Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Midoriya stands like a cliff on the sea side — tall and solid, unwavering against an abusive current but not untouched by it. As straight as he stands, there’s an unmistakable exhaustion draped over his shoulders. Unmistakable, at least, to Toshinori, whose spine has been hunched under the same weight for years.

“You wanted to speak with me, sir?” Midoriya asks, carefully polite. He’d nearly pass for deferential, if not for the way his jaw flexes as he grinds his teeth.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Please, sit. Would you like some tea?”

Without waiting for a response, Toshinori pours the both of them a cup. He takes a sip, remembers that he’s more partial to coffee, and places the saucer to the side. The tea had been Nedzu’s suggestions, when Toshinori had sought his advice on how to make Midoriya feel more at ease. Aizawa likely would have been the best person to ask, but Toshinori is only slightly embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t worked up the nerve to approach his colleague. Aizawa isn’t Toshinori’s biggest fan on the best of days, and he seems to have no faith in Toshinori at all, where Midoriya is concerned.

The boy takes a seat on the couch, with the room in sight and a clear line to the door. He regards Toshinori with thinly veiled suspicion, but no concern. All the anxiety in the room is Toshinori’s, and it’s the absurdity of that realization that finally allows him to relax.

“Do you mind if I eat?” Midoriya asks, setting his lunch on the low table that sits between the couch and Toshinori’s chair.

“Of course not,” Toshinori says. He lifts a neatly wrapped bento of his own. “I’ll be doing the same. Thank you for taking time out of your break to speak with me.” Midoriya merely nods, picking at his food. Silent, he watches Toshinori keenly, and Toshinori, feeling unreasonable scrutinized, forces himself to sit up straighter, despite the twinge of protest that comes with the stretching of his abdomen.

“I owe you an apology,” he begins gravely. “Several, I’m afraid. More than once now, I haven’t been around when you’ve needed me.”

Midoriya’s eyes drop. “I haven’t needed you,” he says neutrally, voice betraying none of the hot defiance that had flashed through his eyes in the brief moments before he looked away.

“I suppose not,” Toshinori agrees, “but that you’ve needed not to need me is just as much a failure on my part. You were the hero Hosu needed that night.” A small smile tugs at Toshinori’s lips as he recalls seeing a video along similar lines. Midoriya doesn’t share the fondness.

“I was just there,” he sighs, like he is tired of saying it — which he almost definitely is. Toshinori only witnessed a bit of what had followed the reveal of Midoriya’s identity to his classmates, and he’s sure their curiosity was much more intense when their teachers weren’t watching. “I was there, so I did what I could. That’s no more special than any of the other heroes who were there that night, doing what they could.”

Toshinori doesn’t bother to point out that Midoriya is capable of far more than most others. It goes without saying, and it’s missing the point. Instead, Toshinori says, “It’s rare for what a person could do to line up with what a person actually does. Few people, including heroes, put their all into helping others. Anyone could, but for any number of reasons, they choose not to.”

 After a long, uncomfortable pause where he refuses to meet Toshinori’s eyes, Midoriya seems to decide that it’s not worth discussing. “Alright,” he says. “Is that all?”

Toshinori wonders if there’s some alternate universe where conversation could flow easily between them. Their history is hard to ignore, even the small fraction that Midoriya is aware of, but Toshinori is old, and he’s tired, and he would very much like to leave that history in the past. In the six weeks since Midoriya arrived at UA, he has not only soothed Toshinori’s initial fears, but also peaked Toshinori’s interest. Excluding Gran Torino’s intervention, which is a mystery that still makes Toshinori anxious to dwell on, Midoriya has shown nothing but promise. Toshinori would have liked to know Midoriya better, if only the boy would allow it.

“There’s another thing,” Toshinori continues when Midoriya begins to shift impatiently in his seat. “I wanted to apologize, but that’s not why I asked you to meet me.”

“Why then?”

“Ah,” Toshinori dithers for another long moment. He scratches his chin. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure where to start. I guess I’ll cut to the chase. Have you ever heard of One for All?” Midoriya sits back, thoughts suddenly racing behind his eyes. For the first time, Toshinori has his attention as a result of genuine interest rather than wary vigilance. 

“No,” he murmurs, soft enough that he could be speaking to himself. “No, I haven’t. From the name, I can guess that it has something to do with my father, which would explain why you’d want to speak with me, of all people. He never mentioned anything to me, though. Of course he didn’t.”

Toshinori had committed to this decision when he asked Midoriya to speak with him, and he can hardly back out now that the boy is actually in front of him, but the brittleness of Midoriya’s final, trailing words makes Toshinori second guess himself, a bit. The story of One for All is engraved in Toshinori’s mind almost exactly as Nana had told it to him, all those years ago, and it’s a story that he believes Midoriya deserves to hear. Now that the time has come, Toshinori hesitates to share it as it was shared with him, but he doesn’t know it any other way.

Midoriya plows through Toshinori’s internal conflict, meeting his eyes with a directness that could be read as a challenge. “Tell me,” the boy demands.

Toshinori hesitates for only a single second more, before he nod, clears his throat, and begins, “Back when quirks first started showing up, society started to break down. In the middle of that chaos, there was one man uniquely suited to seize power.”

“My father.”

“All for One,” Toshinori confirms, but Midoriya’s two word contribution has already shaken his confidence. It is far easier to recite a story than it is to have a conversation. “He…”

“You can say it.”

“He manipulated people at their most vulnerable. He made the strong fear him, and he promised the weak strength of their own. He leveraged safety against people when they needed it most. As more people flocked to him, he grew stronger, and as he grew stronger, more people flocked to him. Only a few years later, Japan was almost completely under his control.”

Midoriya frowns slightly to himself. He doesn’t seem shocked by anything Toshinori has said. None of it seems to be new information to him, necessarily. Rather, he seems to be thinking about things he already knew in new ways.

“And then?” he asks. “He was powerful and power hungry. He wanted control, and he got it, but by the time I was born, he had — well, not lost it, but he went from directing the show to pulling strings behind the scenes. No one even knew he existed. My father wasn’t a humble man. If he could have been king, he wouldn’t just have just… given up that crown. Something must have happened. But—”

Toshinori clears his throat again. Midoriya seals his mouth into a frustrated line, halting his rambling train of thought. He looks to Toshinori for answers that Toshinori only partially has.

“All for One’s influence was almost complete, but when one person rises to power, others inevitably rise to fight back. All for One’s brother opposed him again and again—”

“Brother?” Midoriya interrupts, barely a whisper, a stark contrast to the rapid, focused muttering of moments before. “My father had a brother?”

“…He did,” Toshinori replies. Midoriya, moments ago intently concentrated, now stares into the middle distance. He pulls one of his legs onto the couch and wraps an arm around it, self-soothing in a way that makes him seem younger — or rather, finally shows the true age of a boy who usually seems much older. Toshinori considers, for a moment, placing a grounding hand on the boy’s shoulder. He even goes as far as to reach out, but he reconsiders and clasps his hands between his knees to control the urge. He clears his throat again, almost compulsively, and continues, “A younger brother. He was Quirkless and sickly, but he had a strong sense of justice, and so he gathered a resistance to fight against All for One.”

“Quirkless?” Midoriya echoes. More obviously than ever, he is speaking to himself. “He couldn’t be. Or he couldn’t have stayed that way, at least. My father would see it as a problem to solve, or— or an opportunity to take advantage of. Either way, he would have given him a quirk. That— That’s what One for All is, isn’t it? It must be. All for One and One for All. Siblings, diametrically opposed.” Midoriya laughs shortly. “Of course.”

With a jolt, Toshinori realizes that Midoriya must be thinking of Shimura Tenko. The bitter yearning on his face isn’t something Toshinori has ever felt himself, but it feels deeply personal to witness. Toshinori stares at his food and doesn’t look up when Midoriya huffs another curt laugh.

“You’re a bright boy,” Toshinori says. He means it, though it’s said mostly to distract from his own uncomfortable thoughts. The praise seems to agitate Midoriya further, but he falls silent once more. “Yes, All for One gave his brother a quirk that stockpiled power in his body. Neither of them realized at the time that the brother had never actually been Quirkless to begin with. Like All for One, the brother could pass on quirks, and they probably never would have realized, if the brother’s natural quirk hadn’t merged together with the stockpiling quirk All for One gave him.”

“Quirks don’t merge,” Midoriya refutes with a furrow between his brows, reminding Toshinori once again that the story he is telling wasn’t written for the audience he is telling it to. “They— They tangle. It’s messy. It’s a mistake. The quirks may interact, but they’re still separate things, and they’re still meant to stay separate, but once they’re tangled, there’s usually no— no easy way to separate them.”

Toshinori can’t say he fully understands the impromptu lesson, nor does he understand why Midoriya cares so much about the distinction, but Midoriya is, undeniably, the closest thing to an expert on the topic, so Toshinori smiles agreeably and nods along. Perhaps his smile ends up a bit too vacant, because Midoriya stops himself, pressing his mouth to his folded up knee and glancing off to the side.

“Sorry,” he says. “You can keep going.”

“You’d know better than me. The quirks tangled together, then,” Toshinori amends, “into a quirk that stockpiled power and could transfer that power between people.”

“One for All.”

Toshinori nods. “In his dying moments, the brother passed his quirk and all the power it had accumulated on to another man. Eventually, the second passed the quirk on to a third, and a fourth, and so on, hoping that One for All would some day grow strong enough to defeat All for One.”

“Which holder are you?” Midoriya asks. Toshinori smiles. At this point, he’s not even surprised that the boy has figured it out on his own. “The… seventh?”

Surprised now, Toshinori can’t help but laugh. “The eighth,” he corrects.

As impressive as Midoriya’s deductive reasoning skills continuously prove to be, Toshinori can usually figure out how the boy comes to the conclusions he does. In retrospect, Toshinori can see the pieces that the boy has put together, even if Toshinori never would have been able to do so himself. But with this, even having been incorrect, Toshinori has no idea how Midoriya got as close as he did. With any other child Toshinori would attribute it to pure dumb luck, but he doubts Midoriya guessed blindly. Did he use math? Toshinori has never been good at math.

Midoriya hums doubtfully, like something about Toshinori’s answer doesn’t make sense to him. Toshinori lets the boy think, reluctant to interrupt whatever mental calculus he may be performing.

“Was one of you Quirkless?” Midoriya finally asks. “I mean—”

Midoriya’s elaboration is lost to Toshinori, drowned out by the sudden and violent coughing that rattles through his chest and ears. He rubs the heel of his palm against his warped ribs and swallows down the rest of the fit, hunched over his knees. When he catches his breath, he leans back and stares at Midoriya. The boy meets Toshinori’s incredulity blankly.

“How could you possibly know that?” Toshinori asks, too forcefully based on the way the boy shifts away from him. Midoriya draws his shoulders up near his ears, a defensive motion disguised as a shrug.

“I told you,” he says. “Quirks t-tangle. They’re all— knotted around each other, but I can— I can still kind of c-count them. You said you’re the eighth, but there’s— there’s only six q-quirks tangled in, so—” Midoriya dismisses his own explanation with a rough shake of his head. He deflects, “Why are you even t-telling me all this?”

The urge to press itches at Toshinori. If anyone else revealed that information, they would be swept into an interrogation in a blink. Toshinori can count the number of people who know those details on a single hand, and he has told nearly all of them himself. To have someone, much less this odd child, confront Toshinori with knowledge about him that he hasn’t granted them — Toshinori might call the feeling vulnerability. It’s horrible. Toshinori is just too used to keeping secrets.

Toshinori rubs his hands up and down the fabric of his pants, then runs them through his hair. Midoriya’s face is unreadable, but his body is coiled to flee. The leg he pulled up onto the couch is folded slightly beneath him now, braced against the cushion to give him leverage in the case that he needs to move quickly. Toshinori sighs. He forces himself to let it go, if only for now.

“You’ve seen me,” Toshinori says in answer to Midoriya’s question. He shrugs helplessly. Raising his hands calls a gruesome amount of attention to the way his sleeves sag around his emaciated arms. “I’ll keep fighting until I can’t anymore, but that day is approaching faster than I’d like to admit. People need someone to rely on, and it can’t be me forever. It can’t be me for much longer, even. The best I can do is pass this power on to the next generation, so the world is prepared for the inevitable. I took a position here hoping that I would meet someone who would let me make a decision I could be confident about.”

Midoriya stares at Toshinori for a long moment. He waits for Toshinori to continue. Toshinori doesn’t.

“You can’t mean me,” Midoriya finally says. Normally, he is so confident in the conclusions he draws, even when they come seemingly from thin air, but now doubt colors his voice. He sounds, in a strange way, almost hopeful — like he is hoping Toshinori will laugh at the ridiculous assumption he’s made.

“And why can’t I?” Toshinori asks.

Midoriya stands abruptly. Toshinori half thinks the boy has reached his limit and is going to make a break for it. Instead, he paces restlessly, parallel to the far wall of the room.

“There— There’s dozens of reasons,” he says, words stern despite how they shake, and emphasized by wild movements of his hands, “but— but— I mean, really? One for All, it’s— it’s an enhancement quirk, right? The power it’s accumulated enhances the holder’s abilities. Have you thought about what it could mean, to— to enhance my quirk? Have you thought about how disastrous that could be?”

“I haven’t,” Toshinori admits, in large part because he wants to hear what Midoriya has to say on the matter. In truth, he has given very little thought to the situation since Hosu, and he never got as far as contemplating the quirk theory behind it all. Toshinori has never been good at quirk theory.

“I am—” Midoriya swallows, his face twisting into a pained grimace. He stops and turns to the whiteboard mounted on the wall, resting his forehead against it with a dull thunk. He collects himself and turns back to Toshinori, bracing his hands on the thin metal shelf running along the bottom of the board. “I am stronger than my father was. I don’t take quirks the way he did. I attract them.” The boy’s resentment of his quirk is put into sharp relief by the almost melancholic look of distaste on his face as he spit the words out. He treats them like a poison that will kill him if it lingers in his mouth.

“It’s like— It’s like magnets,” Midoriya continues. A few sheets of paper drift to the ground as he pulls the star-shaped magnet that had been securing them to the whiteboard. He holds the small object up in demonstration. “Weak magnets can be kept apart,” he explains, tapping fidgety fingers into the star’s concave angles. Without warning, he tosses it, and Toshinori only catches it by reflex. There’s a simple face embossed on the magnet’s yellow surface; a cartoonish grin beams up at Toshinori from his palms. Perplexed, he stares at it until Midoriya draws his attention up again. Slow and deliberate, the boy reaches to the side and taps the whiteboard twice.

There’s a crack like a gunshot. Muscle memory has Toshinori tensing for a fight, but the sound is so dissonant with the situation that he hardly processes it. He has brought his hands up in a defensive position, and it’s only upon realizing that that Toshinori realizes he’s no longer holding the tiny star.

“Strong magnets can’t be,” Midoriya says, tipping his head to the side, toward the magnet shining cheerfully on the board next to him. “My quirk… any more, and it might be too much. I can’t take One for All, and I don’t want it.”

Curious, Toshinori stands and crosses the room. Midoriya skirts along the whiteboard to keep distance between them, but Toshinori focuses on the magnet that had been snatched from his hands faster than he could blink. It slides slowly along the board when he pushes at it, but he can’t get a fingernail underneath it no matter how hard he tries.

“You don’t need it, either,” Toshinori agrees, only after really and truly confirming that the magnet’s not coming off anytime soon. Toshinori smiles at Midoriya, returning to his seat to give the boy the space he obviously wants. “I considered offering it to you, but after Hosu, I realized it would be… redundant. I don’t think you could have done much more that night, even with One for All.”

“Then what do you want with me?” Midoriya asks, though he sounds relieved rather than confrontational. He creeps back towards the couch, moving slowly and keeping his eyes on Toshinori, like a wary cat. “What does this have to do with me?”

“The story of All for One and One for All is as much yours as it is mine,” Toshinori says. “For a long time, I thought I was the one to end it. But I didn’t. You did.”

Midoriya settles on the couch, folding one of his legs up just as he had before. Resting his cheek against his knee, he closes his eyes. There’s a moment of silence. Internally, Toshinori dedicates it to the dead, to all the lives lost over the course of their all-too-true story. He wonders if Midoriya does the same.

“Alright,” Midoriya says when the moment has passed. He sounds weary. He doesn’t open his eyes. “What about the rest of it? Your search for a— for a successor. Why even bring it up?”

“You don’t need One for All. I was hoping you would help me find someone who does. Nedzu says you know the student body better than anyone.”

“Except for him,” Midoriya counters instantly. “He knows practically everything about everyone who comes into this rat maze. Have him help you. I’ve barely started analyzing the second year hero students.”

“Yes, well. Nedzu is a brilliant being, and I have a great deal of respect for him, of course, but he isn’t…” Here, Aizawa would call the principal a sociopath. Toshinori tries to think of a gentler way to put it. He settles on, “Nedzu isn’t the best at evaluating people’s principles.” Which is to say, the moral yardstick Nedzu uses to measure others is inconsistent and sometimes worryingly short. Midoriya nods in idle agreement. “You did everything you could in Hosu. You take that for granted, but you’re one of the only people who would. You are a compassionate, determined, intelligent, and resilient young man. In a different life, I would have gladly given you One for All. The way I see it, that makes your opinion invaluable.”

Midoriya stops nodding as soon as Toshinori’s praise begins. He looks at Toshinori, at first confused, then increasingly unimpressed. Midoriya stares through narrowed eyes, and then sighs and sits up. He plants both of his feet firmly on the ground, rests his hands flat on his thighs, and angles himself to meet Toshinori’s eyes directly.

“If you want my advice,” Midoriya offers, tipping his chin up in a subtle movement that tells Toshinori that he’s not going to like whatever the boy says next, “let it die. You said it yourself: the story ended with us. The war is over. No one won. No one ever does. If All for One gave my father too much power, then One for All gave its holders too much responsibility. You’re a teacher at the top hero school in the nation. If you want to prepare the next generation, teach all of them what it means to be a hero, instead of picking one to groom into a symbol.

“Besides,” Midoriya sighs, shoulders slumping and eyes sliding away from Toshinori’s, “your quirk is an abomination.”

Iron fills Toshinori’s mouth when he bites his tongue all the way to bleeding. Midoriya’s head is tilted down, and his hair falls over his face, but Toshinori can tell that he’s being observed very carefully. The boy said what he said expecting a reaction, but Toshinori refuses to give a bad one. He can’t think of anything to say that isn’t outraged, so he clenches his fists and says nothing at all. Otherwise, he’ll destroy whatever fragile peace he’s managed to foster in an instant.

“It’s tangled up with so many others,” Midoriya elaborates, almost apologetically, like he regrets having to share such an ugly truth. Fast and strained, he continues, “You feel more like a nomu than a regular person. It’s more organized, I guess, but— but I’m honestly surprised you aren’t brain dead. If you don’t let it die, it’s only a matter of time until it— it k-kills itself. I— I’m sorry, but you— you can only play Russian roulette for so long before someone gets sh-shot in the head.”

Toshinori’s nails dig unkindly into the grooves between his knuckles as he hangs his head over his clasped hands. One for All is the closest thing to a miracle Toshinori has ever encountered. Midoriya is the closest thing to an expert on this topic. Toshinori doesn’t know which of these two facts is more important. The silence throbs in his ears in time with his pulse. He doesn’t hear Midoriya move, but when the boy next speaks, his voice comes from behind.

“Do you know his name?” Midoriya questions, halting, as if he’s uncertain whether he should ask even as he’s asking. Toshinori blinks and drags his eyes up to the couch, empty now.

“Whose?” he asks belatedly.

There’s another pause. The boy has proven to move so quietly that Toshinori, uncertain that he’s even still present, turns in his chair to check. Midoriya stands at the door, poised to open it, but lingering. His fingers flex repeatedly over the handle.

“The brother,” he says, staring at his shoes. “My… uncle.”

Toshinori realizes that he doesn’t. He doesn’t know the name of the first holder of One for All, and he has never thought to ask. He’s not sure that anyone has ever thought to ask. Toshinori feels like the hole in his gut is opening wider.

“No, I’m sorry to say that I don’t.”

If Midoriya finds this information even a fraction as heartbreaking as Toshinori does, he doesn’t show it. The boy nods, as if he expected nothing more, opens the door, and then he’s gone. He leaves his lunch behind, half-eaten.

Bright and early on Wednesday morning — which is kind of an overcast morning, actually — a carefully planned campaign is set into motion. Some people might call the whole business a harassment campaign, and those people would be entirely right! Any people who would argue that a harassment campaign is a bad thing, or that it’s unethical to launch such a campaign against a child would be mostly right, but entirely wrong in this specific situation!

In general, doing something for someone’s own good isn’t actually a good thing to do at all, but sometimes — very occasionally — when someone you love is being very stupid and/or stubborn and conventional methods aren’t getting through to them, you simply have to badger them. See Shouta, for instance. He doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do without being told three to five times at increasing volumes. Without a bit of harassment, the man would only eat foods that don’t need to be chewed and he would never fucking shave.

Hizashi expects that it’s going to be a bit harder to get Izuku to cooperate, but that’s okay. Hizashi’s never met a war of attrition that he can’t win. He told Izuku about his plans this morning, but fully expecting him to conveniently forget by the afternoon, Hizashi also slipped a note into his lunch and has sent him four text reminders between classes. Now, with the day drawing to a close, it’s time to rally one last time. Izuku will either fight tooth and nail to make his final break for freedom, of Hizashi will manage to wrangle him into submission with a loving lasso of whether you like it or not. Things could still tip in either direction, but luckily, Hizashi has one last ace up his sleeve.

“Hey, Shinsou!” he calls after dismissing the class for the day, just a bit early, to be on the safe side. “Could I get your help with something?” Shinsou doesn’t pick his head up from his desk. Hizashi would almost suspect that he’s sleeping, but everyone knows that that’s not a thing Shinsou does. Poor kid. “Shinsou, hey. Hey, Shinsou—”

“Get Kawamoto to do it,” Shinsou groans, proving that he, too, is susceptible to harassment.

“I require your particular skill set!”

Shinsou picks his head up only enough to squint at Hizashi through one eye. “What skills?” he asks. “Being tall and sarcastic?”

“If that’s how you make Izuku forget that he’s supposed to be brooding, then yes!”

Shinsou sits up, then slides down in his seat to reverse his slouch. He rolls his head back and stretches his arms across his desk. He does a very good job of pretending not to care when he asks, “What’s Midoriya got to do with anything?”

“I need you to grab him and bring him here before he scurries away into the vents or something.”

“So you’re recruiting me to do your dirty work?”

Hizashi snaps his fingers, grinning widely. “Yes!” Shinsou narrows his eyes suspiciously, as if Hizashi is being anything less than shamelessly honest. Honesty is the best policy, after all — especially when dealing with teenagers who are smart enough to see through bullshit.

“What do you want with him?” Shinsou asks. “What’s in it for me?”

Hizashi leans back in his chair and kicks his legs up onto his desk, considering Shinsou as he thinks. Two very different questions, and Hizashi strongly suspects that one of them was only asked to cover for the other. Not that he’ll point that out. Shinsou can’t help if he keels over in embarrassment.

“He’s been struggling since Hosu,” Hizashi decides to say, sure Shinsou has already noticed. Hizashi is pretty sure that basically everyone has noticed. “I’ve got plans to exorcise some of those emotional demons.”

“Ambitious,” Shinsou says, eyebrows raised in what almost looks like admiration. He checks his phone, makes a show of thinking about it, and then shrugs. “I guess I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Yeah!” Hizashi cheers, compensating for Shinsou’s own lack of enthusiasm. His chair clatters loudly back onto its feet as he rights himself. “Nedzu’s running interference, but he’s has a Cool Kids meeting to get to, so go, go, go!”

Shinsou sighs again, as if he deeply regrets what he’s agreed to do, but turns and strolls leisurely from the classroom. He clearly hasn’t grasped the urgency of the situation, but Hizashi supposes that’s the trade off that comes with emotionally extorting a student for free labor. Waiting impatiently through the longest ten minutes of his life, Hizashi waves at the occasional student as they leave. A few loiter very conspicuously, one providing a very entertaining distraction as they try to act natural while rearranging the books in their bag for the fourth time.

Hizashi bolts up when the door opens, then quickly sits back down and lounges in his chair in a completely natural manner. Shinsou and Izuku stand on either side of the threshold, Shinsou in and Izuku out, connected arms bridging the gap.

“Why are we here?” Izuku asks blandly. Hizashi waves cheerily from his desk. Izuku, cruel child that he is, doesn’t even acknowledge him.

“I have to grab my stuff,” Shinsou says. He pointedly drops Izuku’s wrist, leaving Izuku to watch from just outside the classroom as Shinsou walks to his desk and scoops his bag from the ground, holding it up as if for inspection before slipping the strap over his shoulder. He rummages through one of the front pockets and pulls out a pair of earbuds, shaking them wildly until the cords fell free of their knots.

“You’ve betrayed me,” Izuku says without a single note of surprise. Shinsou pats Izuku briskly on the shoulder, then pulls him forward and nudges him to the side so he’s no longer blocking the doorway.

“You knew I was going to do that when you followed me here.”

Izuku sighs, a smile nearly betraying him before he wrangles his expression back to impassive blandness. “Yeah.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Shinsou,” Hizashi says. “Your services are no longer needed.” Shinsou shoves his hands into his pockets and rolls his eyes, but seems content to take the dismissal for what it is.

Until Izuku grabs him by the sleeve, that is. Shinsou’s momentum halts so quickly and completely that he’s lucky not to give himself whiplash. Hizashi stifles a laugh into his fist and pretends to be coughing when Izuku shoots him a nasty look. Having once been a teenaged boy himself, Hizashi is allowed to mock them for being such silly, stupid fools.

“You can’t just leave me here,” Izuku says to Shinsou, an accusation loaded into his glare.

 “Sorry,” Shinsou replies unapologetically. “I have a date with a bunch of cats.”

Hizashi watches the exchange like a tennis match, chin propped up in his hand. If Nemuri were here, she’d definitely interject with a joke about pussy, but because Hizashi is a grown adult with self-control, he refrains. It’s hard, but he refrains.

“We have cats at home,” Izuku attempts to bargain.

Typically, Shinsou’s smile is about as friendly as the curved edge of a knife, but he actually manages to look happy as he shakes his head and pulls his arm from Izuku’s grip. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Midoriya,” he says.

“I— I’m going to kick your ass!” Izuku calls at Shinsou’s retreating back, as if the threat might make the other boy reconsider leaving.

Shinsou raises a hand in acknowledgment but doesn’t turn as he responds, “Take it easy!” Izuku’s mouth drops open as if Shinsou has just said something deeply offensive, and based on the faint snicker that follows Shinsou down the hallway, he did it on purpose.

“You can try to run,” Hizashi says, noticing the way Izuku eyes the hallway even after Shinsou is out of sight, “but remember: I know where you live.”

“You live where I live.”

“Exactly! You can only hide in the vents for so long before Lucy starts to miss you, and the burden of that guilt forces you to return!”

“The vents?” Izuku echoes dubiously. Then, thoughtfully, “Do you think that would actually work?”

“Come on!” Hizashi insists, herding Izuku out of the classroom and down the hall with all the dedication of a sheepdog, before Izuku can start seriously contemplating the viability of the vents as an escape route. Planting that idea in his head may live to be one of Hizashi’s biggest regrets. “We have places to be!”

Resigned to his fate, Izuku’s shoulders slump. He pushes his hair out of his face and adjusts the clip holding his fringe at the top of his head, giving Hizashi an unimpeded view of his sullen glower. Hizashi bites his cheek to keep himself from laughing. He fakes another cough. Izuku seems just as impressed with this one as he was with the first.

Izuku follows Hizashi without a word, stubbornly refusing to engage with any of Hizashi’s charming attempts at conversation. The silence also means that Izuku isn’t protesting, though, which Hizashi counts as an absolute win. The unwilling way Izuku drags his feet isn’t important, just ignore that.

“What are we doing here?” Izuku asks when Hizashi spreads his ams in a grand indication that they’ve arrived at their destination. Izuku’s nose scrunches up as his eyes dart around the empty gymnasium.

“Blowing off some steam!”

Izuku looks, briefly, at his wrists. He has taken to covering the scarred hand print that everyone assumes came from Shigaraki at some point, but his wrists are otherwise bare. The cuffs were never replaced after Hosu, at first because the injuries to his arm made it impossible. They could have gone on when the cast came off, but it was concluded in the hospital that suppressing Izuku’s quirk while he was still so severely quirk exhausted could badly impede his recovery process. On the say-so of several medical professionals, the cuffs would stay off for at least a week, and wouldn’t go back on without Shuzenji’s approval. Everyone was incredibly eager to go along with this, considering that none of them wanted to cuff Izuku, anyway.

“I’m supposed to be taking it easy this week,” Izuku grumps, crossing his arms and hugging himself about the ribs. “You know that. Aizawa hasn’t shut up about it.”

“Don’t be mean,” Hizashi says, more of a reminder than a chastisement. Shouta may not be here to hear it, but Izuku’s sudden resentment gets to him more than he lets on. It gets to all three of them, actually. Izuku presses his lips together and scowls at the ground, rubbing his hands briskly up and down his sides.

“Sorry.”

“I know,” Hizashi says, bumping his shoulder against Izuku’s with a reassuring smile. The last couple of days have given Hizashi plenty of time to realize that Izuku’s fits of temper can be diffused almost immediately by telling him that he’s being unkind. “We’re not here for training, anyway.”

“But you said we were blowing off steam.”

Hizashi clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Oh, toxic masculinity,” he says with exaggerated sorrow. “Violence isn’t the only way to vent, you know!”

“I know that,” Izuku replies, frowning at the implication that he doesn’t. Then he frowns at the gym as a whole, likely trying to figure out what he has just claimed to already know. Hizashi lets Izuku stew in that confusion, forcing him to ask, “How?”

“Easy! You’re going to scream!”

In exact opposition to Hizashi’s plans, Izuku remains completely silent. “…Scream?” he finally asks, his tone making it very obvious just what he thinks of that idea.

Hizashi nods solemnly. “Sometimes you just have to let it out.”

And Izuku really, really has to let it out. He’s been trying to, Hizashi knows. That’s what all of his outbursts have been — an anger that he can’t escape, trying to find a place to go. In any other situation, with any other kid, Hizashi would ride it out a little longer — these things take time, and rushing them is never productive — but he’s starting to worry that, if Izuku doesn’t find a way to properly release these feelings soon, he’ll choose to stop feeling, altogether.

“I would offer to let you use my quirk, but Shouta would have my head if he found out that I wasn’t enforcing the no quirk use rule.” Hizashi sighs and shrugs as if there’s nothing to be done. He conveniently forgets that Shouta’s not the boss of him and that he could simply defy the rules if he disagreed with them, on account of the fact that he doesn’t disagree in the slightest.

“You— what?” Izuku stutters. “Why would you do that?”

“There’s nothing as cathartic as screaming so loud you shatter concrete!” Hizashi replies, dodging the point like a pro.

“But that’s— that’s your— why would you let me do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Hizashi asks.

“Because I— Because I’m—”

“My sweet little green bean who I love and trust very much?” Hizashi fills in.

Izuku’s face, reddening with frustration at Hizashi’s intentional obtuseness, flushes violently and he begins to splutter, teetering between irritated and embarrassed. Even as puffed up with helpless anger as he has been since Hosu, Izuku still flusters so easily that Hizashi can’t help but laugh. He ruffles Izuku’s hair until Izuku dances a few steps backwards, out of reach. His glare is distinctly irritated, but his flush has settled firmly on embarrassed. He reminds Hizashi so much of Shouta at that age — kind of pathetic, but in the most adorable, affronted way, like a kitten that’s been dumped in the bath.

“You look like you want to scream,” Hizashi says. “It’s okay, I have the effect on people.”

Izuku doesn’t respond to the playful teasing. He stares at the mats laid out over the floor of the gym with his fists clenched at his sides. Hizashi can practically see his emotions getting the better of him again. Over internships, he made impressive progress with using the quirks he has at his disposal, but he is as staunchly against using his quirk as he ever was. Hizashi reaches for Izuku’s shoulder, and Izuku tolerates the touch the way a stone would.

“You know, Shouta has hearing loss in his right ear?” Hizashi asks rhetorically. For all he can tell, Izuku listens like a stone, too. “Don’t tell him I told you that; he’s sensitive about it. Anyway, it’s a minor thing, but it’s totally 100% my fault. He’s not even the first person I’ve deafened!” Hizashi laughs. Izuku isn’t amused, but that probably goes without saying.

“That’s different,” Izuku says, stiffly, like he’s trying to brace what he knows is a feeble argument.

“It is,” Hizashi agrees, to Izuku’s wary surprise. “It’s worse.”

“You didn’t mean to do any of that stuff,” Izuku argues, surprise quickly replaced by the stubborn set of his jaw.

As far as Hizashi is concerned, Izuku also didn’t mean to do any of the wrongs he holds himself accountable for, but they’ve gone over Izuku’s culpability in the events that happened in All for One’s warehouse so many times that Hizashi can have that debate in his sleep. It’s one he can’t manage to win, even in his dreams.

“That’s why it’s worse,” Hizashi says, beginning the maiden voyage of a shiny new defense. Izuku frowns at Hizashi as if he’s deliberately missing the point. As if that’s something he’d ever do! Not so many times in such close succession, anyway. “Do you want to hurt people?”

“No,” Izuku answers without hesitation. “Of course not.”

“I know,” Hizashi nods. “Now ask me.”

“…Do you want to hurt people?”

“Of course not!” Hizashi replies, so immediately that their words overlap. Then he continues, “But I’m going to.” Izuku stares at him with wide eyes. Hizashi sighs and shakes his head. “I never meant to hurt anyone in the first place, which means I can’t stop myself from doing it again. We can’t change our quirks. All we can do is control them, and sometimes I can’t. That’s when accidents happen. When we’re not in control, people get hurt. When we are in control, people only get hurt if we want them to. So tell me again,” Hizashi says with a small smile, “do you want to hurt people, Izuku?”

“…No,” Izuku whispers.

“Alright then,” Hizashi declares, brushing his hands clean of that dirty business. “Just because your quirk has been used wrong doesn’t mean it’s wrong to use it, you know. You’re in control now, Izuku. I don’t understand why you keep demanding more than that from yourself. You’re already doing better than me!”

“I’m in control,” Izuku repeats, splaying his fingers out in front of him.

“No one else.”

“No one else.”

Izuku balls his hands up, digging his nails so tightly into his palms that fine tremors run up his arms until he steadies them against his sternum. He hitches his shoulders in, chest rising and falling beneath his knuckles as his breathing speeds up. He looks like he’s trying for all he’s worth to hold something in, and when he lets it go, he drops it like a physical thing, arms falling back to his sides like unfastened restraints.

When Hizashi told Izuku to scream, he was honestly expecting Izuku to yell. That’s what most people would do, they would shout or yell — make loud, wordless noises that get called screaming by virtue of volume alone. Most people can’t scream on command, even if the try.

Real screams are torn out of people. Real screams are pain-fear-anger on such a visceral level that it can’t be expressed with words, but anything with ears can understand it.

When Izuku screams, he really screams, too loud and long for the air he has in his lungs. He finishes on a gasp and sways to the side, legs weak from the force of it. Hizashi catches him by the elbow. It’s not enough to keep Izuku on his feet, but it helps control his decent. He lands on knees that gave out beneath him, and when Hizashi drops his arm, Izuku falls forward onto his hands and screams again. And then again. And again. Hizashi can’t tell if the crackling he’s hearing is in his hearing aids or Izuku’s voice.

After a long, long time of screaming at the ground, of gasping in hoarse, scratchy breaths just to have enough air to do it all again, Izuku finally stops. A sob hitches painfully in his throat. He folds one arm over his face and punches his other hand against the stone he kneels on. Hizashi lets him do that a couple of times before he kneels himself and gently wraps his hand around Izuku’s fist before he can split his knuckles open.

In all, it is both the best and worst breakdown Hizashi has ever seen Izuku have. He screams, and then he cries. He sobs so hard he coughs, and then he coughs so hard he gags. It’s painful to watch, and it’s even worse to listen to, but at the end of it, Izuku’s eyes — though red, swollen, and exhausted — are clear in a way they haven’t been since he opened them in that hospital room.

Through all of it, Izuku never once loses control.

Hizashi never thought he would. Izuku’s loss of control had never been a one-man job.

Shouta buries his scowl in his capture weapon. Tsukauchi taps his fingers against the wheel of the car. Yagi wrings his hands nervously. He visibly debates offering Nedzu a helping hand into the vehicle, but Nedzu hops onto the seat easily enough on his own.

“You’re late,” Shouta says flatly.

“I had to see Izuku off,” Nedzu explains as he buckles himself into the booster seat that has been generously provided for him. “Thank you for driving us, Tsukauchi.” Tsukauchi nods stiffly, irritated at the sudden crunch to their schedule, though he’s too polite to voice his grievances. The atmosphere in the car is tense and strained, due in part to their destination and in part to the fact that Yagi is existing within ten feet of Shouta.

“That’s right,” Nedzu says, as if remembering something. “You had a meeting this afternoon, didn’t you, Yagi. How did that go?” Yagi pales comically, glancing over to Shouta with the guilty speed of a child caught red-handed.

“It was… informative,” Yagi says carefully. He makes a small gesture that Nedzu tragically can’t be expected to understand. Human body language; alas, what an elusive mystery.

Nedzu nods sagely. “Conversations with Izuku often are. One could even call them enlightening.”

Shouta, who had been entirely uninterested in the conversation, begins exuding a malicious aura that makes Yagi blanch. Considering that he’s supposedly the greatest hero Japan has ever known, Yagi is fascinatingly predisposed to flee from any problems that he can’t solve with his fists. Trapped as he is in the car, Yagi defaults instead to freezing in place, as if Shouta is a predator that hunts via the motion of its prey. Interpersonally, the Symbol of Peace can only be described as a coward.

“Aizawa,” Tsukauchi sighs from the driver’s seat, “please don’t commit a homicide in my car.”

Shouta scoffs and leans heavily against the car door. “As if I would be stupid enough to kill someone in a detective’s government-issued vehicle.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“I didn’t say anything bad,” Yagi says in a futile attempt to defend himself. Shouta’s responding glare is absolutely scathing. “It was a— a perfectly… civil conversation!”

“It’s true,” Nedzu confirms, taking pity on Yagi. The man can only get so pale before he dies of a complete lack of blood flow to his brain. “He was on his best behavior.”

If Yagi had thought to question how Nedzu knew that, he might have also thought to question why Nedzu had asked about a meeting he already had knowledge of, but Yagi is so relieved to have been rescued that he doesn’t think to question anything at all. Shouta, who always has been among the sharper tools at UA, shoots Nedzu an underwhelmed look. Nedzu smiles.

“That’s not reassuring,” Shouta mutters. Nedzu smiles wider. Yagi sits uncomfortably between them, a gaunt statue frozen stiff in the middle of their staring contest. Finally, Shouta yields, turning his head to gaze blankly at the clouds that have been gathering in the sky all day. Without eyes on him, Nedzu puts away his smile. Curving his mouth means nothing to him, and bearing his teeth means nothing good. Smiling is a delightfully easy mannerism to mimic, and an even easier one to weaponize, but it does nothing for Nedzu, personally.

Today’s committee meeting is occurring at Endeavor’s agency, at the man’s insistence that he’s too busy to meet them elsewhere. Shouta either naps against the window or pretends to — not even Nedzu can tell, since Shouta is just as likely to fall asleep at improbable times as he is to avoid interacting with others by feigning sleep. Yagi resolutely refuses to say another word on his conversation with Izuku, but he makes polite small talk with Tsukauchi, who doesn’t break a single traffic regulation, despite being in a rush. It’s a pleasant drive, overall, though that’s likely true for Nedzu and Nedzu alone.

The speed with which Shouta wakes when they reach their destination implies that he hadn’t been sleeping at all, but one never can say for sure with Shouta. While Tsukauchi collects the materials that he has laboriously prepared — all of which are guaranteed to go unappreciated by the people he has prepared them for — Shouta opens Nedzu’s door and starts heading towards the building. Yagi scrambles awkwardly from the middle seat, bumping his knees and elbows against every possible obstacle on his way out of the car. When Nedzu launches himself from his seat to Shouta’s shoulder, Shouta jolts forward an inch but doesn’t break his stride.

“I always forget how well you can jump,” Shouta says, squinting as he pushes Nedzu’s paws away from his hair. He offers a loop of his capture weapon for Nedzu to anchor himself with. Nedzu accepts this compromise. Behind them, Yagi closes Nedzu’s door and apologizes loudly to Tsukauchi. “Are you a rabbit?”

“Maybe!” Nedzu chirps. He ignores Shouta’s bad humor, makes himself comfortable, and enjoys the ride up to the conference room on the third floor of the agency.

Though they’re not technically late, the four of them are the last to arrive. Generally, Nedzu likes to be the first on any location, but as a dozen pairs of eyes turn to them, he comes to appreciate the appeal of arriving fashionably late. He waves to Kurose, glad to see that the injuries she received at the USJ look much improved since last they met, three weeks ago.

Shouta and Yagi take their seats as Tsukauchi rushes over to the other two officers on the committee, handing them each a stack of papers to be distributed. Nedzu hops from Shouta’s shoulder to the polished surface of the conference table, standing in front of the empty chair between Shouta and Yagi. That the two have declined to take seats directly next to each is laughably adolescent.

“Well then,” Tsukauchi sighs when the papers have been passed out, “shall we begin?”

“I’ll start,” Torino says, without bothering to make a polite show of flipping through the packet in front of him. He smacks his cane against the table to demand everyone’s attention. Yagi flinches. “This meeting is a joke. Emergency meeting,” he scoffs. “What emergency? What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait until our check-in next week?”

“Torino,” Tsukauchi says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please.”

Torino is unmoved by the very non-specific plea. He stands up in his chair, giving him the height he needs to comfortably lean a short distance over the table. Yagi flinches once more when Torino stretches his cane out and taps the rubber-tipped foot of it against the table in front of Nedzu’s sneakers.

“The kid gets good grades?” Torino asks gruffly.

“Excellent!” Nedzu confirms with a nod and a grin.

“He gets along okay with his classmates?”

“Not only that, but the entire class’ performance has improved since Izuku joined them!”

“Nobody’s dead?”

Nedzu gives this a moment of thought. “A few nomu.”

“Good riddance!” Torino declares, punctuating his words with one final bang of his cane — and one final flinch from Yagi — before plopping himself back down in his seat. Even with his chair cranked up to its maximum height, his chin only just crests the tabletop when he’s seated. Privately, Nedzu thinks Torino would be in a much better mood if he just stood on top of the table. Doing so solves any height-related inconveniences, and doubles as an excellent way to assert one’s dominance.

“Thank you, Torino, for your input,” Tsukauchi says, with admirable diplomacy. He might have passed for sincere, if not for the look of drawn exasperation on his face. He could really stand to smile more. “In light of the attack on Hosu, the HPSC has motioned to reassess Midoriya’s circumstances, on the grounds that the extreme and unexpected nature of these developments changes the appropriate course of action for his situation.”

“Yes,” says one of the Commission representatives, Mizuno — or, as Shouta calls her, that bitch with the eyebrows. “We feel that the spectacle Midoriya made of himself in Hosu, and his actions that night, cross the boundaries of what we initially agreed on.”

“Spectacle?” repeats Ohashi. He, like Torino, had retired from heroics long enough ago that few people remember his name, though he had the misfortune of being benched by injury, rather than aging out of the profession. Hardly past middle aged, Ohashi has made a rather successful second career in politics and policy-making.

Morita, the second of three HPSC representatives, nods. “Public attention always makes it more difficult to handle a delicate situation.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurose says, raising her hand up to her shoulder in a bid to say her part. In that moment, she becomes Tsukauchi’s favorite person in the room. She continues only when he tips his head her way. “As Rogue, Midoriya may have received an unanticipated amount of attention, but we agreed to allow him to participate in the sports festival as part of an agreement that would ensure he appeared on national television. It’s an unexpected development, I agree, but we already set the precedent for it. If anything, Midoriya made less of a spectacle in Hosu, since Midoriya isn’t associated with the attack. Both his name and face have remained anonymous, as opposed to the sports festival, where no measures were taken to obscure his identity.”

“The most sensitive information about this case is Midoriya’s quirk, and it was agreed at the beginning that it should stay confidential. His abilities were fully on display during the Hosu attack. Now we’re only a few internet sleuths and viral conspiracy theories away from mass public panic.”

“What?” Torino asks sarcastically. “You think someone’s going to figure out that the brat can do the impossible? And you think everyone else is going to believe it?”

“And do you think that everyone is going to be satisfied with the explanation that he has a copy quirk? Despite the fact that no one will be able to identify the original quirk that he is supposedly copying from?” Mizuno meets Torino’s scorn with an equally spite-filled smile. She’d be a woman after Nedzu’s own heart, if not for the fact that he despises her and everything she stands for.

“Most people will be satisfied with that, yes!” he says, before Torino can add something that would no doubt be unproductive, if entertaining. “Most people have a poor enough understanding of quirk theory that they simply accept whatever they are told. Those that know what questions to ask will find a much simpler answer.”

“And what’s that?”

“That Izuku copies quirks from the dead, obviously!” Mizuno’s smile flinches with instinctive revulsion. The distaste that tugs the corners of her mouth insistently downwards makes Nedzu’s own smile widen the slightest bit. She’s not the only uncomfortable one at the table. In fact, barring Shouta and Torino, the entirety of the committee falls on a spectrum that ranges from disgusted to disturbed. Nedzu nods serenely. “With a name like Memorial, it’s an easy connection to make. The theory is already gaining traction online! They find Rogue creepy, which is a perfectly acceptable alternative to finding him scary.”

“Maybe they could stand to be a little afraid,” Todoroki says darkly — Todoroki Enji, of course. Todoroki Shouto has nothing but praise for Izuku, maintaining the standing pattern of  father and son agreeing on absolutely nothing.

“The boy shows a concerning disposition towards violence,” Morita claims, flipping through his packet until he comes to the pages that document Akaguro Chizome’s injuries. A few people follow suit. Several others don’t bother. Nedzu is among the latter. “He permanently disabled and disfigured the Hero Killer. It’s sheer luck that the man didn’t drown in his own blood, or bleed out altogether.”

“What’s a little dismemberment in the midst of a catastrophe?” Nedzu asks lightly. “I myself have been responsible for multiple amputations, I’m sure.”

“This wasn’t an accident or collateral damage,” Mizuno says when Morita proves too unnerved to reply. She taps the image of the stab wound above Akaguro’s collar bone. It’s a deep jagged wound that Nedzu has heard left a nasty scar — easily worse than the one Akaguro gave Iida, and not nearly as bad as the one he gave Izuku. Sama, a young hero who took several shifts guarding Izuku between his surrender and the start of his rehabilitation, shakes her head with a concerned frown. The medical reports seem to make her uncomfortable, but she looks them over diligently. “You say this was defensive. Fine. But this?” Mizuno taps again at the photo of Akaguro’s open mouth, at the clean stub of flesh behind the man’s teeth. “An injury of this nature couldn’t be inflicted accidentally, and if it was done reflexively — well, that would have worrying implications in and of itself.”

“It’s not as if this is mindless violence,” Sama says, when a gap in Mizuno’s argument presents itself. “According to these reports, Stain’s ability to activate his quirk has been impaired by more than 80%, which is the exactly what Midoriya says he intended. That’s strategic violence, and you can’t condemn that without condemning nearly half of this committee.” Rarely engaging in combat herself, Sama glances quickly between several of the heroes seated around her before dropping her eyes back to the table.

“All I’m hearing is that the Hero Killer lived,” Torino says, slapping a hand loudly against the table. “The brat didn’t kill anybody!”

Except for the nomu, of course. The nomu is very, very dead. It had taken Izuku approximately five seconds to not only kill it, but eradicate it. Atomize really is a very interesting quirk. Nedzu had gotten the opportunity to speak with Izuku about it in a little more detail since the incident, and it is easily the most powerful quirk in his arsenal, at least by way of sheer destructive capability.

Atomize can reduce an object into fine particles. Through physical contract, large amounts of energy are disseminated from the user to the target, destroying it at a molecular level. It takes time to generate the energy required, resulting in a delay between initial contact and final activation, the exact length of which depends on the mass of the target — and if this process is interrupted, the backlash on the user can be devastating. On paper, this makes Atomize a high stakes gamble, but in reality, the most dangerous applications of the quirk can be achieved so quickly that the risk of the user being interrupted is minimal. Humans are not so massive, as far as Atomize is concerned.

During the course of their fight, Izuku could have quite literally destroyed Akaguro at least half a dozen times. Even when he found himself at the end of his rope, Izuku chose to maim rather than murder. Nedzu refrains from saying any of this aloud, as humans never seem appropriately comforted by the if he wanted to kill them, they’d be dead argument.

“Midoriya certainly came out of the fight worse off,” says Matsuyama, the last of the HPSC representatives, and the only one Nedzu doesn’t despise.

“That’s beside the point,” Mizuno says, sending Matsuyama an unpleasant smile that he only shakes his head at. “We’re talking about Stain’s injuries, not Midoriya’s.”

“You can’t talk about one without talking about the other,” Shouta interjects dryly. “The amount of force a hero can justifiably use has always been evaluated in direct proportion to the amount of danger that they’re in.”

“We’re not talking about a hero.”

“Aren’t we? He had the permission of a licensed pro to act to the fullest extent of his abilities. He had all the same rights and responsibilities in that moment as any other hero in the field, and he’s hardly the first person to act as such in the middle of a disaster. For that matter, he’s not even the first villain to be deputized in the field, if you insist on thinking of him as one.”

“Right,” Mizuno says. “He had your permission. Aizawa Shouta, isn’t it?” Shouta doesn’t justify that with a response and Mizuno doesn’t wait for one. “It seems like a conflict of interest, that the pro hero who supposedly gave him permission to act is also his guardian and teacher.”

“Supposedly?” Aizawa asks. There’s a dangerous edge to his voice that the majority of the room doesn’t notice. Tsukauchi sighs hard enough that the officer beside him feels compelled to pat his shoulder. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“You’ve already proven that you’re willing to lie for him.”

“That’s a baseless accusation,” Yagi says.  “Aizawa is a professional.”

Mizuno counters, “He’s biased.” Under the ensuing stern frown of the number one hero, Mizuno actually seems somewhat chastened. Shouta looks like he could launch the both of them into the sun and not lose a day of sleep over it. Nedzu respects that about him.

“Every member of this committee is here to represent the interests of a specific group or groups,” Tsukauchi says, raising a hand in Torino’s direction as if to physically block whatever the small man was visibly gearing up to unleash. Torino deflates with a huff. “Aizawa is well within his rights to advocate for Midoriya. Personal relationships are not subject to discussion, here.

“To clarify, Midoriya has broken no laws. His intervention in Hosu was above board, and investigations have concluded that the force used against Stain was within acceptable ranges, as he was protecting not only his own life, but several others. Stain has also denied to press charges. We are here to evaluate what impact, if any, the Hosu incident should have on Midoriya’s immediate future, not his legal status.”

“Can we just get to the vote already?” Torino asks.

“We haven’t even discussed the League,” Mizuno protests.

“Stain wasn’t with the League,” Ohashi says.

“But Midoriya was.”

“Six weeks ago, sure, but we’ve already discussed that.”

“He was with the League in Hosu,” Todoroki claims, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms over his chest, as if the fire wreathing his face isn’t intimidating enough. “After he killed the nomu that took him, the fall should have killed him. He only survived due to Kurogiri’s intervention. The boy was also spotted with Shigaraki.”

“Sure,” Shouta agrees dryly. “If by the boy you mean a clone, and by with Shigaraki you mean that we caught Shigaraki turning that clone to ash on camera, then sure.”

“Motion to call a vote,” Tsukauchi says before Mizuno can do more than raise her eyebrows in advance of her response. The motion passes 10 to 5, to the visible relief of much of the committee. It’s slightly disappointing to see the fun come to the end, but Nedzu knew he was going to be on the loosing side of that particular vote. Oh well. He’ll be on the winning side of the one that matters.

“Moving to the vote, then,” Tsukauchi sighs. “Those in favor of renegotiating the terms of Midoriya’s conditional freedom and rehabilitation? Those against?” The vote for reassessment, predictably, fails 3 to 12. “Alright then. Barring any more unforeseen developments, we’ll be meeting against at the end of the month. Thank you all for your time.” Tsukauchi is too polite to say the he wants them all to get out of his sight, but Nedzu hears it clearly. Unfortunately, Tsukauchi is out of luck, because he’s also too polite to force Nedzu, Shouta, and Yagi to catch a bus back to campus. He’s stuck with them for a little longer yet.

“What a shit show,” Shouta says, staring disparagingly after Mizuno and her compatriots.

“You’re so dramatic, Shouta,” Nedzu replies.

“What do you call this, then?”

Nedzu thinks for a moment. “A rousing success!” he decides.

Truly, Nedzu couldn’t have asked for better. Barring Mizuno, Morita, and Todoroki, the committee is firmly on Izuku’s side. Not only that, but nearly all of the members regard the committee as a waste of time — not because they don’t care about Izuku’s fate, necessarily, but because they feel that his fate has already been decided. They are all satisfied to leave Izuku in UA’s hands, no matter if he’s maiming serial killers or exploding man-made monsters. It’s a perfect mix of good will and apathy.

The committee is settling into complacency just as Izuku is shaking himself out of it. Six weeks after destroying his own life, Izuku is finally coming to the realization that life has gone on. Nedzu has been looking forward to this — to the moment Izuku stops picking up the pieces and starts putting them back together. Nedzu likes to think that he’s prepared his young student well, giving him all manner of new skills to help him take whatever course of action he choses.

Where will he begin? What will the world look like when he’s done?

Nedzu can’t wait to see.