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Chapter Text

Three months from his fifth birthday, Izuku Midoriya stands on his bed and practices using a quirk he doesn’t yet have. He’s a late bloomer - that’s what his mom and all his teachers started saying when his classmates got their quirks and he didn’t - but he can’t let that hold him back if he wants to be a hero. Kacchan got his quirk ages ago and has already gotten so good at controlling his explosions, so Izuku makes a point of practicing every day after school to avoid falling too far behind.

He takes a deep breath through his nose, filling his whole chest with air, then exhales a harsh gust from his mouth. The hope is that something will ignite on the way up, sparking breath into flame, just like his dad. Kacchan always says that fire quirks are really strong and if Izuku inherits his father’s quirk they can be like All Might and Endeavour.  Izuku tries five times, but then he starts to get dizzy and has to stop, wobbling on his bedspread before collapsing down, staring up at the ceiling. No fire breathing today, then. 

After a moment of breathing normally, Izuku reorients himself and focuses on his next task. He springs up, sitting cross legged by his pillows, and stares at the items on his desk. An All Might action figure catches his attention and he narrows in on it, stretching out a hand and straining his concentration as hard as he can, squinting his eyes and pursing his lips. He visualizes reaching out and snagging it, attracting it back to him the way he’s seen his mother do so many times. For a long moment, he stays that way and he thinks he feels a flash of something, like maybe it worked this time. 

Hope rises in him, fierce and enthusiastic, and he can’t suppress a grin as he mentally tugs again on the figurine. It doesn’t so much as budge. Izuku’s smile falls, cheeks stinging in its absence. At this point, he should know better than to expect anything, but he still gets ahead of himself sometimes. With a sigh, he drops his hand back into his lap. 

He takes a deep, fortifying breath to chase away the ache of dashed hopes. “One more time,” he says to himself, nodding resolutely. He reaches up, focuses, pulls . Across the room, the toy wobbles and moves forward an inch, dropping off the desk and rolling across the floor. Izuku stares.

“Did I do that?” he asks quietly, jaw slack, and the little plastic All Might grins up at him, arm posed in a perpetual thumbs up that seems to say yes, yes you did . 

Izuku scrambles up onto his knees and reaches forwards again with a new determination, pulling the figurine towards him. He watches every slow inch of its progress across the room with unbridled awe, gently pulling it from the air when it’s close enough. He’s tired now, but that’s far eclipsed by the joy filling every bit of his body. He’s so happy he can’t contain it all, eyes brimming up with tears that roll in thick trails down his cheeks. He brushes them away as they blur his vision, wanting to keep his eyes on the signature yellow, red, and blue that prove what he had just done. 

Izuku had a quirk. Finally, after waiting for so long, he had a quirk. Now he and Kacchan could be heroes together, and his classmates would stop teasing him, and his mom wouldn’t have to start looking for doctors like she had mentioned last week. He had a quirk! He had a - 

Izuku rushes out of bed, tripping over his feet, shaking from a cocktail of adrenaline, relief, surprise, and fatigue. He clutches his action figure tight in one hand and throws himself out of his room.

“Momma!” he cries, loud and watery with emotion as he makes his way towards the kitchen where his mother is making dinner. 

“Izuku?” she calls in return. Something clatters in the kitchen and not a second later, she appears around the corner, meeting Izuku halfway. Immediately, she is down on her knees in front of him. “Baby, what happened?” she asks, hands running over his arms, wide eyes looking him over. “Why are you crying?”

Izuku’s mouth opens, sniffling and hiccuping as he grasps for what to say. Wordlessly, he thrusts the All Might figurine forwards. He had been gripping it so hard that the plastic left little red indents in his palm. His mother takes it, turning it over between gentle hands.

“Is it broken?” she asks, inspecting it for some kind of flaw. “Sweetie, I’m sure we can fix it.” Izuku’s curls bounce as he shakes his head, lifting his hand to telepathically tug the object back to him. His mother’s fingers go limp as it leaves her grasp. She gasps softly. Izuku swaps from vigorously shaking his head to nodding it with just as much vehemence. 

Izuku’s mother is quick to join him in tears, pulling him into a tight hug and crying about how proud she is. By the time she lets him go her shirt and the top of his hair are both soaked through and dinner has burned.

Izuku is put to bed early that night. Despite his excitement urging him to stay awake, experimenting with his new quirk has left him thoroughly exhausted and drifting off on the couch the moment he finishes his dinner. Inko scoops him up into her arms and thin arms wrap weakly around her neck as he buries his face there. One of the plastic spikes of All Might’s signature hairstyle stabs into the back of her head from where Izuku has the toy held tightly in his fist. He has barely put it down all night, and when he did, he was always quick to use his quirk to tug it back to him, 

“I don’t wanna go to bed,” Izuku mumbles blearily into her shoulder, “I’m not tired.” Inko only hums in response. She bumps the door to his room open with her hip and gently deposits him in the bed. He’s asleep by the time she gets the blankets settled around him. 

Every day, Inko thinks she couldn’t possibly love her son any more, and then every day he proves her wrong again. Today, seeing Izuku so happy and excited to have inherited her quirk, Inko feels a spark of appreciation that she hasn’t in a long time. “Attraction of small objects” has felt simple and mundane for so long, but Izuku brings a light to it, just like he does everything else. 

After such an emotional evening, Inko is feeling quite drained, but she settles on the couch to watch some TV before heading off to bed herself. The remote is on the side table, only a lean away, but with a revived sense of wonder, she reaches out with her quirk to pull it to her, just because she can. 

It doesn’t move an inch.

Inko frowns for a second before shaking her head and smiling wryly at the irony. As marvelous as Izuku makes her quirk seem, it really is a limited, fickle thing. It has never been strong or reliable. At the end of such a long day, tired as she is, even such a small thing must be outside what she can manage. Maybe she was coming down with a cold - her quirk never did cooperate when she was sick. 

Now that she thought of it, she had been feeling a little bit off for most of the night.

“Mama, how long ‘til Kacchan gets here?” Izuku asks over breakfast. He’s been vibrating with anticipation from the moment his eyes opened in the morning and it took a great deal of restraint for him to hold the question back so long. 

His mom smiles fondly at him. “He’ll be here in the afternoon, sweetie.” 

“How many hours?”

“Around four.”

Izuku frowns at his rice. “That’s so many,” he whispers under his breath.

Already, he has his All Might toy clenched in his fist. He needs to keep it with him so he’s ready to show Kacchan his quirk when the other boy gets there. Four hours seems like ages to wait, even though Kacchan is supposed to be coming over at the same time he does almost every Saturday. Impatience squirms in Izuku’s stomach and he eats quickly, as if finishing his breakfast will make the afternoon come faster. 

Finishing her own food, his mother picks up their dishes. “Come on, why don’t you use some of that spare energy to help me clean up.”

 Carefully depositing All Might on the table, Izuku pulls a stepstool over to the sink and climbs up so he can be level with the counter. His mother toes him slightly to the side so he’s out of her way then starts the water running and hands Izuku a cloth. They wait for a moment while the water warms and Izuku reaches out for the stream with his quirk, curious as to what will happen. Water like this isn’t exactly a “small object,” but Izuku is delighted when it curves slightly in the air, diverting towards him before continuing its path to the drain. 

He gasps, “Mama, Mama, look! The water, Mama, that’s me!” 

His mother makes appropriately awed noises. “Very good, Izu! I didn’t know my quirk could do that. How clever!” He beams at the praise.

Izuku tests his quirk on everything - the chopsticks, little grains of leftover rice, soap suds. He figures out he can pull on the faucet handle to turn the water off but can’t turn it back on the same way. His mom laughs indulgently at all his antics and lets Izuku attract all the dishes to himself to dry when she’s done watching.  

With only the two of them, dishes are usually a quick and simple task, but it takes more than twice as long this morning. When they’re done, Izuku is glad to hear that now there’s only three hours left until Kacchan should arrive. He and his mother settle in the living room, turning the TV on to the news. Despite his restless mood, Izuku is immediately absorbed by the reports on villain attacks and heroes, pointing to the screen and shouting exclamations whenever anything particularly impressive happens. 

Izuku could easily spend the entire day watching heroes on TV and the three hours that seemed like they would take an eternity to pass fly by in the blink of an eye. In the middle of an impassioned ramble to his mother, who is less a contributor than a witness, several bangs interrupt the combined drone of Izuku’s voice and the TV. It’s the telltale sound of Kacchan’s arrival - he always announces himself by kicking instead of knocking and there are a handful of small scuffs along the bottom of the Midoriyas’ door from his shoes. 

“Kacchan is here!” Izuku shouts, interrupting himself mid-sentence. He’s gone before his mother can even begin to stand, taking off towards the entrance and throwing the door open. “Kacchan! Why are you so late? I’ve been waiting forever!”

The blond on the other side of the door scowls, raising his voice to match Izuku’s, “Shut up, I’m not late!” 

Izuku’s mother comes up behind them. “Izuku,” she sighs, “you know you’re not supposed to open the door on your own.”

Izuku rubs the back of his head sheepishly, closing the door as Kacchan shoves past him and into the apartment. “Sorry, Mama. It’s just Kacchan and I was so excited!”

She ruffles his hair. “I know, sweetie. Why don’t you take Katsuki-kun to your room and show him what you’ve learned?”

Grinning, once again vibrating with uncontrolled excitement, Izuku nods and grabs Kacchan by the wrist to drag him across the living room. Kacchan tugs his arm away, barking a chastisement at Izuku for touching him, and follows along at a more sedate pace. The distance to Izuku’s room is small, but in his haste, Izuku can’t help but glance back repeatedly to ensure that Kacchan is still following him. 

“What’s this all about, nerd?” Kacchan demands as he throws himself down on Izuku’s bed. “You’re being even more annoying than usual.”

Izuku ignores the insult, knowing Kacchan better than to get offended at anything that comes from his mouth, and thrusts forward his All Might action figure, which had been by Izuku’s side all day, dutifully waiting for this moment. Kacchan’s eyes cross slightly to focus on the toy suddenly invading his space and a small, aborted explosion crackles across his palm on reflex. 

“I got my quirk!”

Batting Izuku’s hand and the toy to the side, Kacchan crows, “About time!” He leans forward with a grin to match Izuku’s, though his is far sharper and more aggressive, if equally excited. “So what is it then? Can you finally breathe fire like your old man?”

“I got my mom’s quirk! It’s teli - tela - telekinesis! I can pull things towards me! I’ve only had it for a day, so I don’t know what the limits are, like how heavy the objects can be, or how far away. I have some idea from what my mom knows about her quirk, but mine might be different, and she never really did anything to train her’s, anway, so I’m sure that I can make   mine stronger with time. I’ll have to practice lots, but I think it’ll be super good for rescue or even combat if I use it right -” In his growing excitement, Izuku’s words become faster and faster until they’re no longer distinct. His attention is only drawn back to the present moment when Kacchan lets out a drawn out groan.

“Shut up, already! I don’t care about any of that!” Kacchan scowls, though this is the distinct type of scowl that Izuku knows means he’s pouting. “Auntie’s quirk isn’t very strong. You better keep up! I’m not gonna have my partner dragging me down with some lame quirk!”

“I won’t!” Izuku promises, enthusiasm undented by Kacchan’s words. “I’ll work super hard to become the number one hero with you, Kacchan!”

Kacchan scoffs. “You’ll become the number two hero, nerd. I’ll be the number one! So are you gonna show me your dumb quirk, or what?”

“Ah! Right!” Izuku fumbles with his toy for a moment before tossing it to Kacchan, who catches it much more gracefully. 

Taking a deep breath to prepare himself, Izuku reaches out his hand, maybe a touch more dramatically than necessary, and tugs , just like he has been all day. Nothing happens. Izuku blinks and flushes a violent red. Kacchan doesn’t look as angry as Izuku would have expected him to at the failure, frowning softly at the toy still in his hands instead of glowering or shouting.

“Sorry!” Izuku squawks. “Let me try again!”

Embarrassment and frustration burn in Izuku’s stomach. All he wants is to impress Kacchan, which is already a very hard thing to manage, and he goes and messes it up. He’s been using his quirk all day with no difficulty, but maybe that was the problem? Maybe he already tired himself out, though he didn’t feel that tired until just a second ago. 

He steels himself to do better this time, musters up all his determination, and reaches out again. He flexes his fingers a little, like a stretch or a warm up, and then. And then his palms crackle and spark, his skin tingling and warm, like a bunch of pop rocks going off in his hands. There’s a familiar sweet smell in the air, like caramel, that Izuku has associated with Kacchan ever since the boy’s quirk came in. 

Why was Kacchan using his quirk?

But Kacchan isn't using his quirk. He’s still holding Izuku’s All Might figurine, and Kacchan would never explode All Might. Kacchan’s eyes are wide, his mouth slightly slack, expression empty, and as Izuku watches, his fingers go limp and the toy falls, bouncing on the bedspread before tumbling to the ground. He looks like he’s seen a ghost and Izuku feels distinctly like he’s missed something as he stares at his own hands and tries to catch up. 

Palm facing up, Izuku flexes his fingers again. The same feeling dances across his skin and this time he sees small sparks and a wisp of smoke that he recognizes from when Kacchan’s quirk manifested almost a year ago. 

“What did you do?”

Still not understanding what’s happening, Izuku looks back up to Kacchan, whose face has lost its unnatural blankness. 

“What did you do?!”

Kacchan grabs Izuku’s hand in a too-tight grip. It takes a moment for Izuku to name the look on his face, because he’s never seen Kacchan look this way before, but after a tense moment that stretches out like taffy, Izuku calls it fear. 

“I don’t know,” Izuku answers honestly. He feels dizzy and sick and tired. The smell of burnt sugar coats the back of his throat. 

“You stole it.”

“I didn’t.”

“It’s mine and you stole it .”

“I didn’t .”

Izuku’s words are weak and Kacchan ignores them anyway, gripping Izuku’s hand tighter, until the bones grind together and Izuku can’t help but reach up with his free hand to try to claw himself free. Red welts rise in the wake of Izuku’s dull nails, but Kacchan doesn’t even seem to notice, grip still painful and unwavering. 

“Give it back.” Kacchan’s voice is low and steady and it sends a shiver up Izuku’s spine. 

“I don’t - I can’t - I don’t know what’s going on.”

The moment seems suspended in amber, warped and endless, but then the tension breaks in a flurry of movement. In a single motion, Kacchan springs up from the bed and tosses Izuku to the ground. Izuku catches himself, crying out when his weight lands on his tormented hand. Tears build in his eyes as he attempts to scramble backwards, but the floor feels slippery and his limbs feel like they’re made of jelly. Kacchan is on top of him in an instant, and for the first time, Izuku is scared of the other boy. 

For so long, Kacchan’s temper has been harmless, even humorous, a simple aspect of his personality that Izuku accepts and even adores, because he adores everything about Kacchan, even the rough edges. Now, as he snags Izuku’s shirt collar in his fist, Kacchan feels dangerous. Kacchan is always so amazing and brave and strong, and for the first time, that makes Izuku feel weak . 

Izuku’s head bounces once on the floor boards as Kacchan straddles him, leaving Izuku dizzy and disoriented. Lifting his arms is like moving through tar, but Izuku manages to bring one hand up and brace it against Kacchan’s face, trying to shove him back, though there’s no competition between the boys in terms of strength. Unconsciously, Izuku’s palm crackles, a small explosion popping against the left side of Kacchan’s face, making him pull back with a hiss.

“You little thief. Give it back, you no good villain , give it back, give it back!”

Kacchan is yelling and Izuku is sobbing and furniture bangs as limbs and bodies collide and then everything blurs together like watercolor, colors running into each other until everything is black and noises merging into a single high pitched tone.

Inko makes nothing of the first noise - a shout. Young boys can get loud, especially Katsuki, who screams every other sentence at max volume. Today, she’s prepared for them to be louder than usual; she can hardly blame them, given the nature of Izuku’s exciting news. Both boys have been waiting for months for Izuku’s quirk to come in, eagerly playing heroes in the meantime. 

The second noise - a bang - has Inko stopping her business in the living room to listen more attentively. Bangs and bumps are also common occurrences with young children and are often nothing to worry about, but can also be the tell tale sign that something is broken or someone is injured. Not necessarily a reason to go running, but certainly cause to sit up and pay attention. 

There is no discrete third noise. Barely a pause after the bang, there is cacophony, and Inko wishes she had been more cautious and gone running sooner. There is screaming and crying and something has obviously gone terribly wrong. Wasting no more time, Inko rushes to her son’s room, hoping that no one is too badly hurt. 

She expected, at worst, a nasty fall. Maybe some kind of cut or gash. Certainly not to find Katsuki screaming on top of her son, the both of them crying, though Izuku far more desperately. 

Katsuki had one hand balled tight in the collar of Izuku’s t-shirt and the other drawn back as if to deliver a blow. When Inko enters the room, his face pales and his grip goes slack, the sudden release of tension causing Izuku to fall backwards to the ground. Katsuki’s yelling cuts off, making the dull thud of Izuku’s skull hitting the ground seem that much louder. And then there is only the sound of Izuku’s sobs as he tries to curl in on himself, prevented by Katsuki’s weight on his stomach. 

Inko has never been a violent person and she reminds herself of that now. She would never hurt a child, much less Katsuki, who she held hours after birth and sees almost as a second son, but with Izuku, her baby , crying on the floor, she has to swallow down a protective rage the likes of which she’s never felt before. 

In three steps, she crosses the distance between the door and the boys, grabbing Katsuki by the still-raised arm, carefully double-checking to make sure her grip isn’t too tight as she drags him away. She leaves him in the far corner of the room before returning to Izuku and kneeling by his side. 

His sobs have calmed, though he is still crying slightly, his eyes open but glassy and unfocused. Inko calls his name, but he doesn’t respond beyond curling towards her. One of his hands is discolored and Inko feels at it gently to make sure nothing is broken, thankful for small mercies when it seems to just be badly bruised. There’s a small lump on the back of his head and blood smeared over his chin from a bitten tongue, but he doesn’t otherwise seem injured. At least physically, Inko, as a nurse, should be perfectly able to care for him. He calms as she pets his hair and while he’s conscious and clearly recognizes that she’s there, at least on some level, Inko’s concern grows with every second he is silent. 

Only when she is sure Izuku is safe, does Inko seek out the other child in the room. Katsuki is sitting in the corner where she left him. He is pressed as tightly to both walls as he can be, glaring sullenly over his knees, which he has pulled up to his chest. It is likely the most vulnerable Inko has ever seen him look, and he shoots constant glances between her and Izuku, seemingly caught between a fear of consequences and the anger that led him to attack Izuku to begin with. 

“Katsuki,” she barks, voice trembling only slightly, sounding more like something that would come out of Mitsuki’s mouth than her own. Katsuki visibly stiffens in response. “What happened?”

He is quiet for so long, only glaring, that Inko begins to think he isn’t going to respond, until - “He’s a thief.”

“Explain.”

“He stole it.”

“Stole what , Katsuki?” Inko’s tone is sharper than she intended, but she’s quickly losing patience. She wants to give Katsuki the benefit of the doubt and believe that he is a child and children make mistakes, sometimes very bad ones, but she is not going to play guessing games with her son’s well-being. 

“My quirk. He was supposed to show me his, but instead he took mine and now he can use it and I can’t.”

Like the earth has fallen away, Inko’s stomach plummets and her head swims. It’s preposterous, ridiculous, impossible . Quirks can’t be stolen - that would be like stealing someone’s eye color, or their height. But Inko thinks of her own quirk, which she hadn’t been able to use since the night before, and she thinks of the odd, off feeling she’s had since then, and then, even though it’s impossible, she thinks dear God, he’s right . 

Izuku’s head turns in her lap, and she looks down to see him staring across the room at Katsuki, eyes still dull, but focused now. 

“Izu, baby, are you okay?” she asks, voice soft. Tears build in her eyes as he turns back to her, blinking for a moment. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says, words slightly slurred by the swelling of his tongue. Inko can’t help the hurt noise she makes in response, smoothing his hair back as a few tears drip from her eyes. She presses a kiss to his forehead. 

“You have nothing to apologize for, sweetie,” she assures him, hoping he believes her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He’s a thief,” Katsuki spits from his corner.

“Katsuki!” she shouts. “This is not the time or the way to handle that.”

“I want my quirk back!” 

“And you will get it,” she says, hoping for all their sakes’ she can keep that promise. “But first, we are going to go to the kitchen. I am going to get Izuku some ice and make sure he is okay. We are going to have a conversation. Then we will work on your quirk. Do you understand?” 

Katsuki glares, but nods, and when Inko carefully picks Izuku up - monitoring his reactions to make sure he’s not in too much pain - and carries him to the kitchen, Katsuki maintains his distance, but follows behind without protest.

Across the table from Katsuki, Auntie is doting on the nerd, pressing ice against his head and hand and shining a small flashlight in his eyes. Katsuki sneers. Neither of them are paying attention to him, even though he’s the one who should be upset right now. His chest aches and he keeps reaching out for a quirk that isn’t there , like going down the stairs in the dark and forgetting that you still have one step left - thinking you're going to step onto solid ground and instead plummeting . He feels sick, he feels angry. 

Auntie tells Izuku to go lay down, and then she turns to Katsuki. 

“Are you alright?” she asks him.

“My quirk is gone,” he bites back. Normally, he doesn’t yell at Auntie, because she’s so nice and Katsuki doesn’t want to upset her, but that was a stupid question. Of course he’s not alright. He doesn’t have his quirk, and Auntie knows that, but she’s just making him sit here and wait instead of doing something about it. 

“Are you injured?” she asks, voice level. Auntie is angry, too, even if she’s acting calm. Katsuki has never actually seen her mad before, but the way she snapped at him earlier was unmistakable. He wishes she would yell and get it over with.

“No.”

“Izuku is injured. You hurt him.”

“He shouldn’t have taken my quirk if he didn’t want to get hurt!”

“Katsuki!” Auntie snaps, the anger obvious again. “You can’t just attack people, you can’t go around hurting people on purpose.”

“You’re not supposed to steal things, either, but he did anyway!”

Auntie narrows her eyes at him, the expression harsh and unfamiliar on her usually kind face. She raps her hand against the edge of the table in front of Katsuki, where a small black stain mars the wood. 

“Where did that come from?” she asks him. He frowns.

“I did it.”

“Did I get mad at you?”

“No.”

“And why not?”

“Because it was my quirk! I didn’t mean to.”

“Exactly,” Auntie says with a nod, like Katsuki has proven some kind of point, though he has no idea what it’s supposed to be. “I didn’t get mad because you didn’t mean to do it. You haven’t had your quirk for very long and you don’t have perfect control over it, yet. Accidents are normal.”

“So what?”

“Izuku had an accident. He didn’t mean to take your quirk. He didn’t even realize he did it. But he only got his quirk yesterday and he doesn’t know how to control it yet. Do you understand?”

Katsuki glares because he doesn’t. Maybe Izuku didn’t mean to, but the nerd took Katsuki’s quirk. Izuku was the one who had done the bad thing, the one who needed to be yelled at, not Katsuki. 

“I want my quirk back,” is all he says.

“You’ll get it back,” Auntie sighs. “I’m sorry that this happened. I know it must be scary and overwhelming. But even if Izuku took it, even if you want it back, you cannot hurt people just because you’re scared or angry, Katsuki.”

Except he can, can’t he? Even without his quirk, Katsuki is strong - strong enough to hurt people. He can protect himself and get what he wants. That’s what strength is for. 

“I’m not scared. He took it from me,” Katsuki insists. “That’s what villains do. Heroes hurt villains.”

“No, Katsuki,” Auntie says. “Heroes should never hurt people if they don’t have to. Heroes save people. Villains hurt people. That’s what villains do.”

“Are you calling me a villain?!” Katsuki demands, nearly screaming. He knows he’s right, she’s just saying he’s wrong because she’s angry he hurt Izuku, angry that Izuku was the villain. 

“No, Katsuki. But you have done a very bad thing.”

“I want my quirk back!”

“I know. We’ll let Izuku sleep a bit and then we’ll see what we can do, alright?”

Auntie sighs again, and leaves Katsuki sitting there, feeling like he’s boiling over. It isn’t fair. He hasn’t done anything wrong, but here Auntie is, ignoring everything he says and sighing at him, while Izuku, the villain , takes a nice little nap. Katsuki was going to be a hero. He had an amazing quirk, but now he had nothing , and it was Izuku’s fault.

“Katsuki,” Auntie says, voice soft and trembling slightly. She sounds more like herself than she has all day. “I know this has been hard for you, but it’s very important that you don’t tell anyone about this. It could be dangerous if you do. I quirk like Izuku’s - a lot of people would want to know about it.”

Katsuki scoffs. “As if I’d tell anyone. I don’t want anyone to think the nerd is stronger than me just because he cheated .” 

Auntie gives him a snack that Katsuki doesn’t eat, and she sits in the living room as if nothing is wrong for a full hour before going to get Izuku. And then she spends another hour talking softly to Izuku as the nerd fails to return Katsuki’s quirk - “I’m trying, I swear!” - and snapping at Katsuki whenever he gets angry about it. 

All in all, Katsuki’s quirk is gone for just under three hours. They were the most horrible hours of his life.

Kacchan goes home early that day. He doesn’t turn around to say goodbye and he slams the door behind him. Izuku doesn’t think he’ll come over again next weekend. Izuku doesn’t blame him. 

Izuku is tired. No, exhausted. He was tired after he took Kacchan’s quirk, but then they fought, and then Izuku had to give it back, and returning the quirk was the most exhausting thing Izuku has ever had to do. He didn’t even notice taking the quirk, really. It was easy to just pull it in, but pushing it back out felt unnatural. It was like how his mom’s quirk could only attract objects, not repel them. 

His mom’s quirk. Izuku hasn’t thought about it until now, but he guesses this means he didn’t inherit his mom’s quirk, afterall. He just stole it. He stole his own mother’s quirk. 

He turns towards her, tears already building in his eyes. “Mama, your quirk. I took it, just like I took Kacchan’s. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I can give it back!”

She wraps her arms around him and he can feel her crying against his hair. “No sweetie, not tonight. You’re so tired. It can wait, okay? I’ll be fine without my quirk for another day or two, just keep it safe for me, alright?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he repeats.

“I know, I know.”

She carries him into his bedroom and changes him into his PJs, even though it’s still fairly early. Half under the bed, Izuku’s favorite All Might action figure strikes it’s signature pose, and seeing it brings a fresh wave of tears to Izuku’s eyes. He picks it up, remembering the day before when it was his personal symbol of victory.

“Can I still be a hero?” he asks his mother, holding out the toy. She takes it with shaking hands, stares at it for a moment, then falls to her knees beside Izuku and throws her arms around him. 

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” she sobs into his shoulder. His own tears are silent. 

It’s just like Kacchan said. Stealing was what villains did. If he stole, he would be a villain, and if he didn’t, he practically wouldn’t have a quirk, and how was he meant to be a hero, then? 

Three months from his fifth birthday, Izuku Midoriya lays in his bed and vows to never practice using the quirk he has just received.

Chapter Text

Somewhere in Japan, there is a massive battle, a war between peace and evil that has been building for generations, though no one is aware of it, save a privileged and burdened few. Two men leave the battlefield on the brink of death, and the both of them, faced with the heavy knowledge that no one is truly immortal, begin considering their legacies. 

The first man, confined to a hospital bed, missing several organs, contemplates the word “successor.” The second, staring into blackness that is all he can see now, hooked to countless machines in an undisclosed but secure location, considers the word “son.” 

“Kurogiri,” he calls, voice raspy and barely audible over the hiss and whine of the machinery around him, “bring me a phone.”

A week after Izuku’s quirk manifests, Inko calls Hisashi to tell him that their son is quirkless. It is the most important lie she has ever told, but it burns like a betrayal as it comes out of her mouth. 

The betrayal, to clarify, has nothing to do with Hisashi. Inko holds no ill will to the man, but likewise doesn’t believe him to be particularly entitled to any truth about Izuku. 

Inko and Hisashi never married and he left to work overseas shortly before Izuku was born. Their parting was amicable and Hisashi stayed in contact, checking in once every month or two and providing for his erstwhile lover and son quite generously in the meantime. 

But Izuku was Inko’s son far more than he was Hisashi’s and any choice about Izuku’s safety and wellbeing was hers to make, even to the complete exclusion of his father.

No, Inko doesn't hesitate before lying to Hisashi; her only compunction is with lying about Izuku. 

Already, Izuku has internalized that his quirk is bad and concealing it this way feels like tacit agreement. She tells him that there’s nothing wrong with him every single day, but she can't expect him to believe that when she tells him in the same breath that no one can ever know about his quirk as she gives him forged paperwork to hand in to his teachers.

Telling Hisashi that Izuku is quirkless, Inko fully expects him to disappear from their lives all together, and she isn’t entirely wrong. Hisashi's limited presence in their lives noticeably declines, but to his credit, he does not abandon them entirely. He still calls on Izuku’s birthday and major holidays and he never stops sending them money, even increasing the amount as Izuku gets bigger and more financially demanding. Still, he is far from winning any father of the year awards. 

Reasonably, Inko is surprised when he calls on a random Tuesday when Izuku is nine years old, claiming he has wasted too much time and would like to get to know his son. But so long as Izuku wants to speak to him, Inko sees no reason to deny them contact, and Izuku is undeniably thrilled by the idea of having another positive adult figure in his life.

Before she passes Izuku the phone, she mutes the speaker and says, “Remember -”

“I’m quirkless,” Izuku finishes for her with a bright smile that contrasts painfully with the tiredness in his eyes. “I know the drill.” 

She passes the phone over, brushing a hand over his hair as Izuku chirps his hello to his father and trails past her towards his room. 

She stares at his door for a long moment after it closes, feeling distinctly like she has failed as a mother.

Katsuki watches Izuku carefully. For almost a month after the Incident, Katsuki ignores him, pretending he doesn’t even exist, but then it occurs to Katsuki that no one else knows about the quirk . A week after what he did to Katsuki he came in with some paperwork and a story about how the doctor told him he was quirkless. It was bullshit, but it served its purpose because now no one is looking at the nerd, because no one cares about the weak, quirkless brat. But that means no one is watching him. 

Someone needs to watch him, obviously. He needs to be kept in line, to make sure he doesn't forget his place - to make sure he doesn't get any big ideas. So Katsuki watches him, because no one else will, because no one else knows what Katsuki knows. 

The extras in their class are too careless. Most of them avoid the nerd and some of them tease him, but some of them are still nice to him, talking to him or letting him hang around them, which can’t be allowed to continue. They have no idea what they’re dealing with, and if they get too close Izuku will take their quirks and then who knows what he’ll do. 

“Why are you talking to him?” Katsuki snaps at one of the nicest girls in their class, the fool who never wants anyone to be alone or left out. “He’s just a worthless Deku.” 

The girl looks affronted and Izuku looks mortified, eyes wide and wet, but the majority of the class is giggling and parroting the name back and forth, so Katsuki knows it has worked. He’ll make sure that Izuku is Deku, and then Deku will remember that he is useless and worthless and he won’t get any ideas about using that awful quirk of his. 

Later, Deku corners him on their walk home, running after Katsuki with disgusting determination. 

“Why would you call me that, Kacchan?” he asks. Something cracks in Katsuki’s chest and the sharp edges of it dig into his lungs.

“Don’t call me that!” he snaps. His chest and throat are too tight, he can’t stand to look at Deku, and he struggles to breathe through the feeling that’s choking him. He fights the urge to turn and run away. Deku should be running, not Katsuki; Katsuki never runs from anything. 

“You should thank me, you know,” Katsuki says, plastering a sneer on his face. “If people are calling you useless, they’re not calling you a villain.” 

Katsuki doesn’t need to say even though they should be. The words ring in the silence, an unspoken truth. The look on Deku’s face makes it obvious that he hears them, too. 

Good, Katsuki thinks savagely. Deku knows what he is.

When Katsuki turns, Deku stays there, frozen. He makes no attempt to follow, and Katsuki walks just slow enough that he cannot be accused of running away. If, when he is safe in his room, he chokes down sobs that are violent enough to make him ill, no one will ever know. 

To say that Izuku doesn’t use his quirk at all after the age of four would be an exaggeration, but only a slight one. He uses it on his mother, periodically, at her instance. Much to his chagrin, a degree of practice is necessary to gain control, but the idea of accidentally stealing quirks as he goes about his day is far worse than the idea of intentionally taking and returning his mother’s to get a feel for how it works, even if it feels a bit like picking poisons. 

He learns a few things about his quirk, all of it unavoidable, and he files the information in a mental catalogue that he prays never grows. He can take quirks from a distance, though the range is unknown. He can only return them with physical contact. It is far easier to take a quirk than to return one. Unless someone tries to use their quirk, they generally don’t realize it’s missing - his mother has described an “odd, but vague and non-urgent” feeling associated with missing her quirk. He can sense quirks around him, range still unknown, and has a certain intuition of their nature. 

Guiltily, Izuku is rather thrilled by the last aspect. Quirks have always fascinated him. Possibly, this interest is a secondary effect of his own quirk, a natural fascination with what he is meant to steal and hoard, but the idea makes Izuku feel slightly nauseous, so he comforts himself with the fact that his love of quirks long precedes the manifestation of his own. 

Regardless, there’s no denying the use of Izuku’s quirk for his analysis hobby. Just from looking at his mother, he can tell you that her quirk is a type of weak, limited telekinesis centered on her own person. The information his quirk gives him isn’t exhaustive, merely an impression of how a quirk functions that Izuku needs to interpret himself, leaving plenty of questions unanswered and applications unaddressed. He fills notebooks with his speculation, eagerly scratching out theories about the quirks of his classmate, his teachers, and even random people he passes on the street. 

If he is lucky, he can get close enough to an active battle to read the quirks of both the heroes and the villains there. He does this more often than he probably should, skirting close to police lines and staring in awe at such amazing quirks in action. His mother would worry herself sick if she knew just how often Izuku wanders around after school searching for danger; she already worries, just having him out of her sight. 

And he has to be very careful, because whenever he reaches out, there is a risk, no matter how small - and a temptation, no matter how deeply buried - that he will steal the quirk he is analyzing.  

Izuku is very aware of the thin line he is walking. Seeing Katsuki everyday makes sure he never forgets, the reality of his situation always fresh in his mind. 

Quirks are not deterministic. Having a certain quirk does not automatically make someone a hero or a villain or anything else. People choose what they are by the way they use their quirks. 

Izuku has to believe this, because so long as it’s true, he has the power to be something other than a villain. But that means never - never - using his quirk. Because as much as Izuku believes that having a quirk like his doesn’t make him a villain by default, using it would . Villains use their quirks to hurt people. 

And hurting people is all Izuku’s quirk can do. 

Hisashi Shigaraki calls his son at least once every other week or so. When he contacted Inko last year seeking to establish a line of communication, he had intended to speak to Izuku more frequently, to maximize his influence and firmly establish his presence in the boy’s life. The regularity of his calls quickly decreased, though, when he realized just how trying it was to make routine conversation with a ten year-old boy. 

Today, as Izuku babbles into his ear about one hero or another, Hisashi is reminded of why he so quickly relegated Tomura’s care to Kurogiri. To his credit, Izuku is quite interesting for a young boy, and Hisashi is not indifferent to the fact that this boy is his son , his own flesh and blood, and is special and deserving of Hisashi’s attention because of that. Hisashi does not regret reaching out to the boy, but he still sometimes dreads making these phone calls because of the way Izuku can talk and talk and talk . 

“Sometimes I wish I had a quirk,” Izuku confides in him, voice soft and uncertain. 

At this, Hisashi gives the conversation his whole attention. If his son wants a quirk, Hisashi could certainly provide. Perhaps that would be a good way to bring Izuku into the fold, to begin molding him and helping him to reach his full potential. 

Then Izuku adds, “A good one,” and Hisashi experiences a rare moment of surprise as he considers the implications.

It is an unusual specification for a quirkless child to make, especially one like Izuku, who once rambled eagerly for nearly an hour about a quirk he had seen that could make any object the user touched a slightly different color. It seems that the boy has almost an equal amount of enthusiasm for any quirk he encounters, from the most mundane to those of pro heroes. 

“You are perfect the way you are,” Hisashi assures him idly, because that is what a parent should say, even if it’s not true. 

The conversation comes to a close, but Izuku’s remark lingers in Hisashi’s mind long after, always on the edge of his thoughts. What is a good quirk and what is a bad quirk, and what do both of those things look like through the eyes of a quirk-obsessed but supposedly-quirkless boy?

Hisashi smiles to himself, thankful, not for the first time, that he decided that his son was worth investing time into after all. This mystery holds Hisashi’s attention for days and he turns it over and over in his head, inspecting it from all angles like a shiny new toy he can't bear to put down.

Izuku is aware that he shouldn’t walk home through back alleys or under bridges. He could be attacked, his mother always tells him, quoting statistics about dangerous parts of the city and bad things that can happen to children who wander off alone. Of course, there were some days when he was in just as much danger - if not more - walking along the standard route, because Katsuki and his friends took the same track home.

Experience has taught Izuku that he wouldn’t be safe walking home the normal way today, because today the class was talking about what they wanted to do when they grow up and Izuku had told everyone that he wanted to be a hero.  Katsuki, never far from anger where Izuku is concerned, always reaches a special, incandescent level of rage when Izuku mentions his dreams. 

You are the thing that people need saving from , Katsuki’s voice says in Izuku’s head. 

If you want to defeat a villain, start with yourself. Do us all a favor.

So Izuku takes his longer, back route - the one his mother would say is dangerous, but that Izuku has never actually gotten hurt on. Ironically, he calls this his "safe path," though he would never say as much to his mom. He can perfectly imagine the guilt that would fill her eyes in response, and he has no desire to see it for real. 

He is passing under a familiar bridge - grimy and graffitied, but peaceful - when he finally sees the statistics his mother is always fretting about in action. It happens exactly as Izuku is walking through, not a second sooner or later, in a horrifying mockery of serendipity. The manhole cover that Izuku trods over at least once a week rattles in its grate, and a thick, viscous fluid seeps up around its edges. 

As soon as he sees it, Izuku knows that it’s a quirk, that he’s staring at a person, even if they aren’t particularly person-shaped. The sludge forms together quickly, a stinking mass that barely bothers to be anthropomorphic. Bulging eyes and wide, square teeth are the only standard human features this person has maintained. 

Dread rolls through Izuku’s stomach, but, he reasons to himself, nothing has happened yet. This sludge person’s quirk is intimidating, sure, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could just be another citizen going about their day, their path happening to cross Izuku’s like so many others that Izuku doesn’t even take notice of. This dread is judgemental of him, not to mention hypocritical, he tells himself, even as he begins to tremble. 

Then their eyes meet. The sludge person grins. In the absence of lips, it's their teeth that move, shifting through their liquid body to form an arch that feels like a parody of a smile. 

A paralyzing realization hits Izuku. It's something he had known in theory, but had never integrated into his reality, and now the two are crashing together like opposing waves, catching Izuku in the cross tide. Not every person with a "villainous" quirk is a villain, but some of them are. One of them is standing in front of him. Izuku is not going to be allowed to simply walk out of this alleyway.

Izuku doesn’t have time to think - even if he did, he likely wouldn’t be able to, his mind stuck spinning in terrified circles. He only moves. He throws his bag, slinging it one-handed over his shoulder as he pivots on his heels to run back the way he came. He aims for the villain’s eyes, but it is mostly by luck that one of his school books flies free and hits his target. Izuku doesn't see the impact, already scrambling to get back to a main road, where the presence of witnesses promises some kind of safety, either because the villain will give up pursuit or because a hero will intervene. The villain bellows in pain, the sound deep and wet and furious. 

Izuku makes it four steps, each one jolting up his shins and rattling the bones of his legs, jarring in a way Izuku has never associated with running. His fifth step doesn’t connect. 

Tendrils of murky green liquid wrap around Izuku’s waist, anchoring him in place and growing thicker as more of the villain’s mass flows towards him. Then, when the hold on him is strong enough, Izuku himself is dragged backwards, the soles of his shoes scrambling uselessly against the asphalt as he sinks deeper into the shadow of the bridge. The villain says something, but their words are lost to the pounding of blood in Izuku’s ears as the sludge envelops him. 

Izuku cannot hear or see or breathe or think. In only seconds, the sludge invades his mouth, coating his teeth and tongue, racing down his throat and into his lungs. 

It smells like sewage. 

It tastes like death. 

Izuku is going to die. 

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Izuku thinks about that saying a lot. Sometimes he stays up at night, wondering how long he would have to live before becoming a villain like Katsuki always says. He wonders what it would take for someone like him to die a hero. 

He has never thought about the way that some people just die. They die boring, civilian deaths. Or they die like he is about to - pathetically and futilely, too good to be a villain, but too weak to be anything else. 

Some people die worthless, useless deaths. He will die proving Katsuki right about at least one thing.

His hands claw ineffectually at slime that slips through his fingers. He kicks his legs weakly, but he can no longer find the ground. He twists and turns, but nothing changes. In the last moments, fading fast, no longer able to tell which way is up, Izuku finds something solid and he grips it. 

Panicked and desperate, Izuku grasps at the villain’s quirk and it comes away so easily when Izuku pulls that he doesn’t immediately realize what it is he’s grabbed. It’s only when the quirk comes to him that Izuku realizes what is happening, because this time the quirk does not settle inside him in the same effortless and unnoticeable way as the few others Izuku has taken. 

The sludge villain’s quirk doesn’t fit inside Izuku. This quirk is made for a flexible, amorphous blob and Izuku is rigidly boy-shaped. It is a square peg and Izuku is a round hole. He takes it with no issue, but he cannot have it the way he always has before. He holds it in metaphysical hands and feels it dripping through his fingers, suspended in some nowhere, in-between space. 

The villain writhes around him, the sludge that comprises their entire body briefly growing thick and clumpy, like curdled milk, before rapidly thinning out. Izuku falls through it, landing on damp, sticky pavement. His legs can’t support him and he collapses to his knees, then his hands, then his elbows. He doesn’t feel the impacts.

Sludge - if it can still be called that now that it's barely thicker than water - pours down around him, flowing from his hair and off every edge of his body. He coughs and gags as he vomits the stuff out, lungs and stomach urgently evacuating their contents. Toxic slime mixes with bile and acid and it runs down his chin and out his nose, burning and itching on his skin. He gasps for breath whenever he can, vision still spotty from oxygen deprivation. 

Izuku doesn’t understand what has happened, doesn’t understand why the villain has seemingly fled, and his body is unable to trust that he’s safe. Several small, solid somethings bounce off of his head and back, clattering loudly across the ground. Adrenaline still running high, Izuku’s attention snaps to the noise even while he’s struggling to stay conscious. 

His eyes find those of the sludge villain, laying disconnected on the ground nearly a foot apart, staring unseeing in entirely different directions. The noise was likely from the teeth, scattered about like haphazard, macabre confetti. 

Izuku still holds the sludge quirk in his hand and he lets it go now, hoping that everything will come right back together like nothing happened, even if that means the villain will attack again and actually kill Izuku this time. He hopes and he watches, but the eyes he’s staring at stay dead even as the quirk is freed, slipping away from Izuku’s fingers to some place where he can’t feel it anymore. 

He vomits again. 

Collapsing to the side, Izuku stares at the light beyond the bridge. With evening approaching, the world is starting to take on a slightly orange tint and the shadows that Izuku is laying in are starting to slant and grow darker. He remembers the panicked things he thought when he was sure that he was going to be the one to die, here. 

He asked himself a question: how long would he have to live before he became the villain?

He answers it now: ten years, apparently. 

Inko gets home later than she would like, but thankfully not so late that she can’t throw something frozen into the oven for dinner. Shifts at the hospital can be long and unpredictable, but she always does her best to be home so she and Izuku can eat together, working hard to make their home as safe and stable as she can for her son. The money from Hisashi is a huge help with that, allowing Inko to work far less than she would otherwise have to as a single mother.

Izuku’s shoes are not by the door, but his bag is dropped haphazardly not too far from the entrance. The shower is running. Inko doesn’t think Izuku has ever been in the shower when she’s come home. A disquieted feeling settles over her like a shroud, anxiety twisting in her stomach, but only when she looks down the hall and sees the bathroom door open does she panic. She races into the bathroom, sparring no worry for privacy or modesty, all her thoughts occupied by the certainty that something is wrong with her child. 

She finds him sitting fully clothed in the shower. The curtain is left open and puddles have formed on the tile around the tub. Water plasters his hair to his face and his uniform to his skin. His skin is pale; his eyes are closed. Inko’s heart drops like a stone into her stomach.

He is not dead, she tells herself. He was fine this morning and he will be fine again. They will both be fine. 

Recently, Izuku has gotten too big for Inko to pick up comfortably, but that doesn’t stop her from lifting him now. Even sopping wet, Inko pulls him into her arms, hauling him over the lip of the tub and into her lap without even registering his weight. He is cold, limp, and unresponsive as she cradles him. 

Fumbling, numb hands move to Izuku’s neck and Inko is shaking so badly she fears she won’t be able to find his pulse, but it’s there - strong and unmistakable beneath her fingers. She curls around him and his breath stirs her hair. He’s alive. As long as he’s alive everything will be okay.

Mustering up all her will, Inko seals up the part of herself that wants to break down crying and gets to work. There will be time for tears later, when she can allow herself to be a mother. Now, she needs to be a nurse. 

First, to get him warm. She strips Izuku of his clothes, carefully moving his limbs around and checking for any injuries as she goes. His palms, elbows, and knees all have abrasions. It is obvious that he fell, since the scrapes are paired with bruises and small amounts of grit remain in the wounds. They are worse on his hands, likely because the other areas were somewhat protected by his uniform, but overall, the damage is fairly superficial. His right wrist is slightly swollen, and Inko prods at it gently, hoping it is merely sprained, rather than fractured or broken. As far as Inko can tell, Izuku is otherwise unharmed, at least physically.

Wet fabric slaps against wet flooring as she tosses his uniform aside. She leaves him in the bathroom for a painful moment, raiding cabinets for every towel and blanket and leaving the blankets in Izuku’s room and then returning to him with the towels. The shower is still going and she turns it off, ears ringing in the sudden silence, before carefully beginning to soak the majority of excess water from Izuku’s skin and hair. 

When he is no longer dripping, Inko swaddles him in one of the dry towels, wrapping one around his head for his hair, and lifts him to carry him to his room. Once again, she leaves him, no easier now than it was minutes ago, this time to retrieve the first aid kit from the bathroom cabinet. Methodically, she cleans debris from his scrapes, cleans them with alcohol, smears an antibiotic cream over the raw flesh, and bandages them up. She splints his wrist, fairly certain it’s only sprained. The towel around Izuku’s head has gotten damp, so Inko replaces it with a fresh one before covering him with blankets. 

Already, Izuku’s skin has regained some of its warmth and color, though that’s small comfort when he’s still unconscious. All Inko can do now is monitor him and wait, growing more nervous with each moment he doesn’t wake. His injuries seem mild, leading Inko to believe that it’s just shock or exhaustion keeping him asleep, but the fear that he’s sustained some unseen damage haunts her. She will wait half an hour, she tells herself, and then they are going to the hospital.

While she waits, Inko lets herself cry.

Izuku’s eyes flutter open exactly seventeen minutes later. His stare is hazy, perhaps a bit dazed, but he doesn’t seem to have any trouble focusing on Inko, which she takes as a good sign. Tears build in his eyes almost instantly as Inko struggles to stop her own and compose herself.

“Mama,” he says, voice so gravely and raw that Inko’s throat aches in sympathy, “I’m sorry.” 

Any progress Inko has made at holding back her tears is obliterated. “Baby, why are you apologizing? Don’t apologize. It’s okay, everything is okay, now.”

He shakes his head, something wild rising in his eyes as he struggles to sit up, wincing in pain as he braces his hands on the bed. Inko reaches to the table where she has already prepared a glass of water and some painkillers, passing them to Izuku who swallows them desperately. He chugs all the water and Inko considers offering him more, but is too reluctant to leave him just yet.

“I did a bad thing,” he tells her, staring blankly at the empty glass in his hands.

“What happened?” she asks softly.

“I hurt someone. Real bad. With my quirk.”

If Izuku’s quirk is involved, this is worse than Inko imagined. 

Unlike most people, including Izuku himself, Inko does not fear her son’s quirk. She probably would, if it belonged to anyone other than Izuku, but she knows her baby boy, and she knows that all he has ever wanted is to help people. But the rest of the world wouldn’t know that. They wouldn’t understand that, even if Izuku’s quirk had so many horrifying and immediately obvious applications, he would never use it that way. People would be afraid of him and they would want to hurt him, lock him up. Or worse, use him.

Inko can’t allow it to happen. It’s why she’s broken so many laws over the years to pretend that Izuku is quirkless. It’s why she tolerated the pain in his eyes, why she grit her teeth and watched as his bubbling optimism slowly became more and more reserved, even though it killed her inside. She wants Izuku to be able to be proud of who he is. She wants him to be able to live his life freely and happily. But most of all she wants him to be safe. 

“Izuku,” she says, tone serious but still as gentle as she can make it. “I need you to tell me what happened. It’s going to be okay. I’ll fix it for you, I promise.”

“You can’t,” he sobs. “You can’t fix it. They’re dead.”

Inko schools herself not to react, keeping the shock and fear off her face. That certainly makes things more complicated. But she meant what she said. She will do anything she can to keep Izuku safe. Inko won’t let anything as trivial as a dead body or Izuku’s quirk being revealed stop her from protecting her baby.

They could always leave Japan. Inko is sure that if she asks, Hisashi can get them plane tickets to America. He probably wouldn’t even ask many questions; he has always been a discrete type of man. 

She takes Izuku’s hands between her own and forces him to meet her eyes. 

“Tell me everything .”

He does and as he gets more and more distressed through the course of his tale, Inko oscillates between horrified, enraged, and relieved. Horrified that Izuku has had to experience this, enraged that anyone dared to touch him, and relieved that the situation is not half so dire as she assumed. 

“I’m a villain,” he tells her, broken-hearted and sincere.

“You’re not.”

“I am. I used my quirk to hurt someone. Only villains do that.”

“You did it to save yourself. That’s what heroes do. You’re a hero.”

“I’m not.”

“You are ,” Inko insists, meaning it with every fiber of her being. “You are my hero . I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you, Izuku. You survived and you came home to me. That’s the best thing you could have done.” 

Whatever response he has - certainly an argument to the contrary - is lost to his sobs. He curls up in Inko’s lap and lets her rock him, humming soothing sounds and reassuring him over and over that he has done nothing wrong. He falls asleep in her arms, to her narrative of love and support, and she hopes it will seep into his dreams. 

Inko doesn’t leave him for a long time that night. She holds Izuku like he is still a toddler and tries to figure out what this means for them. 

Her first concern, for the moment, has to be Izuku’s health. While he escaped the assault miraculously uninjured, the sludge he described could have had any number of pathogens inside it. Taking Izuku to the hospital would draw too much attention to the already delicate situation, so for the moment she’ll have to monitor him for any signs of infection or illness. Hopefully she’ll be able to pull a sample of the sludge from Izuku’s bag. She has a friend at the hospital who would be willing to run tests on it on the downlow, and that’ll give her a better idea of whether there are any urgent issues. 

Thankfully, she is reasonably sure that Japan won’t immediately become unsafe for them. Izuku is young and the person who attacked him was doubtlessly a villain. It’s entirely possible that the death won’t even be noticed. Even if it is, it would need to be traced back to Izuku, and then there was still only a small chance that anyone would try to prosecute him, a child who had a quirk accident while defending himself against a villain. 

But there is the issue of Izuku’s quirk. He used it outside the house, where any number of people or cameras could have seen. Maybe it isn’t unreasonable to assume that no one is aware of what happened, but that assumption is dangerous , and Inko’s concern, first and foremost, is with Izuku’s safety. 

It would be best to leave, Inko decides. Just in case. It might not be necessary, but it’s not as if they will be leaving that much behind. There are more reasons to leave than to stay.

For the first time she can remember, Inko calls Hisashi instead of the other way around. He doesn’t answer and Inko tries not to get impatient as she waits for a response. She calls again after an hour. Then again the hour after that. 

Finally, Hisashi calls her back.

“Is everything alright?” he asks in place of a greeting. “It’s late there, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Would you be willing to buy plane tickets for me and Izuku?” There is a pause. Hisashi’s response, when it comes, is decidedly neutral. 

“Plane tickets?”

“To America.”

“You want to come to the states.”

“I think a change of scenery would be good for Izuku,” she says honestly. “You know that school isn’t kind to him and it’s only getting worse as he gets older. America has a larger population of quirkless people and I’ve read that they’re better treated because of it.”

Hisashi is quiet for another long moment.

“Besides,” Inko adds, “wouldn’t you like to meet your son?”

“Of course,” Hisashi finally answers, “I’ll make the arrangements.” 

Tension that has been spooling in Inko’s gut releases so quickly it leaves her slightly dizzy. She grips the arm of her chair tightly enough that all the blood leaves her knuckles. 

“Is next week too early for you?” Hisashi asks. “I can book something later if you need more time to prepare.”

“No. Next week is perfect.” 

Inko hangs her head back and closes her eyes, relief pulsing over her as Hisashi talks about the details of the arrangement. Moving will be an adjustment, but it’s worth it to keep Izuku safe, and she truly does believe that a new start could be good for him. 

Inko bids her goodbyes, but Hisashi interrupts her before she can hang up.

“I’m glad you called,” is the last thing he says to her. "I’ve been wanting to see Izuku in person for a while now.”

Chapter Text

Three days after the incident with the sludge villain, Izuku is called to the principal's office where the police are waiting for him. His stomach sinks, but he doesn’t panic. He doesn’t even cry. He is scared because he doesn’t know exactly what is going to happen to him now, and he is sad because all of his mother’s hard work to make a life for them in America is going to waste, but mostly, he is resigned and accepting. 

This is nothing less than what he deserves, he tells himself, and if his inner voice sounds like Katsuki, that's just because Katuski was right all along. Izuku is a villain now, and villains go to jail. He just hopes his mother won’t get into any trouble. 

“Izuku,” someone says. He recognizes the voice, but he’s so surprised to hear it here that it takes him a moment to place it. 

He blinks and turns his head, noticing for the first time that his Aunt Mitsuki is sitting in one of the chairs in front of the principal’s unoccupied desk. 

Why is Auntie here? Is it because of Katsuki? Did Katsuki finally tell her that Izuku is a villain? Is she the one who turned him in? 

She doesn’t look mad, though, which is what Izuku would expect from someone looking at a villain. Izuku isn’t sure how she looks. He’s never seen her face like it is right now, as she reaches a hand out to him. Reflexively, he takes it, and she pulls him towards her until he is close enough to hug, tucking his head under her chin. It’s odd; Auntie has never been a hugger, preferring to show her affection by ruffling hair or bumping shoulders.

“What’s going on?” he asks, words sounding distant to his own ears.

“Midoriya-kun,” one of the officers says, speaking far more gently than Izuku deserves, considering what he has done. “This is about your mother.”

His mother? Panic spikes in Izuku’s chest. He has accepted that he needs to be punished for what he did, but his mom has nothing to do with that. Are the police blaming her, instead? Izuku has no doubt she would let them if it meant keeping Izuku safe. Maybe that’s why Auntie is here - because his mom has been arrested for Izuku’s crimes and now he’s going to have to stay with the Bakugos. 

“What about my mom?” he asks in a rush. “Where is she? Can I see her?”

“No, Izu-kun,” Aunt Mitsuki says into his hair, voice strangely muffled. 

“I’m sorry, but you’re mother has been in an accident -”

Izuku’s world narrows, his vision tunneling, sights and sounds growing more and more distant. His mother has been in an accident, he thinks to himself. 

His mother has been in an accident . 

He can feel hands on his face, grounding him, holding him down so he can’t float away. Auntie’s palms are soft and familiar, but her red eyes are filled with tears and Izuku has never seen her cry before. Oddly, Izuku doesn’t think he’s crying, because he can still see, even if everything around him looks slightly off, like he’s in a dream. Maybe he’s dreaming. Maybe that’s why his - 

His mother has been in an accident . 

The officers are saying something, their mouths moving in turns, but Izuku can’t hear them - or he isn’t listening, but what difference does that make. 

His eyes slide over to the dying plant in the corner. The edges of its leaves are yellow and brittle, crumbling and cracking under the slightest pressure. Izuku pities it. As long as he has known about it, the plant has been dying. It never just dies ; it has been dying for years and that sounds terrible. 

Izuku’s fingers tingle, even though the sensation feels far away. He wonders if they would crumble and crack if he bent them, like perpetually dying foliage. 

The officers nod, say one last thing, and then leave. Auntie kisses Izuku’s forehead, hugs him tight for a moment, and then stands. She holds his hand and leads him out of the room, towards the school entrance. Izuku stares at his fingers, folded around hers. They are still attached, even though he feels so brittle, like he should break, not bend.

“Are we going to the hospital?” Izuku asks as Auntie buckles him into the back seat of her car, because his mother has been in an accident so she must be in the hospital now. Auntie stares at him like he is some foreign creature. Or maybe like he is a dying plant.

“No, we’re not,” she says.

She drives them home, instead. To the Bakugo’s home, that is. The journey blurs around Izuku and he loses track of where he is and what's happening until suddenly they're there, the car already off, Izuku’s seat belt already undone, and Auntie already tugging him out of his seat with uncharacteristically gentle hands.

Izuku’s apartment is just down the street. He can walk there from here - he did all the time when he was small and Katsuki was still his friend. He turns that way now, but Aunt Mitsuki grabs him by the hand and leads him into the house. 

“When do I get to see my mom?” 

“Izuku. She’s gone.”

Gone where, he wonders. She wouldn’t leave for America without him. He is the whole reason they have to leave in the first place.

“She’s dead.”

His mother has been in an accident .

Izuku is familiar with death in a way that most children, even most adults, are not. He has faced death, he has felt it all around him. His mother has been in an accident the same way the sludge villain was in an accident when they met Izuku. 

He hears his mother’s voice in his ears, an echo from just days ago that feels so far away now that he’ll never hear it again. 

I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you, Izuku .

What is he meant to do, now that he has lost her?

When Katsuki gets home, his old hag meets him at the door. Deku had been pulled out of class halfway through the day and never returned, leaving Katsuki in a good mood that teeters precariously as his mother sticks an arm out and blocks his path towards his room. Her eyes are swollen, he realizes, and her usually perfect complexion is red and blotchy.

“What’s wrong with you?” he barks. He shoves her arm out of his way, but she raises it again in an instant.

“Katsuki,” the old hag says, level and grave, “Inko died this afternoon.”

Katsuki freezes. He has barely seen Inko Midoriya since he was four years old. He hasn’t wanted to, never forgetting the way she treated him the day of Izuku’s violation, acting as if Katsuki was the fucking problem. But despite the stain of that memory, Katsuki often remembers how kind Auntie Inko was to him. Even when Katsuki was being a little piece of shit, she never raised her voice with him. Except for that one day, she always gave him the benefit of the doubt, treating him with a care he never experienced anywhere else. Often, enviously, he had wished that Auntie Inko was his mother, and Izuku could have the old hag, who was always so much nicer to him, anyway. 

“What happened?” he asks, sounding small and lost in a way that makes him growl under his breath a second later.

“There was a villain attack at the hospital and she got caught up in it.”

“The villain?”

“Died while the heroes were attempting to subdue him.”

“Good,” Katsuki spits. For once his mother does not yell at him about his too-casual attitude towards death and violence.

“Izuku is in the guest room,” she says instead. 

The loss and yearning that rose inside Katsuki at the news of Auntie’s death drain away, leaving familiar, hollow anger in their wake. His mother must be able to read it on his face because she scowls at him.

“He’s only here for the night,” she tells him, like that makes it fucking okay. “His father booked the first flight from the states, he’s probably already on his way. He’ll have picked Izuku up before you get home tomorrow.”

Katsuki sneers. “I don’t fucking want him here.”

“He has nowhere else to go. That boy’s entire world just shattered and the least we can do for Inko is give him a place to stay for the night. You will be civil to him.”

“I won’t bother him if he doesn’t bother me.”  

They stare at each other for an intense moment before the old hag sighs. She grabs him by the hair, shaking his head from side to side and ignoring the way he shouts about it. 

“Good. Now go do your homework or whatever it is you do, brat.”

Katsuki bats her hands away, moving towards his room before she finishes her sentence. Down the hall, the door of the guest room is ajar, and Katsuki stops to glare at it, fists flexing, before scoffing and yanking the door to his own room open. He slams it behind him.

Like every evening, Katsuki spreads his work over his desk and sets about getting it done. Normally, he doesn’t struggle in the slightest, working easily through anything the extras at school throw at him. Today, though, he can’t concentrate. His eyes keep drifting towards the wall that connects his room to the one that goddamned Deku is in, upper lip twitching in an unconscious sneer. 

Deku is in his house, in the next room, breathing Katsuki’s air and probably getting it all shitty and contaminated. It’s like Deku’s last act of fucking with Katsuki’s life. Auntie dies, and the nerd is going to go away to live in the US with his father, finally out of Katsuki’s hair forever, but first he’s just got to come in here and invade Katsuki’s home first. 

Katsuki’s pencil snaps in his fist. Splinters of wood dig into his palm and he curses, dropping the pencil halves and shaking his hand out. A small sliver of the shit has embedded itself beneath his skin and he digs at it with his thumb for a moment before cursing again when he can’t get it out. He shoves himself away from his desk, making a general racket as he slams his chair backwards. 

“Knock it off!” the old hag shouts from somewhere else in the house when Katsuki's door bangs against the wall as he throws it open. He rolls his eyes, storming to the bathroom to get the fucking tweezers and maybe a bandaid or something, too, if he’s actually going to end up bleeding just because he broke his stupid goddamned pencil. 

The guest room is between Katsuki and the bathroom and the door is open enough for him to see inside. 

Izuku sits on the bed, back against the headboard with his arms wrapped around a pillow he holds in his lap. He is staring blankly towards the door and Katsuki freezes as their eyes unintentionally meet, though it isn't entirely clear whether Izuku actually sees him. The nerd isn’t doing anything; he’s just sitting there, all empty-eyed. It’s fucking creepy, is what it is. 

Katsuki resists the urge to snap, sure that wherever his mother is, she is listening closely and primed to start screaming at him if he steps a toe out of line. Gritting his teeth so hard his jaw aches, he tears his eyes from Izuku and turns back towards the bathroom, clinging tightly to a thin thread of restraint. 

Then, so softly Katsuki will wonder if he imagined it, Izuku says, “I think you were right about me, Kacchan.”

Katsuki shudders violently, body going numb as his abruptly racing pulse fills his ears. He does not turn back towards the guest room. He thinks he can feel Izuku’s eyes on him, a stare so cold it burns and so empty it swallows everything it meets. A small, hysterical part of Katsuki - a part he refuses to acknowledge, much less indulge - is certain that if he turns his head to the side Izuku will be right there , hollow gaze filling the gap between the door and its frame. 

Resolutely looking at the opposite wall, Katsuki does a 180, returns to his room with measured, equal steps and locks the door behind him. He does not run. There’s no reason for him to run away from that shitty, useless weakling. This is his house and Katsuki doesn’t run from anything.

And things that run are often chased.

The man who comes to pick Izuku up from the Bakugo household early the next afternoon is not his father. 

“Hisashi,” Auntie Mistuki greets as she opens the door, “I can’t say I’m glad to see you again, considering the circumstances.”

“Yes,” the man beyond the door responds, “I suppose I would rather have never seen you again at all. I’m sorry for your loss, Mitsuki.”

“Izuku has lost far more than I have.”

At that, both adults’ attention moves to where Izuku stands, hovering just past the entryway and watching their interaction with tired, wary eyes. He stares at the stranger, more alert than he has been since he received the news about his mother.

The man has golden amber eyes and a smattering of freckles. His hair is a mass of dark and wild curls. Likely, he is taller than Izuku will ever be, and his features are long and thin where Izuku’s are round, but the resemblance between them is obvious. Izuku, as it turns out, was a perfect combination of his parents’ features, and no one would be able to look at the pair of them and not identify them as closely related. 

But this man is not his father. 

Izuku’s father has a fire breathing quirk. This is one of relatively few facts Izuku knows about Hisashi Akatani. The man at the door does not have a fire breathing quirk. Izuku is not entirely sure what his quirk actually is, a new and disconcerting sensation. He can still sense it, but can’t identify it. The quirk is tangled and shifting and seems to be shouting too much conflicting information that Izuku can’t make sense of. It makes his head hurt. 

“Izuku,” the man says, “I am so sorry this has happened to you.” 

His voice is soft and sounds sincere, but he is clearly lying about who he is so Izuku has no reason to trust anything else he says. Izuku cuts his eyes to Aunt Mitsuki, wondering if he should say something. Would she believe him? What could she do about it if she did? He stays quiet as the man walks past Aunt Mitsuki with a nod, coming to stand in front of Izuku.

“Are you going to take me to America?” Izuku asks him.

“I’m going to take you home,” the man replies.

“My home is down the street.”

The man’s eyes soften, losing a guardedness that Izuku didn’t notice until it was gone. 

“It was,” the man agrees. “I’m hoping we can make a new one, together.”

Izuku does not want a new home, especially not with this imposter, even if he seems nice enough. Izuku wants to go back to the apartment and be greeted by the smell of his mother’s cooking. He wants to see her standing in the kitchen, hear her humming to herself, smell her shampoo as she hugs him close to welcome him home. This man, father or not, can’t give Izuku that. Nothing can, because it doesn’t exist anymore.

The man kneels in front of him, “I know that’s not what you want right now. It might even sound impossible. But it’s my job to take care of you, and I promise I’ll do that as well as I can.” 

The man reaches out a hand, silently asking for permission to touch, and Izuku stares at it for a long moment. He doesn’t know who this person is, why he is here, or where Izuku’s actual father is. But Izuku finds that he doesn’t particularly care. He knows he should, in a distant sort of way, but he can’t actually find it inside himself. 

Today Izuku is going home with a strange man, who will take him away from everything he knows and nothing will ever be the same again. This would be true, even if it was actually Izuku’s father crouching in front of him. Whether the stranger is his father or some other person wearing his father’s face makes little difference in the end. 

Izuku puts his hand in the man’s and lets himself be pulled into a gentle hug. It’s nice. The man is bigger and more solid than Aunt Mitsuki, and he smells of something smokey and sharp. The man lets Izuku go and stands, turning back to Auntie who has been watching them with drawn brows. 

“Thank you for keeping him safe for me, but we should probably be going. I can’t be away from work for long, so we’ll be catching a flight back state-side this evening and I want to make sure we have time to pack up anything he wants to keep from the apartment.”

Auntie bites her lip, “I understand. I’ll walk you over. I - I still have Inko’s spare key, so I can let you in.”

The walk to the apartment is short and silent. Auntie’s tension contrasts perfectly against the man’s reserved stoicism. Between the two adults, Izuku’s shorter legs set their pace, and he stares down at their feet, barely blinking. The man’s shoes seem unreal against the cracked concrete of the sidewalk, perfectly polished and unscuffed dress shoes that Izuku thinks would look out of place anywhere except a high end department store. His suit is the same, pristine and perfectly pressed as if the man has not spent the last day darting between airports on different sides of the world.

“I can take it from here,” the man says, firm but not unkind, after Aunt Mitsuki fumbles the door to the Midoriya apartment open. 

She blinks, “Oh. Right.” 

Her eyes drift to Izuku and she hesitates for a moment before dropping down next to him, placing one hand on his shoulder and the other on the side of his face.

“We’re going to miss you so much,” she tells him. “I expect you to call, alright? Just because you’re going away doesn’t mean you have to be gone . We can still talk whenever you want. If you ever need anything, Masaru and I will still be there for you, just like always, no matter how far away we are. Love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, too.”

She pulls him into a long, tight hug, then stands and stares at him for a moment, as if committing him to memory. Izuku does the same, not knowing when he’ll see her next. Aunt Mitsuki was practically a second mother to him, even if he saw her less frequently after his accident with Katsuki, and now he is losing her, too. 

He watches as she walks away down the hall, watches still even after she disappears, until the man who is not his father places a hand on his shoulder and steers Izuku into the apartment. The door closes behind them and Izuku is alone with the stranger.

“Feel free to grab anything you need,” the man says, “but only things that are important. Anything else can be replaced when we get where we’re going.”

Izuku leads the way to his room. The man glances around but says nothing as Izuku pulls a suitcase from his closet and begins sorting through his belongings for those that have sentimental value. He puts aside some of his favorite clothes, an All Might plush he and Katsuki had gotten together before their relationship imploded, photos of his mother that he can’t stand to look at but can’t leave behind, the quirk analysis notebooks that he has poured so much time into. The man sits on Izuku’s bed and watches in silence.

“Who are you?” Izuku asks. The man raises his eyebrows, says nothing.

“You’re not my father,” Izuku persists. “Who are you?”

“I work for your father.”

“Oh. Are you bringing me to him?”

“As soon as you are done here, yes.”

“How do you look like him?”

“A quirk of an associate. Your father was unable to come retrieve you in person, but it seemed unlikely that your temporary guardians would hand you over to a stranger. A degree of deception seemed prudent.”

“What’s your name?”

“You may call me Kurogiri.”

“And your quirk?”

The man smiles with an edge, “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you, Izuku Shigaraki.”

“Midoriya,” Izuku corrects, frowning. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to answer them.”

“It’s fine. An inquisitive mind is something your father values. Knowledge is power, after all. As for my quirk, you’ll see soon enough. Are you finished?”

Izuku has not found anything new to put into the suitcase for nearly three minutes. He looks down at it, one side still nearly empty. Izuku has more things, of course, but none of them truly matter to him. His life, he thinks, is painfully empty. The most important thing in it was his mother. With her, it didn’t matter what else he had. But now she is gone, and Izuku the contents of Izuku’s life can be condensed to one side of a relatively small piece of luggage. 

“Not quite,” is all he tells the man, Kurogiri, before leaving his own bedroom to go to his mother's. Kurogiri does not follow, and Izuku is glad. He doesn’t want the stranger in his mom's room.

The bed is still unmade and there are sticky notes on the dresser, reminders of tasks that Izuku’s mother would never get around to fulfilling. On the side table, there is a framed picture of the two of them and a locket. Izuku takes the picture, pressing it against his chest so he can’t see his mother grinning out from behind the glass. He passes the locket chain over his head, letting it fall under his shirt. It’s a cheap piece of jewelry that Izuku had given his mom for Christmas when he was six. The clasp had broken almost immediately so it could no longer open, and she had never found a photo to place inside anyway, but she always said it was her favorite. 

“Lockets hold memories,” she had said, when a disappointed Izuku asked why she still bothered wearing it after it broke so quickly. “This one holds all my memories of you.”

“It doesn’t even open.”

“If it can’t open, then nothing can ever escape. It’s perfect.”

For four years, Izuku had rarely seen her without it, only when she was going to work or just returning. She always left it on the table when she had to leave because she didn’t want it to get broken in any of the chaos that could sometimes descend on the hospital. 

Yesterday, she had left it on the table and gone to work as usual, and she had gotten broken in the chaos, instead.

“Do you have everything you need?” Kurogiri asks as Izuku leaves the bedroom. Izuku nods.

“Are you sure? We won’t be returning here.”

Izuku hesitates, looking over the small apartment that is the only home he has ever known. Yesterday he left for school in the morning, and today he will leave for good. No more scuffs from Katsuki’s shoes on the door, no more height marks ticked into door frames, no more drafty windows in the winter or neighbors who were always looking for a lost cat that was just sleeping under some furniture. 

“I’m sure,” Izuku lies. “What time is our flight?”

“Ah, right. We won’t be going to the airport, actually.”

“What? Why not? You said you were sent here by my dad. Aren’t you supposed to take me to him?”

“And I will. I simply have more convenient modes of transportation.”

On cue, the air next to Kurogiri bends, a dark mist spiralling out of a single point and expanding until it is the approximate size of a doorway. Izuku squints at the sudden pain in his head staring at it, his own quirk providing an overwhelming mix of incomprehensible feedback at the sight. 

“After you,” Kurogiri says, sweeping his arm out. 

Izuku shakes his head, backing up half a step. Despite the deception associated with Kurogiri’s presence, Izuku has not cared enough to resist or rail against the odd circumstances, but this? He doesn’t like this, doesn’t like not knowing what that swirling mass of darkness is or what it will do to him.

Kurogiri sighs and makes a small gesture with his hand that causes the ground to fall away from Izuku’s feet. Izuku doesn’t even have time to shout. 

Four days ago, Sensei had come to the bar, and it hadn't been for Tomura. Sensei had walked past Tomura like he wasn’t even there, sitting heavily on a stool in front of Kurogiri and tapping his fingers on the bar in a harsh, staccato rhythm. 

"Kurogiri, prepare a room. Inko has gotten it into her mind to remove my son from Japan. He will be joining us sooner than anticipated."

Tomura sat in his corner booth, handheld game forgotten as a gameover message flashed across the screen. He had been living as Sensei’s ward for a decade now, and while he didn’t see the man in person all that often, he knew Sensei trusted and cared for him. But he had never heard of an Inko, and he had no idea that Sensei had a son. 

"And the mother?" Kurogiri asked, equally oblivious to Tomura’s presence, even as Tomura threw his game down loudly on the table to scratch at his neck.

"She won't be an issue. Just the one room." Sensei paused for a moment, seeming to think, though he could be hard to read with his head encased in metal. 

“Actually,” he added, “is my old room still open?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Good. I think I’ll be staying a while. Best to be here while Izuku settles in.”

“You’re staying?” Tomura couldn’t help but ask, drawing both adults’ attention.

“Oh. Tomura.” Tomura’s skin crawled at the casual, almost disinterested way Sensei said his name, nothing like the way he lingered over the syllables of I-zu-ku . “Yes, I suppose so. Once Izuku arrives, I’ll want to make sure he adjusts well to the change.”

Izuku, Tomura thought, must be the son. It wasn't a very impressive name, if you ask him. Sensei must not have chosen it, because it wasn't half as good as Tomura’s. 

Izuku, Tomura thinks now, is not very impressive to look at, either. Days of turning the name over in his head has made the thought bitter, a disdain that leaks from Tomura’s eyes as he glares at the pathetic mess on the floor. 

Kurogiri had dropped Izuku into the bar just seconds ago. He had stumbled backwards through a portal, off balance, and immediately fell on his ass, now sitting on the floor, blinking dumbly. Tears are already building in the corners of his disgustingly wide and saccharine eyes, even though nothing has even happened to him yet. 

Tomura doesn’t bother holding back his scoff and no one even scolds him for it. Normally Kurogiri, as uptight as he is, would sigh and remind Tomura to mind his manners, and then Sensei, if he was there, would say that Tomura should vocalize his discontent in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he pairs his words with actions, because that’s how change begins. Neither adult acknowledges Tomura now, both too occupied with the new nuisance taking up space in their bar, looking seconds away from some kind of meltdown.

The last four days have been all about Izuku and preparing for Izuku’s arrival, and Tomura just can’t understand it. Sensei already has him - why would he need another kid, especially one as lame as this brat who looks like some kind of fluffy baby animal and can’t seem to string two words together? He’s unnecessary is what he is, and Tomura has said as much, but no one has listened to him.

Well, perhaps Tomura has just been going about it wrong. Sensei has always made it clear that it’s good for Tomura to hate things, but also that doing nothing with that hatred is wasteful. If something upsets him, he’s supposed to do something about it. 

As small and weak as he is, Tomura supposes that Izuku should be easy enough to destroy.

Izuku crashes to the polished wood floor of an unknown place, blind to the details of his surroundings as a film of tears covers his vision, preventing him from adjusting to the dim light of this new place. There’s a scoff to the side and he turns towards it. Blurrily, Izuku can see someone, and he blinks hard to bring the figure into focus.

A boy, older than Izuku but most likely only by four or five years, sits in one of several booths along the near wall, one leg drawn up onto the seat and the other stretched out in front of him. He is dressed in all black and his hair is a pale robin’s egg blue, hanging over his face in limp strands. He scowls, the anger in his red eyes so familiar that Izuku can briefly smell burning sugar and singed skin. 

The boy stands and closes the distance between them in only a few steps, stretching a hand down to Izuku and wiggling his fingers slightly in invitation. For a moment, Izuku just stares, taken aback by the helpful gesture that clashes with the boy’s hostile demeanor, but then, tentatively, he reaches up to take it. 

“Tomura Shigaraki,” Kurogiri’s voice interrupts, filled with warning, and Izuku’s hand flinches backwards as the boy’s eyes flash. 

The boy, presumably Tomura Shigaraki, lunges forwards, latching onto Izuku’s wrist and pulling him up. Beneath his fingers, the sleeve of Izuku’s jacket starts to flake and crack apart, drifting to the floor as dust. It takes only seconds - during which Izuku can do nothing but stare, dumbfounded - for that thin barrier to be gone, and then Shigaraki is touching his skin and Izuku’s wrist lights up with pain so intense that Izuku's vision goes entirely white for a moment. 

“Don’t, Kurogiri,” Izuku distantly hears someone say over the sound of his own gasps. “Give him a moment.” 

Izuku claws at the hand around his wrist and Shigaraki’s quirk, the same one eating away at Izuku’s skin, rushes to Izuku easily, almost eagerly. With Shigaraki’s fingers clenched tight in raw flesh, the pain doesn’t abate, but the destruction halts. And then Shigaraki is the one screaming, as Izuku’s fingers around his wrist slowly carve grooves of decay into his skin, blood and ash mixing together into a thick grey-red paste. 

It’s a five-finger activation quirk, Izuku realizes as he releases his grip, allowing Shigaraki to hunch around his damaged appendage. Izuku takes a step back, but he is trembling so hard that he immediately falls to the floor again, scrambling away from a hissing Shigaraki as the boy recovers enough to glare at Izuku with so much malice that he’s sure even Katsuki would be cowed. Stools clatter around Izuku as he backs into them, knocking them aside as he presses himself against the bar. Beneath Izuku’s hands, pristine floorboards rot into powder. 

“You little brat,” Shigaraki spits. He takes a swaying step forward, menacing. 

“Excellent,” a familiar voice says, deep and slightly raspy, as a stool to Izuku’s left screeches harshly across the floor. Shigaraki halts his approach. 

A man stands there, dressed in the same suit as Kurogiri, adjusting the sleeves of his jacket as he looks down at Izuku. The man does not have a face. His head is wrapped in an intimidating contraption of black metal that Izuku can’t quite make sense of and can’t seem to force himself to look at for more than a split second, his eyes continuously sliding away to the man’s collar or shoulder instead. 

“I suspected you were like me when I saw what you did to that villain, but this confirms it,” the man says.

“You know about the sludge villain.” It is a statement, not a question. Somehow, this man knows what Izuku did. It is everything his mother feared. Briefly, Izuku is glad his mother isn’t alive to see this moment, and then he feels sick at the thought.

“Of course I do, my boy,” the man replies. “What kind of father would I be if I didn’t?”

The man with no face is Izuku’s father. 

This is not a revelation. The knowledge had settled inside Izuku, a cold knot of certainty in his stomach, from the moment he saw him. 

This man, like Kurogiri, doesn’t have the fire breathing quirk that Izuku expected. Or maybe he does, somewhere among the seemingly endless number of foreign quirks he has stored inside of him, filed away in neat little rows that Izuku can only get half a read on. 

Dread coils and surges around Izuku’s ribs at the idea that he is anything like this man, whose mere presence makes Izuku feel like he is suffocating, but they are undeniably the same. 

“Now,” the man, Hisashi, Izuku’s father says, “I am very proud of you for protecting yourself, of course, but could you please give your brother his quirk back? He won’t attack you again.”

“Brother?” Izuku asks numbly.

“Ah, yes, I suppose the two of you haven’t been introduced properly. Forgive his manners; he’s a passionate boy. Tomura!” 

Shigaraki is called forward with a gesture, scratching compulsively at his neck, leaving angry red lines in the wake of his nails. Izuku’s father places one hand on the boy’s shoulder and stretches the other down to help Izuku up. Unthinking, Izuku takes it with all five fingers, but his father doesn’t so much as flinch as he pulls Izuku to his feet. When he releases his grip, blood clots as the wound Izuku just caused begins healing immediately.

“Tomura, this is Izuku. Izuku, this is Tomura. I adopted Tomura shortly before you were born. Leaving you was not something I did lightly, but Tomura had no one and you had your mother. I’m sure you understand. The two of you will get along quite nicely, I think.”

From either side of Izuku’s father, the boys stare at one another, and Shigaraki’s unwavering glare made Izuku doubt the veracity of that claim. 

“Now, the quirk. You can return it, I presume?”

Izuku nods, slowly reaching across the space separating him from Shigaraki, cautious and telegraphed, like the way he would approach a stray dog that may be prone to bite. 

“I n-need to touch you,” Izuku explains when Shigaraki only narrows his eyes suspiciously. Izuku is careful to keep his pinky raised when Shigaraki’s hand meets his. 

“Does it always take this long?” his father asks after a moment, still looming between them. 

“It - It’s harder. To give them b-back.”

“Interesting.”

Shigaraki’s quirk, in particular, is resisting. Izuku has only taken quirks a handful of times, all of them accidental, and the only quirk he has repeated, deliberate experience with is attraction of small objects. After enough practice with his mother, returning her quirk had been easy. Returning strangers' quirks, the few times he had an accident, was slightly harder, but still significantly easier than that very first, disastrous time with Katsuki. Generally, it was hard for Izuku to repel quirks away from himself when his quirk naturally wanted to attract them, but the quirks he stole were overall eager to return to their owners, to the place where they rightfully belonged. 

Shigaraki’s quirk is not like that. It resists Izuku every step of the way, for nearly a minute, before Izuku manages to fully separate it from himself, more exhausted than his quirk has made him in years. His father catches him by the shoulder as he slumps. Immediately, Shigaraki grabs a glass from the bar, smirking viciously as it turns to dust between his fingers. 

Humming, Izuku’s father lifts Izuku’s damaged wrist, turning it over gently as he inspects the wound. 

“I can stop the bleeding,” he says, “but you’ll still need to be bandaged. Kurogiri, see to their wounds and then get Izuku set up in his room for me, would you? It’s been a rather tiring day and I’m sure he would appreciate some rest before dinner. Izuku, if there’s anything you need or want, feel free to write it down and Kurogiri will retrieve it for you on his next trip out.”

“Of course, Sir,” Kurogiri says. Izuku looks to the side of the room where the man had been lingering out of the way as Izuku and Shigaraki clashed, seeing an entirely different person than the man who had taken him from the Bakugo’s home that morning. Kurogiri’s height is the same, but now his form is composed of the same black mist as the portal he opened in Izuku’s living room, with wisps of purple around the edges and glowing yellow eyes. Whatever had been making the man look like Izuku's father must have worn off or been removed, leaving behind the deep, unfathomable smoke that either made up or engulfed Kurogiri's real body. 

While Izuku is distracted, his father covers the entirety of Izuku's wound with one large hand, making an absent-minded sound of apology when Izuku chokes down a yelp of pain at the contact. When he pulls his hand away, the wound is clotted over with a semi-gelatinous scab, not precisely healed and certainly still delicate, but sealed enough that Izuku is no longer losing blood. He does the same for Shigaraki, before ruffling both boys’ hair and disappearing through a door at the back of the room.

Kurogiri seats both Izuku and Shigaraki on a stool, keeping several feet between the two of them while he digs behind the bar for a first aid kit. He wraps their wrists quickly but gently as Izuku lists against the bar top, exhaustion washing over him in waves. 

Afterwards, Kurogiri leads Izuku to a room, slightly bigger than his old bedroom, but completely empty aside from a desk and the bed, which is made up with neutral blue bedspread. The room has no windows.

“It’s quite boring right now,” Kurogiri says, “but this way you can decorate it to your preference. I can get you anything you’d like, within reason. The bathroom is just down the hall. Dinner will be ready in a few hours, but I’ll retrieve you when it is, so feel free to rest in the meantime.” Kurogiri leaves the room, but lingers in the door for a moment, staring in with inscrutable yellow eyes.

“Welcome home, Izuku Shigaraki.”

Shigaraki must be his father’s name, Izuku realizes. Or at least his favored pseudonym. Izuku had always thought that his father’s family name was Akatani, but he was learning all kinds of ways he had been wrong today. 

A false name was nothing compared to the secret of his father’s quirk, nothing compared to all the quirks he had stored away, nothing compared to the haunting knowledge of how he must have gotten those quirks. Izuku is afraid to assume too much, mostly because he is afraid to think about what this means for him, but he can’t deny that those quirks must have come from somewhere. 

Izuku lays in his new bed that smells of foreign laundry detergent and tries not to think too hard about things like what his father has done or whether Tomura Shigaraki will try to kill him again or if his mother is watching from some place beyond and crying for him.  

Sleep does not come easily, but inevitably, it does come.

Chapter Text

Hisashi is a patient man, and he is grateful for that trait as he watches his son peer around corners of his new home like a skittish animal. The boy’s life is changing in several very dramatic ways all at once and Hisashi cannot begrudge him the need to take time to adjust. Though he is admittedly eager to begin training Izuku, Hisashi has lived a long life and is willing to wait a relatively short time in comparison to ensure that his son’s integration is as successful as it can be. 

Hisashi does everything he can to make Izuku’s life comfortable. The boy doesn’t ask for much, so Hisashi goes out of his way to provide anything he can think of - toys, games, books, a laptop, a television, even plenty of hero merchandise based on Kurogiri’s reports of the boy’s room in his mother’s home. He encourages Tomura and Izuku to bond, and Tomura makes no further attempts to harm his brother, which Hisashi considers a success. 

The family of three - four, if you count Kurogiri, which Hisashi doesn’t particularly - eat every meal together and Hisashi tolerates the inane conversation to gather every bit of information about his son that he can. He needs to know who Izuku is to get an idea of how to best shape him into who he will become. Now, the boy is reserved and anxious, and far too sweet for what Hisashi has in mind for him, but there is an obvious intelligence about him that has a great deal of potential. Intelligence like that rarely pairs long with happiness. It picks apart problems endlessly, it demands change and it festers into discontent when society resists that change. Discontent is something Hisashi can use. 

It takes a week for Izuku to grow comfortable enough to start asking questions, and Hisashi is thrilled at the progress, even as he carefully debates his answers to not give too much away too quickly. Progress has been made, but it can still easily be undone.

“We’re not in America, are we?” is the first question Izuku poses. 

“No, we are not,” Hisashi confirms. He supposes this became obvious rather quickly once he gave Izuku access to the news. 

For each question asked and answered without rebuke, his son grows more bold. 

“Who are you?”

“I’m your father.”

“Who are you to everyone else?” 

Hisashi gives the question due consideration. Izuku waits patiently through his silence, watching with guarded, but no longer fearful, eyes.

“Well, that depends on who you ask. To you and Tomura I am a father and a teacher. Once, I was Hisashi Shigaraki, but very few still know me that way. To most, I am a ghost, a legend. Those who know better call me All for One.”

The words mean very little to Izuku, but he seems satisfied by the answer nonetheless.

“You’re a villain, aren’t you?”

Hisashi smiles, “Everyone is the villain in someone’s story.”

This answer is less satisfactory.

For several days after, Izuku is like a ghost in the house, sticking to the shadows and fleeing the presence of his housemates as quickly as he can after meals, and Hisashi fears he has mistepped. Then, the boy is back at his side, quiet as ever but solid and determined.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

“That’s the last thing I want, I assure you. I’m not the villain in your story, Izuku.”

“I want to be a hero,” the boy tells him, words spilling out in challenge even as his hands fist nervously in his shirt.

“You’re capable of so much more.”

Izuku’s eyes burn with discontent and Hisashi knows that it is finally time. 

He waits two days before calling Izuku into his office. The boy sits in a chair that is far too large for him, shrinking into it as his fingers twist and tangle together, but his eyes shine with defiance. For now, that spirit is aimed at Hisashi, but Izuku is young and, given time, it will be a relatively simple task to point him towards a more appropriate target. 

“Tell me about your quirk.”

The spark in Izuku’s eyes is snuffed out in an instant, but Hisashi doesn’t let it worry him. With the match struck, the fire will never be banked for long. They have avoided this conversation long enough and at this point, putting it off any longer would be a roadblock to their continued progress. 

“Why?” his son asks. “I don’t use it.”

“Why not?”

Izuku’s brow creases in confusion. “It’s bad. Using it hurts people.”

“But not using it hurts you, doesn’t it? Your quirk is a part of you. Suppressing it like this isn’t healthy, you know.”

“It’s fine. It’s safer this way, for everyone.”

“Safer? You have far too many scars for a boy your age, I’m assuming from your peers. They think that you’re quirkless, correct? And target you because of that? Why should they be allowed to use their quirks on you but you can’t use your own in defense? Wouldn’t that be safer?”

Izuku shakes his head with the blind determination of a child. “Not for them.”

“But what about you?”

“Me?” Izuku asks, as if the concept is foreign.

“Yes, you. What about your safety? Your well-being? This isn’t a trick question, my boy. I’m not trying to upset you. But why is hurting people okay only when you are the one being hurt?”

“It's not… okay," he says, doubtfully, like he knows it should be true but can't make sense of the context.

"But it’s acceptable?”

“My quirk is bad. If I use it, then I’m bad.” Stated factual, the result of repetition, not truth.

“Quirks aren’t good or bad,” Hisashi corrects, just as matter-of-fact. “They just are.”

“Things that hurt people are bad.”

“Is an earthquake bad? A hurricane? They can be tragic, perhaps, but they are natural things. Your quirk, Izuku, is like a force of nature.”

“But I don’t want to be an earthquake,” the boy says, small and lost.

“No, you want to be a hero, don’t you?” Hisashi finds the loose thread and pulls. “You can’t be afraid of your quirk if you want to be a hero, you know. Heroes aren’t supposed to be afraid of anything.”

Izuku hesitates, staring over Hisashi’s shoulder with wet eyes and picking at his cuticles. He looks far younger than he is, with his hands close to his chest and his knees pressed together, feet hovering off the floor. 

“How can I stop being afraid?” he asks, so softly that Hisashi wouldn’t have heard it, if not for the number of sensory enhancement quirks he has picked up over the years. 

“I can help with that,” Hisashi assures his son, “you just need to trust me.”

And so, Izuku’s training begins. At this point, the boy knows very little about how his own quirk functions, but with time they can fill the gaps in his knowledge together. 

Hisashi had planned to give Izuku a small handful of quirks to start with, to acclimate him to having and using more than one without the need for the boy to take them himself, but he finds he cannot. There is something incompatible in their quirks, like magnetism - they are the same, but repel each other because of that. It’s an inconvenience, if a minor one, but Hisashi finds himself charmed by it, fascinated by the increasing complexity of the boy who shares half his DNA.

Instead, Hisashi shuffles his mental schedule around slightly to prepare to introduce Izuku to the warehouse sooner than originally intended. The transition will be more jarring this way, so Hisashi spends the intervening week and a half before their visit slowly coaxing Izuku into some semblance of comfort with his quirk. Tomura proves to be a perfect tool for this - a textbook example of a destructive quirk, with destructive desires to match, yet Izuku refuses to condemn his brother, insisting that the older boy isn’t bad, despite feeling an obvious degree of fear towards him. It is easy for Hisashi to turn the logic around on his son.

When the time to visit the warehouse comes, Hisashi is reasonably confident that the trip will be productive. He is wrong.

Izuku’s first reaction to the unconscious woman on the table is confusion, a vague discomfort that he sets aside rather easily in the presence of a trusted adult. The woman is set aside in an otherwise empty room that Kurogiri teleports Hisashi and Izuku to directly. Normally, Hisashi wouldn’t clear a space like this for a single subject, but Izuku is still in the very beginning stages of his metamorphosis, and Hisashi fully intends to keep the boy sheltered from some of the more distressing aspects of his work. 

So, the woman is alone and asleep when Hisashi instructs Izuku to take her quirk.

The trust his son has in him, the trust that he has so carefully cultivated, shatters in an instant, as sudden and unexpected as a bullet through a champagne glass. 

The boy is shaking and babbling in horror as Hisashi curses himself internally, pressing twice on the small button in his pocket that alerts Kurogiri to retrieve them immediately. Izuku’s panic does not subside in the bar, and Tomura, drawn to the commotion, watches with mixed irritation and amusement. Resigned, Hisashi presses a hand over his son’s eyes, and the boy falls limp in his arms, unconscious in an instant.

Tomura approaches them, feigning lazy disinterest, and reaches for Izuku’s head with a hand that Hisashi bats away. Tomura smiles, sharp and impish, reaching forward again but pulling back before Hisashi can swat him, lifting both hands in a mock-peaceful gesture. 

If Hisashi still had his eyes, he would be rolling them, but settles instead for simply saying, “Stop threatening to decay your brother.”

“What’s his problem, anyway?”

“He had an … adverse reaction to the warehouse.”

Tomura makes an understanding noise. “Did you show him the labs?”

“No. But I underestimated the extent of his issues with his quirk. I thought the last few weeks had opened his mind to the possibility of using it, but he didn’t respond well to the reality.”

“Really? That’s it? The way he was glitching when I came in, I thought you had killed his mother or something. Again.”

“Tomura,” Hisashi warns. The boy snickers, unrepentant.

“Seriously, though. He’s such a little baby. I don’t know why you even bother.”

“Many would ask why I bothered with you," Hisashi points out, sharply. "I see potential in him. He’s my son. No doubt, he’s capable of greatness, but he needs guidance on his path.”

“Lame. When’s he gonna wake up, anyway? I’m supposed to beat his ass at Mario Kart tonight.”

“The quirk will wear off in an hour. You’ll still be able to play your games.”

“Sick,” Tomura says and then leaves without so much as a goodbye, probably to shut himself into his room until dinner. 

Hisashi sighs again. He may be nearly immortal, but he’s fairly certain that parenting is taking years off of his life.

The next week makes Hisashi all the more certain of that assessment. All the progress he has made with Izuku is lost, and the boy is being as skittish as he was when Kurogiri first brought him home. He leaves his room only when Hisashi demands his presence, and spends the entirety of the time they are together staring with wide, watchful eyes, like he expects to be accosted the moment he lets his guard slip. 

Nothing changes as the days go on. Before, as anxious as Izuku was, he grew visibly more comfortable every day. In the days leading up to the ill-fated trip to the warehouse, he seemed to almost enjoy Hisashi’s company. Now, every day is the same. Izuku watches silently, refusing to engage in conversation with Hisashi, and only interacting with Tomura or Kurogiri when they are alone. 

Hisashi moved too quickly. He knows that now, too late. He will not make the same mistake twice. He will go slowly this time.

He brings Izuku back to the warehouse, to the same room, though it is empty this time. They stay there for an hour, doing nothing in particular. Hisashi fills the silence with regular conversation, like any they would have over dinner, and he knows Izuku is listening even if the boy does not reply. 

They go back every week, until Izuku stops looking like a hunted animal the moment they step foot into the room, even if his wariness never completely abates. 

Then, one day, there is a man in there with them, unconscious on a table, same as before. 

“No,” Izuku says, the first words he has spoken directly to Hisashi in ages. “No, I won’t do it. I don’t care, I won’t, I just won’t -”

“Calm down, my boy,” Hisashi soothes, and Izuku quiets his rambling, though his eyes stay wild. “You don’t have to do anything. We just have some company today, is all. Ignore him.” And Hisashi pretends they are alone for the rest of the hour.

There is another person the next week. And the next. And then, when Izuku grows used to the extra body in the room, when his eyes hardly flicker from Hisashi to the subject at all during the course of their stay, Hisashi escalates again. 

That week, he takes the subject’s quirk himself. He approaches the body in the room for the first time, ignoring the way Izuku tenses, and places his hand on the man’s forehead. In fifteen seconds, the quirk is his. It is nothing impressive - a lung capacity quirk that allowed him to hold his breath for extended periods of time and blow large breaths of air with greater than average but overall uninspiring amounts of force.

It is not a dramatic affair. Most people wouldn’t have even known what happened, but Izuku shudders violently as Hisashi tears the quirk free, as if he can sense it. It’s a fascinating idea that only makes Hisashi want to explore the workings of his son’s quirk more, but he will maintain his patience, despite the temptation to plow ahead, the temptation to simply break the boy beneath his will instead of bend him.

“Don’t worry,” Hisashi tells his son, whose wide eyes don’t waver from the man on the table. “He’s just fine.”

“You took his quirk.”

“I did.”

“How can you say he’s fine, then?”

“It’s not as if he was using it. He’ll hardly notice it’s gone.” 

“That doesn’t make it better,” Izuku says, voice low, glaring eyes shaded by his hair.

Hisashi sighs. “I disagree. Izuku, quirks are tools - true or false?” The boy startles at the non sequitur, anger draining into uncertainty. 

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just humor me, please.”

Izuku is quiet for a long moment before saying, “True.”

“Let’s say you were trying to demolish a house and build a new one, a better one. That’s a big project and it requires many tools. If someone else has them and isn’t using them, why shouldn’t you, who needs them, take them and put them to use?”

“They’re not yours.”

“They are if you take them," Hisashi says, because as far as he is concerned, it is as simple as that. "And if you use them better, isn’t that a good thing?”

“You’re using them better?” Izuku asks.

“I am building us - all of us, society as a whole - a new and better house. To do that, I need all the tools I can get. You still want to be a hero, don’t you?”

Without hesitation, though confused by the connection, Izuku replies, “Of course.”

“Why?”

“To save people.”

“The more tools you have, the more people you can save.”

Izuku looks conflicted when they return to the bar that day, and Hisashi is hopeful that appealing to his son’s desire to be a hero might be the leverage point that he has been looking for. These hopes persist even when Izuku is not willing to take the subject’s quirk the next week. They wane slightly the next. After a month, they are replaced with frustration. 

Hisashi has been doing some reading - because obviously he is not as in his element when it comes to parenting as he thought - and he has come to the firm conclusion that enough is enough. 

Izuku’s reluctance, at first, was understandable. He had spent the last six years internalizing hatred for his quirk, and everything in his life was changing so quickly that he was certainly overwhelmed. Patience is necessary, in a time like that, and it is important to be understanding of children when they are dealing with stress and trauma. 

But there comes a time when boundaries need to be set. Children will test them, naturally, but it is the job of the parent, for the good of the child, to enforce those boundaries and set clear expectations for what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior. 

Izuku’s behavior, verging from hesitance into rebellion, has not been acceptable.

“Today,” Hisashi says as they step through Kurogiri’s portal into the warehouse, “you are going to take this woman’s quirk.” 

Hisashi has specifically selected today’s subject, whose quirk can briefly slow her perception of time, allowing her to pick up on small details of a situation and seemingly increase her own reflexes. It is a simple but useful quirk that will be easy to practice with and will, perhaps, finally give Izuku a hint of hope at winning any of the games he plays against Tomura. 

“I won’t do it,” Izuku contradicts immediately. Hisashi frowns, despite having expected nothing else.

“We have been talking about your quirk for months. We won’t get any farther if you keep refusing to use it.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to get any farther.”

“Izuku,” Hisashi says sternly, “don’t be difficult.”

“I won’t do it,” Izuku repeats, shaking his adamantly, the textbook definition of difficult. “You can’t make me.”

Hisashi sighs. “Actually, you’ll find that I can.”

Forced quirk activation is not a particularly pleasant experience, which is why Hisashi had wanted to avoid it, but Izuku needs to learn that disobedience is met with consequences. 

Sharp, black appendages, shiny and hard like the carapace of a monstrous insect, sprout from Hisashi’s shoulder blades and pierce Izuku through, one in his shoulder, one under his ribs, one over his hip. The process is not half so painful as it looks, and it leaves no lasting damage, but there is some pain involved, nonetheless, and a great deal of discomfort. The strangled, gurgling noise that rises out of Izuku’s throat causes Hisashi’s lips to purse with displeasure.

Not entirely sure of the mechanics of the boy’s quirk, Hisashi lifts one of Izuku’s hands and places it one the woman’s forehead, as Hisashi would do to take a quirk himself. There is no visible sign of Izuku’s quirk, no way to tell if it is working, and Izuku is hardly in a state to say, so Hisashi counts to 30 - double what he needs to steal a quirk, to be safe - and then releases forced activation. 

He catches his son as his knees give way, bundling the boy into his arms and pressing Izuku’s face to his chest. Izuku is crying, of course, desperate heaving sobs that hitch and stutter as he struggles to get enough air. He pushes at Hisashi with shaking hands that do nothing but put creases in his suit jacket, beating weakly and ineffectually at his chest. Hisashi holds his son tight, one arm a solid bar across his back and the other hand running soothingly through the boy’s hair as he hums a half-remembered melody from his own childhood. Izuku does not calm, but his hands go from pushing to pulling, grasping frantically to keep Hisashi as close as possible as he cries out months of built up stress and grief and anger. 

Hisashi pets his son’s hair and lets him cry, basking in the warmth of the new quirk that he can feel settled inside the boy, the first of what is sure to be many.

Sometimes, Tomura wants very badly to take Izuku’s head between his hands and squeeze until there is nothing left of the brat who invaded his life and stole away all of Sensei’s attention. He wants it so badly that the desire crawls under his skin like a living thing trying to get out. Other times, when Izuku plays games with him for hours on end, Tomura is glad to have someone to enjoy things with. Before, the only emotion he shared with anyone was anger, but now he realizes why so many games come with co-op functions. 

Izuku has been living with them for about a year, and now the extra controllers in Tomura’s room have a purpose beyond being backups in case his temper gets out of control. He still wants Izuku gone and that will never change - because Izuku is and always will be unnecessary - but as long as the brat’s around, Tomura might as well take advantage of some company other than Kurogiri. 

Today, Tomura has a new game, one he wouldn’t have been able to play a year ago because it requires at least two people. But now he has a “brother,” and if Izuku is good for one thing, it’s being a player two. 

Except Izuku hasn’t been very good at that, lately, either. He was never good at it , good at it - he is actually very bad at any game that isn’t strategy based, which Tomura finds frustrating and smugly satisfying in turns - but he was always at least there . He would hold a controller when Tomura told him to and whine when Tomura didn’t explain the game well enough and then Tomura would beat him over and over again until he got bored, and the entire time Izuku would go along with it, even enjoying himself, despite how pitifully he always performed. 

Now, though, Izuku is tired all the time. He lays in bed or drags himself around the bar with dark circles under his eyes. He watches heroes on TV, scribbles away in his little notebooks, or stares blankly into space until Sensei comes to take him away for training. 

This time, Tomura finds him in his room, sitting on his bed with his head tipped back against the wall, listening to something obnoxious on the radio.

“Let’s play a game,” Tomura demands, waving Izuku’s designated controller over his head as he enters the room.

“Sorry, Tomura, I’m not really in the mood right now,” Izuku replies, as if Tomura had asked . He doesn’t turn the radio down; he doesn’t open his eyes.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Izuku adds, but he has been saying that for nearly two weeks and his mood is never different the next day. At some point, Izuku had obviously been in the “mood” to play, but apparently that had changed and Tomura has no idea when or why or how to fix it. All he knows is that it’s stupid and these days he wants to turn Izuku to dust even more than usual. 

“It’s been ages,” Tomura gripes. “What do you have going on that’s so important, anyway? You’re not even doing anything , just play a game with me.”

“I’m tired.”

“I need a player two, come on.” He tosses Izuku’s controller over, but the brat makes no attempt to catch it, letting it bounce on the bedspread. His eyes are still closed. Tomura wants to gouge them from his head.

“I’m tired . I won’t be any good, anyway.”

“What’s your point? You’re never any good, that wasn’t an issue before. Why are you so tired, anyway?”

“Quirk training.”

“Is it really that hard?”

“It’s too easy,” Izuku whispers after a pause. Tomura barely hears him over the shouting on the radio. 

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Tomura asks. He wishes his own quirk training had been easy. He remembers the grit of dust coating his teeth, blood dried into the creases of his fingers and palms, and wants to break something.

“Dad says it is.”

“If Sensei says it is, then it is. Sensei knows what he’s talking about.” 

Izuku frowns at the ceiling like he disagrees. This is what Tomura hates most about him. Sensei and Izuku are together all the time, going to the warehouse, talking in Sensei’s office, whatever it is they do. Sensei dotes on his son, his real son. Sensei has been a good mentor to Tomura, but not a father, never a father - a painful realization that had been shoved into Tomura’s face when Izuku arrived. Izuku has a father that Tomura desperately craves and he frowns at the ceiling about it, weak and morally conflicted, questioning and wondering, refusing to embrace the power he was born with. 

“If you don’t play this game with me,” Tomura says, patience worn thin, “I’ll decay all your notebooks.” The threat gains him Izuku’s full attention, the brat’s eyes finally snapping open. The younger boy sits up, bringing his feet from their cross-legged position to the floor as he narrows his glare at Tomura.

“You will not .”

“I will,” Tomura sing-songs, strolling lazily towards Izuku’s bookshelf where volumes of notes, handwritten over the course of years, have been catalogued. 

“Tomura, don’t you dare,” Izuku warns as Tomura reaches out a teasing hand, ghosting a single finger over the spines of the books as he smiles innocently. As Tomura pulls one from the shelf, Izuku stands and rushes over, lunging for the notebook that Tomura just holds over his head, between his thumb and pointer finger. Five years younger and about a foot shorter, Izuku has no hopes of reaching it.

Izuku crowds against him anyway, standing up on his tiptoes in a futile attempt to retrieve his possession, but Tomura easily pushes him to the side, walking casually over to Izuku’s bed. He picks up the abandoned controller there, offering it to Izuku with a smirk. 

“Well, if you don’t want me to, you could always just suck it up and play a video game with me.” Izuku scowls and crosses his arms. 

“Really?” Tomura asks. “You’re going to be a brat about this? Fine, if that’s the way you want to play it.” 

One by one, he lowers his fingers down, counting them off with gravitas but Izuku only glares. Just before he can lower his pinky and turn the pages to dust, Izuku snatches the controller from his hands. For a moment, Tomura grins in victory, but the equally smug look on Izuku’s face gives him pause. The controller crumbles in Izuku’s hands.

“That’s cheating!” Tomura squawks. “No cheat codes allowed! You can’t do that!”

“Huh, weird, because it looks like I already did.”

Notebook forgotten, Tomura tackles him, and Izuku’s mocking laughter turns quickly to a hiss at a particularly harsh pinch Tomura delivers to his side. Izuku always scolds Tomura for destroying his controllers, but here he is doing the exact same thing and looking so self-satisfied about it. Tomura can’t stand him.

“Give it back,” Tomura demands, jabbing Izuku again. “Give it back so I can use it to kill you, you little shit.”

“Compelling argume-” Tomura’s elbow drives the air from Izuku’s retort.

“I’ll show you a compelling argument,” Tomura threatens, hawking back some spit and letting it dangle precariously from his lips as he leans over the boy he has pinned.

“Gross!” Izuku shrieks beneath him, squirming wildly.

“Compelling, right?”

“Keep your nasty gamer spit away from me!”

“Give me my quirk back.”

“Fine! Fine, just get off me first and I will. You win, I don’t want whatever nasty diseases you have.”

“Rabies, probably,” Tomura replies, rolling to the side and holding his hand out so Izuku can have the contact he needs to return the quirk, a somewhat familiar motion at this point. 

When he first sits up, Izuku is disheveled from their wrestling and pouting petulantly from his loss. By the time he lets go of Tomura’s hand, only about a minute later, weariness and malaise have taken him under again and he stares at their joined hands for a long minute even after his job has been done. Tomura wants to pull away - neither knowing or understanding what is wrong with his brother but certain that he’s not emotionally qualified to deal with whatever it is - but he can’t make himself move. 

“At least I can actually give your’s back,” Izuku says solemnly. As if the words broke a trance, Tomura spastically pulls his hand away, immediately scratching at his neck with it. Izuku watches the compulsive behavior with too-serious eyes that make Tomura feel torn between hiding his hands behind his back and digging his nails further into his skin. The radio is still going in the background, some english song that Tomura can’t understand the lyrics of.

“If your life was a story, what role would my father play in it?” Izuku questions abruptly, intense and sober in a way that feels unnatural coming from the dorky little brat.

“What kind of shitty question is that?” Tomura asks in return, avoiding eye contact.

“Humor me, please? I’ll play your game with you, if you do.”

“Sensei found me. He saved me when no one else would. I guess that would make him the hero, huh? Ironic.” Tomura’s neck stings as the jagged corner of one of his nails breaks skin.

“Maybe… You know, all this training I’ve been doing with my dad, I’ve realized that it’s way harder for me to give someone a quirk that wasn’t originally their’s to begin with. Your quirk gives me a lot of trouble, Tomura.”

Tomura frowns, shifting uncomfortably. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Izuku sighs. “Nothing. Anyway, we’ve got a game to play, don’t we? And I need a new controller.”

Izuku gets up and wanders out of the room, presumably towards Tomura’s, but it takes Tomura a minute to follow. He feels unsettled in an unfamiliar way as he rubs tiny pinpricks of blood away from the scratches on his neck. 

Video games will help, he tells himself as he stands. That’s what he came here for, after all. Video games always help. 

There are two versions of Hisashi Shigaraki. 

There is the Hisashi Shigaraki at home, who listens to Izuku ramble about what he has learned in his lessons with Kurogiri, who supports any and all of Izuku’s interests and desires, who loves Izuku with a gentle but unwavering warmth. This Hisashi Shigaraki is Izuku’s father.

And then there is the Hisashi Shigaraki at the warehouse, who only wants to talk about quirks and the nature of their society and thinks everything else is a waste of time, who watches Izuku cry over doing horrible things with unchanging and indifferent body language, whose touch is a cold mockery of what a parent is supposed to be. This Hisashi Shigarki is All for One. 

Izuku only sees All for One for an hour a week. It is too often. 

Today is an All for One day, and Izuku stands, shaking in the warehouse, wishing desperately for his father. Though they visit the warehouse every week without fail, All for One does not always have a subject victim waiting. Some weeks they merely talk. Everytime Izuku steps through Kurogiri’s portal into the dim concrete room that has become synonymous with suffering, Izuku hopes that it will be a talking week. Listening to All for One pick apart every flaw in their society is nauseating, mostly because Izuku can’t help but recognize all the ways in which the man is correct, but it is by far the lesser evil. 

Today is not a talking day, Izuku is not that lucky. After months of this, Izuku is too numb to be stung by the shattering of the small amount of hope he had managed to muster. He stares blankly at the woman on the table, glancing over to All for One, who nods back in her direction, instructions unspoken but clear. 

The woman lays on her stomach, facing away from Izuku. He can’t see what she looks like, the anonymity simultaneously relieving and sickening. Normally, Izuku’s victims are on their backs, facing him, and he is not provided with even the vaguest shelter of dehumanization. There is no denying that these are actual real people who he is hurting, and while the knowledge gnaws away at him, he embraces the pain, welcomes the ravenous beast of guilt and shame into his chest where it can feast on his ribs and lungs and heart.  

Facedown, it is easy for some pathetic, cowardly part of Izuku to pretend that this woman is not human. She is not a person, but a body - not a victim, but a subject. Bile rises in Izuku’s mouth before he has even done anything. And he will do something. He will take the woman’s quirk, like all the others, and the beast inside him will grow and it will chew even more on his insides to keep itself fed. 

Small wings, moth-like in shape and color, sprout from the woman’s shoulder blades, likely not large enough to support her weight in flight, but beautiful in their own right. She is face down to accommodate them. Izuku hopes - desperately, so desperately, everything he does in the warehouse is desperate - that the wings aren’t a primary mutation, that they aren’t directly tied to the function of her quirk. 

Izuku has not taken a mutation quirk since the day he was attacked by the sludge villain and he hopes he never will again, though realistically, he has always known that it is a matter of time until All for One brings him one. All for One is endlessly curious about the details of Izuku’s quirk, it’s limitations, the small ways in which it differs from his own, and mutation quirks have thus far been an overlooked variable in All for One’s endless stream of tests.

But Izuku can tell what her quirk is just by looking at her, he always can. He doesn’t know for certain what will happen if he takes a mutation quirk, if it will always end as poorly as it did that day beneath the bridge, but today that knowledge gap will be filled, whether he likes it or not. 

“Izuku,” All for One prompts once Izuku has hesitated too long. 

Izuku wishes he were stronger. He wishes he could push back against that stern warning, but every time he’s tried, he’s failed. The burn of forced quirk activation is familiar now, the phantom aches it leaves behind in place of physical marks linger in Izuku’s mind for days after the fact. Even if Izuku says no, he will be speared in an instant, pincushioned like a voodoo doll and moved against his will. 

Once, Izuku would have gladly chosen being hurt over hurting someone else. He can no longer make that choice. He wishes he were stronger, but has only gotten weaker. 

Izuku forces himself close to the woman. He does not need to touch her to take her quirk - he doesn’t even need to be in the same room to steal from her - but he owes her this much. He circles to the other side of the table, brushes long brown hair away from her face and commits it to memory, framing a mental picture of her on the wall right next to all his other crimes. 

Izuku pulls on her quirk as gently as he can, but that doesn’t stop her from screaming. Her face, so peaceful in repose just a second ago, scrunches up, her jaw hinges open so wide he fears the corners of her mouth will split. She screams and writhes on the table, muscles taught and spine arching as blood runs down her sides. Her wings, so beautiful, twitch and shudder and shed powdery feathers all over her pale skin. Their edges become ragged, the place where they attach to her spine bubbles and splits, and she screams the whole time. It is a dreadful, unnatural sound in a room where Izuku has only ever heard two voices - All for One’s and his own. 

Izuku slams his eyes closed, though the image of the woman’s suffering has already imprinted itself on his brain, and stumbles backwards until he hits the wall, sliding down against it. The screaming tapers into pants and gasps and Izuku can hear blood dripping off the table and onto the concrete floor.

Izuku gags - once, twice - swallowing convulsively, but every panicked breath he takes coats his mouth and throat in the taste and smell of iron. He bends to the side and vomits, tries to let the sourness overcome his senses because he would prefer to be lost to his own sickness than someone else’s suffering.

“Can you manifest the wings?” All for One asks, in the same casual tone Izuku’s father uses to ask after his school work. The quirk is in Izuku’s hands, still and beautiful and tragic, like a butterfly pinned and mounted behind glass.

“No,” he gasps

“Can you return it?”

“ No. I told you this would happen. I told you my quirk doesn’t work with mutation quirks.”

“That was all just theory,” All for One says dismissively. “Now we know for sure. It’s a shame, though. Removing a mutation is always a painful process for the subject, but I’ve never had any difficulties manifesting the quirks myself, or placing them into others.”

“Well. I guess I’m just not as strong as you are.”

“Where is the quirk now, if it is not in you and it is not in the subject?”

“I’m holding it.”

“And if you let go?”

Izuku hesitates. “It’ll be gone.”

“So you can destroy quirks, as well. Fascinating. You know,” All for One says, and by his tone, Izuku knows that he doesn’t want to know, “in many ways, you are actually stronger than me. If only you would allow yourself to be.”

“I’m strong enough already,” Izuku says, a tired argument.

“Heroes always need to get stronger,” All for One says, a tired rebuttal.

Of course, Izuku is not ten years old anymore. He knows that he will never be a hero. He killed that dream months ago. There’s no redemption waiting for him. Only more days in the warehouse, more quirks stolen, more blood spilt. On the days in between he will play video games with Tomura and have lessons with Kurogiri and love his father as if nothing is wrong. 

He will never be a hero. He is the villain in his own story. Izuku is twelve years old and he has more victims than he has ever had friends. 

He reaches into his pocket, fingers cold and fumbling, until he finds the alert button there. A second later, he feels the subtle change in pressure that always accompanies Kurogiri’s portals and he stands, stumbles two blind steps forward and falls into the bar without ever having opened his eyes.

“Izuku Shigaraki,” Kurogiri says, standing behind the bar where he spends most of his days, “is everything alright?”

“I’m fine,” Izuku Midoriya lies. He stands and brushes off his knees as All for One crosses through the portal behind him.

“Get some rest, my boy,” Izuku’s father says. “I know you must be tired. It will get easier with time. You did well.” 

His father’s pride is a small flame that combats the cold that has settled into Izuku’s bones. It will keep him warm until the next time Izuku hurts someone, when the cold will settle in again. Izuku’s life is a constant cycle of freezing and thawing. 

Nuclear winter comes after Izuku has been with his father for just over three years. 

“Today we are going to the lab,” All for One says just seconds before he and Izuku leave for the warehouse. The announcement is so short notice that Izuku is still swept away in a wave of shock when the portal, already open, leads somewhere other than the room he has been visiting every week for years. 

Izuku has known, of course, that the warehouse was bigger than the single room All for One always brought him to, but any curiosity he may have felt about the rest of the building was tempered by an equal part dread as to what the place might contain. 

And he was right to be afraid. He was so, so right.

There are people on tables, some alive, some not , and some painfully familiar, their faces already catalogued in Izuku’s mental yearbook of people he has violated. And then there are the not-quite people that float in massive tubes along the walls, suspended in some sickly green substance. 

Izuku has known that All for One is a villain - that his father is a villain - but he has only seen bare glimpses of what that actually means. He knew there was more to the warehouse, but he never imagined anything like this. This is like something out of a cartoon, a nauseating caricature of human experimentation and mad science. It’s the kind of thing that people see and say that it’s just an exaggeration, that those kinds of places don’t exist in real life, but here Izuku is, blinded by too-bright lights, the smell of chemicals searing his nose.

“These,” All for One says grandiosely, with a gesture at the tubes, “are nomu. They’re a personal project of mine. Each one has multiple quirks. Unfortunately, most people are not equipped to handle more than one, perhaps two, before their minds start to strain. In all the years I’ve been working on them, only one retained any intelligence. It’s a bit of a work in progress. Still, they’re useful tools.”

Already Izuku has a headache, just from standing in the room these few moments. So many creatures with multiple quirks all twisted together into a tangle that screams gibberish ino Izuku’s head. It is like staring at flashing lights of a million different colors, like listening to hundreds of songs layered over one another. He pulls his senses in and tries to block it out.

“Why are you showing me this?” Izuku asks, numbness settling over him to the exclusion of everything else, until the only thing he can feel is cold sinking into the marrow of his bones.

“Barring the limitations on range, we’ve thoroughly tested your ability to take quirks. Giving them seems like the logical next path to pursue. I thought you might like to aid in my experiments.”

“Like to?” Izuku echoes, hollow, like an empty room. 

“Well, I would prefer it if you were able to enjoy yourself.”

“And if I can’t?”

“Everyone must do things they don’t want to, at some point or another.”

And so, for the next hour, Izuku tried to give a man a quirk. And he failed. He failed again and again, until All for One’s seemingly limitless patience began to wear thin, but there was nothing to be done. Week after week, Izuku tries and fails.

Returning quirks has always been a struggle for Izuku compared to taking them, but he has mastered the process with time and practice. Forcing a second quirk in where one does not belong is apparently beyond the limit of his abilities.

Izuku has never been so grateful to be a disappointment.

But ultimately, it does little to alleviate the weight on Izuku’s conscience. He doesn’t make any of these abominations because he can’t. But if he could, he would. It is by no virtue of his own that this crime did not get added to Izuku’s ledger.

Weeks later, Izuku, cold inside, sits at the bar. Tomura is in his room, likely playing one game or another. Izuku’s father is wherever he goes when he’s not at the bar, likely doing things Izuku doesn’t want to know about. Kurogiri is behind the bar, across from Izuku, cleaning glasses that haven’t been used, like he always is. 

“Izuku Shigaraki,” Kurogiri says after enduring long minutes of silent staring. 

Midoriya, Izuku corrects, only inside his head. He hasn’t said his real last name out loud since he was ten. He is nearly fourteen now. 

“You’re a nomu, aren’t you?” is what Izuku says out loud. The repetitive twisting motion of Kurogiri’s cloth in a tumbler halts. The two stare at each other for a moment.

“I suppose I am,” Kurogiri replies, breaking eye contact to inspect the glass he is holding. It’s spotless. Kurogiri always keeps everything immaculate.

“You used to be someone else, then.” It’s a statement, not a question, because Izuku has seen first hand where nomu come from. He’s watched people morph into monsters. He’s seen quirks tangle together into the same kind of twisted mess that so unsettled Izuku when he first met Kurogiri.

“Not that I remember.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” Izuku imagines forgetting Izuku Midoriya, imagines living as Izuku Shigaraki with no before, and he shudders. Kurogiri scrubs at some smudge that only he can see.

“Not particularly. I have my role here, and I am happy to fill it. You and Tomura need someone to care for you, after all.”

“What’s my role here?” Izuku asks impulsively. He is grateful that Kurogiri does not look up, does not pin him beneath that yellow stare, still scrubbing endlessly at the same clean glass even as they lapse into an uncomfortably long silence.

“You are your father’s son.”

“W-what if I want to be something else?”

It’s a foolish question to ask and Izuku’s chest aches hearing the words leave his mouth. As reserved and distant as Kurogiri may be, he is also kind, but Izuku holds no illusions about his loyalties. Kurogiri serves Izuku’s father and there’s little doubt that he reports anything questionable Izuku might say. Nothing should be said to Kurogiri that Izuku’s father shouldn’t know, and Izuku doesn’t particularly want his father to be aware of this question.

The hesitation doesn’t come from fear. Izuku is not afraid of his father. He does sometimes fear the things All for One may make him do, but he knows his father would never hurt him. 

It’s a hesitation born of love. Because Izuku loves his father and Tomura and Kurogiri and he doesn’t want to leave them. He doesn’t want to leave them, yet simultaneously wants very badly to be anything other than his father’s son. He wants to be somewhere else, be someone else, and he loves them all so much that the wanting of anything else hurts like a betrayal. 

Kurogiri turns away, placing his glass down among the rows of others just like it. They clink softly against each other as Izuku buries his face in his arms and struggles not to cry. Kurogiri stays facing the wall, picks up another glass that squeaks as it is shined. A tear drips onto the bar and Izuku wipes it up with the corner of his sleeve, not wanting to leave behind watermarks that Kurogiri will need to clean away. 

Izuku has just stood, resigned to the fact that foolish questions don’t justify answers when, softer than Izuku has ever heard him speak, Kurogiri says, “Then I hope, for your sake, you manage to leave this place.” 

The response is like a bolt of lightning, rattling Izuku’s bones, making his teeth tingle and his hair stand on end. He stands for a moment, swaying as his knees decide whether or not they will continue to support him, then flees the bar as soon as he is steady enough. Kurogiri doesn’t turn back to face him.

Leave, Izuku thinks, like a dirty word he only grants audience to in his dreams, as he stumbles into the doorway on his way out.

Leave, Izuku thinks, as he presses his back against the door of his bedroom. Leave . This time, it sounds almost like a prayer.

Chapter Text

Hisashi knocks on Tomura’s door fairly late at night, though late means very little to his ward, who keeps whatever hours he likes. Three short, polite raps against the wood and Hisashi waits, listening as Tomura pauses whatever game he was playing. 

“What do you want, Kuro-” Tomura starts as he swings the door open, but he trails off when he sees Hisashi waiting. 

While the boy blinks - likely surprised, since Hisashi hasn’t visited his room in at least a couple of years - Hisashi inspects the room behind him. It’s dark, lit by the television screen and a lamp by the bed, and tidier than Hisashi would have expected from a boy of Tomura’s nature, with only some clothes scattered about the floor and a few empty drinks on the television stand. 

“The brat’s not here,” Tomura says once he recovers.

“I know,” Hisashi replies. He doesn’t bother with a charming smile, sure Tomura would see right through it and not appreciate the effort. “Izuku is in his own room, hopefully sleeping, given the hour. I’m here for you, Tomura.” Tomura tips his head to the side slightly, attentive, eyes shining the way they always do when Hisashi gives him his full attention.

“What do you need?”

“Are you ready to change the world, Tomura?” 

“I’m ready to turn it to ash.”

“Excellent. I know just where to begin.”

Hisashi takes Tomura to his office and explains his idea, listening to the boy’s suggestions and allowing him to think that he has contributed to the development of a plan that Hisashi has been crafting for years. When they part for the night, Tomura has his instructions and a fresh hunger for action. 

The boy grins, vicious and unhinged, just as Hisashi made him to be. 

When Tomura is twenty years old, Sensei asks him if he’s ready to change the world.

Generally speaking, Sensei does not seek Tomura out. It is an unspoken rule that, while Sensei will check in with him when their paths cross, he will not go even remotely out of his way to gain Tomura’s company. And if that stings, Tomura just applies himself more diligently to his training, growing stronger and smarter, absorbing everything Sensei tells him. A model pupil.

Now it has all paid off and the moment that Tomura has been waiting for - has been raised for - is finally here. He is going to grab the single pillar their society is so foolishly built upon with all five fingers and watch as everything comes crashing down around him. All eyes will be on Tomura, and no one will ignore him or forget about him ever again. 

He’ll show them.

He’s going to change the world.

It all starts and ends with All Might. That stupid, smiling face that inescapably saturates the whole of Japan, bathing the privileged in a false sense of security and mocking the oppressed with the impossible notion of salvation. Sensei has always hated All Might most of all and he is trusting Tomura to be his executioner. 

Tomura won’t disappoint.

He gives himself a critical once over in the mirror. He doesn’t look anything like himself, but that’s the point. His hair is cleaned and straightened, soft and smooth in a way he doesn’t normally bother to pursue. With his bangs pinned back, his face is open, which makes him look younger and more harmless than he is. He’s put makeup over the scar on his mouth and around his eyes, disguising the worst of his complexion. Already, his skin feels tight and irritated, but it’s a small price to pay to achieve an unassuming appearance. 

The kicker is the uniform. It’s by far the worst part of the whole disguise, but also the most necessary. He looks terrible in it, he thinks. The collar presses too tight and stiff against the abrasions on his neck, the tie makes him feel like he is choking, and the blazer makes him look thin and weedy, but nonetheless, he looks like a third year UA student. With so many children in so many courses, Tomura doubts that anyone, except maybe their rat principal, could identify an individual student as an imposter. 

“Wow,” Izuku says as Tomura, satisfied enough with his appearance, enters the bar. “Who are you and what have you done with the NEET that’s supposed to live here?”

Tomura rolls his eyes and clenches his jaw. “Shut up, brat, or I’ll pull your teeth out while you sleep.” 

Paling slightly, Izuku grimaces and scrunches up his nose. “I think I’d wake up if you did that.”

“Oh my god,” Tomura groans, “shut up. Kurogiri, you’d better be ready.”

The man in question nods. “Of course, Shigaraki Tomura.”

A sharp look quells any further comments from the brat, allowing Tomura to step through the portal Kurogiri conjures without an accompaniment of snark. He’s deposited in an alley just a couple of blocks from campus, casually walking the rest of the way as if he is just another student returning to classes after a break. He sees a handful of others in similar uniforms, walking alone or in small groups, and keeps his distance from them but an eye on them.

As anticipated, reporters swarm the front gates like flies at a carcass, voices buzzing together into a dull drone that increases in pitch as they catch sight of the two students walking a ways in front of Tomura. They descend on the fools in an instant, asking questions that overlap into obscurity, barring All Might’s name which is always clearly audible, repeated again and again. One of the students welcomes the attention, despite their companion’s visible exasperation, and Tomura takes the distraction as the opportunity it is. He strolls past the group, inconspicuous, and lays a hand on the school’s gate until it’s nothing but rubble and a gaping hole in the wall. Once the job is done, only a matter of seconds, Tomura steps over the debris and onto UA grounds.

There are cameras everywhere, but Tomura pays them little mind. Sensei, he’s sure, is taking care of those. All Tomura needs to do is find the teachers’ lounge and steal a schedule, doing his best to draw minimal attention as he does. So long as he’s not caught in the act, he doesn’t have to worry overly much about being seen. Afterall, the plan is for everyone to know exactly who he is sooner rather than later. 

The alarms begin to blare shortly after Tomura enters the building and he resists the urge to claw at his neck, suffocated as it is by fabric. Blood on his shirt collar would surely draw the wrong kind of attention. Instead, he ducks his head into his shoulders and quickens his pace, eyes skimming over the plaques next to each door to find the room he is looking for. 

Those students that weren’t in the cafeteria during lunchtime rush around him in variable directions, and Tomura scoffs internally at the idea that these children are supposedly the best Japan has to offer. Brightest minds, strongest wills, always pushing themselves to go above and beyond, “plus ultra” and whatever other bullshit they like to shout at the top of their lungs. Yet here they are, running around like chickens with their heads cut off at the slightest commotion. None of them even glance at Tomura, the real threat they should be running from, too absorbed by mindless panic. It’s laughably pathetic.

The biggest resistance he faces finding the teachers’ lounge and slipping inside is the convoluted layout of the building itself. Whatever heroes were meant to be in the room have dispersed, most likely trying to contain the media that is no doubt swarming onto campus. Tomura closes the door softly behind himself, scanning the room for what he needs.

Half of one wall is taken up by a white board, which is covered partially in some teacher shit that Tomura couldn’t care less about and partially in crappy doodles and responding messages - mostly telling others not to draw on the board or to at least draw well, if they do. There’s a schedule in the top left corner of the board, pinned there by a neon pink magnet shaped like a cat head. 

It’s for the entire month, with the later dates mostly blank, save for the marking of large events, like “SPORTS FESTIVAL,” which is scrawled in all caps across three days at the very end of the month. Tomura already knows exactly when the sports festival is, of course. Izuku insists they watch it every year, and Tomura can’t deny that the event provides valuable insight on the future of the hero industry. 

The current week, though, is filled out in detail. People, places, times, lessons - it’s all written and presented in a perfectly organized, if cramped, format. Tomura pulls his phone out to snap a picture, immediately checking the result to make sure that everything is legible through the screen. Satisfied, he presses his alert button twice in quick succession and steps through Kurogiri’s portal when it opens a second later, walking back into the bar triumphant. 

In all, it takes Tomura less than ten minutes to retrieve the information he is going to use to kill the symbol of peace.

Izuku is not sure exactly what is going on, but he knows enough to be scared. He knows that Tomura infiltrated UA earlier that day, he knows Tomura returned with a smug grin on his face, and he knows that Tomura disappeared into Izuku’s father’s office as soon as he returned and has been in there for nearly an hour. Izuku knows that All Might supposedly began teaching at UA just days ago. Izuku knows that All for One has plans and does not hesitate to move people about like pawns. Izuku knows that Tomura would do anything All for One asked him to. 

Here is the scariest thing Izuku knows: Tomura wants to change the world. That’s what he says, anyway. More accurately, he wants to destroy it. Destruction is the only type of change Tomura understands. 

The longer All for One and Tomura are alone behind closed doors, the more nervous Izuku gets. It happens rarely, but he has never liked when Tomura and his father speak alone. Afterwards, Tomura is always slightly more manic, his grin becomes a weapon instead of a smile, and everything he says is just a verbatim repeat of things that All for One has said to Izuku over and over on their days in the warehouse. 

Years of living together have killed any fear Izuku might have originally felt towards Tomura, but in those moments, Izuku is scared again. Though it is less a fear of and more a fear for . Fear mixed with a deep, aching sadness. 

Sometimes Izuku wishes that he could be somewhere else, but it’s a silly thing to wish. He is safe here, taken care of, loved. He is even happy, some days. This place, his home, may not be perfect, but there is nowhere else in the world that could be better for someone like him.

Always Izuku wishes that Tomura could be somewhere else. Because Tomura isn’t safe, or taken care of, or loved the way he should be. Izuku doesn’t think he’s ever seen Tomura happy. Even when he gets close, there is always an anger inside him that never goes away. 

Izuku doesn’t know if there’s a better place in the world for someone like Tomura. If anything, he thinks it’s more likely that there’s not, because he’s painfully aware of the fact that people like Tomura, people who slip through the cracks, are easier to abandon than they are to save. 

Izuku cannot be saved because he’s not in danger, but Tomura? Tomura needs it, even if he doesn’t want it. For fifteen years, Tomura has been told to be angry and now that’s nearly all he is. Izuku loves his father, but Tomura deserves better than to be a pawn and an afterthought. Tomura is not quite Izuku’s brother, but he occupies the same space Izuku thinks a sibling might, someone Izuku simultaneously loves dearly and can’t stand, and the idea of Tomura lost and hurt and never getting better keeps him awake at night. 

After two hours, during which Izuku grows increasingly more anxious, Tomura comes to Izuku’s room. He doesn’t knock, just swings the door open and waltzes in like he owns the place, throwing himself down on Izuku’s bed and forcing Izuku to either move his legs or risk getting sat on. Tomura grins - the small, dangerous one that is Izuku’s second least favorite.

He is still in the UA uniform, though it’s in disarray now, tie and blazer both discarded somewhere, shirt untucked and several buttons undone. The makeup around his eyes has smudged away in places, revealing red skin, more flaky and irritated than usual. Likewise, his neck is in a state, covered in a mix of raised red welts and shallow grooves that have left little red-brown splotches over his shirt collar. Izuku frowns, seeing it.

“You need to wash your face,” he says, “and clean those scratches. You’re going to get an infection. I had Kurogiri get you a new type of skin cream, did you see? It’s supposed to be soothing and the reviews were all really good, so it might help.”

“Really?” Tomura asks. “I broke into UA like two hours ago - the number one hero school in the country, where the actual number one hero is newly employed, on top of dozens of other pros - and you want to ask me about skin cream? ”

“Well, you clearly need some, so it seemed relevant.”

“That’s not important!”

“Yes it is!” Izuku argues, standing from the bed and dodging Tomura’s leg when the older boy kicks at him. “You have a skin condition! That’s important!”

“Not compared to changing the world, it’s not! Oh, come on, where are you going? I actually need to talk to you, you brat!” 

Tomura groans as Izuku leaves the room and Izuku hears the bed squeak behind him as Tomura stands to follow. He dogs Izuku’s footsteps - with a litany of protests and constantly rolling eyes - as Izuku leads the way to the bathroom. The room is too small for both of them to move around comfortably, but Tomura obediently seats himself on the closed toilet seat while Izuku retrieves a soft cloth from one of the cabinets. 

“I can do this myself, you know,” Tomura grumbles as Izuku runs the rag under some warm water. 

“Maybe you can, but you’ve made it clear that you won’t.”

“Because it’s stupid and I have more important things to worry about than a rash and some scrapes.”

“What was that? Because you’re a smelly gamer manchild with no concept of self care? Got it.” Tomura scowls and Izuku slaps him in the face none too gently with the wet cloth. “Whoops. Whatever it is you need from me, you can tell me now.” Tomura squints his eyes shut, grimacing as Izuku scrubs at the skin under his eyes, but offers no further protests.

“I need - get that cloth out of my mouth, brat - I need you to do some research for me. Hero stuff, right in your skill set.”

“Who?” 

“Eraserhead and Thirteen.”

Izuku frowns. “I know about Thirteen. Primarily a rescue hero. Quirk: Black Hole. Allows them to suck in matter, namely rubble at disaster sites, and turn it to dust. The quirk itself is highly dangerous since it applies to any matter, not just debris, and requires Thirteen to exercise tight control at all times to avoid unwanted damage to persons or property.” Izuku clears his throat to cut off his own mumbling. “Not entirely dissimilar to Decay, actually. But I’ve never heard of Eraserhead.”

“Beats me. You’re the nerd, here. If they’re a hero, it shouldn’t be that hard to find info on them. I just need an idea of their stats.” Finished with Tomura’s face, Izuku moves on to the scratches on his neck. Despite his earlier insistence that he neither needed nor wanted Izuku’s help, Tomura bends his head slightly to the side in accommodation. 

“Why?” Izuku asks. Tomura’s smile becomes dangerous again.

“We’ve got a plan, Sensei and I. I’m gonna kill All Might.”

Izuku freezes, ice rushing through his veins. Every thought flees his mind except Tomura’s words, which echo around in the sudden emptiness of his skull. Tomura was going to - he thought he was going to - 

“Kill All Might?” Izuku repeats, weakly. “As in Japan’s number one hero? The man lauded as the symbol of peace because he’s so outrageously powerful that he single handedly decreased crime rates across the nation? That All Might?” His voice rises in pitch as he rambles, his final question breathy and embarrassingly squeaky.

“Again, you’re the nerd, here. I’d have thought you’d know who All Might is.” Tomura’s accompanying smile is teasing, but still too sharp, vicious, like he is baring his teeth to rip someone’s throat out. 

“How do you plan to do that?” 

“No one is invincible. Sensei says he’s been getting weaker lately, so it’s the perfect time to strike.”

Izuku has noticed that, too. Well, not that All Might has gotten weaker, per say, but that he has been appearing less and less frequently in the news. Diminishing strength wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion to draw from there. Izuku has been careful to not so much as hint at what he has observed during his conversations with All for One in the warehouse - All Might is a frequent subject of discussion - but the man must have noticed, anyway. All for One doesn’t have quite the knack for quirk analysis that Izuku does, but he is observant in his own right. Izuku shouldn’t be so surprised.

“Even a weaker All Might is a force to be reckoned with, Tomura,” Izuku warns. 

Whatever the plan is, Izuku is sure that it’s foolish. Even if the plan is a good one, Izuku’s father telling Tomura, who took All for One’s word as gospel, that All Might is weak was a mistake. No doubt it will lead to overconfidence, and that will increase the odds that Tomura is captured or injured on top of failing his mission. And Izuku is almost certain that he will fail. Weaker or not, All Might will not go gentle into the night.

As if to prove Izuku’s worries, Tomura doesn’t seem concerned in the slightest as he responds, “I’ve got a secret weapon, special made, just for him.” A nomu, then. Probably strong, fast, and durable if All for One is setting it against All Might. But nomu, as powerful as they can be, are blunt instruments and not well suited to difficult jobs. 

“And what do Eraserhead and Thirteen have to do with this?”

“Two days from now, UA’s class 1-A is going to be having ‘rescue training’ at some place called the USJ. Probably not Universal Studios Japan -”

“Unforseen Simulation Joint.”

“Sure, whatever you say, nerd . Anyway, All Might is going to be there, but so are ‘Eraserhead’ and ‘Thirteen.’” Tomura sneers around the names. “That’s what the schedule I found said, anyway. Sensei’s getting me some cannon fodder, but it’s still best to know the enemy lineup. Wouldn’t want to get wiped out before the final boss, after all.” 

Tomura is grinning crookedly, wicked and playful in a way that makes Izuku want to scream. He wants to grab Tomura by the shoulders and shake him until everything that has been planted in his head rattles loose, wants to yell in his face that this is not a game . They don’t have multiple lives. There are no save points. They can’t test different strategies until they find the one that works. They can’t turn off the console when things get rough and pretend they were never going to lose.

This is real life. When people lose, they are lost . And they don’t come back. 

But Izuku can’t just say that. He can’t say any of that because Tomura will just get upset. So Izuku grits his teeth, swallows his words down even when they threaten to choke him, and remembers what his father is always teaching them. 

The power of words comes from the person listening, not the person speaking. This makes them unreliable. True power lies in action. Everyone has a problem with something - the people who shape the world are those who do something about it . 

And Izuku will do whatever he needs to do. This will not end poorly for them. He will not allow it.

But first, he has things to research.

“Two days, you said?” he double checks, mind already racing.

“Yep. That enough for you?”

“Of course. No games tomorrow night, though.”

“Lame,” Tomura draws out the word, but doesn’t harp on it like he normally would. 

Done tending to Tomura’s neck and done talking, Izuku goes to leave the bathroom. Passing by the sink, he snatches up the bottle of medicinal skin cream and tosses it to Tomura, who tries to catch it between his wrists but fumbles it and glares as it clatters to the floor.

“Use it,” Izuku orders. Tomura rolls his eyes, but bends down to pick the bottle up as Izuku leaves.

Back in his bedroom, Izuku sits at his desk with a notebook open in front of him and his laptop off to the side, several tabs of videos, articles, and forums open as he scribbles down his findings. 

At the moment, he has two pages of notes on Thirteen - their quirk, their fighting style, their personality, strengths, weaknesses; the fundamentals. They are easy to get information on, and unlikely to be a problem during the attack. Certainly, they are powerful, but they have limited combat experience and are extremely hesitant to use their quirk offensively - or even defensively against another person - because of how volatile it can be. About Thirteen, he is well informed and they’ll be well prepared.

He has nothing at all on Eraserhead. 

No, that’s not entirely true. Izuku has found two short, grainy videos of the hero in action, both taken from a distance and in the dark. The number of concrete conclusions he can draw from them is minimal. Eraserhead is an underground hero - which Izuku had suspected the moment he failed to recognize the name - and a good one at that. Problem being, that while daylight heroes tend to become better known the better they are at their jobs, underground heroes do the opposite. In the underground, the best of the best are practically ghosts to the civilian world.

Eraserhead must be very good. 

Izuku runs a hand through his hair, tugging at it slightly as he mumbles under his breath. Fact of the matter is, the information must be out there somewhere. He just needs to figure out how to find it. He can’t just leave it. It’s bad enough that there’s going to be twenty unidentified hero students on site, with who knows what kind of wild quirks. Izuku refuses to have an actual pro hero unaccounted for. Tomura will end up dead.

Likely, there are more videos of Eraserhead somewhere online. Even in the dead of night or earliest hours of the morning, people are always eager to record any type of scuffle they see. But if those people don’t know that the person they are looking at is Eraserhead and don’t mark the videos as such, Izuku has no way of finding them. Searching generic terms like “underground hero” will get him more results than he could ever dig through, especially with only two days. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. All Izuku has to work with is a name, and - just his luck - it’s the name of a ghost .

Except. Except that’s not actually all he has to work with, is it? Eraserhead is going to be helping with rescue training at the USJ in two days. Thirteen, as far as Izuku knows, is not employed by UA, but he never questioned their presence on the schedule. A rescue hero to help with rescue training. It makes sense. And All Might - according to all the news outlets, he’s supposedly teaching heroics, so it makes sense for him to be there, too. So who the hell is Eraserhead and why is an underground hero overseeing 1-A’s rescue training?

Grinning with relief that he can only hope is not premature, Izuku opens a new tab on his computer and goes to UA’s website. Sure enough, there’s a tab for faculty and staff. Not much information is given - just headshots, names (either hero or civilian, but never both), and their job(s). It seems like a dubious security decision for such a prestigious institution to give any away information at all, but Izuku won’t complain.

He recognizes fewer people than he expected, though he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised, given that UA employs a fair number of civilians and not just the pro heroes that everyone loves to talk about. He scans quickly over the page, searching for anyone who resembles the vague figure from the videos. Twice he thinks maybe he’s found them, but the first was listed as an administrative assistant and the second, upon further investigation, was actually based out of Tokyo and commuted occasionally to give lectures or practical demonstrations. 

Then there is Aizawa Shouta. He’s a tired looking man with long black hair and scruff along his chin, looking distinctly like he would rather be anywhere else than having his photo taken, including dead. He matches the figure in the videos well enough - in that all Izuku can really say for sure from those is that Eraserhead has hair that is some shade of dark and not short. Listed under his name is a combination of several positions and courses, more than is listed for most other staff members. Aizawa is, apparently, a coordinator, an advisor, the teacher of “Law and Ethics,” and finally, blessedly , the last bullet point: “Homeroom: Class 1-A.”

Eraserhead was going to be at the USJ with 1-A because he was their homeroom teacher. Aizawa Shouta is Eraserhead. 

At this point, Izuku is relieved to have found anything on the man, but he still feels an amount of dread at the work he has left to do. Eraserhead’s civilian name tells Izuku nothing about his quirk or fighting style and it’s unlikely that there are many videos of Eraserhead in action that would be associated with “Aizawa Shouta” instead of his hero alias. Sure enough, a generic search of the name gives far too many results and no immediately useful ones. 

Pulling at his lower lip with one hand, Izuku opens a new tab and types in an address that auto-completes after only a few letters for how often he visits it. The UA Sports Festival Database. It’s a long shot, but also the best one Izuku has. 

For Aizawa to be in the database, he’ll need to have gone to UA. It’s likely enough, given that most of the hero faculty at the school were also alumni, as far as Izuku could tell, but it’s still far from a guarantee. And even if he did go to UA, the only reliable way to find him in a database that contained thousands of clips would be if he made it to the final event of the festival. Only the third event, the one on one matches, were catalogued with the names of the participants. Clips from other rounds were listed with the name of the event and the year, due to the large number of students involved. 

What are the odds that Eraserhead, an underground hero who has almost completely escaped media and civilian attention alike, not only attended UA but also had both the skill and the desire to make it into the final sixteen of one of the most highly televised sporting events in the country? Slim, Izuku would be willing to bet. But it’s the best lead he has, and it doesn’t hurt to check, so Izuku holds his breath and pecks the characters of Aizawa’s name into the search bar with crossed fingers.

Five videos pop up. All four rounds of the one on one matches and the final awards ceremony, all with the name “Aizawa Shouta” somewhere in the title. Izuku could cry. 

It’s still not ideal. The videos are from nearly fifteen years ago and the hero has no doubt changed since then. But Izuku should at least be able to figure out what his quirk is and with that additional context, he may be able to garner some additional information from the more recent clips, as poor quality as they are. 

Izuku clicks on the first match. Aizawa - younger, smooth faced, and with shorter hair, but looking no more rested fifteen years ago - walks onto the field and the announcers make a big deal of the fact that he is, apparently, a member of class 1-D, the only student in general studies to make it to the final event of the festival that year. One of the filming drones flies closer to his face, showing the steely determination in the set of his jaw, his expression intense and intimidating in a way that is out of place on such a young face. His opponent enters from the other side, a blonde boy with headphones over his ears, who waves easily as the crowd cheers, and Izuku is fairly certain that that is Present Mic, even before the announcers introduce him as Yamada Hizashi from class 1-A. 

The match, once it begins, is over in less than two minutes. Yamada opens his mouth, presumably to scream, and nothing comes out. He falters, distracted by surprise as he brings a hand to his lips and mouths something inaudible. Aizawa is on him in moments, eyes red, hair floating around his face. He is brutal and efficient in his take-down and Yamada, caught off guard and likely unpracticed with such close combat, doesn’t stand a chance.

At the beginning of the second match, Izuku’s suspicions are confirmed by the announcers. It is careless of UA to not only broadcast their sport festivals on live television but to also actively explain the quirks of their students, but they have been doing it for decades. They call Aizawa’s quirk Erasure, and apparently it allows him to temporarily erase the quirks of others, apt, given his chosen hero name. 

He takes down his second and third opponents with the same unrelenting speed as the first. Even knowing his quirk, there is a moment of unbalanced surprise when they find themselves unable to use their own, and Aizawa doesn’t hesitate to take advantage of that, striking hard and fast before they have a chance to recover. 

In the final round, Aizawa loses. His opponent, a boy with cloud-like pale blue hair named Shirakumo Oboro, practically bounces into the ring. Like before, Aizawa activates his quirk and closes in in an instant, but Shirakumo seems more experienced with close-quarter quirkless combat than the others before him, showing clear signs of martial arts training. The two exchange a series of blocks and blows until Shirakumo slips around behind Aizawa. Eraserhead - or more accurately, the boy who will become Eraserhead - spins around, but a cloud, thick and white, forms around his head before the two students are face to face. Shirakumo disables him rather quickly, after that. 

Eraserhead’s quirk must be line-of-sight, then, with no lingering effects after deactivation. Shirakumo had access to his own quirk instantaneously, and he made a point to cover Aizawa’s eyes for the rest of their fight. 

Erasure, Izuku decides, is a fascinating quirk. He already has so many questions. Could Aizawa erase mutant type quirks? If he erased a transformation quirk while a person was in a secondary form, would they morph back or be stuck? Could people tell that their quirks had been erased when they weren’t actively trying to use them? How would it interact with a quirk like Izuku’s own? Would it erase everything Izuku has stolen or a random one or only the base ability to take and give? 

What would happen if he erased a quirk that was keeping someone alive?

Izuku’s pencil snaps against the page of his notebook, a dark, jagged line of graphite interrupting his scrawling speculations. He closes his notebook and pushes it far away from him, looking at his laptop where the clip of the awards ceremony is paused on a shot of Aizawa with a silver medal, looking proud and defiant and in desperate need of a nap. 

It is obvious from the way Aizawa fights that his quirk is just an enabler, an equalizer. His body is the weapon, and his strength and skill are hard fought and trained, not genetic blessings. But could Erasure itself be weaponized?

There is nothing wrong with asking, Izuku tells himself, bringing his feet up into his chair and wrapping shaking arms around his knees. He’s just curious, and curiosity is a good thing. There is nothing wrong with having an inquisitive mind. Knowledge is power, after all. It’s all just theoretical, just a thought exercise. Izuku doesn’t even know if Erasure would work that way, and even if it did, it’s not like he was going to do anything about it. 

Except he is supposed to do things, isn’t he? Thinking about something and doing nothing is a waste of potential. 

Izuku squeezes his eyes shut. His head hurts, his chest hurts, he can’t breathe, he can’t think straight. He opens his eyes and Aizawa Shouta is still grinning victoriously on his screen. 

Aizawa, he was in general education, but he didn’t want to be, he wanted to be a hero, so he did something about it . He placed in the sports festival, nearly won, and he graduated from the hero course and became the underground hero, Eraserhead, who Izuku is gathering information on so Tomura doesn’t die while he’s trying to kill All Might. 

Now Eraserhead might die because of Izuku and Izuku doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he has never wanted to hurt anyone, and he definitely doesn’t want anyone to die, but what is he meant to do about that? 

Because there will always be more people for Izuku to hurt. There is an endless line from week to week, faces that are never given names, quirks that are taken from their owners. 

Even if the USJ goes well, what about the next thing? He's not solving anything but the short term problem, and the real issue, the long term one is--

Once, Izuku had tried to kill the problem his father. 

No, that wasn’t true. Yes it was. Izuku hadn’t wanted to hurt him. He wanted it to be painless. He was just curious. He had hoped it would work.  

Izuku’s father relies on a combination of dozens and dozens of quirks, many of them redundant, to stay alive. Izuku had just been curious as to what would happen if he took one. That’s all. So he had tried, just to see, but it hadn’t worked. He can't take quirks from his father, as it turns out. Apparently, there is honor among thieves. 

Izuku stands. It is late. He is tired and his eyes burn. He turns off the light, lays in bed, and stares up at the ceiling, but without any windows, the room is so pitch black that it is like he is staring at nothing at all.

Once, Izuku had tried to kill his father, and afterwards, he cried for hours because he never should have tried in the first place. This time, he does not cry. He feels cold and sick as he considers it, but he does not cry. 

It’s only theoretical, he tells himself. 

Just a thought exercise. 

UA is different from Aldera. Obviously. Katsuki would have been pretty fucking disappointed if it wasn’t, considering what a shit show his middle school had been, but UA is different in ways Katsuki didn’t fully anticipate. 

There’s the teachers, for one thing. His homeroom teacher is some kind of disgusting yellow caterpillar that metamorphosizes several times a day into some even more disgusting hobo-butterfly-bullshit. Then his heroics teacher is literally All Might, the number one hero, the Symbol of Peace, himself. It's a pretty stark contrast. Katsuki can’t help but wonder how bad that hiring decision hurt hobo-sensei’s ego. 

And then there’s the classmates. Katsuki had hoped that he’d finally be able to find some actual, quality people at UA, but somehow his new “peers” are worse than his old stalkers. They’re obnoxious slackers for the most part. Half of them don’t know how to use their damn quirks properly and almost none of them have bothered with learning how to fight despite constantly and loudly proclaiming how much they want to fight villains for a living. 

And finally, the classes. Man, the classes. Katsuki is torn.

The good parts are even better than he expected. The first few days set his expectations high. First with the quirk apprehension test, finally being able to let loose and give something his all. Katsuki blew it out of the water, of fucking course, no matter what the damned rankings said. Then the battle trials, led by All Might - by All fucking Might himself - and a chance to finally blow up something bigger than a baseball. And something that fought back. 

Not that Round Face and her no-name partner really gave Katsuki much of a fight. The girl’s quirk is okay, he supposes. She’s one of his halfway-decent classmates when it comes to skill, but Katsuki is a force of fucking nature, thank you very much. He could have crushed them even without the asshole Glasses’ so-called “help.”

But the bad parts, Katsuki is learning today, are also far shittier than he expected. 

Being crammed into a bus with all the extras while they ramble on about quirks or whatever other bullshit was bad enough. Katsuki had been content to sit next to Earlobes - who hadn’t done anything to impress him but hadn’t completely pissed him off yet, either - and mind his own business, because he actually knew how to fucking do that, unlike most of 1-A. Pikachu had to go starting fights, though. Actually, Frog Face started it, but considering that Pikachu couldn’t even use his own quirk without turning into a drooling dunce, he’s the one Katsuki really wants to punch. 

So, yeah, Katsuki is in a bad mood and at the end of the ride, they don’t even get to do anything cool. No, they’re at the USJ for fucking rescue training . 

Rescue training. It’s bullshit. Not even a week of classes and already Katsuki can’t wait until third year, when they would get to take specialized courses based on the type of hero they planned to be. Some of these extras clearly need the guidance of the first few years, to figure out what they want to do and how to even use their damn quirks in the first place, but Katsuki already knows on both counts. 

And he sure as shit isn’t going to be any kind of rescue hero , that’s for fucking certain.      

Round Face or whoever is interested in it can knock themselves out if rescue is what gets them off, but Katsuki couldn’t care less. Someone else, someone weaker, can worry about dragging civilians out of rubble while Katsuki takes care of the real problem.

He doesn’t need to listen to some astronaut cosplayer lecture him on how dangerous quirks can be. His hands explode. He’s well aware that he can fuck shit up if he wants to - that’s kind of the point . They can tell him how important it is not to hurt people but it’s bullshit and anyone with half a brain knows it. 

Sure, Katsuki’s not going to go around attacking strangers on the street - fuck off, he’s not a rabid animal - but he wants to be a hero and hurting people , albeit villains, is literally the job description. The best heroes are strong; strong enough to hurt people, so they can protect themselves and take down the villains. That’s what strength is for.  

When a portal opens in the center of the plaza before training can even begin, it feels like the universe is agreeing with him. 

Here, it says, have something to hit. 

And Katsuki thinks in return, about fucking time.

Chapter Text

“You can’t come.”

“What do you mean I can’t come?!” Izuku demands, snatching back the notebook he had just handed to Tomura.

“I mean you can’t come. I’m going. You’re staying. It’s a simple concept, brat. Now give me the notes.” 

Shaking his head, Izuku clutches the book defensively to his chest. “Maybe I’ll give you the notes when you give me one good reason I can’t come.”

“Sensei doesn’t want you to,” Tomura says simply, holding his hand out.

“That’s a bad reason!”

“Well, bad is in the eye of the beholder or whatever.”

“That’s not the saying and you know it.”

“Maybe so. You know what I really want to know, though? Who the hell Eraserhead is. Notes - now.”

“Say please.”

The minute narrowing of Tomura’s eyes is the only warning Izuku gets before the older boy lunges. Izuku yells, dropping to the ground to avoid Tomura’s grasping hands and curling up around the notebook. As it is, with all his limbs cocooned around the book, Tomura can’t get to it without dedicating himself to a pretty high degree of manhandling - and if he does that, he’ll have no way of being certain that he won’t accidentally touch Izuku with all five fingers. Based on Tomura’s exaggeratedly long groan, he’s come to the same conclusion.

“Why do you want to go so bad, anyway?” he asks petulantly. 

“Lots of reasons,” Izuku responds, voice slightly muffled from where his knees are folded up by his mouth. “I want to see everyone in action, I want to analyze their quirks, I want to see if I can figure out how far my quirk awareness can stretch. Besides, it’s stupid to face a raid boss alone. I’m your player two.”

Tomura sighs. “Sensei doesn’t want people knowing about you.”

Izuku hears Tomura sit down somewhere else in the room and uncurls from his ball, rolling to sit on the floor. He tucks the notebook under his butt, just in case Tomura is trying to lure him into a false sense of security.

“No one has to know I’m there,” Izuku says.

“Oh?” Tomura asks, sarcastic. “And how exactly are you going to escape the notice of the nearly two dozen people we will be attacking?”

“I have a quirk for that. No one will notice me if I don’t call attention to myself.”

Wallflower is one of the first quirks Izuku stole, back before he got so many that it became impractical to keep naming them all. It’s one of his favorites - though he feels guilty for having favorites at all - and he frequently uses it to move around the bar without anyone noticing him when he’s not in the mood for conversation. 

Tomura hums. “It would be nice to have you there,” he admits. “And hey, maybe you could steal a couple of quirks from those hero brats while we’re at it. That would serve them right.”

“No,” Izuku says a touch too quickly, though Tomura doesn’t seem to notice. He continues, hurrying to cover his tracks, “We don’t want to call any attention back to Dad, and someone is bound to make the connection if quirks suddenly go missing.” 

“Too bad,” Tomura reluctantly agrees. “Are you going to give me those notes, now?”

“I can come?”

“Sure, why not. You weren’t part of the plan, but Sensei never actually said you couldn’t . But if he gets mad I’m throwing you under the bus.” Izuku jumps up, pumping his fist in victory. “Just stay on the downlow, okay? You’re our party’s rogue. Thievery, reconnaissance, and stealth - that’s you.”

Izuku scoops his notebook up off the floor, passing it over to Tomura who grimaces as he holds it between his hands.

“Why is it so warm?” Tomura asks, scrunching up his nose.

“I was sitting on it.”

“And? Did you fart on it or something? Nasty.”

Izuku flusters. “No! Jesus, you’re the nasty one, shut up!” 

As Tomura snickers, Izuku riffles through his pockets for some kind of projectile, coming up with only some pills of lint that just drift lazily to the ground when he tries to throw them. Izuku resorts to shoving his hands into Tomura’s face instead, but the older boy is undeterred, still laughing as he reaches for one of Izuku’s curls, tugging on it as he carefully wraps the tip around all five fingers. The hair turns to dust between his fingers that falls onto Izuku’s scalp like green dandruff. 

“We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon,” Tomura tells him. “Make sure you’re ready.”

Then he leaves, possibly to make preparations of his own, but more likely to shut himself in his room and play video games while fantasizing about All Might’s death. 

Alone, Izuku’s cheeks are still warm with embarrassment, but the bubble of joy and irritation that Tomura’s presence so often evokes has already popped. For a moment, it leaves him feeling small and deflated, but the empty space is quickly filled by a shame and self-loathing so large that it presses out against Izuku’s ribs until he thinks they might crack from the pressure. 

Tomorrow, Izuku will accompany Tomura to the USJ, and while it’s true that he’s Tomura’s player two, that’s not why he wants to be there. It’s not like he can tell Tomura the real reason he’s interested in going, not like he can explain his fascination with Erasure and his idle but all-consuming contemplation of what he might be able to use that quirk to do. Tomura would hate Izuku if he knew that Izuku was even thinking about -- what he is thinking about. So Izuku told a lie that was based in truth, one he knew Tomura would be happy to hear, and it had worked. 

Izuku doesn’t know what’s going to happen at the USJ. He doesn’t know what Tomura will do. Doesn’t know what All Might, the other pros, or the students will do. Even Izuku’s own actions, 24 hours from now, are a mystery to him. 

So, Izuku does what Tomura suggested. He sits at his desk - scribbling out thoughts and theoreticals, what-ifs and how-tos, ends and means - and he tries to make sure he’s ready for whatever it is he decides to do. 

Here is a modified trolley problem:

You and your father stand beside a set of train tracks. As it is, the train’s path is unobstructed, but there is a lever next to you that will divert it, leading it to kill hundreds of innocent and oblivious people. 

Your father wants you to pull the lever. If you don’t, he will either make you or he will do it himself. The only way to stop him is to push him in front of the train.

Do you push your father?

The next day, Izuku stands at Tomura’s right hand. To Tomura’s left is the nomu. It is a towering thing with vacant eyes and a beak-like maw filled with teeth like jagged bits of glass. Izuku can’t stand to look directly at it, but he can see it’s massive black form, perfectly still, out of the corner of his eye. The unnatural tangle of its quirks snares at Izuku’s mind. 

The crowd before them looks at the monster with mixed reactions of trepidation - which Izuku thinks is wise - and respect - which is beyond foolish. There’s more “cannon fodder,” as Tomura described them, than Izuku expected. Izuku doesn’t know exactly where this meeting place is, since Kurogiri teleported him and Tomura directly in, but the room is large and completely empty apart from the bodies filling it. And they do fill it - not so much that people can’t easily move around, but enough that Izuku can’t get an easy head count on just how many villains All for One has recruited for this mission. 

The eyes of the group dart in turns between the nomu, Tomura, and Izuku himself. He hasn’t activated Wallflower yet, and it’s an odd feeling, having so many eyes on him like this. Even before coming to live with his father, Izuku had never particularly been the center of attention, and in the last five years he’s hardly interacted with anyone outside his father, Tomura, and Kurogiri. On the rare occasion that he left the bar, he kept a low profile, frequently with Wallflower’s assistance, and no one had paid him any mind. 

Once, standing in the middle of a crowd, with people flowing by him on all sides like he was a rock and they were a stream, Izuku had craved to be seen. 

Now, he is seen and wishes terribly to hide. 

But Tomura wants to make sure everyone notices Izuku. Afterall, the attack is likely to get very chaotic very quickly. The cannon fodder exists mostly to occupy the students while Tomura gets the job done, and it wouldn’t do for one of the NPCs - again, Tomura’s words - to mistake Izuku for one of the other twenty fifteen year olds, the targets, that were going to be there. 

Tomura himself is covered in the embrace of his severed hands. It’s nothing Izuku hasn’t seen before, but it never becomes any easier, watching Tomura’s face disappear behind a dead hand he calls “Father.” Like this, Tomura fits in with the swarm of villains gathered here, and Izuku can’t imagine him playing Animal Crossing with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

This person is more Shigaraki than Tomura, a virtual stranger instead of practically a brother. It makes Izuku’s chest ache. 

Let’s elaborate on the trolley problem:

The scenario is the same, except now there is a third person standing with you and your father next to the tracks. He is not your brother, but also he is. 

Your brother would never push your father in front of the train. Your father, on the other hand, would push your brother in an instant. 

If you push your father, you save your brother as well as the hundreds of innocent people, but your brother will not see it that way. He will not thank you.

D̷o̶ ̷y̴o̷u̶ ̷p̵u̸s̵h̴ ̸y̶o̸u̸r̸ ̴f̴a̷t̴h̷e̵r̷?̷

“It’s time,” Tomura announces. Even his voice is different. Soft, not sweet. Perfectly composed, not genuinely calm. He completely lacks his normal animation, blank and indifferent. It's a facade, Izuku knows, but the behavior is no more comforting for its lack of sincerity. 

In front of them, Kurogiri opens a portal, the largest Izuku has ever seen, large enough for the assembled crowd to move through without condensing at all. Izuku is momentarily distracted by the sheer size of it, wondering where Kurogiri’s limit lies. Then, Tomura steps forward and Izuku’s fascination is cancelled out by his need to follow, activating Wallflower as he passes through the gloom. 

They emerge next to a fountain, at the empty center plaza of a large, domed structure. There’s a variety of simulated terrains in the distance, spread out radially around them, from false cityscapes to man-made mountains. Izuku feels small as he takes it all in, smaller still as villains stalk into the space around him, dispersing through the plaza as Izuku and Tomura stay planted at the center. 

Across the dome, at the top of a very long stairway, a group stares down at them, rendered indistinct by the distance. Izuku can see them moving though, even if he can’t make out the details of their features, shuffling around as they register the presence of intruders, grouping more tightly together as they realize they are in danger. Most of the figures are of similar sizes - the students - with a few outliers, but none so much larger as the form of All Might should be. Tomura seems to come to this realization as well, humming under his breath.

“Where is he?” he asks, voice so deceptively calm that it gives Izuku chills. “He was meant to be here. I brought this whole crowd, just for him, and he doesn’t even bother to show up?” Izuku can see his fingers twitching at his sides. “I wonder if he would show up if we killed some kids?”

Izuku does not want anyone to die here.

“Tomura,” he says softly and the older boy turns. 

Wide red eyes meet Izuku’s through cracked fingers, pupils constricted into pinpoints. As calm as Tomura sounds - almost bored, really - Izuku knows he is seething. He has always hated when things don’t go according to plan and this plan, in particular, is important to him in ways Izuku can only barely understand. 

“Wait,” Izuku tells him. “See how the situation develops. Let the cannon fodder do their jobs.” The words are bitter on Izuku’s tongue, but, at least for the moment, Tomura stays by his side, not rushing in to kill anyone or get himself killed.

Let’s elaborate on the trolley problem:

If you push your father, your brother will inevitably push you. You have hurt so many people that you probably deserve it, so that is not the moral quandary here. Your brother has just pushed you in front of a train, so you are dead, but the hundreds of innocent people and your brother are safe.

Except now your brother is alone and he’s angry and your father has always told him that when he’s angry he should do something about it, but the only thing he's ever been taught to do is hurt people. He has probably never even heard of the trolley problem because your father wouldn’t have wanted him thinking about things like saving people or the value of life, and he will definitely pull any lever that he thinks your father would have wanted him to pull, even after your father is dead. So the hundreds of people aren’t safe, after all.

And then, at some point, your brother will probably wander in front of the train himself, and you won’t be there to pull him back, so he’s not safe, either. 

Everyone will be dead.

D̴̢̐ǒ̸͙ ̸͎̈́y̷̺̠͛͂ö̷̥́ü̶̥͖̂ ̶͙̕p̸̦̈́̚u̸̬̔͜s̷̢͚̾h̸̤͇̏̈́ ̵̜̍͘y̴̛̺̦͂ọ̸͈̕ṳ̸̙̽̀r̸͕̝͊̋ ̶͕͘f̸͍͖̄a̴̲͊͆t̷̝h̴͚̒ĕ̸͉͊r̴̙?̴̢̀̿

As it is, the situation develops quickly. One of the people watching from above launches themself down the stairs.

“Eraserhead,” Izuku warns Tomura, identifying the black blur in an instant, familiar with the way the hero moves after studying every clip available for hours and hours. Tomura hums his acknowledgment, watching intently as Eraserhead engages with the other villains. 

“He’s fast,” Tomura mutters, rubbing his neck but not digging his nails in. “Relies on speed and precision to take his targets out quickly.” He smirks as someone gets a blow in against the hero. “Bad matchup against mutant type quirks, though. It doesn’t look like he can erase those.”

“That’s what the capture weapon is for,” Izuku points out. On cue, Eraserhead whips the scarf-like object out to snag a villain around the waist, binding their arms against their sides and flinging them away from him. “It gives him long distance versatility to make up for the shortcomings of his quirk.” Izuku studies the weapon intently now, never having been able to get a good look at it over dark and pixelated footage.

Tomura makes a disappointed noise. “It’s no fair. Strong hand-to-hand skills, long distance weaponry, and the ability to erase quirks. With those goggles of his, you can’t even tell who’s quirk he’s erasing. It makes it nearly impossible for a group to coordinate attacks properly.”

“I don’t think this group would be doing much coordination, anyway, Tomura.”

“That’s not the point. Even if they tried, they wouldn’t be able to. This is why I hate pro heroes. The masses don’t stand a chance against them.” On some level, as Izuku watches one man single handedly toss around dozens of villains - who truthfully are more on the level of petty criminals - he can’t help but agree. 

By Izuku’s side, Tomura has been growing more and more agitated. His tone is still mostly level when he speaks, contained, though his words tremble slightly and his voice occasionally cracks. But his hands, as always, give him away, crawling up to his neck and scratching at the bit of exposed skin there, worrying it raw and tearing open old scabs. Izuku will likely have to clean them again tonight, if Tomura will calm down enough to allow him.

In the distance, there is a commotion. Kurogiri has left the plaza to deal with Thirteen and the students, according to plan. It is expected that he would face some degree of resistance, but Izuku had decided that the students posed a negligible threat. Their unknown quirks are likely impressive, but Kurogiri is practically unmatched when it comes to evasion, so he’s the perfect one to deal with them - doubly so, since Izuku is reasonably sure he won’t try to kill them. 

Which is why, when Izuku hears the commotion from the entrance, he ignores it, keeping his focus on Eraserhead’s fight and Tomura’s state of mind.

Then, he hears the explosion. He spins bodily to face it. He’d know that sound anywhere, even after five years, and he curses himself for not considering this sooner. Izuku is the same age as the first year UA students, and even if he has not seen Katsuki in a long time, Izuku has no doubt that the blonde - as strong, stubborn, and hard-working as he was - is attending UA, just like he always dreamed. 

Unconsciously, Izuku activates one of his many sensory enhancement quirks, the range of his sight increasing and his vision sharpening until he can see what is happening at the entrance. Until he can see the faces of the students he has thus far ignored ‐ see their fear, concern, confusion, determination. 

And he can see Katsuki, dressed in black and orange with one arm encased in a grenade-shaped gauntlet that Izuku can guess the purpose of. Izuku can see the way Katsuki moves in tandem with the red-haired boy next to him. Izuku can see the familiar incandescent rage and savage glee that followed him through so much of his childhood.

Bakugou Katsuki is in the USJ. Of course he is. On the top of those stairs, Katsuki and Kurogiri are face to face. Izuku should have seen this coming. 

But the simple fact of the matter is that he didn’t. Izuku hasn’t thought of Katsuki in years. In the beginning of his stay with his father, Izuku had thought of Katsuki whenever he met Tomura’s glaring red eyes. Every time he took a quirk, he would remember how incredibly scared Kacchan had looked that day when they were four, before the fear was swallowed by an anger that engulfed every one of their interactions. He would hear Katsuki’s voice in his head each time he did something bad, calling him a villain. 

But then Tomura had started smiling at Izuku, too - sharing his favorite Pokémon and teaching Izuku to play Super Smash Bros. - and his eyes had stopped looking anything like Katsuki’s. 

Now, Izuku has so many quirks from so many people that there’s no longer a single representative for everyone he has wronged, and the temporary appropriation of Katsuki’s quirk is among the most minor of Izuku’s crimes. 

And maybe there is still a voice in Izuku’s head that scolds him whenever he does something wrong - whenever he takes a quirk or gives Tomura information or loves his father knowing full well what the man has done - but now it just sounds like his own. 

Izuku had nearly forgotten about Bakugou Katsuki. 

And now is not the time to remember. 

Izuku swallows, squeezing his eyes shut tight to shut off the enhanced vision, forcing himself to turn his back on the fight in the distance to focus again on the one happening next to him. The scene that greets him is different from what he expected. The space next to him is empty.

In Izuku’s seconds of distraction, Tomura has moved. He is already halfway across the plaza, and despite the hand covering his face, Izuku can tell that Tomura is wearing Izuku’s least favorite grin. It’s the smile Tomura gets whenever he is about to hurt someone - sharp and bloodthirsty, with too many teeth and wild eyes. It’s the kind of smile that makes Izuku remember why he was so afraid of Tomura when they first met.

Truely, it’s a travesty to call it a smile, because this is not what happiness looks like, and Izuku hates that Tomura can’t tell the difference. Izuku would give anything to teach Tomura what a smile is meant to be. Would do anything to show him that the soft moments they spend together at the bar are far closer to fulfillment than the violence he is praised for. 

Let’s elaborate on the --

… Wait. This stopped sounding like the trolley problem, at some point.

What are the trains supposed to be in this metaphor, again? They were meant to be the villains of the story, but then what’s the train that’s hitting your brother? A different villain? That doesn’t make sense. It’s gotten a bit tangled up.

Let’s try again:

Okay. The trains are the villains of the story. Then your father is a train. So are you and your brother. You are all… sentient trains. 

No. This - this is already worse. 

Maybe the trolley problem has been stretched too far. 

D̸̬̠͙̥̹̐͋̂̃̎͝͠o̵̢̫̬̯̽̂̑̐͘ ̶̟̫̟̪̦̙̩͋̇͒͌̎y̷̳̌͆ȯ̷͙̺̝͐̂́͗̕ͅṳ̴̹̬͌̐́̄̓̈́ ̵̢̬͊p̸͕̰̦̞͓̜͂̒͆̈́̈́̚u̶̧͚̙̬͆̌̅̃̈͝ṣ̴̢̡̡͓̥͈̞̌̊ḧ̴̻̺̪͚̫̘̒̚ ̶͉̚y̸̡̧̮̬̩͈͑̏͝o̸̹̰͚̩̓͒͘ű̴̖̭͙͎̩͈̞̻̾̈́̑͠ŗ̷͚̜̖̰͎͌̋̓̚ ̷̧͕́̀͠f̴̟̀̈́̒̍͗͝͝a̶̡̩̤̍̎̎̆͝t̴̙͇̓̈́̕h̷͙̺́̽͗̓̈́̈́̂̀ę̶̲̽̿͋̔̽̽̌́ṙ̷̻̩̠̿̚?̷̲̉̿̊͒̔̈̿

With Tomura’s often childish behavior, it can be easy to forget how intelligent he is. The more his anger builds, the more irrational he will get, throwing away plans in favor of pure destruction, but when he manages to keep a level head, Tomura is capable of being surprisingly analytical and strategic. He is good at picking apart weaknesses. Izuku wishes it weren’t so.

“It’s hard to see when you keep moving around,” Tomura says as he charges forward, “but your hair floats when you use your quirk, and the moment it falls - that’s when you blink. The time between has gotten shorter and shorter. You’re reaching your limit, aren’t you?” Izuku had pointed out the tell of Eraserhead’s quirk in his notes, along with dozens of other things, but the observation of the timing is Tomura’s own. Izuku wishes, not for the first time, that Tomura could be stupid, that his intelligence hadn’t been honed into a sword. 

On a level playing field, Eraserhead would certainly win any fight between him and Tomura, Izuku has no doubt. Izuku has trained with Tomura, and while the older boy doesn’t completely lack combat skills, he still relies far too much on the raw destructive power of his quirk. Without it, he is built for speed, lacks power, and is fairly frail. Easy to capture or incapacitate. Izuku would know - he’s done it. 

But the playing field is not level. Izuku had seen to that, tipping the odds in Tomura’s favor just enough for him to get past Eraserhead’s guard. Tomura dodges around the capture weapon the hero sends after him, grasping the scarf by the end and wrapping it around his hand. It serves as a tether, reeling them both in closer as they run at each other, Eraserhead’s hands fisted in his weapon, Tomura with a hand drawn back. They collide, Tomura’s hand flying over Eraserhead’s shoulder, his body folding over as the hero’s elbow drives into his solar plexus. Izuku winces, but the sympathy he feels for Tomura is contrasted by relief. 

“Don’t push yourself, Eraserhead,” Tomura says into the space between them. His voice, delighted and mocking, makes Izuku reassess his relief.

Eraserhead’s hair falls.

Tomura’s obvious grasp went wide when Eraserhead ducked in close to him, but it was a feint all along. With muted horror, Izuku seeks out Tomura’s other hand, closed around Eraserhead’s elbow, having caught the blow. He watches as the skin cracks like spiderwebs traveling through glass, watches as flesh turns grey and brittle and crumbles away from the wet sinew of muscle. 

Eraserhead disengages before the rot reaches bone, punching Tomura in the chest with his free arm and throwing himself backwards, away from Tomura but towards half a dozen other enemies. Tomura has been knocked to the ground, but seems content to stay there for the moment, watching as Eraserhead ducks under a grab, shoulder checks one villain, rolls away from another, keeping up with the fast tempo of the fight even as his arm hangs limply at his side. 

“This fight isn’t at all like what you’re used to, is it?” Tomura asks. “No, you’re more of the surprise attack type, aren’t you? Catch them off guard and take care of them quickly. A long fight against a group like this isn’t your normal job at all.” Hearing his own carefully recorded observations come out of Tomura’s mouth makes Izuku feel ill. “Still, you ran down to face us head on, all alone. Was that to make your students feel safe? ” Tomura sneers around the word. 

The underlings don’t give Eraserhead any room to breathe, not allowing him to so much as spare Tomura a glance as the boy mocks him. He narrowly dodges the swipe of a villain with long blade-like fingers, wrapping the man up in his scarf and tugging hard to pull the villain into the path of another. A second later, Eraserhead drops the man he just used as a shield and kicks his most recent attacker across the face, sending them sprawling to the ground. He pants, shoulders heaving, but barely takes a moment to breathe before burying his hands back into his weapon and spinning to face Tomura again, quirk activated.

Tomura laughs abruptly, giddy and manic. “You’re so cool… So cool!” 

Izuku’s hair stands on end. He wants to run away. He wants to bring Tomura with him, somewhere far from this place where they can leave the Shigaraki who riles himself up with blood and violence behind. 

“By the way, hero… I’m not the final boss.”

In All Might’s absence, Izuku had somehow forgotten about the abomination they brought to handle the number one hero. Pitting Eraserhead against it is a joke - the kind of dark comedy that ends in death. It grabs the underground hero by his face, hand dwarfing his head. Eraserhead doesn’t even have time to make a futile attempt at escape before he is being slammed down, skull slamming against hard stone, goggles snapping and flying away, blood --

Izuku slams his eyes closed. 

This is not real life, he tells himself. He’s not actually here. Things like this don’t really happen. 

“Tomura,” he chokes out.

“Do you like our nomu, Eraserhead?” Tomura asks. “He’s bioengineered, specifically to take down All Might. The anti-Symbol of Peace.” 

Tomura snickers to himself the way he does whenever he thinks he has said something especially clever. The nomu screeches, an inhuman sound that makes Izuku’s teeth ache. Something makes a long, ugly splintering noise - not bones, not bones, not bones . 

“Tomura,” Izuku says again, forcing his voice to be louder even as it tries to die in his throat. Salt invades his mouth when he speaks. He doesn’t know when he started crying. 

“Not now, rogue. I’m busy.”

How can he stand it, Izuku wonders. How can he sound so pleased with himself?

“The ability to erase quirks, it’s - hmm, it’s wonderful, but not all that impressive, really,” Tomura muses to himself. “In the face of overwhelming power, you might as well be quirkless.” 

Another crack, another thud, the ground trembles faintly beneath Izuku’s feet. 

He wishes this could be over already, he wishes this never happened in the first place, he wishes he was somewhere else, he wishes he didn’t exist at all. 

“Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri says. Izuku didn’t notice his return, but he’s beyond feeling surprised. All he can feel is the weight of his bones trying to pull him into the earth and the cold of his blood as it crawls through his veins. 

“Kurogiri. Did you kill Thirteen?” Please, no.

“I put Thirteen out of action -” thank god “-but there were students I was unable to disperse, and one of them was able to run away.” 

“Huh? Kurogiri, you…” Izuku can hear Tomura’s building distress. On a normal day, Izuku would try to soothe him. But today is not a normal day. Today, there is blood all over the ground. Because of Tomura. Because of Izuku. He can smell it in the air. 

“If you weren’t a warp gate,” Tomura growls, “I would have crushed you to pieces. Damn it. It’s game over. There’s no point in staying if they’re going to bring in reinforcements. We can’t win against dozens of pros. Man, it’s really game over. Let’s go home.” 

Yes, Izuku thinks, let’s go. Please, let’s go.

But go home? Izuku’s not sure he wants to go there. Home, where they will talk about how this attack could have gone better. Home, where they will say how many people should have died. Home, where the blood they have spilt will not have been enough. Home, where they will inevitably be made to spill more. 

“But first,” Tomura continues. “We’ve come all this way. It would be a shame not to smash some of All Might’s pride as the Symbol of Peace before we go. Let’s leave some bodies for him to find.”

Izuku had withdrawn so far into himself that he had stopped paying attention. It was foolish of him, beyond foolish, but he stopped keeping track of people. And now there are two students at the edge of the water near the plaza. Two students who freed themselves from whatever mess Kurogiri dropped them in and made their way to where their teacher was fighting. Two students that had been watching for Izuku-doesn’t-know how long, because he hadn’t been paying attention. Two students that Tomura has noticed. 

Two students that Tomura wants to make into bodies.

Izuku’s eyes fly open. 

Time slows around him, stretching one moment into several, allowing Izuku to take in every detail of the situation between one breath and the next. Bullet time - that was what Izuku had named it. The very first quirk his father ever made him steal. 

Eraserhead is facedown on the ground with the nomu on his back. There is blood pooling around his head. Two students lurk nearby in shallow water, not yet having processed the words Tomura just spoke. Tomura has already turned towards them, body leaned forward in a lunge, arm halfway raised. 

No one is coming to save them. Those students cannot react quickly enough. Backup won’t arrive in the time it takes for Tomura to lay down all five of his fingers. 

Here is what is going to happen: 

Tomura is going to press his hand against one of the students’ faces, likely the girl who seems to have some kind of frog quirk, before they even have time to realize what is happening. She will turn to dust between his fingers. Tomura will become a murderer and he will not even care. His hands will never get the chance to be anything but deadly weapons, and everything Tomura has ever suspected or feared about himself will be proven correct. 

Kurogiri will take Izuku and Tomura back to the bar, where Tomura will rail against their failure. He will make a new plan to kill All Might. He will ask for Izuku’s help, again. Izuku will give it. More people will get hurt and it will be Izuku’s fault. 

Izuku thinks of Eraserhead, who might die here. Of Erasure, that might die with him. He thinks of heroes and villains and how stories are written.

He thinks of Aizawa Shouta - the boy, not the hero - who looked so small in the sports festival’s large arena, who was unhappy with his lot in life and did something about it , who stood on the podium and smiled in victorious defiance. That boy wrote his own story. That boy made himself the hero. 

Izuku wants to be like that boy.

The trolley problem isn’t working anymore, so let’s simplify: 

There’s you, your father, and your brother, who are all varying degrees of guilty. Then there’s hundreds of innocent people.

Either the innocents die, or some combination of you, your father, and your brother do. 

Now let’s complicate:

Because this is not a theoretical. This is not a thought exercise. This is real life. Real people will die, and you will be the one to kill them. 

So. 

Who do you save?

Chapter Text

Shouta hasn’t wanted to be a hero since he was a child. 

As a civilian, it’s easy to want to be a hero, to see the appeal of saving people, to see the thrill and prestige and think it’s something that could be satisfying to devote a life to. But that’s not what it means to be a hero, not really. Only fools want to be heroes.

What it really means to be a hero is dealing with endless pain and suffering. 

The people a hero saves are in pain. They are often in the middle of the worst days of their lives, and while saving them may put a stop to that suffering, a hero still needs to witness it, first. There is an abundance of awful things in the world, and a hero - especially an underground one - through the course of their career, is likely to see them all. This burden, though, is made lighter by the virtue of being able to help . Pain paired with healing power. 

But even the people a hero saves others from are often in pain. It is easy to say that villains are evil and pretend that they were born that way, but in reality, while many people are called villains because of the things they chose to do, just as many are born from the things that are done to them. And a hero’s ability to help these people is limited, at best. In fact, the system often recommends that you hurt them more. Take them down by whatever means necessary, maybe give them some bruises, broken bones, or blood loss along the way. Lock them up, throw away the key. It's an inescapable part of the job, but there is no comfort in being the cause of someone’s pain.

Then, of course, there is the pain of the hero, themself. The stab wounds, the gunshots, the quirk injuries. Generally, that doesn’t even bear mentioning over the pain of others - that’s the way of heroes - but, nevertheless, the injuries accumulate quickly. Being a hero means fighting every day, and when someone fights that often, sometimes, inevitably, they lose. And when they lose, they either get hurt or they die. Or worse - other people die. 

That’s the greatest pain of all. The pain of the people the hero fails to save. The cases - the bodies - gone cold. The instances where no one gets there in time, either moments or days or years too late. The instances where no one gets there at all - where no one even realizes that anything is wrong, but somewhere someone is crying out for help that they will never receive, not even post mortem. The pain of those people who die alone and scared and the pain of those who outlive them.

Shouta was sixteen years old the first time he failed to save someone and his desire to be a hero died with them. After that, it wasn’t a want, but a need . He wasn’t stupid enough to crave the darkness and suffering that shadow a hero’s footsteps, but Shouta has never been able to watch bad things happen without doing something about them. 

Too many people believe that someone else will take care of the problems in the world and too few people actually do . Maybe someone else would help, but Shouta can , so he will , even if he has already seen enough pain to last a lifetime.

And so, every day, Shouta fights.

The USJ is not his first time losing. It is, perhaps, the most painful losing has ever been, though.

Yes, some of that is Shouta’s own, physical pain. The pain of flesh flayed away from bone with only a touch. The pain of both his arms being broken, one cleanly snapped and the other twisted into countless shards. The pain of the thing on top of him, compressing his lungs and forcing his body flat to unforgiving concrete. The pain of having his head smashed down so many times that only tenacity and grit are keeping him conscious. It is probably the most pain Shouta has ever been in.

But worse than all of that is the scalding inadequacy that comes with his failure to protect his students. They are who knows where, fighting who knows what. It’s Shouta’s job to prepare them for threats like this, but he hasn’t even had them for a week yet. They’re all still so new and small and soft, full of potential but also naivety. They all still want to be heroes.

Eventually, every hero hopeful needs to learn the hard lesson that sometimes the heroes lose, but Shouta didn’t want his first years to learn so soon and he didn’t want to be the one teaching them, not like this. Not broken and helpless while a maniac rubs Shouta’s weaknesses in his face.

“Tomura,” someone says. Shouta can’t see the speaker, but they sound like they are on the verge of panic, voice high and choked with tears. They sound young and afraid and it makes Shouta ache at his own uselessness. More pain, and it hurts all the more for not being his own, for being helpless when he is meant to be helping .

“Not now, rogue,” Shouta’s assailant dismisses callously. “I’m busy.” Shouta struggles to raise his head as the man continues to mock him, but can only strain futilely against the beast’s hold. 

“Shigaraki Tomura,” the purple one says as he swirls back into being in the plaza.

“Kurogiri. Did you kill Thirteen?” Please, no.

“I put Thirteen out of action -” not dead, then “-but there were students I was unable to disperse, and one of them was able to run away.” It must have been Iida. Thank god he had the wisdom to run. With Thirteen incapacitated as well, their only hope would be backup from the school. Iida is their best chance at getting that before it’s too late. 

“Huh?” Shigaraki Tomura asks, voice deadly with disgusted disbelief. “Kurogiri, you… If you weren’t a warp gate, I would have crushed you to pieces. Damn it. It’s game over. There’s no point in staying if they’re going to bring in reinforcements. We can’t win against dozens of pros. Man, it’s really game over. Let’s go home.” Shouta does not let himself hope. “But first. We’ve come all this way. It would be a shame not to smash some of All Might’s pride as the Symbol of Peace before we go. Let’s leave some bodies for him to find.”

Shouta did not let himself hope and so he is not disappointed. He is devastated, instead. What is he meant to do, pinned as he is, against a madman intent on shedding blood? 

Being a hero is all about tolerating pain. That’s the thing no one ever tells you. That’s why only a fool would actually want to be a hero, knowing what they are asking for. With his head pressed to cracked and crattered concrete, Shouta asks himself derisively: How much can he take before he breaks? How much can he break before he falls to pieces? He is already past his limit. Already broken, already shattered across the floor. 

But Shouta is a hero, not because he wants to be, but because he needs to be. He has felt pain and seen it and caused it - and he has not let it stop him, yet.

Which is why Shouta puts everything he has into raising his head, into locking bleary blood-filled eyes onto the blurry figure who has just launched himself towards the water, where two of Shouta’s students have found themselves. Activating his quirk makes Shouta’s entire head scream, like pieces of his skull are coming loose and stabbing into his brain - which, for all he knows, they are. Between the blood, the concussion he certainly has, and whatever other damage has no doubt been done to his face, Shouta can barely see, but it’s enough. When Shigaraki’s hand meets Asui’s face he makes an irritated noise, and while Shouta hears the girl stutter on a breath, she does not scream.

“What do you think you’re doing, rogue?” Shigaraki asks. It’s only then that Shouta notices the fourth figure - his two students in the water, Shigarki in front of them, and a boy by his side. 

The boy is… small. Definitely smaller than some of Shouta’s first years, though he can’t see clearly enough to get an accurate age estimate. The figure is just a blur of green next to Shigaraki’s black. Shouta squints, careful not to let his eyes close completely, and sees that Shigaraki’s hand has actually stopped about a centimeter away from Asui’s face. The unknown boy, the one Shigaraki called “Rogue,” has a hand around the man’s wrist, halting his attack.

“You can’t kill her, Tomura,” the boy says, in the same choked, raspy voice from before. Is he crying? Shouta can’t see well enough to tell. 

“Pretty sure I can,” Shigaraki responds flatly, but he neither pulls away nor attempts to attack the boy beside him.

“Remember why we’re here. We’re after All Might, not the NPCs. The more people you kill, the more this looks like senseless violence, especially if they’re children.”

“I’m not opposed to senseless violence.”

“I’m aware. But this is a strategy game, Tomura, not a beat ‘em up.”

There is a tense moment of silence and Shouta struggles to keep his eyes open, struggles to even stay conscious. Somewhere, there is a crash, but Shouta couldn’t tell you how far away it was or what direction it came from because the blood rushing through his ears makes everything sound distorted. 

He has fought until he was broken, kept fighting until he fell to pieces, and then he picked those pieces up and weaponized them, like using shards of glass as improvised knives. He has reached his limit twice over. His limbs are heavier than the thing sitting on top of him, pain bleeds out of his edges like running ink, and rainbow static dances in all the fuzzy places in his vision. 

Shouta blinks.

His eyes do not open again.

Izuku closes his fingers around Tomura’s wrist a fraction of a second before he can lay his hand across the frog-quirked girl’s face. Izuku’s hand eclipses the scar he left on Tomura the day they met, a small handprint that perfectly pairs with the larger one on Izuku’s own wrist. Izuku fears that Tomura won’t stop at just a touch, but the older boy freezes as if restrained, despite how gentle Izuku’s grip is. Tomura turns to face him slowly, and Izuku refuses to cower from the flames of anger in Tomura’s eyes. 

“What do you think you’re doing, rogue?” 

Saving us all, Izuku thinks.

“You can’t kill her, Tomura,” Izuku says instead, doing his best to sound confident and authoritative despite how near he was to a panic attack just seconds ago. His voice is raspy and his cheeks are still wet, but his tone is steady and he is no longer crying. 

“Pretty sure I can,” Tomura responds, but for the moment, he is still listening, not resisting Izuku’s hold. 

“Remember why we’re here,” Izuku tries to reason. “We’re after All Might, not the NPCs. The more people you kill, the more this looks like senseless violence, especially if they’re children.”

“I’m not opposed to senseless violence.” Izuku cringes internally, but matches Tomura’s impatient look with a level one. 

Izuku swallows. “I’m aware. But this is a strategy game, Tomura, not a beat ‘em up.”

Tomura’s eyes narrow. Izuku knows things could still go either way. He can reason with Tomura, some of the time, but never control him, and at the end of the day, Tomura will do what Tomura thinks is best. 

Izuku considers taking Decay, forcing Tomura to do things the peaceful way by depriving him of his means of violence, but it is unlikely that Tomura would let him. After years of the quirk going back and forth, Tomura has learned to identify the subtle feeling associated with Izuku attracting the quirk away, and now, unless Izuku catches him completely off guard, Tomura can tug back , resulting in a battle of wills that they don’t have time for in the middle of a literal battle. Izuku would be reluctant to leave Tomura without a means of defense, besides. 

So Izuku and Tomura stand in an uneasy silence while Tomura makes up his mind, Izuku hoping that he can manifest his desired outcome if he stays calm and rational enough. Whichever way Tomura was leaning, Izuku never gets to find out. 

The doors to the USJ blow open, dust billowing around them as they go flying and crash to the ground a short distance away. Attention torn away from the stray students, Tomura spins, dragging Izuku with him until they are both facing the entrance. Slowly, All Might emerges from the cloud of swirling dust, his figure large and distinct even from such a distance. 

“It’s fine now!” he calls, voice booming across the whole of the training arena. “I am here!” His face, Izuku can see, is set in grim lines, nothing like the smiling action figures that lined Izuku’s shelves when he was a child. 

“Finally,” Tomura says. Izuku doesn’t turn to look at him, eyes fixed on All Might, but he can hear the deranged grin in the words. “You’ve kept me waiting, hero. You trash of society.”

It’s not fine, Izuku thinks, on the edge of frantic. They need to leave, right then, or Izuku has the terrible feeling that nothing is going to be fine ever again. Izuku moves from holding Tomura’s wrist to clutching his arm just above the elbow, digging his fingers in and tugging slightly. Tomura doesn’t acknowledge him. 

Between them and All Might, the underlings they brought along hesitate and cower, but are rallied after a moment by a brave soul among them. None of them get to take more than half a step forward before they’re disposed of, all groaning on the ground clutching their guts within the blink of an eye. It happens so quickly Izuku doesn’t even have enough time to activate a quirk to help him keep pace. 

Then, not even a moment later, Izuku is jostled, losing his grip on Tomura’s arm as he stumbles to keep his footing. The students disappear from the water behind them and reappear under All Might’s arms, along with a limp and unconscious Eraserhead, all of whom are deposited gently on the ground a short distance away. 

Tomura makes a small, hurt sound, almost a whine, and Izuku rips his eyes away from All Might, his need to ensure his brother’s well-being outweighing the survival instincts that scream for him to keep sight of the threat. Tomura leans against his nomu, balancing himself with one hand while the other covers his face. 

“It’s no good… It’s no good,” he mumbles fervently into his palm, his eyes wide and glassy-wet as he scans the ground. 

Next to Izuku’s feet, the hand that Tomura wears over his face lays, palm up and fingers stiff. The severed hands always make Izuku faintly nauseous, but more sickening still is the way Tomura staggers towards it, kneeling down next to Izuku and picking it up almost reverently. 

“I-I’m sorry, Father,” he says, sounding close to tears. “So sorry…” He places it back over his face, exhaling a shaky breath as he does. It seems to calm him almost immediately, and he swings from this scared and almost broken type of vulnerability right back into the mania that has defined this entire exhibition so far. It’s enough to give Izuku whiplash.

“He hit us as he was saving them. It’s the violence of a government official,” Tomura says as he stands, sounding far too pleased. He hums to himself. “He’s definitely fast. I couldn’t follow him with my eyes, could you?” Izuku, realizing he’s being addressed, shakes his head. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Still, he’s not as fast as I thought he would be. So I guess it’s true… He is getting weaker.” 

Tomura smiles his horrible smile, and even though he is looking at Izuku, clearly expecting some form of encouragement, Izuku can’t find it in himself to smile back. It is taking everything he has not to start crying again. He wonders what Tomura would do if he broke down, if he begged that they go home. He is too afraid of the answer to try. 

While Izuku is busy attempting to quell the burning in his eyes, All Might makes his move. The hero disappears from where he left his companions, yelling the name of one of his signature moves as he reappears in front of them and prepares to smash them out of existence. Izuku can only clench his eyes shut and brace for impact, though he’s sure that would do very little against a point-blank blow from the Symbol of Peace, but Tomura grabs him by the elbow and pulls him close, pressing their sides tight together. 

“Nomu,” Tomura says, and the beast is there, taking the hit in their place. The air pressure generated is insane, causing the water behind them to well up in massive crests that crash back down with a spray that makes Izuku’s entire back damp and cold. The hulking mass of the Nomu protects Izuku and Tomura from the worst of it, but Izuku still needs to dig his heels in and wrap a fist in the side of Tomura’s shirt to avoid being knocked back a few steps. 

The nomu screeches, swiping both arms in wide, clumsy arcs that All Might ducks easily beneath. All Might throws an answering punch, hitting the nomu square in the stomach. Garnering no reaction, he swings again, hitting the nomu first in one side of the head, then the other. The beast’s neck swivels with the blows, but it is otherwise unaffected, opening its mouth wide and craning its head forward to screech in All Might’s face. Izuku flinches into Tomura’s side. Tomura chuckles. 

“That’s not going to get you anywhere,” he says. “Nomu has shock absorption, so you can punch him as much as you want and it won’t make any difference. If you want to damage him, your best bet would be to slowly gouge out bits of his flesh.” The nomu screams again, swinging a large hand towards All Might’s head. “Whether or not he’d let you do that is a different issue, though.”

All Might evades this swing as easily as all the others. For a moment, his eyes dart away from his opponent and to Tomura, sizing him up. Izuku holds his breath, does his best to be invisible, and hopes All Might won’t notice the grip Tomura has on his arm.

“Thanks for the advice!” All Might says. “If it’s true, you’ve made this easier for me.” 

Tomura smiles, smug, but All Might is no longer paying attention to notice. The hero grabs the nomu about the waist - ignoring the beast’s delayed attempts to clutch at him - and bends over backwards, slamming the nomu exposed-brain first into the ground. 

The shockwave and amount of dust produced are akin to an explosion. Complaining under his breath, Tomura braces against it, but Izuku is significantly smaller and his feet slide across the ground. He has to let go of Tomura or risk dragging the older boy along with him. He falls to his knees, skin shredding against the rough concrete, and shifts his fingers into hard, black talons. Whatever material they are made of is harder than anything Izuku has encountered, allowing them to sink into the stone with minimal resistance, anchoring Izuku as wind whips wildly at his figure. 

When the wind lets up, he pulls his fingers from the ground and reverts their shape, panting slightly. Four quirks used in such a short span of time and Izuku is feeling the beginnings of fatigue. He staggers back to his feet, knees bleeding sluggishly. Tomura spares him a glance and Izuku shakes his head, telling him there’s nothing to be concerned about. They both turn their attention back to All Might and the nomu, staring through the haze of dust as it slowly dissipates, Tomura eager and Izuku resigned as they wait to see the outcome. 

It is worse than Izuku hoped - which, of course, is all the better for Tomura, who makes a pleased noise. All Might is bent backwards in an arch, but the nomu has been pushed through one of Kurogiri’s portals, instead of into the ground. The top half of the beast emerges beneath All Might’s spine, both claws sunk deep into the hero’s sides. Izuku can see blood seeping into the white of All Might’s dress shirt. 

“Did you think you could stop him by burying him in the concrete?” Tomura asks. “Oh, this is good. What a perfect opportunity. Don’t you think, Kurogiri?” 

Releasing the nomus waist, All Might sits up in the monster’s hold, grasping one of its hands with both of his and attempting to pry himself from its grip. The nomu doesn’t waver in the slightest.

Tomura laughs, mocking. “That’s not going to work. Nomu is just as strong as you are, you know.” The nomu flexes its claws deeper, as if to prove a point, though the beast isn’t nearly intelligent enough to be petty. All Might coughs, a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth. Around either half of the nomu, Kurogiri’s portals constrict slightly.

“This is your first offense?” All Might asks, voice serious and eyes threatening even as he continues to fail to escape the nomu’s grasp. “You’d better prepare yourselves…”

Izuku shudders. Tomura stops giggling, sobering abruptly. One of his hands wanders to start idly scratching at his neck.

“Kurogiri,” he says, matching All Might’s tone. Kurogiri’s portals constrict further. The main mass of his body stretches and elongates, looming over All Might’s prone form. The hero glowers at the show of intimidation. Izuku takes a step forward, though he can’t say what for. 

“I do not want blood and guts overflowing within me,” Kurogiri says, dignified as ever, despite the goriness of his words, “but it would be an honor to take in a man as great as you. As fast as you are, we needed Nomu to restrain you, but with his job done, it falls to me to finish the task. Have Nomu immobilize you and then, when your body is halfway through, close the gate… and tear you apart. ”

Izuku did not expect this. Tomura has always had a bloodlust and Izuku has always been aware of it, but Kurogiri has never shown anything but a polite distaste for violence - desensitized, certainly, but also disinterested. Even today, he had chosen to incapacite Thirteen rather than kill them. Izuku didn’t know the details of the plan to kill All Might, but he never expected that Kurogiri would be the one to deal the finishing blow. 

Izuku had thought that Kurogiri was like him - inescapably bound to All for One, but for reasons other than mutual desires. To learn otherwise feels like a betrayal, though it probably shouldn’t. Izuku shouldn’t be so surprised. Whether Kurogiri himself wants All Might dead or not, Izuku will likely never know, but Kurogiri, like Tomura, does anything All for One tells him to. Murder is not an exception.

Izuku closes his eyes. It is cowardly, perhaps - his refusal to watch the violence he has enabled - but he can’t stand to see it. He doesn’t think he’ll ever sleep again, if he sees. He thinks he’ll go mad. 

With his eyes closed, Izuku can’t see what happens next, but he hears it. It’s close enough for him to smell, even. Like caramel or burnt sugar. Familiar memories, tinted by fear and shame and regret, flood over Izuku, washing him away for a moment.

“DIE!” Izuku hears, though he can’t say if the words are being said now or if they’re just an echo from years ago. 

“All I heard is that you all are here to kill All Might,” a new, unfamiliar voice says. The speaker, a boy, pauses, the silence filled with words from others that Izuku doesn’t pay attention to. Then, the boy continues, “The Symbol of Peace cannot be killed by the likes of you.”

You’re right , Izuku thinks as Tomura scoffs at his side. He can’t . 

But if All Might doesn’t die here today, they will be back another day. And if Tomura or Kurogiri or Izuku himself die here, then someone else will come. They will keep coming, over and over, until the job is done. Because they are just pawns on a chessboard, and losing them means little to the man playing the game. 

All for One is always thinking at least ten moves ahead, afterall.

But Izuku - he’s not actually a pawn, is he? He’s not even meant to be a piece on the board. 

A brief lull falls over the battle at the central plaza, as all the new players stand and size each other up. None of them are thinking about the invisible participant, the one behind the scenes, pulling all the strings. They don’t know what he has in store for them and they don’t have any plans to stop him. 

But Izuku knows.

And there’s a chance he can do something about it.

The tension cracks and the fight starts moving again, but Izuku takes a deep breath, centers himself, and ignores it all. He stretches out his awareness, farther than he has ever had cause to in the warehouse, brushing over the quirks of villains and students and heroes alike in the search of one, specifically. 

When he finds it, he pulls. With the distance between them, it takes a moment to reach him - nearly half a minute - but Erasure, like all quirks, comes to Izuku easily and without resistance. 

He tells himself that he’ll give it back when he’s done with it. He refuses to think, for the moment, about what being done with it will mean. 

Katsuki knew the villains were idiots - they had to be, breaking into UA, of all places, thinking they could kill All Might, of all people - but based on how laughably easy it is to take out the scrubs between the collapse zone and the central plaza, they’re not only stupid, but fucking incompetent to boot. Incompetent and pathetic , practically pissing their pants as soon as Katsuki let off a single explosion, and not even a big one, at that. Sure, Katsuki is pretty damned impressive. He’s strong as hell and he’s going to be number one someday, so they’re right to be afraid of him, but he’s still only fifteen years old and those grown-ass, whole fucking adults couldn’t even put a scratch on him. He had taken out nearly a dozen of them single-handed.

Well, technically Shitty Hair is there, too. The way he keeps yammering on about “manliness” or whatever the hell type of complex he has makes it pretty fucking hard for Katsuki to ignore him. But it’s not like Shitty Hair had actually helped or anything, and if he took out one or two villains himself along the way, it’s nothing Katsuki couldn’t have handled on his own. Really, he’d rather have been on his own if it meant he could get even a moment of peace and fucking quiet.  

“Shut up!” Katsuki snaps at the spiky idiot as they draw close to the central plaza where the main fight is happening. “You’ve gotta be fuckin quiet or they’re gonna hear us coming from a mile off!” The bastard gives Katsuki a thumbs up, grinning, and if those pointy teeth of his can’t make him look intimidating, Katsuki doesn’t think anything can. 

Katsuki looks over the plaza, taking a moment to assess the situation, but the main problem is pretty immediately obvious. Some freak of nature has All Might trapped in its claws, while the misty jackass Katsuki is after gives his villain monologue. Fucking incompetent , Katsuki swears. Everyone knows that if you want something done you just fucking do it . There’s no reason to talk about it, especially not in the long-winded over dramatic way villains are so stereotypically fond of. 

Katsuki doesn’t bother to say anything to Shitty Hair - again, why fucking bother with that waste-of-time bullshit. With one hand, he propels himself forward, throwing himself into the fight high and fast. With the other, he aims a large explosion at the center of the warp gate’s mass. The detonation doesn’t connect with anything, but it wasn’t particularly meant to. While the villain reels from the size and volume of the blast, Katsuki uses the smoke kicked up as a cover, striking with precision to grab the misty jackass’ metal collar, using his momentum to take them both to the ground.

That’s what the fucker gets for dropping Katsuki off in the middle of nowhere like yesterday’s god damned trash.

Katsuki has the gate pinned for all of a second when the Half-and-Half Bastard shows up, sending forward a wave of ice that entirely coats half of the monster holding All Might. Grudgingly, Katsuki can admit the display is pretty impressive, even if it’s unnecessary, since he’s got the situation under control already. As All Might pries himself free of the thing’s weakened grip, Shitty Hair dives in as well, lunging at Handjob and then complaining loudly when the crusty bastard just steps out of the way. 

Crusty sighs. “Well, we’re in a pinch, now. Without our warp gate, we have no way out of here.”

Katsuki smiles viscously, turning his attention back to the nobody he has pinned. The gate watches him with unreadable yellow eyes that twist and waver like smoke. 

“You careless bastard,” Katsuki mocks. “I knew it. You act so untouchable, but only parts of you can actually turn into a misty warp gate. You just cover your actual body with the fog, huh? If you were actually just mist and physical attacks couldn’t touch you, you wouldn’t have had to dodge back at the entrance. You should be more fucking careful with shit like that, you know.” Beneath him, mist twists and writhes, but the tendrils shudder to a halt when Katsuki sets off a burst of small warning explosions. “Don’t even think about it. You move a fucking inch in a way I don’t like and your ass is done for.”

The Hand Fucker stands to the side, hands clasped politely in front of him as if he isn’t some kind of raging homicidal bastard. He’s not half as afraid as he should be, considering that he’s facing down the number one hero with his escape route cut off, but then again, Katsuki had decided from the very beginning that these guys were obviously morons. 

“Wow,” the moron says, word drawn out in a self-satisfied mockery of amazement. “Half my party has been taken out and they’re not even injured. Kids these days really are amazing. You’re gonna make the League of Villains look bad.”

The attitude grates at Katsuki’s nerves, all casual and disinterested, like he’s fucking above them all even though he’s getting his ass handed to him. Anger bubbles up Katsuki’s throat, and he’s about to snap something in response - probably something along the lines of not needing to make them look bad when they do the job on their own - when the villain speaks again.

“Nomu.”

The thing, still half frozen and stuck through a warp gate, shudders. Its muscles shift and roll beneath its skin, disgustingly pronounced, as it gets its legs beneath it and hauls itself from the murky portal. As it moves, the ice around it creaks and groans, horrible sounds that the monster pays no attention to at all. When it frees itself and comes to a stand, the ice lets out a series of cracks, all of them as loud as gunshots, fracturing apart and taking skin and flesh and bone along the way. The freak teeters, but does not make a sound, seeming indifferent to the sudden loss of half its limbs.

Blood flows lethargically from the stumps left behind, vessels constricted by the cold. There are chunks of meat scattered across the ground and Katsuki can’t tear his eyes off of them. The lack of gore somehow makes it all the more gruesome. And Handjob is still just standing and watching, so assured, not a drop of fear in him, and Katsuki’s skin crawls with the sudden certainty that the fucker has something up those ratty sleeves of his.

Only a moment later, the creeping suspicion is confirmed. The monster’s raw flesh writhes and bubbles outward, swelling and then bursting with a terrible wet noise that turns Katsuki’s stomach. Compared to the almost anticlimactic nature of the loss of the limbs, their regeneration is graphic and disturbing. Shitty Hair makes an ill-sounding noise to Katsuki’s side. 

“So his quirk wasn’t shock absorption, after all,” All Might says, grim faced. Even he’s not entirely unaffected by the sight, a hint of revulsion ticking at the corner of his unsmiling mouth. 

“Oh, it is,” Handjob corrects with poorly concealed glee. “It’s just not his only one. Afterall, he needs more than just shock absorption to go toe-to-toe with the guy at the top of the leaderboards. He’s been modified to take you at 100%. This is his Super Regeneration.”

Katsuki barely has time to contemplate the implication that this thing has more than one fucking quirk - how is that even possible? What kind of freak of nature are they actually dealing with here? It’s overwhelming to even consider and, for a half second, Katsuki stops following the conversation.

A small corner of Katsuki’s mind, dark and well ignored, grows larger and the thoughts he closes up there leak like a gas into the rest of his mind, faint and intangible, but deadly all the same. He thinks - against his own will, like the thought is holding him at gunpoint - about a boy who briefly had two quirks while Katsuki himself had none at all. He does not let the thought go further, even as it tries to take shape. He does not think the name, does not picture those eyes, does not remember the feeling. 

Vulnerable and helpless - so, so helpless. Useless and worthless and not even himself, anymore.

He hears Handjob say, “Now, let’s get our gate back,” but it seems inconsequential next to the idea of somehow having more than one fucking quirk. 

He hears, “Nomu,” but does not think about what that means because he is too busy pointedly not thinking about other things.

Even if Katsuki had been paying proper attention, even if he had been vigilant and on his guard, he never would have been able to move in time. As it is, he doesn’t even see anything. One moment he is frozen, held hostage by his own contemplation, and the next he is tumbling across the ground. 

He lands, half sitting half sprawled, next to Shitty Hair and Freezerburn, neither of whom notice him. They stare, eyes bulging and appalled, at the deep trench carved through the floor of the USJ, leading to a distant wall which has largely been reduced to rubble, dust clouding the air. Katsuki stares as well, entirely unsure about what just occurred. The numbness of surprise gives quickly to anger at being surprised, anger at himself for his distraction and anger at the villains for daring to fucking touch him in the first place.

“Oh my god, Tomura!” someone screams, puncturing the moment of silence that had otherwise only been broken by the soft click and clatter of bits of debris from the wall falling against each other. 

Katsuki wonders if maybe he just died. If that monstrous thing slammed into him so hard and fast he didn’t even get to feel it, if he’s pulverized into mincemeat somewhere beyond that veil of dust. 

He must be dead, because he’s looking at a fucking ghost. 

Green hair and green eyes. Too many freckles on too-round cheeks. Trembling lower lip and pathetically beguiling expression. Pitiful and on the brink of tears. 

“What did you do?!” Midoriya Izuku demands, clinging to the arm of the villain covered in disembodied hands, clutching at his sleeve and shaking him. 

Or that is what Izuku would be doing, would be demanding, if he were actually here. But he’s not, because he can’t be. Katsuki can’t wrap his head around it. Whatever is happening, Katsuki knows he is angry - or perhaps he has transcended simple anger and jumped into catastrophic outrage - but that is all he understands. Nothing else makes any fucking sense.

Except, in a way, it kind of does, doesn’t it? Katsuki had been so glad when Deku had been removed from his life, but Katsuki had always been the only one keeping Deku in check, the only one who knew what the other boy was capable of and kept him in his place. Without Katsuki around, who reminded Deku what he really was, huh? Nobody, apparently. 

Because here Deku is, right where Katsuki never expected to see him but always knew he would end up. 

A villain.

Chapter Text

Sending Nomu to retrieve Kurogiri has mixed results. The key element of their escape plan is free, which Tomura counts as a success. But now Izuku is yelling which is … less satisfying, to say the least. 

“What did you do?!” the brat practically shrieks, shaking at Tomura’s arm with enough force to make him sway slightly back and forth. 

“I got our gate back,” Tomura replies, stating the obvious. 

Izuku keens slightly in response, a small but distinctly pained cry that reminds Tomura of a wounded animal. Izuku presses his forehead to Tomura’s shoulder and shakes him harder for a moment before going slack. Izuku is still and silent, but Tomura knows he’s crying with a certainty that steals some of the breath from his lungs, chest aching. Wetness on his sleeve confirms it a moment later.

Tomura hasn’t been blind to Izuku’s heightening emotional state through the course of the attack, and he shouldn’t be surprised that it’s culminating in this kind of breakdown. Really, he should have seen this coming before they even stepped foot in the USJ. He shouldn’t have allowed Izuku to come at all. After all, the younger boy has never really had a stomach for violence. He’s better suited as a support character – assisting from behind the scenes and kept safely out of the main battle. It was foolish to bring Izuku here, for both the wellbeing of the boy and the plan, but it seemed like it would be more fun, playing in co-op, so Tomura had ignored the glaring problems.

Tomura scans their surroundings, trying to quickly evaluate the situation. It won’t do for them to be attacked while Izuku is in the middle of a breakdown. The three students that interrupted the plan hover to the side, even the explosive blonde one with the bad attitude that had been holding Kurogiri hostage. Tomura clicks his tongue at the realization that All Might must have taken the blow for the brat, but he supposes it’s for the best, since it means that the hero isn’t an immediate issue while Izuku has his moment. Tomura keeps one eye on the cloud of dust where All Might must have ended up, waiting for the man to emerge.

With the other, he watches students themselves, all three of whom stare at Tomura and Izuku, attention caught by Izuku’s brief moment of hysteria. Whatever quirk the rogue had been using must have either been deactivated or lost its effectiveness when the boy was screaming, because the hero brats are looking more at Izuku than Tomura. 

Blasty seems especially fixated, glaring at Izuku with exponentially increasing ire that Tomura can almost feel a kinship with. He knows how it feels, that black sludge of rage – thick, heavy, and sticky – and he wonders what it is doing in a hero student. Under different circumstances, he would probably be fascinated, but as it is, Tomura tugs Izuku behind him slightly, positioning himself between his brother and that toxic look. Izuku lets Tomura move him with no protest, no reaction at all.

The blonde had been sitting on the ground, legs sprawled in front of him, but as Tomura shifts, he stands. The movement is graceful, but full of a dangerous, lurking tension, like a rubber band pulled taut. 

“Bakugou!” the shirtless redhead who tried to attack Tomura exclaims. “You’re not dead!” Behind Tomura, Izuku moves, pulling his face from Tomura’s shoulder and peering over it instead. The blonde one takes a slow, intentional step forward and Tomura resists the urge to grab Izuku’s head and force him back down to keep the brat hidden in his shadow. 

“Deku,” Blasty growls, low and threatening, more sinister than the feral and violent glee he showed earlier when he had Kurogiri at his mercy. 

Alarms go off in Tomura’s head, but Izuku – whose sense of self-preservation has always been inconsistent, at best – doesn’t seem to notice, attempting to duck out from behind Tomura and into the open. Tomura grabs his arm before he can, grip careful, as always, but tight and unwavering, nonetheless. 

“Kacchan!” Izuku calls. His voice is thick with tears and relief, both of which prick like pins along Tomura’s skin. “You dodged!”

“Shut up, scum.” 

Izuku flinches. Tomura squeezes his arm. 

“You’re Kacchan?” Tomura asks, looking at the boy through new eyes. “Bakugou Katsuki? I’ve heard a lot about you. Scum.” And as angry and vitriolic as Bakugou made his words, Tomura makes his own ten times more so. He has heard all about Bakugou Katsuki, poster boy for the new generation of heroes, who thought violence was his privilege. It seems he hasn’t changed since he was ten years old.

Izuku reaches up, grabs the wrist of the hand that Tomura is using to hold him, and squeezes once in reply to Tomura’s earlier gesture. Tomura forces himself to take a breath through the hatred that is trying to replace the air in his lungs.

Bakugou takes another step forward, then another, each faster than the last. His palms crackle with small explosions. Tomura lets go of Izuku’s arm – though he’s sure to shove his brother back behind him, first – keeping both hands free, splayed open at his hips. Another step – two, three – and the other students are shouting words of alarm or warning, falling on deaf ears since Bakugou is obviously only seconds from launching himself and Tomura is all too happy to intercept.

A fraction of a moment after Bakugou’s feet leave the ground, he is snatched out of the air, a large hand coming from nowhere to close around the metal collar of his hero costume. All Might holds him up, feet suspended nearly a foot off the ground, not even sparing his student a glance as the child kicks and snarls like a savage beast. Instead, All Might stares at Tomura, eyes so intensely blue they are practically glowing beneath the heavy shadow of his brow. 

“I will handle things from here, young Bakugou.” He drops a loudly but incoherently protesting Bakugou to the ground, stopping him with an arm across the chest when the teen tries to advance anyway. Without turning to look at them, he addresses the group of students, “You three, return to the entrance.” To Tomura, he says, “You really don’t know how to hold back, do you?” 

“Hold back?” Tomura echoes. “Why would I do that? You’re not. I mean, that… angry one, he threatened to kill Kurogiri, you know. And just now, he tried to attack a helpless little kid. I was just trying to protect my companions.”

“Helpless my ass,” Bakugou – who unsurprisingly has made no move to return to the entrance, though he has retreated slightly to stand with the other students – barks. “He’s a fucking villain. I’d be doing the world a favor.” Ignoring the comment is a struggle, especially when Izuku flinches at his back, but Tomura keeps his attention on All Might.

“But it’s fine when they do it, huh?” Tomura asks, mock thoughtful. “They’re doing the world a favor. Violence for the sake of others makes it admirable. It’s okay to hurt people if you’re protecting others. Well, as long as those others are worthy of protection. 

“And you know what, hero? I’m angry. I’m angry at this world that calls the same violent acts ‘heroic’ or ‘villainous.’ Symbol of Peace.” Tomura barks a bitter laugh. “It’s a joke, really. You go around pretending that you save everyone, and everyone else pretends that they’re safe, but you’re just a sword masquerading as a shield. 

“Violence only breeds violence, All Might. The world will finally see that, when we kill you.”

“That’s preposterous,” All Might replies so immediately that Tomura knows he didn’t bother to listen. “I’ve seen eyes like yours in countless villains over the years. You revel in destruction. You just want to enjoy this, don’t you, you liar?” 

He’s not entirely wrong. Tomura is well aware of the flaws in the hero system, but social reform is more up Izuku’s alley than his. Tomura would rather just tear it all down. Sensei, Izuku, or someone else can worry about rebuilding things. Still, the truth of All Might’s words does nothing to negate the truth of Tomura’s, regardless of his personal investment in the message they are trying to send. 

One of the students, the one half encased in ice, like some kind of arctic cyborg, steps forward. “It’s three against four,” he says. 

The shirtless one nods and punches jaggedly shaped fists together. “These guys may be crazy, but we have them outnumbered! We can push them back!” 

Four against four, actually, but Tomura isn’t arrogant enough to correct them. 

Given Izuku’s behavior – first crying, now silently hiding behind Tomura – it’s reasonable for them to have counted him out, but ultimately foolish. As soft a touch as Izuku is, he’s smart and skilled, not an opponent to underestimate. He would doubtlessly fight to protect Tomura and Kurogiri if push came to shove. Maybe he wouldn’t want to kill anyone, but Tomura is certain that Izuku could non-lethally subdue any of the three with minimal struggle. Tomura may regret bringing Izuku here, but when it comes to surviving and escaping – if not succeeding – Izuku is an ace up their sleeve even more than Nomu is. 

“No!” All Might snaps back at the NPCs, though his head only half-turns in their direction and his eyes stay trained on Tomura. “Run away!”

“Earlier, you would have been in trouble without our help,” Frosty says flatly.

“That was a different situation, young Todoroki. Thank you for your help, but it’s fine now! Get to safety and watch as a pro gives it everything he’s got!”

The students shift on their feet but make no move to retreat, faces concerned, doubtful and enraged – Shirtless, Frosty, and Bakugou respectively. Responding to their hesitation, All Might turns, facing them fully for the first time since he emerged from the crater Nomu left him in. Tomura can see the corner of his mouth lift as he grins at them, flashing them a thumbs up. It’s meant to be reassuring, Tomura is sure, but to him, on the other side of things, with the hero so carelessly facing away as if Tomura’s not even a threat, the gesture is empty and taunting and infuriating. He claws at his neck, slipping his fingers under the hands there to get at relatively unmarked skin.

Tomura has had enough talking.

“Nomu. Kurogiri. Handle him. I’ll deal with the children. Now, let’s clear this and go home.” 

He grins, knowing the expression likely makes him look unhinged – Izuku has said as much more times than Tomura could count. He wonders briefly what would be more unnerving: wearing the hands he clasps onto his figure like body armor or leaving his face bare and his expression visible. 

“Tomura, don’t,” Izuku protests. 

But Tomura is already running forwards towards the brats. Bakugou surges to meet him instantaneously, but the other two hesitate in surprise for a solid second before taking up defensive stances. 

Before Tomura can reach them, Nomu collides with All Might in a meeting of titans. The generated air pressure is so insane that it sends Tomura careening through the air, flipping over once and barely getting his feet back under him in time to land safely. The students were propelled in the opposite direction, crouched on the ground with a large slate of ice bracing them from behind. They aren’t that far away, still easily within attacking distance, but Tomura can’t risk so much as lifting his feet, under threat of going airborne again.

To the side, Kurogiri’s form wavers with the wind, not able to take any shape long enough to be helpful. Closer, Izuku kneels on the ground, fingers buried to the knuckle in concrete to keep himself anchored. 

“Damn,” Tomura curses under his breath, then raises his voice, shouting so his words aren’t stolen by the wind, “Hey! You already know about his shock absorption, what’s the point of all this?”

“Shock absorption!” All Might calls back. “Not shock nullification! All quirks have their limits! If he can handle me at 100%, I’ll just force him to surrender from beyond that.” The confidence of the words makes Tomura’s teeth grind, scraping painfully against each other at odd angles. The fighting pair go storming through a copse of nearby trees, flashing in and out of sight as they trade blows, their path of destruction and chaos obvious even when they’re out of view. 

“Tomura,” Izuku says, barely audible over the clamor of the battle. “We have to leave!”

Tomura had been planning to ignore the brat but turns to him in surprise. “Huh? Why the hell would we do that?”

“This isn’t going to work! We lost the moment one of the students escaped. It’s only a matter of time before this place is swarming with pros, and the longer we try to delay the inevitable, the more likely it is that we’re not getting out of here.”

Flying out of the trees, All Might and Nomu go aerial. Rapid series of jabs and punches volley them in the air, suspending them against gravity. Nomu is slower than All Might, but shows no sign of damage or fatigue, while the hero has blood leaking from his mouth and abdomen. 

Tomura is sure that they can win. Sensei specifically made Nomu for this purpose, and if Sensei says he is strong enough, then he is. 

But, Tomura must admit to himself, digging his thumbnail into the hollow of his collarbones, that this is a marathon, not a sprint. This fight is a matter of enduring and outlasting and Izuku is right that they simply might not have time for that. 

Nomu swings an arm at All Might’s head, but the hero catches it around the elbow, twisting through the air, using all his momentum and weight to hurl Tomura’s specially made weapon into the ground. Beneath Nomu’s body, the ground spiderwebs and concaves, huge slabs of concrete flying into the air as the floor of the USJ is cratered. 

“We have to go,” Izuku insists, even as Nomu stands, unaffected by the impact. “Tomura, please, you have to listen to me!”

“Aren’t you meant to be invisible?” Tomura snaps back, patience frayed.

“There’s no point! Everyone already knows I’m here. If they know to look, the quirk won’t stop them from seeing. Another reason we need to leave.”

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Tomura assures, and despite Izuku’s irritating persistence that they retreat, Tomura means it. Regardless of what else happens in the battle, Izuku being injured has never been an option. 

“It’s not me I’m worried about!”

All Might interrupts, “You should have listened to your companion when you had the chance, villain. Have you ever heard these words? Go beyond! Plus Ultra!”

The cry is long and drawn out and laughable in its dramatism, but it is paired with a blow so strong Nomu’s body seems to stretch around it like putty, distorting in an unnatural arch around All Might’s fist. For a fraction of a second, Nomu is braced against the ground, and it seems like he can weather the hit, but then the force overcomes him, driving him up and back with so much speed he becomes a blur to the eye. 

Steel screams as Nomu crashes into the side of the domed ceiling, bending plates and then splitting them, leaving a jagged hole behind. In only fractions of seconds, barely slowed by the collision, Nomu – the League of Villain’s secret weapon, their trump card – is gone. 

Izuku watches as the nomu is ejected from the USJ with dreadful resignation. He had known, from the very beginning, that no monster All for One made was going to be enough to kill the Symbol of Peace, but he is not glad to be correct, especially as Tomura makes an inarticulate sound of frustration under his breath. 

“We need to go,” Izuku says again, praying that this time Tomura will hear him. 

“What’s wrong?” All Might asks, standing alone and victorious in a cloud of dust. “You said you’d ‘clear this,’ didn’t you? Well, come and get me if you can.” Any impact Izuku’s plea may have had is erased by the taunt. 

“You were meant to be weaker,” Tomura growls. “We were–”

“We were mistaken,” Izuku interrupts. He closes the distance between them to stand again by Tomura’s side. “Let’s go. Without the nomu–”

“Nomu. Man, if only we still had Nomu. That guy could go against All Might without even thinking of anything.” 

Izuku doesn’t bother pointing out that they had already set the nomu against All Might, that it had already failed them. Tomura wouldn’t see the reasoning in something like that. He’s beyond it, at this point. 

“We don’t have him,” Izuku says, clinging to whatever tendrils of patience he can find. “So, we need to leave.”

“No,” Kurogiri interjects, voice firm and confident. For a flash of an instant, Izuku wants to throttle him, but swallows the urge down and buries it with all of his festering frustration. “He was certainly weakened by that attack. We likely have at least a few more minutes before reinforcements arrive, meaning the children are his only backup, and they seem to be frozen in fear. We, on the other hand, still have underlings that can be used. If we work together, we still have a chance of killing him.”

Izuku darts a glance over to the students, and while a moment ago they may have been frozen in any mix of fear, shock, or uncertainty, there is movement among them now. As Katsuki stands, Tomura’s head turns towards the motion and Izuku knows the moment the older boy remembers Katsuki’s presence, his entire body growing impossibly tense beside Izuku.

“We have to get out of here,” Izuku says one more time, rote and hollow. 

But Tomura does not listen. His anger has already found its perfect match, its perfect outlet. Two identically enraged pairs of red eyes clash, and the both of them smile feral, savage smiles. They take half steps towards each other, in sync. 

Izuku grabs Tomura’s arm just as the red-haired boy with the hardening quirk grabs Katsuki’s. Katsuki shakes his classmate’s grip off in an instant, but Tomura locks up in Izuku’s, bicep twitching as he restrains himself from blindly lunging forward. 

“I don’t want him dead, Tomura,” Izuku says. 

He knows it means something. It’s not as if Tomura doesn’t care what he wants. The entire reason he wants to hurt Katsuki in the first place is to avenge what was done to Izuku in his youth. Izuku’s words mean something here. They have power over Tomura, Izuku knows. 

But he’s not sure it’s enough. Not sure how strongly his desires weigh against the blind thirst for violence that has possessed Tomura here today. 

“Worry about yourself, Deku,” Katsuki spits from across the field. 

That is what breaks things. 

That single careless and spiteful sentence is all it takes for Tomura to snap. 

He tears himself from Izuku’s grip and is gone in an instant. Katsuki aims an explosion at him as he approaches, but Kurogiri wraps a portal around it, easy as anything. It is child’s play, how quickly Tomura has his hands on Katsuki, wrapped around his gauntlet as the other two students dive back and out of the way. The support item crumbles, turning to dust with a creeping slowness that is entirely deliberate on Tomura’s part, designed to intimidate and horrify rather than simply destroy.

“You’re a nasty one, aren’t you?” Tomura asks, leaning close to sneer in Katsuki’s face. “You attack my warp gate; you attack my player two. Man, you’re just asking for trouble, aren’t you?” 

Katsuki’s lip curls into some unnatural combination of a snarl and a smirk. With Tomura so close to him, it is easy for him to spit in the older boy’s face. White and frothy, most of it splatters on the back of the hand over Tomura’s face, but some drips through the cracks of the fingers and Tomura reels back with a disgusted howl. Tomura lets Katsuki go, stumbling back a few steps to rip the hand from his face. Harsh and compulsive, he scrubs at his skin with the sleeve of his shirt, muttering words under his breath that Izuku can only hear the venom of. 

Katsuki does not wait for Tomura to pull himself back together. He winds back his right arm, blatantly telegraphing the trajectory and strength of his intended blow, just like he always did when they were children. 

It’s simple for Izuku to step between them. He activates one of many speed enhancing quirks he has stored away to cross the distance in the time it takes to blink, wrapping his arms around Katsuki’s in an instant. Grasping the boy right above his elbow, Izuku braces his feet, bends his knees slightly, pivots, and sends Katsuki flying over his shoulder. The blonde hits the ground hard, air audibly punched from his lungs, and rolls twice before popping up onto an elbow, heaving to catch his breath. 

Izuku snatches the severed hand from Tomura’s grip and Tomura stares at him, eyes wide and wild, mad in more ways than one, but beneath all of that scared in the way Izuku despises most. 

“We are leaving,” Izuku says, no longer asking, no longer begging.

Tomura grabs him by the collar of his shirt and tosses him to the side. For a moment, Izuku thinks, rather hysterically, that he has finally pushed Tomura too far. That he has finally discovered the hard limit of his not-brother’s tolerance. That he’s about to be made the target of all that rage. 

Then Katsuki is there, hand snatching and combusting right where Izuku’s head had been. Tomura must be able to feel the heat of the explosions, as close as he is – Izuku is familiar with the blasts and the exact ways they’ll sear at your skin from various distances – but if Tomura feels any pain, he doesn’t show it. 

Instead, he closes his hand around Katsuki’s throat. 

But there is no screaming, no blood, not yet. Tense silence falls, the type of quiet that only comes with bated breath and bodies held so taut that they tremble in their attempts at stillness. 

Only four fingers.

Izuku doesn’t dare stand up, afraid that small movement will somehow result in a deadly twitch. Even Katsuki stays still, doesn’t fight or attempt to free himself, aware of just how precarious his situation is. 

“Put him down,” Izuku says, low and strained.

Katsuki, rendered silent for a moment, growls, though he still doesn’t struggle. “I don’t need your help you shitty fucking thief, you goddamned villain, get out of my fucking life already, I’m going to ki–” Tomura’s fingers tighten and Katsuki’s words gurgle off. 

“You’re the kind of person I hate the most,” Tomura says, soft and casual as Katsuki goes red from oxygen deprivation and fury. “A real hypocrite, you know? You're supposed to be a hero, but he’s the one trying to save you.”

“Tomura, don’t.”

“You won’t kill him. He probably deserves it, but you’re too good–” the word is spat, simultaneously spiteful and fond, like a bite that could have injected venom and chose not to “–for that. So, I’ll do it for you. Everyone wins.”

What is All Might doing, Izuku wonders with frantic helplessness. Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing he should be stopping? No, he’s just standing there, exactly where he was when he defeated the nomu, watching. There’s pain and frustration in his gaze – a good amount of rage as well – but he just stands there, even when Izuku manages to make eye contact. 

And the students – they just stand there, too. The one with the hardening quirk – his face is a study of horror, and his hands float around his stomach as if reaching for something to do, but he is paralyzed. The one with the temperature control quirk, the chimera – he is entirely blank, mouth flat, eyes empty, arms limp at his sides. 

Useless. They’re all useless. It all falls on Izuku. All the pressure. All the blame.

Like always.

“Put him down,” Izuku repeats. “Tomura. Please.”

“Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri says. “This boy is not our target. We are running out of time if we want to destroy the world’s Symbol.”

Tomura does not respond for a long moment, long enough that Katsuki starts face starts to gradient from red to purple. Then Tomura sighs and, with a deceptively careless motion, flings Katsuki into the red-haired student, sending both boys tumbling to the ground. Katsuki coughs and hacks in the background while Tomura turns back to All Might. 

“How unprofessional,” he says, “getting distracted with the scrubs when the final boss is right in front of me. Where were we?”

“We’re done here,” Izuku announces, before All Might can open his mouth and antagonize Tomura further. 

“We haven’t cleared the level yet.”

“No. We’ve failed it. It’s time for us to go so we can play another day. Kurogiri.”

“Shigaraki Izuku. I don’t think–”

“I don’t care,” Izuku bites out, uncharacteristic and uncomfortable, but necessary. “Open a portal.”

Kurogiri hesitates, but only for a moment. Tomura is the one in charge here, yes, but Izuku is his father’s son, and there is power in that, on the rare occasion he is willing to wield it. The portal blooms like a bruise in front of them and Izuku gestures to it with a stern glare at Tomura.

“You’re going to flee?” All Might calls to them, with a thread of desperation in his voice. He’s stalling, Izuku realizes. “Run away like cowards the moment things don’t go according to plan?”

Tomura turns to the hero with a snarl primed and ready, but Izuku grabs him by the arm and tosses him through the gate before he can get a word out.

“It’s a tactical retreat,” Izuku corrects, half to himself, moving towards the portal without sending All Might a single glance. 

Pain bursts through his shoulder when his foot is just halfway through, and he does not walk the rest of the distance so much as fall. 

There is an unusual moment of delay between the portal’s appearance and Tomura’s entrance into the bar. Calling it an entrance is generous, really. Tomura stumbles in at an angle that sends him flying back-first into the bar, tripping over his feet and ending up on the floor, limbs tangled with the legs of the barstools he brought down with him. Hisashi steps to the side just in time to avoid the worst of the mess, staring impassively down at Tomura, who shoots sidelong glances in his direction as he tries to stand, cursing under his breath with each bumped shin or elbow. The boy is scowling intensely, his baleful stare exposed in the absence of the severed hand that typically covers his face when participating in more “villainous” activities. 

A moment later, a second figure tumbles through the warp gate, no more gracefully than the first, and it is only centuries of experience that prevent Hisashi from doing a double take. Izuku falls face first into the bar. Catching himself with one arm, he rolls to the side and tucks his legs up, drawing them out the portal to allow Kurogiri to close it. 

Let the record show that Hisashi, until this very second, was under the impression that Izuku was in his bedroom, locked away from the dirty-handed dealings he generally wanted no part of. It is rare for Hisashi to be truly surprised, but his son manages it far more often than most. Now it elicits a strange combination of pride and concern in Hisashi’s chest. Like surprise, these are feelings that only Izuku manages to evoke in him with any regularity. Even five years after embracing fatherhood, the emotions are still novel, given the nearly two centuries he spent more or less without them. 

“You goddamned brat,” Tomura growls as he finally manages to stand. He drags one of the many fallen barstools up with him. Eddying into the room as soon as the portal closes, Kurogiri stares, the narrowing of his yellow eyes the only expression of his irritation at the mess.

“We didn’t discuss Izuku’s attendance,” Hisashi says, carefully neutral. 

Tomura’s makes to respond, but Izuku interjects, “It w-was my id-idea.” His voice is strained, drawn tight in his throat. “He – he didn’t w-want me to go, but I… I ins-s-insisted.” 

Unlike Tomura, Izuku has made no effort to stand, collapsed on his side with his legs half drawn up, curled around them in a loose fetal position. Any pride Hisashi felt at Izuku’s choice to actively involve himself in the mission gives way to concern.

“Are you alright?” he asks. For the first time in years, the quirks Hisashi has collected to compensate for his lack of sight don’t feel sufficient. 

“I-I’m, um – I’m f-f-fine.” Izuku’s words crack around the edges, sounding raw in the spaces between. Tears start to drip from his eyes, carving paths along the bridge of his nose and thickening his voice with every word. “R-re-really. B-but – I, uh, I-I thi-think I’ve b-be-been – um, uh.”

Izuku’s stutter was quite persistent when he was younger, and though it has improved majorly over the years, it still makes occasional appearances whenever the boy is especially anxious or uncertain about something. Hisashi has never heard it like this though, fumbling and broken as if the syllables are shaking apart behind his teeth. The concern spikes.

Hisashi drops to his knees next to his son, placing a hand on his forehead. The skin there is slick with a cold sweat and Hisashi spares a moment to brush the boy’s hair back before activating a diagnostic quirk and scanning him over. 

Some things are to be expected – bruises from training and rough housing with Tomura, a degree of quirk fatigue that is noticeable enough to register but not extreme enough to warrant attention, old injuries to his right wrist that still sometimes cause him a low level of discomfort. 

Hisashi does not expect to find a bullet hole through his only son’s left shoulder. 

In his years, Hisashi has seen a considerable number of injuries. He has caused a substantial proportion of them. Blood, violence, wounds of any nature – these are things he has long since been desensitized to, and never expected to be bothered by again.

But this – a hole through his son’s shoulder, blood leaking through Izuku’s fingers onto the floor of the bar, Izuku stuttering words out of teeth that he’s clenched in pain. This is untenable. 

“You’ve been shot,” Hisashi says. Anger lurks under his calm tone, like some massive, starving beast that prowls beneath glass-smooth and deceptively deep waters. 

“Y-yeah, u-uh, m-may-maybe. I th-think so.”

“He’s been what?” Tomura shouts, too loud for the size of the room they are all in. There is nothing insidious about his rage, snapping teeth in plain view. “How the fuck did that happen?!” 

Under different circumstances, Hisashi would likely grimace at the language. Words are cheap to begin with, but curse words especially so, and he has tried to encourage his son and pupil to express themselves more eloquently. Tomura curses more often than Hisashi would like, but at the moment it seems warranted. 

“W-w-wh–”

“Hush,” Hisashi interrupts. Izuku’s teeth snap together with an audible click. Hisashi’s diagnostic quirk, still active, informs him that Izuku has just bitten his tongue, but the boy doesn’t even seem to register that minor injury, eclipsed beneath the shadow of pain in his shoulder. “Kurogiri, explain.”

“The attack did not go according to plan. The nomu you sent with us was defeated. Backup, retrieved by a wayward student, arrived just moments after the young master ordered a retreat. Unfortunately, the single instant of overlap was long enough for one of the heroes to fire a shot.”

“Send me back,” Tomura demands. “I’ll show them what we’re really capable of, I’ll make them regret so much as looking at him–”

Hisashi interrupts what is quickly becoming the beginnings of a rant. “Sit down, Tomura.” With a bitten back scoff, Tomura does.

Hisashi turns his attention back to his son. Izuku – wan on the floor, eyes clenched shut, hissing shaking and uneven breaths between his teeth – is holding himself together remarkably well, all things considered. In the grand scheme of things, the injury is not too severe. Nothing of importance was hit and the bullet carved a clean path through and through. With the resources at their disposal, Izuku is in absolutely no danger. 

But that doesn’t make the injury hurt any less. Before now, the worst Izuku has ever been harmed was likely the sludge villain attack when he was ten. Even that incident resulted in mostly superficial physical damage, the majority of the trauma being mental and emotional. This is certainly the most pain Izuku has ever been in.

As Hisashi cards a hand through the sweat-damp hair at the nape of Izuku’s neck, he hopes this is the most pain his son will ever be in. He hopes, but he knows that it’s likely an empty sentiment, especially if Izuku’s life ends up looking anything like Hisashi’s own. Still, he’ll do his best to shelter Izuku from whatever bits of it he can. 

“You have a quirk for this, yes?” Hisashi asks. “I’m fairly certain I brought you one, at some point.” 

Izuku nods. “B-but it-it’ll p-put-put me to sle-sl-sleep.”

“Perhaps that’s for the best. You’re safe here. You can rest now. Activate the quirk and allow yourself to heal.” 

Izuku’s eyes are bright and glassy with pain but intent as he stares up at Hisashi. Hisashi worries for a moment that Izuku will refuse, as unreasonably stubborn as he can sometimes be, but then his eyes dim and flutter shut. The diagnostic quirk pings the additional fatigue. Combined with the exhaustion from the attack on the USJ, it’s likely that healing the injury will leave Izuku unconscious for several hours, at the least. 

“Kurogiri, get him cleaned up and put away in his room, would you? Bandage him up, too. He should heal on his own without any difficulty, but it wouldn’t do for him to bleed all over his things.”

“Of course, Sir.” Nodding, Kurogiri opens a portal beneath Izuku, dropping him gently in some other location, before disappearing himself to do as Hisashi bade.

“I’m not going to let them get away with this,” Tomura says lowly once they are alone. He is seated obediently, but the fury in his eyes has not been tempered.

“Nor will I. They sealed their fates the moment they touched him. I don’t take kindly to threats to me or mine, Tomura. You know this.”

“Then why didn’t you let me go back? I’d make them pay, you know I would, it’s what you’ve been training me for–”

“An unknown number of professional heroes had arrived on the scene, my nomu was apparently defeated, you no longer had the element of surprise. Would you like me to list more flaws in your plan, or is that enough?” Tomura scowls, agitation clear as he scratches at his neck, but does not respond. “You already failed once. Are you really so eager to run in and fail a second time?”

“We shouldn’t have failed at all,” Tomura spits. “All Might was supposed to be weak. You said Nomu would be able to take him.”

“And on a different day, perhaps it would have. No plan is perfect. You account for what you can and make up for the rest with luck and skill. Today, you were neither lucky nor skilled. You underestimated them and failed as a result. And on the topic: where is my nomu?” Hisashi can see the muscles of Tomura’s jaw twitch as the boy grinds his teeth. 

“I don’t know. Gone. All Might blasted him away with one of those ridiculous overpowered smashes of his. Kurogiri might be able to locate him, but–”

“With your brother injured, Kurogiri has more important things to occupy his time. We’ll write it off as another loss, then. A shame, given all the time and effort that went into creating it, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”

“We were close,” Tomura says at a whisper. “So close. Nomu almost had him.”

“What’s the saying again? Right. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

Curiously, Tomura doesn’t shrink from the scorn like he normally would. “Hand grenades,” he says instead, barking a hoarse laugh. “There were some close calls with those, too. Have you ever considered doing something about Bakugou Katsuki?”

Bakugou. There’s a name that Hisashi hasn’t heard for a while. When Izuku first moved in, he mentioned the family occasionally, but never with enough frequency for them to have occupied any space in Hisashi’s mind. 

“Izuku’s friend from school? I can’t say I’ve considered him at all.”

Tomura laughs again. “Oh, they were never friends. I might have been able to kill All Might myself if the brat hadn’t gotten in the way. He’s a horrible kid, the absolute worst kind, and he’s got all that nastiness fixated on our little Izu.”

“Don’t try to blame your own shortcomings on others, Tomura. The obstacles you faced do not justify your failure, especially if those obstacles came in the form of a fifteen-year-old boy with a week of heroics training under his belt.”

“That’s not what I–”

“Learn from this. If you don’t want this whole exercise to have been entirely futile, figure out where you went wrong and ensure you don’t make the same mistakes in the future. Next time no number of professional heroes or children will be able to stop you. Next time, Tomura, you will show the world you are meant to be feared. You will become exactly the symbol we need. Do you understand?”

Tomura stares, eyes steely, jaw grinding back and forth, nails digging into his neck. Then, he nods. 

“Yes, Sensei.”

“Good. Now, it’s time to start making a new plan. Consider gathering a team, elite people whose strength can become your strength. You’ve come far on your own, but no one can do everything alone. Even I have you, after all. 

“Take all the time you need. It’s better to wait and secure your chances of success than rush ahead and make a fool of yourself – let this incident at the USJ pay testament to that. We’re in no rush.” 

Today, tomorrow – it made little difference, in the end. Hisashi has been moving these pieces around for decades, carefully nudging them into place millimeter by painstaking millimeter. Sometimes you have to run before you can walk. Sometimes you have to fail before you succeed. Hisashi has weathered it all before. He’s sure he’ll see it all again. 

Time, as curious and mercurial as it can be, is something he has in abundance, after all.

Chapter Text

The most infuriating thing Katsuki has ever been made to do is sit aimlessly in a classroom immediately after a direct villain attack, told to be patient as the police methodically question each and every one of his classmates before allowing them all to go home. And sure, maybe it’s important that the police and the heroes know what happened, but with all the adrenaline and anger and fear still coursing through his veins, Katsuki isn’t exactly thrilled to be told to sit still and wait.

“Bakugou, are you sure you don’t want to go to Recovery Girl?” Shitty Hair asks for at least the third time, mouth twisted up with something close enough to pity that it sends Katsuki’s hackles rising.

“For the last goddamned time,” he snaps, most likely not for the last time, given how persistent the extras in his class can be, “I’m fucking fine.” His voice scrapes out of his throat rough and broken, as if to prove him wrong, but Katsuki swallows as if it doesn’t hurt, and ignores the way Shitty Hair cringes in sympathy.

They are being questioned in seat order, and the police only just took away Round Face, Tail Boy, and Pikachu, so Katsuki is going to be forced to sit here, sedentary and smothered, for another half hour, at least. And that’s if he’s being fucking optimistic. Knowing how some of his classmates can babble, he’s probably looking at longer. At least everyone in the classroom seems somewhat subdued, murmuring between each other in soft tones for the most part.

Of all the students, Katsuki is the only one with more than minor injuries – though even what he suffered is still far from major, as he already told the teachers and the cops and the paramedics and everyone else who thought it was appropriate to look at him like some kind of wounded fucking animal. His throat is bruised and raw, his arms ache from overusing his quirk, and he popped a blood vessel in his eye at some point, but he’s hardly on death’s door. He’s just fucking fine, for the information of all the people who won’t stop fucking asking. He’s not an invalid.

Besides, he was never in any real danger. He had the situation handled. And he definitely didn’t need goddamned Deku, of all people, to protect him.

Katsuki breaths out hard through his nose and then stifles a cough as the air scrapes at the tender insides of his windpipe. Even just thinking about Deku makes his blood boil like mad, until he feels his skin is going to split if he doesn’t relieve the pressure somehow. How was Deku even in Japan? He was meant to be in the US, far far away from Katsuki, causing problems for someone else. He was never supposed to come back. Katsuki was only ever supposed to have to think of him in past tense.

But no, of course not. Katsuki had finally gotten into UA and things couldn’t just go nice and easy like they were supposed to. No, instead Deku shows up – clinging to villains, calling them by their first names, hiding behind them like a coward while they fight his battles. Crying, like he was scared or hurt, maybe, but still there – what the fuck was he doing there?

Shitty Hair is the next to go in for questioning and thank god for that. Without the persistent thorn in his side, Katsuki can shove his earbuds in and focus on breathing as well as he can, like his mother always insists. In through the nose – one, two, three, four; hold for seven; out through the mouth – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Katsuki hates the shitty breathing exercises. Mostly because they work, and the old hag is always smug about it. “Just breathe, brat,” she says, like that’ll fix all his problems. And maybe it will, but if she would just stop causing him problems in the first place, then he wouldn’t need to worry about his goddamned breathing, now would he?  

Anger rises in him again, but this is the well-worn and familiar kind, which fits in his body as well as his bones do – the kind that makes him want to slam the door to his room into the wall, as opposed to wanting to slam his fist into some dumbass’ face.

When an officer finally comes to retrieve Katsuki, he is as calm as he is going to get – which is to say, perfectly fucking calm and rational, thank you very much.

“I’m Detective Tsukauchi,” the man says after he leads Katsuki to a separate room. “Do you mind if I record this?”

“Go ahead.”

“Great. Can you state your name, for the record?”

“Bakugou Katsuki.”

“When did you notice the villain presence at the USJ?”

“Same time everyone else did. Portal opened up in the middle of the place and they all came pouring in. If there was any doubt the bastards weren’t supposed to be there, Hobo-Sensei cleared it up pretty fast.” The detective blinks a few times, silent for a moment as Katsuki crosses his arms over his chest and slumps further into his chair.

“Do you mean Aizawa?”

“Obviously.”

“Right. Can you tell me what happened next?”

“That warp gate asshole showed up, gave a little speech and scattered us.”

“The individual with the teleportation quirk – did you catch his name?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Katsuki bark, already fed up with the unimportant details. “Probably some stupid shit.”

“Moving on, then. Where did you end up after you were warped?”

“Collapse zone.”

“Were you alone?”

“I fucking wish. Shitty Hair was dropped in with me.” The detective pauses again, blinking like he has something in his eyes, looking like an absolute dumbass.

“‘Shitty Hair?’ Are you referring to Kirishima Eijiro?”

“Does he have shitty fucking hair?” More blinks from Detective Dumbass. “Obnoxious shade of red?” Katsuki prompts. “Spiky, but not in a cool way?” He makes a gesture to indicate horn-like spikes over his forehead.

“…That’s Kirishima. Did you encounter anyone else in the collapse zone?”

“A handful of no-name villains tried to get the jump on us, but I took care of them without any trouble.”

The questioning continues along a similar vein, dissecting every small move Katsuki made between the collapse zone and the plaza, grilling him for details on the battle he witnessed and the villains he encountered. Katsuki answers the questions almost reflexively, throwing forward information as the detective requests it, even if Katsuki doesn’t understand what half the questions are good for. After every statement Katsuki makes, the detective taps his finger against the table, loud in the silence between their words. Cheek leaned heavily against his fist, Katsuki glares at that tapping finger, growing more impatient with every word he speaks.

Then, “Does the name ‘Deku’ mean anything to you?”

Katsuki’s whole body grows hot and rigid. He opens his mouth to spit out a vicious answer, but the sharp edges of the words tear at his throat and send him into a coughing fit. Detective Dumbass pushes a glass of water across the table and Katsuki snatches it with a glare.

“Yeah,” he rasps after draining half the glass. “He’s a fucking villain, just like the rest of them.”

“Have you encountered him somewhere before the attack today?”

“We went to school together or whatever. When we were younger.”

“Is ‘Deku’ his legal name?”

“No.” Katsuki hesitates, then covers it under the guise of clearing his throat. “His name is Midoriya Izuku.”

“What’s his quirk?”

When Katsuki was four years old, he had made a promise to a woman who was almost like a second mother to him. Her son had come into a very dangerous quirk that he had used against Katsuki, but Katsuki’s Aunt had sat him down and made him promise that he would never tell anyone. And Katsuki never has, not even his own parents.

Partially, he didn’t want to admit to anyone what Izuku had done to him. He didn’t want that horror, that weakness, living in anyone’s mind but his own. Even past that, though, he saw the necessity of the secret. Deku’s quirk was a horrible and powerful thing, and if the wrong ears caught wind of it, Katsuki had no doubt that villains would come swoop the other boy up and make him into the stuff of nightmares. So, Katsuki kept quiet.

But there’s no point to the secret, anymore. Deku is on the villains’ side, now. Keeping the nature of his quirk quiet will only put people in danger if the thief is out there using it.

“Listen,” Katsuki says, leaning over the table to get closer and keeping his voice quiet and serious. “I know it looks like that handsy guy was the one in charge, but he’s not the one you’ve gotta worry about. It’s Deku. There’s always been something nasty about him. He steals quirks. He’s not even supposed to be in the country, but if he’s here, and with the villains, you’ve got a big fucking problem on your hands.”

This time, the detective’s long silence is punctuated by an intense, searching stare instead of those stupid blinks he was favoring earlier. He pins Katsuki beneath his eyes, looking him up and down.

“Steal quirks? Can you elaborate on that?”

“It’s exactly what I fucking said. He takes quirks. Then he can use them, and you can’t.”

“How do you know this? There are no quirks like that in the registry.”

“Yeah, well he’s obviously not in the goddamned registry, dumbass,” Katsuki snaps. “Would you register a quirk like that? His papers say he’s fucking Quirkless, but that’s a lie. He stole my quirk when we were four fucking years old and I barely got it back, so I know what I’m talking about when it comes to that bastard.”

This time, when the detective taps on the table, the sound is like a nail being driven into the lid of a coffin.

Every spike on the heart monitor drives into Shouta’s head, twisting through one ear to the other in a jagged pulse of throbbing pain, like someone is winding a corkscrew through his brain. He hurts all over, but he refuses to let them raise the dosage on his pain relievers. It’s bad enough that he needs to be drugged up at all – he absolutely refuses to become insensible with it.

“How is being delirious with pain better than being loopy on morphine?” Hizashi asks, voice even worse than the mechanical beeping that fills the room, even as he does his best to keep it low and soft.

“Morphine makes me stupid,” Shouta grunts in response. His own words ricochet around his head like particularly vicious pinballs.

“Well, you seem pretty stupid to me, already.” Shouta does not justify this with a response.

Shouta’s eyes – along with the rest of his head and both his arms – are heavily bandaged, but the lack of sight does nothing to prevent him from noticing as the doctor enters the room. Even the small noises of the door opening and the doctor walking in lick along his sense like fire.

“Eraserhead,” the doctor greets, voice considerately soft at barely a whisper but no more bearable for the effort. “It’s good to see you awake.”

A plastic clipboard clicks against the hospital bed’s frame as the doctor retrieves his chart and papers rustle as she flips through it.

“What’s the verdict?” he asks. Hizashi has filled him in on the most important bits – namely that Shouta is absolutely fucked up, so much so that the other teachers briefly feared he was dead when they arrived at the USJ – but Shouta suspects he’s lacking some of the finer details.

“Well, you’ve probably noticed the broken arms,” the doctor says, with a dry humor that Shouta can appreciate. “Comminuted fractures in both of them. The bones of your left elbow were practically pulverized, and while we’ve reconstructed everything, you’ll still need to do some physical therapy to ensure that you keep your full range of motion. It’s likely you’ll have some long-term pain, even after you’ve fully healed, but the physical therapy can help with that, so long as you do it.”

Her stern tone leaves no doubt that she has dealt with more than her fair share of difficult hero patients – the kind who never put the proper effort into their recovery because of their hurry to be back in the field, and then wonder why their field performance is declining. Shouta can’t say he blames them, understanding the need for action and the hatred for the monotonous and exhausting routine of physical therapy. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how bitter Shouta is feeling at any given moment – he has Hizashi, who will ensure that Shouta is taken care of, by force if necessary.

“The muscle of your right elbow was heavily damaged when you arrived, but thankfully we have a quirk user on staff who specializes in soft tissue regeneration. You’ll have a nasty scar, but I don’t suppose you’ll have many complaints about that, given your choice of profession.

“Our biggest concern was the head trauma. Now that you’re awake and talking we can rule out brain damage, thankfully, but you’ve still got a facial fracture to contend with and your orbital floor was shattered.”

“What does that mean?” Shouta asks. Orbital means eyes – he might not be a doctor, but he knows that much – and the potential implications have Shouta stiffening unconsciously. By his side, Hizashi is tellingly silent. Shouta can’t even hear him breathing.

“We can’t say for sure yet,” the doctor says, apology leaking into her professional tone. “We’ve ruled out the possibility of blindness, but it is possible your eyes will suffer from other aftereffects. Given the nature of your quirk and the extent of the damage, it’s possible you quirk will be affected, as well.”

“When will we know?” Hizashi asks, speaking up when Shouta stays silent. With both of Shouta’s arms in casts, Hizashi closes a hand around his ankle instead. Hizashi squeezes gently, his touch aching against Shouta’s sore body, but warm and grounding.

“When we remove the bandages, we can test–”

“Can we do that now?” Shouta interrupts.

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Sho,” Hizashi scolds. “You’re being held together with scotch tape and glue right now. Let yourself heal before you start pushing your limits again.”

“I’m not trying to push them. I’m trying to identify them. It’s different. Is it possible to test it now?”

“Technically, yes,” the doctor grudgingly reveals. “However, your condition is still fragile enough that you risk worsening it by trying to activate your quirk so soon. I do not advise this.”

“Will it kill me?”

The doctor sighs. “No. But exposing your eyes at this point will hurt, I can guarantee you that.” If Shouta could smile beneath all the bandages and whatever is holding his face together, he would.

“That’s fine,” he says. “I’m a pro hero. We’re accustomed to pain.”

“Where’s Father?” Tomura demands to know, shortly after Izuku wakes.

“Father?” Izuku asks, still somewhat bleary with exhaustion after the fight and subsequent healing that had him unconscious for nearly an entire day. “Do you mean All for One?”

“No!” Tomura responds sharply, grimacing and flushing red. “I mean Father. You took him from me before you threw me through the portal, you brat. And then you got yourself shot.” The last bit is tacked on with a pointed narrowing of the eyes and Izuku knows Tomura will be clinging to the incident for ages. “Where is he?”

Right. The severed hand. Tomura had removed it after Katsuki spit in his face, and then Izuku had taken it from him in a bid for his attention. But then Katsuki had attacked Izuku, and Tomura had nearly killed him, and Izuku had gotten shot. What had he done with the hand? An uncomfortable squirming starts up in his stomach and he stares at Tomura with wide eyes.

“I don’t know,” Izuku forces himself to admit, pushing the words out of numb lips.

“…What?”

“I – I don’t know. I swear I didn’t mean to, but at some point, in the chaos, or when the heroes arrived I – oh my god, I must have dropped it. I’m so sorry, Tomura, I –”

“You lost him?” Tomura’s voice is calm compared to Izuku’s frantic rambling, but that’s more concerning than if he had been yelling.

“…Yeah.”

“You–” Tomura cuts himself off with a growl, lips curling away from his teeth as his whole expression twitches.

During Izuku’s bought of unconsciousness, Tomura has done nothing to care for the gouges he clawed into his neck at the USJ, and now he reaches up and tears into their sore-looking edges without a second thought. Izuku flinches internally but knows it would be counter-productive to try to intervene, given that he’s the current cause of Tomura’s distress. Tomura sways in place, making low inarticulate noises of frustration under his breath. Then, he turns on his heel and leaves the room, moving stiffly. For a moment, he closes his hand around the doorframe, allowing all five of his fingers to connect in his agitation. Even the brief contact leaves finger-shaped grooves of blacked wood behind.

Izuku makes no attempts to stop him. It is rare that Tomura gets upset enough to remove himself from a situation, but on the occasion that he does, it is certainly safer to simply allow him to leave, as much as it may hurt to watch him go.

Sometimes, it seems like every choice Izuku makes ends up being a bad one – even ones that seem arbitrary at the time, like taking Tomura’s so-called “Father.” Whenever he does anything, people seem to wind up hurt. He’s tried a million things to circumvent it, but nothing ever works for more than a moment, and then he is back to hurting people again, just like always.

Hurting Tomura is the worst of all. Izuku hates to do it.

And yet.

And yet, here Izuku is, thinking about doing the worst thing he possible could.

His insides are already clenching with guilt just because of the hand. He knows how important the macabre accessories are to Tomura, “Father” especially, and no matter how much it disturbed Izuku personally, he never intended to lose it.

If he feels like this after accidentally losing something important to Tomura, how is Izuku ever meant to intentionally destroy his brother’s entire world?

Sometimes, it seems like every choice Izuku makes is wrong. It’s like he’s built for regret, no matter what he does.

Late at night, guilt covered by the dark, he sometimes wonders if maybe it’s not the choices he makes, but the choices he has.

Now is a perfect example, isn’t it? There are two options in front of him, and Izuku isn’t sure either of them are good. A certainty churns in Izuku’s chest, dreadful and inevitable, that he is going to regret whatever it is he does next. The feeling is heavy and unbalancing, threatening to tip him over at any moment. Izuku almost wants to let it. He wants to lie down and let it crush him, or better yet, sleep forever so it can never catch him.

But he only has two choices, and that is not one of them.

He can keep going as he has been. He will hurt more people and every day he will hate himself more. Day by day and week by week, he will feel colder and colder inside, until his bones become brittle with frost, and he shatters into a million pieces.

Or Izuku will kill his father. And that will likely shatter him anyway.

He can keep going as he has been, and so will Tomura. They will both keep going, and maybe the way they have been isn’t a good way to be, but they will be together.

Or Izuku will kill his father.

And then Tomura will probably kill him.

It hurts to even think about because Izuku knows just how upset Tomura would be, just how betrayed he would feel, and Tomura is the last person Izuku ever wants to hurt. But without All for One, Tomura would have a chance. Izuku isn’t sure for what, exactly. A chance to make something of himself, maybe. A chance for Tomura to finally make something of himself, instead of simply being what All for One has made him to be.

Izuku has a day and a half to decide.

Tomorrow, he and All for One are supposed to visit the warehouse, and that will be Izuku’s best and only chance to do the job, if he so chooses. He can’t afford to wait any longer. As far as he knows, Eraserhead is still alive, and while Izuku is wholeheartedly grateful for that, it also means that it’s only a matter of time until the man realizes he can no longer use his quirk. The hero may not realize exactly what that means, but the information would undoubtedly make its way to All for One’s ears, and he would make the connection in an instant and then take the proper precautions to ensure that Izuku’s new quirk couldn’t be used against him, just like he has with all the ones he has already had Izuku take.

All this conflict, all this struggle, and he can’t even be sure that it will work. He’s still operating on the largely unsupported assumptions that Erasure is capable of erasing multiple quirks and that Izuku’s father cannot survive even a brief period without the many quirks he has collected to extend his life and compensate for his injury.

And then there is the even bigger assumption that Izuku is even capable of doing what he is asking himself to do.

He lies back in his bed, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until he sees burst of bright colors behind his closed lids.

He is writing his own story, now.

It is far harder than Aizawa Shouta made it look.

The solemn air that fell over class 1-A is gone two days later when classes resume. Katsuki’s classmates can’t stop gushing about the news coverage and how amazing All Might was, and the extras in the other courses keep shooting the class side-long glances, like they think they’re being discrete, whispering behind their hands as if that does a damned thing to stop their words from leaking into the air around them.

With a livid halo of blue and purple circling his throat, Katsuki is stared at most of all. Everyone is all wide-eyed, a mix of morbid curiosity, awe, and fear written clearly across their faces because they don’t know how to mind their own fucking business or even hide their goddamned nosiness.

Everyone acts like something special happened. Sure, the villains got into UA, and that was admittedly pretty fucking unheard of, but as for class 1-A’s role in all that? They fought the villains off – or at least, some of them did, while others were entirely useless – but they are training to be heroes, and that’s what heroes do. There’s nothing impressive about doing what you’re meant to.

Which is also why Katsuki isn’t screaming about how he’s going to put his all into the sports festival. Sure as shit, he’s excited as all hell for the event, but it goes without saying that he’s going to do his best. Hell, he’s going to do the best. Why would he bother with anything less?

But, Katsuki supposes as Round Face lets out another intense cheer, at least the extras are too occupied with that whole business to keep bothering him. Shitty Hair especially has been up his ass all day, concerned about his health or whatever other pussy bullshit and, worst of all, asking persistent questions about Deku, whose existence Katsuki would much rather go back to ignoring.

At the end of the day, when Round Face slides the classroom doors open so they can all make their way home, Katsuki is one of the only people not surprised at the crowd waiting for them, packed in tight to the hallway.

“What business do you have with class A?” Glasses asks too loudly and with too much emphasis, chopping robotically at the air while Round Face stutters in surprise.

“Scouting out the enemy, Robo Nerd.” Said nerd gapes in offense, jaw moving just as mechanically as the rest of him as he wordlessly works his mouth open and closed. “We’re the ones who made it out of the villains’ attack. They probably want to check us out before the sports festival, see what we’re made of. There’s no point in doing shit like that.” He stands in front of the crowd, scanning his eyes over a sea of unremarkable people who stare back with mixes of defiance, offense, and nervousness. “Out of my way, extras.”

“Stop calling people ‘extras’ just because you don’t know them!” Glasses scolds. Katsuki considers it, then summarily discards the suggestion. If people don’t want to be extras, they should do a single goddamned thing to stand out, and then Katsuki would bother with giving them a proper nickname. Besides, a decent number of people actually shuffled to the side at Katsuki’s command, so Glasses can hardly say Katsuki’s wrong when they’re actually responding to the address.

One person takes advantage of the new gaps in the crowd, weaving through the spaces without hardly touching anyone at all. He’s tall – taller than Katsuki, but Katsuki’s not so delicate that shit like that hurts his ego – with purple hair that sticks straight out in a mess of waves, bag under his eyes large enough that he’d have to pay extra to take them on a plane.

“I came to see what class A was like, but you seem pretty arrogant,” he says, voice droll and lacking any hint of the nervousness that Katsuki spotted in the eyes of so many of the extras in the crowd. “Are all students in the hero course like this?”

“Hah?” Katsuki asks, curling his lip into a sneer. Zombie Eyes – who didn’t bother to introduce himself, not that Katsuki cares about his name or would have remembered it in the first place – rubs at the back of his neck and glances to the side with an unintimidated sigh.

“I’m a little disillusioned. There’re quite a few people who enrolled in general education or the other courses because they didn’t make it into the hero course. Did you know that?” Katsuki neither knew nor cared. The problems of some second-rate losers who couldn’t make the cut weren’t something he cared to bother himself with, but Zombie Eyes keeps going.

“But the entrance exam isn’t our only chance, you know? Depending on the result of the sports festival, a student can be transferred between courses. A gen-ed student can become a hero student. A hero student can become a gen-ed one.

“‘Scouting out the enemy?’ Personally, I just came here to say that, if you’re not careful, I’ll sweep your feet right out from under you, hero course or not. I came with a declaration of war.”

Dark eyes with pale pupils lock onto Katsuki’s in undisguised challenge. Katsuki rises to it, staring back with his eyes slightly narrowed, mouth set in a grim line that does nothing to phase Zombie Eyes’ impassive air. The guy has guts, Katsuki will give him that. It’s almost disappointing that he fell into general education, meaning he most likely lacks the skill or power to prove good on his words. Otherwise, it would almost be the kind of declaration Katsuki could respect.

“Hey, hey!” some moron yells, popping out from the back of the crowd. Katsuki only half turns his attention to the newcomer, then half quickly dwindles to nothing as he stares blankly towards the commotion.

“You ignorin’ me, bastard?!” the extra shouts as Katsuki turns to walk away. Katsuki doesn’t dignify the question with a response, since that would kind of defeat the purpose of – you know – fucking ignoring the guy.

“Wait a minute, Bakugou!” Shitty Hair shouts, dashing to Katsuki’s side and flailing an arm in a wide gesture to the crowd. “What are you gonna do about all this? Come on dude, it’s your fault everyone’s hating on us!”

“Doesn’t matter,” Katsuki grunts in response.

“Huh?!”

“It doesn’t matter as long as you rise to the top.”

The spiky bastard, rendered speechless by “manliness” or some shit, finally lets Katsuki pass and the crowd parts to allow him through. It’s a simple concept, if you ask Katsuki. You face challenges, you overcome them. None of that making nice bullshit people like to waste their time with. You get strong, you win. That’s what matters.

You do whatever you have to do.

And that’s that.

There is nothing wrong with an inquisitive mind.

That’s what Izuku’s father always says, anyway.

But Izuku’s inquisitiveness borders into dissection. He over thinks and over analyzes until he’s overwrought, burdened by questions whose answers he either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know, but he can never stop himself from asking. The weight of his own inquisition pins him in place, and he stares into space and wonders.

He wonders if Tomura will ever forgive him. If Tomura will kill him. If Tomura will ever forgive himself if he does. He wonders who will take care of Tomura. If Kurogiri will stay. He wonders.

He wonders who his father will have him hurt next. How many people his father has hurt. How many quirks he has stolen. How many lives have been lost. How many families ruined. How many children left without their mothers.

He wonders if he is really going to do this.

Of all his questions, this is the only one Izuku can even begin to answer.

Is he really going to do this?

Well. It needs to be done. And Izuku is the only one who can do it.

It’s not a good answer, Izuku acknowledges to himself as he packs some of his belongings into a backpack. It only half addresses the question, at best – a deflection instead of a direct response. Things that need to be done go ignored every day. They fall through the cracks, and it only becomes obvious that they needed doing at all in retrospect, when the consequences come to call. This particular task had likely needed doing for years, if not decades, but no one had done it yet, and it would be so, so easy to continue that trend of inaction.

His mother’s locket sits heavy against his neck. Normally, he would never wear it on a trip to the warehouse. Today, though, he has to bring it with him. If he does what needs doing, he won’t get a chance to come back for it, and he won’t risk leaving it behind, even if that means he ends up storing some bad memories.

That’s what lockets do, after all. They hold memories. Once, Izuku’s mother used it to store her memories of him, and now he uses it to store his memories of her. He has never wanted to risk tainting them. His mother was bright and good, maybe the only pure and untouched thing in Izuku’s entire life, and he couldn’t help but ask himself – what would she think of this memory? What would she think of what he has become? Would she still say that there is nothing wrong with him? That he is good?

More questions that Izuku will never have answers to.

Here is the most important question, one Izuku will know the answer to sooner rather than later, for better or for worse.

Not – is he going to do this.

But – can he do this in the first place?

No, Izuku acknowledges to himself as he slips the last of his analysis notebooks into his bag. His hands shake so badly the edges of the books catch against each other, corners bending and crumpling as he shoves them down. No, he doesn’t think he can.

The things he has done – the lives he has been complicit in the loss of – already lurk on the edge of his every thought. Specters loom over his shoulders and clutch at the wayward edges of his bones, leeching all his warmth away. They swarm like rallying bees in the shadows behind his eyelids. He is already haunted.

How is he supposed to count his father among their numbers?

Because that is who he is plotting to kill. His father. Not a villain, not All for One – Izuku’s father.

Sometimes, Izuku thinks there are two versions of Shigaraki Hisashi. One is his father and the other is All for One. One loves him; the other owns him.

For the past five years, Izuku has made this distinction. There is his father and there is All for One, separate entities that Izuku can feel entirely separate ways about, without the need for the cognitive dissonance that would rend him in half, otherwise.

Izuku loves his father. As for All for One – hate is far too strong a word, and it doesn’t fit, anyway. It’s not fear, either. Neither word encapsulates the dripping melancholy that Izuku associates with the man, the sadness weaved in to every interaction. Hate and fear say nothing of the yearning that leaves a bitter taste beneath Izuku’s tongue. It is something more akin to regret, maybe.

Shigaraki Hisashi, the father, who Izuku loves. Shigaraki Hisashi, All for One, who Izuku regrets.

Izuku tells himself they are different.

They are not.

“Are you ready to go?” asks Shigaraki Hisashi, the man who is both Izuku’s loving father and All for One, the villain who treats him like an object, a tool, a weapon.

His father who loves him; All for One who owns him. All for One who is his father and his father who is All for One.

Does his father own him?

Does All for One love him?

Was Izuku ever loved at all?

There he goes again, asking too many questions for his own good. He stares at his father’s face, at the metal plating that covers All for One’s eyes, at the scars that trail down his father’s cheeks, at the way All for One’s mouth ticks up slightly at one corner, his father’s gentle smile. The love and regret threaten to drown him. It’s an odd feeling, to mourn someone not yet dead but simultaneously long lost. Izuku swallows hard, turning his eyes to the ground to hide his rapid blinking under his hair.

“Yes,” Izuku finally replies, stepping to his father’s side. His father doesn’t even spare the bag slung across one of Izuku’s shoulders a glance. Quirk analysis is part of what they do at the warehouse, after all, so Izuku’s notebooks are a common accessory to their time there.

All for One, as clever as he lauds himself to be, has no idea what’s coming to him.

Whether it’s trust or arrogance, the obliviousness makes Izuku ill. The whole situation makes him feel like he’s going to be sick, even though he’s barely eaten a thing since he woke up the day before.

He wants to be sick. He wants to cry. He wants to curl up in a small, dark space and pretend he doesn’t exist.

Instead, he takes all those feelings, balls them up, and swallows them down. They settle in his stomach as heavy and dense as a neutron star, but the persistent stinging behind Izuku’s eyes fades and he can finally take a deep breath without feeling like his lungs are being crushed.

Izuku has never used this quirk before. He has never wanted to. He has many quirks that he has never wanted to use, preferring to focus his limited time and energy on extensively training a reliable and versatile few, but this specific quirk has been deliberately and pointedly ignored. He has never wanted to use it; he has wanted to never use it.

Of course, his past compunctions don’t really bother him, now. Nothing does. That’s what the quirk is for.

He still knows what he’s feeling. The emotions are all still there. But they’re stored inside that dark, collapsed star in the center of his gut, unable to bother him any further. It’s an interesting change of pace for Izuku – who is almost always overwhelmed when left to his own devices – and a necessary intervention if he wants any hope of completing his task.

After all, with his emotions intact, Izuku couldn’t even watch Tomura try to harm a boy he hadn’t been friends with in over a decade without having a breakdown. Imagine the state he would be in, if he tried to kill his own father in cold blood. Izuku simply wouldn’t be able to do it. He would collapse beneath the weight of his own guilt and grief.

As it is, he does not cry or shake or wheeze as he and his father step into the warehouse, the portal leading them directly into the lab, like it does almost every week. Laying eyes on the nomu or the people and parts of people that will become nomu normally fills Izuku with disgust and remorse, but today is not a normal day.

Part of Izuku wants to ask questions. He’s always endlessly questioning things, and there are so many things he could ask his father. Things like why and what next and will it ever end. That part of Izuku wants to talk. It wants – so very, very badly – to understand. And it hopes – with an acknowledged futility that does nothing to dull the sharp edge of desperation – to prevent.

But that part of Izuku is neatly quarantined with his other emotions, all caught and contained by their own gravity, nothing more than footnotes on Izuku’s thoughts.

Rationally, there is no need to ask questions that won’t get proper answers. There is no reason to waste incredibly limited time catering to sentiment when there are matters of life and death that need handling.

Erasure is activated with a complete lack of fanfare.

Izuku’s father, facing away from him, halfway through the beginning of a sentence Izuku paid no attention to, stumbles. He lurches an arm out, grabbing the edge of one of many steel tables so hard his knuckles turn white. The tendons on the back of his hand stand out in harsh relief under the unforgiving florescence lights of the lab. All for One’s head rotates in Izuku’s direction, though the movement is less precise than usual, blind and undirected in the sudden absence of all the quirks he usually uses to make up for the loss of his eyes.

“Izuku?” he asks, voice rasping and pained. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry.” The words sound flat to Izuku’s own ears, but he’s not lying. He is sorry, somewhere in that star, even if he can’t feel it right now. As soon as he releases the quirk, he is going to be so incredibly sorry.

“Izuku,” All for One repeats, voice simultaneously weaker and more stern. “What are you doing?”

“What needs to be done.”

“You don’t need to do this. You can still stop. Let me go, tell me what’s wrong, and then we can fix it.”

“We can’t,” Izuku says. “We can’t fix it. They’re dead.” The words should be sobbed, Izuku is aware. But if he was crying, Erasure would likely deactivate, so it’s for the best that he can’t.

“What does killing me solve? I’ll just be another body on your conscious.”

“It’s not about me. You’re the villain in a lot of stories, Dad. I want to see more happy endings.”

There are no heroes in Izuku’s story. Only different types of villains.

But – there is a hope in Izuku, bright and sharp, that some of them may be able to be redeemed. All for One is not one of them. Izuku most likely isn’t, either. But Tomura – maybe he could be. So, Izuku will make this choice, will make this sacrifice, and maybe in the process he will be able to save the one person in his life who needs it most.

His father’s knees buckle. The table screeches a couple of inches across the floor as All for One uses it to catch his weight and guide his fall. Izuku’s eyes are starting to burn. He had hoped this would be faster. If he blinks before it’s over, he’ll never get another chance, but at the rate things are going Izuku won’t be able to hold out.

He wanted this to be quick and merciful and passive. Those were all things he needed it to be, when he was building scenarios in his head trying to decide what course of action he was going to take. Now, he just needs it to be over.

What is the best way to kill someone? Of all the questions Izuku has asked, all the wonderings that keep him up at night, he has never much thought about how to best commit murder. He wishes he had dedicated more thought to it earlier.

What is the best way to kill someone? In their sleep, he supposes. That’s how most people want to die, isn’t it?

There is a song that Izuku’s father sings to him whenever Izuku gets particularly upset. There are no words, only melody. Even that is broken into bits and pieces, eroded by all the years between now and his father’s own childhood. But Izuku has always loved the song, and he hums it now, letting the notes of it – soft, soothing, and slightly sad – twine through his father’s ears.

Lullaby is another of Izuku’s relatively old quirks. Before he had Izuku take it, All for One made sure to have a quirk of his own to prevent himself from being put to sleep, but it was of no help to him, now. After only a couple of bars, Izuku’s father can no longer fight unconsciousness.

What is the best way to kill someone? Fast, Izuku thinks.

There is a scalpel on the table Izuku’s father collapsed against. Izuku picks it up and turns it over between his fingers. The metal is cold and the shape is foreign. He doesn’t know how he’s meant to hold it. But he knows which end is the sharp one, which is arguably all he needs.

This is how it’s always done in the movies. One broad cut and it’s over. It’s fast. Blood loss isn’t supposed to be painful, Izuku doesn’t think. You get cold and tired and then you fall asleep. And his father is already asleep, so this is the best way. Or at least, the best way Izuku can think of.

Whenever Tomura made Izuku watch any of those really bloody horror movies, Izuku always thought they exaggerated. Blood doesn’t spray like that, he thought. It’s just camp. Fun with special effects.

There is nothing fun about how hot fresh blood feels against your skin.

It is thick and slippery and it smells.

But Izuku stays next to his father until the puddle stops growing.

Then, he stands. There are still more things that need doing, and he has limited time to do them.

At the bottom of his stomach, the dark star of Izuku’s swallowed emotions screams.

Chapter Text

Standing before the gates of UA would evoke a strange combination of emotions in Izuku, if he were able to feel anything. As it is, he can’t even sense the awe, yearning, or bitter disappointment in the dense mass of repressed emotions that sits in his stomach. The conflicting things that Izuku knows he should be feeling are too drowned out by the buildup of guilt and grief and horror.

Instead, Izuku simply stares at the gate and the building beyond it. Towering, imposing things that are incapable of intimidating him. His eyes slide around the edges of the gate until they land on a camera, a small glassy glint amidst the stone that Izuku likely wouldn’t have been able to spot if he hadn’t been trained to. There is someone on the other end of it, watching him, he’s sure.

Izuku doesn’t look dangerous, like this. Looking at him now, no one would guess that two hours ago he was covered in the blood of his own father. He had stripped himself down under the staring but unseeing eyes of half a dozen nomu and climbed into the large stainless-steel sink in the back corner of the lab. He had sat, shivering beneath a torrent of freezing water, and scrubbed at his skin with his nails until the water that swirled down the drain finally ran clear. He had tossed his clothes into a stiff, heavy pile that sprayed blood onto the concrete and scrounged through the cabinets against the walls until he found something else to wear. Everything in the lab was too big for him – which was inconvenient, though for the best, if Izuku considered the implications – but he had made it work. Now, he was dressed in soft blue pants with an elastic waistband and a drawstring that made them perfectly adjustable and a large yellow hoodie with a rabbit on the front, hanging down to his thighs and covering his hands that still had blood dried under the nails. He couldn’t find a change of shoes, but he had wiped the blood from the white soles of the ones he usually wore with a spare T-shirt and ignored the slightly damp squelch of them beneath his toes.

Izuku just looks like some lazy teenager who threw on some longue clothes before going on an errand. It probably looks like he stopped on his way to gape at the most notorious school in the country, like countless people doubtlessly do on the daily.

“Hello,” Izuku calls to the camera. “Can I have a moment of your time? It’s important.”

He stares at the small reflection of the lens, shifting from foot to foot. He doesn’t know the right thing to say here, to gain anyone’s consideration. Beyond the gate, the building towers silent and still, students having gone home around an hour prior.

“I need to see Eraserhead,” Izuku says, because that is why he is here.

Nothing changes. The camera is inscrutable. The building is unmoved. Izuku knows there is someone on the other side, watching and listening, but how is he meant to know whether or not they are hearing him? There are things he doesn’t want to say here, out in the open like this.

“I don’t have much time.”

The star in Izuku’s stomach is an unstable thing. It pulses and writhes. It does not bother him – it can not bother him – but he knows that it is going to become a problem relatively soon. The quirk can only be used for five hours, maximum, and Izuku has already had it on for two. Combine that inherent limitation with the limits of Izuku’s own quirk – namely that it takes time and practice for him to build stamina with each individual quirk he has, time and practice which he has not devoted to this particular quirk in the slightest – and he isn’t sure how much longer he can hold this. He also isn’t sure exactly what the fallout will be when the quirk finally fails, but he’s certain it will be debilitating. If he is not able to return Erasure before then, he may not get another chance.

“It’s about his quirk.”

Finally, there is movement. Whether this is the statement that gains Izuku the heroes’ attention or whether he has had it all along, he neither knows nor cares. For the moment, Izuku can’t see anyone, but someone moves into the radius of his quirk awareness, creeping around behind him. There’s another person somewhere to the side. Snipe and Midnight, if Izuku had to guess. A moment later, two figures enter Izuku’s field of view, approaching him directly from the building.

Three, Izuku corrects as they grow closer. An unassuming man the Izuku doesn’t recognize, the imposing form of Vlad King, and on top of the hero’s shoulder, a small, fury creature that Izuku would almost be tempted to call cute, if he didn’t know exactly who they were.

“Hello!” the principal of UA chirps in a cheerful greeting completely at odds with the grim looks on his companions’ faces. “Do you prefer Shigaraki or Midoriya?”

The question, abrupt and friendly, catches Izuku off guard. He is not particularly surprised that they know his name, either of them, given that Kurogiri called addressed him by one and Katsuki no doubt told them the other. But Izuku has not been called “Midoriya” in five years and he was not prepared for the way the star in his stomach seizes and spikes – sorrow and want and shame lashing out like malevolent little solar flares.

“Just call me Izuku,” is the best thing he can think to say.

“What are you doing here?” the nondescript man asks.

“I need to see Eraserhead.”

“Why?”

Lie detection, Izuku realizes. That’s the man’s quirk, or something along those lines, at least. Terribly convenient, but Izuku won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

“I don’t mean any harm,” Izuku says, with complete honesty. “I just want to give back what I took. Can I come inside? I don’t have much time.” Izuku shift half a step forward and then stops in time with the soft metal click of a gun being cocked behind him.

“Don’t move,” Snipe says.

“That won’t be necessary, Snipe,” Nedzu interrupts. “Open the gate for the boy, will you?”

There is only a moment of hesitation before Snipe follows the order – and it was an order, Izuku is sure, regardless of how it was phrased – slipping past Izuku to swipe his ID card against a scanner that sends the gate sliding slowly to the side. Besides Nedzu, the man with the lie detection quirk slips a pair of cuffs out from a pocket in the lining of his long coat. Izuku’s eyes catch on the glint of the metal, and he freezes even as Snipe crosses through the gate and Midnight emerges from her hiding spot to the side to follow him.

“You can’t put those on me,” Izuku says. There is a pulse of panic inside him, and while it is reserved enough that he does not feel it, it is strong enough that Izuku is forced to acknowledge it. The man narrows his eyes.

“It’s standard protocol.”

“I’m not going to hurt anyone. But if you put those cuffs on me, I won’t be able to tell you anything.”

“Why not?”

“I’m using a quirk now. If it gets turned off, by me or you or anything else, I’ll experience the backlash, which will likely put me out of commission for an unknown amount of time.”

“What quirk?”

Of course a person with a quirk like lie detection would ask a lot of questions. Izuku can hardly begrudge the man that, given Izuku’s own inquisitive nature. But for every answer Izuku gives, there will be half a dozen new questions and Izuku doesn’t have time to fall down that rabbit hole right now.

“I will tell you everything I can. But only after I see Eraserhead.”

“You’re why he can’t use his quirk, aren’t you? It’s not his injury. You can give it back?”

Snipe, Midnight, and Vlad King all startle, blinking and trying to hide their surprise as they stare at Izuku with confusion, holding themselves with a new level of caution and wariness. Nedzu merely smiles. Some of them knew, then, and some of them didn’t. It made Izuku’s goal easier, to not have to explain, so for now, he just ignored the rest.

“Yes. That’s why I’m here. What hospital is he in? I understand if you’ll need to escort me, but I need to see him to give it back.” Izuku had hoped to return Erasure before the hero even had time to miss it, but that ship had sailed apparently. Later, perhaps, he would feel guilty for causing the hero any distress, but at the moment Izuku simply has a goal to meet and when that’s done with, he’ll have bigger things to feel guilty for.

“No need for that!” Nedzu chimes. “Eraserhead is right here on campus! Tsukauchi, put those cuffs away. Izuku is our guest.” The principal’s eyes gleam as the man, Tsukauchi, sighs.

“Nedzu, I can’t just–”

“Of course you can! Police protocol might involve quirk suppressing cuffs, but hero protocol doesn’t, and there are four pro heroes here, after all. Consider him under my custody instead of yours.” Tsukauchi sighs again, a long-suffering gust that does nothing to dull the savage glint of amusement in Nedzu’s eyes. Tsukauchi does not protest again.

“Now,” the – Rat? Mouse? Stout? Chimera? – principal says, “Eraserhead should be with Recovery Girl. You said time was of the essence, yes? Then let’s get going.”

Tomura knows his brother.

Izuku who is terrible at video games but always happy to play them. He never gets upset when he loses. He’ll let Tomura beat him over and over again and even when Tomura is being a particularly bad sport, Izuku will just roll his eyes and tolerate it.

Izuku who always gets on Tomura’s case about self-care. He makes sure Tomura eats and sleeps and even fucking moisturizes and god forbid Tomura try to ignore him. Izuku gets even more insufferable when he’s ignored, all petulant and snarky until Tomura is forced to give in to the younger boy’s wishes or risk going insane. But of course, the brat doesn’t actually practice what he preaches; he doesn’t take care of himself, so Tomura is forced to do it for him.

Izuku who is unbearably good. The kind of good that will forgive anyone anything. Except for himself, who’s smallest wrong doings are elevated to unforgivable sins. Izuku is so soft. He always has been. In the beginning, Tomura had aimed with a spiteful viciousness to toughen him up, but Izuku had only ever grown hard towards himself, staying so pitifully, vulnerably soft towards the rest of the world. And at some point, Tomura had stopped wanting to change that. Izuku could stay soft. Tomura would do the hard things for them both.

Tomura stares at the scene in the lab with his eyes softly unfocused, seeing only blurs of color – red, so much red – instead of the full reality of the situation.

“Where’s Izuku?” he asks flatly.

“He’s gone,” Kurogiri replies, soft and careful.

“Well, we need to find him, then. If he’s been taken–”

“Shigaraki Tomura.”

“If he’s been taken, we need to find him. Get him back.”

Izuku’s clothes are piled in the corner next to the sink, soaked in blood and carelessly abandoned. His phone has been left with them, as well as the alert button – the one Tomura and Izuku were meant to take with them everywhere, so Kurogiri could always come and get them if they ever found themselves in trouble.

Tomura does not look at these abandoned things. He does not think too hard about what must have happened here.

“We need to find him,” he repeats. Kurogiri remains silent.

Tomura knows his brother.

This was not his brother.

This was an enemy.

Everything is going to be fine.

Shouta has kept a mental tally of how many times Hizashi has said those exact words over the past two days. Seventeen. Twenty-nine, if he includes variants such as “we’re going to be okay,” and “it’ll be alright.”

Shouta knows Hizashi means well. The words are meant to be soothing, and they’re as much for Hizashi’s benefit as Shouta’s. Both of them are struggling with the idea that Shouta’s injuries may have permanently negated his quirk, but Hizashi is doing his best to stay supportive and positive.

But Shouta has never been a positive type of person. Hizashi is the optimist in their relationship while Shouta is the cold, hard realist. If, sometimes, that borders into pessimism, as Hizashi often insists it does, then that’s just a product of the fact that the world is so often a terrible place to live and there’s no use in pretending otherwise.

So, to Shouta, realist-arguably-pessimist, every utterance of “everything is going to be fine” only serves to emphasize the reality that here and now, in present tense, everything is very much not fine. Shouta cannot use his goddamned quirk and that is practically the antithesis of fine.

It’s not the end of the world. Shouta knows that, rationally. As much as their society orbits around quirks, they’re ultimately a very small part of who a person is and what they are capable of. Shouta is still Shouta, even without his quirk. He is still a teacher, still a hero, still a husband. He is exactly who he was before, only now he is unable to do a small thing that he is used to being able to do, a skill that everyone else gets by perfectly fine without. That’s all.

But also… Shouta has worked hard. He has worked so hard, fought tooth and nail, to make his quirk what it was, to make himself what he was. And now all that work is gone. Maybe he is still the same person, but how many others will see him as less now? How hard will he have to fight again to keep the respect he has already earned?

The doctor assured him that his situation may change with time, that he may simply be too injured to activate his quirk at the moment. Recovery Girl has echoed the sentiment. Yet Shouta can’t help but feel like fifteen years of hard-won progress is being ripped from his hands, like a rope tearing fast from grasping palms and leaving awful burns in its wake.

“Just you wait,” Hizashi says, knocking a fist lightly against Shouta’s forehead with an audibly forced smile. “You’ll be right as rain in no time.”

That makes it an even thirty.

They are both done with their work for the day and are waiting for Shuzenji, who insists that Shouta needs to check in with her every day so she can keep track of his condition and administer small healing session to chip away at the damage done to him. She bustles into the room remarkably fast on those short legs of hers and lets out a loud tsk the moment she sets eyes on Shouta where he sits on a cot, back and shoulders supported against a pillow, but legs twisted to the side and hanging off the edge.

“You should be in the hospital,” she says, blunt and scolding.

“You said the same thing yesterday.”

“It was true then and it’s true now. You’re a stubborn fool, Shouta, and Nedzu doesn’t pay me nearly enough to deal with you.”

“Your salary is obscene.”

“Not. Nearly. Enough.”

Hizashi snickers to the side as Shuzenji begins with her slew of tests, inspecting Shouta none-too-gently. He glares behind the gauze that covers his eyes, though he doubts it would have any effect on her, even if she could see it. After years of dealing with bullheaded heroes and reckless children, Shuzenji is all but immune to nasty looks and words. It takes much more than that to shake her. In fact, if there’s anything that can, Shouta has not found it yet.

From where Hizashi watches the proceedings, perched on the edge of the bed, a phone chimes, a distinct noise that makes Shouta’s whole body rigid. If Shouta had his own phone he would have checked it instantaneously – a trained response to the tone that is set for all messages sent to UA staff that are flagged as “URGENT” – but Hizashi took his phone halfway through the day because Shouta kept trying to shift the bandages away from his eyes to squint at the screen. The bed shifts as Hizashi worms his cell from the pocket of his too-tight pants.

“What is it?” Shouta asks the moment Hizashi has had a second to read whatever alert he has received.

“Nothing important.”

With a scowl, Shouta tries to sit up to extract more information from his husband – perhaps something properly useful, this time – but Shuzenji pushes him back into the pillows with the butt of her cane and a sharp click of her tongue.

“It’s nothing important,” she confirms. “Besides, even if Armageddon were descending upon the school, what exactly are you planning to do about it when you can hardly move, much less fight? Stay put.”

The words sting for how true they are. Shouta aches to do something, to be useful, but even if Hizashi and Shuzenji let him out of this bed, he wouldn’t be any good in a fight in this condition. It will be a while yet before he’s able to fight again, and even then, depending on what becomes of his quirk, he may never be able to operate like he used to. The burn of frustration and futility keep him silent for long minutes as Shuzenji continues her exam.

It is Nedzu that interrupts the silence, chiming in with a chirpy “knock, knock!” that is, of course, accompanied by no actual knock. “Shouta!” Nedzu exclaims, with his particular brand of malevolent cheerfulness that always sets Shouta’s hair on end. “You have a visitor!”

“Huh? Who the hell…?”

Shouta reaches for the bandages across his face, tugging at them as he searches blindly for where the wrap begins. He has no idea who could possibly want to see him and would warrant an escort from Nedzu, and he has no desire to deal with whatever mischief his boss is getting up to without even being able to see the rat. Shuzenji bats his hands away with another scornful click of her tongue, a familiar sound after all Shouta’s years as a student and coworker. Much more efficiently than Shouta could manage even with unimpeded sight, she unravels the bandages from his head.

“Let yourself adjust,” she scoffs when Shouta attempts to open his eyes immediately, only to slam them shut when light stabs like daggers into his unaccustomed pupils. Impatient, Shouta slits his eyes open, forcing them to adjust faster, despite the pain it invokes.

His vision is still slightly blurry, and everything is haloed by bright smears of hazy color. Each time he blinks, a little spike of pain shoots from the back of his eyes straight into his brain, and there is a lingering ache even when he does nothing at all, but the sensations are manageable.

Nedzu stands in the doorway, along with Detective Tsukauchi, Midnight, Snipe, and –

“This is Izuku!” Nedzu says, gesturing a hand toward the kid next to him.

The boy is wearing soft, oversized clothes, which serve to make him look even smaller than he already is. With his figure being hidden by the clothes and the roundness of his freckled face, it’s hard to get a read on how old he is, but Shouta is certain the kid can’t be a day above sixteen, and that’s if he’s being generous. He has fluffy dark hair that sticks out at odd angles in a mass of shapeless curls and glints a bright green where the light catches it. His eyes, large and equally green, scan over the room, flitting between doors and windows and people before landing on Shouta with disconcerting focus.

Detective Tsukauchi, half a step behind, keeps his eyes fixed on the kid, intent and calculating. Nedzu’s gleeful introduction has already put Shouta on edge, and the way Tsukauchi looks at the boy just reaffirms to Shouta that there is more to this situation, more to the child, than is immediately obvious.

“Izuku, this is Eraserhead,” Nedzu introduces. Izuku does not look at him, eyes locked on Shouta. “But I suppose you already knew that!”

Izuku steps forward, out of the doorway and into the room. He moves deliberately, with purpose that sends alarm bells ringing in Shouta’s head as he scrambles for whatever pieces of information he is obviously missing. There is something about the kid that is horribly familiar, but Shouta can’t put his finger on what, which only serves to put him more on edge. Tsukauchi, Snipe, and Midnight all watch Izuku carefully, as if bracing themselves for whatever he may do next, while Nedzu looks back and forth between Shouta and Izuku with undisguised curiosity.

Izuku stops a polite distance from the bed and drops into a deep bow. Shouta blinks, hard enough that he regrets it. Then blinks again when the kid is still bent in half, formal and repentant for Shouta has no idea what.

“I’m sorry,” Izuku says in a voice that is soft and high-pitched, but confident.

“Stand up,” Shouta orders, discomfort making the words blunt. Izuku does so. “I don’t know what you’re apologizing for.”

“Your quirk. I took it. I’m sorry.”

Shouta feels a bit like a computer that has blue screened.

“Excuse me. What?”

“Sorry,” the kid apologizes yet again. He frowns slightly, a small thing that breaks up the eerie smoothness of his features. “I’ve never had to explain this before. My quirk lets me take other people’s quirks. During the USJ attack, I took yours.”

Behind the kid, Snipe and Midnight shift uncomfortably. Tsukauchi’s gaze hardens. Nedzu smiles. At Shouta’s side, Hizashi chokes on a breath of air and then bends over towards his knees as he muffles his coughs. Shouta himself stares at the kid with eyes that sting for how wide they have gone, and while the words shake him – a quirk that can take other quirks, dear god – Shouta is more affected by the sudden wave of recognition that floods over him.

He remembers a foreign voice calling the name “Tomura,” practically sobbing it out with a desperation that went entirely dismissed. He remembers a small blur of green standing between one of his students and certain death. He remembers a child trying to reason with one of the most unreasonable men Shouta has ever had the displeasure of meeting, and he remembers the vague surprise when the child actually seemed to be succeeding.

And then, of course, Shouta remembers nothing, because he lost consciousness. After waking, he had heard some whispers about the strange boy who had been with the villains, but Shouta’s first concern had been with the wellbeing of his students, and then Hizashi had stopped him before he could get involved in the investigation, insisting Shouta focus on healing.

“Oh,” the kid says after the moment of silence has dragged on too long. “I’m here to return it. Sorry. I should have said that sooner.”

Never in his life has Shouta felt so wrong-footed. Surprise after surprise and he does not know how to process all this information, especially when it is still so full of gaps.

“Why?” Shouta asks, the first question he thinks.

“It’s not mine,” the kid answers simply.

“Then why did you take it?” There is an embarrassing edge of desperation to Shouta’s voice, but he is confused and trying to understand.

Thinking his quirk was gone had been simple. He knew what happened. He had overexerted himself, bitten off more than he could chew, and his injures had resulted in ocular damage that prevented him from activating his quirk, perhaps permanently. This burgeoning reality is so much more complicated and Shouta just wants to know what happened.

The kid bites his lip. “I didn’t want to take it. I know that doesn’t make it better, but it wasn’t a choice I made lightly. And I had hoped that I would be able to return it before you even realized it was gone. But I needed it.” He cuts his eyes over to Tsukauchi and meets the Detective’s cold gaze without cowering before looking back to Shouta. He half-reaches out a hand. “Can I give it back, before we get into why? The explanation might take a while.”

All Shouta can do is nod. Everyone watches Izuku approach the bed with varying degrees of surprise and trepidation, bar Nedzu who’s still wearing that inscrutable smile, no doubt scheming behind it.

“I need to touch you. Is that alright?”

Shouta nods again and the kid closes his hand gently around Shouta’s ankle. Hizashi hovers beside him, half protective and half hopeful. A few brief moments later, the time made to feel long by the tension saturating the room, and Izuku pulls his hand away, slumping slightly as he wobbles and catches himself on the metal frame of the bed’s footboard.

“Woah there,” Hizashi says, reaching for the kid on instinct but stopping short of touching him. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Izuku replies. “Just tired.” And the kid sounds it. He sounds the kind of tired that Shouta feels.

“Is that it?” Nedzu asks.

“Yep. I’m done. Erasure is back where it should be.”

“Shouta?” Nedzu checks, for confirmation.

The thing is, Shouta doesn’t feel any different. He couldn’t tell that his quirk was gone when he woke up in the hospital, and he can’t tell if it’s back, now. His eyes still hurt, just as they did before. His body aches.

So, Shouta does the only logical thing. Shuzenji is probably going to beat him upside the head with her cane for trying to use Erasure when his eyes are in the state they are, but the only way to know if he has it is to use it, so that’s what he does. Familiar, tingling heat flares in his temples as the quirk – his quirk, back where it belongs – comes to life. He holds it for barely a second before his eyes slam shut, reflexively retreating from the intense pain that sparked to life in his head the moment Erasure was activated. He hisses, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead as Hizashi reaches out to cradle Shouta’s head in cool hands, rubbing soft, soothing circles into his temples. The pain is nothing compared to the relief.

“Shigaraki,” Tsukauchi says, speaking up for the first time. His tone is not what the cold calculation in his eyes would have led Shouta to expect. He sounds cautious, uncertain.

“Holy shit,” Snipe breathes from just beyond the doorway. “Is he okay?”

Hizashi’s hands stop moving. Shouta slits his eyes open.

Izuku still stands at the foot of the bed, but the disconcerting composure he has worn this entire time has cracked down the center. It’s not like how glass shatters – smooth and sharp and simple. The kid has cracked jagged and deep, like a fissure through the earth, a chasm so dark no one could even begin to guess how far down it goes.

His pupils have dilated to pinpricks, eyes so wide Shouta can see white all the way around the iris. He’s got one hand pressed over his mouth and the other wrapped around the base of his throat, both shaking badly as he digs his nails into his skin. There is blood dried into his cuticles and the creases of his knuckles

“Kid,” Shouta says, soft and careful, “you need to calm down.”

But his words do nothing to make Izuku’s eyes focus. He takes two steps backwards, trembling and uncoordinated, then the toe of one foot catches on the heel of the other and he tumbles to the ground. He makes no attempt to catch himself, falling in a heap. His breath hitches. A whine builds in his throat, hardly audible.

“Midnight,” Shouta calls, and Nemuri, sensing his urgency, finally jolts into action.

She crosses the distance to the kid in a few, wide steps, pulling back the sleeve of her costume as she does. Pink mist wafts from her skin into Izuku’s face, and the beginnings of a scream die behind the boy’s teeth as he falls unconscious.

“Okay,” Hizashi says shakily into the sudden silence, “but what the fuck just happened?”

Let’s talk thermodynamics.

It’s all just theoretical, just a thought exercise.

Entropy reigns supreme. Everything trends towards disorder. What has been done cannot be undone.

He will never be a hero. He is the villain in his own story.

You can’t uncook an egg.

Do you push your father?

You can’t unslit a throat.

Once, Izuku had tried to kill his father, and afterwards, he cried for hours because he never should have tried in the first place.

There is a game.

This is real life. When people lose, they are lost. And they don’t come back. 

You can’t win.

Because they are just pawns on a chessboard and losing them means little to the man playing the game. 

You can’t break even.

Sometimes, it seems like every choice Izuku makes is wrong. It’s like he’s built for regret, no matter what he does.

You can’t even get out of the game.

There are no heroes in Izuku’s story. Only different types of villains.

Oh no.

This is not real life, he tells himself. He’s not actually here. Things like this don’t really happen. 

Oh no, no no nononono

He wishes this could be over already, he wishes this never happened in the first place, he wishes he was somewhere else, he wishes he didn’t exist at all. 

What has he done?

Once, Izuku would have gladly chosen being hurt over hurting someone else. He can no longer make that choice. He wishes he were stronger, but he has only gotten weaker. 

W̸̨͉̩̫͙͇̻̖̙̯͓̦̌̐͂̎h̷̰̝̀̎̈́̽̈́͆̕͝a̴̧̫̠̳̭̦̤͇͎̰̘̠̭͆̄̍̈̇t̶̡̡̥̝͇̘̲͚̪̝̲́̉̂̇̃͊͌̚̚̕͜ͅ ̷̛̞̂̅͐͌̒̈̒̉̐̈́̂͘̚͘h̴͓͐ͅå̶͚̮͛͌̎͌̎̇͝s̴̲͑̔͋͂͒̒͑̓͗̿̀̕͝ ̵̣͓̗̘̼̅̆̓́̒̉̑̎͒͗̽͌͂ḧ̷̛͙̰̤̤̳̾͂̂̈̍͆̉ȩ̴̬͈͔͇̜͎͇͇͎̒̈ ̶̨̱̹̭̣̝̝̺̻͙̉d̶͚͕̳͔̥͔̫̝͌̽̑͒̆́̎̅̿̂̃͘͝ǫ̴̟͎̟̺͙͓̬̥͔̝̪͚̆͒͒̽̅̓̍̄̅̌͋̚ṉ̷̼̍̄͌̂̈́̑͒͑̎ë̴̯̹͚͇̱̮͎̗̫̲̣̘́̈́͋̈̿̈́̒̎̋?̶̛̘̜̦̱̬̖́͂̈́̽̉͌̒̕̚͠͝͠͝

“What’s my role here?”

“You are your father’s son.”

Ẅ̷̢̛͙͍͉͎̦͔̫́̇͗̌̄̓͛̓͌̇͊͌͆͒̅̕̚̚H̷̢̨̼͉͇̠̗̣̜̮̩̻̘̞̟̬̭̦̰̼̤̝͆̀̄̑̅̆̚͜͜ͅĂ̵̧̧̟̳̳̺̼̻̟̣̱̥̦͍̮̹̫̱͎̠̯̞̗̻̍̍͊͌̆̋̂̊͂̓̄̿̚͜͜͠T̷̢̛̛̮̙͖͚̄̃͆̊̈́͂̏̎̔̽͗̍̍̓̑͐̇̍̐̚̚͠ ̶̡̡̨͚̘͖̟͎̮͈̪̱̙̖͉͚̬̦̞̘̬͕̬̮̤͒̇͑̈͝Ḩ̶̨̪͓̟̘̺͈̦͔͖̟̺̩̺̮͕̟͙͎͓̦͈̗̘̍̀̅͌̄̊̎̇̌͋̀͒͘̕͜Ą̵͇̰͕̥̭̞̖͇͔̙̟̣̹͚͍̫̱̪̮̬̪̲̞̱͈̻͋̃̌̋́͋̋͐̈́̄͗̃̀̊̔͂̒̒͋͌͆͛̈́̚͘͘͘͠͠ͅŞ̸̡̫̮̥̣͚̖̦͔͙͙̦̱͛̉̒́̃̄̑̅̔̑͆̈́͗̔̉̓͝͠͝ ̸̡̨̨̻̘̬̝̠̜̣̼̘̱̠̙̳̮͍̲͈͇͍̜̼̥͓̬̳̉̅̄̆ͅH̸͇̪̻̉̊̌̌̒̈̌͒̉̕͝͠͠Ė̵̝͇͕̻̗̻̣̝̣̓̿̌͂ ̷̢̡̙͍̥̲͙̤̝̗̼̞͖͖̜͚͓̹̘̬̩̑̓̊̾̐͌̂̌͗͌̑̉͘̕͜͜͜͝D̸̨̨̢̨̛̯͙͙̼̙͔̪̼̠̰̯͇̣̺͈̗̩̲̩̯͎̟̬͎̻̫͇̟̽͂̍̌̀̆̆̈͐̏̑̄̿͋̅̈́́̓͝͝Ö̴̢̮̠̒̿͊͌̃͂̂̿͆͝͠N̵̲̖͉͋͋̉͂͌̎̒̐̈́̓̀̅͂͝E̸̢̨̟̼͓̫̗̰̹̬̤̜̭̪̣͉͌̍͒̾͒͋̒͗̓̆̾̇͐̊̾͂̕͜ͅ?̶̡̙̼͇̳͙̦͎̭̩̤̼͓͙̭̬̿͠

Chapter Text

Tomura knows loss.

Once, he lost everything. He felt it fall apart beneath his fingers. He tried his best to hold on, but the touch of his hands brought distaster, and then Tomura was alone.

He knows loss. He knows the way it hollows you out. He knows how it feels to wonder why you are the only one left.

Once, Tomura was lost, but then he was found, and after that, everything was meant to be okay.

Now, he stares at the empty bookshelves in his brother’s room. Bookshelves that are meant to be stuffed with journals that the brat guards better than his own life.

How do things disappear so quickly? Where do they go?

Where has Izuku gone?

It feels too much like loss. A helpless, whining feeling that Tomura was never supposed to have to feel again. But it’s not. It’s not loss. Tomura is not a crying child stuck on his own. He is a grown man with the power to change the world.

This is not loss.

This is theft.

It is Shuzenji, unshakable in the face of anything life throws at her, who moves into action, commanding the other heroes in the room with an easy authority that knocks them all out of their stunned trances.

“What are you waiting for!” she barks. “Someone get him up into a bed. No, not you Nemuri, you have no business trying to lift a teenaged boy on those heels of yours. Hizashi! Get over here, come on! I can hardly carry the boy myself!”

Hizashi practically leaps from Shouta’s side to do as he’s been told, bundling the kid up and scooping him off the floor in a single motion that looks far too easy, showing no sign of weight or strain from the body in his arms. He drops Izuku into the empty bed next to Shouta’s, carefully arranging the boy’s limbs into a comfortable position.

“Tsukauchi, you’ll tell me what you know about this boy. The rest of you, get out,” Shuzenji orders as soon as the kid is where she needs him. “Not you, Shouta,” she says when he makes to stand. “I still have to rebandage your eyes and make sure you didn’t do any damage with that little stunt of yours. Stay put. The rest of you – out!”

“Chiyo–” Nedzu begins, but she cuts him off with a single look.

“Yes, you.” It is a credit to Shuzenji that Nedzu makes for the door with merely a smile and shrug, no further argument, though Shouta is willing to bet just about anything that the scheming rodent will still be watching over the security cameras. The staff follows his lead easily, all except Hizashi who hesitates between the two beds, eyes lingering on Shouta. “You, too, Hizashi. The child doesn’t need you all hovering over him and your husband will be fine without you for half an hour. I am perfectly capable of doing my job without an audience, thank you very much.”

“Ah, right,” Hizashi agrees with a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck. He pulls Shouta’s phone out of his jacket pocket and passes it over, Shouta taking it clumsily between stiff but thankfully not-casted fingers. “Call me if you need anything. I’ll meet you in the lounge when you’re done, ‘kay?” Shouta nods tersely, and with one last glace, first at Shouta, then at the child in the next bed over, Hizashi leaves, softly tugging the door closed behind him.

Immediately, Shuzenji is attending to the kid, moving with the quick confidence that comes with the decades of work she has dedicated to her field.

“What can you tell me about him?” she asks as she scribbles a handful of measurements down on sheet of paper. She does not look up and Tsukauchi startles slightly where he stands in the corner of the room.

“Shigaraki Izuku, born Midoriya Izuku. Fifteen years old. A member of the League of Villains, seemingly with a degree of authority. He’s legally Quirkless, but recent developments would indicate otherwise. The exact extent and nature of his actual quirk are all unknown, but it includes the ability to steal the quirks of others.”

“Certainly not Quirkless,” Shuzenji mutters half to herself. “Can’t suffer from quirk exhaustion if you don’t have one to begin with. Do you have any idea what happened to him just now?”

“When he arrived, he mentioned having a quirk active. He wouldn’t say what it did, but he mentioned backlash if it were to be turned off. That’s why he wasn’t in cuffs.”

“Oh, is that why?” she asks, in a dry tone that makes Tsukauchi shift uncomfortably. “If I had to guess, it was some kind of emotion-based quirk. I know a panic attack when I see one, and the boy was far too composed when he came in. Emotion quirks tend to be nasty.” She sighs, attempting to wrangle the kid out of his hoodie but making little progress. Shouta moves to help her but sinks back into the cot when she levels a glare on him. “Tsukauchi, help me get this off him. I can’t look him over when he’s drowning in fabric.”

With Tsukauchi’s assistance, it is a simple matter to get the hoodie over the kid’s head, and Shouta can’t help but frown at what’s revealed. Izuku is small – and he looks smaller still when he’s pale and unconscious in an infirmary bed – but he is not skinny or emaciated in the way Shouta half-feared he would be. There’s a puckered scar in the hollow of the kid’s left shoulder, sore-looking and slightly red around the edges, but well healed, seeming weeks or even months old, rather than a short few days. Physically Izuku looks more or less fine – good, even. That’s not what pulls Shouta up short.

It’s the blood.

The kid is covered in blood.

Admittedly, covered is a bit of an overstatement. Really, there’s not much at all, but it’s all over him. Dried into the creases of his elbow, the dip of his collar bones. There’s a flaking smear along the side of his ribs, flecks over his hipbone. Perhaps Izuku is not covered in blood, but there’s enough traces of it for Shouta to realize that, not too long ago, Izuku was. If the sharp intake of air is any indication, Tsukauchi has come to the same conclusion.

“It’s not his,” Shuzenji says as she prods lightly at the healing bullet wound.

“Who’s is it, then?” Tsukauchi asks.

“How am I meant to know? I’m a doctor, not a wizard.” Apparently, she has nothing more to say on the topic of how a teenaged boy could come to be covered in blood that is not his own, because she moves on with an easy shrug. “There’s not much I can do for him. Other than the gunshot, which someone else has already done work on, his only issue is an intermediate case of quirk exhaustion. He’ll be awake as soon as Nemuri’s quirk wears off. For better or for worse. Get that sweatshirt back on him.”

“How long will that take?” Tsukauchi asks, dutifully maneuvering the kid back into his clothes as Shuzenji whirls on Shouta, scoffing to herself about his eyes under her breath, low enough that Shouta can hear only enough of what she’s saying to know he’s being insulted.

“Half an hour, maximum.”

Tsukauchi sighs to himself, hooking his ankle around a nearby chair to drag it closer to the bed. He sits and, after a moment, pulls a pair of cuffs out from his coat.

“You can’t be serious,” Shouta blurts, flat and unamused.

“Not you, too,” Tsukauchi groans, tipping his head back with a long-suffering air that Shouta doesn’t think he’s entitled to. “It’s protocol, Aizawa. I know heroes can play fast and loose with that, but it exists for a reason. I thought you appreciated that? He is an unknown factor with an incredibly dangerous – potentially disastrous – quirk.”

“He’s a kid.”

“A kid who, at the very least, associates with villains.”

“He’s shown us nothing but good faith,” Shouta argues, ignoring Shuzenji even as she shines a light in his eye that is so bright he feels like his optic nerves have been set aflame. “He saved multiple lives at the USJ and delivered himself directly into hero custody to return my quirk.”

“He stole your quirk. He only needed to return it because he stole it. His role in the USJ incident is still unclear. We have no idea what his motives were. Not to mention the blood he has on him, now. He may be young, but that doesn’t mean he’s innocent. This isn’t one of your students, Aizawa.”

“There’s a thin line between cautious and callous.”

“And an equally thin one between sympathetic and sentimental.”

Shouta grits his teeth as Shuzenji wraps gauze back over his eyes. He listens carefully for Tsukauchi’s movements and the snick of handcuffs being tightened into place is unmistakable. As is Shuzenji’s soft, resigned sigh, though she doesn’t say a word against it.

Shouta recognizes the validity of Tsukauchi’s words, and that makes the situation all the more bitter. It is naïve to think that someone means well just because they are young. If years of teaching have taught Shouta anything it’s that teenagers are, in fact, some of the most spiteful and malevolent creatures on the planet. If the kid, Izuku, does mean them harm, in any way, for any reason, the cuffs are a vitally important tool. And if the kid’s intentions really are good, then cuffing him as a precaution does little to no damage in the long run. It is better to be safe than sorry.

But despite that, despite the truth and the logic, Shouta already is sorry. He’s sorry this kid who just had a meltdown brought about by god knows what is going to wake up handcuffed and surrounded by strangers who will be demanding answers the kid may or may not have.

“I want to be there when you question him,” Shouta says, a compromise with the pit in his stomach. There’s nothing he can do right now to make the situation better, but he can assure that it doesn’t get worse.

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” Shouta can hear Tsukauchi shift in his chair as the other man stalls for words. Shuzenji moves about the room with fast, light steps as she tidies up.

“It’s confidential.”

“Excuse me?” Shouta asks, baffled. Tsukauchi is a man obsessed with truth, and Shouta has not known him to lie, but the offered explanation is ridiculous. “I was at the USJ. The only reason I’m not part of the investigation myself is because Hizashi won’t let me get involved. I have clearance for this.”

“There’s… more to the situation,” Tsukauchi explains haltingly. “It’s not something I can get into, but if the boy is who I think he is, this goes beyond the USJ.”

“Is that supposed to make me give in? Because, if anything, I’m more curious that I already was.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.” Now, more than ever, Shouta curses the inability to roll his eyes. He hates that expression.

“Satisfaction brought it back,” he deadpans, hoping his tone can convey even an ounce of just how unsatisfying he finds this exchange. If Tsukauchi’s weary exhale is anything to go on, Shouta succeeds.

“That’s not – you can’t be there.” Tsukauchi says it strong and final, as if putting enough emphasis on the words will make Shouta care any more about them. It doesn’t. With one last clatter, Shuzenji exits the room, silently leaving the two men to their debate.

“You can’t question the kid alone. He’s a minor and you don’t have a guardian’s permission to speak with him.”

“He’s a suspect.”

“And it’s protocol to question suspects in pairs, to ensure they’re treated properly. I know how you love protocol.”

“All Might will be questioning him with me.”

“Yagi? What does he have to do with this?”

“It’s–”

“Let me guess: a national secret.”

“I was going to say confidential. That’s the official word.”

Shouta hisses an aggravated breath through his teeth. All Might and his secrets. The man is so obsessed with standing as a symbol that he has practically erased all evidence of himself as a person. Even the man’s name is a national secret. Shouta doesn’t even want to get into the whole deal with the man’s injury and his time limit and all those wild revelations Shouta and the rest of the staff at UA had been deemed worthy of when All Might joined their numbers.

“Wait,” Shouta says, realization dawning on him. “When you say ‘confidential,’ do you mean actually, legally confidential? Or do you mean confidential as in All Might wants to keep another secret? Because these are two very different things.”

Tsukauchi’s silence is answer enough.

Somehow, Izuku is surprised to wake up. Surprised and not exactly pleased.

The handcuffs are less surprising.

“Oh,” a blonde man with a gauntly thin face says, “he’s awake.”

He is. He wishes he wasn’t. Maybe he can go back to sleep. He wonders how long he could sleep for, if he really, really tried.

“Shigaraki,” says another man, this one with dark brown hair and features that are forgettable compared to his skeletal companion. Tsukauchi, Izuku recalls. The man with the lie detection quirk who met Izuku at the gates of UA. UA, where Izuku went after –

His breath catches. His arms jerk reflexively. The cuffs around his wrists jostle and the chain connecting them chimes, a bright metal sound that Izuku pours all of his focus into, shaking his hands to ensure silence doesn’t get a chance to fall.

“Shigaraki,” Tsukauchi repeats, his voice softer this time. “Are you alright? Do you need anything? Water, maybe?” Izuku shakes his head, jangles his wrists, keeps his eyes trained on the gleam of fluorescent lighting dancing over the silver. “Sorry about the cuffs. It’s protocol.” Someone scoffs.

“No,” Izuku says, somehow simultaneously too breathy and starved for air. “I-it’s fine. Um, b-better this way, p-pr-probably.” He gasps a breath and chokes on it. His throat feels like it is full of cotton, leaving no room for things like oxygen or words.

“We have some questions for you, young man, if you would be willing to answer them for us,” the blonde says, and Izuku nods robotically.

“Is it alright if I record this?” Tsukauchi asks, pulling a small, rectangular taping device from his coat. Izuku nods – he has not stopped nodding since the blonde man spoke. Tsukauchi hits a button on the devices side and sets it on the table next to the bed Izuku has been placed in. “Can you state your name for the record?”

“I-Izuku.”

“Your full name, please.”

Do you prefer Shigaraki or Midoriya?

Sorrow – want – shame.

Izuku has been Shigaraki for five years. And as much as he loved loves his father and Tomura, the entire time, he craved to be Midoriya. The name he was born with, his mother’s name. But Midoriya Izuku had not done the things this Izuku has done.

What has been done cannot be undone.

“M-M-M–” Izuku swallows, painful for how tight his throat is, and tries again, forcing the syllables out even as his teeth try to bite them off. “Mid-Midoriya Izuk-ku.” The way he says it does not sound like Midoriya, the warm and familiar name he has longed for. It’s faltering and drawn out and he hates it.

Tsukauchi pauses, tapping his finger twice on the arm of his chair. The blonde man looks at that finger with a frown, and Izuku bites his cheek until he tastes iron.

“Is that your full, legal name?” Tsukauchi asks. His voice is carefully neutral, but Izuku’s heart sinks. Two taps and heavy glances. A lie detection quirk. He squeezes his eyes shut.

“Y-yes,” he says.

One tap.

Midoriya Izuku is Izuku’s full legal name. That’s the truth. But it’s not really his anymore, is it? He lost it. Ruined it. Killed it.

Izuku chokes, tears welling against the tight seam of his eyelids, a burning pressure that builds relentlessly until it breaks, leaking down his face.

“Are you alright?” Tsukauchi asks again, his voice even softer this time. “We can do this later.”

“I-I’m f-f-fine,” Izuku insists. Tsukauchi does not tap at all, and Izuku is grateful not to be called on the lie. “We-we have to d-do this n-now.”

“You said before that you don’t have much time. What did you mean by that?”

“T-Tom-mura. And – and K-Kurogiri. They – They’ll f-find me. S-soon.”

“They don’t know you’re here?”

“N-no. I lef-left. Had to. To-Tomura, he – oh god.”

Izuku bends forward, burying his face against his knees, cradling his cuffed hands against his chest, curling into that pulsing raw void that has opened up inside him. It pulls at him like a blackhole, tugging him until he’s nothing but long, thin filaments. He’s going to snap into pieces, and all those little fragments are going to be sucked into the engulfing abyss between his ribs, and then there will be nothing left of him. He wishes it would just happen already, instead of dragging out like this. Everyone knows that it is best to kill someone quickly.

He’s like a dying plant, Izuku thinks hysterically.

Always dying. Never dead.

Izuku swears he means to laugh, but a sob comes out instead.

“Shig – Midoriya, you’re alright. I need you to take a deep breath for me.”

Izuku means to listen, he does. He’s not trying to cause problems, but he just can’t. Every time he tries to inhale, something stabs into his lungs and his throat clamps down and the air is too hot and wet, and he just can’t, he can’t. Izuku can’t breathe and he can’t see, and he is finally going to die like this, pathetic, covered in snot and his father’s blood.

“Hey there kiddo, I’m going to touch you, alright? I’m not going to hurt you, just touch you.”

Izuku can’t answer – he can barely understand what is being said to him, the words filtering through his head somehow wavy, like he’s deep underwater. But the hands on Izuku are warm and solid and almost heavy enough to keep Izuku’s soul pinned inside his body. The hands grab Izuku’s and pull them forward until he can feel a steady heartbeat beneath his palms.

“Match my breathing.”

Izuku is led through familiar cycles, ones he practiced with Tomura years ago before Tomura decided that breathing exercises were stupid and he wouldn’t be humoring Izuku about them anymore. Izuku fumbles through the first few, breath stuttering and broken and off count, but each time, a gentle voice says, “good job, keep going,” and Izuku does, and the next cycle is a little easier.

“And to think,” someone says when Izuku is finally breathing easy enough that spots stop dancing in his vision, “you wanted to question him alone.”

“Yes, Aizawa, thank you.”

“Hizashi’s the one who did all the work.”

It takes a moment for the words to reach Izuku, but once they do, he jerks his head around so quickly his neck cricks, staring with horrified eyes at the man in the next bed over, gone unnoticed up to this point.

Aizawa Shouta.

Eraserhead.

Izuku hadn’t been able to appreciate how terrible the hero looked when he first saw him. The only skin Izuku can see is the tips of the man’s fingers, everything else covered by his clothes or swaths of bandages. After a day of sleep, Izuku had recovered almost entirely from the events of the USJ, but Eraserhead, even with access to some of the best healers in the country, still looked like he was on death’s door. It is a miracle that Eraserhead is alive at all. No thanks to Izuku, who only watched as he was brutalized, who took advantage of the hero’s condition to steal from him.

“I’m sorry,” Izuku blurts. He said it before, but he hadn’t been able to mean it the way he needed to, then. “I t-took your quirk, I s-stole it! I’m so sorry, I–”

“Hey, hey, hey.”

Izuku’s hands, still in the grasp of another, still pressed against a steady heartbeat, are squeezed. Now that Izuku is listening better, the voice is familiar, if softer than he has ever heard it on the radio. Present Mic is sitting in front of him, smiling kindly, and how that managed to escape Izuku’s attention is a testament to just how fragmented he feels.

“We just calmed you down kid,” Eraserhead says while Izuku stares at the new hero in the room, the one sitting so close to him, the one touching him, as if Izuku couldn’t take advantage of that contact to do horrible things. “Don’t go getting yourself worked up again. You already apologized. Six times, now. Not that I’m counting.”

Izuku blinks, off kilter and overwhelmed, caught on the edges of Present Mic’s smile. It is such a soft expression, gentle and reassuring, kind in a way that Izuku doesn’t deserve. These people have no idea what Izuku has done. They should look at him like Tsukauchi did when Izuku arrived – cold and guarded. He has tricked them, fooled them, lied to them without saying a word and lulled them all into a trap he didn’t even mean to set.

“You said you stole Aizawa’s quirk,” the blonde man interjects – the stranger, not Present Mic, who is also very blonde and is still holding Izuku’s hands in his. “How did you do that?”

Izuku tears himself away from Present Mic, pulling his eyes and hands away in the same movement as he turns to face the blonde stranger. He tucks his hands close to his chest, as if that will prevent him from hurting anyone.

 It won’t. Nothing will.

“It’s what my quirk does,” Izuku answers at a whisper.

“You said earlier that you needed Eraserhead’s quirk, specifically,” Tsukauchi says, shooting the blonde stranger a look that Izuku can’t interpret. “Can you elaborate on why?”

Izuku looks at his hands, balled into fists against his chest where he can pretend they’re harmless. Blood has dried a rusty brown, caked under his fingernails, proving that he’s anything but. He stretches his fingers out, staring helplessly at the evidence of everything he has done, of everything that cannot be undone.

Izuku doesn’t want to say it. He’s not entirely sure he can say it. He wants to curl up in a ball and scream and scream and scream until all the bad things inside of him are gone, which means he would probably be screaming forever.

He doesn’t want to explain, but he needs to. He has to. He has to. It’s why he’s here. He came all this way, he did all this, and now he must explain himself.

And maybe when he’s done, he can finally rest. Behind bars or in whatever cell the heroes stick him in. In whatever afterlife Tomura sends him to.

It is hard to speak. Every sound wants to be a shriek. Izuku’s voice wants to shatter into nonsensical pieces. But he forces words into subservience, strained and thready and barely audible, praying he won’t be asked to repeat himself.

“I needed it to kill my father.”

I needed it to kill my father.

Shouta has never felt a silence so poignant as the one that follows that murmured confession. He wishes he could see the look on the kid’s face. He wishes he could reach out and touch. Lay a hand on the kid’s shoulder, maybe. Shouta doesn’t know, exactly – it’s an entirely alien desire to him, who neither likes to touch nor be touched, with the sole exception of Hizashi, who Shouta has loved for half his life.

But there is something about this kid.

Shouta has seen murderers. He has seen the worst of humanity, has looked into the eyes of dozens of people who thrive on the suffering of others, who plan their every action with the sole intent of causing people pain for the sake of their own pleasure.

Most murderers, though, are not like that. Shouta has seen all kinds of murderers. Some are righteous, some are frantic, some are confused or lost, angry or scared. He has seen them young, remorseful, even tortured by guilt. He has seen them cry and plead and punish themselves far worse than the law would deem just. He has seen villains and victims and both wrapped into one. He has seen it all.

It never gets any easier.

“Young man,” Yagi says, voice appropriately grave but stern in a way Shouta wants to protest, even if he can’t say it’s entirely unjustified. “Who was your father?”

“Shigaraki Hisashi,” the kid says, words fragmented and pieced back together like stained glass. “And… and All for One.”

Neither name means anything to Shouta, but they certainly mean something, judging by the way both Yagi and Tsukauchi suck in sharp breaths.

“That can’t be,” Yagi denies.

“He’s telling the truth,” Tsukauchi says, though he sounds doubtful even as he verifies the claim. “What does Erasure have to do with this?”

“M-my f-fa – my dad, he–” the kid’s sentence dissolves, cutting off with a whine, far too similar to the sound he made when Shouta stupidly erased whatever quirk he was using. Shouta sits up, making to stand, though he has no idea what he is planning to do or how he is meant to help when he doesn’t have working eyes or arms.

Hizashi, thankfully, is a step ahead of him.

“Hush, listener, you’re alright,” Hizashi says in a carefully moderated tone that Shouta wishes he would put in the effort to use more often. “You don’t need to talk, you don’t need to answer any more–” Hizashi pauses. “Okay, okay. Do you know sign language?” Another pause. “Maybe you could write it down, then. You write, I’ll read. Does that sound good? You have some paper on you, Detective?”

“Of course,” Tsukauchi responds, accompanied by the tell-tale rustle of him searching through the many pockets of his coat. “My quirk doesn’t work with writing, though.”

“We can worry about fact checking later, yeah? For now, let’s just get everything out there.”

Shouta sits in his bed, listening as close as he can to the scratch of pen across paper, and feels distinctly useless. With Hizashi here, Shouta can at least trust that the situation is being well-handled, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like some kind of twisted voyeur, audience to distress but unable to contribute anything meaningful to help abate it.

After a long moment, Hizashi clears his throat and reads, “‘My father had a quirk like mine. He had a lot of quirks that he had stolen. Some of them were keeping him alive, in spite of severe injuries he had received. I needed Erasure to get rid of those.’”

“No,” Yagi repeats, and Shouta can perfectly imagine the stubborn set of the man’s jaw from his tone. “All for One has been dead for years.” Pen scratches on paper and Yagi huffs a frustrated breath. “No. I killed him, I’m sure of it.” The scratching pauses, then resumes, slow and deliberate.

“Ah,” Hizashi says when the pad of paper is passed to him. “‘My father was badly injured in a fight against–’ well. He says, ‘in a fight against All Might when I was nine years old. He didn’t die. You never found a body, did you?’”

A new silence falls, and Shouta curses internally at Yagi’s carelessness. For a man so obsessed with secrets, he gives himself away remarkably quickly under pressure. It’s a miracle his identity and health situation weren’t already known to the whole country.

“No,” Yagi eventually replies. “I didn’t.”

“So, All for One didn’t die six years ago, as we had believed, but he is dead now?” Tsukauchi asks, sounding impressively composed given what Shouta has gathered to be a rather large revelation.

“‘Yes,’” Hizashi reads, his confusion leaking into the affirmative. Shouta – still puzzling out the situation himself, trying to piece the information together literally blind – relates.

“What do you know about his plans? What has he been doing, all these years?”

“‘I don’t know. He always said he wanted to make the world better–’ He put that in quotes, by the way, ‘–but he never told me what that meant. Mostly, he just raised me. He was my dad.’” There is a subtle thread of discomfort in Hizashi’s voice, obvious to Shouta, who can identify every one of his husband’s many cadences. It’s a strange and painful contrast to the soft sniffles and teary gasps coming from the kid.

“What about the League of Villains? Who is Shigaraki Tomura?”

“‘Tomura isn’t the villain.’ He, uh, underlined ‘isn’t’ three times.”

“Then who is?”

“Me!” the kid shouts, paper crunching and rustling as he discards the pad. “Or-or my f-father, o-or I – I don’t know, I d-don’t know, but Tomura – he, he n-never asked f-for this, he never g-got a ch-cho-choice! You can’t just – you can’t. I’ll be the villain! I-I’ll be the v-villain but you n-ne-n – you n-need to save T-Tomura.”

“Midoriya, please, take a breath–”

“No! N-no! I did – oh g-god – I d-did all t-this s-so T-Tom-Tomura c-could be s-safe. You c-can’t!”

“Hey listener, hey, shhh, you’re going to be okay, just breathe with me alright? Just breathe.”

With the kid spiraling into yet another breakdown, Shouta has officially had enough. He stands, exuding all the intimidation he can in the state he’s in, and turns towards where Yagi and Tsukauchi’s voices originate from.

“Out,” he commands, prepared to physical remove them both from the room if needs must, regardless of the plaster around his arms.

“Aizawa–” Tsukauchi begins, obviously about to protest but at least having the good grace to sound remorseful about it. Shouta doesn’t particularly want to hear it, either way.

“No. Out. None of your questions are so important that they can’t wait until he’s stable enough to answer them.”

“Young Aizawa, you don’t understand what’s at stake here–”

“I understand,” Shouta interrupts, pitching his voice higher to be heard over the increasing volume of Izuku’s cries, “that we are working with a traumatized child, and I’m not about to let you traumatize him further. He’s not going anywhere. Out, now.”

Ultimately it is a wail, ear-piercing and ghastly, that achieves Shouta’s goal and drives the men out of the room. Shouta himself lingers for a moment, wishing he had some way to assess the situation other than sound because it certainly doesn’t sound like things are going well. But beneath the kid’s hysterical noises, Shouta can still hear Hizashi’s soothing words, well-practiced and calm, giving away none of the stress Shouta is sure he’s feeling.

Zashi is good at this stuff– far better than Shouta. Maybe there’s no consoling someone in a situation like this, no way to offer any kind of comfort that matters, but Hizashi has always been a pillar of support for anyone that needs him, and he’s especially good with kids.

Izuku will be safe, if not sound.

It is still hard for Shouta to leave them behind.

“We need to figure out how we’re going to handle this,” he says as he closes the door to the infirmary. The sound of panic is muffled, but not muted, behind it.

“Well,” Yagi begins, “you mentioned he had some kind of emotional suppression quirk that allowed him to get this far. Perhaps he could just turn that back on–”

“No,” Shouta interrupts.

“He has essential information. If whatever quirk he was using before would put him in a state to share it–”

“Absolutely not. Out of the question.”

“Quirks of that nature often prove detrimental to long-term mental health,” Tsukauchi says. The detective has been oscillating up and down in Shouta’s favor all afternoon, but his rationality here is certainly a point in his favor. “It would be entirely unethical for us to advocate for the kid to use it further.”

“Of course,” Yagi agrees with a sigh. “You’re right. I apologize, I shouldn’t have suggested it. But the fact remains that the boy needs to be interrogated.”

“He does,” Shouta says. “But that’s not something we can rush. Getting a proper statement from him will take time. The question is what we do with him in the meantime.”

Yagi hums. “There are plenty of open cells at the station, I’m sure.”

“No,” Tsukauchi refutes before Shouta can, gaining another point in his favor. “The station doesn’t have high enough security. Based on what Midoriya has said about limited time and Shigaraki and Kurogiri coming to find him, we’ll want a heavy guard on him. Tartarus seems a bit extreme, without having established how culpable the boy himself is, but the Commission has holding cells that should be sufficient.” Shouta immediately detracts the point.

“You’re kidding,” Shouta bites out, voice flat and scornful. “If you hand him over to the Commission the kid will never see light again, no matter how innocent or guilty he ends up being.”

“He’s dangerous, Aizawa,” Yagi counters.

“‘Dangerous,’ says the man who could level half the country in a minute flat. We’re all dangerous.”

 “You have no idea what that boy is capable of.”

“Neither do you. You know what his father is capable of. Terrible things, I’d guess. But you can’t just lock up a child and throw away the key because you’re afraid of things he might do when you don’t even know what he has done.”

“He attacked the USJ–”

“Harming no one, and, in fact, preventing the death or injury of at least two students.”

“He murdered his father.”

“Who was apparently a villain.”

“It’s a crime, nonetheless–”

“He killed a man that you believed to be long dead by your own hand.”

“That’s different. I’m a hero.”

“I have news for you, Yagi. The only thing that separates most heroes from most villains is a government sanction. If he were anyone else, you’d be thanking him.”

They fall into silence. If not for the bandages covering Shouta’s eyes, he imagines they would be engaged in an intense stare down, but as it is, they just stand next to each other, tense.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Tsukauchi asks. He sounds tired and resigned, like a man with a choice to make but no good options to pick from.

“Yes, actually,” Shouta responds. “Take him into protective custody. Put him in a safehouse and guard him with as many heroes and officers as you think necessary to protect the kid from the League and the outside world from the kid. Keep him there for as long as it takes to get the information you need from him and determine where he stands in this whole mess. If he’s dangerous, he’ll be contained. And if he’s not – if he’s just a kid who got dealt a shit hand and made of it what he could – then he’ll be safe and comfortable until we can figure out what to do with him in the long-term.”

“You’ve really latched onto this kid, haven’t you?” Tsukauchi asks with a sigh.

“I’m a teacher,” Shouta deadpans. “Advocating for children is my job. And I’m a hero. I know a victim when I see one.”

“Alright, fine. I’ve got some calls to make.”

Tsukauchi wanders down the hall to do just that, leaving Shouta and Yagi standing outside the infirmary. Behind the door, Izuku is no longer screaming, but soft sobs still filter through, tragic background noise. Shouta can’t wait to get home and curl up on the couch with the cats and finally take a goddamned nap. Exhaustion weighs him down like a stone slab, but he suspects with jaded resignation that sleep will evade him tonight.

“I hope you’re right about the boy,” Yagi says eventually. “For everyone’s sake.”

Here’s the thing – Shouta will admit that it’s possible that he’s wrong. He doesn’t think he is, but he could be. Maybe the kid has already been thoroughly corrupted by whoever the hell All for One was. Maybe he will grow up to be the worst villain they have ever seen. Maybe he will destroy them all, like Yagi seems to think.

But even if he is, even if he does, Shouta would make the same choice. Shouta would sooner die than condemn a child due to his own paranoia, even if there is a degree of merit to those fears. Because it’s a simple fact of life that all children deserve a chance.

“You’re not a cruel man, Yagi,” he says. “Pull your head out of your ass.”

Tomura knows anger.

Anger is hot and familiar. It warms him from the inside out, so much so that he sometimes feels like he is boiling in his skin. It lives inside him like a parasite, feeding off of everything he does.

Anger is the only thing that has been with Tomura his entire life. Father taught him anger, and then Sensei taught him what to do about it. Tomura knows it inside and out, and it knows him just as well.

Anger is not bloody clothes and empty bookshelves. Phones and panic buttons and other important things left behind. Losing things, losing people, losing yourself.

This is not anger.

This is wrath.

Chapter Text

When they say they are taking Izuku to a safehouse, he expects a small, dark room underground that will keep him contained so he can’t hurt anyone else.

What he gets is a house.

It is not particularly large. The front door has several locks that only the heroes can open, and the windows are all covered by curtains that wouldn’t budge even if Izuku pulled at them. There are cameras everywhere – some obvious, with blinking lights and bodies that swivel towards motions, others small and nondescript, designed to be unnoticeable like the one at the gates of UA. At least two heroes and one police officer are in the house at all times, sometimes more. They are neither kind nor cruel, as silent and watchful as the cameras.

And Izuku is hardly treated as a mere guest. Bands around both of his wrists keep his quirk suppressed, though they do nothing to inhibit his movement since they’re no longer connected by a chain. His backpack with his notebooks is taken as evidence, but they leave him his mother’s locket and that’s the only thing he can’t stand to lose.

But there is a bedroom, with a comfortable bed and a dresser that has been filled with simple clothes in Izuku’s size. There is a living room with a couch and a TV that gets more channels than the one in the bar. There is a kitchen where a hero cooks meals for Izuku and with a fridge that is always full of snacks.

It is, in fact, a safehouse, where Izuku is being kept safe from the outside world just as much as the outside world is being kept safe from him.

For a moment, Izuku doesn’t understand why they bother. All these amenities and resources are being wasted on his safety and comfort, and the heroes must know that. But then Tsukauchi comes to ask more questions, and the effort makes sense.

Despite trying his best, Izuku hasn’t done a very good job of sharing the information he has. He knows how important it is, but whenever he tries to talk about certain things – unfortunately, the most important things – the aching hollowness of his insides fills up with guilt and grief and horror until he can’t talk or breathe or see. Until he can’t feel his fingertips or hear the questions being asked of him because he has been swallowed by all the terrible things he has done – suffocated in the dark, wet heat of the belly of the beast, where all he can do is scream.

Scream and scream and scream until his throat is raw and his voice cuts out, and then he is nothing, not even noise.

“How’s it going with Midoriya?”

“It’s not.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll give it to the kid – he’s trying. But whatever happened – he’s so … effected by it. Granted, I can’t really blame him, given the pieces I’ve gathered. Still, I can’t get more than a few answers out of him before he starts to break down. Nobody else has had any more luck with him, either.”

“Well shit.”

“Ha! Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What can I do? Be patient. Be persistent. Try not to break the kid in the process.”

“Kids are supposed to be resilient, aren’t they?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Have you looked for someone with a quirk that might help?”

“I’ve looked, yeah, but haven’t really found anything. Memory quirks unreliable at best, and the handful of people I’ve talked to aren’t willing to use their quirks in such an extreme circumstance, anyway. Same thing with emotion-based calming quirks. No one I’ve talked to wants to use their quirk in such a volatile situation, where it might do more harm than good.”

“Can’t say I blame them.”

“Me either. Doesn’t make it any less inconvenient, though.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does. Damn. Well, I don’t envy you, that’s for sure.”

“Only an idiot would.”

/ / / / /

“Is it weird that I’m worried about him?”

“Who?”

“Wha – The kid, obviously!”

“Why are you worried?”

“Sorry, were you not in the same room I was? The poor boy had an absolute breakdown! I had to knock him out!”

“You knock people out all the time. It’s literally what you do. Your hero name could practically be Knock-Out. Wait. Heh, that’d actually be perfect. Knock-Out, get it, because–”

“I knock villains out all the time, not children!”

“I think the kid was the same age as our first years. You knock those out plenty often.”

“Yes, in training exercises and exams! Controlled situations! Not because they’re suddenly so hysterical there’s a legitimate concern that they’re going to harm themselves if I don’t use my quirk on them! You’re being difficult on purpose.”

“Look, I just don’t get the big deal. The kid was a villain. And whatever his problem is, I’m sure Recovery Girl took good care of him. There are other people handling it – capable people. Nothing for us to worry about.”

“Well, I’m worried anyway.”

 “You can’t get personally concerned about every distressed person that crosses your path. Seriously. It’s not healthy – especially not in our line of work. You good?”

“…I know. I’m fine, I swear. It’s not like I’m, I don’t know, hugely burdened or anything. Only a little worried. It’s just – he was odd, don’t you think? So small and quiet and serious.”

“Yeah, definitely. And let me say, his oddness made me more worried for us than for him. Nobody should act that empty, it never ends well. Not to mention that Nedzu seemed interested in him and that’s practically an omen of doom.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“I’m dramatic? Okay, Ms. ‘Worried about a kid I met for all of five minutes.’”

“Shut up! It’s the maternal instincts!”

“Maternal? You don’t have a maternal bone in your body!”

“Oh my god. Why do I even talk to you?”

“Beats me.”

/ / / / /

“Who the hell is All for One?”

“Apparently the biggest deal that no one has ever heard of.”

“It’s strange to think that there could be someone like that just under all our noses.”

“Strange? Sure. But surprising?”

“…Fair point. People do love their secrets.”

“I hate people.”

“Of course you do.”

“And their secrets.”

“I know, I know.”

“It’s bullshit.”

“Yes, it is. Now go to sleep.”

/ / / / /

“He knows who I am.”

“…Most likely.”

“Has he said anything about it?”

“He hasn’t said much of anything, yet. According to the reports of the people watching him, he’s barely spoken outside of questioning, and that’s been going … slowly, as you already know.”

“Do you think he’ll tell anyone?”

“Who would he tell? Even if he had anyone to talk to, he’s not much of a conversationalist, at the moment.”

“I don’t know. What if he manages to contact the League?”

“Questioning him may be a slow process but we’ve already determined that he won’t be going back to the League. I’m not entirely sure yet who’s side he’s on, but it’s not theirs. He’s fully convinced that the next time he crosses paths with the League, he’ll wind up dead.”

“What about the press, then?”

“Why would he tell the press?”

“If his goal is to destroy All Might, that’d do it.”

“Yagi, I understand your concern, but … I honestly don’t think this kid is out to destroy anything.”

Izuku spends a lot of time in bed.

The bedroom doesn’t have a door, and there are three cameras throughout the room that leave no blind spots in their coverage, but Izuku doesn’t mind that. He lies on top of the blankets and stares at the wall, trying to pinpoint exactly what shade of off-white it is – he has a quirk that could do that, if not for the cuffs. He tries not to think about anything except shades of color names.

Cream, eggshell, ivory, vanilla, bone –

No, not bone.

That’s too close to things he doesn’t want to think about.

He lies there, and when the emotions that rampage through him get too big to ignore, he curls up into a ball and makes himself small. Tries to scrunch up everything that he is and everything that he is feeling. Tells himself that he is small, and the universe is big, and nothing really matters, not even the horrible terrible awful things he has done.

No matter how tightly he curls up, though, it doesn’t seem to help.

Izuku feels like the space between the stars. Cold. Dark. Empty. Ever-expanding.

Lonely.

He is alone, despite the cameras and the heroes who look in on him in ten-minute increments. Despite Tsukauchi, who speaks with him every few hours to gather whatever new details Izuku is able to force out of lips that are numb from biting back screams.

He has never been alone, before.

When he was very little, he was surrounded by people, loved and adored the way all lucky children are. When he took on the false title of Quirkless and the world turned against him, his mother stayed by his side, and loved him even more fiercely, defiantly. When he lost his mother, his family grew paradoxically larger.

Now, Izuku is grieving a death he has no right to mourn, wishing his father could still be alive when Izuku was the one to kill him. And he is grieving alone, because everyone around him is grateful for All for One’s death, and the only people who might share Izuku’s grief would sooner kill him than comfort him.

He has lost everyone, and he has no one to blame but himself.

Wherever Tomura is, however he is grieving, Izuku hopes he is not alone.

Izuku curls up in a tight, tight ball, and he hopes.

Cream, eggshell, ivory, vanilla…

“He slit his father’s throat.”

“Jesus Christ. Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope.”

“That’s gruesome.”

“Yep.”

“How’d he even manage it?”

“He put him to sleep first, apparently. Hummed him a lullaby.”

“That’s…”

“A different kind of gruesome? Tell me about it.”

“No wonder the kid is fucked up.”

“You said it.”

/ / / / /

“He has incredible potential.”

“Those words, from your mouth, strike fear into the very depths of my being.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I’m just stating facts.”

“You’re never just stating facts. You’re planning something.”

“Nothing nefarious, I assure you.”

“I’m not assured.”

“Now you’re just being paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. And history shows that you are.”

“Well… Not you.”

/ / / / /

“Can we get a fast track on the tests for that hand we retrieved from the USJ attack?”

“Sure thing. Did Midoriya finally tell you something useful?”

“He’s talking. It’s a work in progress, but he’s talking. We couldn’t find any records of ‘Shigaraki Tomura’ because he doesn’t actually exist.”

“Wow, shocker.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm.”

“I thought I’d be generous and share anyway. What’s the hand got to do with it all?”

“I was getting to that, before you interrupted. Apparently, it belonged to so-called Shigaraki Tomura’s biological father. We should be able to use it to find his legal identity. He was picked up by All for One when he was five years old, so there probably won’t be that many records of him as a kid, but anything is better than nothing.”

“That it is. I’ll get it done. Give me, eh, five days or so?”

“Make it three.”

“Bossy, bossy.”

/ / / / /

“Has Tsukauchi told you anything new?”

“If he had, I would have told you.”

“I’m worried about the little listener, all alone in whatever safehouse they stuck him in.”

“He’s not alone. He’s under constant guard.”

“Okay, maybe not alone, then. Still probably lonely. That’s almost worse, don’t you think? Lonely but not alone.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m just worried, that’s all.”

“…Me, too.”

“Do you think Tsukauchi would let me visit him?”

“Probably. He’s being less of a dick than he was. I think the kid has grown on him, the last couple of days.”

“Maybe I’ll do that, then.”

“Couldn’t hurt. When are you thinking about going?”

“Tomorrow, probably. After classes.”

“The committee is supposed to be meeting, then.”

“I know. That’s why I chose it.”

“You don’t want me to come?”

“Sho, hmm, how to put this gently? You’re intimidating.”

“…”

“And not the best with people.”

“…”

“And you and the kiddo have some history.”

“Okay, you can stop, I get it.”

“Sorry, Kitten.”

“You’re not wrong. You’ll tell me how it goes?”

“Of course.”

/ / / / /

“What if he betrays us?”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“It just seems like a lot to gamble on a what if.”

“You’d rather gamble with a kid’s life?”

“I… rather is a strong word.”

“But if given the choice, that’s the one you’d make. Condemn him, even though he might be good, rather than risk him being evil.”

“No. I don’t know. That’s the problem – I just don’t know.”

“You’re going to have to figure it out. Pretty soon, decisions are going to start being made. Big decisions, with that kid’s whole life on the line. A lot of people have no idea what to do with him, and what you choose is going to mean a lot to them. We’ve got nearly twenty people on this committee, but at the end of the day, it really just comes down to you. You realize that, right?”

“No pressure.”

“Pressure. Definitely pressure.”

“I’m just trying to figure out how to best do my duty as a hero.”

“Consider this: that kid did something terrible.”

“He killed his father.”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on his side?”

“I am. He did something terrible because he thought he had to. He needed a hero, but nobody came, so he did it himself, to save everyone. He’s not to blame for that. We are. Maybe it’s time for us to do our goddamned jobs and save him.”

“…How are we meant to trust him?”

“The same way we trust anyone. Give him a chance. Then see what he does with it.”

Tomura does not know betrayal.

What happened to him when he was young – that wasn’t a betrayal. There was never any trust there to begin with, nothing to be broken. He was lost, and he was angry, but he was never betrayed.

Since then, Sensei has always been on Tomura’s side, helping him grow stronger, acting in his best interest, always. As has Kurogiri, if in a more annoying manner. And Izuku –

Tomura is acquainted with betrayal only through videogames. It is a popular theme, he has noticed. Maybe it’s the type of thing that a lot of people – people less lucky than Tomura has been – can relate to. Or maybe it’s just for the sucker punch value of a good plot twist. Regardless, Tomura has seen a lot of betrayal through a screen, has participated in it from the other side of a controller. But he has never particularly cared about it. Tomura liked games for the gameplay, and he would usually just skip cutscenes and the like, except Izuku –

Izuku hates stuff like that. He always cringes and yells and cries when characters turn against each other, like every pixelized representation of broken trust hits him straight in the heartstrings. Izuku just doesn’t have the stomach for it. For that cutthroat brutality that is such an essential part of so many people. He can’t handle it the same way he can’t handle violence.

He can’t handle things like – things like slit throats and bloody clothes and broken trust.

Enemies and theft and wrath are not in the same realm as Izuku. They are not supposed to be. Izuku is supposed to be separate from all of that. He is supposed to be brighter, better. Izuku, Tomura’s soft little brother.

Tomura does not know betrayal.

But he is learning.

Chapter Text

Izuku spends his third day in the safehouse curled up in the corner of the couch, staring at mindless cartoons on the television, eyes too blank and unfocused to truly say he is watching. Left to his own devices, he would have preferred to stay in bed, continuing with his quest to pinpoint the exact shade of white of the walls, but the hero who brought him breakfast in the morning had gently ushered him out of bed and insisted he stay in the living room. It is probably easier for them to keep an eye on him, this way.

Sometimes, the same hero attempts to speak to him, but Izuku digs his nails into the upholstery and doesn’t reply. The poor woman looks so uncomfortable. Izuku remembers her debut, around three years ago. She’s done well for herself, since, and there’s a part of him – the part that is somehow the same even though it feels like everything about him should be changed – that wants to ask her about her quirk.

He’s never really been able to talk to someone about their own quirk, before. All for One was always eager to talk quirks, but only ever to analyze the ones they had stolen or would like to steal. Kurogiri was a nomu, and the interactions between his quirks were fascinating to think about, but it was still different than talking to someone who had grown up with a quirk that was made for them, a part of them. And Tomura didn’t like talking about his quirk much, especially if Izuku started to hint that his situation was anything like Kurogiri’s – which Izuku always did, because he didn’t know how to leave the topic alone. Talking about quirks always ended with Tomura aggravated. The only person Izuku had ever been able to talk about quirks with the way he wanted to was his mother, and he had only been ten years old when he lost her, still far too young to know all the right questions to ask.

Izuku stares at the TV so long and hard that his vision starts to go grey around the edges. He blinks hard and tries to ignore the fact that his entire family is now in past tense.

He doesn’t think this hero would appreciate his questions, even if Izuku could un-cement his jaw to ask them. Imagine, the quirk stealing boy bombarding you with questions on how yours works and what you can do with it. Even with his quirk suppressed, that would be disconcerting. She already looks concerned enough, just sitting near him, without him actively making it worse. He wonders how it was determined who would be watching him; he wonders if the heroes assigned to his safehouse are being punished for something.

At almost exactly noon, Tsukauchi arrives. He knocks a distinct sequence that echoes through the small room, and the hero standing near the door – an older pro who debuted just after Izuku started primary school – begins undoing the multitude of locks with a haste that speaks of relief.

“Hello Midoriya,” Tsukauchi says as he enters. “How are you feeling today? It’s good to see you up and about.” Izuku shrugs as Tsukauchi takes the quickly-vacated seat across from him on the couch. Neither of the heroes in the room leave, but they both press close to the walls and avert their eyes, the closest thing to privacy Izuku can be given.

“There’s only a few more things I want to ask you, for now. Do you think you can answer?”

“Yes,” Izuku says, aloud, because Tsukauchi will only proceed if he answers verbally. His voice barely cracks.

“You’ve already told me a lot about your father and the League. Thank you for that – I know it hasn’t been easy. So far, I’ve been trying to get as many facts as possible about the USJ incident and All for One’s activity in the last five years. We’ve talked about whos and whats and whens, but now I’m going to ask a couple of whys, alright? Please just answer as completely and honestly as you can.”

Izuku picks at some dirt that has found its way under his thumbnail. “Okay.”

“You knew your father was evil, and you didn’t approve of the things he did. So why did you stay with him?”

“He wasn’t e-evil,” Izuku denies immediately. “Evil is just a w-word people use so they don’t have to try to un-understand each other.”

It is a pointless correction to make. To all but a handful of people, Izuku’s father will never be anyone more than All for One – only ever an evil man who did evil things, with not even the faintest shades of grey around the black abyss where his soul was meant to be. It hurt for Izuku to admit that Shigaraki Hisashi was All for One, a duality of a man, and it hurts even more to know that, for most of the world, All for One is the only part of the man that matters.

“Alright,” Tsukauchi ascents, though his eyes clearly say he doesn’t agree. “You knew he was a villain, then.”

“I did. But he w-wasn’t my v-villain. He was my f-f-father.”

“You said he hurt you.”

“He did,” Izuku whispers, a soft confession that hurts just as much this time as it did the first time he admitted it aloud. “But he also l-loved me. He did.”

“So you stayed because he loved you?”

“B-because I l-loved him. Bec-cause I l-loved them a-all.”

“Can you clarify who you mean by ‘all?’”

“My f-father. Kurogiri. T-Tom-mura. They – They’re my f-family.”

Were, Izuku corrects to himself, sternly. Izuku’s life is in past tense, now. The sooner that sticks in his head, the sooner this painful cycle of forgetting-remembering-forgetting-remembering will stop.

“Family can be a powerful motivator,” Tsukauchi says, half-sympathetic and half-appeasing as Izuku’s words grow shakier. He pauses for a moment as Izuku takes a handful of shuddering breaths. “Only one more question. This is the hardest one, it’s okay if you can’t answer. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Midori – Izuku. Why did you kill your father?”

Izuku turns his eyes back to the bright colors and graphic lines flashing across the television screen as his chest seizes. For a long moment, he traces the shapes in his mind as he tries to properly put into words actions that he has barely been able to justify to himself. There are too many things, too many reasons, all tangled together into a sum that is greater than the parts.

“Have you ever heard of the trolley problem?” Izuku asks. His voice sounds like static in his ears.

“Of course.”

“Do you ever wonder why they don’t just stop the train? In real life, that’s what they’d do. They’d just stop the train.”

“Alright,” Tsukauchi responds, hesitant and gentle, afraid to push too hard. “What does this–”

Izuku’s head thumps against the back of the couch. “My father was the train.”

“Oh.”

“I was so tired of picking lives,” Izuku admits softly, barely audible against the upbeat theme of the cartoon’s end credits. “People kept getting st-stuck on the – on the train tracks, and I – Why keep p-pulling l-lev-levers when you c-can j-just–” His voice cracks, words shriveling up as his throat closes around them. Tears wells in his eyes abruptly, the sting of them more potent than ever, as if the last few days of doing his best to repress them has somehow made them saltier. The faint texture of the ceiling is lost to a wet blur as his eyes spill over.

“When you can just stop the train,” Tsukauchi finishes. “I’m sorry you had to do that.”

Tsukauchi places a hand on Izuku’s shoulder just as the first sob tears itself free, and Izuku can’t help the way his whole body trembles at the contact, torn between pulling away and leaning into the touch. In the end, he does neither, stiff as stone as Tsukauchi glides his thumb in small lines against the fabric of Izuku’s T-shirt.

“This won’t last forever,” Tsukauchi says quietly as Izuku cries. “You’ve been through a lot all at once, but you’re still here, and you’re not going to feel like this forever. It might seem impossible, and it might not be easy or quick, but someday you’re going to be okay again, Izuku. I promise, you’re going to be okay.”

If Izuku could make his breath cooperate well enough to form words, he would have questions. Questions like how? and when? and why bother?

But Izuku can’t speak, only sob, so he just sits, rigid beneath a touch he doesn’t know how to accept and isn’t sure he wants, with all his doubts confined to his head.

Bureaucracy is probably somewhere near the top of the list when it comes to things Shouta hates. He hates meetings and paperwork and having to listen to people talk around issues as they try to further their own agendas. Normally, Shouta would not be caught dead volunteering to be part any committee, not to mention one that is likely to be particularly full of bullshit. Yet here he is, of his own free will, slouched in a chair at a conference room table, nobly resisting the urge to slump to the ground and take a nap. If asked, he’d claim that he left his sleeping bag in his classroom for the sake of professionalism, but Shouta is unashamed to admit, at least to himself, that he left it behind mostly to remove the temptation it presents.

But, as he eyes one of the representatives sent by the Hero Public Safety Commission on the other side of the table, he can’t bring himself to regret being here. This particular representative coolly raises her eyebrows as she flips through the information packet Tsukauchi has prepared, expression a study of unimpressed inscrutability.

Shouta ignores his own packet for the moment, familiar enough with the situation from hounding Tsukauchi the last few days, in favor of assessing the gathered group. His eyes ache – uncovered for the occasion, much to Recovery Girl’s chagrin – though the room is kept relatively dim, with only half the overhead lights switched on, specifically to accommodate Shouta’s stubborn insistence that he be able to see what is going on during this meeting.

There are sixteen of them, counting Shouta, sitting in thick silence, broken only by the shuffle of papers and squeak of chairs as they shift around. Tsukauchi and two other officers on the case sit at the head of the square formation of tables, flanked by Nedzu and All Might. Shouta himself has taken a seat near the door, next to Thirteen, who offered him a commiserating smile as they stiffly took their seat. Endeavor, flames extinguished, sits beside the HPSC representatives – there’s three of them in total, counting the woman whose eyebrows have not shifted from their elevated position since she began reading. There are five other heroes in the room, a couple of whom Shouta doesn’t recognize. Two of them, he knows, were part of the rotations supervising Izuku, and he hopes that’s a good sign, since anyone who actually spent time around the kid could see he’s worth giving a chance.

It’s not the worst group Shouta has ever seen, but he still doesn’t trust a single person in it to not have some ulterior motive. That’s why he’s here, when he would much rather be at home, listening to trash television with a cat in his lap, halfway asleep. That’s why he’s here, sitting in an uncomfortable chair with a budding migraine, against doctor’s orders, when he could be with Hizashi, checking in on the cause of all this drama.

After long minutes, thick and stifled, Tsukauchi clears his throat and stands, instantly drawing the attention of fifteen pairs of eyes.

“Thank you all for making the time to be here, today,” he says, briefly making eye contact with each of them. “Midoriya Izuku, affiliated with the League of Villains, has turned himself in and shared with us what he knows. His circumstances are… unusual and we need to decide how to handle the situation from here.”

“I don’t see what’s so unusual about it,” Endeavor says, arms crossed over his broad chest. “He’s hardly the first villain to turn himself in.” One of the HPSC representatives nods slightly.

“Whether Midoriya can be classified as a villain is part of what this committee has been gathered to discuss,” Tsukauchi responds, admirably concealing the bias Shouta knows he has after spending the last two days questioning the kid. “If we do decide he needs to be convicted, there’s still the matter of his charges.”

“He has stolen–” Endeavor flips through the pages of his packet “–103 quirks.”

“Under duress,” Thirteen interjects softly, flooding Shouta with relief. Thirteen has always been a remarkably kind-hearted individual, but Shouta isn’t particularly close to them, and he was unsure where they would stand on the issue, especially given the injuries they sustained at the USJ.

“Duress or not, that’s 103 weapons he could use against us, and 103 people who are most likely dead, now.”

“Midoriya didn’t kill any of those people, though.”

“But he allowed his father to,” a HPSC representative says – it’s the one with the eyebrows again, and this time she raises them patronizingly. “He’s an accomplice, at best. And he has killed three people himself.”

“You can’t be counting those against him,” someone across the room protests.

“Murder is a crime. One this boy has committed three times.”

“He was ten years old the first time. He accidentally took a quirk, with no idea that doing so would result in the death of its holder,” Shouta says, voice flat, but sharp enough to cut off the low drone of overlapping voices that was beginning to rise. “The second time he was physically forced to do so again. And the third time he eliminated a villain, the man who is responsible for those 103 deaths you were talking about.”

A brief moment of silence follows Shouta’s words, broken by a brave soul piping up, “Murder charges are maybe a bit severe, but there’s still the USJ to consider. He participated in that, willingly. It says here that he’s the one who provide the intel for dealing with Eraserhead and Thirteen?”

“He did,” Tsukauchi confirms.

“It also says he saved several lives that day.”

“Saved several lives from an attack that he orchestrated.”

“He didn’t orchestrate anything! The plan was made by All for One and Shigaraki Tomura. All Midoriya did was hand over some analysis on Eraserhead and Thirteen.”

“Analysis that almost got the both of them killed.”

“Yet they’re both here speaking in his favor. That says something, doesn’t it?”

“Sure, that they’re fools, maybe.”

“And speaking of the League! You said Midoriya shared his information with us, but there’s hardly anything about the League in these pages.”

“You’re right. He must have been leaving things out.”

“Just goes to show that he’s still working with them.”

“Can’t you read? He’s definitely not working with them – but that doesn’t mean he’s not working for someone.”

“Everyone!” Tsukauchi shouts over the swell of voices. “It’s true that Midoriya elected not to answer some questions – namely those pertaining directly to the location and weaknesses of Shigaraki Tomura and Kurogiri. He withheld this because his primary goal is to keep Shigaraki Tomura safe – even to save him, potentially – which is not something he currently trusts us to do. This is all explained in the packets.”

The outcry that Tsukauchi briefly quieted immediately bursts out again, more than half the room talking all at once.

“Why should we be saving Shigaraki Tomura?”

“If his goal is to protect Shigaraki than there’s no way we can trust him!”

“He’s made his loyalties obvious!”

“Are you really going to fault a kid for caring about his brother?”

“If his brother is a homicidal maniac? Fuck yes, I am!”

“EVERYONE!” Tsukauchi shouts again, pushing back his chair as he does. The voices die to murmurs, but don’t fall completely silent, several rebellious individuals still whispering derision under their breath. “If we could please focus on the topic at hand!”

“I don’t see what the issue is,” Endeavor says. “Throw him in Tartarus and be done with it. It’s ridiculous that we’re wasting this much time and energy on some villain child.”

“You want to throw a child in Tartarus?” Shouta asks, disgust warring with disbelief.

“With so many quirks, it’s likely the only place that can contain him.”

“Why does he even need to be contained?”

“Well, I certainly don’t want him taking my quirk! Do you?”

“He already has!” Shouta barks, frustration leaking into his tone. “He took it, used it to do our job for us, and then willingly submitted himself to all this bullshit we’re putting him through just to give it back!”

“Tartarus is certainly too extreme,” Yagi finally speaks up, raising a hand in a quelling gesture that immediately draws the attention of the room. Shouta would be glad that the man is showing an ounce of reason, but his tone – hesitant and indecisive, like he is asking a question – just wracks Shouta’s irritation up higher.

“The Commission could always take him,” one of the representatives says, with a plastic smile. “We have the resources to monitor him, but could offer him rehabilitation, if he shows good will.”

Too many faces around the room look considering, as close to satisfied at they have been yet. They are tempted, by this idea of making the kid someone else’s problem. Just leave him in someone else’s hands – tell yourself they’re capable and sweep him under the rug, no responsibilities and no guilt to weigh you down. Shouta grips the edge of the table hard, catching Yagi’s eye across the room, hoping to god that anything Shouta said the day before sunk into that man’s thick skull. Yagi’s lips purse, brows pulling even lower over his eyes.

“That seems extreme, as well,” he says, voice significantly more confident. “The boy is still so young. He deserves a chance, don’t you think? A real one, with better influences in his life.”

“The Commission can give him that.”

“No,” Yagi corrects with a frown. “You’re proposing to give him a chance if he is good. I am proposing we give him a chance to be good.”

“He could be,” Shouta says. “If we give him a chance, he could be amazing.”

Anyone who knows Shouta knows that his saying this means something. Shouta’s whole job is appraising potential, and he’s good at his job. Shouta knows potential when he sees it, and he never bothers with pretending that it’s there when it’s not.

But the vast majority of people in this room don’t know Shouta. They don’t know that he expelled twenty hero hopefuls just last year, to massive backlash, because he knew they didn’t have what it took. To these people, Shouta’s words are just words, and they’re easily brushed aside.

“Those are pretty sentiments,” the representative says, exuding cloying benevolence that makes Shouta grit his teeth. There are few things that aggravate him more than being accused of being sentimental. “But how does that look in practice? Chances and coulds are all well and good in theory. But in reality, we have a dangerous and volatile child, and you are suggesting – what? That we simply let him go? Hope that doesn’t come back to bite us down the line when he does turn out to be a villain?”

“No one said to set him lose without supervision. We could find a happy medium somewhere between completely unsupervised and imprisoned.”

“I’m hearing a lot of talk of compromise, but no actual solutions. Who will watch him, if not the Commission?”

“Actually,” Nedzu chimes up from his place near the head of the table.

Shouta, who has been waiting for the rat’s voice to cut through the chaos this entire meeting, tenses instantly. Mixed relief and dread accompany Nedzu’s interjection, because Shouta is certain that Nedzu won’t want to see Izuku in jail, but he’s equally certain that Nedzu will want something, because the vermin rarely does anything that doesn’t further his own goals. As Nedzu climbs from his seat to the top of the table, the HPSC representative’s smile twitches slightly, a gratifying break in her composure.

Nedzu tips his chin up, beady eyes sparkling, folds his paws behind his back, and announces, “I think you’ll find that I have the solution you’ve been looking for!”

When the knocks come again, this time in early evening, Izuku is back in bed. He returned to the comfort of blankets and blank walls shortly after Tsukauchi left, the hero who originally insisted he stay in the living room making no attempt to stop him as he stumbled past her, still scrubbing tears from his eyes.

Izuku rolls into a seated position, pulling the blanket with him so it is wrapped around his shoulders and tucked underneath his toes. He wiggles back into the corner and wonders what Tsukauchi will ask this time. Whatever the questions are, Izuku will answer. He will answer, and Tsukauchi will not have to stop because Izuku starts to cry, and Tsukauchi definitely won’t have to stop to comfort him.

Izuku will hold himself together. He can do that.

He already feels like he is falling apart.

Locks click in the living room, and Izuku counts each one as he presses his forehead against his knees. Low voices have a quiet exchange, muffled by the thick blanket around Izuku’s ears, as Tsukauchi greets the heroes stationed to watch Izuku. No doubt, they are telling Tsukauchi that Izuku is in the bedroom, as if there is anywhere else he could be, other than here or out there on the couch. Tsukauchi will thank them for the obvious information and then he will come into the room, sit in the chair at the desk, and ask Izuku how he is feeling. Izuku will chose to shrug in place of telling a lie. Tsukauchi will force a smile as if he is fooled by it. Over the last few days, this has already become their routine.

This is not what happens.

Around the time Tsukauchi should be pulling the chair away from the desk, there is a soft rap on the wall. The bedroom doesn’t have a door, and it’s not as if Izuku is a guest here, so there is no reason to knock before entering, but the sound of knuckles against wood is unmistakable. Izuku lifts his head, looks to the sound, and blinks.

“Present Mic?” he asks, voice rising into an incredulous squeak at the end.

“That was fast!” the hero in the doorway responds with a wide smile. “It usually takes a moment for people to recognize me without the hair.” To illustrate, he sweeps a hand above his head in an exaggerated motion that follows the curve of his signature style. “Mind if I sit?” Izuku clutches at the edges of his blanket and nods numbly.

Present Mic – in soft-looking civilian clothes, with his hair pulled into a messy bun – enters the room with a lazy stride. He looks over the room, eyes landing briefly on Tsukauchi’s chair, but he opts instead to sit on the edge of the bed, his weight shifting the mattress beneath Izuku. Izuku pulls his knees in tighter, minimizing the space he takes up. A small part of him is irrationally afraid that his legs, left to their own devices, will stretch across the gap between them and infringe on Present Mic’s space. Or maybe it’s less a fear and more a temptation. Either way, Izuku locks his arms in a loop around his legs, hands clasped together in front of his ankles to keep himself contained.

“Why are you here?” Izuku asks without thinking, nearly biting his tongue half-way through the question when he realizes how rude he is being. Izuku has only been in the safehouse for three days, but the entire time, no one has come to see him but Tsukauchi and a couple of other officers who had questions for him.

“Huh? I’m just visiting!”

Izuku frowns. The hero couldn’t be here without a reason. Izuku highly doubts he would be allowed visitors, even if there was someone who would want to see him just for the sake of seeing him. Present Mic is a hero, and he had been present for at least part of Izuku’s initial questioning, so it’s not beyond the realm of belief that he would be allowed to see Izuku now, but there has to be some kind of motivation behind it. It can’t have anything to do with his quirk – Izuku is familiar enough with it to be sure it isn’t relevant to the situation. Is Present Mic supposed to be questioning him? Maybe he’s good at extracting information, but Izuku has already cooperated as well as he can with Tsukauchi, and he thought they had covered most of the important information already. Maybe Izuku is being transported, then. Maybe Tsukauchi has gotten all the information he needs, and Present Mic is here as backup in case Izuku tries anything on the way to wherever they are going next. Though that doesn’t explain why he has approached Izuku like this, sitting on the bed with smile that becomes sheepish as he sees Izuku’s frown.

Present Mic rubs his chin. “You were in a rough state the last time I saw you, little listener. I just wanted to check in. Thought maybe you’d enjoy some company.”

The uncertainty-driven anxiety that had been building in Izuku’s chest deflates. That’s it, then. Present Mic is here because he is a hero. More specifically – because he is a hero who thinks Izuku is a victim. It’s an error of judgment on his part, though Izuku can see where it comes from, given the nature of their last few interactions. In his initial, panicked assessment, Izuku had overlooked the inexplicable burden of responsibility that empathy sometimes places on people.

“I’m fine,” Izuku says to his knees. Unlike Tsukauchi, Present Mic’s quirk won’t tell him that Izuku is lying, but he fears it’s obvious anyway – obvious in his red-rimmed eyes, in the soft rasp of his voice, in the way he wraps a blanket around his shoulders as if it is the only thing keeping him together. His fears are warranted, if the soft upward tilt of Present Mic’s brow is anything to go by. Izuku buries the lower half of his face into the blanket and hopes they can get this over with quickly.

“Still!” Present Mic says, tone as upbeat as ever despite the sympathetic sadness in his eyes. “Never hurts to check in. Really, it’s as much for me as it is for you, you know. Shouta hasn’t stopped talking about you since you showed up!”

Shouta, as in Aizawa Shouta, Eraserhead. Right – he and Present Mic had been classmates. Izuku had watched them fight, in their first-year sports festival. They were in the same year, and possibly even the same class, if Aizawa had been transferred into 1-A. And now they both taught at UA, so it makes sense that they know each other well. Some of the tension that had dispersed when Izuku realized why the hero was here resurges now, wrapping around his lungs like bands that are a size too small.

“He’s brought you up about four times in the past two days,” Present Mic continues as Izuku once again asks himself why the hero is bothering to visit him. “Which might not sound like a lot, but it is for Sho! He’s really taken an interest in you!”

Izuku can’t blame him. If Izuku had his quirk stolen, he would probably like to know what was going on with the thief, too. But he certainly wouldn’t want his – friend? – coworker visiting said thief and trying to make casual conversation. Which once again raises the question – why is Present Mic here? If he is on a first base with Aizawa Shouta, he should know well enough that Izuku doesn’t deserve whatever comforting company he seems to be trying to offer.

“I won’t bother him again,” Izuku says.

Present Mic offers another smile, this one lopsided and confused. “Bother who?”

“Eraserhead.”

“Oh kiddo.” Mic scoots along the bed, not far, just an inch closer, but closer all the same. Izuku, already tucked into the corner, has nowhere to retreat to, but he pushes back against the wall nonetheless, until the peaks of his spine ache even with the cushion of the blanket. There is still over three feet of space between them, simultaneously an uncrossable chasm and paper thin. “You never bothered him to begin with.”

“I took his quirk.”

“You gave it back!”

The declaration is so cheery and matter of fact, as if returning something stolen is as good as never having stolen it. He already knows well enough that having something returned doesn’t erase the fear and pain and anger of having that thing taken to begin with. Izuku’s mouth twists and he digs his teeth into his lip before something harsh and hateful can spill out. He pulls the blanket tighter around him, until it is less like being cocooned and more like being constricted. Present Mic’s eyes do that soft-sad-pity thing again, and it makes Izuku’s own eyes burn.

Izuku does not deserve pity. His suffering is self-inflicted. Any pain he feels, he brought upon himself, and why should he be exempt from it? Why should he get a reprieve after all the pain he has caused? Izuku is sure Eraserhead had suffered. Eraserhead had suffered at the USJ, in the grips of the nomu, which Izuku could have called off at any time and chose not to. He suffered in the hospital, with no idea if he would ever be able to use his quirk again.

Present Mic is a good man, Izuku realizes, but a naïve one. Good, to want to spare people pain; naïve, to not realize that some people deserve it.  

“He doesn’t blame you for what happened,” Present Mic says, solemn in a way he never is on the radio.

He should; I did it, Izuku wants to shout. But his jaw is glued shut, muscles tense and aching, and the words catch between his teeth like bits of shrapnel.

“He’s got nothing but good things to say about you, actually. And Shouta’s a great judge of character.” Izuku shakes his head, back and forth so fast that he would have swayed side to side if he hadn’t been braced against the wall. “He’s on your side. We both are.”

Izuku gasps. He buries his head against his knees again, and the blanket there is immediately too hot, too damp, too close, making it even harder to pull air into lungs that feel like they’re shrinking.

Izuku doesn’t have a side. Maybe he did, once, but then he killed one of the only people on it and lost all the others in the process. Which means that if Izuku still has a side at all – if it hasn’t been cut from ear to ear and left to bleed out – it’s the wrong one to be on. Izuku is a dirty teamkiller and players like that get kicked – that’s what Tomura would say, probably is saying, and Kurogiri won’t really understand what he means, because Kurogiri has never cared about videogames, but he’ll still agree because the word “teamkiller” really explains itself, doesn’t it?

“Breathe,” Present Mic says, cutting through Izuku’s thoughts. The mantra and voice are both too familiar at this point, and Izuku obeys like it’s a Pavlovian response. Breathe and let someone calm him down, because Izuku is no longer capable of acting human for even an hour without crumbling into pieces like words on the shredded pages of an unfinished story.

“Can I give you a hug?” Present Mic asks. He makes no move to cross the distance between them, waiting for Izuku’s response, and his tone is soft and non-threatening, but Izuku flinches so hard that his head snaps back and cracks against the wall. Present Mic makes a small, distressed noise in response, his hands fluttering around, but not reaching forward. “It’s okay, I won’t touch you if you don’t want. But if you do, the offer’s open.”

Izuku shakes his head, ardently enough that he nearly knocks it back into the wall, and that’s that. Present Mic calms him down, talking Izuku away from the newest ledge his constantly-encroaching panic has pushed him to, but makes no further attempts to touch him, and the three feet between them gapes wider than ever. When Izuku has calmed back into a semblance of humanity, Present Mic makes further attempts at conversation, casual and lighthearted, but Izuku has curled into himself, refusing to so much as make eye contact. He doesn’t want to see any more of those soft looks. He doesn’t want to see those hands hovering around, fingers splayed in unspoken offer. Izuku can’t take it. It burns to even think about.

For nearly an hour, though, Present Mic still doesn’t leave. He carries a gentle and cheerful conversation all by himself, even when Izuku goes half-catatonic with the numb lethargy that always follows a near-brush with hysteria. Present Mic leaves with a soft promise to return, but even if the hero means what he says, Izuku doubts he will be here much longer.

Finally left alone again, Izuku rubs his cheek against the blanket until the fibers scratch at the tear-tender skin beneath his eyes. Alone, he wraps his arms around himself and squeezes until his ribs creek. He imagines his arms as someone else’s, and his skin feels shivery-crawly, so he squeezes tighter, until the joints of his shoulders protest.

He tries to remember the last time he was hugged.

It’s not as if Izuku was starved of affection, but affection came in many forms and hugs didn’t really feature much in Izuku’s life after his mother was taken from him. Kurogiri didn’t like touching at all. Kurogiri was the type who provides, a silent, reliable presence. He leaves – left – small things in Izuku’s room, just because he knew Izuku would like them. Tomura doesn’t didn’t like touching either – he was always so careful about his hands. He would touch Izuku though, because Izuku was special. But their affections were always the rough kind, shoving and wrestling, with bruises and breathless laughter.

And his father. His father generally preferred simple, brief contact. Ruffled hair and shoulder squeezes. Most of the time, he was stoic and reserved. He really only hugged Izuku when Izuku was distress. He would hug Izuku, now. Even after everything Izuku has done, if his father were here, he would hug him.

God, Izuku wants it.

But Izuku isn’t like Present Mic. He’s neither good nor naïve.

He knows what he deserves.

Chapter Text

“So it’s settled!” Nedzu declares from the table top he has made into his stage.

“No,” the Commission representative protests. “Nothing has been settled at all. You’ve just given us another thing to think about.” She stares, baffled, bereft of her previously unshakable composure, at the thick sheaf of paper in her hands. Nedzu had given them to Yagi to pass them out at the beginning of his presentation, a packet of Nedzu’s own that thoroughly covers every detail of his proposition. The scheming rodent had likely been preparing the material since the moment Izuku showed up at the school gates three days ago.

“We can take a vote, then. That’s what this committee is for, after all! Tsukauchi, would you like to do the honors?” Nedzu hops off the table, back into his chair, supposedly ceding the stage to Tsukauchi, though Shouta has no doubts about who exactly is controlling this situation. Tsukauchi blinks rapidly, gaining his bearings with a respectably professional smile that is only slightly strained around the edges.

“Of course,” he says diplomatically. “We’ll take a vote, then. Those in favor?” Shouta raises a casted arm without hesitation, relieved to see many others, Yagi among them, wisely following suit.

“All opposed?” A smaller number of hands go up, and Shouta hides a smug smirk in his scarf, as he pointedly avoids looking at that one particularly detestable Commission representative. He’d clocked her as a problem from the start, and there’s a petty part of him that’s incredibly pleased to see her twisted into knots over Nedzu’s plans.

“Abstentions?” To Shouta’s side, Thirteen alone raises a meek hand.  

“Alright,” Tsukauchi says, “that’s ten for, four against, and one abstention.”

“What are the margins?” the representative asks, frowning sternly at one of her companions who had voted in favor.

“It’s in the packet,” Tsukauchi says drily, but then answers, “Two-thirds. The majority has it.”

“This can’t be allowed. UA is a high school, not a rehabilitation program. You don’t have the resources.”

Her protests are too little too late, Shouta knows. Nedzu is the type who always gets his way, sooner or later, and if he wants the kid, he’s not going to let an opportunity like this slip through his graspy little paws.

“We’re a hero school!” Nedzu chirps, with the cheer of someone who is getting exactly what they want. “There are few places better equipped to simultaneously protect, teach, and – if needs be – restrain a teenager like Midoriya Izuku. At UA he will be under heavy supervision, as is appropriate for his safety and the safety of others, but he will also be able to socialize with others his age.”

“Endanger others his age, I think you mean,” Endeavor corrects gruffly. Endeavor had, predictably, voted against Nedzu’s plan. Shouta thinks of Todoroki Shouto – who had apparently found his way to the center of the action during the USJ Incident while Shouta was unconscious – and grits his teeth.

“I think he’ll find it rather hard to endanger anyone when he’s surrounded by pro heroes,” Nedzu says. His voice is as cheerful as before, but it takes on the signature sharpness that so often makes people back down in the face of the rat’s grin. “And if I’m wrong, we can discuss it at our check-in next week! I outlined the options for reassessment in the packet. The section starts on page 23.” Endeavor glowers and pointedly does not touch the papers in front of him.

“Who is going to watch the boy?” one of the quieter commission representatives, the one who had voted in favor of the plan, asks. He flips back and forth between a few pages in his packet as he skims the information. “As a ward of UA, he’ll need someone to house him, feed him, clothe him and so on. It’s well covered financially, and you have some good protocols in place, but there’s no mention of who is actually going to be handling these responsibilities.”

“With a staff of capable and qualified heroes at hand, it should be an easy enough position to fill.”

“Still, it seems best to handle it now. His guardian should be subject to committee approval as much as the general plan is.”

“A good point,” Tsukauchi agrees. “Speak to your staff, compile a list of willing candidates, and we can meet again in a few days’ time to discuss our options. Sound good?”

The reaction of the room is mixed. Those who were against Nedzu’s proposition from the start seem even more aggrieved now, put out by the prospect of having to wrangle in yet another meeting to arrange a fate they don’t agree with for a child they don’t care about. Several who had voted in favor look annoyed as well, though less personally slighted then those who had voted against, and Shouta can’t entirely blame them, given that he’s not particularly enthusiastic about enduring another meeting so soon, himself. But for Shouta, impatience overshadows his irritation, a concern he sees mirrored in a handful of others around the room.

“What will be done with him in the meantime?” someone asks, a hero Shouta doesn’t know personally, but recognizes from the group that has been monitoring the kid in the safehouse.

“I suppose we can just keep him where he is,” Tsukauchi replies, a thoughtful and slightly hesitant frown twisting his mouth. The hero who asked grimaces slightly.

“I’m worried about keeping him in that environment. He hasn’t been doing well.” The other pro who has been watching over the kid – an incredibly short man with greying hair and a fierce expression that reminded Shouta a touch too much of Recovery Girl – nods in agreement.

“I’m afraid we don’t have much choice on that front,” Tsukauchi admits, an apology clear in his tone. “We need to identify possible guardians and fill them in on the situation – it’s not a decision we can make unilaterally, even if it slows us down. Until then, the safehouse is the best place for him. Our only other option is a cell somewhere.”

A conflicted silence settles over the room. Or, Shouta amends staring at the tense eyebrows of possibly the worse Commission representative he’s ever had the displeasure to meet, it’s conflicted for approximately half the room. To the other half, the silence is irritated, impatient, and entirely ready to call this meeting over with.

Yagi shifts in his seat, his large frame making the legs of the chair squeak in protest beneath him. “I…” he clears his throat, “Perhaps I could take the boy in? I am UA faculty, after all…” Yagi trails off, staring out at the room with an uncertain expression that makes him look far smaller than he is.

“Who better to watch over a potential threat than the Symbol of Peace himself?” someone asks. Endeavor scoffs slightly, upper lift twitching slightly as he glares at the table in front of him. A louder scoff comes from the small man, an unabashedly derisive sound that makes Yagi flinch slightly.

“The boy’s not qualified to take care of himself,” the elderly hero proclaims, “much less a kid who’s been through the likes of what Midoriya Izuku has been.”

Yagi shrinks into himself, protesting weakly, “Surely it’s better than leaving him where he is? At least until a more permanent option can be found.”

Shouta gives Yagi points for offering. Obviously, he has internalized something from one of Shouta’s many recent lectures, and the man has come a long way in a short time to now be advocating, however hesitantly, for a boy he wanted to imprison mere days ago.

So yes, it’s good of Yagi to offer. But Shouta has to agree that the offer itself isn’t particularly good. Thing is, Yagi is a bit like a golden retriever. Well-meaning and enthusiastic, certainly, but sometimes he wags his tail so hard he knocks things over, and he doesn’t even notice. It’s difficult to fault such a pure-hearted moron, but Shouta can practically guarantee that Yagi would just make a bigger mess of the situation, especially given his personal investment.

But leaving the kid in the safehouse sounds just as bad. Shouta has heard second-hand from Tsukauchi about the depression the Izuku has fallen into, about the way he oscillates between seeming like a shell of a person and being locked behind the teeth of guilt-grief-loathing. Even the man who makes All Might himself shrink like a scolded child with gruff words and a stern scowl seems concerned about the kid’s mental health.

“I can take him.” The words escape Shouta before he has a chance to think about it, and he only fully processes what they mean when he hears them coming out of his own mouth. It is impulsive, the exact sort of thing he would deride someone else or, but he hears his own offer and can only agree with it.

“I’m sorry,” the Commission representative says, smiling widely, “but who exactly are you?”

“This is Aizawa Shouta,” Nedzu answers as Shouta silently catalogs the minute twitch of the woman’s eyebrows. “Also known as the pro hero Eraserhead, class 1-A’s homeroom teacher!”

“And why would he be a more qualified guardian than the number one hero?”

“For a start,” Shouta responds dryly, “I already have an actual fostering license. My quirk is Erasure – which as we already know, isn’t foolproof protection against Midoriya’s quirk, but it’s the most effective quirk-based counter we have. It’s also effective against both Shigaraki Tomura and Kurogiri, in the event they do stage another attack against us. I’m underground, so the kid won’t be subject to any excessive attention, like he would be under All Might’s care. I’ve been teaching kids with all kinds of powerful, dangerous, and uncontrolled quirks for over half a decade. And I’m married – which means there won’t be a worry about some disaster pulling me away and leaving the kid unsupervised. If I’m not available, my partner will be, and vice versa. Not to mention that he has undergone extensive training for dealing with trauma victims, far more than the token few lessons that are required of pro heroes.” Shouta delivers his entire pitch deadpan, but he takes private joy in the way the representative’s look slowly hardens through the course of it, until she is giving him an impressively vitriolic glare that he blinks at impassively.

“Well, your husband isn’t here,” she says, voice more controlled than her expression, though some spite still leaks into the hard emphasis of her words, “so this is irrelevant. He’d need to be briefed and willing the same as anyone else. This isn’t a decision that can be made unilaterally, after all.” She flashes him a smile that is more like a challenge. At the front of the room, Nedzu smiles as well, looking to Shouta for his response. Shouta smirks and doesn’t bother to hide it. The representative pales slightly, not quite as dramatic as the way Shouta’s students blanch at the look, but just as satisfying.

“If I had to guess, I’d say my husband it currently visiting the very kid we’re talking about. He’s gotten a bit attached.”

“Enough of this pissing contest,” the short hero barks out. Shouta, content with the knowledge that he had won that pissing contest, turns his attention to the man easily while the representative scowls at the side of his head. “The point of this is to move the boy into a better environment. You think you can provide that?”

“I know we can,” Shouta responds easily. “My husband – Yamada Hizashi, Present Mic – and I both have extensive experience with volatile quirks and traumatized children.”

“Yamada assisted Midoriya through several panic attacks when he first arrived at UA,” Tsukauchi says, “and I can confirm that he is currently visiting to check on him. From what I saw, Yamada was very good with the boy.” Shouta’s smirk softens slightly as pride leaks into it, though he doubts anyone around him can tell the difference, except perhaps for Nedzu, who always knows too much.

“And you’re certain that Yamada would agree to this?” Yagi asks.

Shouta nods. “Hizashi’s been hounding me to adopt for ages, anyway.”

“There’s a difference between adoption and taking in an at-risk child like Midoriya,” the Commission representative says through grit teeth. “You don’t bring someone a wolf when they ask for a puppy.”

“Have you even seen this kid?” Shouta can’t help but ask. “He is a puppy.”

“Puppies don’t steal over a hundred quirks and murder their fathers.”

Shouta shrugs. “Puppies have teeth. They can bite.” He sighs, propping his head on his casted fist, ignoring the slight ache of it as any energy he had to keep slogging through this woman’s bullshit drains out of him all at once. “Regardless, Mic would parent a lost pigeon if given half the chance. Trust me, I know my husband.” Shouta lets his eyes slide shut, not caring to see the scornful position the representative has no doubt folded her ridiculous eyebrows into.

Nedzu claps, the sound muffled by the pads of his paws, but still sharp enough to quiet the room. “It’s sounds like we have a perfectly good solution in front of us! Let’s put it to another vote!”

The old hag knocks exactly once on Katsuki’s door before throwing it open, standing at the threshold with her hands on her hips and a glower on her face like she thinks she’s hot shit. Groaning so loud he has to tip his head back to properly let out the sound, Katsuki drops the dumbbell he was doing reps with. It bangs, a short, hollow noise against the carpet, and his mother’s glare intensifies.

“Cut that shit out. Do you want to break the floor?”

“The floor is fucking fine.”

“Yeah, well it’s not gonna be for long if you keep throwing your weights around, and you know who’s going to pay to fix it? Not me, that’s for sure.”

“Oh my god,” Katsuki growls. “What do you want?” She cuts him a look that he returns with equal venom. He swipes the back of his wrist over his forehead as sweat drips down his brow. There’s no way she bust in here just to yell at him for something he hadn’t even done yet. Not even his mother is that fucking ridiculous.

“Turn your music down,” she demands.

“Hah? No way!”

“I’ve told you three times already to turn it down.”

“I’m training!” Katsuki argues, gesturing broadly to his weights and the sweat that has coated his upper body.

“You’ve been training all week!” his mother responds, raising her voice to match his, yelling over the heavy drums of the music she hates so much. “I’ve let you have your way for this long, but I can hear this shit in the whole damn house and your father has a fucking headache. Turn it down! Or at least put on some headphones!”

“Headphones make my ears hurt!”

“Yeah? Well, this goddamned never-ending cacophony is making my ears hurt, so turn it down.”

“Fucking fine!” Katsuki shouts. He stands, resisting the urge to kick his dumbbell across the room, knowing from experience exactly how that would go. “Whatever,” he grumbles, jabbing viciously at the buttons on his speaker until the music dies to a much more tolerable – and much less pumped-up, weaker, fucking lame-ass – level.

“Thank you. Was that so fucking difficult?” The old hag leans against the doorway, scowling fiercely. Then she closes her eyes, exhales hard through her nose, and forcibly softens the lines of her face. When she opens her eyes again, the anger there has mellowed, more of the “grit teeth” variety than the “throwing things” variety.

“We need to fucking talk,” she says, volume reasonable for indoor use, but just barely. Katsuki glares harder. “Are you alright?” she asks after a moment, words stilted.

“What do you fucking mean ‘am I alright?’”

“I mean that you’ve been acting – weird lately.”

“Weird? I haven’t been weird, what are you on?”

Her head thunks against the doorway as she reaches a hand up to tug through her hair. “Katsuki. Look, can I come in?”

“Don’t come in!”

“I’m coming in. Sit down, brat, we’re going to fucking talk, okay?” She sits on his bed, ignoring all his snarled protests, leaving Katsuki to collapse back down onto his bench, crossing his arms and grimacing at the tackiness of sweat cooling on his skin.

“Well?” he asks when she doesn’t say anything more. “You’re the one who wanted to talk.”

“I know, I know, just give me a goddamned minute.” She pauses to collect her thoughts, immune to Katsuki’s impatient anger. “You’ve been training a lot, lately,” she finally says.

“The fucking sports festival is coming up, you know that. I’m gonna win the whole thing, which means I need to get ready.”

She stares at him for a long moment, eyes just like his own, but filled with complexities he can’t pick apart. “And it’s got nothing to do with what happened at the USJ?”

An explosion crackles against Katsuki’s palm for a fraction of a second before he smothers it in his fist. He glares at the strained whiteness of his knuckles, suddenly unable to meet the old hag’s eyes. He itches with energy, the need to do something, the need to be better, and it crawls under his skin like torture.

The USJ was nothing. Is nothing. It’s handled, is what it is. In the past. The heroes are going to catch all the villainous fuckers who were there and Katsuki will never have to see or even think about any of them ever again.

“What’s that shit got to do with anything?” he asks, curling his lip in a sneer.

“You were attacked, Katsuki,” she says, too soft and too close to pity. “You got hurt. Your teachers nearly died. You still haven’t told me what happened.”

“That’s because there’s nothing to fucking tell,” Katsuki bites back, compensating for her softness by becoming sharper in turn. “Some villains got some big ideas and thought they could mess with us, but they couldn’t. We were stronger than they were, and we fucking won. It’s not a big deal.”

“It sounds like a big deal to me. It sounds scary to me. I was so fucking scared when I heard what happened. And you haven’t said a word about it!”

Katsuki grinds his teeth, back and forth, the harsh grate of them loud in his own ears. “That’s because there’s nothing to say. You might have been fucking scared, but I’m not some kind of coward. I’m a hero, I’m gonna be number one–”

“But you’re not,” the hag interrupts, leaning forward to slap her hand against his knee in a viper-quick motion that he doesn’t move quick enough to dodge. “You’re not a hero, you’re not anything yet! You are a fucking fifteen-year-old who came home with a handprint bruised around his goddamned throat, and you want to tell me that your sudden fixation on getting stronger has nothing to do with that?”

“What do you want me to say?” he asks, without pulling his teeth apart. The old hag deflates slightly, rubbing a hand across her face with a tired sigh.

“I don’t know. I just want you to talk to me. When did you stop talking to me, Kat?”

When did he ever talk to her? When had they ever talked without yelling? Maybe when Katsuki was young enough that she could pick him up and run him around like he was flying. Maybe when was small enough that she could cage him in her arms and blow raspberries against his neck until he squealed. Maybe before his quirk came in and he realized that he was strong enough to protect himself, all on his own. Maybe before his quirk was taken and he realized that she never could have protected him, anyway.

Whenever it was, it was a long-ass time ago. Long enough that they could never go back, that was for goddamned sure.

“I love you, Kat,” she says when it’s clear that he’s not going to break the silence that has fallen between them. She sighs the words, like it’s some huge fucking struggle that she’s exhausted with. “I just want you to be happy, you know that, right?”

“You know what would make me happy?”

“What?” she asks. He meets her eyes, sees the hesitant resignation there, the tired exasperation of an “I love you” that has to be said as a sigh.  

He wonders, for a moment, about proving her wrong. He could tell her some things, maybe. He could tell her about Izuku, at least.

But she’d just get pissed that he hadn’t told her sooner, and she would definitely end up taking Izuku’s side. She always did when they were younger and he’s sure that time hasn’t changed the immutable fact that his mother can’t see through Deku’s helpless veneer.

There’s no fucking point in explaining.

He peels his lips back from his teeth in a snarl. “I’d be happy if I could turn my goddamned music back up.”

The first thing Shouta does when he finally gets back to his apartment, after hours of the brain-numbing bureaucracy, is collapse onto the couch and flail his arms about – as much as he can with the casts – in search of a cat. Inquisitive whiskers brush against his fingers, followed in short order by a merciless set of teeth digging into the exposed tip of his thumb.

“Bastard,” he hisses, jerking away. Her teeth seem especially vicious when he can’t see them coming, once again bandage-blind, courtesy of Recovery Girl. Bastard yowls a ridiculous broken sound in response before galloping loudly away, bolting to and fro. There’s a dull clatter as she runs into god only knows what, then a short silence, likely as she revels in whatever destruction she has wrought, before she’s racing off again.

With Bastard making a racket on the other side of the room, Shouta reaches out again until a fluffy spine eventually raises itself beneath his hand. He scratches the cat for a moment before picking them up around the middle to drop the little monster on his chest. From Shouta’s position on the couch, with the limited movement of his arms, the manhandling is awkward, but Lucy tolerates it with only a small meow, content enough to curl up right where he was placed. Bastard yowls again. Disco screams back from another room.

“You’re my favorite child,” Shouta tells the fluffball nosing idly at his capture weapon. Lucy chirps, a sweet noise compared to the squall of his siblings.

“You’re not supposed to play favorites, Sho. You’ll hurt the others’ feelings.”

The relief that courses through Shouta at the sound of his husband’s voice is a balm on frayed nerves, soft and teasing and finally letting Shouta relax when he hadn’t even realized he was still tense. It’s still odd to Shouta, that a single person can immediately make everything simply better, just by being present, but he hopes to never take it for granted. He sighs, scratching behind Lucy’s ears when he butts against the plaster of Shouta’s palm.

“Pretty sure the only feeling Bastard is capable of is spite.”

Hizashi laughs, scooping Shouta’s legs up so he can sit beneath them. “Probably. But Disco’s sensitive, you know that. Did she bite you again?” Wordlessly, Shouta held up his hand, displaying the marks that were no doubt left behind by the menace. Hizashi clicks his tongue sympathetically. “At least she didn’t break skin this time!” Bastard, who Shouta is sure has a hunger for human flesh, hisses and knocks something over.

“How was the kid?” Shouta asks after a moment of silence. Hizashi’s thumb halts where it had been rubbing circles over the jut of Shouta’s ankle.

“I had hoped I would feel better after seeing him,” Hizashi admits quietly.

“I take it you don’t.”

Zashi flicks Shouta’s leg. “No, I don’t. Not one bit.”

“We knew he wasn’t doing well.”

“Knowing is different than seeing. He’s just – he’s so small, and sad, and it’s like he thinks he deserves to be that way. You know what he said, when I mentioned you? He said he wouldn’t bother you anymore. Bother you!” Hizashi’s voice grows louder with his distress, though he is careful to keep himself in check now more than ever, when Shouta can’t use Erasure to spare himself from the volume.

Shouta reaches out until he can just barely grasp Hizashi’s sleeve between the tips of his fingers, tugging at it until Zashi gets the hint and collapses against him. Lucy chitters as his spot on Shouta’s chest is stolen but hops away to settle near their legs without further protest. Yet another reason Lucy is Shouta’s favorite. In Lucy’s place, Disco would have either refused to move or tried to resettle on top of Hizashi’s head where it now rests against Shouta’s shoulder. And Bastard would have sooner clawed their eyes out than cooperated.

Shouta runs his fingers through Hizashi’s hair, pulling gently at the hair tie he finds there until it falls loose. Hizashi hums, but there is still a distracted note of concern to the sound.

“I offered him a hug and he said no.”

“I don’t blame him,” Shouta says, lighthearted in an attempt to ease the melancholy that has settled in his husband’s voice. “Not everyone likes hugs.”  Hizashi wiggles his arms between Shouta and the couch, squeezing lightly, as if to prove a point.

“The little listener needs a hug.”

“…Probably,” Shouta agrees. “But just because he needs one doesn’t mean he’s ready to get one. Comfort won’t mean anything to him until he believes he’s safe.”

“He flinched,” Hizashi says at a whisper, words weighed nearly to silence by heavy sadness and remorse.

“He’s been through a lot. It will take time before he realizes that no one here wants to hurt him.”

“That’s the thing, though. It didn’t seem like he was afraid of me. It’s like he was afraid of himself.”

They already knew that was true, at least to an extent. The kid has expressed a plethora of negative opinions about himself, that he is dangerous being among them. After the things his father had forced him to do, Midoriya Izuku no longer seems to realize that he is capable of not harming people. Shouta has no doubt that Izuku would never simply choose to hurt someone, but the kid has been deprived of the choice for so long that he can’t even grasp the fact that the decision is back in his hands – that not hurting someone can be as simple as not wanting to.

Hizashi sighs. “What about your meeting? Please tell me you’ve all found something better for him than that safehouse. He’s wasting away in there.”

Shouta carefully teases apart a knot in Zashi’s hair, suddenly feeling incredibly out of his depth as theoreticals and reality begin to crash together. As knowing transitions to understanding, there is a moment of disorienting mental recalibration. Because knowing something – even accepting it, preparing for it, bracing yourself in every way you know how – is often meaningless when you find yourself face to face with the real thing for the first time.

Midoriya Izuku is going to come live with them, provided he agrees to the deal Nedzu has set up for him. A child who flinches from touch, not because of the things others have done to him, but because of the things he has done to others. A boy who loved his father and killed him anyway. A boy who loves his brother who is most likely going to try to kill him, next. A kid, a fifteen-year-old, the same age as Shouta’s students who are still so care-free, young enough to see life as their playground.

And Shouta volunteered to take care of him, to protect him. Shouta. Shouta who works himself until he breaks, whose dietary staple is jelly because half the time he can’t be assed to eat anything else, who survives by grabbing naps whenever he can because he can’t sleep through the night. Shouta who heard this same kid crying at the USJ – so desperately in need of saving that he resorted to saving himself at a terrible cost – but couldn’t do a damned thing to help because he was too busy getting the shit beat out of him to protect anyone.

Shouta’s not qualified for this. He already failed the kid once, and that’s not even bothering to get into his laundry list of character defects. He’s a good teacher, maybe, but he’s good at milking potential out of the kids who have it, good at giving reality checks to the ones who are too full of themselves, good at weeding out the ones who’ll only end up ground to pulp beneath the heels of the hero industry. He’s not particularly good with the kids, and the certainly don’t find him likable, and there’s a drastic difference between being a teacher and being a guardian – being a parent. Maybe Shouta is qualified for this on paper, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? The difference between knowing and understanding. Because Shouta might know how to do this, but he sure as hell doesn’t understand.

“Sho?” Hizashi asks, concerned. He shifts until he is propped up on his elbows, rather than laying down. “Don’t tell me they’re sending him to jail. If they are, I want you to lie to me. Wait, no. Tell me the truth so I can hunt them down. Or break him out! There’s no way–” Shouta forces himself to breathe, to think rationally as Hizashi riles himself up to go to war against the rest of the committee or stage a prison break or both.

Shouta made the right decision, and even if he didn’t, it’s been made. He will grow to understand, just like he has with all the other theoretical ideas that crashed full speed into his real world. And he has Hizashi, who already understands and who is far better with these things than Shouta ever will be. Hizashi, who still doesn’t know what Shouta has done.

“He’s not going to jail,” Shouta says, interrupting Hizashi’s rant, which has devolved into threats graphic enough that it’s good Tsukauchi isn’t around to overhear. “He’ll be a ward of UA, so long as he agrees to the conditions.”

Hizashi collapses back down, resting his chin on Shouta’s sternum. “Well, why didn’t you just say so! I probably should have guessed, with Nedzu involved. At least this way we’ll be able to see him sometimes, huh? Make sure everything is going well. Maybe he’ll finally let me give him that hug.”

“Oh, we’ll be seeing plenty of him. He’s coming to stay with us.”

There is a moment of silence, long enough that Shouta begins to wonder if he was too blunt. Then the windows rattle as Hizashi shrieks something that Shouta can’t discern over the sudden ringing in his ears. All the cats dart around, startled and frantic and howling, even Lucy, who digs his claws into Shouta’s shin as he catapults himself from the couch. Without Erasure, all Shouta can do is slam his hands over Hizashi’s mouth, probably with a touch too much force, considering the hard plaster encasing them, but Shouta’s head feels like it’s been cracked open across the eyes, so he can’t bring himself to be particularly careful.

Hizashi cuts himself off, makes a barely-there sound of apology and disentangles from Shouta to retrieve some painkillers. Lucy and Disco both find corners somewhere to hide away until they deem the apartment safe again; Bastard, on the other hand, continues to ricochet around every inch of space available to her, like a bouncy ball from hell. Hizashi returns, dropping a few pills into Shouta’s palm which he slams back dry after wiggling his bandages out of the way. Shouta lets his head fall back against the arm of the couch as he waits for the meds to kick in, Hizashi silently taking a seat on the floor next to him.

“To clarify,” Shouta begins when the pain has died to a manageable ache, “that was a surprised and excited scream, right?”

“Yeah, Kitten, it was.”

Shouta can hear the soft smile in Zashi’s voice, and it’s always a sound worth hearing, no matter how much it makes his head hurt.

Chapter Text

On Izuku’s fourth day in the safehouse, Tsukauchi does not come. Izuku eats the breakfast that is prepared for him, and then he returns to the bedroom until lunch. The clock ticks into late afternoon and Izuku remains uninterrupted, staring at the wall – it is probably ivory, he has decided – and gripping his mother’s locket so tightly the broken hinge leaves a groove in the meat of his thumb.

Still, Tsukauchi doesn’t come. But Present Mic does. He stands in the doorway, grinning as Izuku gapes.

Izuku never expected to see Present Mic again. At the end of their last meeting, just yesterday, the hero had promised he would come back, but Izuku was sure he would either forget or Izuku would be moved before then.

“Hey Little Listener,” the man says, as he enters the room. This time he makes for the desk chair instead of the bed, but rather than sit in it, he slots his arm through the back and picks it up. “Mind joining us in the living room?”

“Us?” Izuku echoes, mindlessly taking his feet. He feels so unbalanced it’s a miracle he can stand straight, but the world doesn’t tip sideways the way it seems like it should, and the ground is solid beneath his feet.

“Yep! You’re a popular one.” Present Mic lowers his glasses enough to offer Izuku an exaggerated wink, then walks back to the door, chair in tow. He knocks the legs of it against the doorframe as he goes. “Yikes,” he says, rubbing his fingers against the wood as if that will remove the scuffs he just put in. “You didn’t see that!”

Izuku hesitates for a moment, standing next to the bed and staring dumbly after the hero who whirled into the room out of nowhere and then back out just as abruptly. When Tsukauchi had not come that day, Izuku had assumed that it was over. That there were no more questions to ask. No more details to carefully pry from the resistant vice of Izuku’s jaws. No more pitying looks, no more pseudo-comfort. And he had assumed that that meant he would soon be escorted to whatever cell he would be spending the rest of his life in. Probably somewhere deep underground, where he would only see passing guards until the day Tomura found a way inside to put an end to everything.

This visit, with winks and casual property damage, never featured in Izuku’s imaginings of what would happen next. This is not a part of Izuku’s plan, not even meant to be a part of the tenuous limbo he has found himself in.

He follows Present Mic with cautious steps, into the living room to face the rest of his – visitors? There, at the small table where Izuku eats his meals, sits Eraserhead and Nedzu. Izuku freezes again in the doorway, watching with wide eyes as Present Mic places his stolen seat next to Eraserhead, flopping into it and resting his chin in one hand as he sprawls the other arm across the table. He grins at Eraserhead, who glares at him with bloodshot eyes that just barely peek out between the seams of his bandages. Nedzu stands in his own chair at Eraserhead’s other side, head fully cresting the table, but barely.

The principal grins as he catches sight of Izuku, small, pointed teeth catching the light with a vicious glint. “Izuku! Come, take a seat!” He nods to the lone empty chair at the table.

Wordlessly, Izuku does as he is told, moving on autopilot as he still struggles to catch up with the situation he has found himself in. He crosses the room carefully, silently watching the heroes in front of him. Present Mic turns away from Eraserhead to give Izuku another bright smile, cheek squashed against his fist and glasses slightly askew. With the attention of all three heroes on him, Izuku feels impossibly heavy, like he is about to crumple beneath the force of his own gravity. He resists the urge to fold in on himself, glancing quickly between Present Mic’s amicable smile, the red rimming Eraserhead’s barely-visible eyes, and the glint of light across Nedzu’s teeth.  

“First of all,” Nedzu begins, “we have something that belongs to you. Mic?”

“Right!”

Present Mic glances around for a quick moment, then leans over Eraserhead, ignoring the short noise of protest, to scoop something off the floor. He hefts it up with a triumphant cry, slinging it onto the table. Izuku’s backpack thuds against the wood and slides slightly across the surface. Half-unzipped, several notebooks jar loose, one of which tumbles straight into Nedzu’s waiting paws.

“Hizashi,” Eraserhead scolds flatly. Present Mic shrugs his shoulders with a sheepish laugh. Izuku watches the small exchange with saucer-wide eyes.

“Volume 17,” Nedzu reads. Izuku’s attention snaps to him as he flips open the book. “This is one of my favorites!”

“I’m sorry,” Izuku blurts, eyes locked onto the damning spread of pages in Nedzu’s paws.

“Are we doing apologies again?” Eraserhead asks dryly. “In that case, I’m sorry for erasing your quirk the way I did in the infirmary. I didn’t realize there would be any kind of backlash on you.”

Suddenly, Izuku does not know where to look. The notebooks and Eraserhead demand his attention in equal measure. Izuku’s eyes dart frantically between the two – from the hero he wronged, back the book that proves to just how many others he did the same – never able to settle on one before the need to address the second itches at him again.

Izuku presses his tongue to the dry roof of his mouth. “What? N-no, I – the b-books…”

“Are quite impressive,” Nedzu fills in, not at all what Izuku had been intending to say. Izuku bites down the contrary noise that tries to leap from his mouth. “Do you use one of the intelligence quirks in your repertoire when you put together these analyses?”

“I – n-no, no.” Izuku half reaches out to snatch the book away but thinks better of it before the movement can become anything more than a twitch of his already-shaking hands. “I don’t – there’s n-nothing sp-special about i-it.”

“Did All for One have you make these profiles?”

Izuku thinks, with rising dread, about the number of heroes he has written about in those books. Practically every hero he has ever seen has been catalogued in some capacity, varying from mere lines to entire pages of notes and breakdowns, depending on how much information was available to him. And then there were the quirks that didn’t belong to heroes at all – the quirks that belonged to victims, stolen away by either Izuku or his father and then immortalized and dissected on paper.

He knew the police had the notebooks, knew they had already been filed in the evidence against him. He had handed them over without a single word of argument. At the time, he hadn’t minded turning them in. In a strange way, it felt like severing a limb, giving up the books that he had spent practically his whole life working on, but he knew the information was better off in hands that wouldn’t abuse it.

Now, though, confronted directly, Izuku feels sick with shame. Many of the pages in those books had never been seen by All for One. They were Izuku’s, and Izuku’s alone. But there were over twenty books in the bag, hundreds of quirks within their pages, and the analysis there had resulted in enough deaths that Izuku had lost count.

“I-it’s just a h-hobby,” he says, weakly. “My f-fa-fa – no, m-most of them were j-just for m-me. For – for fun.” He chokes on the word. Izuku’s not proud to have built entertainment from death and destruction, but quirk analysis is a lure he has never been able to resist, even when it meant doubling down on his crimes, adding insult to injury. Like a sociopathic scientist, deaf to the screams of those he studies.

“It’s rare for someone your age to enjoy analysis of this nature, not to mention of this quality.”

“Nedzu,” Eraserhead interjects, just as tears begin to well in Izuku’s eyes.

“Ah,” Nedzu replies, smile turning thoughtful as he assesses Izuku. “You’re not in trouble! I meant it when I said I was impressed. I’ve looked these over extensively and you have quite the gift, Izuku!”

Confused, Izuku blinks – once, twice, eyelashes matting together as his tears spill over, even as his distress is displaced with disorientation. Present Mic shuffles around, patting over his jacket and crowing as he pulls something from one of his pockets. He slides the item – a small pack of tissues – across the table to Izuku with a satisfied grin.

“I don’t un-understand,” Izuku admits, picking the packet up and pulling a tissue from it to worry between his fingers.

“Have you ever thought of putting your skills to use?”

“Skills?”

“Like the analysis!”

“I – I tried – o-only s-sometimes. W-when T-Tom-mura n-need m-me to, b-but–”

“I don’t mean to use for the League,” Nedzu interrupts. “I mean for yourself. Have you ever considered being an analyst?”

“…What?” Something in Izuku’s voice, thin and lost as it is, makes Nedzu stop and think for a moment, smiling fading into a more serious, considerate stare, that is no less unnerving.

“I suppose what I’m asking,” he says slowly, “is what you want to be when you grow up. What are your dreams, Izuku?”

Izuku is still crying, tears flowing sluggishly, but he is no longer sure why. He’s not sure of much at all at the moment, feeling unmoored in the face of Nedzu’s question as he picks apart the tissue in his hands. Tiny shards of fiber flutter slightly across the table with each of Izuku’s exhales. He feels a little bit like those bits of tissue paper. Thin and fragile, fuzzy around the edges, insubstantial like he might float way or dissolve to shreds.

His dreams? These days, Izuku has only been having nightmares, but he knows that’s not what Nedzu is referring to. His hopes? Izuku tries to think back.

When is the last time Izuku imagined the future and thought of anything other than blood and tears? Why would he bother, when it had nothing else to offer him?

“I don’t know,” he says. The confession echoes around his chest, bouncing between his ribs like his insides are some cavernous space, vast and empty.

“Skills like yours could be incredibly useful in heroics, you know.”

“No,” Izuku denies automatically. “I can’t be a hero.”

“Nedzu,” Eraserhead cuts in sharply.

Simultaneously, the principal himself asks, “Why not?”

“I’m a villain,” Izuku replies helplessly, looking between the two – the mummified glare of Eraserhead, the Mona Lisa smile of Nedzu. “I’m going to jail.”

“You’re not going to jail,” Eraserhead corrects, tone firm enough that Izuku can only blink and turn the words over in his head, argument stricken from his tongue. He tries to find an angle to look at them that will make them make sense, but everything just gets more tangled up as he does, twisting together into a jumbled mass of nonsense that makes Izuku’s head hurt. Childishly, he wants to cover his ears, to sing loudly to himself until his own voice blocks out all these statements that he can’t make sense of.

“What about when you were little?” Present Mic asks, drawing Izuku’s attention away from the unreadable expanse of bandages that mask the nuance of Eraserhead’s expression, from that slight sliver of eye that pierces Izuku through. “What did you want to do then?”

Izuku thinks back again, farther this time. Long back, before he knew too well how blood felt between his fingers. Back before his mother was taken from him, followed soon after by whatever remained of his innocence. Before his quirk came in, and the world grasped him hard by the shoulders and taught him that not all men were created equal.

“I… wanted to h-help people.”

“That’s what heroes do,” Present Mic says, smiling gently. For the first time since Nedzu started speaking, Izuku’s mouth firms from its confounded slackness, pulling into a brittle frown.

“No,” he says, too harsh. “That’s what they’re supposed to do.” He regrets the words the moment they escape him, flinching forward just a fraction of an inch, as if he can reach out and snatch them back out of the air. Present Mic’s smile falls away, and Izuku finds that the hero is even harder to look at when he is frowning.

“You’re right, kid,” Eraserhead says. Izuku looks to him sharply, the agreement putting him instantly on edge. “We don’t always do our jobs as well as we should.”

Izuku backtracks. “T-that’s not–”

“No, it’s true. There are too many people out there who don’t get the help they need. Even heroes are only human. We can’t be everywhere; we can’t know everything. Can’t save everyone. Not to mention that some of us don’t have our priorities in order, to begin with. But that doesn’t make it any better for the people we fail. Right now, we’re trying not to fail you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. Nedzu, cut to the chase.”

“Of course!” Nedzu exclaims, cheerful composure unshaken by Eraserhead’s curt tone. “Yesterday, a committee of heroes, officers, and members of the HPSC met to discuss where you will go from here.”

“Not jail?” Izuku asks, still dubious, cutting his eyes to Eraserhead. He feels as if gravity has been reversed, like any moment now he is going to fall up out of his chair, tumbling head over heels into the sky. Then, when everything is set back to sorts, back to the way it should be, reality will come crashing down, and it will bring him with it until he is nothing but a red splatter on the pavement.

“Not jail!” Nedzu confirms.

“Then where…?”

“You have two options in front of you. I am here to offer you a deal, but should you not like it, the HPSC will take custody of you.”

Izuku tenses. In his five years with his father, Izuku had learned all about the flaws in their hero-centric society, though he never quite grew to hate heroics as a whole, the way Tomura had. The system is flawed, deeply and inherently, but many of the people who participate in it do so with the best of intentions, wanting to help people, the same way Izuku himself had once craved so fervently. But the Hero Public Safety Commission is a different beast entirely, and Izuku knows enough about their inner workings – more than they would ever want him to know, he is sure – to detest them entirely. Nedzu watches Izuku’s reaction with sharp eyes, and Izuku meets the beady gaze, swallowing thickly.

“And your deal?”

“It’s simple!” Nedzu responds, eyes glinting, as he produces a thick sheaf of paper from seemingly nowhere, passing it to Present Mic who, in turn, hands it to Izuku. It is heavy in Izuku’s palms, looking and feeling anything but simple. “You’ll become a ward of UA. I’ll take over your education, to assess your skills and guide you on the right path.” Eraserhead scoffs, but Izuku stares at the papers in front of him with tears once again burning against the backs of his eyes.

“UA?” he asks, tracing a shaking finger over the two large and bold letters at the top of the page. Ink bleeds slightly as a tear drips from his chin onto the typing.

“UA,” Present Mic says. He leans into Eraserhead with a small, crooked smile.

It has been a long time since Izuku had dreams, but he was full of them, once. He dreamed of helping people, saving them, being a hero. UA was always at the center of those dreams, golden and bright.

Once, Izuku had dreamed of helping people. It was a dream like the sun – warm and shining, far away but still in sight. But then he hurt people, more and more, until it seemed almost impossible that he could ever help anyone at all, and he was locked away in some cold place where light could never reach him. Now, if Izuku is being painfully honest with himself, the only thing he can still dream of is to someday simply be good. It is a dream more like a nightmare – cracked nails on bleeding fingers, scrabbling at dirt as he tries to dig his way out of a grave of his own making.

For years, Izuku had thought that his dreams were dead, killed by his own hand. So he had buried himself with them, had stopped bothering to dream at all. What was the point, when he knew exactly what the future had in store for him? He would never be a hero, would never be anything more than the villain of his own story. He resigned himself to days of blood and theft and freezing cold.

But he has ended that cycle, hasn’t he? Painfully, in a way he is sure he will regret for the rest of his life, but ended, nonetheless. He will never go back to the warehouse again.

When Izuku decided to write his own story, he had planned to make a single change. Make a scalpel his pen and scratch out his father’s name. That was all. That alone was enough to domino into massive differences down the line – happy endings where there would have been tragedies. Happy endings that would make it all worth it, even if Izuku didn’t get one of his own. His story has always been a tragedy, after all.

Izuku turns pages with fingers he cannot feel, skimming over words that look hazy through the film of tears over his eyes. It is not simple, what they are offering him. And it is not forgiveness. But simple forgiveness isn’t what Izuku wants, and it certainly isn’t what he deserves. No, they are giving him a chance to earn something.

He reads and a bubble grows in his chest, something golden-bright that feels a lot like dreams used to. Something a little like a sunrise.

“I can be a hero?” Izuku asks softly, staring at the bold and capitalized heading: SPORTS FESTIVAL. All three of the others at the table answer his barely-there question at once, a chorus of affirmation that makes Izuku’s ears ring.

Izuku reads the word “rehabilitation” so many times that it starts to look like “redemption.”

The safehouse falls into silence, broken only by the whisper of turning pages and the stutter-gasp of breath that is thick with tears. The kid reads and rereads, bottom lip trembling as he soundlessly mouths the occasional sentence to himself. A crease has settled between his brows. Against Shouta’s side, Hizashi’s weight becomes heavier as the silence stretches, but he resists the urge he must be feeling to break it and rolls his lip between his teeth, as quiet as the rest of them.

Nedzu’s proposal is lengthy and dense. It’s not the kind of thing Shouta would have expected the kid to read and process on his own, but Nedzu seems content to simply watch Izuku’s reactions rather than to guide him through anything. Shouta stares at the dimple between the kid’s brows, deep and unwavering. It speaks less of a confusion on the what and more on the why; understanding the contents of what has been put before him, but not believing it.

Through the confusion, disbelief, and despair that still cling to every edge of the kid, it is hard to predict what he is going to say. Certainly, the problem child is thinking he doesn’t deserve this. Shouta can guess that much. But does he want what Nedzu is offering? If he does, which is more important to him – wanting or deserving? Will he prioritize the desire, or will he deprive himself of this opportunity the same way Hizashi fears he deprives himself of comfort?

Each rustle of paper as the kid flips back and forth between pages has something winding tighter in Shouta’s chest. Anxiety churns in his stomach at the thought of Izuku saying yes, coming home with them, relying on them. Shouta doesn’t want to fail the kid again, but he doesn’t even know where to start in order to succeed.

Worse than that anxiety, though, is the dread that bubbles in his lungs like tar at the thought of the kid saying no. Of disappearing behind the concrete, steel, and red tape of the Commission, where the closest thing to comfort he will be offered is raised eyebrows, like he is some trivial curiosity. Locked up and locked away, not even railing against the injustice of it, because it’s exactly what he thinks he deserves.

Shouta would rather fail the kid a million times over than sit by and watch as Izuku fails himself.

Beneath the table, Zashi squeezes Shouta’s knee tightly enough that Shouta can feel his nails through the fabric of his pants. Unable to squeeze back, Shouta jogs his leg once in acknowledgement. Nedzu pats his paws silently on the edge of the table, smiling as serenely as ever, apparently unaffected by the unease saturating the air.

“So what happens n-next?” Izuku eventually asks, voice hesitant in the thick air. He runs his thumb along the side of the packet, a quick shuffle of the pages. “Where do w-we start?”

There is another quiet moment as everyone process the unspoken implication in the kid’s words. Shouta’s anxiety ramps up into a rolling boil but the tar drains from his lungs, a sweet relief that allows him to breath freely without the air getting stuck in his chest. Hizashi muffles an excited noise against his palm, bouncing slightly in his seat and madly shaking Shouta’s knee. The burst of energy, as contained as it is by Zashi’s standards, startles Izuku, who flinches slightly before freezing in place, taut and trembling for a moment before he cautiously relaxes again. Shouta knocks his temple again his husband’s with a quelling glare.

“You’ll come to stay with us,” Shouta says, catching the kid’s wary eyes. “Either today or tomorrow, if you want some time to think.”

“…With you?”

“With us!” Hizashi exclaims, pulling his hand away from his mouth the reveal the wide grin that has taken up residence there. As Zashi once again begins to vibrate with excitement, voice a touch too loud, Shouta locks their ankles together and jostles his leg. Hizashi’s smile takes on a slightly abashed tint but doesn’t dim as he shakes his hands out and settles back into his chair. Izuku stares at the pair of them – how close Hizashi placed their chairs together, how Hizashi leans into Shouta until their arms are pressed together, how casually Shouta allows the contact – with realization dawning in his eyes. His lips purse, twist into a conflicted curve.

“But I – W-why would you…”

Shouta shrugs, cavalier and completely constructed, concealing his concern. “You need somewhere to stay. We have the room.”

“I… I can’t…”

Shouta’s stomach plumets as the kid trails off. He takes a deep breath, forces himself not to reveal anything, and pointedly avoids looking at Hizashi, not wanting to see the frozen-fake smile that must be on his face, now.

“If you’re not comfortable with us, we can find a replacement,” Shouta says, gruff but composed. “The sports festival is only ten days away, so you’ll want to get started ASAP if you plan to participate. Your lessons with Nedzu begin on Monday, so you’ll still need to stay with us in the interim, but it will probably only take a handful of days to find someone.”

“Why wo-would you… A-Af-After w-what I d-did–”

Hizashi cuts off the stuttering with a small noise of understanding. He reaches across the table, resting a hand near Izuku’s, which is fisted around a crumpled edge of Nedzu’s proposal. Hizashi makes no move to actually touch the kid, leaving an inch or two between them, and Izuku stares at that gap, trepidation dripping from his eyes as freely as his tears.

“Do you remember what I said yesterday, kiddo? Shouta’s not mad at you. Neither am I. We both just want to help you. We’re on your side.” Hizashi’s voice is soft – tender and gentle. It is the kind of voice that most people would not think a notoriously exuberant man like Present Mic capable of, if they didn’t hear it for themselves. It is also what Shouta thinks of as Zashi’s most sincere, most genuine voice. No jokes, no production, no flare. Just words that mean something, given like gifts to people who need them.

The kid’s fingers spasm, dropping the papers he spent so long pouring over. For the briefest moment, he is reaching out, shaking and scared. Hizashi closes the gap in an instant, curling his fingers around Izuku’s, letting Izuku’s close around his. The kid stares at their joined hands, gaze wide and wild, like some horrible atrocity has happened right before his eyes. His arm flinches back slightly at the shoulder, as if he is about to tear himself away, but his fingers convulse tighter around Hizashi’s hand.

“I don’t understand,” he whispers. The confession is threadbare, worn thin by frustration and uncertainty.

“I know. I know it doesn’t make any sense, right now. But if you come with us, maybe we can figure it out together, huh?”

Izuku continues to stare at his and Hizashi’s joined hands. His nails dig into the back of Hizashi’s gloves. He sniffles, his breath hiccups, and he stares, fingers flexing but never releasing. A spark lights in his eyes, bringing the green of them to life for the first time Shouta has seen. They are still dim, still glazed, and the kid himself still looks listless and washed out, like the world has dug its teeth into him and shaken him about, but there is a fire inside him.

And if you give a fire fuel, it will grow.

Eraserhead can and will sleep anywhere and Present Mic is not a particularly good singer.

Izuku learns both of these things within the first fifteen minutes of the car ride to the heroes’ home. The home that they share, since they are not only coworkers, classmates, or friends, as Izuku first assumed. The home they are welcoming Izuku into, easily, happily even, as if they are glad to have his black hole being sucking all their light away.

Present Mic taps without rhythm on the steering wheel. He sings just slightly louder than most people would be able to comfortably manage, but not so loud that it hurts Izuku’s ears or keeps Eraserhead from resting his head against the window and immediately passing out. Every note Present Mic sings is at least slightly off key, but he knows all the words to each song that comes on.

Izuku is grateful for the noise. So many of his thoughts live in the space between sounds, vicious things that set upon him in the silence, crowding between his ears like high frequency vibrations that make his teeth sting and his eyes feel like they’re going to burst. He lets the noise wash over him and revels in its mindlessness, the way it keeps his head full and doesn’t hurt at all.

Eraserhead and Present Mic’s apartment building is on UA grounds, a relatively small building on the edge of the school’s expansive campus, where faculty, staff, and even the occasional student can choose to live if they don’t want to find other housing in the area. The apartment building itself is unimpressive, but UA is visible in the near distance.

Izuku stumbles out of the car on stiff legs, feeling pathetically small as he stares over at the imposing jut of the school’s four main structures. Early evening sun glints off the windows, reflecting warm light that is gradually darkening from yellow to orange.

“Come on, Sho,” Present Mic says as he opens Eraserhead’s door. “Up you get!” Eraserhead groans, glowering through his bandages and the mess of his hair. Present Mic grins brightly, impervious to the other man’s dark expression or grumbling, grabbing his elbow as he stands to help him keep his balance.

“Hope you like cats,” Eraserhead says, looking briefly to Izuku where he hovers aimlessly behind them. Without further word, he turns and proceeds into the building. He walks slightly crooked, not fully able to conceal the pain in his gait. Present Mic watches Eraserhead go with a click of his tongue.

Abruptly, he turns to Izuku, clapping his hands together. “Alright! Let’s get you settled in, yeah?” Izuku stares, wide eyed and silent, mouth clamping down on any words before he can even think to say them. “Yeah! I can take your bag for you–” Izuku has his backpack with his notebooks slung over his shoulders and a duffle bag with clothes he was told to take from the safehouse, both of which he clutches at, shaking his head “– or not! That’s fine, too! Just follow me, okay?”

Follow. Izuku can do that. Simple, easy, no need to think about anything at all. He nods. Present Mic smiles and Izuku tries to forget the feeling of warm, tight pressure that has settled into the bones of his hand like a craving.

Present Mic leads them to an apartment on the second floor, opening the door with gravitas and gesturing for Izuku to go inside. Izuku skirts carefully past him, toeing off his shoes – red, so red, they were full of blood, you just couldn’t see it – and pressing himself immediately to the closest wall as he surveys his surroundings.

Izuku doesn’t know what he expected. Perhaps he is still so caught up in his disbelief of being here at all that anything would have surprised him. Regardless, it catches him off guard to find himself in a completely normal apartment. A living room with a couch and a couple of chairs, a table, a TV. A kitchen, separated from the living room by a counter with a few stools. A wide window over the sink with a couple of plants on the sill. A hallway, presumably leading to bedrooms and the bathroom.

The only abnormal thing about the space is Eraserhead himself, who stands near the couch, shoulders hunched in as he pins a squirming cat to his chest. The animal twists in his grip like it doesn’t have bones, tangling itself up in his capture weapon and complaining loudly every few seconds, a sound like it’s gargling rocks. It chews on one of the hero’s casts, attacks moving up and down along the length of plaster until it manages to dig into one of Eraserhead’s exposed fingers.

“U-Um,” Izuku looks back to Present Mic, who is closing the door with nonplussed look. “E-Eraserhead, sir, w-what…?”

“Bastard,” Eraserhead hisses. The cat hisses back. Izuku shoots another frantic look to Present Mic, who meets his eyes this time, mouth twitching as he suppresses a smile. “Not you, kid, I’m talking to the cat.”

“O-oh. Well, uh, s-sir–”

“Don’t call me sir.”

Izuku’s mouth clicks shut. Present Mic, obviously holding back laughter, crosses his arms and leans against the wall. Izuku would try to edge his way closer to the door, but he’d have to pass in front of Present Mic to do that, and surely the hero would notice, so he stays exactly where he is, rooted to the spot.

“Why did you even pick her up?” Present Mic asks, words trembling with his amusement.

“Didn’t want her biting the kid.”

“How’s that going for you?”

“Well, she’s not biting the kid, is she?”

“Present Mic, sir,” Izuku begins weakly, unsure of what he is meant to say or do.

Present Mic turns to him with a friendly grin. “No sir for me, either! Name’s Yamada Hizashi! You can call me Hizashi, Yamada, Zashi – whatever you’re comfortable with. Sho, just put her down, she’ll be fine.”

Grumbling in a manner slightly too reminiscent of the cat in his arms, Eraserhead drops the animal. It’s off in a shot, whistling like a teakettle, as it charges straight for Present Mic, takes several laps around his ankles, crashes into the wall, then zooms off to disappear down the hallway.

 Izuku wonders if all cats are like that. He’s never had one of his own. His mother was allergic, and Tomura never liked animals, so he’s only ever seen alleyway strays. It’s hard to believe that cats would be so popular if that’s what they’re like, but Eraserhead and Present Mic don’t seem to find anything abnormal about the situation.

Present Mic snaps his fingers, spinning away from the wall to stand in front of Izuku. “Okay, how about this! I’ll show you your room, you can put your stuff down, and then we’ll talk business. Sound good?”

When Izuku nods, Present Mic leads the way down the hall, walking backwards as he gives a brief narration of the space. He nearly trips over a stray cat toy but recovers with the grace Izuku would suspect of a pro hero, reflexes kicking in immediately.

“Saw that,” Eraserhead says from where he has collapsed on the couch.

“No, you didn’t!” Present Mic calls back. He raps a quick fist on one of the doors they pass. A growl bubbles up from the other side. “This is Bastard’s closet! Don’t go in there!” Izuku only realizes that there is a cat flap in the door when Present Mic sidesteps the paw that swipes out of it. “And this,” Present Mic continues, pushing open a slightly ajar door, “is your room!”

There is a banner hung on the wall over the bed, a sting of silver bubble letters that loudly proclaims, “IT’S A BOY!” each word separated by a bright blue heart. There’s confetti scattered around the room, flecks of white and blue breaking up the otherwise pristine neatness of a well-kept but unused guest room. Present Mic groans, half a complaint and half a laugh as he crosses the room to start swiping the debris off the bedspread while Izuku lingers in the doorway.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “Nemuri – uh, that is Kayama Nemuri, Midnight, she’s a friend of ours. Anyway, she found out about you last night – because I may have had a little incident with my quirk that shook the entire building when Sho told me – and she never misses an opportunity to try to give Sho some grey hairs, you know?”

Of course, Izuku does not know in the slightest. He has never had many friends to begin with, and these days he has none at all. But the question was rhetorical, so he nods anyway. Still brushing off the blankets, Present Mic picks up a piece of confetti, squints at it, pulls a face, then flicks it across the room.

He clears his throat. “Anyway, we can vacuum all this up in a bit. For now, just put your stuff down and we’ll go back out and talk. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Izuku returns after a moment. Present Mic seems enthused by the response, despite the hesitant way Izuku spoke.

In the living room, Eraserhead is still laying on the couch, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Only a few minutes have passed, definitely not enough for the hero to have fallen asleep, but he certainly does a great job of looking as if he has. Present Mic leans over the back of the sofa and whispers something that causes Eraserhead to snort loudly.

“Of course she did,” he says, not opening his eyes. Present Mic snickers. “It’s not funny.”

“No, no, not even a little,” Present Mic agrees, serious for half a second before breaking into giggles that he muffles against the couch cushions. Eraserhead huffs a laugh of his own, nearly knocking heads with Present Mic as he sits up.

“Hey, kid – come sit down.” He inclines his head towards the side of the couch his legs just vacated. Izuku sits in the far corner, pulling his knees up with him.

 “I’ll start dinner,” Present Mic says. “You give him the lowdown.” Present Mic presses a kiss to the top of Eraserhead’s hair, and Izuku watches this exchange the same way he has watched all their others, an attentive intruder.

“You want us to call you Izuku, right?” Eraserhead asks as Present Mic, already humming under his breath, walks towards to kitchen.

Izuku’s conflicted feelings on the topic of his name have not resolved in the slightest, still churning around in his gut, a million questions about who he is, and who he was, and who he wants to be all overlapping and unanswered. But, at this point, he is accustomed enough to the uncomfortable sensation that he only hesitates for a moment before nodding.

“Y-yes, sir.”

“No sirs. No Eraserheads, either. Just call me Aizawa. Or Shouta.”

When the hero says nothing more, Izuku realizes he is waiting for a response and shifts uncomfortably. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Eraserhead sighs. His eyes, far too intense for how concealed they are, burn against Izuku’s skin. Izuku closes his mouth, catching his lip between his teeth. He has already messed up, hasn’t he? He doesn’t know how to navigate this minefield of names and foreign domesticity and – and cats.

“We’ll work on it,” Eraserhead decides, finally turning his scorching gaze away, looking to the kitchen where Present Mic sways to the music in his head. “Until then, at least call me Eraser. It’s shorter. You can call Hizashi Mic. Is that better?”

“Yes. E-Eraser.” It still feels stiff and unnatural to say, but as long as Izuku can force it out of his throat, he’ll bear it.

“Moving on to the cats, then. We’ve got three. You’ve met Bastard.”

“H-her name is…” Izuku trails off.

“Bastard,” Eraserhead – Eraser – repeats. Izuku buries his grimace in his knees. “It used to be Feral Bastard, but she got less feral after a few years so now she’s just Bastard.”

“Less… feral?” Izuku stares dubiously down the hallway, where an occasional clatter floats out of the closet.

“Oh, yeah. She’s mostly harmless, now. She will bite you, but that’s just what she does. She usually doesn’t break skin.” Eraser has several raw marks around his fingers, beaded up with blood, that beg to differ, but Izuku doesn’t point out the inconsistency. “If she tries to scratch you, then she’s actually mad, leave her alone. Mostly just stay away from her closet and you’ll be fine.

“The other two are Disco and Cumulus – we just call him Lucy. Pretty sure they’re off hiding somewhere. They’re not going to give you any problems, Bastard is the problem cat. Hizashi or I’ll point them out when they show themselves. What else…”

“Business!” Present – no, just Mic – prompts from the kitchen.

“Right. Well, the important stuff was all covered in Nedzu’s proposal. If you want or need anything, ask me or Hizashi. He’s probably going to try to drag you out shopping tomorrow to get you some more clothes and stuff for your room, but if that’s too much too soon, I can run interference for you. At UA, you’ll be under the supervision of one of us or Nedzu. Only approved quirk use, so those suppressant bands will need to stay on most of the time. They’re not giving you any problems, are they?” Izuku shakes his head. “Can you show me?”

Izuku stretches his arm out, twisting his wrist back and forth under Eraserh– Eraser’s attentive gaze. After four days, there is a small red mark on of each of Izuku’s wrists, where the metal of the bands occasional rubs against the jut of bone there. The abrasion isn’t bad at all, a minor irritation that Izuku hardly notices, lost in the shadow of the pain in his chest, but Eraser still tsks in disapproval.

“We’ll talk to Recovery Girl on Monday, see if she can help with that,” he says as Izuku draws his wrists back into his lap, hiding them behind his knees. What’s the big deal, Izuku wonders, staring at that small red spot. It’s not as if it hurts, not really. “It might not seem like much now,” Eraser adds, as if reading Izuku’s mind, “but it’ll get worse if we just leave it. She’ll want to check on you, anyway. How’s your shoulder?”

“My shoulder?”

“You were shot a week ago,” Eraser says, deadpan.

A dull ache pulses through Izuku’s shoulder at the reminder, echoing down his arm. The wound was almost entirely healed less than 24 hours after he received it, but the memory of the pain resurges like it has been recorded in his scar tissue. Thoughtlessly, he brings a hand up and presses a thumb into the knotted indent in his skin through his shirt. Just a week ago, Izuku was shot. He was shot, and Tomura threatened to go on a rampage for him, and his father pet his hair and told him he was safe.

“I’m fine,” Izuku says, digging his thumb into the scar until the memory ache is replaced by a real one. “It d-doesn’t h-hu-hurt, anym-more.” Izuku is so tired of crying, which only makes his sob all the more bitter when it bubbles out. Eraserhead reels for a moment at the sudden decline in Izuku’s mood, blinking cluelessly while Izuku scrubs at his eyes and tries to regulate his breathing before he starts hyperventilating.

“Damn it. Zashi!”

“Hey there, Greenbean,” Present Mic says, crouching in front of Izuku in two seconds flat.

Present Mic reaches out slowly, clearly projecting his movements, not backing away this time, even when Izuku huddles further into the corner of the couch. Without consciously intending to, Izuku has tangled one of his hands into his hair, tugging painfully at a fistful of his curls. Present Mic pulls Izuku’s hand away from the scar in his shoulder and gently untangles the hand in his hair.

“You’re alright,” he soothes, holding both of Izuku’s hands in firm, grounding grips. He must have taken his gloves off when he started making dinner, because his skin is warm against Izuku’s – no, it’s hot, searing, painfully melting the layer of permafrost that lives just under Izuku’s skin. “Everything’s going to be okay, you’re safe here.”

Phantom whispers curl through Izuku’s ears like smoke. They stain the insides of his skull black, leave ash against his brain, a blanket of death and decay over every thought. You’re safe here. You can rest now.

“Come on,” Present Mic says once Izuku’s hands stop twitching in his hold. “Let’s get you to your room, yeah? You could probably use some rest, it’s been a long–” he hesitates, soft smile flickering slightly, “–well, it’s been a long week, hasn’t it? You can eat later if you feel up to it.”

Present Mic’s knees pop as he stands from his crouched position, tugging lightly at Izuku’s arms until he stands as well. Eraserhead stands with them but does not follow, his dark figure looming in the living room, still and uncanny, as Present Mic leads Izuku back to the bedroom that is apparently his now.

Present Mic walks Izuku all the way to the bed. “Sorry there’s still confetti everywhere. I think I got most of it off the bed but vacuuming the rest up will have to wait. Just… don’t pay too much attention to it, yeah?”

Izuku nods numbly, crawling into the bed and curling up on top of the covers. Izuku balls himself up on blankets that smell of foreign laundry detergent and tries not to think too hard about things like what he has done, or when Tomura will come to kill him, or whether his father is watching from same place beyond and jeering at him.

Present Mic hums behind him. “Alright. Well. I guess I’ll give you some privacy. Just don’t close the door, okay? If you need anything, you can always shout.”

Quiet falls over the room, and the demons in Izuku’s head creep out of the cracks between his thoughts, thriving in the silence the way shadows thrive in the dark. Izuku presses his hands tight to his chest, feels his heart thudding beneath his palms. He reminds himself that he is alive. He is uncertain if that is a good thing.

Izuku is a haunted person. His body is a vessel for shades and sin. A living monument for death, and who keeps something like that alive?

Present Mic speaks again from the doorway, and the monsters scatter at the sound of his voice, like cockroaches fleeing the light. “How about that hug, huh?”

Izuku doesn’t let himself think about it. If he thinks, he’ll say no, because that’s the right thing to say. But if he says no, Present Mic will leave and Izuku will all alone with the ghosts, and they will push at the cracks of him until he falls to pieces. If he thinks, he’ll say no, but he wants to say yes – wants to say it so very, very badly, even if it is the wrong thing to say. He is so cold, and his skin doesn’t feel like his own, and he is starving for something he is not supposed to have but doesn’t know how to live without, and the only time he has stopped feeling like he is about to turn to dust when Present Mic held his hands.

Izuku rolls halfway over, stretching out an arm towards the door without thinking or looking. If he thinks, he’ll say no, and if he looks, he’ll have to think. He reaches out, and unseen, unthought of, Present Mic reaches back, grabbing Izuku by the elbow and pulling him into his arms.

Izuku has been so cold for so long that it hurts to thaw. Life stings when frozen blood finally creeps back into nearly-dead tissue. Sometimes he feels like he should be covered in the bitter reds and necrotic blacks of frostbite. He’ll look at himself and think that it’s a miracle he has all of his fingers and toes when he has been freezing for years. Maybe he has lost other bits of himself, instead.

But Present Mic is warm. He is warm and he smells like leather and some kind of citrusy hair product, and he holds Izuku just tightly enough that he can feel the solid resistance of his own bones, just tightly enough to keep Izuku’s soul from trying to slip out of his skin.

And Present Mic doesn’t pull away, he just keeps holding Izuku perfectly tight, even when Izuku starts crying again, even when Izuku can’t cry anymore and just breathes long, shuddering breaths. Present Mic doesn’t pull away, even when Izuku’s eyelids start to flutter, and his fingers go slack and fall limp.

Izuku falls asleep with a heartbeat in his ears, loud enough to drown out the screams of the ghosts that usually follow him into unconsciousness. He sleeps and he hears, you’re safe here, you can rest now, and this time it sounds like a blessing in more ways than one.

Chapter Text

This is how the end begins:

Tomura stands in the doorway of Izuku’s room. The bed is made far too neatly, smooth covers with perfectly tucked corners, as if Izuku cared about those things when he normally just roughly pulled the blankets up and called that good enough. It looks more like Kurogiri’s work than Izuku’s, but Tomura knows that Kurogiri has not been in here since – since.

Crossing from the doorway into the room is too easy. It feels like a barrier should pop up to stop him, like he should face some kind of resistance, something more solid than stagnant air. He sits on the bed, throwing himself down and squirming slightly to muss up the too-perfect blankets. To make it look like someone lives here – because someone does, someone did.

Tomura pulls Izuku’s phone out of his pocket. There is no lock on it. There’s not much of anything at all on it.

Three numbers – Sensei’s, Kurogiri’s, and Tomura’s own.

A few puzzle games.

A news app.

Less than a dozen photos.

Only one of them is of Izuku. That’s the one Tomura stares at. He zooms in past his own face, scrunched up and unimpressed, until Izuku fills the screen, beaming and enthusiastic. He looks happy, Tomura thinks. Tomura had thought he was happy. Maybe not all the time, but in general, certainly. Happy with Tomura. They had been happy, hadn’t they?

“Ah,” Kurogiri’s voice breaks the silence, “I was wondering where his phone went.” His voice is carefully neutral, smooth and slippery enough that Tomura can’t get a grip on what he’s thinking.

“He’ll want it when he comes back.”

“Shigaraki Tomura. He is not coming back.” Kurogiri says nothing more, standing in the doorway like there is a barrier there, like there is no going back if he crosses it.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe there’s no going back. Tomura stares at Izuku’s face and wonders if anything he thought he knew is true. Not happy, not here, not coming back.

Tomura’s middle finger, suspended, shaking, eats away at the device the moment it makes contact. Within seconds, the screen in his hands glitches into a distorted mosaic of red, green, and blue, then flickers into black.

This is how the end begins – not with a bang, but with the soft whisper of dust floating onto the bed of an unlived-in room.

Izuku doesn’t look anything like himself.

Maybe that’s a good thing. A chance to remake himself, starting right here with the UA uniform.

Or maybe he is just a child playing dress up.  

A week ago, Tomura had entered the bar in this same uniform and Izuku had mocked him for it. If Tomura could see him now, he would return the favor. He would take one look at Izuku and immediately tear into the poor attempt Izuku made at tying his tie, as if Tomura hadn’t needed to look up how to do his own. Izuku can imagine it so vividly he is almost surprised that Tomura isn’t lounging on the bed when he turns away from the mirror.

Lucy is there instead, splayed out in the warm spot that Izuku just recently left. He can see bright bits of blue confetti caught up in the fluff of Lucy’s belly and grimaces. Izuku knows relatively little about Midnight’s civilian personality, but apparently her sense of humor aligns with her hero theming, since the confetti she had covered Izuku’s new room in is penis shaped. Present Mic – just Mic, Izuku reminds himself – had vacuumed the confetti up the morning after Izuku arrived, but it is still popping up everywhere, even outside of the bedroom. Lucy startles slightly when Izuku crosses the room and reaches out to start combing the offending debris away but doesn’t otherwise protest. Lucy is the easiest of the cats, Izuku has already realized – a big ball of fluff, lazy and sweet, like the clouds he is named for. As apprehensive as Izuku still is about Bastard, if most cats are actually like Lucy, he can understand why people like them so much.

Izuku scoops the fluffball up, cradling him in his arms like a baby, and Lucy makes an appropriately pathetic and high-pitched chirp in response, blue eyes round and guileless. An abundance of long white fur is immediately deposited along the front of Izuku’s slate grey jacket. He’ll probably never be able to get all the fur out after handling Lucy like this, but maybe that will help the clothes to feel less like a costume he will never fit into and more like his. Less like fantasy and more like reality.

He carries Lucy out into the living room, hovering near the mouth of the hallway as he watches Mic dance around the kitchen while Eraser sits on a stool with his forehead resting against the counter. Mic exclaims when he sees Izuku, and somewhere unseen in the kitchen, likely bouncing along with Mic’s movements, Disco meows.

“Look at you! You’re rocking that uniform, kiddo!”

Eraser lifts his head, glaring blearily over to Izuku. “What did you do to your tie?” he asks, frankly.

Izuku hesitates. “Tied it?”

“I swear, if my arms weren’t in casts–”

“Come on, Sho, I think he looks great! Very fashionable.” Mic spares Izuku an over-dramatic wink while Eraser grumbles to himself.

Izuku takes his own seat at the counter, dropping Lucy in his lap as he sits. Hands free, he immediately fiddles with his tie, wondering if he has any hope of fixing it on his own. From his stool, he can see Disco enthusiastically twisting and twining through Mic’s ankles. He wonders where Bastard is for half a second before the question is answered by a dull pinch on the side of his foot. It hardly hurts, but Izuku still jumps. Lucy trills quietly as he is jostled. Bastard yowls, presses her belly to the ground, and darts off. Disco meows after her, less disjointed, but just as loud.

Eraser groans. “Shut up. It’s too early for this. The both of you spawned straight from hell.”

“They’re not that bad,” Mic defends, even as Bastard and Disco start to shout back and forth to each other.

“Says the one who can turn his hearing off. You and Lucy are lucky.”

“You ready to face the day, Greenbean?” Mic asks, ignoring Eraser’s grumbling.

No, Izuku thinks, staring at the dark green bands around the cuffs of his sleeves, at the glint of metal on his wrists beneath them.

“Sure,” he says.

“Well?” Katsuki asks, casting a critical eye over Hobo-Sensei’s small and plain office. “What do you want?”

“This is about Midoriya Izuku,” Hobo-Sensei says without preamble. If there’s one thing Katsuki can appreciate about the man, it’s that he doesn’t bother with beating around the bush. Katsuki sits up straighter, appropriately attentive.

“Have they caught him, then?”

“Not exactly. He turned himself in last week.” Something cold drips down Katsuki’s spine and he fights against a shudder. Hobo-Sensei watches Katsuki, eyes too keen for how tired and bloodshot they are, before continuing, “Due to his circumstances, it has been decided that the most appropriate course of action for him is a rehabilitation program here at UA.”

The cold caressing Katsuki’s vertebrae freezes, crackling along his nervous system like a painful frost. A small explosion pops across his palm without thought. His quirk is a hot and alive comfort beneath his skin, exactly where it should be. Hobo-Sensei’s eyes narrow in on the tick.

“I know the two of you have history–”

“No,” Katsuki interrupts. “Find something else to do with him.”

“I’m telling you this as a courtesy. The decision has already been made.”

“Well make a new one!” Katsuki yells, standing to slam his hands against his teacher’s desk. His chair skids back as he abandons it, screeching across the ground. The desk is already battered and bruised, so the scorches Katsuki adds to the mess don’t really mean much, but the man still watches Katsuki’s fit of temper with a deeply unimpressed air about him that only serves to make Katsuki more irate.

“Bakugou. This isn’t up to you.”

“Like hell it isn’t! This is my school, and I don’t fucking want him here!”

“He already is. He started today.”

Words failing, Katsuki yells something incoherent, slamming his fist hard enough against the desk that everything on top of it rattles. The sparks in his hands, growing progressively larger and more aggressive, splutter and die in a fraction of a second.

“This tantrum is unbecoming, Bakugou,” Hobo-Sensei says, irises shining faintly red through his bandages. Katsuki calls to his quirk, but there is only an echo where there is supposed to be an answer. He collapses backward, barely catching himself on the edge of the chair he pushed away.

“I understand you have history,” the hero says, distant through the ringing in Katsuki’s ears. “I’m letting you know now so you won’t be caught off guard if you see him. I don’t expect you to befriend him or even speak to him. But I do expect you to control yourself. Ignore him, if you have to.”

With a blink, Katsuki’s quirk is back. He stares at the orange light of combustion against his skin and closes his fist around it, like that will ensure it cannot be taken from him. Like if he can only hold on tightly enough, no one will ever be able to snatch it away.

“Look, kid,” Hobo-Sensei sighs, “I understand where you’re coming from. But Midoriya isn’t the problem.” No, of course not. Because Deku is never the problem. No, Deku is always helpless and innocent and Katsuki is the problem. Katsuki is the one who gets fucked over and needs to apologize for it while Deku plays victim. “If you ever want to talk about it,” Sensei continues, “I can make you an appointment with Hound Dog.”

Talk about it? And say what? That Deku was a fucking thief who stole quirks? And how does that make you feel? Helpless. Weak. Scared. Fucking pissed, that’s how. Katsuki doesn’t need any kind of doctor to poke around his head and tell him how he’s supposed to feel, thanks. Katsuki has it all under control.

Hitoshi pulls at his lower eyelid. Scrunches up his nose. Sticks his tongue out. He presses a hand to his hair, making it lay flat against his head, but that just makes his forehead look too big. His hair springs back up as soon as he stops restraining it, anyway. The amount of gel it would take to hold it down would make his look just as stupid as he does leaving it loose.

“You’re anxious about something,” his father says, leaning against the bathroom door with a mug cupped between his hands. Hitoshi side-eyes him, leaning away from the mirror, as if he hadn’t been inspecting his reflection for the better part of the last five minutes.

“What gave you that idea?”

“You only preen when you’re anxious.”

“Gee, thanks for the helpful psychoanalysis, Dad,” Hitoshi says dryly, resisting the urge to start futzing with his hair again.

“Hey, you asked,” his father replies as Hitoshi pushes past him. “That’s not even psychoanalysis, really. More just basic observation.”

“Sure, whatever you say, Dr. Dad. Is there still coffee in the pot?”

“What, am I not allowed to know things about my own son, now?”

“Coffee?”

His father sighs. “Of course there’s still coffee. But – you can only have some if you tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Resorting to bribery now, are you?” Hitoshi asks, grabbing a mug as his father speeds ahead of him to snatch the coffee pot up and hold it out of reach.

A shrug. “If it works.”

“The sports festival is next week,” Hitoshi answers, words clipped, holding his mug out expectantly. His father measures the response for a moment before filling the mug halfway. Hitoshi eyes the deficit, unimpressed. “How do I get the rest?”

“Tell me why the sports festival is bothering you.”

“It’s the biggest televised sporting event in the nation. Forgive me for being nervous about that.” Hitoshi injects as much sarcasm as he can into his voice and tries to avoid fidgeting too obviously, even as he wants to squirm beneath his father’s assessing gaze, a more vibrant purple than Hitoshi’s own lavender.

“If it’s just stage fright, you have nothing to worry about. No one will be watching you.”

The muscle of Hitoshi’s jaw ticks as he clenches his teeth. His father notices, of course, targeting the small spasm like a hawk fixated on its prey. Why not take notes, while he’s at it? Like Hitoshi is just another patient for his father to pick apart and diagnose all the ways he’s fucked in the head. He swallows the thoughts before he can voice them, bitter against the back of his tongue.

“Oh, they’ll be watching me,” he says instead, tilting his chin up defiantly. “I’m going to win.”

His father sighs again, but fills Hitoshi’s mug the rest of the way, nodding to the table. Hitoshi hesitates a moment before sitting, steeling his face as blank as he can manage, projecting indifferent exhaustion.

“You still want to transfer?”

“Yes,” Hitoshi bites out, frustrated that the question even needs asking.

Heroics is all Hitoshi has ever wanted. Sure, he failed the entrance exam. Crashed and burned, actually, like a graceless disaster. But what else was he supposed to do, with the deck stacked against him? Give up, he supposes. At least, if you asked his father, anyway. Write it off as a failure – too bad, so sad – move on to be a therapist or some other perfectly respectable profession. Let a dream of a decade die in two weeks.

But oh, Hitoshi forgot – he doesn’t have dreams. No, he has spite and a contrary disposition. Well, maybe his father is right. Maybe Hitoshi is spiteful; maybe he’s contrary. But he’s going to show the world just how far those things can take him.

Izuku does not slot naturally into the household. Sometimes movies and television will act like family is this destined thing, like groups of people just fit together, without effort or growing pains. Shouta thinks it stands acknowledging that there is nothing easy or natural about making a family – if that really is what they are making, here. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing; it simply is.

The fact of the matter is that Shouta and Hizashi have been living together for over a decade, and now there is a third body in their space. A third person, with thoughts and feelings, wants and needs, completely separate from their insular rhythm of two. Sometimes Shouta will try to flop down on the couch, and he will have to stop himself before he body slams a traumatized teenager who is still incredibly wary of physical contact. Sometimes Hizashi will take out his hearing aids only to put them right back in again because the kid doesn’t know any sign language, yet.

No, there is nothing natural about it. Sometimes it is a bit cramped to squeeze Izuku in, sometimes their edges grind together uncomfortably as they learn to fit around each other. It is new and it is odd. But Shouta can’t say he minds.

Izuku, sitting on the couch, shoots Shouta a look where he sprawls in the armchair. The kid has been darting him looks since they got home, glancing back and forth between Shouta and Bastard, who has been stalking him since they walked through the door, creeping along, closer and closer until she can lunge out and nip him. He looks at Bastard, sitting on the other side of the couch and staring at him intently, and then back to Shouta. The kid’s eyes are nervous no matter where he’s looking, like Shouta is just as likely to bite him as Bastard is.

Bastard keeps her eyes on Izuku, her stunted half-tail swaying like a metronome behind her. Izuku watches her back, out of the corner of his eye, hands tucked into his sleeves and then cradled between his knees where she can’t get to them. As apprehensively as he stares at her, the kid handles her attention with good grace.

“It means she likes you,” Shouta tells him. Bastard slinks an inch closer to the kid while his attention shifts to Shouta.

“I know,” he says, soft and wary. “She’s never h-hurt me, it’s just…”

“Startling?” Shouta offers. The kid nods. “Consider it training.”

“T-training?”

“You want to be a hero, right? Well, it pays to not startle easy.”

Bastard pounces, going for Izuku’s hands and then rolling around in his lap when she can only get his sleeves. She rights herself and then launches away. Izuku winces as her claws dig into his legs on takeoff. Shouta chuckles under his breath, less a laugh and more a half-huff of air. It earns him a thin smile in response, cautious and uncertain, but neither forced nor fake, which is the best they’ve gotten out the kid so far.

“What are you thinking?” Shouta asks when the kid goes back to shooting him nervous looks.

Obviously, Izuku has something to say, squirming and side eyeing Shouta the way he has been all day. But Shouta and Hizashi learned quickly that the kid wouldn’t say anything without prompting. Hizashi would probably think of a gentler way to ask, to coax it out of the kid without making him jump the way Shouta just did, but short and to the point is really the only way Shouta knows how to handle things.

“I could heal you,” the kid blurts in response after an expectant moment of silence. Immediately, he flushes and shakes his head, stuttering, “I-I know I’m not – I’m not m-meant to use my q-quirks out-outside of t-training, but I – I have a he-healing one, and Rec-covery G-girl, she – she hasn’t b-been able t-to heal you y-yet, and, and it’s my f-fault, so–”

“It’s not your fault,” Shouta interrupts, putting a quick end to the rambling. Izuku ducks his head, face a bright red that makes his freckles look odd against his skin. “Recovery Girl is healing me, it’s just a process.”

“I could h-help, though,” Izuku says, softly.

Shouta knows exactly what the kid is offering. Shuzenji’s quirk utilizes the patient’s stamina to accelerate the healing process, which is a limited resource for someone as perpetually exhausted and sleep deprived as Shouta. But somewhere on the ridiculously long manifest of quirks Izuku has collected is a healing quirk that uses the owner’s energy. A quirk like that would be able to take care of Shouta’s injuries no problem, but Izuku would be the one to pay for it.

“Not your job, kid. We’re the ones taking care of you, alright? You don’t have to worry about us.” As an afterthought, Shouta adds, “Thank you.”

This is the first lesson Izuku needs to learn – you are not expendable; you are no less important than anyone else. Based on the misplaced disappointment dimming the kid’s eyes, it will be a lesson long in the making. Thankfully, Shouta has plenty of experience shoving hard lessons through thick skulls.

“Perhaps we should find a new place to stay for a time,” Kurogiri says blandly as the police on the other side of the monitor overturn the entire warehouse searching for a speck of evidence.

“No,” Tomura argues, nails digging into his neck. “They won’t find anything.”

“Of course not.” Kurogiri sounds vaguely affronted by the implication that his cleaning of the warehouse would have been in any way subpar. “But they shouldn’t have known where to look in the first place.”

“It’s one warehouse, with nothing in it. Everything sensitive was cleared out. We’re fine.”

“Shigaraki Tomura. We’re compromised.”

Tomura scrubs his nails against his shirt to clear away the clotted blood that has caught beneath them. Kurogiri is right, as much as Tomura hates to admit it. If the police have the location of the warehouse, they have to assume that they have the location of the bar, as well. Tomura knows this, but the sting in his neck does nothing to distract from the gnawing ache in his chest. He imagines Sensei sitting at the bar, imagines Izuku sitting next to him. Imagines all four of them eating dinner together while Izuku tries to restrain his excitement over some fight he saw on the news. He imagines it, and it fucking hurts in a way that Tomura can’t stand.

Where did it go wrong? How had they gone from that to this? This – where Sensei is dead, and brothers have become enemies, and homes have been compromised. Where’s the divergence point? What butterfly effect rippled out and led Tomura to this bad ending? What decision did he make that led to the world sitting up and saying, “we will remember that;” what did he fucking do?

He should have killed Izuku when he had the chance. There are still scars on the floor of the bar from the first time that brat stole Decay, still scars around Tomura’s wrist, carved into him like a shackle to his own goddamned mistakes. Tomura should have struck the brat down the moment he recognized him as a threat. Instead, he let himself be fooled, complacent and content, telling himself that they were brothers.

Cain and fucking Abel, maybe.

There’s only one way the story ends.

“Young Midoriya, there you are.”

Izuku blinks at the scraggly blonde man who just stuck his head into the infirmary. All Might, Izuku recalls after a moment. Somehow, this man was meant to be All Might. It had seemed absurd when Izuku first figured it out – a kneejerk assumption from an offhand comment that couldn’t possibly be correct, a misunderstanding made when Izuku hadn’t been thinking clearly. But any doubt on the matter had been eradicated when Tsukauchi had solemnly impressed the need for secrecy and discretion on Izuku.

Looking closely, Izuku can see the resemblance. All Might’s bulk and boom is such a seemingly inherent part of him that it is hard to separate him from it, but this man, as thin and sickly as he is, has the same intense look about his deeply set eyes.

“Yagi,” Eraser says from the bed Recovery Girl herded him to. His voice is flat and dry, like always, but after nearly a week living with the heroes, Izuku can tell that his voice is slightly more flat and dry than its default state.

All Might – Izuku tucks the name Yagi away in the back of his head – spares Eraser a strained smile before looking back to Izuku. “I was hoping to speak with you, my boy.”

“Well, you’ve found him. Speak.”

“Ah – in private?”

“No.” Eraser delivers his rejection without bothering to look at All Might, who deflates in the doorway and hovers there, rebuffed but unwilling to leave. He casts small, beseeching glances in Izuku’s direction, as if Izuku is supposed to somehow rectify the situation.

“Well, it’s really quite important,” All Might insists, though weakly, drawing back slightly so his chin only just crosses through the infirmary doors. Eraser shoots him a deeply unimpressed look, but Mic intercepts the glare, rising from his seat on the side of the bed to stand between them with his hands raised in passive mediation.

“How about this! I’ll go along with Izuku and Yagi to discuss whatever it is that needs discussing while you and Shuzenji finish up. Sound good?” All Might sags with relief, a grateful smile splitting his face. Eraser doesn’t protest, which is as good as agreement, coming from him. Mic claps. “Compromise! It’s great!”

Mic shuffles Izuku and All Might out of the infirmary to the teacher lounge. The couch isn’t the best place to have a serious conversation, but it is the most comfortable place in the room, so when Mic takes a seat there, Izuku follows his lead. All Might eyes the couch for a moment before pulling a chair away from the table and setting it across from them.

“So, what’s this about?” Mic asks, genial but with a slight edge that Izuku hesitantly labels protective. All Might sets his mouth in a grim line that makes the shadows around his eyes seem darker. He nails Izuku in place with his gaze, and in that moment the resemblance between this wraith of a man and the Symbol of Peace is more tangible than ever. He has the look of a man who has been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for years.

“Does the name Shimura mean anything to you?” All Might asks after a long moment of staring Izuku down.

Izuku hesitates, frowning. “S-should it?”

“All for One never mentioned anything about a Shimura Nana? Or a Shimura Tenko, perhaps?”

“No,” Izuku replies, honest. “He doe– d-didn’t tell me m-much.” Izuku jumps slightly when Mic places a hand on his shoulder, but he leans into the slight touch before the hero pulls away, letting the warmth of it sink through his jacket with only a small measure of guilt.

“Who are they?” Mic asks when All Might provides no immediate elaboration.

“Shimura Nana was my… mentor. And Shimura Tenko is her grandson, though he apparently went missing after the deaths of his family when he was only a child.”

Izuku’s eyes widen. He sits forward, unconsciously pulling away from Mic’s touch as he leans closer to All Might. Several things click into place at once, the least of which being why All Might wanted to speak to him to begin with.

“Tomura,” he breathes, half question and half epiphany.

It is a bit of a leap, perhaps, but to Izuku, many mysteries have just been solved at once. Questions that he has been asking for the last five years suddenly have answers. Who Tomura is, where he came from, why Izuku’s father took him in.

“Yes,” All Might confirms.

“The hand. I – I told Tsukauchi, it belonged to his biological father–”

“Shimura Kotaro.”

Izuku tries to stop his bottom lip from wobbling as he meets All Might’s eyes. The man returns his gaze, serious and composed. Izuku wonders how much of Tomura’s life can be attributed to All Might. All for One had had Tomura on puppet strings, pulling him around every which way, and Izuku had hated to see it. How many of those strings had been attached because of the old grudge between All for One and All Might? Who would Tomura have been allowed to be if All Might’s shadow had never been cast over his life?

“So what?” Izuku asks. His voice is slightly too cold, a tone that makes Mic look at him carefully and replace his hand on Izuku’s shoulder, squeezing gently. All Might tilts his head slightly, a fraction of a degree. “So Tomura is – what? Related to someone you used to know? And my father took him to get to you, there’s no doubt about that. I might not have known the connection, but I know my father, and that’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do. So what? What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to help him, of course,” All Might answers. “Nana wouldn’t want this for him.”

Izuku sits back, tension and defiant energy leaving him all at once. He turns the name Shimura Tenko over in his head, rolls it silently around his tongue. It’s empty, meaningless. But it has sparked a determined fire in All Might’s eyes.

What makes someone worth caring about? Why is Shimura Tenko any more worth helping than Shigaraki Tomura? Why is Izuku’s brother a villain, while Shimura Nana’s grandson is a victim? When does someone become a tragedy instead of another faceless statistic?

Izuku doesn’t know. It is frustrating to him, that anyone should be lost to these fickle affections, that something as empty as a name should make the difference in whether or not someone deserves help when they need it. For now, though, he buries the frustration beneath relief. Because right here and right now, All Might’s reasons don’t matter.

Tomura does.

Katsuki is not a jumpy person. He doesn’t startle easily because he’s aware of his surroundings. Situational awareness is an important skill for a hero, after all. He can’t just go around letting any shitty extras get the jump on him – and they never do, because he’s observant and attentive the way any hero who lives to move up the ranks needs to be.

The point is, if Deku was around, Katsuki would notice. So there’s no fucking point in glancing over his shoulder or doing a double take whenever he so much as sees the color green. It’s a goddamned bush, that’s all, and Katsuki is perfectly aware of that, thank you very much.

And maybe Deku came out of nowhere at the USJ, but that wouldn’t happen again. Katsuki just hadn’t expected to see him there – and he had no reason to, considering the thief was supposed to be in the US, far, far away from Katsuki. He just didn’t notice Izuku because there was no way Izuku was supposed to be there, he was supposed to be anywhere but there. Now, Katsuki knows what to expect, so Deku won’t be catching him by surprise again. Katsuki is better than that.

“Bakugou–”

Katsuki spins, one hand flying to the pin on his newly reconstructed gauntlet as he splays his other palm out. Frog Face blinks at him, slow and deliberate, not flinching back even when his palm sparks a little too close to her skin.

“What do you fucking want?” he bites out, trying to draw his fingers away from the pin without calling attention to the fact that they had reflexively grabbed it to begin with.

“We’ve been partnered together,” she tells him, pointing to the other extras who are branching off in pairs for the exercise.

“I fucking knew that.” He wonders when the pairings were announced, wonders how he missed All Might calling his name. Probably Shitty Hair or Racoon Eyes was making some kind of racket and drowned it out. They’ve latched onto Katsuki, despite his protests, and it seems like one or the other is always yelling about something, and Katsuki can’t hear over that shit.

Frog Face moves past him, leading the way to whatever corner she’s apparently decided they’re going to discuss strategy in. Katsuki doesn’t tense as she passes through his peripheral vision, doesn’t follow the green blur of her until his eyes ache from trying to practically go back into his head. That would be – that would be fucking stupid, is what it would be.

Hitoshi tends to get to school early. It’s a rare occasion that he actually manages to be asleep when his alarm is meant to go off, so he finds himself with an abundance of early waking hours. Largely, this time is devoted to drinking enough coffee to make up for the fact that he shouldn’t be awake at all, but at some point, he has to either leave early or put up with his father’s attempts at conversation, and Hitoshi almost always choses the former.

So, he gets to school early. Not obscenely so – he’s not usually the first one there, or anything – but early enough that he can rest his head on his desk and pretend to sleep while the classroom fills around him.

Today, he is walking with his earbuds jammed in and his head down and he doesn’t even notice anyone else in the hallway until a solid few seconds after they crash into him, right outside the doors of class 1-C.

“Shit,” he says, blinking at the other boy, who he just knocked right off his feet. Hitoshi yanks at the wire of his earbuds, ripping them from his ears a little too roughly. The chord jerks and dances around as he shoves them into his pocket. They’ll be tangled to hell later, but whatever; picking the knots apart will just give him something to do.

The boy sits on the ground, blinking up with equal surprise. His eyes are big – really big, maybe a bit too big, even – with bruises underneath, deep and dark enough to rival Hitoshi’s own. There’s a notebook, laying open and face down about a foot away, presumably knocked straight out of the guy’s hands when they collided. Hitoshi scrubs a hand across the back of his neck, scowling at the hot feeling of a blush there, as he crouches down to pick the book up. Some of the pages have crinkled and bent during their messy landing, and Hitoshi does his best to smooth one of them out.

The red, spiky-haired kid from class 1-A stares back at him. A drawing of him, anyway. A pretty good one, at that. Not perfect, but detailed and accurate enough that Hitoshi can clock the dude on sight. The drawing is labeled, “KIRISHIMA EIJIRO.” Beneath that, “Quirk: Hardening.” There is more writing from there – the entire two-page spread is filled with small, cramped scribblings, interspersed with an occasional illustration. Hitoshi brings the page closer to his face, squinting as he tries to make sense of it, but can only pick out a few scattered words before the book is unceremoniously snatched from his hands.

The boy stands – and shit, Hitoshi meant to offer to help him up or something, he must look like such an asshole – and clutches the journal to his chest, eyes looking bigger than ever for how wide they have gone.

“I – s-sorry!” His voice is higher pitched than Hitoshi would have guessed. Maybe he’s nervous. Or maybe he’s afraid. Hitoshi has never seen the kid before in his life, but he’s wearing a uniform and he came out of 1-C, so it’s possible he knows some of Hitoshi’s classmates. And it’s possible that they told this kid all about Hitoshi. And his quirk. Of course he’s fucking nervous, then. They always are.

The boy is gone in an instant, before Hitoshi can say anything. Which is probably for the best, since he knows himself well enough to admit that whatever came out of his mouth probably would have been nasty. He gives himself a moment to sneer at the ground before shaking it off, coaching his face back into tired blankness as he shoves the classroom door to the side. Yamada-Sensei, feet kicked up on his desk, waves in greeting. Hitoshi ignores him just as resolutely as he ignores his two classmates chatting in the back of the room, stalks to his desk, pillows his heads on his arms, and promptly pretends to sleep.

The problem child isn’t sleeping. He pretends to. He goes into his room and turns the lights off and doesn’t come out until morning. But every day the shadows under his eyes get just a bit darker. Every day, he looks a bit more haggard, even as he shows other signs of improvement – even as he offers small, hesitant smiles, as he flinches less and less from touch. He’s either not sleeping or he’s sleeping poorly.

Shouta hopes it’s the first. He hopes the kid lays awake at night. As awful as it is, he’d rather the kid be unable to sleep than to have his rest robbed from him by nightmares. Shouta hates the thought of the kid, the child, waking in a cold sweat and crying to himself, alone in a dark room with Shouta and Hizashi just down the hall. Shouta wants to think Izuku would come to them, if he needed someone, but it is an irrefutable fact that Izuku would not. Not yet.

It’s only been a week, Shouta reminds himself. Izuku’s recovery is going to take years – and that’s if they’re being optimistic, which certainly isn’t a trait anyone would normally ascribe to Shouta. More realistically, Izuku might never fully recover. Shouta will do just about anything to ensure that the kid finds happiness again – that’s a commitment he made when they took Izuku in, and Shouta takes his commitments very seriously – but total recovery isn’t necessarily a prerequisite to happiness.

Because loss isn’t always something you can just get over. Loss is a wound. In the beginning, it is a bleeding, raw thing. You wonder if it will kill you. Sometimes, it does. Other times, it gets better. You heal. Not always all at once – because sometimes stitches pop and skin tears and the process starts all over again – but you heal.

Here’s the thing, though – healing is entirely different to never having been hurt at all. You’re not good as new. Lost limbs don’t grow back. You end up with scar tissue and phantom pains, and sometimes you can spend your entire life hurting from an old wound, long after the bleeding has stopped.

Shouta lays sleepless in bed next to a softly snoring Hizashi, aching inside and out. His arms and head, still in recovery; the knee he busted back in his early twenties, long since healed but still protesting regularly; the middle of his back, just because age is catching up to him a little faster than it probably should be. His lungs, his heart, because there is a kid down the hallway – a kid Shouta is meant to be responsible for – who is probably suffering instead of sleeping.

Hizashi sleeps like the dead, so Shouta doesn’t bother with caution as he sits up in bed, stretching his bad knee a few times before trying to put his weight on it. Disco, curled up against Hizashi’s spine, pops his head up curiously. He hops over Hizashi, unrepentantly digging his back paws into his kidney as he goes. Hizashi mumbles something and roll onto his stomach. Disco meows.

“It’s nearly 3AM,” Shouta replies. “Show some respect.”

Disco meows again, disrespectfully. He follows Shouta when he leaves the bedroom, trailing too close to his ankles and nearly tripping him at every step. Down the hall, Izuku’s door is still open a crack. If he feels that the “no closed doors” policy is a violation of his privacy, he has never complained. He has never complained about anything at all, actually. Shouta will probably mark the day he finally does down on the calendar – it’ll be something worth celebrating.

Shouta leans against the wall next to the door. If he listens closely, he can hear Izuku breathing. No tears, not that Shouta can hear, anyway. It’s improbable that the kid has learned to cry while keeping his breathing so even, and Shouta certainly hasn’t seen any evidence that that’s the case, but the possibility lodges uncomfortably in his throat when he tries to swallow.

“You awake?” he asks into the darkness. Izuku’s breathing hitches, answer enough, but Shouta won’t force the kid into conversation, if he wants to pretend he’s sleeping.

“Yeah.” Disco greets the new voice with another meow, pushing himself into the room in pursuit. There is a faint sound of rustling blankets as Izuku makes a space on the bed for the cat.

“Can I come in?”

Another pause, longer than the last. Shouta wonders if the problem child would say no even if he wanted to. Izuku says, “Yeah.”

Diffuse moonlight spills through the bedroom window, just enough that Shouta can see Izuku as he sits up, careful not to disturb Lucy, who has taken to sleeping in his bed. Disco shoves his head eagerly against the boy’s hands, taking the initiative to use them to pet himself when Izuku doesn’t do an enthusiastic enough job of it.

“Have you slept at all?”

“…Not yet.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“Have y-you slept?”

Shouta narrows his eyes. “I’m not healthy. Don’t tell Mic I admitted that.” Izuku hums mildly, noncommittal and distracted. “What’s on your mind?”

Izuku is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that Shouta suspects he simply won’t get an answer, and he won’t push – not at three in the morning when tears seem so much closer to the surface than they do in the light of day, not when Zashi is asleep and unable to deescalate any emotional upheavals that may occur. Izuku wraps his arms around Disco and pulls the cat to his chest, ignoring the discontent squirming his hold elicits.

“What if I made the wrong choice?”

Shouta doesn’t bother asking what choice Izuku’s referring to. He crosses the room to sit on the bed.

“Sometimes,” he begins, after careful consideration, “there is no right or wrong choice. Only choices we have to live with.”

Perhaps it is not the right thing to say. It is not kind or gentle. But then again, neither is the truth.

“What if…” Izuku whispers, too soft, trails off. “What if I can’t?” It’s a question that can only be asked in darkness, with the comfort of shadows between you and whoever you are addressing. Light can scare questions like these away. Not the thoughts – never those – but the voicing of them.

“You can.” Shouta says it firmly, because he believes it. “You already are.”

Izuku hums again. Noncommittal. Distracted. Neither of them says anything more. Shouta doesn’t leave the room until predawn light starts to leak over the horizon and through the window, showing the kid slumped over, asleep in his pile of blankets.  

“It’s been over a week,” Tomura says flatly.

“I’m aware,” Kurogiri replies, distracted.

Tomura’s eyebrow twitches. Being casually dismissed is nearly worse than being ignored. He glares hard at the useless warp gate that has insisted they lock themselves away in this tiny apartment that seems like it should have been condemned years ago. Kurogiri doesn’t acknowledge him, knitting away at some shapeless thing he pulled out of nowhere on their second day here. Spiteful, Tomura reaches over the gap between their seats and closes his hand around the ball of vibrant purple and red yarn Kurogiri is working from.

“I’m tired of being here,” Tomura says. It’s not just a statement of fact – it’s a threat. But Kurogiri hardly seems intimidated, sighing as he places his knitting needles in his lap. Tomura kind of wants to snatch one of them up and see if he can use it to find Kurogiri’s jugular, beneath all that mist.

“Why not go back to your games?”

“I’m in a mood for a new game. The most dangerous game.”

Smoke swirls around Kurogiri’s eyes as he tilts his head slightly. “That’s a different kind of game. You’re getting your references crossed.”

Tomura squints, sneers. “Do I look like I care? What are you even talking about?”

“‘The Most Dangerous Game,’ a short story by–”

“Did you miss the part where I don’t care?” Tomura growls, shaking yarn-ash away from his fingers with an agitated flick. “Why are we just sitting here when that little team killing bastard is still alive?”

“And what is it you’d rather do instead?” Kurogiri asks, in that mild, patronizing way that makes Tomura want to throttle him. Too often, Kurogiri speaks to Tomura as if he is nothing but a foolish child. He forgets that Tomura was chosen by Sensei, taught by Sensei, trained by Sensei – because Tomura is going to change the world, and Kurogiri will regret treating him this way when he does.

“I am going to make him pay,” Tomura spits.

“And how are you planning to do that on your own?”

“I’m going to close my hands around his stupid little skull the way I should have done the moment he stumbled into the bar–”

“How many times did the two of you spar in training?” Tomura scowls at the interruption, panting. “And how many of those times did you win?”

“Shut up!” Tomura snaps. “Shut up, shut up, just shut the fuck up! He is going to get exactly what he deserves for everything he did, and I am going to be the one to deal it out. I already know all his dirty fucking cheat codes, and this time I am playing to win.”

Kurogiri, uncowed by Tomura’s fit of temper, hums. “Alone?”

Alone. Tomura feels the carefully enunciated word like it is being carved into his bones. Of course he is going to do it alone. Alone is what he is, now. The game’s not cooperative anymore; it’s competitive, PvP, Tomura against his player two. It’s every man for himself, a battle royale with no teams to betray you.

“Did you forget your Sensei’s final lesson, Shigaraki Tomura?” Kurogiri asks. “No one can do everything on their own.”

“Gather a team,” Tomura recalls. All at once, his anger dulls to nothing but a hum in the back of his head as consideration shoves its way to the forefront of his thoughts.

“Precisely. The tasks before you have not changed. Gather your people, lead them, kill the Symbol of Peace, change the world. And through the course of that, Shigaraki Izuku will be dealt with.”

Tomura grinds his teeth, frustration surging again. “But how am I meant to do any of that when you won’t let me leave this place?!”

“The sports festival is less than a week away.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Tomura demands.

“The festival always provides a unique opportunity to gather information. It will be especially valuable this year, with All Might’s new employment at the school and our past encounter with the students of class 1-A. And this is something we can do without risking our capture.”

Oh, excellent, just what Tomura was looking for. Still can’t leave this shithole apartment – that is, apparently, too much to ask – but he’ll be able to watch some hero brats run around and punch each other on national TV. Maybe that had been Izuku’s idea of a good time, but it has never been Tomura’s.

The sports festival is only two days away. But that’s still two days of doing nothing, just fucking waiting for a task he doesn’t even particularly want to do. He never cared about the festival, when Izuku made him watch it. He doubts he’ll enjoy it any more, watching alone.

“Tell me, Izuku,” Nedzu begins abruptly, interrupting Izuku in the middle of his math exercises, “what do you think would happen if you took Tokoyami Fumikage’s quirk?”

Izuku winces. Too often, Nedzu asks questions like this, either in the midst of their analysis conversations or out of the blue. The principal seems as fascinated with Izuku’s quirk as he is by whatever Izuku has to say about the quirks of the first-year hero students, who Nedzu has assigned him full write ups on. Izuku supposes he would be curious, too, if the quirk weren’t his own, but the line of inquiry is uncomfortable, nonetheless.

He is surprised it took Nedzu to ask about Tokoyami, specifically. The bird-headed boy likely has one of the most interesting quirks in the class, and it’s powerful to boot, though largely underestimated by those around him. Izuku purses his lips, math forgotten as he spins his pencil idly between his fingers and contemplates the question.

“Tokoyami’s quirk doesn’t really make any sense,” Izuku eventually admits.

Nedzu’s eyes glint. “Oh?”

“As far as I can tell, Dark Shadow is legitimately sentient. It’s uncommon but not unheard of for manifestation quirks like Dark Shadow to have a degree of personality, but a-as far as I know, they don’t actually have wants or opinions – at least, not beyond those of their owner.” Izuku clears his throat, feeling a bit foolish to be explaining this to a being who certainly already understands it better than Izuku ever will. “It’s just, well… Dark Shadow isn’t like that. She’s completely different to Tokoyami, and it seems like their goals sometimes actively conflict.”

“What’s your theory?”

Izuku blanches. The pencil spinning between his fingers flies off to the side and he fumbles to catch it before it can get lost in some obscure corner of the office.

“I, uh, I can’t sp-speculate.”

“Of course you can!” And Nedzu, of course, is not going to let things alone. He never does, to the point where his curiosity and inquiry verge dangerously on sadistic.

“Well, um, I was t-thinking – what if Dark S-Shadow isn’t actually a quirk? Or rather, what if she is her own person, with her own quirk. So – so she’s not r-really Tokoyami’s quirk, but more like his, his s-sibling?”

“You think?” Nedzu asks, tapping a paw to his chin. “I’ll admit, the possibility has occurred to me, as well, but I haven’t had time to give it much consideration, with so many students under my purview.”

“It’s just – well, it seems a bit farfetched, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t someone have said something before now? A doctor, or a quirk counselor?”

“You’d be surprised how much of quirk classification is rubber stamped,” Nedzu explains. “So long as a child can use their quirk without hurting themself or others, very few professionals further investigate a quirk’s exact nature or function. However,” Nedzu adds with a smile that makes Izuku nervous, “you are uniquely situated to solve this mystery. Your own quirk allows you to sense others, correct?” Hesitantly, Izuku nods, though Nedzu is already well aware of the answer. “If your theory is correct, then Tokoyami would have two quirks – his own and Dark Shadow’s. Have you considered approaching him?”

Izuku stares down at the quirk suppressing bands around his wrists. They are removed only periodically, during his training with Eraser, and occasionally here in Nedzu’s office, when the principal’s curiosity requires more than a verbal answer to satisfy. No doubt Nedzu would make a special exception and remove the bands if Izuku wanted to approach Tokoyami as suggested.

“No,” Izuku says after a pause that is made thick by the weight of Nedzu’s stare. “I try to stay away from the students. Class 1-A, especially.”

“You’ve spoken to Uraraka Ochako, though, haven’t you?”

Izuku flushes. He wouldn’t call what he did speaking, exactly. She had been on her way to Recovery Girl for anti-nausea medication when she stumbled onto him muttering to himself outside the training field where 1-A had been having their heroics lesson. As brief as the interaction had been, Izuku doubts it reflected well on him. Uraraka had been nothing but enthusiastic and kind, greeting him almost like a friend, rather than a stranger who was cagily lurking around campus and talking to himself.

“T-that doesn’t count,” Izuku declares, grimacing down at his math work.

“If you say so,” Nedzu allows, with all the benevolence of someone who is dropping a topic purely out of mercy. “You realize though, that you won’t be able to avoid them during the sports festival?”

There are many parts of the sports festival that Izuku has been trying to avoid thinking about. Things like how it is going to be televised and that he is going to have to use his quirk. Most of all, he has been avoiding thinking about the people who be there. People he will be expected to use his quirks on, some of whom have already had the misfortune of meeting him. Class 1-A has already been made aware of Izuku’s presence at UA – none of the details, just that one of the villains from the USJ is at the school for rehabilitation. Most of them wouldn’t recognize him, just like Uraraka hadn’t. But a handful of them would. Like the frog-quirked girl – Asui Tsuyu, Izuku now knows – who Tomura nearly killed. Or Todoroki Shouto, who nearly destroyed Tomura’s nomu with a single powerful wave of ice.

Or Katsuki.

The sports festival is only two days away. The sports festival is what’s going to make or break everything, the moment where this whole charade Izuku has been playing at will either come together or fall apart. He honestly can’t say which would relieve him more.

Katsuki swings a fist at Shitty Hair’s head. The other boy, with his limbs mostly hardened, is too slow to dodge, but he brings his arms up to block the explosion Katsuki lets loose before retaliating with a low kick that Katsuki easily jumps over.

Katsuki has to give it to the extra – he’s good for training. The spiky bastard may be exhaustingly loud, and he’s still oddly fixated on his “manliness” bullshit, but his quirk is a perfect compliment to Katsuki’s own. With his skin hardened, the guy is practically made of stone, which lets Katsuki go to town without having to worry about getting a little too into it and seriously hurting his sparring partner.

At first, Shitty Hair had been a shitty fighter as well, just throwing himself forward with wildly swinging fists, hoping that one of his blows would land with enough force to have an impact. It probably worked just fine against the mindless robots they faced for the entrance exam, but unlike nearly every other person in his class, Katsuki actually bothered with some combat training before getting into UA.

Kirishima has gotten better, though. Not so much that he can really hold a candle to Katsuki, of course – not by a long shot – but the improvement is still noticeable. Katsuki actually gets to employ a little thought and strategy into their spars, now. Before, it was more like blasting at a wall that occasionally jumped around.

Katsuki catches Shitty Hair in the back, sending him stumbling to his hands and knees with a surprised yelp. He rolls to the side, narrowly escaping the next blast Katsuki sends his way, and holds his hands up in tired surrender. He keeps them up, fingers still jagged and solid, until Katsuki huffs, stretches his arms out, and relaxes out of his fighting stance.

“Another round to you,” Shitty Hair says, skin returning to normal as his arms flop to the ground. He smiles a wide, goofy grin.

“You didn’t stand a chance,” Katsuki replies with a click of his tongue. He offers a hand, hefting Shitty Hair to his feet when he grasps it.

“I’ll beat you one of these days, just you wait!” Shitty Hair exclaims, clutching a determined fist in front of him. His forearms are smudged with streaks and starbursts of soot. Katsuki snorts, pulling a rag out of his gym bag and tossing it over.

“As if.”

“Dude, seriously! I have big plans for the sports festival – my quirk’s not all that flashy, not like yours, so I’ve gotta make sure I stand out. You’ll see!”

“Your plans don’t mean shit, I’m gonna win the whole thing.”

“Not without a fight, you’re not!” Kirishima yells, but he is still grinning as throws an arm around Katsuki’s shoulders. “Watch out Bakubro, we’re gonna give you a run for your money! And hey – didn’t Aizawa-Sensei say that that guy from the USJ is gonna be competing, too? Deku, right? He seemed pretty manly when–” Grinding his teeth, Katsuki shoves Shitty Hair’s arm away. The spiky bastard stumbles to the side with a shout and an affronted pout.

“Deku’s not gonna get past the first fucking round,” Katsuki growls. “He’s nothing but a spineless weakling crybaby, and if he so much as looks in my direction, I’ll grind him to dust. There’s nothing manly–” Katsuki sneers the word “–about him. He’s a pathetic, sniveling, little villain.”

“I don’t know, man. That, uh, sounds a little harsh.”

“It’s not. If you have two brain cells to rub together in that thick fucking skull of yours, you’ll stay away from him.”

Katsuki hikes his gym bag up on his shoulder, whirling on his heels to storm for the exit of the training grounds. Shitty Hair splutters behind him, jogging to catch up, but he eventually falls behind when Katsuki resolutely ignores him.

Katsuki has seen neither hide nor hair of Deku in the week since their homeless slob of a teacher told him the fucker was in the school. Katsuki has kept his eyes out, prepared for anything, but Deku never made an appearance. Katsuki is fine with that. Deku is best left neither seen nor heard, in Katsuki’s opinion, but his lack of presence also creates a certain sense of unease. Because Deku is here at UA, regardless of whether Katsuki sees him, and he must be fucking up to something.

The sports festival is only two days away. Deku will be there, but Katsuki refuses to let the bastard fuck this up for him. Katsuki is going to show everyone exactly what he’s worth, and at the end, he’ll be the one standing on the podium, stronger than everybody else. And there’s nothing fucking Deku, of all people, can do to stop him.

“Hi Shinsou!” the girl behind the counter at the cat café calls as the door chimes closed behind him. “The usual?” Hitoshi nods, briefly glancing to her nametag. Sonoda Teruko. Nearly every time Hitoshi comes in, she’s the one who greets him, but he always manages to forget her name between visits.

Hitoshi finds his usual booth, tucked against the wide front window of the shop, plastered with little decals of cats and coffee cups. Apricat jumps up into the seat next to him a moment later, a large ginger tabby who apparently enjoys Hitoshi’s vibes, since they always end up hanging out together when Hitoshi has the time and money to stop by. Hitoshi sits sideway in the booth, bracing his back against the cool glass of the window and crossing his legs to make a little bowl for Apricat to hop into. Skit, grey and tiny, sniffs shyly at the toe of his shoe from under the table.

A few minutes later, Sonoda interrupts the trace-like state Apricat’s rumbling purr has lulled Hitoshi into. She clears her throat softly before placing Hitoshi’s coffee on the table. She places a muffin on a napkin next to the drink, and Hitoshi eyes the baked good warily.

“I didn’t order this,” he says. Too blunt, he scolds himself internally. He sounds like a jerk, when all she did was make an honest mistake.

Sonoda blushes. “I know,” she says in a rush, smoothing some fly aways from her bun back against her head. “It’s just – you go to UA, right? Who am I kidding, you’re literally wearing the uniform, of course you do.”

“Yeah,” Hitoshi hesitantly confirms. Sonoda has always been friendly, but it’s not like she and Hitoshi make conversation. When he first started visiting this café last year, she made a few attempts at small talk when taking his money or delivering his drinks, but his responses were so stilted that she gave up pretty fast. “What about it?” he asks. Too short, again.

“The sports festival is coming up, right? I just thought maybe you could use some – I don’t know – encouragement, or something. It’s – it’s an encouragement muffin. Plus ultra, and all that! You’ll be competing, won’t you? I’ll see you on TV?”

“I guess so,” Hitoshi mumbles, looking away from Sonoda’s timid smile to the cat dozing contentedly in his lap. “I mean, yeah, you will.”

Sonoda hesitates for a moment, rocking on her heels. “Well, uh, I have to get back to work. But I’ll be rooting for you!” She lingers a half moment longer while Hitoshi resolutely stares at Apricat.

He only realizes once she’s gone that he didn’t even thank her for the muffin. God, that went just great, didn’t it? He guesses he made slightly less of an ass of himself than he could have, so that’s a point in his favor, at least. And she didn’t seem too put off by his brusqueness.

Hell, she had even said that she’s rooting for him.

Of course, she barely knows him. She doesn’t even know his full name, not to mention his quirk. She’d probably change her tune, if she did. Most people do.

But still.

The sports festival is only two days away. And for the first time, Hitoshi has someone rooting for him. For so long, Hitoshi has been trying to prove everyone wrong. One person rooting for him under false pretenses doesn’t really change that, but the idea of being able to prove someone, even just one person, right still provides a novel little thrill.

“I’ll win the whole thing,” Hitoshi promises Apricat. Apricat’s ears twitch in his sleep.

“I want you to take my quirk,” Shouta announces.

Izuku, predictably, splutters. “N-no, I c-can’t do that!” He shakes his head back and forth so rapidly it’s a miracle it doesn’t snap right off his neck.

“Yes, you can,” Shouta says, keeping his voice level to compensate for the bubbling irrationality in Izuku’s words.

“I’m not supposed to t-take quirks! That’s not – it’s bad!”

“You’re not supposed to steal quirks,” Shouta corrects patiently. “This isn’t stealing. It’s borrowing. You will give it back, won’t you?”

“Of course!”

“Then I don’t see the problem.”

Izuku sags, tucking his hands to his chest and rubbing at the spot where the suppressing bands usually lie. The faint red marks that had been developing there when Izuku first moved in with them have already faded, swiftly dealt with by Shuzenji, but Shouta makes sure to keep his eyes on the area anyway, in case the problem ever reappears.

“Why do you want me to t-take it, anyway?” Shouta shrugs, shoulders protesting at the weight of the casts that he is still not yet free of.

“Call it professional curiosity. I want to know what it’s like.”

“You already do.”

“There were confounding variables at play. Now, are we going to keep talking about it or are you going to take my quirk?” Izuku stares silently at the ground. Pointlessly, Shouta raises his eyebrows. “Izuku?”

“It’s done,” Izuku says weakly. “I don’t want to activate it. I – d-don’t make me acti-tiv-vate it, please.”

The realization that Izuku’s only experience with Erasure before now was using it to kill his father hits Shouta abruptly. It’s like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, stealing the air from his lungs and leaving all his muscles locked in place. God damn it. Shouta knew he was going to fuck this up; it’s a miracle he lasted an entire week. He forces himself to remain calm, not wanting his own frustration with himself to wind the kid up.

“You don’t have to use it,” Shouta says, perhaps a touch too soft to fully pass for casual. “You can return it whenever you’re ready. I can barely even tell that it’s gone.”

There is, as Izuku has described, a small, formless feeling in Shouta’s chest. The vaguest sense that something might be off. It is nearly impressive how minor and nonurgent the feeling is, and it’s not until Izuku touches his fingertips to Shouta’s and gives the quirk back that Shouta can even say for sure he is not imagining the feeling altogether. It is like a ghost of a ghost, a dream of a dream.

“Huh,” Shouta breathes, activating Erasure to confirm – though he specifically avoids looking at Izuku while he does so. “For some reason, I still expected it to hurt.”

“It does, sometimes.”

“Oh?” Shouta asks. He is wary about pressing for details, especially when having Izuku take Erasure already started today’s training off on a misguided note.

Izuku nods. “You already know what happens. With m-mutation quirks. But my fa- All for O-One, it always h-hurt when he d-did it. They…” His voice trails into a whisper, something distant and hollow. “He would put them to sleep, so he didn’t have to listen to them crying.”

Shouta grimaces. “So your quirk is different, then. Why do you think that is?”

Izuku blinks several times in quick succession, eyes losing some of the glaze that had fallen over them as he focuses. He makes a questioning noise.

“You’re a smart kid,” Shouta elaborates. “You must have some kind of theory.”

“I…” Izuku bites his lip, frowning at the ground. “My q-quirk isn’t just a copy of my f-father’s. It’s… it’s a little bit like my mom’s, too.”

“She had a telekinesis quirk, didn’t she?”

“Attraction of Small Objects.” The quirk’s name, wordy and self-explanatory, is said in wistful, almost reverent tone. “That’s how I can t-take quirks, even from a d-distance. It’s – it’s attraction. I k-know it’s still st-stealing, and it’s w-wrong, but the quirks, they don’t – they don’t resist, they just c-come. My – A-All for One, he… he had to t-tear them out.”

Shouta hums a low, understanding note. “It’s gentle.”

Izuku falls silents. He stares hard at Shouta, eyebrows drawn together, teeth digging too hard into his bottom lip to be healthy. Beneath the messy fringe of his hair, the shadows beneath Izuku’s eyes look painful.

“What?” he asks, voice as brittle as spun sugar.

“Your quirk. It’s gentle.”

It is hard to describe the way Izuku looks at Shouta, in that moment. The kid’s eyes are wide, glowing with tears, and they fix on Shouta as if he is speaking in tongues, saying things that Izuku simultaneously can’t understand and wants desperately to believe in. It is not the starry-eyed look of a child staring at their hero. It is – it is like a prophet looking at a god, receiving divine messages beyond mortal comprehension.

Shouta can’t stand it. He has to look away. He swallows painfully around the lump that has abruptly formed in his throat.

“What’s it called?” he asks, deflecting, voice rough. “Your quirk.”

“It, uh, d-doesn’t actually have a name,” Izuku answers after a pause. When Shouta finally looks back to him, the too-heavy look has faded from his eyes. “I - I registered as Q-Quirkless, and there didn’t seem to be much of a… point to n-naming it, after that.”

“We’ll need to fix that. Think on it.”

The sports festival is only two days away. Shouta will admit to having second thoughts about Izuku’s participation, but Nedzu is set on it, and Nedzu gets what Nedzu wants. With the festival will come attention, and even if Izuku doesn’t reveal the full extent of his quirk – a precaution that they have discussed at length – he’ll need something to call it. People will be talking about him, after all. Shouta has no doubt about that. For better or worse, his problem child is going to make an impression.

Chapter Text

“This is a mistake,” Shouta announces while the door to Nedzu’s office is still swinging shut behind him.

Behind the desk, Nedzu tilts his head with that damnable polite, inquisitive smile, as if he doesn’t already know exactly what Shouta is talking about. The rat knows what, and he knows why. He already knows everything Shouta is going to say and everything he’s going to say in return. Really, there’s no point in having the conversation at all, not when Nedzu has already decided exactly how it is going to end, but here Shouta is anyway.

“You’ll have to be more specific. Tea?”

“He shouldn’t be competing.”

“I thought you were one of his advocates?” Nedzu asks mildly, filling an unrequested cup and pushing it across the desk with a nod. “Have you changed your mind about him?”

“Of course not,” Shouta responds. He breathes carefully through his nose, refusing to allow Nedzu to work him up. “But there are better ways to go about this. Two weeks ago, the kid was drowning, and now we’re throwing him straight back into the deep end before he’s even had a chance to catch his breath.”

“The sports festival is the best way to enter him into the hero course. I was under the impression that that was what you wanted?”

Arguing in such a way that he turns his opponents against themselves is Nedzu’s specialty. Everything he says sounds so damn reasonable, always things that you already agree with, to the point where you wonder why you’re arguing to begin with. Trying to reason with the rat always makes Shouta feel like he is sixteen again, tangled in his capture weapon, pulling the knots tighter with each move he makes to free himself.

“I think he would make a good hero, someday,” Shouta says carefully. “But at this point, his confidence and self-worth are too low. He’ll be a danger to himself.”

“Hound Dog has approved his transfer.”

“Hound Dog has only been speaking with him for a week and a half.”

And he’s on your payroll, Shouta thinks, but doesn’t add.

“He’s a professional,” Nedzu dismisses with cheerful nonchalance. “He thinks joining class 1-A would improve that confidence and self-worth you’re worrying about.”

And it could. It might. But– “He deserves to be safe. At least for a little while. That’s what we’re about to take away from him.”

Nedzu’s smile doesn’t fall completely, but it softens. His eyes glint with something that almost seems sincere. “He’s not safe now, Shouta,” he says, level and serious, without any of his typical affected cheer. “Any safety we’re providing him is an illusion. This way, we at least seize control of the narrative.”

“If they don’t know he’s here–”

“They’ll find him,” Nedzu interrupts. “This way, we’ll be ready for them.”

Shouta knows the plan, of course. He knows all the systems that have been implemented to detect any hostile presences, he knows the defenses in place. They’re good. Of course they are – Nedzu is the one behind them all. But no plan is perfect, and Shouta can’t help but fixate on the gaps.

“He’s not ready,” Shouta says futilely.  

“He has outstanding potential,” the rat muses. “Not just as a hero, but as a catalyst for change. I think he’ll surprise you. I think he’ll surprise us all.”

From Nedzu, among the brightest creatures alive, the sentiment means something, and Shouta is briefly taken aback by it. It’s not that he doesn’t agree – he does. Midoriya Izuku, with his terrifying quirk and miraculously unbroken spirit, has the power to make change but the temperament not to force it. A rare combination.

But catalysts don’t survive. Sure, they come out the other end intact, but that’s only after getting broken down, twisted around, and then put back together. And people are far harder to repair than molecules.

“It’s a shame I won’t be able to watch,” Nedzu sighs. “Unfortunately, my presence is expected at the third-year stage, as always. Keep your eyes on him for me. I’m sure he’ll be worth watching.”

Just like that, the conversation is over, living and dying on Nedzu’s whim, as Shouta knew it would from the very beginning. His cup of tea, untouched, sits cooling on the edge of Nedzu’s desk.

Katsuki is at the front of the pack, leading class 1-A out of tunnel and into the bright sun of the sports festival’s central stadium with zero hesitation. He walks with his shoulders back and his head held high, leveling a glare at the drone that swoops down a few feet away but not shrinking away from the camera the way too many of his classmates do. Shitty Hair, as hot on Katsuki’s heels as ever, waves at the thing with an enthusiastic grin before his attention is caught by the size and volume of the audience that surrounds them on all sides.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, eyes wide, “that’s a lot of people. And Yamada-Sensei is really talking us up, huh?” The puppy-like exuberance of his grin is replaced by something more trepidatious. “Man, I’m starting to get nervous! Aren’t you, Bakugou?”

“No,” Katsuki replies. He grins, and while he may lack the pointed teeth of the boy besides him, there is a sharp, dangerous edge to Katsuki’s smile that the other could never manage. “I’m just getting more into it.”

Over the loudspeakers, Present Mic continues announcing the classes, students filing in in clumps as he does. Katsuki stares intently at each head that passes into the glaring light of the arena, searching for Deku’s unruly green mop, but seeing nothing, even as Present Mic declares all the first years accounted for. Katsuki doesn’t dare allow himself to think that Deku simply might not be participating – that would just allow the fucker to catch him off guard, later.

“Quiet everyone!” Chains and Whips calls from the center stage, snapping her flog to gain the crowd’s attention. Or rather to direct the crowd’s attention, since god knows she already has all eyes on her, what with the fucking spectacle she makes of herself. “It’s time for our player pledge! Representing the students this year is Bakugou Katsuki, from class 1-A!”

The extras mumble to each other around Katsuki, stepping to the side to make room for him to approach the stage. He takes the stairs two at a time and snatches the mic that is offered in his direction without looking at the woman handing it to him. Glaring out at the group of students, Katsuki waits for them to fall silent, waits for all of them to be looking at him, expressions ranging from excited anticipation to unimpressed impatience.

“I pledge that I’ll be number one.” Katsuki holds the microphone too close to his mouth, his voice coming too loud and slightly distorted out of dozens, if not hundreds of speakers around the stadium. The vaguely familiar faces of class 1-A break into embarrassed groans while the rest of the crowd, students and observers alike, burst into protests and shouts.

“At least be nice stepping stones for me,” Katsuki says, the staticky projection of his voice briefly overpowering everything else. He tosses the mic back to the dominatrix caricature before jumping directly off the stage. He hears her fumble to catch it, but someone on the tech end of things manages to quickly switch the mic off before it clatters to the ground.

“How overconfident can you get?” the Shitty Hair knock off from class B yells as Robo Nerds tries in vain to scold Katsuki.

Katsuki rolls his eyes, rubbing behind his ear as a dull ringing starts up from all the noise. A bunch of oversensitive pansies, they are, if they’re going to go around screaming and crying from a simple statement of truth. And if they have a problem with it? Well, they’re welcome to try to prove him wrong.

So, the arrogant blond is Bakugou Katsuki. Hitoshi files that little bit of information with everything else he knows about the hero student – explosion quirk, short tempered, self-obsessed, probably compensating for something. It’s not much, but it’s a pretty solid foundation on which to start building strategies on how to piss the guy off. Granted, Bakugou seems like the type to make that easy. All the better for Hitoshi.

The microphone Bakugou threw at the end of his “pledge” rolls, abandoned over the stage, rocking slightly as it comes to a halt. Midnight doesn’t lean down to pick it up, and Hitoshi can’t blame her, given the number of men in the audience who are already just about frothing at the mouth from her mere presence on the stage. Hell, some of the students aren’t behaving much better.

“Now,” Midnight says, recovering remarkably well from Bakugou’s display and the crowd’s subsequent outburst, “let’s get started right away. Our first game will be the qualifier! Every year, countless sports festival hopefuls become sports festival has-beens in this round. Let’s see if you have what it takes, shall we?” Sly and sadistic, she smiles at her captive student audience, as an electronic board drops down behind her with a heavy, mechanical thunk. The display spins, cycling through possibilities so rapidly they’re nothing but a blur. Hitoshi fights against the tension that tries to seize up his muscles.

“This year,” Midnight says slowly, playing up the drama of the moment as the audience and participants alike wait with bated breath, “it’s… this!” The clunk of the board coming to a stop perfectly overlaps with the leather snap of Midnight’s whip.

“An obstacle course,” several people around Hitoshi read out, voices echoing over each other, slightly out of sync.

“That’s right! All eleven classes will be participating in the race,” Midnight explains. “The course follows the outer circumference of this stadium – about four kilometers of obstacles for you to get through! As you know, here at UA, we pride ourselves on the freedom we give our students – which means anything goes! Just stay on the course and give it everything you’ve got!”

“Plus ultra!” Hitoshi nearly jumps at the cheer that rises up around him, well over half the students responding in unison to some intangible cue.

“That’s the spirit! Now, take your places, everyone!”

The eager energy enveloping a solid portion of the group scrambles into something frantic as they process Midnight’s words and make a mad rush for the gates, pushing and stumbling to get a position as close to the mouth of the tunnel as possible. Hitoshi hangs back from the chaos, along with a decent number of other non-hero course students.

“It’s pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?” Hitoshi asks a boy he doesn’t recognize, nearly as tall as Hitoshi himself and a bit broader about the shoulders.

The boy laughs, a touch derisively. “Yeah, I don’t–”

“Let me guess. You don’t really get what the big deal is? Good – then you won’t mind if I borrow you for a bit, right?” The boy, face slack and eyes clouded, doesn’t respond. “Stick by me,” Hitoshi orders. When he takes a step forward, the boy follows. He doesn’t struggle at all, simple and obedient and perfect for what Hitoshi needs him for.

Above the gate, there are three large green lights. The first goes black with a loud electronic hum, obnoxious but distinct. The clamor at the gates grows more heated. The second light buzzes to black. Even the students where Hitoshi is, more relaxed and low energy, begin to stir.

“Start!” Midnight calls, voice nearly lost beneath the buzz of the final light and screech of the gate. Students are shoving through the gap immediately, pouring into the tunnel in a writhing mass of elbows and knees. Some of the hang-backs rush forward as well. In front of Hitoshi, a boy is knocked to the side, wavering on his feet before regaining his balance.

“Hey dude, you alright?” Hitoshi calls. The boy looks back in surprise, smiling tentatively.

“Yeah, I’m–”

“Glad you’re good. Stay by me.”

“Okay!” Yamada-Sensei calls over the speakers. His voice seems distant over the uproar of the students caught in the tunnel, but Hitoshi listens as well as he can. “Here’s the play-by-play! What should we pay attention to in the early stages?”

Another voice crackles over the speakers, duller than Yamada’s, and harder to pick up as a result. “This part right now.”

Hitoshi watches the squirming traffic jam of bodies, nonplussed.  There is a part of him, childish and needy, that wants to grab the nearest drone and demand that everyone watch him, pay attention to him. Of course, he’s hardly anything interesting to watch, right now. He has hardly moved three steps since Midnight called start. And that’s a good thing – the fewer eyes on him this early, the better.

He will have time to shine, later. They will all be watching him when he wins, and they will wonder where the hell he came from. Well, he’s been here the whole time, they just never bothered to look, and soon they’ll see just how stupid that was.

There is a sharp crackle, a crystalline splintering sound that makes the hair on Hitoshi’s arms stand on end just a moment before a massive gust of freezing air billows out of the tunnel entrance. A cold, white fog billows around, muffling the sudden exclamations from within it. It’s ice, Hitoshi realizes. The tunnel is frozen through, there is a thin layer of frost even under Hitoshi’s shoes, and he’s still a ways back from the entrance.

“Jesus christ,” someone near Hitoshi breathes.

“Insane, right?” Hitoshi asks.

“I knew the hero course was–”

“Come here.”

Hitoshi looks over the people he has gathered with a critical eye. He can’t tell any of their quirks just by looking at them. Slightly inconvenient, but not too big a loss, since he’s not entirely sure if his quirk would let him make use of them, anyway. A test for another day, perhaps, after he actually makes it into the hero course.

“I think the three of you can probably carry me,” he decides. One of them is fairly small, but the other two are decently sized. Hitoshi himself doesn’t really weigh all that much – as tall as he may be, he’s always been a beanpole.

There is some awkward fumbling in the lifting process as Hitoshi attempts to find a stable configuration without jostling any of the boys, but eventually he manages to settle himself nonchalantly onto the platform of their arms. He comforts himself with the knowledge that all the cameras are observing the no doubt thrilling action occurring at the front of the pack.

“Mush,” he says. His transport doesn’t move. He sighs, “Walk forward. As quickly as you can without slipping or running into anyone.”

They get through the tunnel with surprising speed, picking their way steadily across the ice, weaving through the clumps of people who’re still frozen up to the ankles. It would probably be faster to run forward on his own, but Hitoshi isn’t winning any races on his own stamina, so it seems wise to save that energy for the inevitable obstacle that he won’t be able to get someone else to do for him.

In front of him, the students of class 1-A shout at each other. Bakugou Katsuki blasts himself forward with his explosions, in hot pursuit of the boy with the candy cane hair. The pink skinned girl glides easily over the ice. The boy with the tail barely touches the ground as he springs off it with powerful and well-practiced motions. Hitoshi watches them, chin propped in his hand, elbow resting on his knee.

“They’re used to using their quirks,” he tells the boy at the head of the carry formation. Of course, the boy doesn’t reply, doesn’t react at all, since it’s not an order. “Explosions are an easy thing to practice. He probably had people begging him to show it off. Bet they never threatened to put him in – I don’t know, steel gloves or something, just so he couldn’t use it.” Hitoshi sneers, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. There is still a small divot there, invisible except to his fingertips.

A loud crash brings him back to the present, but the hulking green metal beast in the middle of the track nearly threatens to send him tumbling back into bitter recollections. Gears and hydraulics grind together audibly as the thing turns towards the students, several of whom trip over themselves in their attempts to abruptly reverse their momentum. The lenses within its eye rotate, red light dancing over the glass.

“Targets found,” an electronic voice announces. Then it adds, with a sadistic glee that machinery should not be capable of, “Lots!”

Fucking robots. Just great. Right in Hitoshi’s skillset.  

Izuku walks into the stadium with a mob of seventy-some general education students who pay him no attention. They are all occupied with each other, excited or nervous as they bunch together in little friend groups. On the fringes of the crowd, Wallflower tingles against Izuku’s skin. There is no real, tangible sensation associated with using the quirk, but the knowledge that it is active – that he can slip by unnoticed, his presence crystal clear and unobtrusive – settles over his shoulders like a heavy blanket.

Of course, Wallflower isn’t effective in photo or video. Izuku darts occasional nervous glances to drones hovering around. Certainly, he is on TV, somewhere, a blur of green and navy caught in some broad overhead shot, but for the most part, the cameras either take the whole scene in from an anonymous distance or focus on the hero students.

At the center of the arena, Midnight – quirk: Somnambulist – stands on a small stage, one hand on her hip, the other gesturing with a multi-tasseled flog. His interactions with “Auntie Nemuri” – self-proclaimed, very loudly, upon their first meeting in the staff room – have all been rather brief, but this is his first time seeing her in her hero regalia in person. One of his notebooks – volume 11, page 73 – has a full redesign of her costume. He had only been twelve or thirteen when he made it, so it’s a bit outdated at this point, but he wonders if it would be too presumptuous to share it with her, anyway. She’s a grown woman, of course, and she can dress however she likes, it’s just – well, it doesn’t look particularly comfortable? Or practical, for that matter. And it feels a little indecent to actually look at her.

Anyway, that’s irrelevant. She cracks her flog, a surprisingly sharp sound for how small it is, probably to cut off trains of thought exactly like Izuku’s. Dutifully, he gives her his attention, and pointedly does not think about how a better chest piece could be made that actually provides coverage and support while still paying homage to a harness.

“Quiet, everyone!” she calls. “It’s time for our player pledge! Representing the students this year is Bakugou Katsuki, from class 1-A!”

“That guy?” someone – minor transformation quirk, based in their hands – asks, under their breath, but still too loud to be discrete.

“He did finish first in the entrance exam,” Sero Hanta – quirk: Tape – says, smiling sheepishly.

“Maybe on the heroics exam,” another person – emitter quirk, something to do with minerals – scoffs. Katsuki had been near the top of the written exam, as well, Izuku happens to know. Nedzu is far to liberal with the information he allows Izuku to access, and the students’ scores and rankings were noted right alongside the recordings from their practical exams, which Izuku has already watched at least three times.

Katsuki stands on the stage, glare harsh and unwavering as he waits, settling for nothing less than everyone’s full attention. “I pledge that I’ll be number one,” he says finally, voice crackling through speakers from all directions. The silence that Katsuki waited for breaks in an instant. Groans from class A, including a boisterous scolding from Iida Tenya – quirk: Engine. Indignant shouts from class B, scoffs and sneers from the other courses. Katsuki’s eyes – red, fierce, and indifferent to the outcry – skim over the crowd, resting on Izuku for a chilling half second before sliding away.

“At least be nice stepping stones for me,” Katsuki adds. And that is apparently all he has to say. He tosses the microphone to Midnight without even looking at her and hops down from the stage.

“How overconfident can you get?!” class B’s Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu – quirk: Steel – yells, straining against the arms of a classmate who seems to be considering just letting him have at it. Katsuki doesn’t spare him a glance, standing with his jaw set next to an exasperated Kirishima Eijiro – quirk: Hardening.

Izuku sighs softly to himself. Katsuki is… different than he remembers. Different and also painfully unchanged. Giving his all, to the exclusion of caring what anyone else has to bring to the table. Obsessed with a very particular kind of strength. Stubborn and rigid to the point of severity, sometimes even savagery. But he is probably the least confident Izuku has ever seen him. Overconfident people don’t clench their fists and glare at the world like it is an enemy to be defeated.

“Now, let’s gets started right away,” Midnight announces, compensating for Katsuki’s spectacle with even more theatric bravado. “Our first game will be the qualifier! Every year, countless sports festival hopefuls become sports festival has-beens in this round. Let’s see if you have what it takes, shall we?”

Izuku stands up straight. He knows she isn’t talking to him – she may know he’s here, but she can’t even see him. The words are for each and every student there, over 200 people, but of all of them, Izuku is willing to bet that he has the most to prove. Prove he has what it takes, prove he’s worth it, prove it isn’t a mistake to give him this chance. Prove that he can be something more than what he has been so far.

Several others in the crowd stand straighter as well, square their shoulders as if Midnight is talking to them, specifically. Izuku may have the most to prove, but he is not the only one here with a purpose. One way or another, dreams will be crushed today. Do they have what it takes? The only way you learn to fly is by falling and hoping you don’t hit the ground.

Midnight makes a production of revealing the first event, but Izuku pays little attention to the dramatics. First, they’ll be doing an obstacle course race, then a cavalry battle, and finally the one-on-one matches that always determine the winner. The events were decided before Izuku arrived at UA, likely close to the beginning of the year, possibly even earlier. Izuku has known about each event since his third day at the school.

It's not like he went snooping on purpose. It’s just that Nedzu is sometimes very careless about the information he leaves laying around his office. Well, “careless” and “laying around” are probably an obtuse way of putting it, since Izuku is reasonably certain the principal did it intentionally. He’s reasonably certain the principal does everything intentionally. Izuku ignored the plans when he first saw them, but later that day they had worked their way into his English packet – appropriately translated and everything, so he hadn’t even realized what they were right away.

So, by the end of his third day, Izuku had known the structure of the sports festival, though not any of the details as to what the events would contain. He’s still uncertain whether Nedzu’s deliberate dispensing of inside information is some kind of test or a genuine attempt to assist him. Knowing Nedzu, it could very well be a mix of both, but Izuku doubts he’ll ever get an answer, either way.

When the crowd suddenly swarms towards the gates leading out onto the course, Izuku hangs back. At this point, leading the pack would be counter intuitive – it wouldn’t gain him anything in the long term, and the dubious honor of being at the front would inevitably draw attention to him, even with Wallflower active. Besides, the tunnel on the other side of the gate is a long, narrow thing, an obvious choke point that’s going to result in at least several dozen eager front runners getting jostled and bruised and far more exhausted than they should be this early in the competition. Izuku shudders slightly just at the thought of being pressed in so closely to so many people.

The gates open and the crowd floods through, immediately clogging the tunnel. Izuku waits and counts in his head.

It takes six and a half seconds for the real race to start.

It is Todoroki Shouto – quirk: Half-Cold Half-Hot – who starts it. As one of the hero course’s powerhouses, with a quirk well suited crowd control, it’s no surprise that he’s the one taking the initiative. When it comes to flashy and game changing displays of quirk use, Todoroki was really one of very few candidates for kicking things off properly, far more than three lights and a buzzer ever could.

After all, this isn’t a middle school foot race. This is UA’s sports festival. This is where heroes are born.

Todoroki’s onslaught has left over half of the students in the tunnel and just beyond it frozen fast to the ground. With the race moving forward, Izuku finally enters the tunnel himself, weaving carefully through the trapped students, more concerned about accidentally bumping into one of them than he is about the ice.

Enhancement quirks are incredibly common, and thus something Izuku has in abundance – strength, speed, senses, reflexes, balance, you name it. Izuku has multiple of each, and it is a simple matter to activate a couple of well-practiced ones to handle the situation. Balance, to keep his feet; reflexes to give him the reaction time he needs to make adjustments as soon as he starts to slip.

It is quirks like these that Izuku is planning to use to carry himself as far as possible in the festival. Versatile, and powerful in that versatility, but unobtrusive, sometimes even unnoticeable if properly applied.

The subtle interplay of multiple slight improvements is effective, but it is nothing compared to what is happening ahead of him.

Kirishima Eijiro – quirk: Hardening – laughs, adrenaline giddy as he leaps over the wave of ice that has consumed the entire beginning of the course, creeping high up the wall around the tunnel mouth. Aoyama Yuga – quirk: Navel Laser – propels himself forward without touching the ground, winking to the people stuck behind him. Yaoyorozu Momo – quirk: Creation – produces a strong, thin pole from her palm, vaulting the ice with grim determination. It takes only a second for Ojiro Mashirao – quirk: Tail – to find a clean patch of ground and use it to spring himself to safety. And with Dark Shadow’s aid, avoiding the ground is trivial for Tokoyami Fumikage – quirk:–

Actually, it is probably best not to think about that, right now. After spending so much time suppressed, the influx of information from Izuku’s quirk is novel and nearly overwhelming. To be around so many people, all actively using such amazing quirks is a fascination that Izuku can’t currently afford to be distracted by.

“You half-and-half bastard!” Katsuki shouts, voice almost shrill compared to the bone-rumbling bass of his explosions. “You’re not getting away that easy, fucking coward!”

Todoroki, running with ice chasing his heels, looks back over his shoulder for a brief moment, not slowing as he quickly assesses his classmates. He says nothing in response before turning away, leaning forward as he pushes himself to move faster. Katsuki screams behind him, a wordless sound of frustration as the distance separating them remains stagnant.

 Kirishima shouts as well, but his sharp-toothed grin speaks more of excitement than anger. “That’s so man–” He is slammed to the side, exclamation cut off by a grunt. He goes flying, rolling to the ground nearly ten feet from where he had been, but he pops up unharmed only a moment later.

“Warn a guy!” he shouts at the robot that just flicked him aside like a piece of lint. Its eye glints, red light wavering as the aperture within it expands and contracts with a series of soft clicks.

“Targets found,” the robot declares. “Lots!”

Distantly, Izuku hears Mic shouting about the “Robo Inferno” as a swarm of massive robots become visible beyond this cluster of smaller ones. He has watched the footage of the entrance exams enough times to immediately identify each of the robots, even down to their assigned point values. He hadn’t liked them then, somewhat blurry on a computer monitor, and he doesn’t like them now, solid and imposing and less than thirty feet away.

“Aren’t those the zero point villains from the entrance exam?” Kaminari Denki – quirk: no, focus Izuku – asks, a nervous lilt to his voice. He takes half a step backwards, but then seems to catch himself, steeling his stance.

“Seriously? The hero course had to fight those?”

“This is what they meant by obstacles?!”

“There’s too many! What are we supposed to do?”

The outcry from the general education and business students is mixed anxiety and indignation, and Izuku can’t say he blames them. As much as the sports festival is lauded as a school event, it’s not. Not really. It’s a hero course event. They’re the stars, the ones set up to succeed, to benefit, and everyone else is just an extra body to the head count, to make things seem just a little bit more competitive. After all, it’s far more interesting to pick only three winners out of over 200, rather than a measly forty.

And if you weren’t in the hero course, but you wanted to be? Then hopefully you spent the months since the entrance exam learning to fight robots.

“So, this is what they used in the general entrance exam?” Todoroki asks. He sounds as unimpressed as Izuku feels, though it’s hard to say if he also thinks the robots are ridiculous or if that’s just the way his voice is.

“I wonder where they got the money for it,” Yaoyorozu says. Like Todoroki, she is unintimated by the army of titans in front of them, her voice only idly curious, even as one of the robots begins to reach forward, its splayed-out claw larger than any person.

Todoroki sighs. “All this trouble for nothing. I wish they would have at least prepared something more impressive. Give my stupid old man something to watch.”

The zero pointer is fast for its size, and by the time Todoroki’s last, bitter word falls from his mouth, it is close enough to him that Izuku’s whole body has gone tense, prepared to move at a moment’s notice, in case he needs to take action. But Todoroki merely glares at the obstacle, mismatched eyes glacial.

Frost builds up along his right arm, pale blue and sparkling in the sun. When Todoroki puts that hand to the ground, ice blooms in a perfect circle around him. With rapt attention, Izuku watches Todoroki drag his fingers along the dirt, raising his arm in a wide, sweeping arc. The gesture is almost casual – confident and decisive, but lacking force, a fluidly graceful movement. The surge of ice that follows the movement is, in contrast, powerful and jagged. It races up the zero pointer’s arm, halting the robot’s movements almost instantly. Ice crackles and metal groans. In seconds, the only army green metal left exposed is near the very top of the bot’s head, crags of ice rising around it like a crown. The entire zero pointer, hundreds of feet tall, frozen in a single, simple act.

Todoroki exhales, slow and measured. His breath billows in front of him, a cold white fog that drifts away on the breeze. He fists his hand in front of him, still hovering in the air where the swipe of his arm ended, still speckled with glittering crystals of frost. For a moment, it is like everything is frozen, like the entire obstacle course and everyone on it is just as trapped in place as that robot.

Todoroki himself is the first one to shatter the stillness, running forward along the path between the robot’s legs. As monstrous as it is, the zero pointer casts a large shadow, but sunlight bounces oddly between the facets of the ice, and strange, wavering reflections dance over Todoroki’s skin as he passes underneath.

“He stopped them,” someone breathes as the rest of the crowd starts to stir.

“Follow him,” someone else says, awed disbelief beginning to fade back into the frantic determination of competition. “Through the legs, there’s a path!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Todoroki shouts back over his shoulder. “It was already unbalanced when I froze it. It’ll fall over.”

On cue, the ice creaks. A wide fissure traces up the zero pointer’s base as huge sheets of ice start to crack away from its reaching arm. They shatter when they hit the ground, shrapnel flying in all directions. A sliver scrapes against Izuku’s cheek, a cold needle that melts against his skin in only a few seconds. More and more ice gives way, a cataclysmic reaction that goes from bad to worse, only speeding up as it continues along. People stumble out of the way, making frenzied dives to the sides as the zero pointer wobbles.

Then, exactly as Todoroki predicted, the entire thing comes crashing down.

Izuku, already safe exactly where he is, stares at the carnage.

“Todoroki Shouto from class 1-A!” Mic shouts, drawing out the syllables of the name. “In one move, he made an opening for himself and closed it for everyone else! An attack and a defense all in one! How elegant! Amazing!”

“His actions are logical and strategic,” Eraser agrees, practically effusive praise coming from him.

“As expected of a recommendation student! And the son of the number two hero, at that! Those Robo Infernos never stood a chance!”

And as the dust settles and the yelling starts up again, Izuku can’t help but wonder – who exactly is Todoroki Shouto? And what is he trying to prove?

Chapter Text

Oh WOW, the hero course really does get all the best stuff! Mei has heard rumors, of course, about the practical exam that pit hero students against marvelous mechanics, exciting examples of engineering, big beautiful bots, and Maijima-Sensei had indulged some of her questions near the beginning of term, but nothing compares to getting to see them in person. The one, two, and three pointers – well, they’re cute, for sure, but the zero pointers – the zero pointers! Mei wants to take one apart and climb inside and figure out how it works. As big as they are, she could probably spend weeks – no, months! – crawling around its wiring and wouldn’t that just be a dream.

Of course, she can’t really get close to one without it trying to kill her. Actually, no – this is a school event, after all, so she would probably only end up lightly maimed at worst, but what a way to go! Frosty really did her a favor, knocking over that first one. No death or maiming required, just her and what seems like miles of steel and copper. The fall has even knocked off some of the outer paneling – which is a shame, such a shame to see such a beauty broken to bits, BUT–! But this way she has free access to its inner workings! Which is perfect because robots actually are more beautiful on the inside – unlike people, who are actually just very wet and squishy on the inside, no matter what everyone says.

She scrambles up over the zero pointer’s arm to get a look at the joint there. Her hover boots are a big help in scaling the smooth plates, just like she knew they would be! She splays herself out over the metal, ignoring the ice-chill of it that seeps through her gym uniform, focusing her eyes until the intricate wiring and segmented metal sections of the elbow take up her entire field of view. It’s brilliant! One of the best things she’s ever seen, maybe, and AHHH she wishes she had a notebook with her.

Thank god for the marker she keeps with her goggles. There’s a little pocket along the side of the band specifically for her to slip in her favorite drafting pen – this way she never needs to worry about losing it. A pen is an indispensable tool for anyone with a creative mind, after all! Paper – well, paper would be nice, but that’s an easy thing to work around. Now, Mei generally wouldn’t recommend drawing a schematic on your arm – it’s hard to keep measurements and angles true to life on an elastic, curved surface – but it’ll do in a pinch! Ideas have to be seized as soon as they present themselves, even if that means making do with improvised tools.

One moment, Mei is sketching away, tongue poking out slightly in concentration – and the next she is on the ground, a metallic taste coating the roof of her mouth.

Accidents happen to Mei all the time. Explosions are part of the process, after all, and sometimes that process happens directly in her face while she’s focused on some detail or another. So, she’s quick at bouncing back – it’s one of her many very impressive talents! Which is why it only takes her a couple of blinks to recover after the quick swish and CRASH that have her sliding over and off the zero pointer’s arm and onto the hard packed dirt of the obstacle course track. She licks blood off her teeth, sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes to see the shallow bite marks there.

“Oh my god, are you a-alright?” A boy slides down the side of the robot’s arm, knees bending to absorb the impact as he lands. OH, that reminds her – shock absorption! There’s probably lots of cool babies for that, and Mei hasn’t made any yet. What a terrible oversight.

“Oh no,” Mei says as she sits up.

“I didn’t h-hurt you, did I?!” the boy asks as Mei looks around. “I’m so s-sorry, it’s just, there was this three pointer, and you seemed really d-distracted so I–”

“Have you seen my pen?” Mei interrupts. “It’s a really good pen and I need it!”

“Y-your pen…?”

“Yeah! It’s black, approximately yea long,” she holds her fingers and appropriately pen-sized distance apart to illustrate. “It’s got pink tape on it! With yellow stars! I was using it when I fell, it must have flown off somewhere. Say, did you push me or something?” The boy opens and closely his mouth wordlessly and after a moment of that, Mei waves him off. “Yeah, okay, that’s not important! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to help me find my pen!” The boy blinks at the finger Mei points at him like he is staring down the barrel of a gun, and she giggles at the dumbfounded expression smeared across his face.

“I, uh – alright?”

As silly as his wide eyes and slack mouth are, Mei has to give it to the boy – he is a very dedicated and adept pen-finder! By the time she is done checking over all her babies to make sure none of them got damaged in that nasty fall, he is already done. She gasps happily when he hands it over.

Next to her smudged and half-complete diagram of the zero pointer’s wiring, Mei jots down a note about shock absorption. When she looks back up, the boy is gone.

Here are some facts about Hitoshi.

The first is that he recently went through a growth spurt. He went from 5’7” to 5’10” in only a few weeks, and he’s still growing, steadily creeping closer to 5’11”. These days, his dad regularly laments the constant need to buy him new pants. Hitoshi’s uniform is already a touch too short around his ankles and wrists, even though they had intentionally been slightly too long at the start of term.

The second follows from the first: Hitoshi does not have a particularly good sense of balance. It’s not that he’s clumsy, per say, but he’s still getting used to all of his limbs suddenly being in new places. So yeah, he sometimes bumps into things or trips over himself – whatever, sue him, he’s a teenaged boy and puberty is a bitch.

The third and final fact is that Hitoshi isn’t a fan of heights. To be perfectly clear, he isn’t afraid of them. He’s just not a fan. Which is pretty normal, really. Who actually likes heights? That would be weird. Not liking heights is just the default human condition, and it’s not a big deal or anything, but sure, they make him a little uncomfortable and that’s all instinct.

These three things combined find Hitoshi standing at the edge of The Fall – a bit on the nose, that name – with his eyes closed for just a moment while he takes a bracing breath. First robots, now this shit. Hitoshi had known coming into the festival that things would be stacked against him, that he would have to fight like hell to get through, but this is starting to feel a little personal.

He doesn’t bother with trying to tightrope walk across. He just bids his dignity goodbye and hopes that all the cameras are too occupied with the flashy hero students to pay attention to the random gen ed kid who managed to work his way up the ranks. His thighs burn as he crosses his legs around the rope and shimmies along; his palms burn from gripping the coarse fibers; his ears and neck burn from embarrassment that he stoically pretends not to be feeling.

Man, he really should have nabbed that support girl when he had the chance. Who the hell knows what her quirk is, but who the hell cares when she has all those gadgets to do the job for her. She had a jetpack. Hitoshi could have been jetpacking across, right now. Doing things on his own power really is overrated.

Progress is uncomfortable, but it’s steady. Hitoshi, at the very least, is still in the race, which is more than can be said for the poor fools he sees losing their grip and falling all around him. He’s doing well – well enough to be proud of himself along side the bitter frustration of the situation and the irritated disgust of sweat dripping into his eyes. All the frustration and discomfort and embarrassment will be worth it, when he makes it to the other side. And he is going to make it, he’s certain of that much.

Or at least, he is until some idiot – some idiot, some flash bastard, some hero course asshole – leaps over Hitoshi like he is a hurdle in a fucking track competition. The rope shudders, waves of movement traveling up and down its entire length, and just like that, Hitoshi loses his grip, like all the poor fools he was lamenting mere moments ago.

God. His father is going to be so smug. Sympathetic and consoling, but with that undercurrent of this is for the best, because he’s known all along that Hitoshi was never meant to be a hero. It’ll all be easier, when Hitoshi comes to see it, too. He can choose a nice, stable career, and maybe his peers will cut him some slack now that he isn’t actively antagonizing their worldviews. Why did he even want to be a hero, anyway? It’s dangerous and unreliable and people won’t care so much about his quirk if he isn’t always calling attention to it by insisting that he’s going to be a hero. Hitoshi’s father will make him his favorite dinner and tell him that he did well, but some things aren’t meant to be, and then Hitoshi will be expected to move on, once and for all.

If Hitoshi’s dreams die here, he is going to haunt the shit out of whoever made him fall.

 There is a stomach-lurching moment where gravity grabs at Hitoshi’s limbs, and then everything goes sideways and Hitoshi crashes against sun-warm rock instead of sea of foam beneath The Fall. Somehow, he has made his way to the next platform, still in the race, despite feeling like he’s been hit by a truck – or maybe something smaller, like a particularly reckless bicyclist. Hitoshi groans, arm aching fiercely from wrist to shoulder as he flops onto his back, squinting into the sun.

“Are you alright?” a boy asks, leaning over Hitoshi. The sun halos the boy’s head, casting sparks of emerald and gold around the edge of his hair.

“Did you – did you fucking throw me over here?” Hitoshi asks, disbelief coloring his tone. Whatever happened had happened so quickly that Hitoshi didn’t really register it, but he has the impression of fingers around his wrist for the briefest moment, and now here he is, at least ten feet from where he had nearly fallen to his doom. The boy grimaces – and Hitoshi realizes that this is the same boy that he crashed into in the hallway last week, the one with the notebooks, who ran like Hitoshi had scared him.

“S-sorry,” he says, apologizes, as if he didn’t just save Hitoshi’s ass in the middle of a competition. “I didn’t want you to f-fall because of me. Are you alright?”

“I – what the fuck?” The boy scrambles back, crouched on the balls of his feet as Hitoshi sits up. He rotates his shoulder a few times, relieved to still able to move it fine, despite the soreness that has settled in. Of course he would be sore, given that all of his weight was just flung around from that single joint, Jesus Christ. “Who the hell are you?” Hitoshi asks, confusion coming off confrontational.

The boy smiles a small smile, something wobbly that feels even more like an apology than the actual word sorry did. He shakes his head slightly, scans his eyes over Hitoshi – still sitting on the ground like an idiot – and jumps onto the next rope, moving down it with quick, precise steps despite the large sheet of metal that Hitoshi is only just noticing lashed to his back with a length of wire. The easy way the other boy moves invokes a dazed sort of envy in Hitoshi, something that would be sharp and acidic if all the bite hadn’t been taken out of it by sheer befuddlement.

A hero student, must be. Hitoshi doesn’t recognize him, apart from that one incident in the hall, but 1-B has flown under the radar far more than 1-A, so he could be one of them. Watching the way he moves over the ropes, considering the way he grabbed Hitoshi in a second and tossed him like he weighed nothing – he has to be in the hero course.

Soon, Hitoshi will be, too. Maybe then he can get some answers about what the hell the boy’s deal is. But for that to happen, Hitoshi first needs to pick himself the hell back up and focus on what’s in front of him.

Yuga wants to be an inspiration. He wants stars to be born in peoples’ eyes when they look at him. He wants to be a beacon of light that never goes out. He wants to shine – and partially it is because of the praise, he will admit that. But mostly it is because he wants to cut through the darkness of the world and leave a bit of sparkle behind, something that, just by existing, can save people from getting swallowed by shadows.

This is what Yuga wants to be. All he is is pathetic. Pathetic, though he is usually very good at pretending not to be.

On his knees next to a minefield, there is no space for pretending. There is only him, and his quirk that sets fire to the raw edges of his insides, and tears that he can’t allow himself to shed because he is supposed to be fabulous and glamorous.

He went overboard. One second is a ridiculous limit – not long enough to get anything done. In the beginning, with the robots, he told himself he was stronger. He has been training, he is going to be a hero, and it wouldn’t hurt to push his limits just a little. And it didn’t. A twinge,  something sharp but brief, gone within the space of a breath. But then he did it again, and one breath became two. Three, four, five.

Now he is on his knees, and he can’t breathe at all.

Frustration burns in his chest, hotter than the pain in his stomach. Students pass him by, moving into the minefield that serves as the final obstacle between them and the rest of the festival. If Yuga were stronger, he could use his quirk to propel himself over if, call out his best wishes to those he leaves behind as he secures his place in the later events. As it is, his vision is doubling too hard for him to spot the mines beneath the ground, and the small earthquakes juddering through his bones would stop him from stepping between them, regardless.

“Are you alright?” someone asks, voice soft but abrupt enough to catch Yuga off guard. His neck is stiff with pain, resisting as he turns his head to see the speaker. A stranger, smudged with dirt, hovers a distance away.

“Je vais bien,” Yuga chokes out, lie barely squeezing past the tense walls of his throat.

“You… don’t look f-fine,” the other boy says, taking a hesitant half step forward. “Did you get hit by something?”

Yuga wants to laugh, though he can barely even speak. “Non. It’s – q-quirk.” He hopes the boy takes the information and leaves. Yuga is not injured, is not victim of anything but himself, and it is shameful enough to have to live through it without having an interactive audience. He is in no mood to explain the ways in which he is broken.

“Oh. I can – I m-might be able to help.” The boy shuffles closer, kneels within arm’s reach. “I… have a healing q-quirk. I’ve never used it to help with b-backlash before, but I can t-try. If that’s alright?”

Yuga gasps as his insides twist again, a vicious tearing feeling in his abdomen. He curls tighter into himself and nods, one sharp jerk of his head that sends the world spinning in a noxious blur of color. A second later, there is a hand on the back of his neck, cool against the tacky sweat beneath Yuga’s hair. Yuga’s heart pounds at his sternum like a trapped thing, too hard and too fast, but between one beat and the next, the painful coil in his stomach relaxes by increments until the only thing making his hands shake is the insubstantial aftershocks that echo through his cells, nearly a relief in comparison to the white-bright pain from before.

“Did that help?” the boy asks. This time, when Yuga nods, the world does not dissolve around him. The boy’s hand falls from the back of Yuga’s neck like a lost anchor, leaving Yuga reeling for another moment before he manages to ground himself.

The boy who has saved Yuga is not much to look at, nothing fabulous or glamourous about him. His dark hair is wild and untamed, and the shadows beneath his eyes cry out for concealer. There is a thin cut along his cheek bone that has left a smear of blood over his freckles. He is smudged with dirt, and his PE uniform fits him with the same unflattering bagginess of all the other students.

But when he smiles, he shines.

No one has ever died during the sports festival. People have gotten hurt, certainly, but despite the way it sometimes seems, the environment is carefully monitored and controlled to ensure that no one is ever in any real danger. Izuku is aware of this.

But he can’t stop himself from flinching when a girl’s ankle gives out beneath her, causing her to fall to the side and land hard on her hip. He helps her up, offers to heal her so she can keep going, but she shakes her head with tired lines around her eyes and tells him she just wants to go lay down. So instead, he lets her hold onto his arms for balance as she limps over to the sidelines, and he flags down a pair of the medical bots that herd the girl onto a stretcher and wheel her away.

And when a boy finds himself reduced to tears when he’s face to face with a two pointer, Izuku can’t help but put himself between them. And when one of the cameras flies a little too close to the boy, still crying and mortified because of it, Izuku can’t help but pick up a rock and knock the drone straight out of the air to give the boy a moment of privacy while he collects himself.

And Izuku can’t help but stop to give words of encouragement and comfort where they are needed. Half of the people he speaks to look at him like he is insane, but the other half smile, so Izuku keeps taking the gamble.

Seconds by minutes, he falls behind. Each exchange loses him time, and he makes some of it up, but the rest of it slips away as Todoroki and Bakugou draw farther and farther ahead. Izuku doesn’t know how many people are moving on to the next round. In previous years, the number has varied from fifty to thirty, and there are at least forty people in front of Izuku now, picking their ways across the final obstacle with focused care.

Izuku doesn’t want to win this first event, but he can’t lose. He owes the world too much to fail here, before he can even begin to pay back his debts.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Shouta thinks he already has a fairly good idea of how the first event will progress. Step by step, he is proven right. Todoroki puts on a massive display of power that is simultaneously strategic and painfully excessive, unbalancing all of his competitors outside of 1-A. His classmates rise to the challenge, egging each other on. Bakugou and Todoroki toss the upper hand around like a hot potato, undisputed contestants for first and second place. Class B, in contrast, seems largely unimpressive, but to a trained eye, there is no mistaking their skill, even if they aren’t making as large a spectacle of it. For the most part, the students of the other courses fall behind at the very start and never even begin to catch up.

This is how it goes nearly every year. The first event is always the most predictable. Shouta can probably guess exactly where any student will end up ranking, give or take a few places.

Somewhere in that crowd though, there’s a wild card. Shouta has been trying and failing to get eyes on Izuku since the students entered the arena. Somehow, the kid is harder to spot than Shouta’s actually invisible student, who’s seemingly-floating uniform has just reached the end of The Fall. When Izuku said he planned to avoid drawing attention to himself, Shouta had imagined a strategy more akin to that of some of the class B students. There must be a quirk at play, probably the same one Izuku used at the USJ to escape detection during the first half of the fight.

As Bakugou and Todoroki grow ever closer to the finish line, Shouta is hit with the sinking feeling that flying under the radar simply isn’t in the cards for his problem child. Like a premonition, an explosion shakes the field. Far larger than anything Bakugou has made, dust consumes the back half of the minefield, and it would be easy to miss the small form that breaks out of top of the smoke, if Shouta hadn’t somehow known to look for it.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he sighs, indifferent to the microphone in front of him.

“Pay attention, Shigaraki Tomura.”

“What’s the point?” Tomura asks, hardly glancing up from his game. “The Todoroki brat makes ice, and little Kacchan blows things up. We already know their stats from the USJ.”

“Watch and you may see something interesting.”

Tomura scoffs but obliges for the moment, pausing his game, though not putting it down. On the television, the coverage of the sports festival is focused almost exclusively on the two boys competing for first place. Kurogiri watches with keen attention, as if there is actually anything worth seeing.

“This is boring,” Tomura complains.

“Wait.”

As if in response to Kurogiri’s tense order, the camera rocks, fuzzing out for a moment as the shockwave of an explosion in the background interrupts the feed. A moment of silence in the explosion’s wake is interrupted by a long bleep as one of the announcers is censored out.

“What’s this?!” Present Mic exclaims, obnoxious voice too familiar from the number of evenings Tomura was forced to listen to his radio program. “There’s been a huge explosion from the back! And if you look near the top – yes!” The camera cuts, switching to another drone high in the sky. Tomura freezes. “That’s Midoriya Izuku, quickly closing the ranks with the force of that blast!”

Izuku flies through the air, trailing smoke behind him like a shooting star or a nuclear missile. The wind drags tears from his eyes and his teeth are bared, savage and desperate.

“Hey, hey!” Present Mic yells. “Just like that, he’s taken the lead! Todoroki and Bakugou, united by a common enemy, stop fighting each other and focus on catching up to their new competition! Wait – hold on a sec. Looks like Midoriya’s losing altitude fast! Hopefully he’s got a good landing strategy, huh?” The other announcer is censored out again. Tomura’s game turns to dust in his grip. His fingers clench around the grit.

In seconds, Izuku manages to brace himself with a foot on each of the other boys’ shoulders, using the metal plate he was flying on to trigger another explosion. His competition staggers to the sides while Izuku goes flying forward once more, tucking himself into a ball to roll across the ground, popping up in a run.

“What a twist! Man, what is Nedzu teaching that kid?”

“He came that way.”

“Who would have seen it coming? Our unexpected first place – Midoriya Izuku!”

Through the television, the crowd’s cheer is an indistinct roar. Izuku’s face fills the screen, wide-eyed and overwhelmed. His cheeks are smudged with dirt and blood, and bruise-like shadows cling under his eyes. His lips tremble in an attempt at a smile, but it crumbles to pieces before anything can come of it. Tears eat tracks in the grime on his face. He ducks his head, buries his face in his hands. The camera cuts back to the tunnel, where Todoroki and Bakugou both claim second and third place.

“Breathe, Tomura,” Kurogiri instructs softly. Tomura’s gasp is like a gun shot.

“What are we waiting for?” Tomura asks. “We know where he is. Let’s end this.”

He cannot feel his mouth move, isn’t aware of his lips forming the words, but he hears his own voice in his ears. His face is hot, his hands are cold. His chest is tight, his head doesn’t feel like it’s connected to his body. There is a pressure behind his eyes, he wants to rip them out of his head to release it.

“You would be dead in moments if we went now.”

Tomura stares at the television. Izuku’s face isn’t on the screen anymore, but it is seared behind Tomura’s eyelids. He will never unsee that boy, who is not his brother. That boy, whose face Tomura knows so well, whose name is like a knife between the shoulder blades.

“If I get to take him down with me, then so be it.”

Chapter Text

The ringing in Katsuki’s ears eclipses the roar of his pulse, but he can feel his heart beating in his arms, a heavy tattoo against the fragile skin of his wrists, pounding like a war drum.  Broadcast in slow motion on every screen throughout the stadium, Katsuki watches his own face as Deku steals the win right out from under him – the gradual dawning of realization, followed by the instantaneous ignition of a fury.

Deku, fucking Deku, he came out of nowhere.

“Damn it,” Katsuki growls. “Damn it!” He can’t hear the words, but they vibrate in his throat. Where the hell had Deku come from? How the hell had this happened again?

Katsuki clutches at his forearm, squeezes the aching bones there and tells himself to get the fuck over the pain of it. Half-and-Half stands to the side, a step ahead, breath fogging the air in front of him in great plumes.

Second fucking place. Katsuki couldn’t even get second fucking place.

“Deku,” Katsuki says. He knows he says it, even if he’s still half deaf, because the icy-hot bastard looks over. He glances from Katsuki to Deku, recognition written over his usually unreadable features. But Deku himself doesn’t move, standing less than ten feet away – too fucking close – with his head lowered into his hands. He is trembling faintly, a faint tremor that Katsuki can feel himself, like the aftershocks of a distant earthquake.

“Deku,” Katsuki repeats, louder this time, until he can hear the rasp of his own voice through the high-pitched whine in his head. Deku scrubs his hands over his face, rubs at his eyes. They are red-rimmed and glazed with tears when he looks up. His mouth forms the familiar shapes of Katsuki’s name.

“What the fuck was that,” Katsuki says. He hopes it sounds like a demand rather than a question. Izuku shakes his head and Katsuki gnashes his teeth. No answer, no explanation, no nothing. Only tears and tired eyes and a shake of the head, like Katsuki doesn’t deserve to know.

“Fucking answer me, you bastard,” Katsuki spits. Deku takes a half step back, hunching his shoulders up. It’s nearly gratifying, but only nearly, because the god damned worthless piece of shit still doesn’t say anything, looking at the ground like Katsuki isn’t even worth acknowledging.

Katsuki matches the half step back with two steps forward. If it were up to him, Deku would be as far away from Katsuki’s school as possible, but the shitty villain is already here. The measure of joy Katsuki takes when Deku cringes away from his advance is just compensation for all the fucked up shit Deku has done. Katsuki imagines pressing closer. Imagines backing Deku into a corner until he flees like the little coward Katsuki knows he is. Flees far away, where Katsuki will never have to see him again, and maybe this time he’ll actually have the brains to stay gone.

A heavy arm slings itself over Katsuki’s shoulder before the fantasy can become anything more than a twitch of his fingers. A snarl primed on his lips, Katsuki whirls to Shitty Hair, shoving the moron away as he tries to rest his spiky fucking head on Katsuki’s shoulder. The asshole huffs against the hand Katsuki shoves against his face, as if he’s been horribly wronged when he’s the one trying to put holes in Katsuki’s uniform with that ridiculous hair.

“Come on, bro,” the idiot cries, voice too loud, easily piercing the cotton in Katsuki’s ears. He pushes Katsuki’s hand away from his face. “I just made the top ten, I’m tired! Let me rest, come on!”

“Rest on the damn ground!”

“The ground?” Shitty Hair asks, gasping dramatically. “What kind of bro leaves his bro on the ground?”

“The kind that thinks you’re fucking heavy! Get off me.”

Shitty Hair snaps his fingers with a grin. “So you admit we’re bros, then!” Katsuki shoves him off his feet. He lands on his ass, laughing obnoxiously. He kicks at Katsuki’s ankles, as if to knock him down as well, but Katsuki sidesteps easily on account of not being a clumsy fucking idiot. Scowling down at the other boy as his laughter tapers off, Katsuki can see the exact moment Shitty Hair’s eyes flick to Deku.

“Hey!” he calls, cementing himself, once and for all, as a complete moron in Katsuki’s mind. “You’re that kid from the USJ! Deku, right?”

“It’s I-Izuku, actually,” Deku responds, pale as a sheet, both hands clenched into fists in the hem of his uniform. And of course he’ll correct Shitty Hair, of course he’ll do that when he’ll barely even spare Katsuki a fucking glance. Katsuki growls, a vicious subverbal sound that makes most people edge away from him. Deku barely flickers a look at him. Shitty Hair kicks Katsuki in the ankle while he is distracted.

“What the fuck?!”

Shitty Hair scrunches up his nose. “Stop acting feral, dude,” he says. “You’re giving 1-A a bad reputation; everyone thinks we have rabies or something.”

“Why the hell should I care?”

“Do you have rabies?” Shitty Hair squints, picking himself up off the ground and trying to lean in close to Katsuki’s face. Katsuki headbutts him the moment he gets too close.

“I don’t have fucking rabies!” Katsuki shouts. Deku giggles, a small sound that ignites Katsuki’s temper like a match to gasoline.

He spins around, prepared to show the little thief exactly why no one should play with fucking fire, but Shitty Hair catches him with an elbow to the stomach, stepping between Katsuki and Deku with a bright grin. He slings his arm back around Katsuki’s shoulder, a friendly gesture that threatens to become a restraint at any moment. As if the spiky bastard could actually stop Katsuki from doing anything if Katsuki really wanted to.

“Ignore him,” Shitty Hair says brightly, rubbing with his free hand at the red mark developing on his forehead. “He has rabies, you know how it is.”

“Y-yeah,” Deku says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I, uh, I’m f-familiar.”

“Anyway, Deku – ah, sorry! Izuku. I’ve been meaning to say thanks!”

“Don’t fucking thank him!” Katsuki snaps. The arm around his shoulders tightens.

“T-thanks? I – no. W-why?”

“For the USJ, obviously. Standing up to those guys the way you did was super manly!”

“M-manly?”

“Yeah! You totally saved Bakubro’s skin. You know he – he may be kind of like a rabid dog, but he’s our rabid dog, yeah? So thanks!”

“I don’t – you s-shouldn’t be th-th-thanking m-me.” Katsuki hates to agree with Deku about anything, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. He bares his teeth.

“Well, I am! Deal with it! I’m Kirishima Eijiro, by the way. I think it’s super manly that you’re doing rehabilitation or whatever, so hopefully we can be friends!”

And then, the crowning glory of all idiocy, the final stupid cherry on top of an entire moronic cake – Shitty Hair offers his hand to Deku. Grinning and fucking clueless, completely ignoring all the times Katsuki has told him to stay the fuck away from fucking Deku. Katsuki squirms against the grip he’s caught in, elbowing Shitty Hair in the side, but the bastard just tightens his arm around Katsuki’s shoulders until he practically has Katsuki in a headlock.

“Don’t mind him,” Shitty Hair says as Katsuki growls and Deku eyes the offered hand. “He won’t bite. Actually, he probably would, but I won’t let him, so don’t worry!”

“Like you could fucking stop me!” Katsuki spits. He considers biting Shitty Hair right there and then, just to prove the point, but he doesn’t know where the idiot has been and Katsuki’s not dumb enough himself to risk actually catching something.

“I’m not afraid of Kacchan,” Deku says softly. Katsuki wonders how big of an explosion he would need to get Shitty Hair to let go of him. As obnoxious as the spiky haired bastard is, Katsuki isn’t particularly keen on the idea of hurting him outside of training, but the dumbass is playing with fucking fire and it’s better he gets burned by Katsuki than Deku.

“Oh man, you call him Kacchan? That’s awesome!”

“Don’t you fucking dare repeat that! I’ll kill you!”

Katsuki glares as Deku finally takes Shitty Hair’s hand. The contact is brief, perfunctory, and the moment it is over, Deku is making a break for it, dodging through the slowly thickening crowd of finished students, as if he has somewhere to be. Shitty Hair relaxes his grip on Katsuki, grin wide and naively satisfied. Katsuki pops a small warning explosion and then swings a much larger one at Shitty Hair’s face. Eyes wide and smile disappearing, the idiot blocks it with his arm. His sleeve falls down his forearm, revealing jagged facets of quirk-enforced skin.

“What was that for?!” Shitty Hair demands, pouting like Katsuki kicked his puppy.

“Fucking deserved it,” is all Katsuki says in response, shaking Shitty Hair’s arm off his shoulder. He lets one last explosion dance over his palm while Shitty Hair sticks his tongue out – second-checking, reassuring.

Hitoshi places 27^th. There are 40 hero students every year and Hitoshi – Hitoshi in general education, Hitoshi with the villain quirk, Hitoshi who doesn’t have what it takes to be a hero – places 27^th. He can’t help but grin to himself as he watches the places behind him fill.

UA may be the best hero school in the country, but there’s one thing they really just don’t understand, and Hitoshi himself if a prime example of it. As far as UA is concerned, strength is being able to beat up robots. All the students who got in were robot-strong, and Hitoshi wasn’t, so he didn’t get in. But people-strong is an entirely different thing than robot-strong. Thinking and adapting instead of just brute forcing is something that robots can’t really prepare you for, not when you already have the power to blast them into pieces. There are at least thirteen robot-strong hero students who aren’t Hitoshi-strong. He beat them, after all.

And he’ll beat them again. Again and again, however many times it takes.

Even if he has to fight in a god damned cavalry battle.

Jesus Christ. Hitoshi really is the butt of this joke, isn’t he? First the robots, then the heights, then the mines. Granted, Hitoshi doesn’t have anything specifically against landmines, but at the same time – they’re explosions – they’re explosions and he’s a fifteen-year-old beanpole. He may have managed to get through it with impressive speed and grace, if he does say so himself – which he does, even if he may definitely be lying on at least one of those fronts – but it’s still pretty far from an ideal matchup.

And now it’s team activities. Hitoshi loves a good team activity. Eagerly looks forward to them. Misses them when they’re not happening. Yep. Definitely.

Sarcasm, as Hitoshi’s father will inform anyone who will listen, is Hitoshi’s favorite defense mechanism.

Here’s the thing - people don’t team up with Hitoshi. He’s always the last person left, and then he’s awkwardly paired up with whatever other social outcast gets pushed to the fringes. Or worse, he’s tacked onto a pre-existing group, an afterthought that everyone else resents. And actually contributing to groups? That’s made pretty difficult when people get jumpy whenever he tries to say anything. God forbid he has a question, someone might actually try to burn him at the stake.

Now here he is, the only gen ed student who made it to the second event. On one hand – hell yes, screw all his classmates who rolled their eyes at him because he made it and they didn’t, so get fucked. On the other hand – none of these hero students are going to want to pair up with the random gen ed kid with the unknown quirk when they have actual friends who have actual training.

Sure enough, as soon as Midnight makes the announcement, people are beelining to each other, clumping together in decided groups, or crowding around particularly desirable peers. Man, it must feel good to be someone like Bakugou or Todoroki, born with everything they ever needed to have their dreams handed to them on silver platters. He wonders what the sports festival looks like through their eyes. Just a school event. An important opportunity at most, rather than the single thing that will make or break the rest of their life.

He catches sight of the green haired boy – Midoriya Izuku, Hitoshi knows now, after the spectacle the boy caused. Midoriya stands frozen on the edge of the crowd, not the center, though Hitoshi would have expected him to be mobbed like the other major players in the game. But no, he’s just standing there, apart from everyone else, almost like they don’t even see him. And he’s got such ridiculously big eyes. That was the first thing Hitoshi ever noticed about Midoriya, and he notices it again now, because they are so wide and so hollow.

Midoriya looks like Hitoshi feels. Anxious, a bit hopeless, more than a bit desperate. Like he would rather disappear than deal with this, but simultaneously wishes he could just deal with it in the same easy way everyone else seems to. Like this single thing will make or break the rest of his life and he’s looking over the precipice of breaking and wondering how he’s meant to keep the pieces together.

Maybe, somehow, Midoriya is like Hitoshi. Maybe, somehow, he doesn’t have anyone. And maybe that means they can be the solution to each other’s problem.

Hitoshi has only half thought the thought when Midoriya is set upon. Hatsume Mei – who Hitoshi recognizes by virtue of her being one of only two other non-hero students to make it through the qualifiers – pounces on Midoriya from behind. Midoriya nearly jumps out of his skin but relaxes when he turns to her. A blonde boy slides up to the pair, striking a pose with his arms extended. Midoriya grins at him, nodding. Suddenly he doesn’t look so alone or hollow or desperate. Hitoshi thinks he was probably just projecting to begin with.

It makes sense that Midoriya has friends. He has some kind of amazing quirk, and he’s clearly skilled with using it. Probably never doubted that he could be a hero, and why would he? The way he screwed Hitoshi over and then saved him a second later? That has limelight heroics written all over it. Hitoshi really doesn’t vibe with that kind of power and flash. Starting out with 10,000,000 points would have been bad for him, anyway. He already has a plan, and it requires not drawing a ridiculous amount of hostile attention right from the get-go.  

It also requires Brainwashing at least two – preferably three – people, so Hitoshi should probably get on that. He walks up to a group of two, placing a hand on each of their shoulders as he insinuates himself between them. The first boy, on the shorter side, with pale blue hair and a round face jumps but offers Hitoshi a questioning smile. The second, a blonde, raises an imperious eyebrow with a smile that seems far more confident and far less sincere. Hitoshi recognizes them both in that they finished after he did, which is ideal for keeping their total point value low.

“Looking for a third?” Hitoshi asks.

“Oh, we’re not–”

“No thanks.”

“Perfect,” Hitoshi says as both their eyes glaze over. “Two for one deal. Stay close to me.”

Hitoshi scans the crowd for other stragglers. He’ll want to catch someone alone, or he risks other students growing wise to what he’s doing. After a moment, he catches sight of someone separate from the clusters of people. The boy seems to be making his way to somewhere and Hitoshi orders his current minions to stay put before moving to intercept the new minion-prospect.

“Hey!” Hitoshi calls to get the boy’s attention. “Do you need a team?”

The boy doesn’t really stop, but he does glance back. “No, sorry–”

Now he stops, frozen in Hitoshi’s grasp. He has a tail, Hitoshi realizes. What a happy accident. Hitoshi doesn’t really know how much influence his quirk has over the quirks of those under his control, and it’s not something that’s easy to investigate when he doesn’t even know what quirks the people have. But a tail? If he can tell someone to move their arm, he can tell them to move their tail.

“Follow me,” Hitoshi tells Tail-Boy, leading the way back to the other two, Blue-Boy and Blonde-Boy. No, Tail-Boy is also blonde, so that won’t work. Tail-Boy, Blue-Boy, and Asshole – the third one just seems like an asshole. Hitoshi would know; like recognizes like.

“Here’s the plan,” he tells them. “I’ll be the rider. We’ll stick to the edges and pick off headbands from the lower ranked teams. Remember – quantity over quality.” His audience is silent. Hitoshi is pretty sure they can’t actually hear him. Or, more accurately, they hear him, but if it’s not an order, they don’t process it. Don’t process it, don’t remember it when they come to – might as well be talking to himself, really.

“Sounds like a plan?” Hitoshi asks. Of course, his teammates, if they can really be called that, don’t answer. He sighs. “Sounds like a plan.”

The problem isn’t the teams. Izuku can think of dozens of amazing team compositions and strategies. There are clear front runners among the students who have qualified, but the right team ups could completely overthrow that status quo, and every single person in the arena has the potential to be an amazingly valuable asset. No, the problem isn’t the teams.

The problem is Izuku.

Because how is he meant to fit into any of them? All the ambitious teams will be gunning for the 10,000,000 points. The points a liability, and no one here has any reason to have confidence that Izuku can protect them. The majority of them have no idea who he is, where he came from, or what he can do. If they recognize him at all, it’s as a villain, as a person who terrorized them mere weeks ago. Izuku has strategy, but teamwork is built on trust, which he neither has nor deserves. Which means he’s a liability.

At this rate, he’s going to end up disqualified. He won’t be able to make a team, so he won’t be able to continue, much less win. Then they won’t be able to transfer him to the hero course, and after that it’s only a matter of time before Nedzu and Eraser and Mic all start to wonder why they’re actually bothering with him. He’ll take up all their time and their resources and if he’s not in the hero course it’s not like he’ll be able to give anything in return and then they’ll realize what a mistake they made and Izuku will be tossed in jail like he probably should have been from the beginning. And then when Tomura comes for him Izuku will be sitting on a thin prison mattress in some concrete cell deep underground, and he can’t save anyone in that position, least of all Tomura. So he’ll die a painful but quiet death and the world will hardly even notice and Tomura will be worse off than he ever was before Izuku went and fucked everything up so everything Izuku has done will just be an exercise in seeing how many regrets one boy can gather. And if there’s an afterlife, his father will meet him in hell and–

When Izuku is tackled from behind, his first thought is that he probably deserves whatever attack some 1-A student must be launching on him. His second thought, a few delayed seconds later, is that that maniacal giggling doesn’t belong to anyone in 1-A, but it is familiar. Izuku turns, the arms latched around his neck easily disengaging.

“Pen Boy!” Pen Girl greets, leaning so close to Izuku that the edges of her chunky goggles brush the tips of his hair. “Team up with me!”

“Me?” Izuku asks dumbly.

“You’re the one in first place, aren’t you? Everyone’s gonna be watching you, and I want everyone to watch me. So team up with me!” She leans back, finally giving Izuku enough space to breathe, pulling her goggles up to rest on top of her head. The strip of tape wrapped around her pen – pink, with yellow stars – is a flash of color along the side of the leather band.

She points a thumb at herself. “I’m Hatsume Mei, future CEO of Hatsume Industries, current support student!”

“Support student?” Izuku asks, feeling a bubble of infectious excitement. Of course Hatsume is a support student – the gear is a dead giveaway.

“Yep! I’ve got tons of super cute babies! There’s something for everyone, and you can use whatever you’d like, as long as all those big companies in the stands will see. I don’t know you, but you’re in first place, and that’s something I can use that to my advantage. It’s free marketing! Let me join your team!”

“Me too!” a new voice calls. Aoyama Yuga strikes a pose, both arms in the air. After a lengthy pause, he lowers them, lacing his fingers beneath his chin and batting his eyelashes.

“You too?” Izuku asks, still taken aback by the first offer.

“Oui! Je m’appelle Aoyama Yuga.” He bows with a small flourish. “I would not have made it this far without your help. I would like to return the favor! C’est bon?”

“You don’t h-have to–”

“Non,” Aoyama interrupts. He smiles, smaller than usual, but soft and grateful. “It’s not a matter of obligation, mon amie. You were très gentil when I needed someone to be. My quirk… isn’t the strongest, as you are unfortunately aware, but if you are willing to have me on your team, it would be mon honneur.”

The sincerity of the words brings tears to Izuku’s eyes, but he smiles through them, nodding his head. There is a voice in the back of his head that questions whether he should accept such a sweet sentiment from someone who is only offering it because they don’t have all the information. Afterall, Aoyama certainly wouldn’t be calling Izuku kind if he knew all the things Izuku has done. But Izuku considers the urgency of needing a team, considers the cascading consequences of failing here, and buries the voice.

“Alright,” Izuku says. “We’ll want a f-fourth member if we can g-get one. Any id-deas?”

Hatsume shrugs cheerfully. “I don’t know who any of these people are!”

Honestly, Izuku will take anyone they can get. Everyone who has made it this far is capable. Ideally, they’d gain some form of defense, maybe mobility, but realistically, Izuku doesn’t have the luxury of choice. People will naturally want to team up with their friends, or at least their classmates – people they are familiar with. They won’t want to take a gamble on Izuku. Izuku is surprised enough that two people are not only willing, but eager, to partner with him.

While he looks, Izuku can’t help but take note of the groups forming around them. Todoroki and Katsuki were both swarmed the moment team building began, and while Katsuki still seems to be sorting through candidates, Todoroki has chosen his team with admirable efficiency.

Yaoyorozu, Iida, and Uraraka. A combination to watch out for, certainly. Todoroki and Yaoyorozu are both incredibly versatile combatants. Yaoyorozu tends to suffer under pressure, thankfully, but with Todoroki to cover her and buy her the time her quirk needs, they’ll be formidable. Then Iida, who likely has the best mobility of all the contestants, which will only be increased by proper application of Uraraka’s quirk. From what Izuku has seen, Todoroki is an intelligent and level-headed strategist and Yaoyorozu is capable of coming up with brilliant counters when she doesn’t let her insecurity get the best of her. Iida is a rational and tactical thinker, though sometimes to a fault, and Uraraka is remarkably creative with her problem-solving.

And they certainly aren’t the only group to watch out for. Tetsutetsu and Kendo are both gathering daunting teams of their own. Asui has recruited Shoji and Izuku can already guess what she is planning – though if they do what he thinks they will, the foreknowledge won’t make the strategy any less effective. And Katsuki might be taking longer, but Izuku is certain that’s only because he’s thinking through strategies to take best advantage of the abilities that are at his disposal. Katsuki doesn’t settle for anything less than the best, and Izuku doubts that this will be any exception.

Aoyama scans the crowd for a moment himself, then snaps his fingers. “Tokoyami is still alone!”

“He is?” Izuku asks. He didn’t see Tokoyami in any of the teams he was observing, but still assumed that someone would have snatched him up.

“Oui,” Aoyama confirms, pointing to where Tokoyami stands, slightly apart from everyone, watching the situation progress. “He’s always been a bit of a loner, non? I’ll go ask him.”

Aoyama skips away before Izuku can say anything, approaching Tokoyami with enviable ease. Izuku flushes and ducks his head when Aoyama points back to where he and Hatsume are waiting. He thinks about waving, something friendly and welcoming, but reconsiders halfway through the movement and ends up raising his hand only to drop it limply. Hatsume giggles and the heat spreading over Izuku’s face intensifies. He stares resolutely at the ground, only looking back up when footsteps approach – two pairs, Izuku is equally pleased and embarrassed to note.

“I apologize if I am being too blunt,” Tokoyami says in lieu of a greeting, “but given that time is working against us, I’ll cut straight to the point. Your victory in the first round was impressive, but I am unfamiliar with you. How do you plan to secure another victory?”

Izuku blinks, processing the question. Then he nods. “This round isn’t about victory. It’s about survival. But I assure you we will be moving on to the next round.”

Tokoyami cocks his head. “Are you a general education student?”

“Oh.” Izuku’s determined confidence ebbs away like a receding tide, and he suddenly can’t keep eye contact. He grinds the toe of his shoe into the dirt, carving an arching line in front of him. “N-no. I’m not – I’m not, uh, in a cl-class. I’m… N-Ned-Nedzu’s student, I g-guess.”

“Nedzu!” Hatsume shouts. “You must be super smart or something then, huh, Pen-kun?”

“It’s I-Izuku,” Izuku corrects weakly. “And I’m n-not – it’s just, well. Or s-something, r-really.”

Tokoyami stares for a long, intense moment, inscrutable even by his already-high standards. Dark Shadow coalesces over his shoulder, gripping at his collar with little clawed hands. She stares at Izuku as well, eyes like yellow lanterns in a thick purple-black mist. Izuku has never been this close to Tokoyami and Dark Shadow before, and she looks so much like Kurogiri that Izuku’s chest feels like it is cracking open. She tugs at Tokoyami’s collar. Tokoyami nods.

“What’s your plan?” he asks. Izuku swallows and tears his eyes away from Dark Shadow.

“Hatsume–”

“Call me Mei!”

“I – uh, al-alright. What g-gear do you have?”

“Oh, I have lots of babies,” she brags, hands on her hips. “What do you need?”

“M-mobility first.”

“Well, I have my hover boots, obviously!” She lifts her leg and gestures to the mechanics there. “A propulsion-grappling system. And this!” She twists around to point at the device on her back. “I have lots of babies that are inspired by hero’s quirks – with my own twist, of course!”

“Are you talking about Air Jet?” Izuku asks, studying the details of what he assumes is a jet pack. Hatsume – Mei – gasps and claps excitedly. She bends over slightly so Izuku can get a better look at the vents along the sides and bottom of the pack, bouncing on her heels.

“Yes! You know him?”

“Mhmm. I grew up near his agency. I w-went on a tour of it, once.” He had been eight years old. His mother threatened to put him on a leash if he didn’t stop running off whenever he saw something new that excited him. It feels like a different lifetime, at this point.

“I have lots more babies! Wanna see?”

“Do you have any weapons?”

Hatsume cackles. “I like the way you think, Pen Boy! Of course I have weapons! Any preferences?”

“A staff,” Izuku answers without hesitation. “I can make do with something else, but a staff is best for close range offense and defense, with the least risk of someone losing their head.”

“One staff coming right up!” Hatsume produces a large case from seemingly nowhere, slamming it onto the ground and sitting cross-legged in front of it. Izuku gets down on his knees with her. Tokoyami and Aoyama stay standing, but Dark Shadow stretches away from Tokoyami to peer curiously at the contents, looping around Izuku’s back. After a moment, she perches lightly in his hair.

“Dark Shadow,” Tokoyami scolds.

“She’s fine,” Izuku replies, distracted. Dark Shadow tugs at one of his curls, but Izuku hardly notices, even when Tokoyami clicks his tongue at her.

The case is full of marvels – several knives, some type of gun, and a handful of gadgets that Izuku can’t identify. Mei pulls a cylinder out of the case, about two fists long. She holds it to the side, presses a button. Displaced air whooshes as the staff rapidly extends, reaching its full length between one blink and the next.

“Tada!” Mei cries. “Staff!” She passes it to Izuku, and he weighs it in his hand. It is lighter than he would prefer, but considering how small it was in the case, it’s heavier than he would have expected. He spins it over his head, careful not to slam it into the ground or any of his companions as he gets a feel for the balance of it.

“Thank you, Mei,” he says, nodding to her. “It’s excellent. Now, what are these?” Careful not to touch, he points to a cluster of innocuous looking metal spheres, connected in groups of three by a thick knot of cabling. Mei pulls one out, holds it up, and presses another hidden button somewhere. With a hiss, cable unwinds from within the spheres, until they are dangling, one lower than the other two. Izuku grins.

“Bolas?” he asks.

“Not just any bolas! After you’ve gotten someone all tangled up in them, you can make them magnetic – no one’s untangling them, then! And as an added bonus, you can make them electric! Knock them down and shock them into submission! Cute, right?”

Izuku laughs. “Super cute,” he agrees. “And just what we need.”

Mei nods. “I can link them to your staff. Then you can use the buttons there to control the effects! I wanted to make the staff a taser, but I was having issues with conductivity and durable.”

“How do I contract the staff?”

“Press and hold the big button. White button is for electricity, black is for magnets”

It takes Izuku a moment to locate the button she’s talking about, as inobtrusive as it is, flush with the metal and nearly the same steel grey, but once he finds it, the staff obediently compresses back into a small cylinder. It takes slightly longer for the staff to fold together than to expand, but not prohibitively long. Mei reaches out for it, and he passes it to her without question. He stands and brushes the dirt off his pants.

He looks to Mei, still sitting with her gadgets, hunched over the staff and the bolas. A light flashes between the devices and she grins up at him, enthusiasm and pride both well-earned. Aoyama picks up one of the other bolas from the case, turning it between his hands until he locates the button that extends the rope. He twirls them with surprising grace. Dark Shadow presses against Tokoyami’s face, wrapping her arms around his head.

It’s a very rag tag team. Mei just wants to show off. Aoyama and Tokoyami’s quirks actively conflict with each other. Izuku himself has to carefully manage his own quirk use or risk public panic. None of them know each other, not really. They have little to no idea how to work together, and he suspects that none of them are accustomed to teamwork in general. Everyone will be gunning for them. It’s a trial by fire.

But Izuku has to win the sports festival. And more than that, he can’t be the reason other people fail. Necessity brings a special kind of determination, the kind that blurs into a steely confidence. When something needs to be done, you do it. The sports festival won’t be the thing that stops him, not after he has come this far, not after all the things he has already done, not with all the things he has to make up for.

“Alright,” Izuku begins, “the plan. How attached are we to the 10,000,000 points?”

Chapter Text

Considering that Fumikage is eternally bonded to a sentient being of darkness with the mentality and temperament of an energetic, rebellious, and occasionally somewhat malicious child, he often finds himself befuddled by the company he winds up keeping. Never has this been more true than now. Aoyama Yuga – who seems to script his every interaction to criteria of glamor and presentation, who would rather be perceived as shallow than as flawed. Hatsume Mei – who possesses a gleefully oblivious sadism that could rival Dark Shadow’s, who already seems more than halfway consumed by the madness of her science, despite her young age. Midoriya Izuku, perhaps oddest of all – who stutters through introductions but speaks easily of weapons and strategy, who knows the details of each of his teammates’ quirks without needing to ask what they are, who says nothing of his own quirk and seems relieved that no one asks, who is not affiliated with any course because he is not an official student, who attributes his status as Nedzu’s personal student to “or something.”

Fumikage can guess what that something may be.

But as odd as his unanticipated teammates unquestionably are, Fumikage himself is hardly an outlier. Few people have ever dared to call him normal, after all. More often, he hears “unnerving,” “disturbing,” or, most frequently, “creepy,” though he appreciates that moniker least of all. Who is Fumikage – as dubiously disturbing and undoubtably odd as he is – to judge someone on where darkness has led them? Here they find themselves, walking the same path. Why shun a man for where he has tread before when you can instead choose to walk side by side? Company is a valuable thing, and the ability to make any variety of strangers into companions is a valuable skill.

At the top of their formation, Midoriya’s determination whips around him like a war banner, eyes like venom and broken glass. Perhaps Fumikage should call him Izuku – that seems to be his preferred form of address, and far be it for Fumikage to disrespect those preferences, but the name seems far too informal when the boy looms with all the heavy presence of a harbinger. Dark Shadow feeds off it, swelling to a size she rarely reaches in the bright light of day, trembling with a heady excitement that brushes against Fumikage’s consciousness like a static charge.

“Are we ready?” Midoriya asks, solid as stone as the speakers around the arena crackle to life with Present Mic’s voice. Aoyama shouts back an affirmative. Hatsume giggles. Fumikage nods. Dark Shadow shrieks, dissonant and grating, like an entire murder taking flight. The display is enough to cause several of the nearby teams to cringe back, shoulders flinching towards their ears, but the hands holding Midoriya up all remain steady.

In the whisper of silence between the last beats of Present Mic’s countdown, Midoriya says, “I’m counting on you.”

Chaos descends in an instant. Fumikage’s instincts demand he withdraw; Dark Shadow’s battlelust demands she surge forward. Beneath their feet, the ground wavers, hard packed dirt suddenly slipping against itself in a sticky soup that swallows Fumikage up to the ankles in their mere moment of hesitation. Hatsume makes a noise of distaste as the electronics around her shoes are similarly consumed.

“Alright!” Tetsutetsu from class B yells.

Jirou takes advantage of the opening, lashing out with her jacks, aimed directly for Midoriya’s head. Dark Shadow bats her attack out of the air easily, cawing with mocking triumph as Jirou grits her teeth and winces at the sound. As gleeful as she is, Dark Shadow pays no attention to the thin green tendril that whips away from one of Tetsutetsu’s horses. Midoriya reels back as the vine whips towards his face, ducking halfway around it only for a thorn to snag on the fabric of his headband, unwinding it and tugging it away. Midoriya lunges in pursuit but is intercepted by an explosion, reeling backwards, yellow sparks reflected by wide eyes.

“Deku,” Bakugou growls, snatching Midoriya’s collar in a smoking fist. His canines flash in a snarl that seems to pass for a grin by Bakugou’s standards. He lands – lands, because he has left his team shouting frantically ten feet away – crouched on Hatsume and Aoyama’s shoulders. They both waver, shouting protests, but neither falls, even with his additional weight and the unstable ground working against them.

“Katsuki,” Midoriya says, voice admirably level as he closes a hand around Bakugou’s wrist. “We don’t have what you’re looking for.” Bakugou’s eyes, fixed for a moment on where Midoriya is touching him, dart to his forehead. The left side of his face twitches, a spasm that flickers, however briefly, through fear and doubt and panic where Fumikage has only ever see anger, irritation, and occasional boredom.

“Blink and you miss it!” Present Mic shouts, voice echoing through the stadium. “All it takes is a moment for the tables to turn in an event like this! Less than a minute in and already Team Midoriya, our front runner, has found themselves at the bottom of the pack while team Tetsutetsu has claimed the coveted 10,000,000 points!”

“Damn it! Couldn’t even last a fucking minute. So fucking useless,” Bakugou spits, tugging Midoriya closer to him, shaking him by the grip he has on his shirt. The ground swirls and solidifies beneath Fumikage’s feet as team Tetsutetsu releases them and moves on, frantically attempting to put distance between themselves and all the teams whose ire they have gained.

“Are you surprised?” Midoriya asks mildly. “You won’t win this fight by worrying about me, Katsuki.” Bakugou’s expression flickers again, too fast for Fumikage to read.

“Stay out of my way,” he says, releasing Midoriya’s collar after one last jerk. “The next time I see you I’m going to grind you to fucking dust, don’t you forget it. Those 10,000,000 points were meant to be mine and I am going to damn well get them.”

An explosion crackles between his fingers as he leans back, studying Midoriya with a shrewd stare that Midoriya meets impassively. Bakugou sneers, clicks his tongue, and for a moment Fumikage half expects that he will attack Midoriya again, more vehemently this time. In Fumikage’s experience, Bakugou has always been undeterrable when he has a target within his sights – an intense tenacity, as much a weakness as it is a strength, but nevertheless intimidating to be on the wrong side of. But then he jumps backwards, spring boarding from Aoyama and Hatsume’s shoulders with a small blast to propel him away. A second later, he is snagged about the waist by a length of Sero’s tape.

“What the hell was that!?” Ashido demands the instant they have him in their grasp again. “You can’t just blast off on your own! Is that even allowed?”

“It’s fucking fine!” Bakugou shouts. “That’s what I got Dollar Store Spider-Man for, don’t fucking yell at me!”

“You’re the one who’s yelling!”

“As long as he doesn’t touch the ground, it’s allowed!” Midnight interjects. “It’s a technicality, but we encourage those here!”

“See! Fine!”

“Uh, Bakubro?”

“What?!” Bakugou snaps.

“Where’d your headband go?”

Bakugou, hunched over to snarl more effectively at Ashido, straightens his spine. Slowly, he touches his forehead, running his fingers along the uncovered expanse of skin there that creases with the deepening furrow of his brows. His eyes, red as fire and fury lock unto Midoriya once more. Midoriya shakes the white strip of fabric out, then stretches it between his hands and ties it around his neck. He doesn’t so much as glance over to Bakugou, who sits in an unnerving silence. The air around him seems to waver with heat and hatred, and Fumikage can’t tear his own eyes away, looking between Bakugou and the nervous faces of his team.

“How the hell?” Bakugou asks, voice uncharacteristically quiet, enough so that it barely travels the distance between the two teams.

“I’m a thief, Kacchan,” Midoriya says, casual and weary. “It’s what I do.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

A shiver claws along Fumikage’s skin. He can feel the feathers on the crown of his head fluffing away his skin and he wills them to lay flat again. In the weeks they have been classmates, Fumikage has heard uncountable death threats from Bakugou Katsuki. Death threats are frequent and thoughtless interjections in Bakugou’s speech, and though he makes them routinely, they’re empty – nearly the equivalent of an “um” or “uh” in anyone else’s speech. Like those same little stutters, Fumikage’s brain has begun to filter out Bakugou’s exclamations of “die!” and “I’ll kill you,” as if they are just meaningless sounds to fill the gaps between the words that matter.

Fumikage doesn’t know if Bakugou is capable of murder. Violence, certainly, but violence is going to be their profession. People will die along the way, and at some point, they will likely even be the ones to kill them – that is nearly inevitable for any hero who isn’t exclusively involved in rescue and whose career spans more than a couple of years. But actual murder – the cold-blooded kind where you deliberately deprive the world of a person and a person of the world – Fumikage assumes that most people are not actually capable of that.

For the first time, Bakugou’s threat settles heavily in the air – heavily, weighty, not empty or hollow at all. And for the first time, Fumikage wonders how much Bakugou means it. Dark Shadow hisses, twisting around until she is between Bakugou and Midoriya, flattening herself out like some great shield. Midoriya’s mouth quirks up, the shape of a smile with none of the substance.

“It’s fine,” he tells her, quelling until she recedes enough that he can make eye contact with Bakugou. “You can kill me,” he says, as if unaffected by the words or the thought, “or you can win. You can beat me, or you can beat everyone. It’s your choice.”

There is a loud bang from one of the other teams. Bakugou’s teammates look nervously between their rider and the commotion surrounding the 10,000,000 points. Bakugou’s shoulders heave with his breath. Midoriya waits, silent and patient. Fumikage suddenly doubts that Midoriya actually knows what he is doing, provoking Bakugou like this. Dark Shadow bristles, the edges of her form sharpening into spikes that pulse slightly with her agitation.

“What the hell happened to you, Deku?”

Midoriya blinks. His composure, the perfectly pleasant counterpoint to Bakugou’s senseless rage, crumbles into surprised confusion.

When Midoriya declared he would lead their team to the next round, something settled over him – a kind of sharp brightness, an immovable determination possessed only by the very competent or the very desperate. Competence and desperation both are forces to be wary of on the battlefield, and Fumikage determined in that moment that he would rather fight with Midoriya than against him.

Fumikage stands by that decision now more than ever. Gone is the toxic brightness, the shattered sharpness of Midoriya’s eyes. That was frightful in its own right, but Fumikage is familiar with such looks, sees them in the eyes of nearly all his classmates in the heat of training. He has never seen a look like this. Now, Midoriya’s eyes have gone dim and dark. Like an algal bloom. A mossy film, hiding dead things at unknown depths, choked of light and oxygen.

“Do you really want to know?” Midoriya asks. “I’ll tell you, if you’ll listen.”

Bakugou does not respond, though his silence speaks more than the majority of the nonsense he shouts. He stares, the fire of his eyes tempered by calculative assessment. Sero says something Fumikage can’t hear and Bakugou tears his glare away from Midoriya, nods sharply.

“Let’s get our damn points,” he says, to the visible relief of his team. He pointedly does not look back at Midoriya as they go.

“Go fetch!” Hatsume calls after them, cackling to herself.

Midoriya sighs, abruptly going slack above them as he releases tension Fumikage hadn’t noticed gather. “See?” he asks. He smiles, a wobbly quirk of his lips that doesn’t meet his eyes, but at least they no longer look like a graveyard. “Just like I said.”

Somehow, the plan has gone off perfectly. The were captured at the beginning – Midoriya had even named Honenuki Juzo specifically among the ones who would be most likely to immobilize them. Team Tetsutetsu has the 10,000,000 points – one of the teams most well suited for keeping Bakugou occupied as long as possible. Midoriya has stolen Bakugou’s own points, giving them a decent amount to work with and build on to ensure their placement in the final round. And, most astounding of all, Bakugou has chosen to ignore them, at least for the time being.

Perhaps Midoriya’s quirk involves some degree of foresight. Fumikage adds the possibility onto the end of what is turning out to be a very long list of ways in which Midoriya is both terrifying and admirable.

He’s odd, Dark Shadow thinks to Fumikage as Midoriya directs them onwards. I like him.

You would, Fumikage thinks in return.

You do, too. We should keep him.

You can’t just keep people.

I keep you, don’t I?

Fumikage sighs. Yes, he truly does surround himself with some very odd company. He has done so since he was young, when Dark Shadow first manifested like a warm smudge of cotton along the edges of his consciousness, crying out her loneliness like a discordant melody that Fumikage could not shut off. Dark Shadow is odd, indeed. As are Aoyama and Hatsume and Midoriya, most of all. Then again, as is Fumikage. It’s as they say – birds of a feather flock together.

“Man,” Hizashi groans, leaning back in his chair, “there go the 10,000,000 points. I was kinda hoping the green bean would sweep the entire thing.”

“You’re supposed to be unbiased,” Shouta replies, distracted as his eyes trace through the chaos in the arena. Bakugou throws himself at Tetsutetsu for the second time, screaming something inaudible when his explosions are easily negated.

“No, I only have to pretend to be unbiased when the mic is on! Don’t pretend you don’t want him to win.”

“No one is going to win until the final round. Getting rid of the points was a smart move. He kept his team in second place while he did it, too. It’s a logical strategy.”

Hizashi leans against the desk, pouting for a moment. Then he scootches forwards, leaning closer to Shouta as the pout morphs into an insufferable smirk in the corner of Shouta’s vision.

“Logical, huh?” Hizashi asks, in that pseudo-innocent tone Shouta has never once fallen for.

“It was,” Shouta confirms flatly.

“You could just say you’re proud of him.”

“I’m not proud of him,” Shouta denies immediately. “He blew himself up less than half an hour ago. Which was reckless and unnecessary and not logical in the slightest.”

“Aww,” Hizashi coos. “So you were worried about him and now you’re proud. It’s okay babe, you don’t need to say it. I speak your language.”

Shouta very much wants to wipe the shit-eating grin off Hizashi’s face. But at the same time, he can’t exactly deny the truth to his husband’s words. Well, he can and will deny them, and he will probably fool just about everyone except Hizashi, who, unfortunately, really does speak Shouta’s language. Sometimes unnervingly so, to the extent that Shouta doesn’t even realizes the associations he has made until Hizashi cracks the code.

He was worried about Izuku. Ridiculous, considering that the kid can more than take care of himself and in fact has been to some degree for years. And he is proud of Izuku. Equally ridiculous, considering the festival is far from over and the kid has already blown himself up, which certainly isn’t behavior worthy of Shouta’s pride.

Shouta, absolutely unwilling to admit either of these things, grunts. “Don’t call me babe.”

“Sorry, Kitten. Better?”

“Don’t you have an event to be commentating?”

Hizashi scrunches up his nose, turning back to the wide window that overlooks the arena, screens scattered around to give better views of specific areas of action. A harried-looking team Tetsutetsu continues fending off Bakugou’s assault. Much like he did to team Midoriya, Bakugou has launched himself at them bodily, leaving his teammates behind, floundering in a soft muck of quicksand. Shiozaki’s vines have left small scratches along Bakugou’s arms, but he persists in his attacks with a single-minded determination.

“What am I meant to say?” Hizashi asks. “It’s madness down there.”

“It’s your job.”

“You’re here, too. I don’t see you bestowing any insights onto the people.”

“Only the last five minutes really matter.”

Hizashi rolls his eyes, rocking his entire head with the gesture. “That’s what I thought. You don’t know what to say, either.”

There’s simply too much happening on the field, Hizashi is right. There is, of course, the flash of Bakugou’s never-ending onslaught against team Tetsutetsu. Todoroki’s team is under heavy attack as well, several of the lower-ranked teams try to hedge their bets on the fourth-place headband, rather than enter the fray for the 10,000,000. Team Shinsou, headed by the single gen ed student to make it to the second round, is picking off small point values, slowly but surely building up a worthwhile total without drawing any attention at all.

And team Midoriya – Shouta keeps finding his eyes fixed on Izuku when he should be watching the event more generally. Now that Izuku is no longer pulling the invisibility stunt of the first round, Shouta’s attention is drawn to him like a magnet, and Shouta is unsure if that’s a sign of his own bias or if it’s simply a quality of Izuku’s, if eyes all over the country are latching onto him in a similar way.

While Bakugou is occupied, team Midoriya comes head-to-head with team Hagakure, who seem to have abandoned their pursuit of the 10,000,000 points after Bakugou got involved. Hizashi taps his hands excitedly against the desk as Jirou attempts a ranged attack.

“1000 yen says Greenbean destroys them,” he says.

Shouta scoffs, unimpressed. “I’m not betting on our students.”

“You’re right,” Hizashi agrees. “Only an idiot would take that bet. 1000 yen says Todoroki ends up with the 10,000,000.”

As Jirou’s attack is intercepted by Dark Shadow, just as it was at the beginning of the battle, Shouta glances between Bakugou – still doggedly attempting to steal the 10,000,000 from Tetsutetsu – and Todoroki – making his way across the field to where Bakugou and Tetsutetsu are fighting, but skirmishing with other teams regularly along the way.

“You’ve got yourself a bet,” Shouta agrees.

On the field, Dark Shadow takes visible glee in batting Jirou’s repeated attacks out of the air. With Sato supporting Hagakure and no animals in the arena, Jirou is the team’s only offensive power, a realization that seems to come to the team members themselves a moment too late. They seem to consult each other briefly before attempting to disengage, but Hatsume Mei – and Shouta doesn’t want to think too hard about Maijima’s problem child teaming up with his own – passes something to Aoyama. There is a blur of motion as he spins it in his hand, and then Sato stumbles as weights and wires tangle around his lower legs. He tips to the side, crashing into Koda as he tries and fails to regain his footing, both boys tumbling to the ground. Suddenly supporting Hagakure on her own, Jirou wobbles, trying to widen her stance to accommodate for the weight, but Hagakure ends up tipping over backwards, falling into a heap with the boys, who both turn violent shades of red. Jirou, the only one left standing, looks back to her crumpled team and rubs a hand over her face. Hatsume bounces on her heels, enough that she jostles Izuku, who looks back at her with a grin as Dark Shadow stabilizes him.

“Oh!” Hizashi exclaims. “I can commentate about this! I have stuff to say, I have stuff to say!” He scrabbles around the desk for the button that turns their microphones live. As Zashi practically flings himself over his lap, Shouta wonders, not for the first time, why they put the button on his side of the desk when he didn’t have working arms to press it.

“Looks like team Hagakure is down for the count!” Hizashi shouts when the system is online. “Let this be a lesson to you: always stay on your support technician’s good side! Team Hagakure can pick themselves up and get back in the game, but their points are forfeit to the team that knocked them down – team Midoriya! The bigger they are, the harder they fall, folks!” He leans back from the mic, turning to Shouta with raised eyebrows. “Anything to add, Eraser, or are you still waiting for the last five minutes?”

Shouta hums. “Never underestimate the value of good support gear. In a real fight, it’s tools like that that often make the difference between a victory and a loss. They’re an especially unique advantage here, and team Midoriya is wise to leverage that.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself!”

Hizashi switches the mics back off. He props his head in his hand, grinning at Shouta who stares pointedly at the action below them. Hizashi bats his eyes, wiggles his eyebrows.

“Shut up,” Shouta grunts.

“Hey, I didn’t say anything. You did, though. About how Izuku is so wise to leverage his advantages.”

Shouta sighs, ignoring the slight throb that has started between his eyes. “It was commentary. I’m supposed to be commentating.”

“Mhmm. Proud dad is a good look on you.”

“I’m – We’re not his dads, Hizashi, god.” Hizashi cackles, grabbing Shouta’s chair by the arm to pull him closer and press an obnoxious kiss to his temple. Shouta shoves his elbow into Hizashi’s chair, sending the nuisance wheeling a few inches away.

“Do your job,” he orders.

“It’s not like we’re missing anything,” Hizashi says as he fixes the positions of their chairs. “Only the last five minutes really matter, you said it yourself. They’re just chasing each other around, same as – oh shit, is Izuku going after Bakugou?”

“What?” Shouta asks, attention snapping back to the field. “No, Bakugou doesn’t even have anything to go after, he wouldn’t be that stupid.” He recalls, vividly, the events of less than an hour ago. “Damn it, I swear to god if that kid blows himself up again, I’m going to ground him for life.”

“Such a dad.”

“I am not his dad,” Shouta repeats, though he is too distracted to inject as much force into the words as he probably should.

In the chaos of the arena, Izuku’s team is, sure enough, heading back in Bakugou’s direction. Five minutes in and Bakugou is still railing against team Tetsutetsu. Shouta suspects that Awase must have Welded the 10,000,000 to Tetsutetsu, given that they still have the points despite looking noticeably worse for wear. They’ll likely reach their breaking point before the halfway mark.

Both teams are caught up in each other, enough so that they don’t notice team Midoriya’s approach. It’s Shiozaki who spots the small tendril of darkness that Dark Shadow sneaks around the knot of Tetsutetsu’s headband. Not the 10,000,000 – it’s the 705 that they started with, and Dark Shadow snatches it away in an instant, racing back to Tokoyami. Any retaliation team Tetsutetsu may have had in mind is quickly dashed by the continued assault of Bakugou. Bakugou himself spares Izuku a feral sneer but is otherwise too consumed by his goal to abandon it in favor of acting on the grudge he bears for Izuku. In a single, simple maneuver, team Midoriya has gained the second most valuable headband on the field.

Hizashi whistles. “That was ballsy.”

Shouta leans his head against the back of his chair, closing his eyes. The headache that has been simmering throughout the course of the sports festival suddenly escalates to a boil, pressing viciously against the insides of his skull. Ballsy is not the word Shouta would use to describe what just happened. He would use two – carefully orchestrated.

Izuku knew both teams would be too preoccupied to prevent or reverse the theft. And they were preoccupied because Izuku was the one who set them against each other to begin with. It’s either one hell of a happy coincidence or Izuku did it all deliberately, planned it out and followed through with a frightening amount of foresight. The rat is going to end up with all sorts of dreadful ideas after watching these recordings, Shouta is sure.

“This kid is going to put me in an early grave,” he announces.

“You see,” Hizashi says, too cheerful for the seriousness of Shouta’s statement, “that sounds exactly like something a dad would say.”

Shouta closes his eyes and doesn’t dignify that with a response. He considers going to sleep. If he is lucky, maybe he will be able to sleep through the entire festival, and Hizashi will only wake him up to tell him that Izuku has destroyed his competition so absolutely that he has gotten not only first place, but second and third as well. If he is especially lucky, perhaps Hizashi will be kind enough to let him sleep through whatever Izuku-based plan for world domination Nedzu is sure to try to enact after seeing this.

 “Sho,” Hizashi says, shaking his shoulder only a couple of minutes later. “You’re gonna want to watch this.” It has not been nearly long enough for everything to be over with. Of course not, Zashi never lets Shouta rest – he takes too much sadistic satisfaction in Shouta’s exhausted suffering.

Shouta cracks an eye open, only to close it immediately.

“Todoroki?” he asks, feeling twice his age.

“Seems like it.” Hizashi nearly manages to sound sympathetic, but the undercurrent of laughter in his voice gives him away. “It’ll be a good fight. And hey, if Izuku keeps Todoroki occupied, you’ll be winning that 1000 yen!”

“We’re married. Our bank accounts are connected.”

“Bragging rights!”

Shouta groans, forcing himself to sit up and face what’s happening in the arena. The ground is already iced over, though none of Izuku’s teammates have been caught in it. Todoroki faces team Midoriya with the same grim determination he always wears. Izuku, staff extended in front of him, meets the look with a grin that takes years off Shouta’s life.

The large clock counting down the remaining battle time for those in the stadium reads 5:36. It always comes down to the last five minutes.

Ochako might be a little afraid of Todoroki Shouto.

Not afraid afraid, of course. He’s only a first-year hero student, just like Ochako, so it would be silly to be afraid afraid of him, but she’s just… a little afraid, yeah. He’s doesn’t seem like he’s mean or a bad person or anything. It’s just that he’s super strong, right? Ochako is in the hero course, and she likes to think that she deserves to be there just as much as everyone else because she works hard, but she can’t even imagine being as strong as Todoroki is. He has all that strength, and it seems almost trivial to him. And he doesn’t really talk much to anyone outside what is necessary for team exercises, and he’s also super attractive. Not that Ochako cares about stuff like that, but she has eyes, and it’s just another thing on top of all the other things about Todoroki that make him – well, a little bit scary.

 She’s not the only one who thinks that, either. Most people don’t say anything about it, because that would be pretty rude, but today especially, it’s written across peoples’ faces when their teams come head-to-head. She can see it on Aoyama’s face now, a thread of nervousness that winds around behind his eyes.

“Todoroki,” Yaoyorozu says tentatively. “There’s only five minutes left. If we’re going to get the 10,000,000, we can’t keep getting distracted.”

“This won’t take long.” Todoroki’s reply is simply stated, devoid of arrogance. Which is also a little scary, to know that Todoroki lives in a world where victory is all but assured.

Across from them, the other team’s rider – Midoriya, the one who started with the 10,000,000 points – grins in a way that reminds Ochako a bit of Bakugou. She had seen Midoriya before the second round started, and she recognized him then. Last week, she had met him briefly. He’d seemed sweet, if a bit nervous. If she hadn’t seen him between events, if this was her first time catching sight of him today, she doesn’t think she would have connected this boy to stuttering one she met outside the training field. This boy seems just as intense as Todoroki, and he doesn’t seem scared in the slightest.

“Iida,” Todoroki says. The name is like an order.

Obligingly, Iida bends his knees slightly and Ochako braces herself as well as she can in the split second she has before he starts running. Iida is fast, and with Ochako’s quirk preventing him from being weighed down, he can propel all four of them forward at his full speed. It always leaves Ochako dizzy and disoriented for a moment when they stop, and she has no idea how Todoroki handles it so well, but they’ve stolen several headbands with this same method. The strategy works just as well this time as it has all the others. When Iida stops, Todoroki is holding one of team Midoriya’s bands.

“Now for the 10,000,000,” he says, tying the new band around his neck to rest with the others. Without looking back, he sends a wave of ice towards team Midoriya. He did the same thing when their paths first crossed but failed to catch any of them in the attack. This time, Aoyama’s right foot is caught up to the ankle, and he says something in French that Ochako would be is a curse word.

Todoroki directs their team towards Bakugou, who has claimed to 10,000,000 points and is defending it as explosively and viciously as he does everything. Ochako has to admit that she’s not particularly looking forward to trying to take the points from him.

Bakugou is loud and aggressive, and he’s just as scary as Todoroki is, if in an entirely different way that involves far more yelling and far fewer glacial stares. He’s definitely a dangerous opponent – Ochako had learned that the hard way, on their very first day of hero training. Her embarrassing defeat in that exercise was like a cold bucket of water waking her up to what being a hero student was actually going to be like.

Everything at UA happens quickly. Bakugou knocked her unconscious so fast she couldn’t say exactly how it happened when she woke up. Villains invaded the USJ in seconds and nearly killed several people in less than half an hour. Midoriya Izuku blew himself up in round one and took first place when no one even knew who he was. Iida runs so quickly that the world blurs as Ochako is dragged along.

As a heroics student Ochako has gotten used to whiplash. The sickening lurch of a change that happens so abruptly you don’t even get a moment to think about what it means.

Like whiplash, the first thing Ochako registers is a pain in her neck. Yaoyorozu yelps and Todoroki twists around, eyes going wide as Midoriya – where did Midoriya come from? Ochako and Yaoyorozu both stumble. At the head of their formation, Iida continues another two steps forward, tugging uncomfortably at Ochako’s arm for a moment before he is forced to come to a stop.

“Sorry,” Midoriya says, grimacing down first at Yaoyorozu, then at Ochako herself. The rough tread of his bright red sneakers digs into Ochako’s shoulder through her shirt. He reaches out, grabbing the tail of the band wrapped around Todoroki’s head, pulling it free with one easy tug. Todoroki’s eyes latch on the trailing end of it. His mouth is slack with shock, an expression Ochako never could have pictured him wearing before this moment.

As Midoriya pulls back, Todoroki leans forward, reaching after the stolen points with ice crackling up his arm. Midoriya deflects the grab, diverting it to the side with the same trivial ease Ochako sees in Todoroki as he freezes entire buildings or building-high robots. The staff Midoriya was holding earlier suddenly appears in his other hand, though Ochako could have sworn that he didn’t have it a moment ago. Todoroki grabs the end of the it, but Midoriya twists it out of his grip, and, in a flash of gunmetal grey, cracks it against the side of Todoroki’s head.

“Todoroki!” Yaoyorozu shouts as he lulls to the side, blinking rapidly. He doesn’t fall, braced up by the staff that Midoriya stretches out to catch him.

Pressing his right hand to his head, Todoroki makes another grab for the weapon, but it disappears beneath his fingers, contracting into a tiny cylinder that Midoriya pulls out of reach. Holding it behind him, he extends it again, slamming the end into the ground, using it to vault up, twisting around in midair until he is facing back toward his team. A sharp burst of air stirs Ochako’s hair around her face as thin wires jump out of the device on his back.

She saw that strange girl with the pink dreadlocks use this trick to cross the chasm during the obstacle course, grappling between the stone pillars with the help of her hover boots and jetpack. Midoriya has the jetpack, but he doesn’t have the boots, and more importantly, he doesn’t have anything for the hooks to anchor him to. They shoot out into empty air, and Ochako is certain that he is going to crash to the ground.

Several things happen in an instant – all at once and too quick to keep proper track of, the way everything happens at UA, and all Ochako can do is watch as the people who thinker faster than her move into action.

First, Todoroki, expression changed from slack to furious, clamors around, forcing Ochako, Yaoyorozu, and Iida to frantically adjust their balance to keep them from toppling over. Todoroki stretches out, shoulder, arm, fingers, all fully extended as he tries to close the gap Midoriya has put between them, but he can’t reach, not without sending them all to the ground. And then a sharp light glints across his eyes as flame curls up his arm and into his hair, dancing between his fingers and arching out into the air, flowing in graceful arcs and jagged points like something free and hungry. Ochako flinches slightly away from the heat, hair fluttering in the breeze the flames kick up and sticking to the sweat that suddenly beads on her neck.

Simultaneously, Dark Shadow charges into the sky. They snag the grappling cables out of the air, yanking Midoriya back to his team. Todoroki’s fire licks at Midoriya’s heels, and Ochako waits for it to catch on the hem of his pants, but it spirals up around his legs without touching him, shooting into the air above his head where it loops around itself until it forms a little ball with chaotic edges. Todoroki’s flames gutter out, dying to embers that flicker along the charred edges of his sleeve.

Midoriya’s team catches him, Aoyama and the support course girl both shouting gleefully as he ties the stolen band around his neck. The flames above him stretch, floating down to rest around his head and shoulders. They waver there for a moment, tracing eddies in the air, then dissipate in a flurry of sparks.

“Fire!” the support girl yells. “I could make you so many babies! Can you create it or only manipulate it? Do you want a flamethrower?!”

Midoriya glances down to her for a moment, offering a hesitant smile before fixing his eyes back on Todoroki. “I can breathe it,” he answers.

Todoroki inhales sharply. “Change of plans,” he says, twisting around on the platform of their arms so he is facing the right direction again. His hands are shaking. Ochako bites her lip. “We don’t need the 10,000,000.”

“Todoroki…” Yaoyorozu says weakly, trailing off

“Iida. How fast can you run?”

“I can go faster,” Iida admits after a moment of watching team Midoriya. “But I can only do it once, and I’m afraid that I won’t be of much use afterwards.”

And Todoroki, as terrifying as he is, only says, “Do it.”

Chapter Text

Iida Tenya has very clear tells. Izuku imagines that it’s not something the other boy generally has to worry about, given that he moves so quickly. Even if his opponents receive a moment of forewarning, Iida is still too fast for most people to dodge or counter.

Izuku is not most people.

“Aoyama,” he says the moment he sees the slight bending of Iida’s knees. Aoyama doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t even waste time with a reply. Dark Shadow keeps Izuku stably propped up from below as Aoyama partially breaks their formation, spinning a bola out to the side. Time seems to slow to a crawl as Izuku activates Bullet Time, analyzing the minute way Iida’s stance widens, the way his heels dig into the ground to gain traction.

“Now,” Izuku shouts the instant a warm orange glow flares within Iida’s exhausts. With time moving like cold honey, sluggish and viscous, the gap between Izuku’s order and Aoyama’s response seems to drag on. Iida has already launched himself forward, dragging his team with him, and he has nearly halved the distance between them, but Izuku watches the bola fly, rotating around itself. One of the cables strikes Iida in the leg. The weights continue forward before their momentum yanks them back, looping around Iida’s ankles.

Iida’s face doesn’t change, his head tilted slightly down, brow heavy and mouth firm as he focuses on his target, not yet aware of what has happened. Todoroki, though – his eyes narrow the moment Izuku shouts his command to Aoyama. When both of Iida’s feet leave the ground, knotted together by a tangle of wire, ice is already rising up beneath him, catching him up to the waist, spreading backwards to grab Uraraka and Yaoyorozu before they can begin to lose their balance as well.

It's an impressive display of reflexes and instincts, and it ultimately serves Izuku’s purposes as well as the bola itself would have. Surrounded by ice, team Todoroki is as effectively halted as they would have been if they had collapsed altogether. Izuku can’t claim their points, but Izuku also doesn’t need them. As long as they keep the points they have, they’re guaranteed to progress to the next round, and that’s the promise Izuku made to Aoyama, Mei, Tokoyami, and Dark Shadow.

A buzzer sounds, echoing through the arena over the squall of voices and quirks. Izuku sags, laughing under his breath as relief and exhaustion chase circles around each other in his head. Todoroki stares as if he is trying to burn a hole through Izuku, but Izuku does his best to ignore it, smiling at his teammates as Dark Shadow grabs him by the arm to help him get back to the ground.

“Melt it!” Mei demands, wrapping her hands around Izuku’s other arm as soon as he is within easy reach. She points eagerly over to team Todoroki, where Yaoyorozu has produced some kind of scraper that she is using to chip at the ice around her ankles when Todoroki himself failed to immediately release them.

“I, uh, don’t think that’s a great i-idea,” Izuku says apologetically, looking away from the other team before he can accidentally make eye contact with Todoroki. “I make f-fire, not heat, and I don’t want to b-burn anyone. T-Todor-r-roki can m-melt his own ice, I th-think.”

There is an itching compulsion to look at Aoyama. I have a healing quirk, Izuku had told him. After all his careful planning, his thoughtful strategy, he had made such a stupid mistake. He had known from the beginning that he would have to use a visible quirk at some point – he had a list of viable options in his head, though he had been waiting for a relevant situation to settle on one. None of them were healing quirks, that was never part of the plan.

And now Aoyama knows. Likely, he doesn’t know what he knows, but he must know that something is off. He knows that Izuku healed him in the first round and then manipulated fire in the second, two fundamentally unrelated abilities. At best, Aoyama is confused, maybe curious. At worst he is disgusted, horrified, enraged.

Izuku avoids Aoyama’s eyes avidly as Todoroki’s.

Mei pouts. “But you can breathe fire. You can’t just tell me you can breathe fire and not breathe fire!”

“D-Dark Shadow doesn’t like fire,” Izuku says, only partially an excuse as she shudders in agreement with his words. Dark Shadow can function in light, obviously, but she has a notable preference for darkness, and she had shrunk away in discomfort before Izuku had dispersed the flames he had collected from Todoroki. Mei looks at Dark Shadow for a moment before dragging Izuku three steps away and turning them so their backs are to the rest of their group.

“Don’t follow them,” Izuku hears Tokoyami sigh. Dark Shadow grumbles, a wordless tangle of static.

Mei flings an arm around Izuku’s shoulders, dragging him down so their heads are close together, huddled around the space in front of them. She pulls her goggles back down over her eyes.

“Do it,” she says.

“Your hair,” he replies, looking doubtfully at one of the pink locks that spills over the band of her headgear.

She shakes him. “It’s been on fire before! Do it!”

Izuku sighs, triggering a sharp click at the base of his throat. His breath comes out as little wisps of flame, round plumes that die out only a few inches from his mouth. He carefully directs the fire, as small as it is, away from Mei’s face and hair, but after only a second, she makes that job much harder by bouncing in place. He cuts the flame off before the situation can escalate.

Mei gasps excitedly. “Does it burn your throat?” she asks. “Your skin? How big a fire can you make? How big a fire can you control? Can you control the temperature at all? How hot is it? How–”

The speakers around the stadium crackle, cutting Mei off, but Izuku stores all her questions in the back of his mind as things he’ll have to take time to answer when the festival is over. If everything goes as planned, Izuku will be joining class 1-A soon, and he’ll need gear when he does. Tentatively, Izuku imagines a future that involves plenty of hours spent in the support studio, collaborating on costume and gear ideas, support tech for him. Mei would be a good person to work with – a genius whose passion for her craft eclipsed all other concerns, potentially including issues like who Izuku is and what he has done in the past, information that could very likely dissuade any number of others from working with him.  

Izuku and Mei rejoin Aoyama, Tokoyami, and Dark Shadow. Todoroki has freed his team of the ice and is standing in a loose circle with them, facing away from Izuku in a way that feels intentional. The cold aura around him seems stronger now, like he is trying to freeze away any warmth left behind from the flames he briefly let burn. Izuku stares at the rigid lines of Todoroki’s shoulders, insides aching like a bruise. Cold like this is a familiar phantom to Izuku; he knows the way it settles in your bones like something ancient and immovable, so all-encompassing that the smallest touch of warmth hurts. Izuku himself is only just now beginning to thaw for the first time in years. He wonders how long Todoroki has been frozen, wonders what it will take for the other boy to begin to melt.

Izuku tears his eyes away from Todoroki, tells himself it’s another issue to be dealt with later as Present Mic begins announcing the final results of the battle. After engaging with team Tetsutetsu for nearly the entirety of the match, team Bakugou claims first place with the 10,000,000. Izuku’s own team has secured second, followed by team Todoroki in third, and team Shinsou in fourth.

Fourth place was always the most likely wildcard when Izuku tried to predict the outcome of the event. Team Shinsou is not who Izuku would have guessed, though he wouldn’t have ruled them out, either. He finds Shinsou Hitoshi in the crowd, standing apart from everyone with his hands in his pockets and a bored look on his face. His teammates murmur to each other, faces creased with confusion.

“You certainly did not let us down, mon amie,” Aoyama says, grinning coyly as he ducks in front of Izuku.

Izuku shakes his head, waving his hands through the air. “I b-barely did anything,” he denies. “I wouldn’t have gotten a-anywhere without you all.”

“Modest, too.” Aoyama laughs behind his hand. If he has been affected by Izuku’s display during the battle, he does well hiding it.

“You sell yourself too short,” Tokoyami says, Dark Shadow nodding in vigorous support. “Your skill with strategy and prediction was a sight to behold.”

“Not to mention the way you totally handed it to Candycane and Co!” Mei adds. “That was all you. And my babies, of course!”

“It was a t-team effort,” Izuku says, ducking his chin down against his chest.

Tokoyami nods once, controlled, and decisive, a sharp contrast to Dark Shadow’s energetic head bobbing. “Precisely. A team effort – your own efforts included.”

Izuku swallows, closing his eyes to soothe the burn welling up behind them. There weren’t quite words for how lucky Izuku feels in this moment. And it really is all luck – this beautiful thing that he has done absolutely nothing to earn. He has no idea how these people can stand to be so kind to him. Maybe Mei he could understand, but Aoyama and Tokoyami both have reasons to be suspicious of him, even before Izuku’s slip up with his quirk use. Izuku knows Eraser warned class 1-A that he would be here, a villain from the USJ attack. His name wasn’t made public, but how many other people were participating in the sports festival who weren’t part of one of the classes? None. Izuku is the only one, the only one who has ever been given this chance, this chance that no one can be sure quite yet that he deserves.

“Are you crying, Pen-kun?”

“No,” Izuku denies. His voice cracks.

“It’s okay if you are,” Mei assures him.

As if taking her words as permission, the tears brim over, spilling down his cheeks even while he carefully keeps his breathing in check. For the second time today, Izuku is crying on national television, embarrassment adding to the red splotchiness of his face.

“Wow,” Mei says. “You’re kind of an ugly crier, huh?”

“Hatsume!” Tokoyami barks.

“Call me Mei!”

“She’s not entirely wrong,” Aoyama offers, voice slightly choked and cheeks puffed up as he muffles laughter. Dark Shadow doesn’t bother, snickering unrepentantly to herself, even when Tokoyami tugs sharply at the strand of shadow that tethers her to his torso.

Izuku’s own laugh catches him by surprise. It bubbles up his throat, wet from the tears but still sincere. Everyone always says that UA students are insane; it’s practically a running joke throughout the country. And they’re right. They’re all right – these kids are crazy.

“S-sorry,” he stutters through the giggles.

“Don’t apologize,” Aoyama says. “Your laugh is much nicer than the crying face.” He winks. “Now, I believe it’s time for lunch. We could all go ensemble, if you’d like?”

Mei shrugs. “I don’t know what that means!”

“Together,” Izuku tells her, a smile rising around the syllables.

“Ensemble!” she shouts, pointing forward with a bright grin. Aoyama laughs at her pronunciation, and Izuku finds himself laughing as well, the energy infectious, but he frowns a moment later.

“I – uh. I can’t,” he remembers. “S-sorry. I would, but–” he swallows painfully. All four of his teammates, Dark Shadow included, are looking at him curiously, still smiling and kind as he fidgets under their eyes. He can say no, say he can’t and leave it at that. They won’t be mad, they won’t press. Or, he can –

“I’m s-s-supposed to st-stay with Er-raserh-head,” he admits softly, staring at the ground. “B-bet-tween ev-vents. I’m n-no sup-posed to g-go off on my o-own.”

“That sucks!” Mei groans. “Sometimes Maijima-Sensei does that to me. ‘No Mei,’” she mimics, “‘you can’t come into the lab on Sunday, you can’t be around power tools without supervision, no, not even during lunchbreaks,’ pah!” She sticks her tongue out.

Izuku glances quickly to Aoyama and Tokoyami. Mei doesn’t understand what he’s saying, she doesn’t get what he means, but surely Aoyama and Tokoyami will make the connection now if they hadn’t already.

Aoyama smiles. “There will be other lunches in the future,” he says simply. Maybe he didn’t understand. Maybe Izuku didn’t make it obvious enough. Maybe–

“Especially if you succeed in your goal to join us in 1-A,” Tokoyami adds.

Oh. They understood. Izuku hasn’t said a word about joining the hero course. Izuku hasn’t, but Eraser had, when he told the class about the rehabilitation program. Izuku bites his lip and tries to keep from crying again.

“You’re trying to join the hero course?!” Mei asks. When Izuku nods, she grabs his hands, staring intently into his eyes. “You have to promise to let me make your babies,” she says, as serious as Izuku has ever heard her even though the turn of phrase still makes him flush slightly. “They helped you get this far, you know, so you owe me. I’ll make you the best hero ever, Pen-kun.”

“Of c-course,” he agrees, eyes darting away from her intense stare. “Your b-babies are the b-best of the best, aren’t they, uh, P-Pen-chan?” Mei blinks at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. She lets go of his hands, spinning around to grab Aoyama and Tokoyami by their elbows. Dark Shadows waves goodbye from over Tokoyami’s head.

“Lunch!” she yells, pulling them on. She looks back at Izuku over her shoulder, “See you soon!”

Izuku watches as the four of them go, Mei eagerly questioning Tokoyami about whether he has ever tried to give Dark Shadow knives. Izuku shakes his head, so baffled that he can hardly believe that today hasn’t just been some wild dream, but warm and pleased inside all the same. He wipes his cheeks dry on the ends of his sleeves, before making his way to the announcers’ booth.

“Hizashi is getting us food,” Eraser says, head tipped back against his chair and eyes closed, as Izuku shuts the door behind himself. “He should be back soon. Until then,” he cracks an eye open, pinning Izuku in place with a red-eyed glare, “mind explaining what the hell you were thinking when you blew yourself up in the first round?”

“I was th-thinking that I had fallen behind,” Izuku says, avoiding Eraser’s judgmental gaze. There is a folding chair propped against the wall, and he grabs it and sets it up a healthy behind Eraser and Mic’s chairs at the desk. “I had to c-catch up.”

“I’d say you more than ‘caught up.’”

Izuku grimaces. “I might have overcompensated,” he allows. Eraser snorts gracelessly, hooking an ankle around the leg of Izuku’s chair to drag it slightly closer.

“No more explosions,” he orders.

“T-that might be difficult to avoid. What with Kats-suki, and all.”

“Then leave the explosions to him. And try not to provoke him.” Izuku refrains from commenting on how Katsuki seems to take his mere existence as provocation, but the thought must read on his face, because Eraser sighs and says, “Fair enough.”

Eraser closes his eyes again and they fall into a comfortable silence that last for a few short minutes before the door swings open. Mic balances a short stack of food containers on one arm, managing the door with the other. The entire situation is made far more precarious than it needs to be by Nedzu, perched with a shameless smile on Mic’s shoulder.

“Izuku!” Nedzu greets, hopping nimbly from his perch.

Mic stumbles, scrunching up his nose and sticking his tongue out behind the principal’s back while he juggles their food. While Mic drops food in front of Eraser and Izuku, stopping to ruffle Izuku’s hair as he does, Nedzu scrambles into the last empty chair. Eraser groans and kicks the chair lightly, causing it to roll a few inches further away while Nedzu laughs. He smiles angelically when Mic looks at him, leaving Mic to half-lean against the desk between the chairs, locking one of his ankles around Eraser’s, who allows the contact without acknowledgment.

“Killer job in those first two rounds, kiddo!” Mic says after one last dark look at Nedzu. “You really blew your competition out of the water!” Izuku feels his face redden, shaking his head as Eraser groans, but Nedzu’s eyes sparkle.

“Oh?” he asks. “I was hoping to check in on how my little protégé was doing.” There’s a certain irony to Nedzu calling anyone little, but Izuku thinks it would probably be incredibly impolite to point that out, so he bites his lip, avoiding the principal’s eyes.

“It’s been fine,” Izuku says, staring as his food. “I’m doing a-alright, I think.”

Mic presses a hand against his chest in a dramatically wounded gesture. “Fine? Fine, he says! You should have seen him! You’ll get a real kick out of it, Nedzu. Our Greenbean’s a real genius.”

“I’m not–”

“He blew himself up,” Eraser interrupts.

“And he won!”

“You won?” Nedzu asks, turning his attention to Izuku.

“I, yes? Y-yes,” he admits, scratching his cheek. “The first round, at least.”

“And the cavalry battle?”

“My team came in s-second.” Nedzu and Mic both grin and Izuku feels a bubble of warmth inside him, something like pride. Of course, it’s far too soon for Izuku to be proud of anything – he hasn’t even begun to make up for all the things he has to be ashamed of – but the feeling lingers in his chest nonetheless, the warmth of it only barely dulled by the shadow of guilt.

“Who did you pick for your team?”

“They p-picked me, mostly,” Izuku laughs lightly. “Aoyama Yuga, Hatsume Mei, and Tokoyami Fumikage."

"Tokoyami? Have you confirmed your theory from last week, then?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Izuku glances to Mic, who has cocked his head curiously, and Eraser, feigning disinterest. The warm feeling fades immediately, replaced with something itchy and uncomfortable. “I was r-right.”

 “Right about what?” Eraser asks, betraying his attention

While Izuku fumbles, Nedzu responds, “Izuku noticed some discrepancies between Dark Shadow’s behavior and that of a typical quirk ‘familiar.’ He suggested that Dark Shadow might, in fact, be a separate, sentient being of their own with a shadow-based quirk.”

“Wait, wait,” Mic says. “And he was right?” His voice is heavy with disbelief, but Izuku isn’t offended. He thought the theory was outlandish when he suggested it. “What do you mean Dark Shadow isn’t Tokoyami’s quirk?”

“Tokoyami has… some kind of contact-based t-telepathy quirk,” Izuku explains hesitantly, poking at his food. “Dark Shadow definitely has a shadow m-mutation quirk. P-probably Tokoyami has only ever used his quirk on D-Dark Shadow, so no one ever r-realized it was a separate, d-distinct ability.”

“Did you tell Tokoyami this?” Nedzu asks. Izuku grimaces. He sticks some rice in his mouth, chewing slowly, hoping that the conversation will move on. Nedzu waits, as persistent as he is patient, dark eyes gleaming like little black beads. Izuku can feel each individual grain of rice sticking along his throat as he finally swallows.

“H-how am I meant to do that?” he asks. “This isn’t just q-quirk theory, anymore, it’s their actual l-lives. Think of the imp-plications. W-what will that actually mean for them? For their family? Imagine a stranger you just met giving you n-news like that out of the blue.” During the cavalry battle, Izuku had forced himself not to think about it, setting such distractions aside until they wouldn’t be a liability. With the one-on-one matches yet to come, it still feels too early to consider the issue, but the thoughts are a bit like quicksand, trying to pull Izuku in.

After a moment of silence, Eraser says, “…I’m going to have to make some very uncomfortable home visits.” He sounds exhausted. Izuku doesn’t blame him.

“Admittedly, I hadn’t given much thought to ramifications of your theory being true,” Nedzu says thoughtfully.

“Of course you hadn’t,” Eraser scoffs.

“Well, there’s no use dwelling on it at this very moment!” Nedzu moves on with an easy brightness that makes Izuku squirm a little, dismissing the topic as casually as he would a discussion on the weather. “Izuku – how are you feeling about the final event? I assume you have a plan?”

Izuku nods, struggling slightly to keep up. “I won’t have specific strategies until I know the m-matchups, but I know what my q-quirk will be.” Nedzu tips his head, askance. Izuku, fidgets with his fingers. “Joint Fire Br-breathing and Pyrok-kinesis.”

“A good choice,” Nedzu praises. This time, his approval isn’t something Izuku can bask in.

“It’ll work,” Izuku says, voice falling nearly to a whisper. “I’ve t-trained with them a l-lot. But I didn’t r-really ch-choose it. Todoroki just caught me by sur-surprise.”

“I think Todoroki caught himself by surprise,” Mic jokes. Izuku manages a weak smile. It would be funnier if Izuku hadn’t seen Todoroki’s face when it happened, if he hadn’t seen the flames reflected in his eyes, seen the bright horror that burned to life next to the fire.  

Nedzu hums. “If I recall correctly, the supposed Midoriya Hisashi was meant to have a fire breathing quirk, wasn’t he? And your mother was telekinetic.”

“…Yeah,” Izuku says, confesses. His mouth is dry, tongue like sandpaper against his teeth.

Fire Breathing. Pyrokinesis. It is the perfect combination of his parents’ quirks – or at least, Izuku thought as much, back when he didn’t actually know the first thing about who one of his parents actually was. It’s the quirk he always wanted, the one he was always meant to have – that’s why All for One went out of his way to make sure Izuku had it.

He imagines a different life, where he is born with this quirk and only this quirk. Where his mother was never stolen from him, and his father loves him in a simple, easy to understand way that never hurts. Tomura is still his brother, and he has whatever quirk he was supposed to have, or maybe no quirk at all, instead of one that destroys everything he touches. Kurogiri isn’t there, but it’s for the best because he is somewhere happier, living a real life with a real name. In that life, no one ever dies.

Fathers don’t kill mothers. Sons don’t kill fathers. Brothers don’t kill brothers.

“And speaking of your mother,” Nedzu continues, voice still cheerful and unchanged, but eyes alert and knowing on Izuku’s face, “there’s another reason I wanted to speak with you before the third event. You see, I’ve been getting calls for the last hour from and old friend of hers – one Bakugou Mitsuki, actually.”

“Aunt Mitsuki?” Izuku asks, hollow and shocked. “What did she say?”

“All kinds of very colorful things, I assure you. Notably she demanded your phone number or address and threatened to storm the building if we didn’t let her see you.”

Izuku can picture it easily. Aunt Mitsuki had always been a lot like Katsuki in that way – determined to get what she wanted, regardless of what tried to stop her. She was a forced to be reckoned with, and Izuku had always loved her for her brazen confidence, the unapologetic way in which she cared about things.

But Izuku supposes he hadn’t imagined that he would still be one of the things she cared about.

“What did you tell her?”

“That we can’t release student information without consent, of course!”

Disappointment spears Izuku through, unexpectedly intense. “I consent. Can I – can I consent?” he asks, looking between Eraser and Mic. “Can I s-see her?”

“Of course, kiddo,” Mic assures him instantly.

Eraser, on the other hand, thinks for a moment. “We should be able to arrange something,” he agrees. “At least one of us will need to go with you, but you’re allowed to leave campus as long as you’re properly supervised. This shouldn’t be an exception.”

“I want to see her,” Izuku says, as firmly as he can when his voice is trembling with a nauseous mix of wistfulness, relief, and nerves.

“How about this?” Mic says, speaking in soothing low tones. “They’re about to announce the third event. You get back down to the arena, and Sho and I can give Mrs. Bakugou a call to set something up so she’ll leave Nedzu alone.”

Somehow, Izuku had nearly forgotten all about the third event. In the course of a single conversation, Nedzu had managed to completely unbalance him, as Nedzu often does, pulling at invisible strings that yank Izuku around in half a dozen opposing directions. Rumors never could have prepared Izuku for what it’s actually like to interact with UA’s principal, as frightfully intelligent and unempathetically curious as he is.

“Sound good?” Mic prompts when Izuku doesn’t respond.

Izuku nods, gathering his bearings. The sports festival is in front of him, demanding his attention. Everything else can wait.

Katsuki knows exactly four names on the tournament bracket.

He finds his own first, at the very end, paired up with another he doesn’t recognize. Uraraka. He squints, mutters the name under his breath, as if that will help him recall who the hell he is meant to be facing. It’s a futile exercise - Katsuki is not good with names, and he is even worse at paying attention to the random extras around him. It’s never posed much of a problem before, but he’ll admit now that it’s a bitch for a preparing strategies in advance.

 Katsuki finds Todoroki, the half-and-half bastard, on the other side of the bracket. Right above that, the two other names Katsuki recognizes are paired together, a combination that makes his fists and stomach clench in tandem. Kirishima, Shitty Hair. Midoriya, Deku. Right at the very fucking beginning.

Do you really want to know?

Katsuki finds Shitty Hair standing close by with Raccoon Eyes. They look between the bracket and each other, both smiling stupid, anticipatory grins as they chatter. Shitty Hair raises an arm, waving wildly to someone. Across the field, Deku lifts a meek hand in acknowledgment.

I’ll tell you.

Katsuki moves without thinking about it. “Deku!” he calls. The scrubs with Deku bristle as Katsuki approaches. Goggles sticks her tongue out at him while that weird bird shadow creature drapes itself over Deku’s shoulders. Katsuki stops several feet away from them, sneering at the group before turning his attention to Deku exclusively. Deku stares at him, unblinking. Katsuki jerks his chin up, ignores the prickle of raised hair along the back of his neck.

If you’ll listen.

“I’m ready to fucking listen,” Katsuki says. “Or whatever.”

Deku smiles. Not at Katsuki, thankfully, but to the extras around him. “I’ll s-see you guys later,” he tells them. “Good luck in your m-matches!”

“If you’re sure,” Sparkle Fucker says doubtfully.

“Best behavior, Blasty!” Googles commands, hands on her hips.

Bird Head says nothing, giving Katsuki a considering look while his pet shadow monster hisses from Deku’s shoulders. Katsuki bites his tongue not to growl back at the thing, fixing his attention on a sheepish-looking Deku. He pulls the shadow thing’s talons out of his shirt, and Katsuki turns away, heading off with long strides that leave Deku scrambling behind him.

Without looking back, Katsuki leads the way to a side tunnel, away from the waiting rooms and out of the way of the commotion of those participating in the recreational games. Deku follows silently. Katsuki flexes his jaw before turning to face him, leaning back against the cool concrete wall of the tunnel. Deku presses himself against the opposite wall, slumped down to make himself look deceptively small, staring at the light that spills over his shoes.

“Well?” Katsuki asks when Deku doesn’t so much as look at him. “You gonna tell me your sob story or not?” His voice trembles slightly, as do his hands. He fists them, crossing his arms and tucking them into his elbows.

“Are you going to listen?”

“I fucking said I would, didn’t I?” Deku finally looks at him, eyes assessing, almost black in the shadow that slices across his face. “What the fuck happened to you, huh?”

“Nothing happened to me, Kacchan. I happened.”

“Don’t call me that,” Katsuki snaps.

Viscerally, he remembers a dead-eyed boy, ten years old, sitting in empty silence on the bed of their guest room. I think you were right about me, Kacchan, that terrible shell of a person had said. Five years older, and his eyes are somehow even colder, even more hollow. Last time, Katsuki ran, hid away in his room. But he’s five years older now, too. Five years older, five years stronger, and he braces his back against the wall and glares across the space between them, suffocating any pathetic parts of himself that might want to waver.

“Sorry,” Deku says.

“Are you actually gonna explain anything?” Katsuki asks, voice carefully controlled. “Or are you just gonna speak in vague, shitty riddles and waste my time?”

“S-sorry,” Deku says again. His terrible eyes finally leave Katsuki as he tips his head back against the wall. “I still don’t really know how to t-talk about it. W-where to st-start.” He smiles slightly, like a wound across his face.

“Why the hell are you in Japan?” Katsuki questions, because it is as good a place as any to start. Why Deku is here, when he was supposed to be somewhere else, anywhere else?

“I never left.”

“But your dad–”

“My dad,” Deku interrupts. Katsuki grits his teeth and allows it. “You were right, you know. About my q-quirk. I got it from h-him. It really is a v-vil-villain’s q-quirk.”

Katsuki’s brow furrows as he parses the words. “So what, your old man is one of the bad guys, then? And you fucking joined him, like some shitty family business?”

“He was t-the b-bad g-g-guy,” Deku whispers, tears glinting along his waterline, unshed for the moment. “The w-worst guy.”

“Fucking figures,” Katsuki growls. There is something, though, that nags at him, a lose thread that he can’t help but pull. “Where is he now?”

“D-dead,” Izuku says, tears spilling over when he blinks.

“Oh.” Katsuki is not surprised, but he feels uneasy all the same, insides churning. “Good,” he grits out. “If he was a fucking villain, then good. Whoever offed him should have finished the fucking job,” he adds, glaring pointedly at Deku.

It is an instinctive retreat into familiar territory, a desperate reminder of where they stand. Deku is a villain, better off dead or jailed – Katsuki has known that for most of their lives. Deku knows it, too. He hunches in on himself, wrapping his arms around his stomach. Tears drip freely from his chin. He looks almost like Katsuki remembers him, pathetic and fragile and at Katsuki’s mercy. Nothing like the strange, blankly confident version of Izuku that came out of nowhere just to sweep Katsuki’s feet out from under him.

“I’ve thought about it,” Deku murmurs to the ground, voice thick and muffled.

“Huh?”

“I’ve th-thought ab-bout it. F-fin-finishing t-the–” Izuku chokes, a guttural, wet noise that grates against Katsuki’s bones. “I’m the o-o-one w-who–” Izuku cuts himself off again, this time with a sob.

“What the fuck,” Katsuki says. His words echo hollowly against the tunnel walls, a sharp overlay to the formless background noise of Deku’s tears. “You – your dad–” Katsuki fumbles for words, apparently just as unable to string a sentence together. “What the fuck,” he repeats.

Izuku slides to the ground, a barely controlled descent that leaves him crouched against the wall with his head buried in his knees. His sobs fill Katsuki’s ears like static, like deafness, and Katsuki suddenly, very poignantly, has no idea what he’s meant to do. His arms fall limp to his sides, his hands still trembling faintly, and he can no longer tell himself that it is from anger. It is not anger that rises in him like a tide, filling his lungs and stealing his breath as waves crash over his head and pull him down, swallow him deep until he can’t tell which way is up.

Katsuki doesn’t know what to call it, but it’s not anger. Anger is hot and full. It makes him feel big, sometimes too big for his body, like he needs to release bits of himself to control the pressure or risk exploding. This, whatever this is, is cold and vacant, and it makes him feels frightfully small. Small enough that he could get lost in his own body, consumed by the cavernous empty spaces between molecules.

Deku’s father was a villain. And Deku had killed him. And in another universe, maybe one only slightly parallel to their own, Izuku isn’t crying in front of Katsuki because Izuku isn’t even around anymore.

Isn’t that what Katsuki has always wanted? Deku, gone. What does it matter what “gone” means, so long as he isn’t Katsuki’s problem, anymore? Well, it matters. Katsuki is suddenly realizing that it matters very much, as much as he wants to say it doesn’t.

Katsuki had found the lose thread, and he’d pulled. And now everything is unraveling.

“Stop – stop crying,” he says, voice distant to his own ears. “Stop fucking crying, Jesus Christ, what the fucking fuck. Please stop.”

Izuku pulls his head away from his knees, tossing it back against the wall with enough force that his skull cracks audibly against the concrete. He doesn’t flinch, just covers his eyes with his hands, chest shaking with stuttered, uneven breaths. His mouth is contorted into an ugly shape, his whole face crumpled and red. His throat bobs as he swallows forcefully. Over the course of a few seconds, his breathing slows, growing steadier, and those pained, broken noises stop falling from his lips. He scrubs his hands over his face, then lets them fall into his lap, staring up at the ceiling with wide green eyes. After a moment, he huffs a shaky exhale and his gaze drifts to Katsuki, still standing stock-still.

“Sorry,” Deku says, voice hoarse but remarkably even, “I told you I don’t really know how to talk about it.”

“N-no shit.” Katsuki curses himself as he trips over his words. “You – what the fuck?”

“Yeah,” Deku agrees absently. “It is very what the fuck, isn’t it? Some days the only thing I can think is what the fuck?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You wanted to know what happened. My father was a villain, so was I. I didn’t want to be anymore, so I… did something about it. That’s what happened.”

“Why are you here? This is my fucking school, why did you have to come here?”

“I didn’t plan to,” Deku admits, picking himself up off the ground. “Tomura and my father are the ones who planned the attack on the USJ. I wasn’t even thinking of you, then.” The statement, as casual as it is, closes around Katsuki’s throat like a garotte. “I came for Eraserhead, for his quirk. And when I was done with it, I came to give it back. I never intended to stay.”

“Then leave.”

Deku shakes his head. “I can’t. This is the first chance I’ve ever been given to help people.”

“So what?” Katsuki asks, barking out a fractured laugh. “Some naïve dumbasses make a shitty call and suddenly you think you can be a fucking hero?”

“No,” Deku corrects with infuriating patience. “Someone like me could never be a hero. But the people I help won’t know the difference.”

Katsuki suddenly can’t stand to look at him. His eyes burn. He wants to squeeze them shut, but all his rational thoughts scream that it would be moronic to leave himself vulnerable like that. Instead, Katsuki stares at Deku’s shoes. Obviously, they must be different from the ones he wore when they were children, but they are the same obnoxious shade of red. Some things never change, apparently. Even when Izuku himself seems like an entirely different person, his shitty taste in footwear remains the same.

“Izuku,” a new voice interrupts. Katsuki barely refrains from jumping, muscles tensing as his head whips around to where Hobo-Sensei has appeared down the hall. Deku, seemingly unsurprised, turns smoothly, a placid smile on his face.

“Is everything alright?” Hobo-Sensei asks, glancing between Katsuki and Deku.

“Of course,” Deku says, as if he wasn’t sobbing like something subhuman only a few minutes ago. “We were just talking.”

“You’ve been crying,” Sensei notes with a lingering look at the red puffiness beneath Deku’s eyes.

Deku waves a sheepish, dismissive hand. “You know me, I c-cry easily.” Sensei hums, staring hard at Deku, who merely keeps smiling, an embarrassed tinge leaking into the expression.

“If you say so,” Sensei says finally, doubt still lacing his voice. “Come on, then. You know you’re meant to stick with me outside of the events.” He nods once to Katsuki before turning to lead Deku back down the tunnel.

“Deku!” Katsuki calls at their backs. Deku stops, half-turning to him. “You better make it to the final fucking round. We can settle this once and for all.”

Katsuki will tear him to pieces, grind him to dust. Originally, he had wanted to face Half-and-Half in the finals, blast the pedestal right out from underneath the bastard, but that can wait. Deku can’t. Katsuki will show him once and for all just how strong he is. Strong enough to protect himself, strong enough to win, even against Deku.

And then – and then it’ll be over. Deku will still be here, which is the last thing Katsuki wants – or, at least, it was the last thing he wanted, before he heard the words I’ve thought about it, whispered like a fucking treasured secret. Deku will still be here – which is the second to last thing Katsuki wants, preferable only to that twisted fucking reality where Deku isn’t even… around anymore – but they can both just go on living their entirely separate lives. As if the other one doesn’t even exist.

But they do. They do still exist, because that matters. It matters, but Katsuki won’t be the one who has to deal with it, deal with Deku, because he can’t fucking do that, he doesn’t want to, he–

“Alright, Katsuki,” Deku says, showing his teeth in a way that falls just short of a smile. “I’ll see you in the finals.”

Katsuki stares down the hall long after Deku and Hobo-Sensei disappear. He breathes, counting dutifully until the world stops looking like bleeding watercolors, and then he keeps breathing, flickering little explosions in his palm with each exhale.

It’s not personal. It has nothing to do with him. These people don’t even know him.

Tail Boy and Blue Boy dropping out is their own business. Asshole didn’t drop out. Asshole just raised his chin in the air with a haughty smile that dared anyone to say something to him about it. That’s proof that it’s not Hitoshi’s fault, that it’s not his problem or his business.

The frog girl and the guy with all those arms moved up to fill the bracket, and no one said anything about them not deserving to move on, even though their team wasn’t in the top four. Hitoshi’s team was in the top four, which means he definitely deserves to be here. He earned his place at the top, and if someone else takes issue with how he did that, that’s their problem.

It's not personal, Hitoshi reminds himself as Tail Boy slides into his conversation with Aoyama before it can even begin, cuts Aoyama off with narrowed eyes and a careful warning. It has nothing to do with Hitoshi. Tail Boy – and maybe Hitoshi should call him Ojiro, now that he knows his name – and Aoyama are both in 1-A, they know each other. They’re classmates, probably friends, and it’s normal for them to help each other out, to want each other to succeed. They don’t know Hitoshi. He’s a stranger, he’s competition.

And maybe Ojiro just absolutely blew Hitoshi’s chances of making it beyond the first round. And maybe Hitoshi doesn’t have any classmates left in the competition to help him out, and maybe he doesn’t have any friends at all, and maybe no one wants him to succeed. But it’s not about Hitoshi, the world doesn’t revolve around him, it’s not personal.

Except it feels really fucking personal.

All Hitoshi wanted to do was feel the other guy out. Plenty of people were doing it – Asshole had approached Tokoyami with a smug smile, and Hatsume had charged right over to Iida. No one intervened in those interactions, even when Asshole promptly started being an asshole, or when Hatsume made Iida visibly uncomfortable by violating his personal space. Only Hitoshi had to be stopped. God forbid someone like him try to speak to his opponent off the battlefield. What did Ojiro think he was going to do? Take control of Aoyama right there and keep ahold of him all the way up until their match, securing his victory before the fight even started? Hitoshi couldn’t do that even if he wanted to.

All Hitoshi wants is a moment to be alone. A moment where he doesn’t have to pretend to be bored or indifferent or smug, where he can breathe and nurse his headache and wallow a little bit in his frustration at the situation.

He stumbles on Midoriya and Bakugou purely by accident. For a second, Hitoshi considers turning around and finding somewhere else, somewhere unoccupied, to hole away until the final event begins. Instead, he sighs and leans against the wall, crossing his ankles as he makes himself comfortable to listen.

See, unlike Ojiro and Blue Boy – Shoda – Hitoshi is unapologetically opportunistic. Hard work is only half of success – and that’s if you’re being generous. The other half is all dumb luck. Right place, right time, right circumstances. You need both luck and hard work to actually get anywhere in life. Most everyone in the sports festival got lucky in ways Hitoshi hadn’t. They have the right quirks, powerful quirks that audiences adore. Lacking that, Hitoshi has to find his luck in other places, like half-hidden conversations that probably aren’t meant to be overheard.

Now, Hitoshi wouldn’t call himself a particularly nosey person. In truth, he doesn’t really care much about who anyone is or what they’re doing, so long as they leave him out of it. But a quirk like Hitoshi’s, as unlucky as it is, demands ammunition. So, Hitoshi has a special place in his brain where he carefully cultivates and stores shit he can use against people.

“I never left,” Midoriya says.

“But your dad–” Bakugou begins, only to be promptly cut off. Hitoshi smirks slightly to himself. Family drama, no matter how slight, is always sensitive, an excellent sore spot to poke and nearly guarantee a response.

“My dad. You were right, you know. About my q-quirk. I got it from h-him. It really is a v-vil-villain’s q-quirk.”

Hitoshi’s smirk slides off his face, cheeks suddenly feeling like a thick, stiff rubber. His breath hitches in his chest and he holds it there, straining his ears to catch every word with a newfound investment. He listens to Midoriya confess that his father is a villain – the worst of the worst, by his own admission – and Hitoshi can hear the tears in Midoriya’s voice as he says the man is dead. He listens to Bakugou’s stilted response, uncomfortable and lacking sympathy.

And Hitoshi listens, with mounting horror, to what comes next.

What the fuck? Hitoshi’s thoughts echo Bakugou’s frantic words. Midoriya devolves into inhuman sounds, heart wrenching and sickening. Hitoshi feels like he’s going to be sick. He feels like – he feels like someone has stuck a hook in his gut and is yanking at his insides. He should go. He shouldn’t have listened to any of this, but he certainly shouldn’t stay and hear the rest, ammunition be damned.

God, he feels like a child thrust into a warzone. He’s been playing with nerf darts for years, and now someone has placed a live fucking missile in his hands. Midoriya Izuku had – he had fucking murdered someone, his own father. And he – Jesus fucking Christ. This is not okay, nothing about this is okay.

“Stop – stop crying,” Bakugou says, begs. And Hitoshi doesn’t know Bakugou, not really, but a guy like that should never sound like this, voice cracked and small.

The tremor in the words hits Hitoshi like a bolt of lightning. He jerks away from the wall, promptly tripping over his own feet and falling, scrapping his palms against the ground as he catches himself. He freezes there, on his hands and knees, hoping, praying, that neither Bakugou nor Midoriya have heard him, entire body throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

Midoriya keeps crying. Bakugou begs him to stop again, voice louder, more fierce, more desperate. Midoriya is not okay, Bakugou is not okay, Hitoshi is not okay.

Hitoshi stumbles to his feet, too clumsy to worry about being quiet, and then he runs. He runs all the way back to the waiting room class 1-C had been in before the start of the festival. Thankfully, the room is empty of other finalists, and Hitoshi can wedge himself into the narrow space between the cabinet and the corner without having to explain himself to anyone.

His bag is still in the room, the only one left after all his classmates have been disqualified and taken their things with them into the stands. It’s within reach, and he stretches out of his hiding place briefly to snag it, pulling his phone and earbuds out with shaking hands. He folds himself back into his corner, curled around the bag in his lap. The canvas is rough against the raw skin of his palms.

He pulls up his contacts, jams his thumb against the screen until he hits the right button, ringing filling his ears. “Pick up,” he says. “Pick up.” The line clicks. Relief loosens all Hitoshi’s joints as he lets his head fall to the side, resting his temple against the cool metal of the cabinet.

“Hitoshi?”

Hitoshi sighs softly, “Hey, Dad.”

Chapter Text

The crowd cheers wildly as Eijiro walks onto the field, and the grin already on his face spreads wider in response. When he first entered the arena that morning, the sight of the stands, filled to the brim with attentive and expectant faces, had fed the deep well of anxiety in his stomach. It was nearly hard to keep smiling, then, when an insidious voice clawed its way up from his chest and whispered that he was going to make a fool of himself.

But he hasn’t! At least, not yet, but he squashes that reminder back down where it belongs. He came in ninth – ninth! – in the first round, and then first – first! – in the second. Sure, the cavalry battle was a team effort, but he was part of that team. Maybe you could argue that Bakugou did most of the work, and Eijiro wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but Bakugou couldn’t have done any of that work to begin with without Eijiro enabling the use of Explosion.

Eijiro is proud of how far he’s come. He’s proud he got into the hero course, he’s proud he hasn’t gotten kicked out, he’s proud to have made it to the top 16 of the sports festival. And he deserves that pride, because he worked hard to achieve these things! If anyone else did what Eijiro has done, he would call them manly, and he shouldn’t exempt himself from that same praise. No nasty voice in the back of his head is going to convince him that it’s a fluke or that he shouldn’t be here. The stadium is full of people who cheer when he steps onto the field, and Eijiro isn’t going to make a fool of himself. He’s going to give them something to cheer about!

Present Mic’s voice echoes over the crowd, “Let’s kick off the first round of our final tournament, shall we? Manly and passionate hardening – from the hero course, it’s Kirishima Eijiro!” Kaminari is definitely going to tease Eijiro for that introduction later. “Versus the mysterious strategist who really heated up our first two events – Midoriya Izuku!”

On the other side of the field, Midoriya stands firm and steady, eyes fixed solely on Eijiro, as if deaf to the swelling cheers his name evokes. There are a lot of things about Midoriya that don’t make sense, Eijiro is beginning to realize. Specifically, his relationship to Bakugou – Eijiro just doesn’t understand what’s going on there.

In the last few weeks, Eijiro likes to think that he’s come to know Bakugou pretty well – at least, better than anyone else in 1-A has managed. Eijiro is about 90% sure they’re friends, at this point. So as much as some of their classmates like to think that Bakugou is an entirely irrational, one-dimensional rage monster, Eijiro knows that’s not true. Bakugou is – well, explosive, to say the least. But he can actually be a pretty chill dude when nothing is getting on his nerves! He’s a nerd, and a neat-freak, and when he’s left to his own devices, he spends most of his energy on training and schoolwork without sparing a thought to the things or people who he considers beneath him. So, almost everything and everyone.

Which is a pretty cruddy attitude, Eijiro can’t really argue otherwise. Yeah, Bakugou should really learn the names of their classmates instead of staring blankly at them and handing out demeaning nicknames – though, on the topic, Eijiro is pretty sure Bakugou actually does know at least his name, even if he still never uses it. But that’s not the point; the point is that no matter how it may look, Bakugou’s not actually the type to go around picking fights.

Bakugou only starts shit when he’s been provoked. Or at least, when he thinks he’s been provoked, which is an important distinction because Bakugou’s idea of provocation definitely doesn’t seem to match up with the dictionary definition. The result is the same though, just maybe a bit less predictable. Bakugou comes into class, and he sits down, and he does his own thing. He looks at his phone or his schoolwork or something, and yeah, he glowers while he does it, but that’s just the way his face is. He never starts yelling or snarling until someone else does something to spark his temper – usually Kaminari, on purpose, or Iida, on accident.

Iida is a great example, actually! Because Bakugou doesn’t like Iida. Well, Bakugou maybe doesn’t like anyone, but he actually dislikes Iida. But he just ignores him, right, because he dislikes him, but Bakugou’s whole deal is that the things and people he dislikes don’t deserve his time or attention. So Bakugou mostly just doesn’t acknowledge Iida’s existence, until the poor guy tries to lecture him on something, and then Bakugou explodes because he’s being forced to interact with this person he thinks is beneath him.

And Eijiro’s not going to defend that type of reaction. He can like Bakugou and also acknowledge that the dude really needs to get a grip on his temper, and maybe pull his entire head out of his ass while he’s at it, because their classmates are actually all really neat people. But at the same time, Eijiro understands why Bakugou reacts the way he does, and it’s not just because screaming at people is his passion or something like that. Bakugou is loud and brash and abrasive, but Eijiro is positive that he’s not actually a bad guy.

Unless, apparently, you’re Midoriya Izuku.

Bakugou focuses on Midoriya in a way Eijiro frankly didn’t think Bakugou could focus on anyone other than himself. It’s like everything Midoriya does, even just existing, instantly snaps the at-best thin thread of Bakugou’s temper. There’s a sharper edge to that anger, too – something less superficial than the tantrums he throws when someone says something to piss him off.

Eijiro thinks Bakugou hates Midoriya. Most of class 1-A would probably claim that Bakugou hates everyone, based on the way he snaps at and insults them. But that’s just what indifference looks like on a guy like Bakugou. The way he reacts to Midoriya – that’s what Bakugou’s hatred looks like.

And Eijiro just doesn’t get why.

Midoriya seems like a fine person. Spirited and capable, if his presence at UA and performance in the festival are anything to judge by, but also flighty and nervous. He’s the type of dude Eijiro would absolutely love to be friends with, but he’d never expect Bakugou to give Midoriya a second glance. If Midoriya were anyone else, Bakugou would see him cry and hear him stutter, and call him an extra and leave it at that.

Instead, Bakugou seems to hunt Midoriya down for the sole purpose of getting angry at him. He does a similar thing with Todoroki, but Eijiro can understand that – Todoroki is strong and aloof in a way that presses Bakugou’s buttons. But he’s at least ten times worse with Midoriya, and Eijiro just doesn’t get it.

Midoriya stands across from him, a silent mystery. Eijiro quells his curiosity and offers a smile, which Midoriya returns, more subdued.

“Let’s have a good match,” Eijiro says as Present Mic calls them to ready. With a nod, Midoriya shifts his feet into a fighting stance.

Eijiro charges forward the moment Present Mic announces the start of the match, fist and forearm hardening as he aims a punch for Midoriya’s head. The blow is easily diverted, and Midoriya retaliates with an elbow to the gut that Eijiro hardens in time to mitigate. Midoriya hisses, dropping beneath the next swing of Eijiro’s fist.

As Midoriya pops back up behind him, Eijiro pivots to follow. Midoriya is fast, faster than Eijiro is even when he’s not made stiff and weighty by his quirk. This game of chase is familiar to Eijiro from his sparring with Bakugou, though familiarity makes it no less frustrating. Eijiro hits hard when he hits, but using Hardening offensively still feels clunky and slow, like he is moving through water. He makes as if to aim another blow at Midoriya’s head, hoping his opponent will fall for the feint and he’ll be able to get a hit in on his ribs.

Midoriya twists to the side and raises his own arm – his form is bad, terrible actually, he’ll break his hand if he tries to punch anyone like that, much less Eijiro. But rather than try to drive his fist into Eijiro’s stone-edged face, Midoriya opens his palm, and then Eijiro is hacking and cursing as his eyes and throat both burn with foreign grit.

“Oh, an old classic!” Present Mic crows through the stadium. “Bit of a dirty trick, huh?”

Eijiro jumps back, putting distance between himself and Midoriya while his vision is blurred. Blinking rapidly to encourage tears to clear his eyes, Eijiro fights the urge to rub his face while he spits dust from his mouth and tries to keep track of Midoriya’s movements. As terrible as the grating burn of his eyes is, it’s another thing Eijiro has grown accustomed to through his spars with Bakugou, whose quirk produces no shortage of smoke and dust. Of course, Bakugou turns out to be far louder and more predictable than Midoriya.

Heat flashes along the back of Eijiro’s neck, skin tightening under the sudden onslaught in the brief second before his reflexes kick in, hardening the entire length of his back. Orange light flickers on the very edges of his vision. Eijiro curses himself for not considering the torches positioned along the boundary line, for not connecting them with the whispered conversations of his classmates about Midoriya stealing away Todoroki’s fire at the end of the cavalry battle. Thankfully, Hardening holds up well against heat, at least over short time periods.

While the flames fan out against his back, licking around his sides, Midoriya closes the distance between them. Eijiro folds with the punch delivered to his stomach, skin crackling to rigidity only a fraction of a second after Midoriya makes contact. The blow isn’t too hard, winding Eijiro only slightly and not staggering him at all, but before he can straighten up, a hand closes around the top of his head, slamming his chin down into the knee that rises to meet it. Blood fills his mouth in a burst of copper as his teeth snap closed around his tongue.

Before Midoriya can withdraw, Eijiro seizes him by the shin, anchoring them together while he drives a heavy hit into Midoriya’s abdomen. While Midoriya wheezes on a stolen breath, Eijiro disengages, finally managing to blink his eyes clear. He spits again, blood this time, licking it from the points of his teeth.

Midoriya straightens up, eyes dark and serious. Fire heaves behind him like a living thing. Now this is someone Eijiro can see Bakugou taking seriously, though he still has to wonder what Midoriya has done to earn Bakugou’s ire rather than his respect. He’ll save the wondering for later, though – now’s not the time for it.

Hoping to catch Midoriya before he can completely recover, Eijiro runs forward. Flames rise between them like a shield, but Eijiro charges through them, heedless of the heat and determined to press his advantage. But Midoriya sees him coming, just like he did at the beginning of the match, and as Eijiro’s attack sweeps over his shoulder, Midoriya is grabbing him by the elbow before Eijiro can wind back another hit.

Eijiro tries to brace himself, tries to tear himself away, but his feet leave the ground before he can gain any traction. Midoriya’s shoulder is a hard bar against Eijiro’s chest, and then he is airborne, a dizzy second where the intense green of Midoriya’s eyes is replaced by a blur of grey-brown and then blue as Eijiro is flipped around. He crashes to the ground with the distinct sound of rocks clashing against each other, gasping as the air is driven out of his lungs.

“Kirishima Eijiro is out of bounds!” Midnight calls out before Eijiro can struggle up onto his elbows. “Midoriya Izuku moves on to the next round!” Match decided, Eijiro collapses back onto his back with a breathless groan, ankles hanging over the white boundary line. He bangs a fist against the ground, groaning again. Halfway through, the sound morphs into a tired laugh.

“Are you alright?” Midoriya asks.

“Winded,” Eijiro gasps, voice hoarse as he waves a hand to brush off Midoriya’s worries.

Eliminated in the first round. Man, talk about disappointing. Eijiro had wanted to make it at least to the second. Well, he wanted to win the entire thing, but he came in knowing that that probably wasn’t going to happen. But hey – that didn’t stop him from giving it his best! He’d done everything he could, and he may have lost, but that doesn’t mean he failed! He didn’t go down without a fight, and that’s something to be proud of.

When Midoriya offers a hand, Eijiro takes it. He’s grateful for the assistance when his knees wobble beneath him, new aches making themselves known as the adrenaline leaves his system.  

“That was a great match!” Eijiro enthuses when he catches his breath. “Super manly! I can’t believe you got me with that dust trick!”

“Sorry,” Midoriya says. “It was a bit underhanded.”

Eijiro brushes him off, “Don’t apologize, man. It was a smart move!”

Midoriya offers a thin smile. “You should probably get to Recovery Girl,” he says.

“Hmm? I’ve had dust in my eyes before, no big deal. Nothing to worry about!”

“Your mouth is full of blood.”

Midoriya points behind him, and Eijiro turns to see his own face, blown up across one of the stadium screens. His teeth, fully exposed by his grin, are coated red, and he slaps a hand over his smile with a sheepish laugh.

“Forgot about that,” he admits, smacking his lips as he suddenly becomes aware of the metallic flavor heavy in his mouth. He sticks his tongue out, crossing his eyes to try to catch sight of the wounds there. “I guess I should make a trip to good ol’ RG then, huh? Good luck with your other matches!”

Eijiro jogs down the tunnel to where Recovery Girl is set up, waving a farewell to Midoriya over his shoulder as he goes. Bakugou leans against the wall outside the infirmary, glowering first at the floor, and then Eijiro when he catches his attention.

“Fucking took you long enough,” Bakugou growls.

Eijiro presses a hand to his heart. “Aw, bro, were you worried about me? I’m touched.”

Bakugou scoffs. “As if I’d worry about your dumb ass. Quirk.”

“Huh?”

“Show me your quirk.”

“Why would I do that?” Eijiro asks as he holds up a hardened fist for Bakugou’s inspection.

“Because I fucking said so, that’s why,” Bakugou responds, though the words lack bite. “Cool, now get your damn fist out of my face.”

Eijiro laughs, “Man, Bakubro, you are one weird dude.”

“Shut up. And get the old lady to fix your mouth, Jesus Christ, you look like something out of fucking shark week.”

“I know! I forgot all about it until Midoriya pointed it out. Hey – should I call him Midoriya or Izuku? I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

“How the fuck should I know?” Bakugou asks.

“Well, you know him, don’t you?”

Bakugou’s upper lip twitches. Eijiro expects him to yell, but his voice is quiet, if intense, when he says, “Not as well as I thought I did.”

The words seem heavy, somehow. Yet another thing to add to the list of stuff Eijiro absolutely does not understand about this situation.

“You’re no help,” he sighs, forcing normality. “Don’t know why I bothered asking, you’re the one who calls people things like Shitty Hair, after all.”

“You have shitty fucking hair.”

“I also have a name. It’s Kirishima Eijiro.” Eijiro is pretty sure Bakugou already knows this, but a reminder never hurts, just in case. Bakugou grumbles and shoves him through the infirmary doors.

Kirishima Eijiro. Quirk: Hardening.

A straightforward fighter. Limited strategy. Physically strong even without quirk. Quirk enhanced blows can easily bruise, scrape, and fracture, as well as winding or disorienting opponents, allowing subsequent hits to land. Potential for internal bleeding. Countermeasures: prioritize dodging – movements tend to be slow and clearly telegraphed. Outlast – not well suited to drawn-out fights. Take advantage of flagging endurance if necessary.

High defensive capabilities. Hardened skin is practically impervious to unenhanced physical blows (stone chips stone – can Hardening break Hardening?). Barehanded attacks against Hardening are likely to be self-destructive. Cannot be burned but can be sensitive to heat over long-term exposure (becomes brittle with the cold?). Countermeasures: speed and unpredictability – Hardening must be consciously activated and therefore cannot protect against an unanticipated blow. Specific targeting – eyes and mouth remain vulnerable. Joints are likely less enforced to maintain flexibility.

Kirishima is a versatile opponent who excels in team scenarios due to his affable personality. A lack of creativity limits his abilities in one-on-one matches. High potential, but gaps in technique at this point are easy to take advantage of. Avoid his offensive maneuvers and adapt fighting style to take advantage of holes in his defense.

Outcome: assured victory.

“Did you go to see Recovery Girl?” Shouta asks when Izuku steps into the announcers’ booth, at least ten minutes earlier than Shouta expected him to.

“Am I allowed to, then?” Izuku asks in return, cocking his head to the side. “I wasn’t sure, since I’m supposed to be supervised.”

Shouta sighs. “Of course you can go to Recovery Girl if you’re hurt.”

“The restrictions are just a safety precaution,” Hizashi adds. He smiles as he says it, but there’s a sadness in his eyes, something soft and weary that Izuku too often evokes. “They’re not meant to compromise your well-being.”

“But isn’t it a little reckless? I could sneak away. Or Tomura could snatch me up.”

“Are you planning to sneak away?” Shouta asks flatly.

“Of course not.” Izuku pauses for a moment, considering. “Tomura’s not going to show up, either. Kurogiri won’t let him. I was just curious. But I don’t need to see Recovery Girl, anyway. It was a short fight, I’m fine.”

“Kirishima got you in the stomach. I know how hard that kid can hit.”

Izuku shrugs. “It’s just a bruise, really.”

Shouta sighs again, eying the kid carefully. He seems fine enough, but the way he seems is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of his actual state. Izuku stares placidly back, calm enough that Shouta is nearly unnerved.

“Are you good on your own here for a moment?” Shouta asks Hizashi as Todoroki and Sero prepare to take the field.

“Yep! I’m the one who’s doing all the hard work anyway. You’re moral support, at best.” Hizashi sticks his tongue out, scrunching his face up. Shouta rolls his eyes.

“All right then,” Shouta says, groaning as he stands. Izuku steps to the side as Shouta approaches the door. “With me, kid.”

He jimmies the door open with his elbow and a push of his shoulder, until Izuku reaches past him to hold it open. Shouta leads them a short distance down the hallway to a bathroom, nodding Izuku inside. The lights flicker on with a florescent buzz as they pass the threshold.

“Shirt off,” Shouta orders gruffly. “Let me at least see how bad it is before deciding whether or not to force you to Recovery Girl.”

Without complaint, Izuku unzips his jacket, shrugging it off his arms and folding it haphazardly onto the counter between the sinks. He doesn’t remove his undershirt entirely, but he obligingly raises the hem of it so Shouta can assess the blooming bruise just beneath his ribs. The skin is a blotchy red, with faint hints of blue already developing around the edges, but it’s far from the worse bruise Shouta has seen in the shape of Kirishima’s fists. He clicks his tongue, awkwardly using his elbow to drag a plastic packet of topical bruise paste out of one of his pockets.

“Damn casts,” he mutters as the medicine falls to the ground. “That’s for you,” he tells Izuku, who has silently watched the whole spectacle, as brief as it thankfully was. “Just put it on the bruise, a thin layer should be fine. It will help with healing and numb the area a little in the meantime.”

“It’s really not that bad,” Izuku reiterates as he picks the packet up and tears it open.

“No, it’s not,” Shouta agrees. “But if it can be better, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.”

Pinning his shirt up beneath one arm, Izuku carefully spreads the paste over his damaged skin. Shouta purses his lips. Besides the bruise, the kid is in admirably good shape, though Shouta isn’t particularly surprised on that front, given how much experience the kid has with all the tools at his disposal. His fingers and palms are slightly pinker than normal – from the fire, Shouta would guess, but the damage is hardly advanced enough to call a burn – and one of his elbows is very slightly abraded – which is what happens when you try to elbow stone in the stomach. But all in all, Shouta will admit that a trip to Recovery Girl would be overkill.

Still, he’s worried for Izuku. Physically he’s fine, but there has been something off with him since lunch, and there is no ignoring how unusual his current behavior is. So quiet, so obedient. No stuttering, no stubborn insistence that Shouta doesn’t need to worry about him. Where’s the flustering, the reflexive denial that he is deserving of any care and concern?

Carefully, Shouta asks, “How are you feeling?”

With a last smear of his fingers, Izuku lets his shirt fall back into place, tugging the side of it away from his skin so it doesn’t stick to the ointment. He meets Shouta’s eyes, the both of them staring silently at the other for a long moment. The kid tips his head and hums thoughtfully, considering.

“I’m not,” he admits. He doesn’t sound guilty. Of course he doesn’t – he doesn’t feel guilty. Not now, at least. He probably will later.

Shouta is disappointed to hear it – in himself or Izuku, he can’t say. Probably himself. He wants to say he is disappointed the kid activated whatever emotional suppression quirk he has, but can Shouta really blame him? Izuku is the type of person who feels so much all the time. It’s one of the most wonderful things about him, and simultaneously the fatal flaw that has made the kid’s life so tragically cruel. Considering everything Izuku has gone through, he has come remarkably far remarkably quickly, and Shouta can’t fault him from wanting to escape it all, especially with the festival undoubtably putting undue pressure on him when he’s already in a fragile state.

Shouta can damn well blame himself, though. It’s his job to take care of the kid, to comfort him, protect him even from the monsters on the inside, and Shouta has clearly failed to do that.

At least Izuku told him. Shouta can marginally assuage his guilt with that fact. Izuku stared at him, long and hard, and whatever he was assessing, he deemed Shouta worthy of being confided in. Whether that confidence was a matter of practicality or a reflection of their personal relationship, Shouta’s not sure. He hopes for the latter, suspects the former.

“Was it Nedzu or Bakugou?” Shouta asks, leaning heavily against the wall.

“Bakugou,” Izuku confirms. “I had to tell him about my father.”

Beneath his bandages, Shouta’s eyebrows shoot up. He’ll admit that he didn’t imagine that the conversation he interrupted involved that particular revelation. True, Bakugou had seemed shaken, but Shouta had assumed that their confrontation was just the result of Bakugou’s temper boiling over.

“Why activate this quirk again?” Shouta questions. “Hizashi would have helped you, you know that.”

“Mic has a job to do,” Izuku argues, shaking his head.

“Zashi would have wanted to help you.”

Izuku blinks, eyes clear but blank, not understanding. Shouta grits his teeth. You’d think that taking emotions out of the equation would make someone more rational – and that’s true, to an extent. Afterall, Izuku followed Shouta and let Shouta gauge his injuries, without the protests that his insecurity and self-worth issues would normally elicit. Hell, he’d thrown dirt in Kirishima’s face. That alone should have been a dead giveaway that something wasn’t right, because Izuku would normally be far too conflicted to resort to a tactic like that.

But there are certain things that we feel for so long that they start to look like facts. Say something often enough and you start to believe it.

“That doesn’t make a difference,” the kid says after a moment. “Even if Mic had calmed me down, I would have been… raw, exhausted. I wouldn’t have been able to compete.”

Shouta grimaces with discomfort. There is too much here that he doesn’t want to dissect. He’s not good with things like this. Zashi is the emotional support in the little trio they’re becoming; Shouta is the voice of rationality.

He should have pulled Izuku out of the festival this morning – to hell with Nedzu and whatever he was scheming. The sports festival is – Shouta isn’t going to say it’s not important. It is, he gives lectures to his students every year on just how big an impact it can have on their futures. But it’s also just a school event. It is important, but it’s not the most important thing. It is not something to amputate a piece of yourself over. Shouta is disgusted with himself to have encouraged such recklessly self-destructive behavior over something that is ultimately so trivial.

“And you can compete like this?” he asks.

“I already have,” Izuku points out. “It’s probably easier, even, when I’m not hesitating over the fear of hurting someone.”

Shouta closes his eyes and tips his head back against the wall, tired and head aching. Whenever Yagi isn’t around, Shouta is grateful, but he finds himself particularly glad that the man isn’t here to witness this particular interaction.

“Sometimes it’s good to hesitate to hurt people,” he says slowly. Izuku frowns at him, a shadow of offense that is nearly comical, in an absurd kind of way.

“I’m not going to do anything bad,” the problem child says. “My emotions are all still there. I know what they are, and I can use them to inform my decisions, they just can’t hold me back right now.”

Oddly, Shouta is not relieved to hear his ward assure him that he’s not going to go on a psychotic rampage. Please don’t let it be foreshadowing, he thinks, prays to whatever god listens to tired bastards like him.

“This isn’t a healthy way to deal with things.” Shouta forces the words out of his mouth, throat thick and sore around the syllables. “You can’t just turn off your emotions when you’re feeling something you don’t want to be.”

“I know,” Izuku promises. The assurance means very little. If he knows, that means he simply chose to do it anyway, and the fact that Shouta can’t blame him doesn’t make the whole thing any less concerning.

“As soon as the festival is over, you turn it off, or I turn it off for you.”

Izuku nods agreeably. He opens his mouth to add something but is cut off as the building shudders around them. Shouta lurches away from the wall, striding back to the door in two quick steps and shoving it open with his side. Behind him, Izuku snatches his jacket off the counter and rushes to follow.

“It’s fine!” he calls. “It’s just Todoroki!”

Dubiously, “Todoroki?”

“Yes,” Izuku confirms. “It’s not the League. None of the alarms are going off.”

“So you think it’s Todoroki?” Shouta asks, not grasping whatever leap of logic the kid has made.

Only a fraction of a second after the question leaves Shouta’s mouth, Izuku pulls open the door of the announcers’ booth. The room has been cast in a strange, muted blue light, and Hizashi sits an arm’s length from the desk, gaping, glasses askew.

“See?” Izuku says, gesturing unnecessarily to the spire of ice that has blocked nearly the entire window. The monitors in the room show various shots of the now-obscured tournament field – Todoroki cracking ice from his limbs with sharp movements, Sero frozen in a glacier easily 100 times his size. On her stage, Nemuri, shivering and dumbfounded, gets a grip on herself and declares Todoroki the winner.

“How the hell did you guess that Todoroki had done this?” Shouta can’t help but demand. He exchanges a look with Hizashi, who shrugs with clear confusion. Izuku drags a chair close to the monitors, scrutinizing them intently as he pulls his jacket back on.

Absently, Izuku answers, “Todoroki’s got something to prove.”

Sero Hanta. Quirk: Tape.

Fast with high maneuverability. Tends to maintain distance. Adept at avoiding ranged attacks. Hard to hit. Decent endurance to outlast opponents. Countermeasures: sweeping, area-of-effect attacks. Terrain – quirk is best suited for urban use, incompatible with flat, barren landscapes.

Excellent capture abilities. Tape is strong and flexible, with a long range. Seems to be incredibly durable. Tape can hold up against physical strength and a wide variety of quirks (how wide?). Can reliably immobilize even fully conscious targets. Well-practiced with aim and trick-shots (similarities to Eraserhead’s capture weapon?). Countermeasures: strike first to avoid capture. Reversal – Tape tethers combatants together, at least temporarily. Can be taken advantage of to gain advantage or close distance (does the tape stick to quirk user?).

Todoroki Shouto. Quirk: Half-Cold Half-Hot.

Ice is powerful and well-controlled. Favors ranged attacks, proficient in close combat. Can immobilize and create adverse terrain for opponents. Prolonged exposure can cause frostbite and hypothermia. Countermeasures: shatter – ice can easily be shattered with quirks of weapons (more durable ice to craft improvised weapons?). Outlast – quirk backlash leads to low endurance and extreme consequences when overused (fire???).

Trained combatant. More stamina that most peers. Already knows how to fight. Adaptable and strategic. Doesn’t choke under pressure. Unlikely to hold back. Countermeasures: there are no shortcuts to compensate for experience. Fight dirty.

Sero has good upper body strength, but little to no close combat training. He prefers to detain his opponents than to engage with them. Out-speeding is his primary strategy. Relies on dodging attacks and outlasting opponents until he can achieve capture. Straightforward in his attempts. Needs to learn how to lay effective traps and diversify his strategy.

Todoroki is powerful and has more training that his classmates. Easily baited into expending more energy than necessary, speeding up quirk exhaustion. Needs to use his fire. Vulnerable to personal attacks. Has a chip on his shoulder (Todoroki Enji?). Get into his head to gain the advantage.

Outcome: Sero won’t last a minute.

Chapter Text

Aoyama Yuga*. Quirk: Navel Laser.

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Aoyama Yuga, pages 1-4

Rapid fire attacks. Creates hard-to-dodge volleys. Beams can ricochet. High range. Difficult to dodge due to high velocity. Good aim. Countermeasures: predictive dodging – beams can only be fired straight ahead (potential for laser refraction?). Close combat – attack from side or behind.

Control of beam density. Can create burns and cause knock-back. Strong blast is potentially lethal. Light flashes can lead to disorientation (double-edged?). Damage to surroundings may create debris. Countermeasures: see above.

Shinsou Hitoshi. Quirk: name unknown.

Manipulation of opponents. Quirk takes control of target (hypnosis? extent?). Verbal trigger. Countermeasures: silence – exact conditions of trigger unknown, don’t take risks. Physical jolt – cancels quirk effect?

Unknown factor. Limited information available on strengths and weaknesses. Hard to strategize against. Countermeasures: caution.

Aoyama has a powerful quirk but is limited by harsh backlash. Arrogant persona often prevents him from taking his opponents seriously. A direct blow from Navel Laser can easily be debilitating. Not getting hit needs to be a priority. Good aim is offset by backlash. Beam accuracy and intensity lowers with time. Endurance is poor. Outlasting is a viable strategy to gain the advantage.

Shinsou is a general education student. May have less training and/or experience as a result but making such an assumption is risky. Seems slightly clumsy. May be at a disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat. His teammates from the cavalry battle did not join him willingly – likely recruited via quirk. Suggests reasonably good stamina and reliance on quirk. Don’t respond to anything he says. Don’t underestimate him; aim for as fast a victory as possible.

Prediction: inconclusive, dependent on whether Shinsou can activate his quirk and his physical abilities.

Outcome: Aoyama seems aware of Shinsou’s quirk (likely told by Ojiro Mashirao). Shinsou dodges attacks with difficulty – speed, reflexes, and coordination seem average to below average. Shinsou baits Aoyama successfully and sends him out of bounds.

Match: Shinsou.

The boundary line is three inches from Hitoshi’s pinky when he trips over himself and lands hard on the ground. His palms sting and pulse as the scrapes from earlier – dear fucking god, that kid killed his father, what the hell is Hitoshi supposed to do with that information, what kind of world is he living in – tear open. The impact jolts up his wrists, shaking his bones and sending a throb through his arms, echoed by all the pulsing points of pain where he wasn’t quite fast enough to dodge Aoyama’s laser.  

Hitoshi pants, leaning forward over his knees as his elbows tremble and threaten to give out, threaten to collapse him backwards right over that dangerously-close boundary line. For the moment, Aoyama has ceased fire. When Hitoshi looks up, ignoring the way his vision swims, lagging a second behind the movement of his eyes, the blonde is smirking. He hasn’t moved an inch since the match started, attacking from a distance that Hitoshi couldn’t seem to close without getting hit.

“Wipe that look off your face,” Hitoshi snaps, voice pathetically thin as he still struggles to catch his breath. “You think this is fucking funny? Funny that someone like me would even bother to try, huh? It must be so easy to look down on everyone when you’ve been put on a pedestal your entire life.”

Aoyama has the good grace to look abashed, not that that does anything to soothe the sharp edges of Hitoshi’s frustration. Pity is just as useless to him as condescension. All he wants, for once in his goddamned life, is a little respect, some acknowledgement.

His father is watching. His dad is actually watching, and he thought Hitoshi was doing well, and he sounded so surprised when he told Hitoshi that. And Hitoshi is going to keep doing well, he’s going to surprise the whole lot of them, all the people who ever told him that his desire to be a hero was reaching too far when he was born with a quirk like Brainwashing. He’s going to prove everyone wrong, he is, all he needs is a chance.

“No,” Aoyama says. He closes his mouth around the word, sharp and aborted, sealing his lips together tightly, but the damage has already been done. In the back of Hitoshi’s head, a light flares to life, a beacon. Compared to Aoyama’s camera-perfect smile, Hitoshi’s grin is vindictive.

“Walk out of bounds,” he orders.

Like a doll, Aoyama does.

There is a moment of heavy confusion, audible in the silence that falls over the stadium, in the delay between Aoyama stepping over the line and Midnight calling the match. Hitoshi’s breath feels like nails in his throat, razors in his lungs.

He waits for questions, demands, outrage. These are the things he knows to wait for, the things that have always come to him in the past. But then there are the things he has learned not to bother hoping for, hope that swells up in him anyway, because this time it’ll be different, it has to be. Hitoshi waits and he hopes for spiteful, contrary things, like respect and acknowledgement.

Cheer, god damn it, he thinks. Cheer, you fucking bastards.

And after a moment, the crowd does.

Tokoyami Fumikage*. Quirk: Dark Shadow**.

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Tokoyami Fumikage, pages 53-56

**The UA Project: Volume 1 – Dark Shadow, pages 77-80

Versatile. High offense and defense. Dark Shadow is excellent for mid-range attacking and blocking. Claws and beak can inflict substantial damage. Not easily penetrable by most projectiles. Decent at hand-to-hand combat. Countermeasures: light – weakens Dark Shadow. Attack from multiple directions.

Partnership. Telepathic communication. Awareness is shared. Hard to catch by surprise. Well-practiced team strategies. Countermeasures: distraction – Dark Shadow is particularly easy to distract (empathic connection?).

Monoma Neito*. Quirk: Copy.

*The UA Project: Volume 2 – Monoma Neito, pages 69-72

Unpredictable. Strategy depends on copied quirks. Abundant possibilities available. Can be tailored to specific opponents. Hard to counter. Countermeasures: be adaptable – flexible thinking and fighting to compensate for unknowns. Outlast – strict time limit on copied quirks.

Analytical. Good at find strengths of copied quirks and weaknesses of opposing quirks. Copied quirks tend to be carefully chosen. Countermeasures: outlast.

Tokoyami is a unique opponent. Much of his physical strength comes from Dark Shadow, but their connection allows for seamless teamwork. Dark Shadow can be volatile. Emotional state and power are both strongly related to light. Connection may be a liability when Dark Shadow is particularly uncooperative (may be possible to play them against each other? risky). Light-based or multi-directional attacks are the best counters for Dark Shadow’s high defense. Dark Shadow is less effective in close combat and can become a hinderance, but Tokoyami can hold his own under such circumstances.

Monoma’s performance is highly conditional. He has a high ceiling and a low floor. Base abilities are fairly average, but Copy can theoretically give him the advantage in most battles. Highly restricted by time limit (flexible with further training?). Strategic, but commonly weakened by arrogance and easy to manipulate. Needs to focus on strategically pairing quirks together.

Prediction: inconclusive, dependent on Monoma’s quirk set and strategy.

Outcome: Monoma copies Dark Shadow. Dark Shadow becomes distressed. Fumikage fails to calm her down and Monoma shoves them both out of bounds.

Match: Monoma.

“Now,” says the loud blonde from 1-B, “let’s see what you think of your quirk when it’s turned against you.” Dark Shadow bristles at the suggestion. She would never turn against Fumi. Except maybe sometimes at night, when it is very dark and she is very upset, but even then, she isn’t against her Fumi. Besides, the sun is still out!

Smirking, the boy adds, “I’ve always wanted a pet.” Dark Shadow hisses and internally, Fumi echoes her sentiment, though he is much better at keeping a straight face than she is.

The boy holds out his arms, and his fingers, splayed out at his sides, lengthen and darken. He blinks, bringing his hands up in front of him as they twist into familiar talons, solid but blurry around the edges like all of Dark Shadow is. Quickly, the transformation races up his arms, disappearing beneath the sleeves of his gym uniform and reemerging from his collar, consuming his face in a veil of inky blackness, all too similar to Dark Shadow’s own being, except tinted slightly blue rather than slightly purple.

What is he doing? Dark Shadow demands of Fumi. Fumi always knows the answers and always explains when there is something Dark Shadow does not understand.

I don’t know, Fumi admits. It must be his quirk.

I don’t like it.

The boy laughs. “Unexpected,” he says. “But just as well. Who needs a familiar when you can just do it yourself?” He grins, mouth a slightly blacker black, eyes like blue lanterns.

Fumi steels himself, swiping out an arm, but Dark Shadow doesn’t follow the direction. She shrinks back in closer to him, and they both roll to the side as the boy stretches a talon across the field towards them. The movement is fast and elastic and leaves grooves in the dirt where they were standing, and it is so, so familiar that it is uncanny.

“Dark Shadow,” Fumi says sternly. It’s her name, and it’s also an order, one she has heard hundreds of times and is usually eager to obey.

I don’t like it, she repeats. And despite his composure, she knows Fumi doesn’t like it either, doesn’t like this boy who has become like her.

Not, she notes, like them.

Like her. Like Dark Shadow and only Dark Shadow. Her, all alone, as she isn’t meant to exist.

I don’t want to play this game anymore. I don’t like it.

Shoji Mezo*. Quirk: Dupli-Arms.

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Shoji Mezo, pages 41-44

Physically enhanced. High strength, durability, and reflexes. Good speed considering size. Excellent stamina. Physical abilities are passive. Quirk increases offensive and defensive power, but strength, etc. is independent of quirk use. Countermeasures: strategy – work smarter not harder. Judo techniques – turn size and strength into a detriment.

Excellent senses. Good for stealth and information gathering. Makes sneak attacks ineffective. Countermeasures: abandon stealth tactics. Sensory overload (untested).

Ashido Mina*. Quirk: Acid.

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Ashido Mina, pages 5-8

Excellent technique. Control of acid solubility, viscosity, and corrosion. Enhances maneuverability. Can damage skin, gear, and environment. Potential for strategic targeting (i.e. gear, eyes). Countermeasures: temperature sensitive – acid freezes (tested) and may be flammable (untested).

Dance experience. Increases overall physical abilities. Great body control. High speed, strength, and reflexes. Applies skills to hand-to-hand combat. Countermeasures: strategy – adapts poorly to unforeseen events.

Shoji is the physically strongest member of class 1-A. Due to his high strength and durability, he is difficult to beat in a straightforward battle of brawn. Hesitates to use much force against classmates. Unlikely to go on the offensive. Best strategy would be to out speed and manipulate his position to bring him out of bounds. Be wary of the risk of immobilization.

Ashido has excellent control of her quirk. She is stronger than many expect. Weakens in drawn out battles due to quirk exhaustion and poor long-term strategizing. Good dodging skills, but poor defensive ability. Tends to charge into battle headfirst with little planning.

Prediction: Shoji.

Outcome: Acid has negligible effects on Shoji. Shoji captures Ashido and carries her out of bounds.

Match: Shoji.       

Mina had a plan! Plans might not really be her thing, but she makes them. They just don’t always work out.

Like this one.

Okay, so, the plan went something like this: acid – skate, skate, skate – ACID!

It’s not a bad plan. Simple, which is good – flexible, and easy to follow. And it takes into account the two big things Mina knows about Shoji. First, that Shoji is super strong, so she probably shouldn’t get close to him. Acid attacks from a distance, then. Zero-risk offensive maneuvers! Second, that she’s faster than Shoji, which she needs to take advantage of if she wants to win. So – skate, skate, skate. Just watch Shoji try to keep up when she’s skating around so fast! If he runs after her, he’ll probably just slip and fall in some of her acid and wouldn’t that be embarrassing for him! Then throw in some more acid for good measure, rinse and repeat, and she’s got herself a plan!

It was a good plan, Mina thinks. And she stands by the skating part of it. Problem is that Shoji didn’t seem particularly bothered by the ACID! of it all. And unfortunately, that was the more important part, because without it she was just skating around the arena – which was cute and fun, but not doing her any favors towards the whole winning deal.  

Now, there’s a very good reason that Mina’s original plan didn’t look like this: acid – skate, skate, skate – PUNCH! Punching didn’t feature anywhere in her original plan because, frankly, punching Shoji is a super dumb thing to do. But what’s a girl to do when her acid fails her? Sometimes when the good plan doesn’t work, you have to buck up and move onto the bad one!

Which is how she finds herself here. Squirming in Shoji’s six-armed grip, which is carefully not too tight, even as she leaks acid all over him. She can’t escape his hold no matter how slippery she makes herself, though, because the guy is just too big, basically cocooning her up in his arms.

“Sorry,” he says as he deposits her over the boundary line. Mina crosses her arms, huffing out a breath as Midnight announces Shoji’s victory. His arms, wet and shiny, have only a few faintly pink patches along them, even though parts of his shirt have been entirely eaten away. She really kicked up the potency towards the end there, and Shoji seems to have hardly noticed.

“Did I get you at all?” Mina asks, pouting as they walk together from the arena.

“…Yes.”

“Liar!” she groans. A second after, she laughs.

Yeah, losing sucks, but she can admit – it was a pretty bad plan.

Asui Tsuyu*. Quirk: Frog.

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Asui Tsuyu, pages 9-12

Abilities of a frog. Swimming, hopping, climbing, projectile tongue. High mobility. Tongue is both flexible and powerful. Launches at high speeds. Excellent performance in aquatic and vertical environments. Countermeasures: temperature sensitive – hibernates in the cold, desiccates in the heat. Close combat – prefers long-range.

Intelligent. Highly observant. Level-headed and analytical. Excellent at team strategy. Countermeasures: stay on guard.

Yaoyorozu Momo*. Quirk: Creation.

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Yaoyorozu Momo – pages 69-72

Outstanding quirk potential. Good technique. Weapons training to compliment creation abilities. Training investment yields high returns. Countermeasures: strike quickly – time is a limiting mechanic.

Intelligent. Can easily expand creation repertoire. Excellent strategist. Quirk allows for further versatility in planning. Countermeasures: overwhelm – gets flustered under pressure.

Asui is more focused on rescue and cooperation than combat. She is not particularly strong, but her tongue and legs are both powerful. Incredibly high mobility. Strategic and calm under pressure. Particularly excels in a team environment, forming strategies around various quirks. Debilitating weakness to both heat and cold (biological, likely can’t be surpassed, support gear?).

Yaoyorozu has nearly limitless potential. Creation is limited by time (reduced with practice), size (circumvented by breaking items into constituent parts), knowledge (easily gained due to her intelligence), and energy (obtained through food. diet?). None of these are hard upper limits. All can be pushed, potentially infinitely. Her greatest weakness is her own lack of confidence, preventing her from adapting to unexpected situations. She is easy to overwhelm.

Prediction: Yaoyorozu.

Outcome: Asui pushes Yaoyorozu out of bounds before she can enact a strategy.

Match: Asui.

Failure is a horrible word.

Momo can break her life into a bunch of little failures. She shouldn’t, she knows she shouldn’t. She should look at the big victories and ignore the little failures. An A on a math test should be a success. The question she got wrong shouldn’t matter. The mangled prototypes she creates are necessary steppingstones to the final product. No one gets everything right on the first try. The failures in between aren’t important. Just little failures, on the way to success.

Potential is another horrible word.

“You’re going to do great things, Momo,” her mother tells her, smiling beatifically.

“You’ll be amazing someday, Momo,” her father says, sounding more and more like an omen the older she gets.

Everyone she has ever met has shared the sentiment. Family, friends, classmates, teachers. Yes, they all say, Yaoyorozu Momo has so much potential.

She wonders what happens to potential that is never met. Does it just waste away? Sometimes Momo feels like she is. Sometimes she feels empty, like one of her little matryoshka dolls.

“Yaoyorozu Momo is out of bounds!” Midnight calls, snapping her whip.

It took less than two minutes. Momo didn’t even notice it happening. She made herself a shield to buy some time while she created a rudimentary flamethrower, and then one, two, three strikes of Tsu’s tongue against that shield and Momo had slid out of bounds without even trying to stop it.

She straightens her spine as the crowd cheers, smiling graciously. Momo learned how to smile when she was very young, a silent lesson that her mother was careful to teach her very thoroughly.

Someday. Someday Momo is meant to be excellent. But not today, apparently. Today there is no potential, just failure.

What horrible words.

Hatsume Mei. Quirk: Zoom.

Gear. Powerful and versatile. Unknown factors, hard to account for. Increases offense, defense, mobility, and more. Risk of injury and immobilization. Potential to counter or mimic quirks. Countermeasures: target gear – mediocre base physical abilities. Theft – acquire a gadget (feasible? reliant on ability to operate unfamiliar mechanics. high risk).

Unpredictable. Support student. Unknown strategy, mindset, and skills. Chaotic. Ruthless. Little regard for social norms. Difficult to strategize against. Countermeasures: stay flexible – need to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. Don’t underestimate.

Iida Tenya*. Quirk: Engine.

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Tenya Iida, pages 13-16

Fastest of 1-A. Rapid acceleration and high sustained speeds (numbers?). Hard to track and hit. Can disorient opponents. Delivers high-powered kicks. Countermeasures: immobilization. Take advantage of downtime – pauses between sprints.

Legacy hero. Resources to pursue extensive training. Generations of experience contributing to quirk technique. Familiar with professional tactics. Intelligent and strategic. Countermeasures: duplicity – take advantage of naivety. Creative strategy – rigid thinker, poor at adapting.

Mei makes up for any personal weaknesses with an armory of support gear. Gear covers a wide variety of functions. As the creator, Mei is intimately familiar with their functions. Proper gear use gives her the edge in most battles. Tends to be reckless. Prioritizes testing gear and impressing companies (winning?). Most gadgets are prototypes and may have exploitable flaws.

Iida is unmatched in speed among hero course students. Has more experience and training than the majority of his classmates. Excellent quirk control. Limited by fuel (orange juice, why?) and engine temperature (counteract with support gear?). Good situational awareness and strategy. Lacks in creativity and adaptability. Easy to manipulate.

Prediction: inconclusive, dependent on Mei’s motives.

Outcome: Mei has shared gear with Iida (motives?). With his assistance (unwilling) she demonstrates the function of several support items she has invented*. She steps out of bounds (motive: advertisement).

*See notes on page 97-100 for further details

Match: Iida.

When Ojiro dropped out before the final round, Tenya could have expounded at length about his exact feelings on the situation. It was noble of his classmate to stick to his principles, but ultimate foolish of Ojiro to sacrifice the opportunity posed by the sports festival over such a trivial matter.

Tenya thought this the same way he thinks most things – like a fact. A moment of thought, and he had decided his stance on the matter, firm, without a single doubt. This is just how Tenya is. Occasionally, Tensei will make jokes about it. He says that it’s ironic that Tenya is so stubbornly rooted, when the Iida family has made a name for themselves by running, moving, fast and flexible in battle.

Now, Tenya feels a bit unmoored. Noble, but foolish. What an easy thing to think when Ojiro was the one talking about pride. Tenya understands, now. The frustration he heard in Ojiro’s voice pings around inside Tenya now, bouncing between his ribs with a vengeance.

Ojiro was a noble man indeed, to voice his feelings so calmly. I think it was that guy’s quirk, was all Ojiro had said about the person who stole his chance at an honorable victory. Tenya holds Ojiro’s calm as an example in his mind and clenches his jaw around the urge to shout at Hatsume, who giggles from the sidelines, unrepentant as she bows to a targeted section of the crowd.

Tenya is nearly tempted to withdraw himself. Winning this match has meant nothing to him – less than nothing, even. It doesn’t feel like he’s won anything. But even with this new, painful perspective on the situation, Tenya stands by what he said to Ojiro. This is a rare chance for pros to see them. One of only three opportunities to start carving a place for themselves in the world before they are thrust into it. It would be foolish to throw this chance away.

Noble, maybe, but foolish.

Uraraka Ochako*. Quirk: Zero Gravity

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Uraraka Ochako, pages 17-20

Excellent technique. Versatile quirk applications. Increases mobility, functionally immobilizes targets. Creative environmental applications. High weight limit (chance to improve with training). Countermeasures: ranged combat – avoid touch to avoid capture. Situational awareness – avoid surprise attacks from environmental components.

Rapidly improving. Little prior training by learning quickly. Brave and spirited. Eager for teamwork. Learns from classmates. Pushing limits and developing new tactics. Rescue focused but shows interest in diversifying. Countermeasures: don’t underestimate.

Bakugou Katsuki*. Quirk: Explosion.

*Hero Analysis for the Future: Volume 1 – Kacchan, page 2

*The UA Project: Volume 1 – Bakugou Katsuki, pages 65-68

Prior training. Quirk and combat style are well-developed. Primarily offensive. Power ranges from harmless sparks to potentially lethal. Excellent control of output. Some defensive applications. Blasts can intercept attacks and destroy projectiles. Can blind, deafen, and disorient opponents. Uses blasts for aerial movement. Countermeasures: maintain distance – Explosion is inherently a close-combat quirk. Foresight – fighting style has highly predictable components. Cold – inhibits quirk use.

Tenacious. Single-minded pursuit of strength and victory. Never surrenders. Prioritizing winning over physical well-being. Countermeasures: aim for unconsciousness. Manipulate temperament.

Uraraka has an excellent quirk for capture and rescue. A single person is trivially easy for her to float. Immobilization is only a risk when in close proximity. Debris can be weaponized for long-range or area-of-effect attacks. Quirk backlash (nausea, aided by medication, potential for support gear?) only becomes relevant at very high weights or when attempting to activate Zero Gravity on herself. Quickly innovating her strategy and technique. Potential for quirk development (gravity nullification vs gravity manipulation?). Currently not suited for intense combat.

Katsuki is powerful and vicious in achieving his goals. Doesn’t hesitate to use extreme force. Controlled by his temper. Easy to manipulate into reckless action but increases risk of severe injury. Quirk overuse results in arm and shoulder strain, but Katsuki will not hesitate to push himself past his limits. Maintain distance if possible. Always stay on guard.

Prediction: Katsuki.

Outcome: Uraraka is unable to get close enough to use her quirk on Katsuki. Katsuki knocks her out of bounds.

Match: Katsuki.

Chapter Text

When Izuku heads back down to the waiting rooms for his match with Todoroki, he is careful to avoid Katsuki. Having just finished his fight against Uraraka, he’s certainly stalking around the tunnels somewhere, but staying out of his way is a simple matter for Izuku. All he has to do is stretch out his awareness and pinpoint the burnt caramel crackle of Explosion. He finds Uraraka, too, the light fizz of Zero Gravity next to the mercury and hot metal of Iida’s Engine. Todoroki is also preparing for their upcoming match, Half-Cold Half-Hot a tumultuous point of input from down the hall.

Izuku stays out of sight as Katsuki storms by. Neither of them needs to deal with the other at the moment – their earlier conversation was messy enough, and it clearly got under Katsuki’s skin if the excessively large explosion he let loose on Uraraka to blast her out of the ring was anything to go by. He and Izuku will fight in the finals, but interactions before then will only serve to sharpen Katsuki’s aggression further.

Izuku doesn’t bother trying to avoid Endeavor, though.

“Oh, there you are,” the hero says as he rounds the corner. Izuku already knew Endeavor’s exact height – 6’5” – but he seems taller in person, making it almost hard to meet his eyes when they are standing this close together, but Izuku cranes his head back and ignores the crick it creates in his neck. Endeavor is hard to look at in general, actually, what with the flames dancing around his eyes and mouth. It’s an intimidating effect, but an impractical one, both distracting and somewhat uncomfortably bright.

“Are you supposed to be down here?” Izuku asks.

“I watched your fight,” Endeavor says, ignoring the question. That’s fine, Izuku already knows the answer – no, Endeavor is attending the sports festival as a spectator, meaning these backstage areas are supposed to be off-limits to him, regardless of his ranking.

“You have a wonderful quirk,” the hero continues, offsetting what may seem like praise with a fierce glower. “Who did you steal it from?”

“Actually, there’s three, and I didn’t steal them at all. My father did, decades ago, and then he gave them to me – it was a whole process. But I don’t think that’s what you were getting at.” Endeavor’s scowl, already perpetual, deepens, which is confirmation enough. “Did you need something, sir?” Izuku asks politely.

Endeavor draws himself up somehow taller, looming over Izuku, the flames around his face swelling and peaking to match the growing intensity of his glare. Izuku, of course, is unphased by this, but he breaks eye contact so the man will think he has perhaps succeeded in his little intimidation attempt. Endeavor is far from the scariest thing Izuku has faced in his life, but men like this have a desperate urge to make themselves feel bigger than those around them, and those urges, when unmet, can boil over into increasing desperate actions. Generally, it’s best to avoid such escalation.

“All Might is an embarrassment,” the man growls. “Letting you run around like this – it’s absurd. When the time comes that you become a problem, know this: my Shouto will succeed where All Might failed.”

“I don’t understand,” Izuku says, though he isn’t being entirely honest. He certainly has suspicions about what Endeavor means, and he’d be confident enough to make an educated guess, but he’s curious as to whether Endeavor will dare to elaborate. And dare Endeavor does.

“Shouto was born to surpass All Might, and he will not be so foolish as to assume an enemy dead without evidence. When the day comes that you follow in your father’s footsteps, it will be my son who stops you. This battle will be the perfect opportunity for him to prove himself. Don’t disgrace yourself too quickly.”

Izuku has to admit, he’s surprised. He knows, of course, that the hero is bold – to put it kindly – or a bully – to put it more accurately. Endeavor throws his weight around unrepentantly, and there’s no reason to expect children to be exempt from his power-hungry posturing, given how he treats his own children. Nevertheless, Izuku would have put this – threatening a fifteen-year-old in a public space filled with witnesses and heroes – beyond even Endeavor’s hubris.

“Is that all?” Izuku asks blandly.

Endeavor narrows his eyes. “I see no reason to waste any more time with you.” He pushes past Izuku, crossing too close through Izuku’s space. Another intimidation tactic that Izuku doesn’t bother with humoring, standing his ground even when the bubble of heat Endeavor wears like a second skin brushes uncomfortably against his skin, raising sweat beneath Izuku’s uniform.

“I’m not my father,” Izuku calls to the hero’s retreating back. “And Todoroki isn’t you.”

Endeavor pauses but doesn’t turn. His costume sticks tightly to his skin, and Izuku can easily see the twitch his statement elicits, rippling down the muscles of Endeavor’s back. Izuku wonders if the reaction was bred from surprise or anger – or maybe even shame, if there’s a speck of self-awareness in the man somewhere. Whatever he is feeling, Endeavor controls it quickly, moving on with a derisive scoff.

What a blind man. Izuku has a lot of feelings about Endeavor. Fear, certainly – Endeavor is a hero who cultivates fear to some degree in villains and civilians alike. But also anger, resentment, and contempt. Ugly feelings that Izuku usually tries not to entertain. Of course, Izuku isn’t feeling any of those things, now. He is separate from them, and here, from his unbiased standpoint, he thinks he should probably add pity to the list. Todoroki Enji is such a pitiful man.

But there might still be some hope for Todoroki Shouto.

On account of his atypical upbringing, Shouto has formed some unusual associations. The world he lives in often looks different from the worlds of his classmates. Shouto is aware of this, though the specifics of how his life has differed from others his age generally escapes him until someone goes out of their way to point out and explain a disparity to him. However, he is certain that most people don’t consider ice to be warm.

It is, though. Shouto thinks he should be entitled to some authority on the subject, and he can say with confidence that ice is warm. When he was young, his mother would create little ice sculptures for him – those made him feel warm. Occasionally he’ll make one for himself, and they’re never the same, but they still evoke a similar feeling. Fuyumi can cause it as well, by laying cool hands over Shouto’s heat-tender skin. And hypothermia – when everything is so cold the body starts to shut down – that’s the most bone-deep warmth Shouto has ever felt.

Yes, ice is warm. And fire is cold.

Shouto thinks it must leech the heat out of things. That’s why people with fire quirks always have such cold eyes. Endeavor, perpetually wreathed in flames, stares at Shouto, cold and uncaring, as if he is frozen someplace too far away for affection to thaw him. What Shouto can remember of Touya is cold and distant, and he disappeared practically overnight, like a figure wading into a snowstorm, leaving behind a cold room, cold bed, cold memories.

And Shouto – people call Shouto cold all the time. They think because he doesn’t talk, that means he can’t hear, but often times they don’t even bother to lower their voices. They say he has cold eyes. He tries not to look in mirrors too often. He looks like his father, and he looks like his mother, and both of those resemblances are hard for him to actually look at, most days. But some days – some days he needs to see it. Those days, he leans over the bathroom sink, inspecting one side of his face and then the other. When he presses himself close to the mirror, looks himself in the eyes, Shouto likes to think that only one of them is cold, and it’s not on the side everyone would assume.

Midoriya Izuku has cold eyes. Shouto doesn’t know how he didn’t notice earlier. Maybe at the USJ the coldness was covered by tears; maybe the heat of combat thawed them out during the cavalry battle. But now, standing on the other side of the field, Midoriya’s eyes are unmistakably cold. Shouto can see the villain in this boy, far more than he could even when the class was actively under attack.

Shouto is going to win the sports festival. He decided as much ages ago, after a long period of weighing his options to determine what outcome would infuriate his father the most. Approximately an hour ago, Shouto decided that he is going to win this match, especially. He will win and prove to everyone watching that fire is inferior to ice, that Shouto doesn’t need his father’s power, that his father’s power is nothing in comparison to Shouto’s own.

The instant the match begins, while the last ebbs of Present Mic’s voice are still resonating around the stadium, Shouto attacks. Ice spreads from his right foot, propagating along itself, farther and farther, larger and larger, faster and faster. It creeps up his leg as well, overflowing, locking his knee in place as the joint freezes over. Midoriya watches the ice approach with cold, cold eyes, unafraid and unmoving.

In a moment, he is blocked from Shouto’s sight by a still-growing spire of ice, and for that moment Shouto thinks he has won, as instantaneously as he had against Sero. There is only a fraction of a second, immeasurably minuscule, where Shouto believes the match is over, and he feels something hollow and numb that he can’t put a name to. It is a horrible feeling, made all the worse by not knowing what it is or where it comes from, but Shouto hardly even suffers it before his misapprehension that he has won catches light and burns to a crisp.

There is a glow behind the ice, orange-yellow dancing through foggy blue. Then the air in the arena whips into a frenzy, hot and cold in dizzying turns as Shouto braces himself and brings up his arms to cover his face. Water drips, and steam hisses, and Midoriya stands, cold and blazing. Fire streams from his mouth, curls around his shoulders and arms, and Shouto can already feel the ghost of it against his skin, blistering and unkind.

Shouto shatters the ice along his leg with a sharp twist of his hips, regaining his full mobility just in time to roll to the side as Midoriya sends out a whip-fast tendril of flame. It scuffs against the ground where Shouto had been standing, blackening the dirt. Half the flame is smothered by the impact, but it is quickly replenished, flowing after Shouto like a serpent. It licks along his ankle; he kills it beneath a sheet of ice.

Ice can beat fire, Shouto knows. It’s only a matter of quantity. Fire melts ice, but it can only melt so much so quickly. Shouto’s first attack was sizable, but he can go bigger – will have to go bigger. He will end this quickly, overpower Midoriya in one fell swoop.

The next glacier he summons is larger than the first, nearly the size of what he managed in his match against Sero, when he wasted so much of his energy on an outburst that was ill-advised, in hindsight. The exertion leaves Shouto’s leg once again frozen to the ground, frost crystalized along his arm and the edge of his mouth. His breath stabs like daggers in his lungs. The muscles of his right side feel brittle and stiff.

Again, Shouto thinks he has won. Again, he is wrong.

This time, the change in air pressure caused by the meeting of fire and ice is nearly enough to send Shouto out of the ring, if not for the hasty barrier he raises to brace against his back. His heels skid along the ground, pressed backwards with enough force that his body aches slightly in protest. The ice along his limbs cracks and flies away. And when the roar of the wind dies away and Shouto can look up without getting dust and ice and water in his eyes, Midoriya is somehow still in the ring.

He is crouched on the ground, hands flat to the earth as if he could grip the smooth surface of the field to anchor himself. His flames have all died away in the onslaught. Shouto forces himself to run. He feels sluggish and clumsy but closes the distance between them as quickly as he can. Midoriya is distracted, clearly recovering from Shouto’s last attack, and Shouto would need to be a fool to let him have any room to breathe instead of pressing the advantage.

“You can’t win this way,” Midoriya says as Shouto draws near. He sounds slightly winded, but not desperate, not even taunting – he sounds matter-of-fact, simple confidence devoid of arrogance, as if he isn’t bent over, nearly prone and completely defenseless, with not a wisp of fire to come to his aid.

Shouto’s lip curls up in a sneer, and he swerves past Midoriya, boosting himself up with a pillar of ice so he can attack from above and behind. The ground crackles as Shouto punches it, a halo of jagged spikes rising around his fist where Midoriya was meant to be. Shouto pulls back, spins, tries to locate where Midoriya has dodged to – and then his feet are knocked out from underneath him. He tumbles to the dirt, uniform tearing and arm scraping against a shard of ice as he falls. Midoriya is on him in a second, a heavy weight on Shouto’s chest that leaves him gasping for air.

“You’re freezing,” Midoriya says. “There’s a limit to how much cold your body can take. But you already know that, don’t you? Why don’t you fix it? All it would take is a little fire.”

As if to demonstrate, Midoriya spits, a dense wad of flame landing with a sizzle next to Shouto’s right ear, unfolding and dying against the dirt in only a second. There are blisters at the corners of Midoriya’s mouth, Shouto realizes. Blisters along his mouth, and his hands, and his sleeves have been charred to black scraps of fabric that reveal the red, irritated skin of his arms. It makes Shouto feel ill.

“I will never use my left,” he snaps. He twists beneath Midoriya, shoving his right hand against the other boy’s face and letting frost spread from his fingertips. With a grunt, Midoriya leans back, and Shouto shoves him hard to the side, rolling out from underneath him and struggling to a stand.

“Because of your father?” Midoriya asks, somehow recovered and back on his feet before Shouto.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shouto attacks again, a wave of ice following the gesture of his arm, but the movement is slow enough that Midoriya sidesteps without needing any fire to aid his defense.

“I know better than most,” Midoriya says. “I know about bad fathers and bad quirks. I know about Endeavor. I even understand. At least some of it.”

And Shouto forgets that he is stiff and tired. He forgets that his joints are protesting, forgets that his breath fogs the air with every exhale, forgets that his arm is aching and bleeding. All Shouto can think of is the audacity.

Midoriya thinks he understands? If he understood even a fraction of what Shouto has gone through, he wouldn’t be standing here, so cavalier. There are things that can’t be spoken of calmly – things like being bred for, being weaponized, objectified, things like being half a monster, things like railing against fate. The only people who speak calmly of such things are the people who don’t understand them.

Shouto forgoes his quirk altogether to punch Midoriya Izuku in the face, but his arm is caught in a too-hot grip that spins him around and flings him to the side. Shouto barely stays on his feet, snarling as he staggers.

“But there’s one thing I don’t understand,” Midoriya says. “Who are you trying to save?” Shouto narrows his eyes and ignores the question. Conversation is a cheap tactic during battle, and he has already let Midoriya unbalance him enough. “Heroes are meant to save people. Your fire could help you do that.”

“Did my old man pay you off or something?” Shouto spits.

“I’m pretty sure Endeavor wants me dead. It’s not his fire that makes him a bad man, you know that, right?”

“Shut up!”

Surprisingly, Midoriya does. In a blink, he is in front of Shouto, silent as a ghost, and he sweeps Shouto’s legs out from under him again, grabbing him by the shirt collar before he can fall, and dragging him towards the closest boundary line. Shouto grasps at Midoriya’s arm, icing it as he tries to get his feet back under him. Midoriya is several inches shorter than Shouto, but he’s deceptively strong, easily maintaining control, even while Shouto grapples at him. Freezing both their feet to the ground, Shouto makes a last attempt to keep them both in bounds, but is countered with a stream of fire that melts the ice and brushes uncomfortably against Shouto’s shins.

Then, with a single swing of Midoriya’s arm, Shouto is out of bounds.

“We should go to Recovery Girl,” Izuku says as Midnight calls the match. “Can you stand?” He reaches down to Todoroki, who smacks the offer away with a cold, trembling hand. Pointedly not looking at Izuku, glaring at a random patch of ground, Todoroki heaves himself up, wavering for several long seconds as he tries to get his legs under him. Izuku hovers close by in case Todoroki falls, but doesn’t offer any more assistance, certain the other boy wouldn’t appreciate it.

In retrospect, Izuku doesn’t think he has handled this entire situation particularly well. Todoroki is obviously upset, which had never been Izuku’s goal. Perhaps it would have been better to leave the whole Endeavor situation alone until he had the capacity to be properly – sympathetic? tactful? – whatever quality it is that emotions impart on a conversation. Somehow, Izuku has ended up insulting Todoroki, or offending him, when all Izuku wanted was to help. And maybe satisfy some curiosity along the way.

Short term, Izuku doesn’t much care if Todoroki is upset. In the long term, though, it’s impractical to allow any tension to fester between them when Izuku and Todoroki will likely be classmates by this time next week. Not to mention that, a few hours from now, Izuku knows he’ll be upset if Todoroki is. He wanted to help, and it’s entirely possible that he’s actively made things worse, instead, which is exactly the kind of thing Izuku would eat himself up over, normally.

“I’m sorry about what I said,” Izuku offers, a blind attempt at damage control as he follows behind Todoroki, making a beeline out of the arena. Todoroki does not reply, walking quickly and slightly favoring his left leg. Izuku sighs, letting himself fall slightly behind Todoroki’s longer strides.

Izuku is tired. He has used over a dozen quirks throughout the course of the sports festival, and while he has trained extensively with most of them, the emotional suppression quirk is a constant drain on his energy. He’ll have to carefully manage his resources if he wants to have enough stamina to make it to the finals.

Next round he’ll be facing either Shinsou or Monoma – he can’t say with any certainty who is going to win that matchup, so he needs to be prepared for either outcome. Shinsou, with his easy-to-avoid quirk and seemingly subpar physical abilities, would be ideal. Izuku could likely defeat him fairly quickly without any quirk use at all. Monoma would be doable as well but his quirk could cause issues, especially if he tries to copy Izuku’s own.

Another sigh, and Izuku reaches the infirmary, sliding quietly into the room and taking a seat on the unoccupied cot. Todoroki, already settled, glares at him briefly before sliding his eyes to the television, where commercials play while Cementoss repairs the arena for the upcoming match. Next to Todoroki, Recovery girl stands on a stool, looking over his injuries – a cut on his bicep, minor burns on the lower halves of his legs, some bruising – before smacking her lips against his cheek. She hops down from her stool, pushing it over to Izuku’s bed with a click of her tongue.

“What have you done to yourself?” she scolds, grabbing one of his wrists with a gentleness that belies her tone.

“Nothing too bad.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Get that shirt off, you’ll need a new one anyway.”

Obediently, Izuku shrugs his jacket off and tugs his shirt over his head. Both articles are worse for wear, burned and singed in a multitude of places. Underneath, his skin is red and splotchy, drawn into tight, irritated patches along his back and shoulders. The burns are the worse on his arm, shiny and hot. Blisters bubble up along his fingers, which don’t bend quite as well as they should. Unfortunately, while Izuku has a resistance to heat, he doesn’t have any immunity to it, and control large amounts of fire in such close quarters always ends up backfiring on him.

“Nothing too bad,” Recovery Girl scoffs, leaving Izuku’s bedside to bustle around her medical stores. “Second degree burns do qualify as bad, young man.”

“They’re mostly first degree,” Izuku placates. Most of the burns along his torso are superficial at worst – he can hardly even feel them. Unimpressed, Recovery Girl gives him a dry look. Todoroki glances his way as well, gaze lingering over Izuku’s hands before fixing back on the TV. Izuku smiles in his direction.

“I’ll treat the worst of these,” Recovery Girl says as she dumps an armful of supplies on the bed, “but the rest will have to heal the old-fashioned way.”

Izuku shakes his head. “I just need them cleaned. I can’t spare the energy. No bandages, either – I’ll just burn them off in my next match. It would be counterproductive.”

He meets Recovery Girl’s narrow-eyed stare with a level one of his own. He doubts he is the first student to deny some degree of treatment during the sports festival, as much as he is sure she hates it. She clicks her tongue loudly but pulls a disinfectant from her pile of supplies without arguing.

“I keep telling Nedzu that you students are far to self-destructive over a silly little school event,” Recovery Girl mutters to herself as she starts working on Izuku’s hands. “All you children breaking yourselves apart for a medal and expecting me to put you together at the end. Ridiculous!” Louder, she adds, “You’re staying here until your next match; I won’t hear otherwise! If you’re going to be a reckless fool with your injuries, you’re going to stay where I can keep an eye on you.”

“Alright,” Izuku agrees easily. “Can you let Mic and Eraser know I’m down here?”

While Recovery Girl scurries into her office to report on Izuku’s location, Izuku turns to Todoroki, who is still intently watching the TV. On screen, Monoma and Shinsou have just entered the arena, each greeted with uproarious applause that sounds like a formless rumble over the speakers.

Perhaps unwisely, Izuku breaks the silence, “I’m not sorry, actually. About what I said. I had a point.”

“You shouldn’t talk about what you don’t understand,” Todoroki says, not turning his attention away from the television. Outside of battle, his voice is flat and unreadable. A muscle in his jaw jumps.

“But I do understand. You think you have your father’s quirk. You think using it means being like him, and you don’t want to be like him.”

“I don’t need it,” Todoroki tells the TV. “I’ll become the number one without his power.”

“It’s your power,” Izuku corrects patiently. A half smile twitches on his mouth. “It’s not as if you stole it from him.”

“I will not be like him.”

“Then don’t be. Be good, instead. You recognize me, don’t you?” A pause, then Todoroki nods once, jerky and brief. “Then you should realize that I know a thing or two about power and all the bad things that can be done with it. But I’m trying to take something bad and do good things with it. You’re doing nothing when you could be doing good. Todoroki–”

Izuku sits forward on the edge of his cot, leaning towards the other boy, staring hard at the clench and spasm of his jaw until Todoroki finally gives in and looks up. His expression is not so blank, now. It is intense and conflicted, and Izuku can’t say exactly what Todoroki is thinking, but they are clearly things he has never thought before, thoughts he doesn’t know what to do with.

“You are more than your father’s son,” Izuku says, for both their sakes. Todoroki’s throat bobs as he swallows. Without a word, he turns back to the match on screen. Izuku stares for a moment longer before making himself comfortable, tipping his head back against the wall and letting his eyes fall shut. He’ll need all the rest he can get between matches.

Chapter Text

Hitoshi has spent enough hours staring at himself in the mirror to recognize an asshole when he sees one, and he had Monoma Neito clocked from the moment the blonde smiled that slow, lazy smile and smoothly arched an eyebrow in the short seconds before his face went blank under the influence of Hitoshi’s quirk. The shit that comes out of Monoma’s mouth now is only bonus confirmation for something Hitoshi already knew to be true.

“I’m here to put those 1-A stuck-ups in their place, so let’s get this over with quickly, shall we?” the asshole drawls over Present Mic’s introductions. He smiles, all mock benevolence, like Hitoshi should be grateful for getting to fight him at all. If he were more expressive, Hitoshi would sneer, and the temptation to do so deliberately is high, but he keeps his face bored and disinterested, gratified to see Monoma’s fake smile distort slightly with the tightening at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, you’re not in 1-A?” Hitoshi asks flatly as the match is called to a start. “Sorry, I couldn’t tell. You hero students all look the same to me, being stuck-up and all.” As he speaks, Hitoshi strafes to the side, attempting to maintain distance between them without putting himself too close to the boundary lines.

“You know, I’ll admit that I’ve been looking forward to this fight, even though you’re only in gen-ed.”

“There’s that famous hero arrogance.”

As if Hitoshi hadn’t spoken, Monoma continues, “I’ve been curious since the cavalry battle. Made quite the fool of me, puppeting me around like that–”

“I doubt you need any help to make a fool of yourself.”

“–but I’m hardly going to withdraw because of that. No, I’d much rather return the favor.”

“And how are you planning to do that?” Hitoshi asks. He is already slightly out of breath from trying to prevent Monoma from getting in close range, and he hasn’t even been particularly successful in those attempts. Monoma keeps moving to intercept whatever path Hitoshi sets, leaving Hitoshi feeling frustratingly like a herded sheep, bleating at a brick wall.

Hitoshi’s quirk is response based. Hell if he knows how it works, but there is something about call and answer that gives him backdoor access into a person’s head, a connection that starts verbally, with the faintest snippet of conversation, and extends mentally. But Monoma, the self-important, aggrandized asshole apparently doesn’t deign Hitoshi worth speaking to. No, he talks to himself, monologuing like his thoughts are a gift to the world, and leaving Hitoshi scrambling without purchase against the smooth cage of Monoma’s skull, looking for a way in.

With a flurry of movement, Monoma gets in close. Hitoshi flinches to the side, a senseless, instinctual attempt to dodge whatever attack the other is planning. Regaining his feet after a moment of clumsy stumbling, Hitoshi brings his arms up in what might be some kind of guard – he’s pretty sure that’s a thing in martial arts, isn’t it? Monoma smirks. He is no longer advancing, standing a few feet away. His stance seems casual at first glance, but while Hitoshi takes advantage of the breathing room, he sees the firm way Monoma’s feet are planted, the way his hands hover by his hips, ready to move at a moment’s notice.

“Man, think of all the things you could do with this one,” he says, rolling his head back but keeping careful eyes on Hitoshi while he does. “What? Nothing to say?”

There is a gleam in Monoma’s eyes as Hitoshi’s lips part, and there is a disoriented moment where Hitoshi very nearly blurts something out – maybe a “what the hell are you on about?” or a “do you ever shut the fuck up?” – and then he snaps his teeth down, catching the tip of his tongue between them. The shadowy thing Monoma did in the last round, but has shown no sign of doing again; “returning the favor;” Present Mic had even said it, hadn’t he? Copy cat.

It’s a goddamned copy quirk.

Okay, so it’s a copy quirk. To be on the safe side, assume Asshole has Hitoshi’s quirk, and he knows how it works, and he plans to catch Hitoshi in the same net Hitoshi used against him for the cavalry battle, as some sort of poetic justice or something. Or maybe Monoma’s just an asshole who gets his rocks off by turning people’s abilities against them. Honestly, Hitoshi can’t blame him, because he would probably do the same thing in Monoma’s situation, except wait – Hitoshi can totally blame him, even if it’s hypocritical, because Hitoshi is an asshole, too. So, really, fuck Monoma, and what the fuck is Hitoshi meant to do now?

“You should see your face,” Monoma says, apparently too dignified to snicker but just as mocking. “Who’s the fool, now?”

Hitoshi is panicking. He’s panicking, and obviously that’s not great for his thought process, but it feels a little bit like his senses have been dialed up to eleven, and he can see the exact moment Monoma decides that Hitoshi is just one pathetic joke, the moment where he stops taking Hitoshi even remotely seriously. Monoma’s shoulders go slack, his weight shifts over one of his legs, his arms cross dismissively in front of him.

And Hitoshi, still panicking, throws himself forward and punches Monoma in the face. Something crunches. Definitely Monoma’s nose; maybe Hitoshi’s hand.

“Fuck!” Monoma curses loudly, staggering back a few steps. Blood drips into his palm as he brings a hand to his face, hissing. Hitoshi stares, dazed. His hand aches, fingers trembling as he tries to extend them. There’s a cut on his pinky – probably from Monoma’s teeth, he realizes. It’s shallow, more of a scrape really, but he can’t even feel the sting of it through the burn of his knuckles, like his bones have been replaced by live coals.

“You should see your face,” Hitoshi says, words welling up without conscious thought. Monoma does look ridiculous, though, if in a slightly gory kind of way – eyes wide, pale face contrasting with the vibrant red smeared over the lower half of his features. Hitoshi probably doesn’t look much better, eyes just as wide, face just as pale, shadows beneath his eyes like smudged charcoal, cradling his fist against his chest like he can’t believe what just happened.

“You fucker,” Monoma spits. His condescending smile is gone, replaced by a scowl that peels his lips away from blood-stained teeth. “You broke my goddamned nose!” With his sinuses clogged with blood, the words come out muffled, and Hitoshi bites his cheek to keep himself from laughing.

Monoma pulls his hand away from his face, little droplets of blood flying from his fingertips to splatter against the dirt. He lunges forward, movement abrupt and coordinated enough that it catches Hitoshi off guard. Monoma grabs him by the collar of his jacket, hauling Hitoshi in close.

“Remember, you’re the one who chose to do this the painful way.”

Hitoshi scratches at Monoma’s wrist with his good hand as the asshole winds his other arm back. Sunlight glints off the peaks of Monoma’s knuckles, suddenly white-silver and blinding. Hitoshi cringes away, eyes clenching shut and head turning to the side as his shoulders hunch up to guard his ears. The punch hits him like a battering ram, a direct blow to the ridge of his cheekbone, setting off a burst of color behind his closed eyelids, a ringing in his ears. Hitoshi is not conscious of falling, but he knows when he lands on his injured hand, his weight pressing it into the ground, igniting the hot-coal pain, fire licking up his wrist.  

“Shinsou,” Midnight calls from the sidelines after a dizzy moment of recalibration, “can you continue?” His vision clears like ink bleeding color back into the world. He struggles back up onto his hands and knees, carefully keeping his weight off his bad hand.

Monoma huffs a stuffy sigh above him. “You did well to make it this far,” the asshole says, voice once again controlled and patronizing. “But you’re just not cut out to go farther. Any final words?”

Vitriolic words on the tip of his tongue, Hitoshi opens his mouth. Monoma’s eyes glint. Copy quirk, right. He still has Brainwashing. So be it. Hitoshi rocks forward, placing the brunt of his weight on his injured hand, where the bones shift and grate and grind together beneath his skin like a collection of molten knives.

“I’m not done yet,” he says, voice strained.

“Oh yes, you are,” Monoma responds with a predatory smirk.

And for half a second, Hitoshi can feel it, like a thick fog that tries to close around him from the inside out. But it is lit red-hot by the constant shifting pressure he has on his broken hand, and he clings to that feeling until the sharpness of it slices clean through the tether Monoma attempted to create between them.

At the same time, Hitoshi reaches out from within himself, seizing a grip on the light that flared to life in the back of his mind with Monoma’s last words, turning the tables in an instant. He grabs control and tells the connection very firmly that it will not break.

“Repeat after me, loudly” Hitoshi instructs, gritting his teeth as his head throbs. “I give up.”

“I give up.”

Hitoshi drops the connection immediately, reveling in the aghast look that spreads over Monoma’s face as Midnight snaps her flog. This time, Hitoshi does not bother to stifle his laugh, but it is quiet under the cheer of the crowd.

“Guess you’re just not cut out to go farther,” he says with false sympathy. The blood over Monoma’s face mostly conceals the extent of his embarrassed anger, but the red flush of the tips of his ears is unmistakable. Without a word, he spins, storming off the field with his neck stiff and head held defiantly high.

Hitoshi sits in the dirt, unsure for the moment if his legs will support him and unwilling to take the gamble. Above Midnight’s stage, the bracket comes back on screen, and Hitoshi’s line glows a brilliant gold as he advances to the next round. Hitoshi has made it to the semi-finals.

And so has Midoriya Izuku.

By the time the day is over, everyone will know exactly what happens during the sports festival.

People don’t even need to have watched the festival to know what happens during it. Certainly, many of them see it for themselves. Those lucky enough to have tickets see it as part of the massive cheering stadium crowd. Others watch live over a screen from the comfort of their couch or bed. Still more drag themselves home after a long day’s work and pull up recordings as they unwind. The remainder may choose not to watch the festival at all, but for weeks the news of what happened will be everywhere.

Here what they will all say, here is what everyone will know:

They will know that Shinsou Hitoshi beats Monoma Neito, swinging the match in his favor at the last second. They will know that Shoji Mezo beats Asui Tsuyu, grabbing her by the tongue and flinging her out of bounds. They will know Bakugou Katsuki beats Iida Tenya, using Iida’s speed against him to chase him over the line.

And if, for some reason, someone doesn’t know these things, the confusion is easily remedied. A quick internet search will immediately answer any questions, settle any debates.

There is nothing to doubt. It’s objective reality.

Except – everyone experiences reality just a little bit differently, don’t they?

Yes, everyone will know exactly what happens during the sports festival. But they won’t all know it the same exact way. Afterall, there are a million sides to every story – written and unwritten, read and unread, treasured and burned. If there is such a thing as an objective reality, no one lives in it.

Everyone will know that Shinsou Hitoshi beats Monoma Neito.

But only Aizawa Shouta and Yamada Hizashi know that Shouta leans forward in his seat when Shinsou enters the field, and Shouta doesn’t even know that his husband knows, because Hizashi is kind enough not to tease about the display of interest, just this once. Only Todoroki Shouto and Midoriya Izuku know about the conversation they have while the match plays on a screen in the corner of the room, and both boys know different things about this conversation – Izuku speaking truths he has bled to learn and Shouto hearing hopeful absurdities, the sort he hasn’t entertained in a decade. Only Shinsou Toshiyuki knows that he is watching clips of the festival between appointments, and only he knows the duality of his own feelings, the hope for success – Hitoshi would be so much happier – the hope for failure – it would be so much easier – and the doubtful shame that wells inside him for being conflicted on the matter at all.

Everyone will know that Shoji Mezo beats Asui Tsuyu.

But only Asui Tsuyu knows that she doesn’t mind losing, that she is happy with how far she has come, and that any disappointment she might have felt is tempered by the certainty that, back home, see has made her younger siblings proud. Only the Asui household knows the way the children, Samidare and Satsuki, kept home from school for the special event, shake each other by the arms in their excitement, shouting as their mother scolds them to keep their voices down, but only half-heartedly. Only Shoji Shika knows that tears well in her eyes as she lets the cheers for her son’s victory wash over her, overwhelmed with relief-gratitude-joy, because people can be so cruel, but her baby – her kind, gentle baby – is carving a place for himself in the world and helping to make it a better place as he does.

Everyone will know that Bakugou Katsuki beats Iida Tenya.

But only Bakugou Katsuki knows that the victory makes his arms itch because it feels meaningless to him, because he is very suddenly not sure what he is fighting for, because things are different, knowing what he knows now – knowing that maybe, all this time, he hasn’t known half as much as he thought. Only Bakugou Masaru and Bakugou Mitsuki know that their son is going to come home a different person, for better or worse, finally at a tipping point that they both know they probably should have pushed him to sooner. Only Iida Tenya knows that the entire fight was a charade, a joke, a waste of time, because while he was playing hero, trying his hardest to live up to his brother, Tensei was getting struck down, and now he might not live at all.

Everyone will know exactly what happens during the sports festival. Shinsou Hitoshi beats Monoma Neito. Shoji Mezo beats Asui Tsuyu. Bakugou Katsuki beats Iida Tenya.

And that’s all anyone will ever say.

When Hitoshi went to the infirmary to have Recovery Girl patch him up, he resolutely ignored Midoriya. Midoriya, sitting placidly on one of the cots, occasionally chatting idly with Recovery Girl, seemed content to do the same. Now, Hitoshi can’t avoid looking at Midoriya. Across the field, Midoriya looks back, intense enough that Hitoshi stares at the bridge of his nose rather than meeting his eyes.

Physically, neither of them are in great shape. All of Hitoshi’s bones are back where they’re meant to be, but his hand still throbs slightly when he bends his fingers, and Recovery Girl has given him firm orders to be gentle with it or risk undoing all her work. His face is in worse shape, healed to a mottled purple and blue bruise that spreads from below his left eye all the way down to his jaw, protesting at every touch, but the concussion he received from Monoma’s steel-plated fist has been dealt with. Midoriya’s arms are marbled with burns, shiny and wet under the sun, skin bubbling up along his fingers and the corners of his mouth, looking raw and exposed. He’s worse off than Hitoshi is, Hitoshi would guess, except for the fact that Midoriya seems completely unaffected by his lingering injuries, while Hitoshi feels all kinds of uncomfortable with his own.

As if he needed another disadvantage in this fight.

Just for fun, let’s count the number of ways Midoriya has a leg up on Hitoshi: