 

Finally, the rest of the class showed up, dressed in a wide variety of costumes, some more practical than others. 

"WOW, you look really cool Izuku!" Uraraka said in a cheerful tone as she came up to him. 

Izuku blushed so hard he felt like he was giving off heat, though his face was concealed behind his black mask. Then he blushed even harder at the sight of Uraraka herself. 

Uraraka's costume was a tight black jumpsuit with open uncovered arms, a fur cape that was fastened to buttons in her jumpsuit, gloves, and simple boots. 

It was a simple, yet perfectly functional costume, yet it also showcased something about Uraraka Izuku hadn't noticed before. 

The girl had REALLY well-built musculature. She wasn't the only girl in class with noticeable muscles, as Mina also had a pretty noticeable build. However, Mina was built more like the top 5 hero Miruko, while Uraraka was more like… Well, frankly she had muscles that weren't that far from Izuku's own current build. 

Not that it detracted much from her attractiveness, as she had pretty noticeable curves, which her outfit showed off perhaps too well. 

Still, it was a pretty jarring contrast between how Izuku had generally thought of her as a really cute girl and her actual build like an Amazon. 

That being said, he still thought she looked great. 

"Man, it must be great to just have an outfit you can just throw on and off whenever. It  must be practical."

"Yea-Yeah it really is."

"My costume ended up being WAY tighter than I had planned, I really should have been more specific with my drawings."

She looked over with a longing look at Iida, who wore an incredibly detailed costume, that made him look like a car that had taken human form… that still had very loose cloth parts. 

Suddenly, Mineta, a dwarf with hair made up of purple balls inserted himself in front of Izuku with a thumb up sign, and proclaimed "Heroics is the greatest!" then walked off without another word. 

Had… Had he even talked with Mineta before now? 

Further socializing between students was cut short by All Might, who seemed incredibly eager to start this class in earnest. 

"Now then, that you are all finally here… It is time to see what you are made of my little embryos!!! It is time for the trial of BATTLE!!!" 

" But before that, let me just say that I'm really liking everyone's styles! VERY COOL!!!" He gave a thumbs-up, and Izuku felt incredible pride and joy in the black suit that was Venom , washing away his earlier embarrassment in newfound pride. 

-Fucking hell man, you are way too damn easy to influence.-

Iida suddenly held up his hand. 

"Sensei! Regarding the performance ground we'll be using, is it the mock city from the entrance exam?" 

All Might gave a chuckle as he answered "Close Tenya-Kun, but no, we will not be using the city itself for this exercise. Instead-" He motioned with a hand to one of the massive tall buildings that littered the fake cities. " This will be an indoor battle trial!!!"  

"Villain cleanup is usually seen out in the open, but statistically, most of our job is done inside. Most acts of villainy are done indoors after all."

In front of him and to his left stood Katsuki, hanging on to All Might's every word. Yeah, Izuku understood what All Might meant. Most acts of beating down the weak did happen indoors. He knew that from personal experience. 

"Imprisonment… House Arrest… The Black Market… Why, any Villains with any intelligence operates in the shadows!!!" 

"For this test, you'll be separated into "Villain groups" and "Hero groups"... FOR A TWO ON TWO. TEAM BATTLE!!!"

-What do you think the chances are, that we'll be getting to fight that bastard Katsuki?-

"Well, that would depend on if it's random or-" Izuku answered in a quiet voice before he was interrupted by Tsuyu. 

"What about Foundational training?" 

"This is Foundational training Tsuyu-Chan! Only this time there won't be any robots that it's just okay for you to destroy!" 

All Might was about to continue, but was suddenly interrupted by the entire class starting to as questions at once. 

"So how do we determine who wins and loses?" "Is it okay if we just blow them away?" "Is there going to a threat of expulsion for anyone like there was with Aizawa-Sensei?" "If we're separated into different groups, what method would be best to do so?" "Doesn't this cape look dazzling on me?" 

All Might was not amused, though he did not react with rage. "I can't make you out if ALL OF YOU speak up at ONCE!" 

Instead of answering any of their questions directly though, All Might instead pulled out a piece of paper and began to read from it. 

"For this exercise, we'll have the "Villains" guard a nuclear weapon they intend on deploying! The "Heroes" job will be to stop or their nefarious scheme before it's too late!"

-Holy shit what a melodramatic scenario! If he wants this to be a plausible mission he should have used something more sensible, like a nerve gas bomb, or a bomb to knock out all electronics in the area. You know, sensible, realistic shit.-

"If the "Heroes" captures the "Villains" or touch the nuclear device before the time runs out, they win. If the "Villains" manage to keep the device uncompromised until the clock runs out, or manage to capture the "Heroes", they win!"

Then, upon finishing his crib sheet, All Might pulled out a lottery box faster than Izuku could blink. 

"Your teammate and opponents will be chosen by lottery!" 

Iida was shocked by the very idea of randomness. 

"Truly? That is how we'll do it?" 

All Might was about to answer, but this time it was Izuku who interrupted. 

"Well, pros are often forced to make impromptu on the spot team-ups with heroes they don't really know, so this is probably a reference to that."

"I see! always looking at the future, eh Midoriya?" He quickly turned to All Might and gave an apologetic bow. "I apologize for my rude interruption Sensei!" 

---

Izuku ended up with Iida. It was a good team in Izuku's opinion, His versatility along with Iida speed would make a good combo. Probably the only one he'd have been happier with would have been Uraraka, but frankly, he wouldn't have minded anyone in the class. 

Except for Katsuki of course. 

He felt rather sorry for Uraraka, who had the misfortune of ending up with said exploding asshole. 

All the way up until All Might pulled out the balls to determine who would fight each other as Heroes and Villains. 

For the first number, Izuku and Iida ended up as the heroes for round 1. On the opposite were Uraraka and Katsuki. 

-YES! FUCKING YES! FUCK YEAH, LET'S GO CRUSH THAT ASSHOLE!!!- 

---

All Might gave some more words before they started, but the only things that really mattered for him and Iida was that the Villain team got 5 minutes inside to prepare before they got to go inside and that each team got a set of earbuds that doubled as microphones to the other part of the set. 

"So, Midoriya, how should we do this?" Tenya asked him, the two of them just having been left alone as All Might headed back to the "Headquarter" to monitor them. 

"You could climb up the walls from the outside to the top, could you not?" 

He'd considered that himself. 

"That's what I would normally have done, but… Uraraka knows I can do that. And she's undoubtedly telling Katsuki about it. The thing is that I'm not experienced in climbing, much less fighting while I'm doing it. If Katsuki were to attack me while I'm outside climbing… Well, I'd be a sitting duck. Unless…"

-NO.- Venom said bluntly. Before Izuku could ask why the hell not, Venom continued. -Our cloaking is a tool that has the best capacity when no one knows about it. We aren't revealing it here for all to see. If we did, we wouldn't be able to use it to it's fullest later.-

"Anyway… So long as Katsuki is above us, trying to climb past him is a terrible idea. Not to mention that at the top we'd still have to deal with Uraraka."

He didn't know if he could beat Uraraka. She was strong. Damned strong. Her full power was far stronger than the might he and Venom had to offer. 

"So, what you're saying is that we need to capture Katsuki, then lure Uraraka away from the top floor."

"...That's one option."

"Excellent! Then I shall act as a lure for Uraraka, while you deal with Katsuki, given how much he seems to despise you, and how aggressive and irrationally he is, you should only need to make it clear where you are, and he should come running to confront you. On my end, once I have gotten Uraraka away from the top floor, and you have dealt with Katsuki, just get outside, then climb to the top."

It was a simple, yet logical plan. 

All it would take was him being able to beat Katsuki into the ground. 

"Let's do it!" 

---

-Beating Katsuki is not as massive a problem as it would be to beat Shoto or the girl with the whip earlobes. Yes, his explosions will blow us away without problem, but even if we part and expose your flesh, you are still more than durable enough to tank the shock from his explosions. At least the lesser ones.-

-In comparison, the bastard doesn't possess particularly high durability. None of our 3 counters in this class does. Katsuki is probably the most durable of the 3, since he needs to be durable enough so the shock of his explosions don't destroy his own body.-

-All we need is one good blow, one solid hit on any of their body, and they go down like a turned off computer.-

"So, what, I should just tank his explosions?" 

"If necessary, but what we need to do is close the gap and hit him. Again, he can't tank our blows. One good hit is all it would take, if we need to tank some blows to make it happen, so be it."

It made some sense, but Izuku still didn't like the idea of actually taking any more of Katsuki's explosions. Even if they didn't actually fully damage him, they would hurt. A lot. 

Also, he didn't have Venom's confidence in his body's ability to tank the kinds of explosions Katsuki had done at the test exams. 

"AND BEGIN!!!" All Might's voice rang in their ears. 

Iida didn't waste any time and went into motion the moment the announcement came. 

Izuku took it easier and went more cautiously. 

Once inside, Venom had problems sensing where either Katsuki or Uraraka were, according to him, due to the thick walls. 

No matter. 

"HEY KATSUKI!!! WE'RE ON THE LOWEST FLOOR!!! COME FACE US IF YOU HAVE THE BALLS!!!" 

Izuku felt… Eager was the best way to describe it. He WANTED this fight. He felt the adrenaline already beginning to flow into his mind in preparation. It was a completely alien feeling for Izuku, who had never experienced battle rage consuming him before. 

To be fair on the young hero, human beings weren't build to feel this sort of rage, thrill, and lust before they actually became consumed by combat. 

-He's coming.-

And he was. 13 seconds later, Katsuki sprung forth from the corridor in front of Izuku and released a large explosion that engulfed where Izuku's upper body had been seconds before, as Izuku had already jumped back and out of the way when it hit the wall. 

"Damnit Deku, don't fucking dodge!"

As the dust cleared, the two old friends stared at each other with hatred in their eyes. Izuku's eyes hidden behind two white alien eyes that narrowed in a way that had been the last thing that countless misfortunate souls across the universe had seen before they died. Katsuki's eyes were more crazed, and on his lips, he was wearing a berserkers grin. 

Two young kids on the final step to reaching their adulthood, both empowered with the capacity for destruction, both having a wish to HURT the other. Katsuki because his entire worldview was dependent upon his self worth and sense of superiority, and Izuku because any sympathy or admiration he once had felt for his old friend had been buried in unnatural hate, resentment, and anger. 

Katsuki made the first move. 

In terms of overall advantage, Katsuki had the high ground here, in these relatively cramped corridors, his way of moving by short controlled bursts from his hands were far more at home than Izuku was, the cramped space preventing Izuku and Venom from utilizing their great speed, jumping capacity and agility to their fullest. 

All he had to do, was keep his distance, employ hit and run tactics and make certain to not come within Izuku's physical range. 

If he did that, he had a reasonably high chance of not only winning through running out the clock, but also eventually bringing Izuku to his knees through attrition. 

Katsuki, being as green as summer grass, instead charged in, planting his foot down as he prepared to blow Izuku away with a strong and powerful explosion from his right hand. 

For Izuku, it was as if the world froze to slow motion as Katsuki pulled his arm back. He had seen this many, many times before. Katsuki always started a fight with a strong right swing. Izuku had never realized just how easy that made it to read and deal with his first attack before. 

In that moment, Izuku saw, clear as crystal, two different paths to victory. 

In the first, he could step inside the swing, grab his arm, and swing him over his shoulder and down into the ground. So long as he didn't pause and just followed it up by punching Katsuki in the face, it was an easy victory. 

There was a chance of inflicting permanent brain damage on him with that tactic though. 

The other path wasn't as risky with permanent damage, but it was also very, very painful. 

He chose the second path. 

As Katsuki swung his arm forward, Izuku stepped inside and beyond the range of the planned attack. His left arm gripped around the grenade gauntlet Katsuki had on his arm, while his right hand grabbed the blonde boy by one of the two straps around his chest. 

He then slammed him left into the wall, not hard enough to instantly break his bones, but certainly with enough force to knock the wind out of him. 

He wasn't done with that though. 

Still holding Katsuki up against the wall, he planted his leg into his foe's groin. Katsuki went limp instantly. 

Izuku then slammed him to the ground, and quickly webbed up his hands, legs, and mouth, leaving him only able to breathe through his nose. 

He finished off with snapping a capture band around his arm, signifying that Katsuki was taken out of the exercise. 

As Izuku stared down Katsuki, the adrenaline fading, he felt an influx of very different emotions. 

The first thing he felt was a sense of… Anticlimax. Like he had been preparing for this moment for a long time, only for it to be easier than he had ever imagined, and far less satisfying than he had thought it'd be. 

The second was a sharp vindictive wish to bend down, close his hand around Katsuki's right arm and snap it between his fingers, as payback for what happened all those months ago. 

He quickly shut the emotion down. He had won, hadn't he? Why would he need to hurt him even more? 

"Well… That was easy."

-Of course, it was! That fucking glass cannon jumped straight into our range, leaving himself wide open to being manhandled by our vastly superior strength! Even if you hadn't read his moves so well that we didn't even take a scratch, we would still have crushed him easily!-

Venom paused for a moment before adding in a genuinely impressed tone. 

-Also, that reading of his movement was great! We expected you to take at least half a hundred battles before you could read enemy movement like that!-

Izuku blushed a bit at the praise, but nowhere as much as he had earlier that day. 

"It-It wasn't that hard. Katsuki almost always starts his attacks with a strong right swing. Hell, when he stands up it is usually with the right side first."

-Wow, what a predictable mo-LOOK OUT!- 

Izuku's right arm, seemingly moving on it's own, snapped up into a guard position, barely fast enough to block the kick that was aimed for his head. 

The blow still sent him flying down the corridor. 

As he got back on his feet after crashing and rolling along the ground, he could feel the adrenaline coming back into his veins. 

"Sensei, can we "Rescue" our partners if they have been captured?"

"I'm afraid, not Ochako-Chan! You and Midoriya will have to finish this exercise on your own!" 

It took a split second before Izuku realized that that meant Iida had also been captured. 

Down the corridor, where Izuku had just stood, was Uraraka Ochako looking far more serious and determined than Izuku had ever seen her. 

"All right then…" She turned and stared him down, with fire in her eyes. 

Then, with an incredible burst of speed, she launched herself down the corridor towards him. 

Izuku responded by jumping up over her and landing on the ceiling. 

He had hoped that would at least give him some reprieve, but Uraraka forced herself to a stop right behind where he had just stood, and snapped around to face him. 

Izuku avoided her follow-up jump kick by simply letting go of the roof and dropping down to the floor. 

The sound of the stone shattering above him was explosive, and he was hit by several smaller rocks that flew like shrapnel. 

He hit the ground just as Uraraka turned around in midair. 

Not quickly enough, however. 

His webbing hit her straight in the gut, and he pulled her straight down into the ground, face first. Not gently either. 

For a moment he saw the perfect opening to stomp down on her back. Not facing Bakugou however, he hesitated at the violence of it. 

That was a mistake, as her hand snapped up, and grabbed around his ankle. Uraraka pulled him down as she attempted to grab him into a hold. 

Izuku expected to feel a crushing weight as her arms closed around him, but was instead surprised by how "Light" the grip around him felt. 

It should be WAY stronger than this given how hard she hit. 

Izuku headbutted her in the face hard, the pain distraction allowing him to easily break free from her grip and jump back and away from Uraraka as he landed on his feet. 

As Uraraka stood up and put up a fighting stance, and Izuku did the same, Izuku desperately tried to piece together how Uraraka's strength quirk operated. She hit incredibly hard, but frankly, her grip Strength had been far less than it should have been given how she sent him flying with a blocked blow. 

OK, what did he know? Uraraka tended to move and attack in a burst of enormous strength and speed, so maybe… 

Izuku suddenly moved his hands from his own makeshift combat stance, so they were fists pointed at Uraraka. 

Shots of black webbing caught the surprised Uraraka(Who seemed to have expected Izuku to launch himself at her) in the midsection and quickly engulfed her.

For about 4 seconds, as with the crackling of pink lightning, the web was burst asunder as she broke free. 

Izuku didn't try a second round of web, having both established Uraraka could break them, and also having confirmed his theory on her powers. 

Uraraka's base strength wasn't anywhere near his own. The way her full powers worked was that she would unleash them in short but immensely powerful bursts of force. 

Now the big question was… How did that help Izuku out here? He couldn't see any obvious way to use that to win this fight. 

Unless… 

Izuku launched himself against Uraraka, who brought up her right hand in a hook. 

Izuku didn't meet it though and instead leaped over her and her fist. 

Once again a web shot out, and this time hit Uraraka straight in the back. Izuku landed on the wall, then he used all his strength and PULLED! For a second he felt the resistance, before with a snap the cape his web had connected to snapped loose, both buttons ripped out of their sockets. 

Izuku dropped the web and the cape attached to it, as Uraraka stumbled forward. Then as she whirled around, another web line hit her, this time in the gut. 

For a second time, a massive pull came from Izuku's end, and Uraraka went flying off of her feet towards the wall. 

Izuku's fist came up to meet her, as she brought up her own fist in a counterattack, and the two of them hit each other with blows so hard the sound echoed through the corridor. 

Uraraka's counter had been in the form of a hook that had taken Izuku in his left ribs, while Izuku's punch had hit Uraraka straight in the face. 

Uraraka, not held up by Izuku's strength anymore, fell to the ground, dizzy and wobbly as she got back to her feet again. 

Izuku for his part, was doubled over in pain on the wall, feeling like Uraraka had broken every bone in his ribcage. 

Uraraka got back on her feet, though clearly shaken by the blow to the head, she looked up at Izuku with shaking eyes, but instead of repeating the previous jump kick, large pink bolts of lightning engulfed her as she simply punched the wall with such force that it broke. 

Izuku, realizing what was happening, kicked off and jumped. He tried to land on his feet, but stumbled and rolled to the ground where Katsuki lay. 

He had completely forgotten about him during the battle. 

As he forced himself to his feet, he took several steps backwards, as he considered his strategy. 

Uraraka was beginning to recover from the head blow, she'd be back on the offensive soon. Should he repeat the strategy of jumping over her and hitting her in the back? No, no that would be way too obvious. He had a shot before and though he had taken her by surprise, it hadn't been decisive like he had hoped it would be. 

Maybe, he could run away, then set up an ambush and- Only then did Izuku realized he didn't actually need to beat Uraraka to win. 

He bolted to the left, and then, his ribs screaming all the way, he put his hands and one shoulder against the wall, and PUSHED!

The wall of concrete and steel broke outwards, and Izuku fell out with the pieces of the now broke wall. Not for long though. 

A line of black web shot up and to the side of the building, leading to Izuku slamming into the wall, leading to a muffled scream from the pain in his ribs. 

He did not stop to catch his breath, however, and instead began climbing as fast as he could, in spite of the horrible pain in his ribs with each meter. 

He had to reach the top before Uraraka got back to the stairs. 

---

"THE HERO TEAM, WINNNNNNS!!!" 

The horrible sound from the microphone was loud, clear, and painful. 

Uraraka was just getting up the stairs when Venom and Izuku got to the "Nuclear Bomb". 

"Midoriya-Kun, could you dissolve the web around Bakugou?" 

Izuku, still holding his fractured ribs, let out a pained "Venom, can you…?".

-Sure!- 

The bonds around Katsuki dissolved turned to nothing, a supposedly impossible thing according to all the laws of physics humanity knew about. 

The last thing Venom felt from Katsuki, was the boy having what seemed to be a panic attack. Served the brat right! 

Well, it hadn't quite been what Venom had hoped this would be. The Uraraka battle was great, and the rush had been so, sooo sweet! At least until Izuku had realized he could win by just going up and had ended the whole bout in a lame as fuck way. 

On the other end of the spectrum had been the battle Katsuki. That had been incredibly disappointing. And the sad part was that it could have been great! If Izuku had just put real force into the attack, they could easily have burst Katsuki's balls, dooming him to never reproduce, and eternal ridicule by his peers. 

There were fewer ways to crush someone that was more humiliatingly than to end their family line. 

And Izuku hadn't even broken his arm as payback either! 

All in all, it had been horribly disappointing. That said… The rage was still there. 

The hatred still burned bright. This little skirmish had not given him any resolution. 

That was good. In due time, he would embrace the rage and anger at Katsuki Bakugou. 

It was inevitable. It was their Destiny.

---

After the match was over, they had all gone back to the monitor room, where the class and All Might had been watching the match play out. 

Other than Iida, who Uraraka had subdued without hurting him, all three had one specific injury. Uraraka might have a concussion and definitely had a massive black eye, Katsuki was still in pain from Izuku's blow, and Izuku still cradled his ribs, where(As Venom had informed him) he had 3 fractured bones. 

"Well then, Ochako, Katsuki and Midoriya, once we have gone over the exercise, I want you three to head over to the Nurse's office."

"It's fine." Venom interjected. "We possess regenerative powers. We'll have the ribs healed up on our own in 3 hours."

All Might stared at the dark blue creature, then seemingly took it in stride. 

"Very well!!! I shall trust your experience on the matter on the matter!" 

"As for the match itself, the hero team won the battle thanks to Izuku, but the V. I. P of this battle was Tenya-Kun!!! Can anyone tell me why?" 

The entire class stared dumbfounded at Iida, who was as surprised as everyone else. 

So was Izuku for that matter. Had he really been that great after they separated? 

It was Momo, the raven-haired girl, who answered. She had an outfit so revealing that Venom had questioned if she was an exhibitionist. 

"It isn't so much that Iida did amazingly well, as much as the fact that he was the only one who didn't commit any major mistakes that could easily have been avoided."

"The worst of the lot was Bakugou, who abandoned any semblance of strategy from the start, choosing instead to run off and try and act out a grudge against Midoriya. This led him to charge into an obvious trap and to engage Midoriya in close quarters combat, a truly imbecilic idea, that was instantly punished as Midoriya crushed him with no problems whatsoever."

Izuku had expected Katsuki to rage against any criticism, but instead, the blonde boy was unusually quiet. Other than the tears in the corners of his eyes, he had an expression that could best be described as dead inside. 

"Second to worst was Uraraka, who performed admirably initially, capturing Tenya after a relatively short chase. However, after that, rather than going back to guard the bomb, the item which her entire mission revolved around, she instead ran off to try and help her comrade. Though her battle with Izuku showed that she was capable in combat, in the end, her mission objective was preventing Midoriya and Tenya from reaching the bomb, not to beat Midoriya in battle. Thus, the moment Midoriya realized this, he quickly changed strategy and won."

Uraraka winced at the words but didn't say anything in response. 

"Then there is Midoriya, who undoubtedly proved himself the best combatant of the 4, yet also made 2 massive blunders. The first one at the start, when he and Tenya made their plan for the mission. While their plan wasn't a bad one, the fact is that Midoriya could easily have just climbed up from the start and probably caught Uraraka enough by surprise to secure the device from the start. I assume that the reason he did not was due to a fear of being caught by Bakugou while climbing, but as we saw with how Bakugou acted through the battle, that was a rather minimal risk. In other words, he severely overcomplicated this mission far more than he needed to."

Izuku felt like a complete moron. Saying it out loud like that brought the reality of it all home. Iida had just trusted him, accepted that Izuku knew best, and had made a plan based on that. Momo was wrong regarding who had made the plan, but she was right in saying he had overcomplicated things. 

"His second massive blunder was when he was attacked by Uraraka. While the way he ended it was sensible and won his team the match, the fact is that he should have done that from the very moment he realized Uraraka wasn't guarding the device. Instead, he gambled his victory on a battle he did not need to actually fight. Had he been less capable in combat, it is entirely plausible that Uraraka would have defeated him, and he would have lost in a battle he did not need to fight."

-Everyones a critic.-

"Finally we have Tenya, who, while he proved incapable of avoiding Uraraka, at the very least stuck to the actual plan, and at one point he could easily have ambushed Bakugou, but instead, he wisely trusted his partner to handle it. As I said, he was the only one who didn't make obvious mistakes."

The room was silent before All Might gave a thumbs up. 

"Yes, that is pretty much it!" 

---

As the next couple of Heroes and Villains, teams went to get set up, and Uraraka and Katsuki both went to the Recovery Lady, Izuku got something he wasn't used to. 

Praise. 

"That was amazing!" The girl named Mina exclaimed, with a grin. 

Like Uraraka, the pink girl was dressed in a full tight black suit, with white fur trimmings along the opening in the neck, on her feet she wore white boots with fur trimmings at the top, and on her face, she wore a stylized black domino mask. 

The outfit also had an open neckline, giving a rather generous view of her cleavage, though frankly, compared to Momo's outfit it came off as flat out restrained. 

Izuku recognized it as pretty much being an exact copy of an older costume used by the top Hero Black Cat, only minus any gloves. 

Izuku, still not used to any contact between himself and the opposite sex, instantly became flustered, as Mina continued. 

"The way you dodged Uraraka's attacks, the immediately counterattacked was awesome!" 

"Yeah! Just seeing you two cut loose was awesome! It really got us Pumped , you know!?" Another student jumped in, a guy in a yellow full-body costume whose most notable feature was a rather large and full set of lips. Izuku vaguely recalled his name being Sato. 

The next student who entered the conversation was a guy who had spiky red-hair, who Izuku did not recall the name of. 

"The way you beat Bakugou wasn't MA ly at all, but man, that bout with Uraraka was kickass! Hard to believe it only lasted 2 minutes."

-Didn't this guy have black hair?-

Izuku had no idea what Venom was referring to, and instead just focused on the boy as he introduced himself. "I'm Ejirou Kirishima by the way!" 

"I-I'm Izuku Midoriya.."

"Mina Hardy-Ashido!" The pink girl introduced herself, as she grabbed Izuku's hand and enthusiastically shook it up and down. 

"And yes, before you ask, I'm related to Black Cat. She's my mom."

After that, there were several other students who introduced themselves, Sato, Tsuyu; the girl with the long tongue,

Toru; the Invisible girl, and Kaminari; The guy with yellow hair with a black bolt going through it. 

Izuku stammered his way through the conversation(Very grateful the mask covered his face completely), where he got a lot of questions, like; How did he know Bakugou? Was he related to the old Hero Takuya Yamashiro? Doesn't this cape look real dapper on me? 

Some he avoided or just gave noncommittal answers to, like saying he and Katsuki had once been childhood friends and left it at that. 

Others he had been honest about and said he hadn't even heard of Takuya Yamashiro, a long dead hero from the very start of the Hero age, who had gone by the name of Spider-man, The emissary from Hell. 

The early age heroes had really not cared much how their names and nicknames sounded. According to his Kirishima, the abilities of this Spider-man had resembled Izuku quite a lot. 

What the entire question section(Up until All Might returned and put an end to further discussion so they could focus on the next round) ended with, was a relatively friendly introduction to the rest of the class. 

It felt surreal to Izuku. Like, the other shoe was about to drop at any second. 

Making a few friends was one thing, but this…? 

It was as if the class actually Liked him! It was a feeling Izuku hadn't felt in… Actually, he had never felt like this before. No school class Izuku had ever been in had just flat out liked him. 

In his previous schools, there had been students who didn't pick in him, but never anyone who actually liked him. No friends, no one who had actually just been glad to see him on principle. 

Dear God it was a wonderful feeling. 

Chapter Text

"ALL MIGHT IS TOSHINORI YAGI!?"

"Yes." Venom groaned. "No need to be so damn loud about it." 

"That… He… what… HOW?" 

Izuku was currently in his room, alone in the apartment. Venom had waited until they came home to drop whatever news he had been sitting on for the day. 

That news, being that All Might was actually his manager, the sickly Toshinori Yagi. A man, who frankly, looked like he was at death's door. 

Izuku tried to process it. 

"Ar-are you sure?!" It seemed so… Impossible that All Might could actually be a guy who looked like he would fall over by a stiff breeze. 

"Of course we are sure! He also has some sort of injury in his gut that causes him horrible pain, ALL the time. Now, we could be wrong, given we didn't understand the words, but didn't Toshinori at some point suffer an injury that made him the way he is now? He looked pretty normal in those old photos you were looking at back when we first encountered him."

Izuku, still frozen, tried to contemplate this. Yes… He had read that Toshinori had an injury that destroyed his health, but… 

Izuku pulled out his phone with shaking hands, then went through his browsing history, and soon found what he was looking for. An All Might article from a couple of weeks back. 

There it was, a picture of Toshinori Yagi, looking kinda like a starving ghoul. 

"If he really is as sickly as this… How can he do the stuff All Might does?" 

Venom snorted. "His quirk obviously. At the very least, it allows him to drastically bulk up in muscle. He probably changes between his regular standard form and the huge musclebound titan the world knows him as." 

That… wasn't impossible. There were quirks who worked like that. Hell, in his quest to try and restore his books he had encountered no less than 36 heroes who had a powerset of that variety. But with such amazing power? None of what he had seen came close. 

As he looked down on the photo of Toshinori Yagi talking to the press, a thought suddenly struck Izuku, and he quickly went to Toshinori's Wikipedia page. 

It wasn't large, but it did exist. More to the point, it also covered his injury with a nice before and after comparison shots. 

Toshinori before the injury was a relatively average man, perhaps with muscles a bit larger than an average salaryman, judging by his build. It was kinda hard to say for sure given his clothing. 

Two details struck him though. Details he had never really noticed before, but now that he knew what to look for, they seemed incredibly obvious. 

Toshinoris' eyes had been pretty normal, a bit sunken in due to age mayhaps. Just like All Might's had been. 

Then, after Injury, his eyes had gotten more and more sunken in, until they seemed completely surrounded by shadows. Just like All Might. 

Izuku actually remembered having visited forums about half a decade ago talking about this very topic, how All Might's eyes had begun to change. Most attributed it to his age finally catching up with him. Izuku had argued against that since he wasn't THAT old. Was he…? 

Now that he had heard Venom's information… The connection was there, obvious as the sun. 

The second thing he noticed, was the way Toshinori styled his hair. Compared to All Might's ever windswept mane, he had very messy hair. He also had two long, blonde bangs down across his face. Bangs that were about as long as All Might's iconic V hairstyle. 

He could feel a knot in his stomach. 

"It's true… He really is Toshinori Yagi."

"Of course it is! We told you he was."

Izuku ignored his tone and just tried to process it. 

After a while, another question popped up into his head. One he had asked himself in passing once before but not really focused on. 

Why was All Might suddenly teaching at Yuei? 

He remembered being really surprised by the news that All Might was becoming a teacher at Yuei. But he had been so happy he had gotten in he hadn't really delved into it. He had also been dealing with the reveals about Venom, which had also taken up much of his time. 

So. What did they know? 

All Might suddenly started teaching at Yuei, years after suffering a critical injury that completely changed his appearance, and put him in constant pain, all the time. 

He did not start teaching that year because of some whim. He had to have a reason behind it. 

Bu what? What could the reason possibly be? There was an answer here, one Izuku felt like he only needed one single other piece to figure out.

All Might had become a teacher. He had become a teacher this year. That meant there was someone in this year's students who he wanted to personally teach… Or keep his eye on. 

A horrible fear that All Might knew about his secret, and was keeping an eye on him specifically shot through his mind, before he crushed the idea hard. It was flat out paranoid to think anyone else knew. Only him, venom, and Mom knew. No one else. 

No, it had to be one of the other students, but who and why? 

Who did he know that All Might, might be interested in? The fact was that he didn't know anyone who fit that description, but he DID know someone who Toshinori Yagi was interested in. 

Uraraka. 

The first time he met Uraraka, had been on the beach, the same time he had first seen Toshinori Yagi. She had been jogging behind him as he drove past him. 

Why would All Might be interested in Uraraka? 

Izuku froze, as a sentence once again ran through his mind. 

Yeah… It's… A fused quirk from my parents.

It all fell into place. 

Uraraka had a quirk that was a fusion between two different quirks, that by her own admittance was a mix between her parents. 

One of which happened to be a freakishly strong power quirk. 

He put his phone to his face as he went on YouTube. He didn't really need to check the next part out. He had seen videos of All Might more than enough times to remember them perfectly.  

He quickly found an old video, showcasing a fight between All Might and a Villain with the ability to turn into incredibly hard steel. 

As All Might prepared his strike, yellow lightning burst around his arm. It didn't happen that often, but they were there when All Might really put his back into it. 

Lightning. Just before a blow. 

He remembered the punch that had almost caved in his ribs and the pink lightning that had surrounded it. 

It was so obvious. 

Uraraka Ochaco was All Might's daughter. 

He had joined Yuei as a teacher to train her, and help her reach his full potential. 

THAT was why he had chosen this year to become a teacher. 

---

As Izuku, Iida, and Uraraka sat and ate lunch together the next day, Izuku was still trying to wrap his head around it all. 

There had been stuff during the start of the day, where they had chosen a class president, and with two votes(From him and Uraraka), Iida had become tied with Momo for the most votes, the two of them being the only one with more votes than anyone else. 

It all seemed so unimportant to Izuku, at the moment as he tried to look at Uraraka, and really take her in detail, without it looking like he was leering at her. 

It was both a simple, yet so hard thing to wrap his head around. On one hand, the fact All Might might have a family somewhere wasn't the most difficult thing to believe. 

On the other hand, it was difficult to imagine that Uraraka was actually All Might's daughter. 

Izuku felt like he was a terrible friend, but frankly, other than her quirk, it didn't seem like Uraraka had inherited Anything from All Might. 

The way her hair flowed down was different, her colors both in skin, hair, and eyes weren't anything like All Might's, and though she had muscles(Whether they be trained or due to her quirk), her build was very different than All Might's. 

He intensely looked at her eyebrows, for any sign she might have dyed it, but if so, he couldn't see a strand that wasn't completely brown. In every way, it looked like her natural hair color. 

If Uraraka really was All Might's child, then the symbol of peace had left very little of himself in her. Except… 

It all came back to the quirk, the enormous powers that did not lie. 

He had gone through several hundred videos of All Might through the years, and he was more certain than ever that her powers were the same as All Might's.

He was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts by Iida. 

"Midoriya, are you well?" 

"What?" 

He turned his head to look at Iida, who was looking at him with a concerned expression. 

"Are you feeling well? Something is very clearly bothering you." He motioned towards Izuku with one of his arms in a needlessly dramatic way. 

Uraraka, currently in the process of speedily devouring her rather large meal, also turned to look at him with concerned eyes, while chewing a fish in her mouth. 

Izuku, caught on the spot, panicked and blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. 

"Uraraka, how do you know Toshinori Yagi?"

Izuku winced. THAT was how he brought this topic up? IDIOT! 

Uraraka for her part was completely caught off guard by the question, and caught something in her throat, leading to her beginning to cough. Iida slammed his hand on her back, helping her cough up her food. 

Finally, once she was done, she just stared at Izuku in what was something between horror and shock. "What?" 

-Smooth, man. Real smooth.-

"I… I…" what the hell was he going to say? Hey Uraraka, is All Might your dad? 

"Your probably, don't remember, but… The entrance exam wasn't actually the first time we saw each other… Nearly a year ago, we encountered each other near a beach filled with trash and metal."

Uraraka went pale. 

"I was there to pick up a replacement door for our bathroom when on the back trip I… Well I passed you as you were out training… With Toshinori Yagi."

He winced again. 

"Sorry I haven't brought it up before, I… I just remembered it, and it's been bugging me ever since then."

If Izuku hadn't been too busy trying to read Uraraka's expression, he probably would have realized, and been shocked by just how easily he had just lied to someone to their face. 

As it was, he was instead reading Uraraka as she desperately seemed to try and spin a story. 

Before she could answer though, Iida butted in. 

"Truly? All Might's own manager? You really are well connected Uraraka!"

Uraraka blushed. 

"Well… To answer the question… I first meet Yagi-San back… When I enrolled in All Might's charity program for poor students."

It took a couple of seconds rummaging through his wast knowledge of All Might lore before the details about said charity program popped back into his skull. 

Iida however, wasn't as knowledgeable. 

"I'm sorry but… I must admit I don't know about the charity program which you speak off." 

Uraraka gave a weak, forced smile. 

"It's alright, most probably don't. Anyway, it's a program to help young students who can't really pay the bills to study in the big cities like Mustafa and Tokyo."

Yes… Izuku was starting to see it now. 

"So you need the program to be able to study in Mustafa then?" 

She scratched the back of her head in an awkward manner. 

"Yeah, my family isn't exactly… That well off."

It felt off, no Alien to sit there and pick apart Uraraka's story, piece by piece. 

"In my final year of middle school, I applied for financial help to come to live here in Mustafa, since… Well, I was planning on entering Yuei, and that meant I kinda had to live in the city you know?"

Made sense. 

"Anyway, I kind off met Yagi-San the day I moved here, and… Well, after some stuff, we struck up a friendship, and he helped me train for Yuei."

It was a good, solid story that didn't have any giant obvious holes. It would also mean that Uraraka got all her current money through an All Might charity, rather than say… Directly from All Might's own bank account. 

That way, if someone looked through the girl's finances, you couldn't directly trace them to All Might personally, just his charity. 

"I must admit, I am not familiar with Toshinori Yagi beyond the name, but if he was your trainer, he must be quite an effective one! And to do so while stewarding ALL of All Might's paperwork and office! He must be a spectacular worker!"

Uraraka blushed, while Izuku realized he hadn't even thought about that. 

All Might was still doing all his heroics while training up someone who could potentially become as strong as he was! 

That he did that, on top of his injury truly was a testament to the grandness that was All Might. 

"Yeah… He's the main reason I'm as strong as I am." She smiled. 

A silence arose, as the three went back to eating for a bit, Izuku dwelling on what Uraraka told him. 

He felt… Well, he felt like a shitty friend for assuming that most of what Uraraka said was lies or half-truths. But really, was he any different? He also had his secrets with Venom. Secrets that he would take with him to his grave if he could. Secrets he would lie to his friends about. 

He was brought out of his musings by Venom, who manifested on Izuku's shoulder. 

"Speaking of secret connections, what about you Tenya? Izuku's study of your name suggested a rather interesting history behind your family!" 

Iida stared at him, seemingly weighing his answer. 

"So, you two have delved deeply into my family history have you?" He sounded serious, but not particularly angry."

Izuku swallowed. "Well, not really delved, but I did look up the Iida family."

Uraraka looked with a bit of confusion, then, still with a bit of food stuck on her cheek, she beamed. 

"Wait, Iida, are you… Are you a rich kid?" 

She seemed to find that fascinating, judging by the way she looked at him like she had just stumbled into a beast of legend. 

Izuku was interested too, to be honest, but he had looked into the Iida family. What he was interested to hear about was his exact connection to them. 

Iida kinda got an awkward nervous expression under the gazes of curiosity, but finally, he sighed. 

"... I don't really like people knowing about it, so I try and hide it, but…" 

He paused, presumably for dramatic effect. 

"Yes, mine is a renowned hero family. And I am the second son."

Iida turned to Izuku. 

"Tell me Midoriya, am I correct in assuming you are familiar with the hero Ingenium?" 

"Of course! Ingenium, real name Iida Tensei is 183 cm tall, has dark blue hair, and born on the 22 of July! His quirk is Engine, which let's him put out powerful bursts of speed from his elbows that allows him to move at enormous speeds, he has exactly 65 sidekicks employed at his office in Tokyo!"

Izuku was about to continue, but Iida cut him off. "How very informed you are."

He then put his head backwards while pushing up his glasses against his nose bridge, while wearing a smile that beamed pride. 

"But yes, that is Ingenium. The pride of my family, and my older brother!" 

"WOW!" Uraraka beamed. 

"He is a hero who leads people with an unwavering adherence to rules and regulations, truly and exemplary and beloved hero. It was my admiration for my brother that inspired my own goal of becoming a hero!"

He smiled that prideful smile for a second. He turned to Izuku and was about to say something when out of the blue, an alarm went off. 

-Danger!- 

What? Suddenly a loud robotic voice called out. 

-Security level 3 has been broken. All students please evacuate in an orderly fashion.-

Security level 3? Izuku remembered reading the school rules, and what it said about security levels. Security level 3 meant someone had not only infiltrated the campus, but this very building.

He could feel it. No, he could feel HIM . As everyone around them began to push and shove on the way to the door, Izuku was frozen to his chair, as he just sat there in shock and just observed the Thing with morbid fascination, as he felt him move through the building. 

It was potent. Powerful . It was the hatred he felt towards Katsuki, if that torch had been a small sun. It was hatred, unlike anything Izuku had ever experienced or felt in his life. 

It was Loathing of everyone and everything, it was Condemnation of him and all his peers, it was as pure and clean Hatred, as the human race had ever had. 

-Wow. Now THAT is some REAL hate. We've not seen these levels since the rebellion against Knull!-

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. He was gone. Izuku's began breathing again. He hadn't even realized he'd stopped. 

Around him, the mass of humans kept pushing all around, but he didn't rise. The threat was gone. 

There was more that followed in the cafeteria. Iida calming the masses down, the proclamation that it had only been the mass media who had infiltrated the school. 

He knew better. 

-Clever. Using those foolish, annoying, useless media people as a distraction. Mayhaps even as a cover. Unfortunately for him, WE were here.-

"Yeah… He didn't know if Yuei staff knew that a real intruder had been inside the building or not, but if not… Well, he'd have to tell them. 

---

The rest of the day was a blur for Izuku. Iida got elected president over Momo after him calming the school. Aizawa had listened to him and actually given a real thanks for the info. Iida and Uraraka had invited him to hang out at Macdonald's after school, but Izuku had lied and said he had something he had to do that day. 

Truth was, he just wanted some time alone. Well, as alone as he could be. 

-Exciting isn't it?-

"What, a Villain sneaking inside the school?" 

Izuku distinctly got the feeling he had when Venom, "Rolled his eyes" at him. 

-Obviously, the man was a scout, a vanguard preparing the foundation for a future conflict. This is how you open a war Izuku.-

War. It was kinda a melodramatic way of putting it… Wasn't it? 

"It's just a Villain, Venom. Heroes will deal with him. This isn't a War."

"All conflicts are wars Izuku. It's merely a matter of scale. You will learn that lesson in due time."

Chapter Text

The day that in hindsight would be one of the great turning points in Izuku's life started the same as any other day at Yuei. Being taught theory, math, history and all the other non-physical classes Yuei had to offer. 

As was usual, it was only after lunch that their basic hero training would begin. 

"Now, for today's basic hero training…" Aizawa began in his usual dull tone. "for this exercise, me, All Might and one other will supervise."

So, another special class then, Izuku mused. It had to be if three teachers would be there. 

Behind him, Seto asked the obvious. 

"Um, what are we doing exactly?" 

Picking up a card and holding it up for all to see, Aizawa continued in his usual deadpan tone. "Today we're preparing you for disaster relief, from fires to flood. Today is rescue training." as if to punctuate what he had just said, the golden card flashed the word RESCUE in the light of the sun. 

Seemingly assuming that Aizawa was done talking, the class immediately began to chatter. For about 10 seconds anyway, before Aizawa shut them down again with a glowing red glare. 

"I'm not done yet." He said in a tone that promised pain for anyone who didn't keep their mouths shut. 

Putting down his card, he instead picked up a small remote and with a click, the shelves with the boxes that held the rest of the class's costumes slid out of the wall. 

"It's up to each of you whether you want to wear your costumes for this exercise. As some of them are ill-equipped for this kind of activity."

"Finally, the training area is a bit remote, so we'll be going by bus. That's all, now get ready."

And with that, he nonchalantly walked out of the room, hands in his pockets. 

-Rescue training eh? Well, it's not glorious battle, but we'll take it over more boring ass lectures.-

For Izuku's part, he was stoked. No, more than stoked. 

He knew most of the rest of the class had been looking forward to combat training more than anything else. Not him. This was what he had become a Hero for, not for the battles or victories, but to help people. 

Memories of seeing the Video of All Might's debut time and again as a child flowed through his head. But there was also the memory of the night he met Stick-San, and how the man in red had helped him when he needed it. 

THAT was the kind of hero he wanted to be. 

---

After everyone had gotten dressed and was on their way to the buss, Izuku walked up to Uraraka, intending to start up a conversation, when he noticed something. 

"Your-your cape…"

"Hmmm? Oh right." She absentmindedly fingered the hole in her outfit where the buttons attaching her cape had been. "I've sent in a request for a new outfit that's less… constraining, and since I'm not really gonna use this one in the future, I thought getting it repaired would be a waste of time."

Made sense. For one thing, Izuku had learned quickly over the last few days that it could feel really humiliating wearing a skintight outfit. 

Normally he was fine, but whenever some decided checking him out was just fine, he became red as a tomato, and generally had a lot of trouble concentrating. Thankfully, none had done so while he was doing something important. Not yet anyway. 

As they were reaching the buss, Iida was already there, with a whistle, and motioning. 

"LINE UP ACCORDING TO YOUR ID NUMBERS! FILL THOSE SEATS IN AN ORDERLY FASHION EVERYONE!" 

"WOW, Iida really into the whole class president thing!" 

"Yeah, he's really going full throttle."

---

After spending two minutes lining up in according to their I'd numbers, it turned out the bus was actually completely different than regular busses with a layout that simply didn't work with the neat and orderly set up they had. 

As everyone just found a seat wherever they wanted Izuku patted Iida, who had just seen his meticulous work undone and seemed kinda depressed about it, on the back. 

Opposite of them, Tsuyu started up a conversation with Uraraka in a blunt, awkward manner that made Izuku seem subtle and great at conversations. 

"I generally say what's on my mind Ochako-Chan."

"Um… Okay? What is it?"

Tsuyu turned to look directly with a huge, yet also somewhat relaxed grin. 

"Your quirk reminds me of All Might's."

Wow. And Izuku had thought he was blunt. 

Both Izuku and Ven turned their heads towards the pair as Uraraka stuttered in shock. 

"Y-You think so? I mean…" 

Kirishima, sitting to Tsuyu's left, butted in. 

Hold up Tsuyu, All Might doesn't get hurt by his own power though. They're already way different in that. 

Inside his mind, Venom snorted. 

-She's young, she'll grow into it yet.-

Kirishima followed up on his blatant show of inexperience, with praise. 

"But still, that sort of simple strength enhancing quirk is really cool! You can do a lot of awesome stuff with it!"

He got a somewhat sullen expression on his face, as he lifted his arm up, and with a metallic sound, his arm seemed to turn into skin-colored metal. 

"Not like mine at all. "Hardening" is great in a fight, but it's really boring."

"I think it's pretty cool though! It's more than enough to fully go pro."

It was a bland compliment, that didn't actually address any of the things Kirishima didn't like about his quirk. 

Surprisingly, it was Venom who gave some actual advice. 

"Real battle is about efficiency, not flashiness, or pointless shows of Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Yours is a very useful power that should allow you to fuck over most kinds of enemies with ease. Also, by virtue of possessing the mundane power of being bulletproof, it's one of the most useful power sets in this group."

"Ummm… Yeah, that's kinda what I said. It's great for battle but not much else really. Being a pro means you have to worry about popularity too you know? You cant ONLY think about how good you are in a fight."

"Isn't that literarily how the second-ranking Hero of this country rose to such height? By caring only about battle, and solving as many cases as he possibly can, ignoring everything else?" 

"...Touche. But that kinda illustrates my point. Endeavor has one of the flashiest quirks in Japan. Incredibly powerful, but also a surprisingly versatile."

-Fuck, this guy's dense.-

Well, it wasn't wrong, but frankly, Izuku agreed with Venom. Todoroki Enji had not risen to the second rank because he was charismatic or flashy. He had risen to the top 2 by being better than almost all the rest. 

That wouldn't have changed if his quirk was less flashy. 

"Speaking of Endeavor, I'd say that the guy with the best mix of flashy and strong quirk in class would be Todoroki… And maybe Bakugou."

Before either Izuku, Venom, and surprisingly enough Shoto(Who had suddenly taken an interest in their conversation) could interject, Tsuyu gave another of her blunt statements.

"Bakugou's so unhinged though, He'll never get popular."

"YOU WANNA FIGHT FROGFACE?!" Katsuki barked as he jumped up from his seat, hand on the railing as he leaned menacingly over it. Or tried to. The effect, along with his hair had him look more like a chihuahua barking over a fence. 

Izuku blinked. Had… Had Katsuki always looked so non-threatening? 

"See?" Tsuyu said, nonchalantly pointing at Katsuki without even looking at him. 

Venom was chuckling at Katsuki's outburst, but it was what happened next that got him really cackling. Namely, Kaminari Denki decided to make some sport of the easy target that was Bakugou leaning on the railing above them. 

"It's only been a brief while since our socialization was has commenced, and yet apodictically cognizant of your personality, redolent as it is of a turd, getting steamed in a sewer."

"YEAH, OK MR VOCABULARY, HOW ABOUT I FIGHT YOU INSTEAD!" 

"Enough."

Aizawa, who had been napping during the trip finally bestirred himself to shut down the argument with a glare of shining crimson. 

Everyone quieted down before Aizawa added "Also, we're here, everyone look sharp now okay…"

That last part could have sounded inspirational, but coming from Aizawa, it was as unenthusiastic as everything else he said. 

---

The "here" He was referring to turned out to be a giant park. The whole, thing looked like an enormous theme park, or at least it would have if not for the fact one of the zones was at fire, and another two zones seemed like all the buildings in them had collapsed. 

Venom's, and to a lesser extend Izuku's eyes and attention was instantly drawn to the fire zone. As everyone was standing just looking at it and marveling, their eyes were glued to the dancing flames. 

-We take it back. This is going to fucking suck.-

---

The third teacher turned out to be a woman, though the only way one could know that was if one were familiar with her already. 

She was dressed in an attire that could best be described as a mix between an astronaut spacesuit, a poncho, and a down jacket. On her head was a giant black dome with only two large white eyes showing anything of her face. 

"It's the space hero 13! She's a famous hero who does all her best work in rescue work!" 

Izuku was about to go on in his regular way of just listing up everything he knew about said Villain but was interrupted by Uraraka, who similarly squeed in delight at the prospect of meeting 13.

"Oh my gosh, it's actually 13! I can't believe it!" 

Uraraka beamed looking at the space hero, in a way that Izuku was pretty sure was how he had looked when All Might had first walked into their classroom. It was a look of pure, untainted admiration. It seemed Uraraka was a big fan. 

13 was about to introduce herself when Aizawa interjected and walked up to her. 

"Wait, where's All Might?"

In response, 13 waved him over until they were right up against each other, and she answered in a very hushed, quiet tone. 

Izuku, hypersensitive to sounds as he was, didn't have too many problems listening in on the conversation even though he wasn't trying. 

"Well?" 

"About that sempai… It seems he reached his limit during his morning commute. He's currently resting in the break room."

Izuku froze. Limit? 

-It would seem All Might is limited to how much he can operate at the moment. Well, isn't that interesting.-

Izuku, still in shock, didn't answer. This… This little piece of information completely changed what he thought he knew about All Might at the moment. 

All Might had a freaking time limit for how much he could operate? That… That completely recontextualized why he was here teaching. Izuku had merely thought he was here to teach his own child, to make sure she reached the heights he himself did… And he was, just not in the way Izuku had first thought. 

If… If ALL Might was so injured he had a limit for how much he could operate… 

He was interrupted in his train of thoughts by 13, who had turned to the class and begun talking. Izuku actually missed her opening, so in-depth was he considering the new question, before he realized his teacher was saying something. 

"-of you are aware… My quirk is called Black hole. As you can probably guess from that name, it can suck in and tear apart anything."

-Wow. An actual power that could be used to end all life on this planet, color us impressed.-

13's continuation wasn't that far from Venom's assessment. 

"It is remarkably useful in disaster work, and capture. However… It is also a power that can kill Incredibly easily."

She gave a look from left to right looking over all of them. It was hard to read her expression, but as she continued, her voice became more somber. 

"I'm certain there are many of you who are similar. With powers that can easily take others lives, even without intention. In our super-powered society, the use of quirks is heavily restricted and monitored. It may seem like this system of ours, is a stable one."

" But, we must never forget that it only takes one wrong move for someone with an uncontrollable quirk to kill someone, intent be damned."

Yeah… That wasn't wrong at all. It was an aspect of superhero work that was generally not discussed much(At least not in Japan, certain other countries had much bigger problems with it) but cases where heroes accidentally caused a death, or intentionally killed someone in self defense or protecting others happened. 

Being a hero didn't give you permission to kill, but when you there thousands upon thousands of super-powered people together, sometimes, the worst happened. 

One of the few cases his mom had done which Izuku remembered clearly from his childhood, was a case where a hero's protective shield had ricocheted bullets and killed 4 criminal gunmen. 

He had been cleared and found non-guilty, as it was clearly self-defense, but even that open and shut case had still gone to court. 

As it should. They did not live in a world where heroes should be allowed the authority to murder people. 

"During Aizawa's physical fitness test.. You were taught to learn about your hidden potential."

"During All Might's battle training… You experienced the danger that your powers pose to others."

"This class… Will teach you a new perspective! Here, you will learn how to. Utilize your powers to help people, and save lives."

Izuku smiled at her words, as this was precisely why he wanted this class. THIS, was why he wanted to be a hero. 

His bright spirit, and smile withered with her next line. 

"Your powers are neither Made, nor Meant to inflict harm on others. I hope you leave here today with the understanding that you're made to help people."

As 13 finished her speech and got some applause(From Uraraka who seemed to really love the hero, and from the always prim and proper Iida.) Izuku felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. 

It was a good speech, one that encapsulated everything Izuku himself felt about hero work… But it was also wrong in one point, at least regard to Izuku himself. 

His powers WAS both Made, and Meant to hurt people. Memories flashed through his head, memories of Venom explaining the origin of his race, and the being that had created them for conquest across the stars. 

However he used these powers Venom gave him, he was different than his classmates, who had all been born with their powers. Natural, and blameless. No blood rested on the origin of their powers. Very much unlike Venom. 

He was still trying to bury, and/or deal with his overall thoughts on the less… Savory parts of Venom's history, when 3 things happened. 

The first was that suddenly, and without warning, he could feel the presence from yesterday. The man who HATED. 

The second was that almost against his own will, his body forcibly snapped around to face the new threat, instinctually falling into a combat stance Izuku had never used. 

And thirdly and finally, was that there, down a set of stairs in the plaza that was between all the zones. Several dozen black and purple portals appeared as dozens of people walked through them. 

Villains was Izuku's first thought. 

Panic was the second. The same feelings that had taken over him in the forest, less than a week ago, yet now seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago. Fear, panic, and doubt shot through Izuku's mind. But there was also a surge of adrenaline, a readiness for battle like he had felt before he and Katsuki had come to blows. 

The men and women who stepped out through the portals were a ragtag bunch, but almost all looked pretty threatening, some with gun, or knife, or other weapons-related quirks, some mutations, whether animal or more random ones. 

Two stood out amongst the group though. 

A huge man dressed only in a set of ripped pants, with blackish, purple skin, crisscrossed with red veins. His muscles were such they rivaled All Might himself, in how ripped he looked, but the most notable features he had was his head, with a huge, metal-encased beak full of jagged teeth, and on his head, in one of the most grotesque things Izuku had ever seen in his life, was his brain, exposed with no skull or skin, pumping and pulsing. 

The one who stole Izuku's attention, however, was the man. The one who hated. His eyes locked out to him, and Izuku froze. 

-That's the guy? THAT'S the source of this hatred?-

He looked absolutely ridiculous. 

Tall, with matted white hair, the guy was dressed in a black shirt and pants that looked like they were someone's pajamas. But the ridiculousness didn't stop there. 

Around his arms, neck, shoulders, and head, he wore detached hands that were holding on to him. It could have looked somewhat creepy, but several of them have silly, red cables connecting them, and one of them was over the front of his head, covering his face and looking absolutely ridiculous. 

Finally, as if encapsulating the narmy look, he wore basic standard, worn red sneakers, and was hunched over as he walked. 

The look basically could all be summed up in one word. 

-Fucking HELL he looks stupid!-

… A bit more crass than Izuku would have put it, but yeah, he looked really, really stupid. 

Right now though, there was something more pressing about the man in question. 

"Aizawa Sensei! That's the guy from the alarm incident! The guy in the pajamas!" 

Several students, who hadn't quite resales what was going on, or even realized something was wrong, all turned to look at who Izuku was yelling about. 

Aizawa though wasn't forthcoming with an explanation. 

"13, PROTECT THE STUDENTS!" He yelled in a panicked, hoarse voice like he wasn't used to actually speaking loudly. 

"The heck are those?" Kirishima asked, looking down on the invading group. "More robots?" 

"DON'T MOVE, THOSE ARE VILLAINS!" 

"Yeah, that's pretty fucking obvious man. They're here to kill us most likely. Or try to anyway" Immediately after finishing, he fused his head around Izuku's. 

His voice was nonchalant as if being attacked by a sudden dozen Villains who wanted to murder them was just a regular occurrence to be taken in stride. 

Those words didn't exactly bring calmness to the rest of the class, but before any true panicked reactions could be had, the source of the misty black portals made itself known, as a head made of the stuff suddenly materialized itself in the air, overlooking them, it's eyes like yellow, burning slits with yellow energy trailing behind them. 

"13 and eraser head is it?" As his eyes narrowed, Izuku felt his eyes scanning him, and the rest of the class. 

"According to the staff schedule I got the other day, All Might was supposed to be here… Yet he is not."

The pajamas guy didn't take the news well. 

"Where is he…? We came all this way… brought so many playmates…. All Might… The symbol of peace… Isn't here?" 

The guy's head shot back up, and his entire spine went up, and rigid, like he was a pole. 

"I wonder if some dead kids will bring him here?" 

It was… Interesting to be able to feel him as he changed his mind. 

Seconds before there was nothing more than hatred, a burning loathing of everything around him. 

Then like a switch, his emotions turned to something else. A feeling Izuku hadn't felt before, yet instinctually, he somehow knew what it was. Killer Intent. But not focused, on anyone, or anything. Just kinda… There. 

Izuku should have felt horrified by his words… Yet he didn't. At all. There was no conviction in them. Despite all this guy's hatred, he just didn't feel anything one would have expected from a guy who just proclaimed he wanted to murder kids. Murder him, Izuku realized. 

He should have felt threatened the same way he felt from the rest of these guys. But he just wasn't. At all. 

He was like a child throwing a tantrum. 

By his side, Kaminari stepped up and looked down upon, the congregation of Villains. Unlike Izuku, he was obviously shaken by Shigaraki's words. He shook in fear, and his eyes scanned the Villains as if looking for someone or something. Most likely he was trying to figure out exactly how many there were. 

He was afraid. Scared. Terrified. 

Izuku put his hand on his shoulder. He tried to think up something positive to say to calm him, but before he could, Kaminari, seemingly snapped out of his fear by Izuku's hand, suddenly stopped shaking. 

His look changed from fear to resigned. 

"We'll just have to fight then…" The blonde boy grit his teeth and clenched his hands into fists, as he looked down on the Villains, who now seemed to be considering their next move. 

"Ain't happening." Aizawa said in a tone that would broker no argument. 

"13! Get the students out, and try calling the school! One of these Villains must be jamming the sensors, it's a large chance that one of them is an electric type causing a disturbance preventing the signal!" 

"Kaminari! When you get outside, try using your quirk to signal for help!" 

"Uh, Right, GOT IT!" Kaminari responded. 

Aizawa then stepped up to the edge of the stairways, obviously preparing to fight. Fear for what might happen to Aizawa suddenly shot through Izuku's mind. 

"Wait, sensei, you can't fight all of them alone! Against that many, not even you can nullify, ALL of their quirks. Not to mention your battle style is Erasure and capture, head-on battle isn't your-" 

Aizawa cut him off. 

"No good hero is a one-trick pony."

Then, before he attacked he gave one final line. "13, take care of the students."

Then, with a short burst of running, he jumped down the stairs towards the plaza. 

---

Aizawa did remarkably well in his assault. Frankly, though, a better strategy would have been to have the students with ranged capability back him up. 

But as it was, he had decided to make this a one-man show. Oh well. They would need to fight anyhow. The presence of a teleporter made sure of that. 

Still, they had bested teleporter before, even before the final bonding. They would do it again. Maybe break his neck too this time, instead of just knocking this one out. 

---

As the students began their attempt at evacuation, Izuku had to fight an urge, no, a NEED to jump down and back up Aizawa. 

He should FIGHT! He should help Aizawa. Leaving him alone down there, felt so, utterly wrong. 

Those thoughts were interrupted by the teleporter, who suddenly materialized like a huge black sheet of black mist in front of the entrance. 

"I'm sorry to say, but I cannot allow you to leave." The darkness said in a polite voice. 

"Allow me to introduce ourselves. We are the league of Villains. Forgive our audacity, but… Today, we came here to Yuei, highschool of heroism… To end the life of All Might, the Symbol of peace…"

Izuku froze. This guy… Unlike the hands guy, this guy was the real deal. An actual killer in mind and soul. Izuku could feel it from him. Conviction, steadfastness, a total disregard for them, and their lives. This guy would kill them if he could. 

He would kill All Might. 

Not happening. 

"We were under the impress-" He was cut off as two figures launched themselves forward, and punched him in the face and gut… Or at least where his face and gut had been. 

Izuku's fist hit him straight where his head had been, but it simply went through his mist, as the man dematerialized into mist and reappeared a bit in front of them, outside their immediate reach. 

Izuku didn't turn to look at the other person, but a flash of pink in the corner of his vision told him it was Ashido Mina. 

"That was close." The mist guy said as if he hadn't almost had his lights knocked out. 

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes… Students though you may be, you are indeed the best caliber."

"BEGONE."

Without warning, and so fast that Izuku didn't even have time to react, black mist surged forward, and around them. 

Izuku could feel a hand close around his arm, and rip him backward and off his feet, away from the mist at incredible speed, but it wasn't enough. 

The mist engulfed, him and the owner of the hand completely in a maelstrom of black mist, even as they moved backward. 

---

For what seemed like far, far longer than it probably was, Izuku floated through a void, the only thing he could feel for sure was the arm, that still firmly held unto his arm. 

Suddenly, and without warning, light returned, and they were back in the world of the living. 

Izuku immediately notice two things. The first was that he was falling. The second, that he was maybe 6 meters above ground, or rather a rooftop. And the third, was that below, there were 5 people, all of whom had what, with a shock, he realized was machine guns. 

They were waiting for them to hit the ground to riddle them with bullets. 

The shock almost overwhelmed him, but instincts, his innate will to survive, took over. 

The arm that wasn't clamped down on, shot up and a line of black web hit the ground by the feet of one of the guys. 

Then, with a PULL, Izuku changed their direction and instead of landing in the middle of the five, Izuku instead slammed into the unfortunate Villain. 

The hand let go as they hit the guy, and Izuku heard someone kick off from the ground beside him. 

-KEEP MOVING, DON'T STOP!-

He did so, and rather than turning around, he jumped sideways. 

Seconds later, a small hail of bullets flew into the spot where his body had just been, and over the unfortunate guy, Izuku had slammed into. 

The sound from the explosion of each bullet was a ping of pain in Izuku's head, but he ignored it. 

As he flew, Izuku turned midair to get a look at his assailants. The sight that greeted him was Mina ashido having moved so that she was between three of the gunmen and a final fourth one, who she was in the process of attacking having apparently ripped his machine gun out of his hand and tossed it over the edge of the building. 

One gunman had trained his weapon at Mina and the guy she was tangling with, but he hesitated at the prospect of shooting and possibly hitting his buddy. 

The other two were attempting to reload, having used both their clips trying to kill him. 

Izuku didn't need to consider who to attack first. A black webline slammed into the gun of the hesitating gunman, and with enormous strength, it was wrenched out of his hands and went sky-high. The man screamed in pain, probably having broken his index finger. 

Izuku ignored it, and instead, two new black lines slammed into the ground where the two men who were reloading were standing. 

Izuku hit the ground right in front of them, and his hands shot up and closed around the guns, and with two " crunch " he broke both of them in his grips. 

Izuku had made one mistake, however. He assumed the guy he had just disarmed was without a method of attack. 

A giant fist of water slammed into Izuku from the side, sending him flying through the air and over the edge of the building. 

His hand wrenched up, and a line attached itself to the side of the building, and instead of just falling, he slammed into the side of the structure. 

He did not stop to catch his breath though, instead, he forced himself to climb back up, ignoring any pain of just having been hit by the water. 

He vaulted over the edge. 

What greeted him was the sight of the water fist guy lying on the ground and clutching his side, where Mina had just punched him, having already dealt with the guy she had been tangling with. The two other villains were running to help him, but stopped and turned towards him, as he came up over the side. 

For a moment, it was a moment of calm as they just stood there staring at each other. 

Then, with a glance at the other, both nodded, and they split up, one went towards Izuku, while the other went towards Mina. 

The man who went towards Izuku changed, his suit, which Izuku only now realized was an army uniform with bulletproof armor, was shredded as he transformed, becoming larger and bigger, his muscles bulging, becoming a mountain of a man. 

With a roar, he jumped forward, and lifting his hands over his head, he slammed them down on Izuku, who, panicked, brought his arms up to block. 

The force… wasn't all that impressive actually. Izuku blinked, as the man recoiled, seemingly in pain, then after planting his feet brought his hand forward in a massive punch. 

Izuku stopped it dead in it's tracks with an open palm, simply catching it midair

He then grabbed the arm, and threw him over his shoulder straight down into the rooftop, cracking the stone. The large man grunted in pain but was quickly silenced, as Izuku brought his hand down and punched him in the face, the man going out with a single blow. 

For a few seconds, he just stared at the guy who went down so easily. 

Then, the sound of battle shook him back to reality, and he snapped around towards Mina… Who also was finishing up her fight, the other guy lying on the ground having taken a power blow to the head. 

"You okay Midori?" She asked in a worried tone as she jogged up to him. 

Midori?

"Yea-yeah I'm fine… You?" 

She grinned. "No injuries here. I was worried about you though when you flew over the edge."

She smiled at him. "You know to handle yourself in a fight, you been in many?" 

"Not… Really?" 

"Huh. Well, you did great anyway."

Apparently catching something on the ground, she bent down and picked something up. One of the Villains guns. 

"Uzi's." She exclaimed. "That's… Not really a good sign."

He would take her word for it. He didn't really know gun types enough to call it something other than a machine gun. 

"So… What do we do now? We can't just leave these guys loose, then move on." 

Izuku blinked. Then he realized that he wasn't done here, and hastily begun to go and web up every single one of the Villains. 

As he walked from Villain to Villain, Mina kept talking. 

"Who are these guys anyway? They can't seriously think they could beat All Might could they?" 

Izuku went cold. Time limit. All Might had a time limit. 

"You… You remember that commotion with the news reporters yesterday?" 

"Yeah? Oh right, you said something about that earlier."

"Yeah… Those guys used that commotion as a distraction to break into Yuei… Probably to look at the schedules. They knew All Might would be here."

They knew about his time limit and planned to attack him while he was vulnerable. 

"I… I don't know about the hands guy… But… The teleporting guy, of black mists? He didn't strike me as the kind of guy who would have gone through with this plan if he didn't think it could succeed. These guys probably think they could theoretically kill All Might."

"But… He isn't even here."

"Yeah…" He went even colder. "But killing All Might isn't all they're after here. They… They separated us. They had this whole thing planned out, and divided us up so we would be easier to deal with."

"They want to kill us. That's the second part of the plan." As she talked, Mina had lost all her cheerfulness, the normally preppy girl suddenly having turned really melancholic. 

She wasn't wrong though. 

"Yes."

A silence followed as Izuku finished up webbing the gunmen. He bent down over the final Villain, the water fist guy, and with a shock, and a wave of disgust at himself, he realized he hadn't just broken his index finger, he had ripped it clean off when he yanked the gun out of his hand. 

He had broken the leg of the guy he had landed on, but somehow seeing the blood flowing from where the finger had been, made it really sink in for Izuku. 

These guys wanted to kill them. This was a life and death battle. 

And all their classmates were in similar bouts. 

"We have to go save our classmates. All of them are in similar boats to us."

A horrible thought went through his mind, and his hand went down and grasped the water guy by the bulletproof jacket. His webbing formed a seal around his hands as well and closed up the wound. 

He then hoisted the webbed up man up, holding him upwards. 

"Do all of y ou have guns?" he said in a dark tone, Venom's darker version of his own voice bleeding into it. 

The man looked down on him, anger, and hatred in his eyes. Izuku grit his teeth in a snarl.

Fear went into the man's eyes. "I don't understand you!" He said in English. 

What? Oh, right. His gaze turned to the group. Now that he got a look at them, none of them seemed to be Japanese. Probably American, or European. 

"Do all of you have guns?" he asked again, this time in English. 

The man hesitated for a moment, then, looking into Izuku's white eyes, he answered. 

"Our entire group does. The japs don't."

"The Japs?" Mina said in a very angry tone like he had just horribly insulted her personally. 

The guy, seemingly thinking she was asking for clarification answered. 

"We were hired to do this job. All for One gave the Big Man, 30 million if we helped him out with this project. Our group is here, while the rest of the people here are Japs from his own group."

Izuku and Mina just stared at him. 

"All for One? Seriously? THAT All for One?" 

"Yeah, that guy."

All for One. All for One himself. The most notorious Japanese Villain in history was the brain behind this operation. 

That seemed…. Well, It made things far more complicated. 

"... If All for One was behind this, WHY isn't he here?" 

"How should I know? I'm not a fucking officer. I just do as I'm told."

Izuku was about to continue when Venom suddenly shot a warning through his head. 

-BEHIND YOU!- 

Izuku, still holding the water guy snapped around, as out of the air, on the opposite edge of the roof, a new figure materialized out of thin air in a flash of purple light. 

A very familiar figure. 

The newcomer was a woman in dressed in the same military uniform as the rest, bulletproof west as well, the only difference being it was a navy blue color instead of bry and green. In her hand, she held a regular gun, though it wasn't pointed upwards at any of them. 

She had long black hair, and though she had natural light skin, she obviously had a tan that had darkened. 

Izuku recognized her immediately. The teleporting lady from the forest. 

For a second, they just stared at each other. Then she groaned in an exasperated manner. 

"Seriously, Morris? You guys couldn't handle a couple of kids literarily just out of middle school?" 

Water guy, now identified as Morris, stiffened, then replied. "Sorry Tel." 

"Fucking Yankees…"

She shook her head. Then she turned her face to Mina. 

"Ah… Black Cat's brat eh? That explains a lot."

Then her eyes went to Izuku. 

"And you are…?" 

He stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment. 

"Why… Why, would I tell you that?" 

"Well, it's called proper manners kid. Or maybe your mom never taught it to you. Anyway, i-" 

She stopped dead in her tracks. 

"That liquid…"

Oh shit. 

Her face went from annoyed, to pissed in a second. 

"It's you ! You're that asshole who broke both my finger and my jaw!!!" 

"He did?" Mina asked incredulously. "Why? Who are you anyway?" 

"I'll explain later," Izuku said quickly. Now was NOT the time to go into what had happened in the forest. 

Now they had to deal with this lady. 

He dropped Morris to the ground and assumed a combat stance. To his left Mina did the same. 

"Tel" Did not move to attack them. Not that she needed to, being a teleporter and all. Doubtlessly, she would be relying on that for this fight. 

Then, she disappeared into a flash of purple light. 

Izuku tensed, assuming she would reappear somewhere nearby and attack, but she didn't. 

-She left- Venom confirmed. - She's not around here anymore.-

"Did… Did she run away?" Mina asked in a baffled tone. 

The answer, appeared in front of them, roughly 20 seconds after she left, as she reappeared once more. 

But not alone. 

Along with her, she had brought two guys.

One of them was dressed in a ridiculous yellow outfit, with a cross pattern over it. There was some red parts, as well as some steel sections on his outfit. Two gauntlets around his hands, in particular, standing out. Over his eyes, he had a large green visor. 

All in all, he looked like a giant, yellow quilt. 

Izuku had no idea who he was. 

The other guy though. 

"Oh shit…" Mina swore. 

"Izuku, that's…" "I know, he replied in a tone far more squeaky than he'd have liked. 

The man was Enormous. Grey, thick hide like plates covered him from head to toe in place of skin. On his head, two horns, one in front of the other, with the front one being much, much larger. 

The only piece of cloth or equipment he wore, was a ripped and tatted set of baggy jeans around his groin and upper legs.

He could have looked comical… To anyone who didn't know who he was anyway. 

"Thanks for helping me out here Rhino. You're really doing me a solid, here." Tel said in a cheerful tone while shooting daggers at Izuku. 

"No problem Tel, I'm ALWAYS happy to help out my fellow Liberators." The monster replied cheerfully. 

The man was Alexander O'Hirn. Better known as the Rhino. An American, man with a death count in the tens of thousands. He was one of the most notorious criminals alive. A monster who had crushed countless heroes into the ground over the course of a criminal career spanning only a single year. 

Tel grinned. "Have fun you two." She gave a wave to Izuku and Mina before she teleported out. 

Chapter Text

As Tel teleported out and left Izuku, Mina, and Venom alone with Rhino and the yellow guy, a silence arose, as the two sides just stared at each other. 

Izuku and Mina were both incredibly tense, and on guard, both of them staring with complete scrutiny at the other duo, awaiting some attack or charge. 

On the opposite end, maybe 7-9 meters away on the other side of the roof, Rhino and His buddy seemed far calmer, collected, and at ease. 

It was Venom who broke the silence. 

"So, who is this exactly?" 

On instinct, Izuku almost went into a tangent laying out all he knew of Rhino and his history. 

For once though, he bit the answer down. This wasn't the time to stand around like a moron and give a long-winded tangent. 

Rhino apparently felt differently. 

"Oh, of course, how rude of me! We haven't introduced ourselves yet. Allow me, to rectify this error."

He lifted his hand up nonchalantly like he was an enthusiastic teacher motioning as he explained some problem or something before his class. 

"I'm The Rhino. And don't forget the "The" part of it. There are plenty of rhino themed guys in the world. But there's only one of me."

Well… That was true enough. 

The Rhino grinned, then he struck a bodybuilder pose as he continued. 

"My quirk is RHINO! Letting me do anything a rhino can do! Like tank sniper shots to the head! Or shatter a street beneath my blows! Or survive explosions! Or-" "They get the point." His companion interrupted his rather inaccurate, and inane comparisons. 

"Right! And THIS is my good buddy shocker! He is a cripple! A genetic throwback to an earlier age, where humanity as a whole was weak and puny! A quirkless man with no abilities beyond that of the old human race!" 

Izuku, for the first time in The Rhino's ramblings, was genuinely thrown off guard. The shock of learning this guy was quirkless, almost overshadowed the very personal sting of the comically ableist way Rhino described quirk less people. 

If shocker took any offense to being described like this, he didn't show it. Instead, he kept his eyes on firmly on Izuku and Mina, obviously expecting an attack of some kind. 

"Wait, he's quirkless?" Mina interrupted in a surprised tone. "Then… What's with the costume?" 

"Ah, yes! Good question pink girl. Unlike the rest of his kind, he did not contend to simply wallow in powerless obscurity, or rage, rage against the establishment who put those like him down, and passively resents them. NO! He instead created his SHOCKER technology!"

The Two teenagers and the Alien stared at him. 

"Truly, the most eloquent of naming schemes we have here. Let me guess. It shocks people with bolts of lightning."

"Nope, it produces explosions with compressed burst of Air."

Venom sputtered, before replying in an angry voice. 

"Then why is he called Shocker?! He isn't shocking people at all! That name makes no goddamn sense!" 

Shocker surprisingly agreed. 

"Aye… Tha higher-ups decided on it." He shrugged his shoulders. "Personally ah, wanted to be Soundwave, but tha higher-ups told me to get bent when Ah suggested it."

"It is what it is."

His voice turned darker, as he raised one of his hands up, and pointed it towards Izuku and Mina. 

"Now… Let's get this show on Tha road."

Izuku and Mina were both about to move when Rhino interjected. 

"Wait, Shocker, we can't start yet, they haven't introduced themselves yet! We can't start before Introductions are over."

Izuku and Mina just stared at him incredulously, while Shocker groaned. 

"Is this guy for real?" Venom asked in a tone like he couldn't believe the stupidity of this guy. 

"Unfortunately." Morris replied from the roof floor. Izuku had honestly kinda forgotten he was there. 

"Oh, hi Morris!" Rhino replied cheerfully, seemingly having just noticed him. 

"You okay buddy?" 

"I've got several broken ribs." He winced. "So it could have been better. 

"Ah, can't believe you lot got beaten up by Middle schoolers." Shocker shook his head. "Christ that's-" 

Mina made her move. 

So quickly, that Izuku, even with his enhanced reflexes had trouble keeping up, Mina darted to Izuku's side, spun him around as she grabbed his hand, and pulled him along as she sprinted towards the roof edge. 

"WEB!" She screamed at him as they ran. 

Then, faster than Izuku would have believed, they were at the edge of the roof. Without even a hint of hesitation, she jumped off the edge, dragging Izuku along after her. 

Panic set in inside Izuku's mind, as gravity took hold. 

For a small eternity, the ground came up, unavoidably and unstoppable. 

Then, by instinct, his hand shot upwards to the side and a black line sprung forth and attached itself to the top of one of the buildings on the other side. 

Almost instantly, the momentum of their fall was veered sharply sideways, as they began going downwards in a pendulum arc like they were swinging on a vine. As Mina's hand gripped tightly around his own, in a grip like iron the entire way down. 

Then without warning, as they began reached the lowest point of the arc, Izuku's arm, and the liquid encasing it, was hit by an explosion of pain! 

Izuku and Venom both screamed out in agony as the line keeping them up suddenly burst into countless black pieces of liquid. 

Thankfully, they slammed into the ground at a sideways angle, sending the duo rolling from the momentum, rather than just slamming into the ground. 

Which was good, because suddenly, all around them the ground burst to pieces, as invisible explosions hit all around, sending pieces of rock flying. 

Mina had also entered into a roll as they hit the ground, but unlike Izuku's it was a much more controlled affair, and at the end, she jumped right back unto her feet, in a flash of pink and black. 

Izuku forced himself to his feet, pushing himself up, as bangs of pain echoed through his body with every single explosion all around him. 

His hand didn't show any external signs of injury, other than the liquid that should have covered it having seemingly disintegrated, but to Izuku it felt like it had been literarily run over by a car. 

Fucking hell it hurt. 

"YOU OKAY MIDORI?!" Mina screamed over the sound of explosion all around. 

Then she yelped in pain as a piece of Rocky shrapnel hit her in the head. 

She didn't fall over, thank God! But the red that suddenly dyed her pink hair, was probably not a good thing. 

-FUCK THIS SHIT!-

Izuku's arm, shot around, completely unprompted, as his entire body turned around, facing the rooftop they had just jumped off from. 

-THERE!-

Izuku saw what he was aiming for. A figure in yellow on the rooftop. 

He instinctually moved his hand to aim, and on an internal command, a line of black goo shot from the white piece on his hand, much MUCH thicker than the webline he had used to anchor them to the roof. 

He couldn't hear it, but he both saw and felt his surprise as the man was hit by a black mass hitting him straight in the chest that sent him flying, and burst out at the point of impact to engulf him in a huge black mass. 

For a second he just stood there, crouched, panting as the adrenaline still pumped through his body, the pain in his hand beginning to fade as the black liquid once more flowed forward to engulf it. 

Then reality hit him again, as he remembered Mina was wounded, and he spun around. 

"You okay!?" 

"Yea-yeah." Mina answered though she winced as she said it, one hand over the spot where the blood came from. 

"It's just a cut."

Oh, thank God! Izuku thought immediately. If it had been a hole… 

He quickly got to his feet and walked over to her. 

"Venom, can you help her?" 

The Black mass around his head detached itself once more and formed a head. 

"We can close the wound and stop the bleeding, Aye! Healing it is another story. We can only heal you."

He bit his lip. 

"It'll have to do."

He reached forward his hand to Mina's wound, and though she flinched at his touch, she did lower the bloodstained hand and allow his black hand to touch the wound. 

Suddenly, making both of them jump in startled surprise, a massive crash sounded, as something slammed into the road not too far from them. 

Both their heads and attention snapped towards the origin of the sound. 

Rising up from a small crater was Rhino still with a huge grin on his face. 

"So, you kids want to just skip Introductions and instead jump straight into tangling with the American Elite eh? Okay, I'll oblige you."

As Izuku and Mina just stared for a second in shock, a piece of black liquid detached itself from Izuku's hand, and jumped over to Mina's head, closing around the wound and stopping the bleeding. 

Then, Rhino lifted his hands, up and backwards in preparations of slamming them down forwards.

Izuku and Mina both realized what was about to happen, and both of them jumped sideways away from the center of the road. 

With a massive crash of Sound, Rhino slammed his hands down into the road in a ground pound, looking like more like Stan Lee's Hulk than anything else, a comparison only reinforced by his only piece of clothing. 

The road, BROKE in half like it had just been cleaved with a giant knife, smaller rocks flying everywhere, and pipes filled with steam bursting up from the ground. 

Izuku landed on a wall, clinging to it, whereas Mina landed on the sidewalk. 

Both the two teenagers gaped in shock an horror at the titanic display of strength. 

-Huh. Yeah, that's not good. Not good at all.-

Rhino for his part laughed… Only to yelp as the ground collapsed under him, and he fell into whatever was below the streets here. 

6 seconds later though, he burst straight up again and landed on the road, covered in dust and dirt, both moist and dry.

"Just like a dugtrio…"

Then he turned to face the two teenagers while wiping away dirt from his face. For about 10 seconds, they just stared at each other, both of the younger heroes tense as steel cables. Then, suddenly and with a speed that did not seem to fit his enormous frame, Rhino gripped a large piece of stone, roughly as large as a car, and hurled it at Izuku. 

He jumped in a burst that would have made any jumping spider proud, the rock crashing into the spot where he had just been. 

Izuku landed right by where Mina was, but he didn't turn to face her. Instead, two black lines shot up to where the rock was now embedded in the wall and fastened themselves to it. 

With a scream, Izuku put all his weight into a massive pull, wrenching the stone out of the wall and towards Rhino, hitting him straight on, and with a mighty sound, it exploded into a cluster of shattered rocks and dust. 

Izuku and Mina did not stop and wait until the dust cleared though, instead they began running in the opposite direction away from where Rhino was. 

As they ran, Mina began shooting some Grey liquid out of her hands, covering the street behind them as they ran. 

"What is that?" Izuku called out. 

"Acid!" The pink girl exclaimed. 

Another combined quirk? It seemed like Izuku was the only top student in class who wasn't one. Which made sense, combination quirks were generally the most powerful ones on average and- 

-The yellow guy broke out of the web by the way. Just thought you'd like to know.-

Great.

"Shocker broke out of the web!" He exclaimed. 

Mina swore. Then she swore even harder, as the sound of Pursuit came from behind. 

Izuku glanced over his shoulder and only now realized two things. 

The first was just how much Acid Mina had produced behind them. Maybe 10-20 cm layer on top of the street floor behind them. 

The second was that Rhino was completely unfazed by it, as he ran through the liquid without any care in the world. 

Mina immediately stopped producing acid, and instead just turned to run at full speed alongside Izuku. 

She was fast, Faster than Izuku. Unfortunately, as Izuku could feel without looking backwards, Rhino was faster than both of them, as he began to pick up speed behind them at a truly astonishing rate. 

At least in a straight charge. 

As they reached the end of the road, the two of them quickly changed direction right. Rhino instead seemingly couldn't change direction on the fly and just crashed into the building. 

Rhino seemingly hit a load-bearing pillar(Or a dozen, because the entire building, as massive as the one Izuku had fought Uraraka in, collapsed in an enormous, cacophony of sound, as the building caved in on itself on top of Rhino. 

The whole thing took over 30 seconds or so. 

Izuku and Mina, having gone a bit further, before stopping to look, took in the sight of the entire thing caving in on itself. 

-Think he's dead?- 

"No." Izuku answered. 

If Rhino could have been killed by that, he wouldn't have been half as Infamous as he was. 

As if in response to that, Rhino burst out of the rubble, seemingly none the worse for wear, other than the copious amounts of dust on him. 

At his side, Mina created a ball of sickly green, slimy Acid, but once it was finished she seemingly hesitated in throwing it. 

It wasn't before Rhino finally turned, having cleaned his face, that she made the choice to throw the ball. 

More specifically, she threw it straight at one of his feet. Engulfing it completely in the green goo…. And Rhino simply stepped out of it none the worse for wear. 

The stone beneath disintegrated, in smoke. 

"Holy shit…"

"NOTHING goes through my skin Pink girl! Not fire, not acid, nothing. Well, except for electricity anyway. That goes straight through it no problem."

He paused his steps towards them, a horrified expression flashing over his face. 

"You two don't have hidden electrical powers, do you? Cause that would be really, really bad. For me of course, not for you." 

-Holy shit this guy is stupid.- Venom said inside Izuku's mind. Out loud he said:

"So absolutely nothing goes through that thick, Grey skin of yours? Nothing at all, except electricity?" 

"Yeah, that's right! Absolutely nothing at all."

"What about your face then? It's not covered." Mina asked. 

"Well duh, how would I be able to breathe if it was?" He said in a tone Like Mina had just asked him something incredibly stupid. 

"Mina, can you make the ground slippery? Izuku asked in a tone that hopefully didn't carry far enough that Rhino would hear him." 

Mina tensed but gave a quick nod. 

Alright, showtime. 

Far away, Izuku could feel Shocker reaching the exit of the building they had started this fight on, but he would have to run down an entire street to catch up to them. If he was well fit, that would take him maybe 6 minutes. They had to finish this BEFORE he got here. 

Izuku sprang towards Rhino. 

The Grey titan, proving himself way faster(If about as agile) as his appearance would suggest meet him with a blindingly fast punch. 

It would have sent him flying into the next zone over if it had hit, but Izuku ducked under it, and with some footwork, he darted to the side and behind him, and with a jump, he got maybe 10 meters or away from Rhino. 

As he had hoped, Rhino snapped around to meet him. 

It was at that point, that Mina unleashed a whole bunch of Acid all around Rhino's feet, this one a much lighter shade of Grey than any Acid she had used so far today. 

As Izuku had requested, this acid was apparently very, very slippery, judging by the way Rhino stumbled as he tried to continue pursuing Izuku. 

That was what Izuku had been counting on. 

One webline slammed into Rhino, and with enormous force, he was pulled off his feet and into the air, straight towards Izuku. 

Apparently being taken completely by surprise, he didn't manage to make a countermove as he sailed into the air, straight into Izuku hook. 

It was thrown with the hand who had been hurt so badly earlier, but feeling and strength had returned well enough, other than an underlying, constant pain. 

The punch went straight into Rhino's face and Izuku put EVERYTHING into that punch. The full might of someone who could have lifted a locomotive over his head. 

The blow created a Shockwave that broke the windows of the lowest floor on the nearby building and cracked the ones on the second floor. 

It sent Rhino crashing sideways into a nearby building, and smashing through at least 2 different sets of walls. 

And finally, it broke the first digit on all of Izuku's fingers on his right hand, along with the corresponding knucklebones, except for his thumb. 

"GAAAAARRRGGHH!!!" Izuku screamed in pain, as he cradled his now broken and useless hand. 

As he fell to his knees in shock and pain, Mina worriedly ran up to him and knelt down. 

"You okay Midori?" Izuku groaned in pain. "Yeah… pretty stupid question."

She put her arm around him and helped him back to his feet. 

"We still need to deal with Shocker though, before we can-" 

"Man, that fucking hurt." A loud voice said in a cheerful tone. 

Izuku and Mina both froze, and almost in unison, they turned their heads, to where Rhino was walking out of the hole he had made in the wall. Other than a very prominent black eye, he didn't seem to be any worse for wear. 

"Not bad kid, not bad at all. It's months since someone actually managed to wound me. Congrats." He grinned. 

-Huh. Well, fuck.-

---

Shocker was panting as he reached the end of the road. God damn Tel for not sticking around and helping them. This would have been so much easier if they could have just teleporter during battle, but no, that would have been against policy. 

Damn the league and their stupid rules. They had the largest collection of teleporters in the world, and yet they still were treated like fine Chinese porcelain. 

Keep them out of battle if at all possible. 

So, he had been forced to run down an entire building worth of stairs, then an entire street worth of road. He was totally winded as he reached the end of the road. 

And… He almost smacked into the Rhino as he rounded the corner. 

"Shocker!" The Rhino proclaimed, as a large, gray hand shot out and prevented him from falling. 

"We got problems, buddy! They got away!" 

"What do ya mean they got away? How the hell did ya lose em? 

"Well, the black kid shot his goo into my eyes, and blinded me for a second before i-" 

"Nevermind, ah don't wanna know."

He stepped out into the street and sighed. 

As he began to modify his gauntlets for the task, he glanced over at The Rhino, and noticed his black eye. 

"Fucking hell, they were strong enough ta do that to you?" 

"Yeah, that black marvel of Muscle really Pounded me through that wall."

"...Yeah. I'm sure he did. Anyhow…" 

He finished his modification, and the left gauntlet suddenly began to hum with a sound like periodic mechanical whistling. 

After a second, sounds all around were picked up. The sound of steam beneath, spiders and insects buzzing about in the buildings, and far more faintly and far away the sound of battle. In particularly a loud crash as two doors flew off their handle by the entrance. 

Thousands of sounds, small and large, far, far too many for any human mind to be able to pick up and sort through them. 

Luckily for Shocker, they didn't live during the turn of the Millenia, and a small app he had installed in these gauntlets did what his mind and senses could not. 

The sound of two people breathing was picked up, and over his visor, directions showed up, pinpointing them around 264 meters away. 

"Let's finish this trip and go home to sweet Haiti."

Chapter Text

"You sure you can't climb?" 

Izuku winced at the question, still cradling his broken hand. 

"If he had more experience he could run up walls without using his hands, but we haven't really covered it yet, so no."

Mina nodded, having seemingly accepted the reasoning. Then she put forth her hand and melted the lock on the door to one of the buildings, the two young heroes hurrying in, and quickly, with as little extra sound as possible they began making their way up the stairs towards the roof. 

It would be an obvious tell about where they had gone to regroup if the two saw the door, but frankly, their best shield right now was them not knowing where they had gone in the first place. 

With any luck, the Villains would have to search all the buildings to look for them. That could take half an hour, just checking the doors.

And that was assuming they didn't just do less subtle means. 

Izuku was painfully aware that if Rhino and Shocker decided to just start leveling the buildings in a methodical manner, there was nothing they could do to stop them. 

It wasn't before they reached the top, that both of them finally stopped moving. Mina was breathing hard, while Izuku desperately tried coming up with a plan, ANY kind of plan. 

After a short while, it was Mina who first put the big question forth. 

"What… What do we do now?" 

Izuku opened his mouth. Then closed it again. Then finally got managed to croak forth an answer. 

"I don't know."

A silence arose again, this one awkward, with a hint underlying panic beneath it. 

It was then that Venom formed a head from Izuku's shoulder. 

"Well, at this point, a full retreat seems the most logical option."

His head turned towards the nearest part of the walls of the great dome above them.

"We can make it to the end of this arena, then use Mina's acid and quietly make our way out. Then, it's just a bit of running and jumping back towards the school."

It seemed such a logical suggestion, and a large part of Izuku wanted to agree with him. 

"We can't." He said instead, gritting his teeth through the pain in his hand. 

Both Mina and Venom turned to look at him. 

"Why not? We do not have the weaponry to deal with Rhino, and given his face is almost as indestructible as his body, most likely Mina's Acid won't do much damage against it either. And even if it does, he'll be on guard for attacks against his face now." The symbiote hesitated briefly, before continuing. "Or at least that is what any warrior with any semblance of battle sense would do. Which, granted he might not have."

"If we run away… Then those two are just gonna move on to the next area, and join the battle there. And if we can't beat him, the rest of the class won't be able to either. Unless he's unfortunate enough to run into Uraraka-chan or Kaminari on the first move, he will Kill whoever it is he finds next."

The chances of him running into the gravitation girl or the living battery who seemed to be the only natural counters he had in this class were far, far too low for Izuku to EVER bet lives on it. 

"We can't avoid them forever either. If we just run away and they never see us, they'll sooner or later decide we are not here anymore, and then move on."

It was an awful, awful situation. Mina also seems to agree with him, judging by how worried and stressed she currently looked. 

"So, it's basically like we're Luffy at Enies Lobby, and they're Lucci."

Izuku blinked. Who? 

"Yeah, pretty much." Venom affirmed. "We'll have to fight them, and soon, or they'll go on and murder the rest of the class."

Mina bit her lip, but then suddenly lightened up. 

"Why don't we go get them then? Kaminari and Uraraka I mean! One of us could stay here, and act like a distraction, while the other one goes and find them and bring them back here!" 

Mina sounded so hopeful and back to her usual happy self, that Izuku felt really, really bad about having to kill this plan immediately. There were way too many holes in it. 

"We don't know where either of them are." He winced as he instinctually, and very stupidly, motioned with his hand towards the other zones. 

"They could be anywhere right now. And the absolute worst-case scenario, we'd have to go through every single zone to find them, unless we have the incredible luck to run into them immediately. Sure Venom's ability to sense people would help with the search, but I'd still have to go physically to every single location to scout, given the maximum range of that sensing is…"

He looked questioningly over at the liquid head.

"70 Meters or so from our any piece of our self."

"...Right. Point is we DON'T have that kinda time. Neither of us is capable of stalling Rhino alone for what could take over an hour, not to mention that Shocker will be there for support."

He did not mention his own feelings. Of just how unwilling he was leaving anyone to potentially die, while he ran off to safety. It might have made perfect logical sense, but it was still a concept that made him feel incredibly uneasy. 

Mina's briefly reawakened cheer deflated, as quickly as it came. 

"So what do we do then?" 

Izuku thought. He REALLY thought. Thought harder and with more effort than he had ever done in his life about this problem, and any way, any possible way they could bypass Rhino's skin. 

There was one more weapon he hadn't used yet. But no, even if he had been willing to use it, he'd still have to get it into Rhino's veins. 

OK, what did he know about Rhino's strengths and weaknesses? 

The first thing that came to mind was the one he had admitted himself. 

Electricity. Lightning. But no, that didn't help them much here. Although… 

They were in the ruined building's section of the park, or more accurate, a section full of buildings that hadn't been toppled or submerged underground. 

There were still lights on inside the buildings here, which would mean there had to be electricity of some kind. 

The problem was first to locate it, then how to utilize it. Then whether or not the kind of energy that kept the lights on in this building would be enough to take out Rhino. 

Luring rhino inside a building without toppling it would be a hard enough task, without also having to lure him to he electrical outlet, wherever that was. 

There was also another weakness, one obvious one, that he had deduced himself, but utilizing it was another story. 

His gaze turned to the distant fire zone, where the red glimmer of flames was visible in the distance. 

If he could somehow get Rhino all the way over there, then mayhaps-

Izuku's thoughts were interrupted by a massive, and incredible loud explosive sound from somewhere directly beneath their feet, along with the entire building shaking to it's very foundations. 

Then, the entire building began to collapse sideways. 

Fear instantly gripped Izuku as both him and Mina shot back up to their feet, and began sprinting towards the edge. 

This time though, they didn't manage to jump over it in time, as another massive explosion burst apart another huge chunk of the building beneath them, seemingly making the toppling building literarily crumble into pieces as it fell. 

The ground literarily fell from under them. As the toppling roof broke to pieces. 

Izuku's good hand Instinctually shot towards mina, and a web shot out, and linked the two of them, with a 3-meter long web. 

Then, with a scream through gritted teeth, he pointed his broken hand towards the side of another, still standing building. 

It was at this point that Izuku learned what happened when he shot a webline to swing from, but rather than maneuvering his hand to grab it, he instead let the black suit around the two shooters hold it. 

Namely, that as he suddenly moved in that direction, he felt a sharp, and tight wrench sideways, localized in his hand. 

Normally, it was something he could have dealt with with a bit of discomfort. 

However, with said hand having 4 broken fingers, an unimaginable pain shot down from the broken digits, and he screamed in pain. 

Pain which blinded him, and made him slam directly sideways into the wall he had attached himself to. Further down below, Mina also slammed into the wall, though unlike him she hit feet first, and didn't have the wind knocked out of her. 

Suddenly, Venom disintegrated both the webline holding Mina up and the one who had been holding Izuku himself up. 

Which was good, because the place his body had been just 3 seconds earlier, suddenly burst to pieces as another explosion hit the wall exactly where he had just been. 

The explosion still sent a bang of pain throughout Izuku's body. 

Izuku twisted around in the air and managed to land on his feet, barely missing Mina, who scrambled out of the way, having done the exact same. 

They then leaped out of the way from a wall of Grey that suddenly charged towards where they had fallen. 

Rhino smashed into the wall, and, judging from the sounds, just kept on trucking until he smashed out the other side. 

That the Rhino made himself scarce from the battlefield for a brief moment was very fortunate for the two heroes. For they had enough problems avoiding Shocker's bursts of air, which he was very liberal with as everything burst around them, showering them in small rocks, like hail. 

Then, Mina produced something Izuku hadn't seen her do before, as a wall of Grey goo suddenly formed in front of her, between her and Shocker. 

The wall looked like melting ice cream and wasn't particularly stable. Even without any interference from Shocker, the thing would probably not have lasted too long. 

As it was, an explosion hit right to the side of it, bursting it to pieces, showering the entire battlefield left of where it had stood with acid, and the moment it hit the ground the concrete immediately began to disintegrate into smoke. 

Mayhaps Shocker thought the plan had been to hit him with acid and hadn't hit it straight on. 

That decision had saved Mina from learning whether the shield would have protected her at all. 

Before Shocker could fire off another burst, this time at an entirely unshielded Mina, however, a burst of black web hit his visor straight in, instantly engulfing it and stripping him of sight. 

Instinctually, the quilt padded man began to claw at it, trying to remove it. 

That was a mistake however, as Izuku leaped towards him, and without the man being able to see him, he had no trouble landing a punch to his ribs. 

The fact that his enemy was a quirkless, made Izuku pull his punches, and the blow would have simply cracked his ribs or so, or at least that was Izuku's plan. 

Unfortunately, his enemy was wearing a piece of clothing made to protect him from shrapnel, and the blow didn't do more than knock him backward and knock the wind out of him. 

Izuku wanted to press in, but instead, Venom forced him to duck, as a swing from Rhino came as if from nowhere, and barely missed his head. The grey horned titan had apparently made it back through the building. 

He jumped back to put some distance between himself and Rhino, as the larger man swung again for his head. 

As Izuku landed and got into an awkward stance, half hunched over protecting his broken hand, 2 things happened in quick succession. 

The first was that a ball of Grey liquid hit one of Shocker's gauntlets, instantly making it's holder scream in pain and quickly unhooking the entire device, as the metal melted from the acid. 

The second was that almost immediately afterward, the acid that had just been spread out over the street finished melting their way through the upper floor, and had seemingly hit some pipes, for a huge plume of steam burst into the air, making all 4 of them flinch, and hastily jump away from it. 

Mina and Izuku both did so independently, whole Rhino grabbed Shocker and jumped out of the way of the huge plume of hot water vapor. 

Izuku landed on the wall and instantly yelled down at Mina. Where the vapor had seemingly washed away the piece of Venom that had stuck to her head, making her begin to bleed again. Hopefully, that had been everything it had done. 

"Are you okay Mina?" 

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine!" She yelled back in a tone that made it clear she was in sudden pain again. 

Shit. Shit, shit, shit! 

The hell did they do now? 

His gaze looked from Mina to Shocker and Rhino, where the larger man was helping the smaller one remove the loose pieces of the now destroyed gauntlet. The black goo hadn't left the visor thank God. 

The steam made it hard to see, but thankfully, the steam began to let up, the pressure seemingly having seemingly lessened. 

He glanced towards the hole into the ground, where he now realized the network of pipes ran in what seemed to be a tunnel. This sections equivalent of an oversized sewer apparently. 

The underground of the park was interconnected he realized. The pipes that went beneath here either went to the water slide, or to the fire section.

He froze. 

Maybe… Maybe he could… 

"MINA! CAN YOU DEAL WITH SHOCKER ALONE?" 

The pink girl's head shot up looking at him, confusion marking her blood-covered face. 

It seems as if it took a moment before his question sunk in, and she finally replied. 

"Yeah, sure! I'll do it!"

She trusted him. Now he just had to hope that her trust wasn't misplaced. 

He jumped from the wall, and landed on the wet ground, fastening himself straight to the floor with webbing. 

Then, gritting his teeth, knowing just how much this would hurt, he shot out two webs straight at Rhino's back. Then, with some motion, he formed the two coils into. One at his end, and forcing himself to grab the rope of black with both hands, his shattered fingers screaming in pain unlike any he had ever felt since he wrenched his foot, he WRENCHED Rhino off his feet and into the air, SLAMMING him down straight into the now open hole. 

He didn't stop there though. He couldn't. Not if he wanted to actually win here. So, instead, his poor, poor hand still screaming in pain, he sprang after him and jumped down into the hole. 

He landed straight on Rhino's back, toppling the giant who had just tried to rise, right back into the ground again. 

The acid had seemingly evaporated at this level, and Izuku didn't fail to understand why. 

The moment he jumped down, the heat washed over him, like he had just jumped straight down into an oven. 

-We really, REALLY hope you know what you're doing Izuku.- Venom said in his mind, in a tone that was a strange mix between fear and curiousness.

So did he. 

The tunnel wasn't exactly the largest thing in the world, but it was large enough that Rhino barely was able to stand fully upright, with his horn barely not hitting the roof. 

This tunnel was made so that people were able to comfortably move through it to maintain the pipes, for whatever they were used for. 

He rather doubted they were this damned hot during maintenance though. 

"Man, I fucking hate sewer levels," Rhino muttered as he got back up to his feet. 

"It's… It isn't a sewer. This is for the rest of the park!" Izuku replied. 

Rhino frowned, beads of sweat beginning to form around his brows. 

"What, this stuff goes to the fire zone?" He furrowed his brows, as he suddenly began sniffing. "Yeah, now that you mention it, I didn't think this steam smelled like water. What do you guys use for this crap anyway?" 

"No… No idea." Huh. Izuku hadn't really considered it, but he didn't actually smell much when he had this mask in. That was of course completely logical, but he hadn't considered it before. 

"Anyway kid, you really wanna have our glorious final bout here?" He motioned towards the pipelined walls.

"It's not exactly a glorious place. Not to mention your spider jumping and running around won't work here kid. Here it'll just be good old fisticuffs.". 

In response, Izuku fell into a stance, this time forcing his broken hand up, and not cradling it. 

"I'm sure. This will be where we finish this."

Rhino stared at him for a moment of silence, making Izuku thank him in his mind the longer this dragged out, the better. 

"Damn, you're actually serious?" 

Then he burst into a wide grin, looking like a mountain had suddenly taken a face. 

"Man, it's been a while since I met a guy with convictions in his own stuff. You know, the boss actually wants us to recruit promising young spitfires when we meet them. I could go on and give you the traditional Villainy offer of you joining us, but frankly…" His grin turned serious." If you were the kind who would turn on his own, you wouldn't be much of a hero now would you?"

"No. I wouldn't." 

"Excellent!" He rolled his arms in a windup manner, stretching his muscles. 

"By the way, I just realized, you never did tell me your name."

"My… Name?" 

"Yeah, your name. Not your birth name, your real name, the name you chose yourself. The name you want history to remember you by. What is it?" 

The tone of the question was friendly and jovial, it was an honest question, by a soul who truly wanted to know. 

For Izuku though, the question came completely out of left field. Who was he? He was Izuku Midoriya. He had been a shy weakling obsessed with heroism, who had made a bargain with a being from beyond the stars for power. 

There was a name from that period of his life. One an old friend had labeled him with, not out of affection, but to put him down. 

Deku. 

He hated that name. 

He remembered his childhood where he had proposed many potential hero names. 

For a split second, he almost blurted out one of them. 

But he didn't. Mighty Man, Captain All Might, or All Might Junior were the product of a child, and he wasn't a child anymore. 

And even if he was, he wasn't all Might's child. 

That was Uraraka, not him. 

The idea of calling himself Venom briefly fluttered through his mind, but he didn't say that either. 

He wasn't Venom. No more than Venom was him. 

He thought for a moment, before just admitting the truth. 

"I don't have one."

Rhino's face went into a comical shock like Izuku had just admitted something completely out of left field, he would never have imagined. 

"You don't have a name?!" Rhino proclaimed in a tone that begged for him to add "Egads!" at the end. 

"You gotta make yourself a name kid! Being a hero and a villain is all about remaking yourself into something new, something better, and superior to what you were before! And that journey starts with your new name!" 

That… wasn't too far off from his life after bonding actually. 

"Your name is important kid! It's your legacy, your mark in history, it's what makes you you! If you die here, do you think anyone is going to remember that random kid from Yuei that died in his first week?" 

"I'm not go ing to die here."

Rhino suddenly pointed a finger at him. 

"See? THAT is exactly what I'm talking about. You got guts kid! You've seen what I can do, and you're still willing to go toe to toe with me, Mano a Mano! That's more than half the American Heroes I've met. And yet you still plan to come at me intending to win! Win or lose, it's a course of actions that anyone can be proud of!"

"But instead of tying that glory to a name, a symbol, something larger than yourself, you remain in the world of common people! Never rising above the rest! You gotta have a name kid! Something amazing! Something spectacular! Something you can be proud to attach every single action you ever make to!"

"Okay, but… I still don't have one right now."

Rhino glared at him. Then sighed. 

"Alright then, nameless hero. I shall remember you. One or way or another, despite your lack of name. Now… Let's begin-" 

The moment he proclaimed the last word, Izuku's good hand shot up, and a large and wide web shot out into the wall to his left, and with a pull of titanic strength, Izuku wrenched the pipes from the wall, filling the entire spot where Rhino stood with steam from whatever the stuff these pipes pumped through them. 

Rhino coughed, but he didn't seem to have been slowed down all that much as he burst forward. 

Izuku had expected a punch, but instead, the giant kicked with his massive Grey foot, straight where Izuku had been. 

Izuku sidestepped, and he felt the air pressure as the kick came within a couple of centimeters of hitting him. 

Izuku danced under Rhino's arm, and- and straight into the steam. 

It was like being cooked alive in tar, as the black suit began to melt from the heat. 

Izuku screamed as he whirled, desperately trying to remain on his feet, and facing Rhino, as Venom screamed just as loud inside of Izuku's head. 

Then, something hit him. Something hard, and massive, and shaped like a fist hit his chest, harder than the bullet that had scarred his arm, and Izuku was sent flying. 

How long it was, he didn't know. It felt like an eternity as he flew through the air, but mayhaps it was only as little as a few seconds. 

Either way, his journey through their air, ended with a massive "CRASH!!!" as he hit a wall of pipes that burst asunder. 

The only thing that saved him from being cooked alive again, was that he hit the wall with such force that he bounced off of it and hit the floor face first. 

Stars swam before his face, as he struggled to breathe. 

"UP! GET UP MAN!" Venom screamed in his head. 

The stars began to dissipate, as he felt the heat right above him abate.

"SERIOUSLY IZUKU HE'S COMING, GET THE FUCK UP!"

A hand slammed down and began to forcibly push him up. 

Izuku groggily looked upwards. His chest felt like someone had just hit it with a sledgehammer. It was hard to breathe. 

He felt the vibrations before he saw him. Then the sounds began to hammer through the corridor. 

The Rhino was running down the corridor, and stampeding straight towards him! 

Izuku got his feet under him again, just in the nick of time. Using his enormously powerful legs, he jumped… And slammed straight into the ceiling, where he instinctually fastened himself to it. 

Rhino, no more capable of stopping than when he had chased Izuku and Mina above, slammed straight into the wall… Which promptly broke to pieces, and Izuku could hear the burst of what must have been a dozen more pipes and the steam that followed. 

He hang there for what seemed an eternity. Then, he dropped down, landing on his feet. He almost collapsed from the pain, that shot through his entire chest. 

Then, still almost buckling, he turned to face the Rhino, as he came. 

And he did come. 

Harking, and coughing, and his face completely drenched in sweat to such a degree his eyes were shut as he walked. But he did come, slowly, and weakly. 

Izuku raised his hand, then let forth a webline, hitting him straight in the chest. Then, with a pull that made him feel like all his ribs were broken, he made Rhino topple forward and slam to the ground, right in front of his feet. 

A large and massive hand went up and closed around Izuku's leg. But it had no power. Nothing compared to his anyway.

"Wha… What's… going on? Why… Why am I so… weak…?" 

It was only as Izuku began talking that he realized he dripped blood from his mouth. 

"A mix between… Unnnghh… between what's in the pipes, and a lack of… AARRGHH… OF sweat… to cool the body down…" 

He wrenched his leg free, and putting the webline over his shoulder as he turned, he began to walk down the corridor to where he had just come from, dragging Rhino behind him like a sack.

"I… I realized it… Unngh… when you said nothing goes through…. Your skin… If nothing does… then nothing comes out of it either…"

Izuku forced himself to talk. It made the painful, PAINFUL process of dragging Rhino with him more bearable like it steeled his will to do it. 

"Your face…. It's the only… part of you that sweats… Unnmmmgh… it is fully responsible for… For cooling down your entire body… You're having a heatstroke right now… Along with whatever that flammable gas does… You might not burn… But your lungs are as human as the rest of us… 

He had to get Rhino out. If he left him here, he died.

A part of him told him to just do it, but he did not listen or consider that, darker, alien part of him today. 

This was who he was. Someone who didn't kill when he didn't have to. 

"I… brought you down here… because I realized you'd sweat yourself into unconscious…. The longer we were down here… The more you moved… The more I sprayed you with steam… I Didn't think about it being gas…"

"Huh…" Rhino replied in a hazy tone like he was barely awake. 

"You know… That… That eksplain hov te big man beas me… Wenne I came to the Caribian…"