Chapter Text
Izuku is lying on his stomach. There’s something soft beneath him.
Then his heart starts racing and for a few moments he doesn’t remember why.
Without warning, everything that’s happened catches up to him. Lighting the warehouse on fire. Watching from the crowd. Eraserhead. The other hero. The feedback. Kurogiri’s portal pulling him down.
A wave of nausea rolls over him. He winces. His head is pounding. He can feel his quirk. It’s not silent, which would be much better. Instead it’s punishingly loud. It feels like a thousand different impulses at the same time. The vines are crawling across his arms in erratic fits. It feels deeply wrong.
He spends a long time with his eyes closed, trying to get used to the feeling. Eventually, the waves of nausea subside and he can think again.
Izuku sits up and looks around.
He doesn’t know where he is.
It looks like some kind of waiting room for an office building. It seems bland and nonthreatening.
Izuku’s laying on a couch. His brain finally catches up with everything that’s happened.
Why isn’t he dead?
He should be. He’d lit All for One’s warehouse on fire, then immediately been captured.
He should have been killed as soon as he was caught.
But he hadn’t been.
Izuku pulls himself up and looks around. His bag is missing. He’d thrown it at the hero.
Oh goddammit. He doesn’t have his phone. He needs it. He needs it very badly. He has to call someone for help.
He desperately wishes that his quirk would tell him what to do. Should he leave? Should he stay? Should he try and find a phone?
Oh wait. That’s a good idea actually.
But what would he do with that? Shit. He doesn’t even know anyone’s phone number. Well he does know his mom’s, but he absolutely does not want to get her involved.
The police?
Would that be a good idea? They might try and arrest him. Wait, that's ridiculous. Being arrested is much better than whatever All for One will do to him.
Izuku mutters under his breath and chews on his thumb nail.
Is this what it’s like for other people all the time? No wonder other people seemed so stressed. Having to make your own decisions sounds exhausting.
He should find a phone. He needs to find a phone.
He steps away from the couch. It’s as generic as the rest of the room. It screams ‘this is a normal business place’.
Izuku takes a few steps and tries to open what looks like a front door.
It’s locked.
He tries the one that seems to go further into the office.
It’s also locked.
He goes behind the reception desk and finds the door to the closet is also locked.
He tries the phone on the desk and finds it doesn’t even have a power cord.
Oh shit. This must be where All for One keeps the people he’s planning to kill.
Izuku starts pacing around the room. Trying to think of a way to get out of here. This is not his specialty.
Then he pauses.
He looks down at the clothes he’s wearing.
It’s his Overlord of Knowledge outfit.
The outfit of the person who All for One believes is one of his few remaining allies. A person who he would want to protect.
And if All for One had seen one of his few remaining pawns being chased through a series of alleyways by multiple heroes, he would probably send his employee to grab him off of the street.
Was that…what happened?
Had Izuku been caught, or had he been saved?
For the first time in a while, Izuku thinks that he might survive this. Because that might mean that this is what his quirk wanted to happen.
It might mean that there’s a way to get out of this.
That’s the moment when Kurogiri appears in front of Izuku. He looks weathered. The metal around his neck has been dented and his smoke seems more wispy than normal.
Izuku doesn’t even breathe.
“Overlord, you’re awake,” Kurogiri says. And it takes everything that Izuku has not to break out in cheers. “Sensei has called for you.”
Izuku violently pushes down every feeling he’s currently experiencing, and tries to imagine what the villain Overlord of Knowledge would be feeling right now.
“Of course,” Izuku says, trying to make his voice deep and smooth. He’s rather conscious of his own face at the moment. The rather obvious lack of a huge scar. “My thanks to you for the timely exit.”
Kurogiri says nothing, but the ground under Izuku’s feet turns to dark smoke, and falls out from underneath him.
Izuku lands roughly, and ends up on his hands and knees. The jolt triggers another wave of nausea from his quirk. He closes his eyes and breathes.
“Overlord,” a deep voice rumbles.
Oh wait, yeah. All for One.
“My apologies,” Izuku says, he cracks an eye open. He’s in the cavernous, dark room where he’d first met All for One. The villain is still sitting on the throne of pipes, but the wires and tubes are no longer connected to him.
His face, with the skin going over his eyes and nose, has been covered with a black mask, with pipes which wrap around his neck.
Izuku can’t panic right now. He needs to be a villain. He needs to ignore all distractions and feelings and get through this.
I am the Overlord of Knowledge.
He repeats to himself, like a mantra.
“The heroes—” Izuku says slowly, thinking, what would the Overlord of Knowledge say? What would he be thinking right now? Izuku needed to be that villain. “They attacked me. Their quirks…they had an adverse effect on my own.”
“I see,” All for One says, “Do you at least know what has happened?”
“Foresight.” Izuku pushes down the urge to laugh maniacally. “He sent heroes after one of your strongholds. Where a great number of your Nomu were stored.”
“He did,” All for One says. He leans back on his throne. There’s something off about him. Something beyond being an egomaniacal villain who’s killed at least hundreds of people for his own gain.
Izuku is still on his knees. The residual strain from the feedback is too much for him to manage standing. But he stares at the villain.
Then it clicks.
All for One is scared.
He’s frightened by what’s happened to his empire. His eyes and hands had been suddenly and unerringly cut off. Everything that he depended on for his power he’s lost without warning. All he has now is his own physical power. And he isn’t even sure of that, since he has no way to know what Foresight’s next move is.
Izuku has a moment of indecision. What is the best thing to say? How will he know if he’s made the right decision or not?
He takes that feeling and pushes it away. It isn’t the time for doubts. It’s time for him to be sharp, perceptive, and decisive.
“What will you do?” Izuku asks. “In response to the pure gall of this vigilante?”
“I’ll kill him,” All for One answers. “Then I’ll take everyone who he’s ever known or cared about and tear them apart, while making sure they know who it was that doomed them.”
I am the Overlord of Knowledge.
“Of course you will, Sensei,” Izuku says, teeth bared in something which was not a smile. “And I will be by your side as you do it.”
“You would stay?” All for One asks. “After the events of today?”
“Of course,” Izuku answers.
“Why?” All for One leans back in his throne, chin resting on his fist.
“Today was a setback, but I know that you are the one to follow,” Izuku says, deciding what to say as he says it. “Other villains, they think small. They have no intention in the things they do. No legacy which they try to build. They just grab whatever they first see. Like a child choosing a toy over a bar of gold.”
Izuku shifts his weight to his other knee. He ignores the feeling of vertigo which passes through him.
“You on the other hand, you understand legacy.” Izuku gestures to the huge cavern around him. “You create things which last. You don’t concern yourself with spreading fear for your own vanity. You don’t waste time on the things which don’t matter. That is why I think that I must join you. Anyone else would be a waste.”
Izuku pauses. He shouldn’t overdo it.
Well, he’s not really sure what he’s doing, but it seems like the sort of thing that his quirk would have him do.
“I see,” All for One says. There’s something sharper about him now. Izuku can feel his attention like a spotlight. He feels goosebumps on his arm raise with a shiver. “And, why, exactly, do you think I would take you on?”
Huh. Okay.
“I wouldn’t think to tell you what to do—”
“No obfuscation, Overlord. Let us talk without veils,” All for One interrupts. “Why should I take you on, should I not leave this place, cutting the things which tie me here, and create a new empire elsewhere?”
Izuku stares at All for One. What does he care about? What does All for One want?
Why would someone do the things which this villain does?
Egomania.
He believes that he deserves power over people, and that they don’t deserve to be treated well. A steadfast sense that being the person who he is means that he’s allowed to do the things which he does.
More than that, a belief that the power that he holds justifies what he does. If you can do it, then you are allowed to, because that is all there is.
Power.
“I couldn’t ever change your mind,” Izuku starts, choosing his words carefully. “You’ve been a leader for years, longer than anyone knows.” A gamble, but he needed this to have some meat to it. “But you have seen how these battles are being played. Brute strength has been useless. Foresight, along with your enemy, can break any defense you raise. Block any offense you send. I mean no disrespect, because you must have seen this yourself.”
“What is your point?” All for One asks.
Okay Izuku needs to back off.
“The game has changed, with the new player. It is now a battle of tactics and knowledge. It’s about undermining your enemy before they can see you coming.” Izuku lays each layer of his argument carefully, even if he doesn’t know where it’s going. “To win in this battle, the player needs to be swift, have knowledge, along with power.”
“You’ve not yet justified why I would let you join me.”
“The reason is that I have that knowledge,” Izuku says. “I am the linchpin which would allow you to rise victorious. With me by your side, the heroes would be wiped away.”
All for One stares at Izuku. Which is uncomfortable because he doesn’t have eyes.
Izuku leans back, settling onto his heels.
Time to wait. Izuku uses the lull to close his eyes. His quirk has settled down somewhat. He can still feel the vines jerking across his skin, but it’s no longer so violent. The feeling of a thousand urges has faded to the background. He still feels lightheaded and strange, but it’s manageable.
Izuku opens his eyes.
All for One is standing directly in front of him.
Izuku manages to not flinch, instead he stares levelly up at the villain.
Then there’s sounds of explosions and things shattering from outside.
“Ah, they’ve come.” All for One somehow sounds meditative now. “I guess it was unavoidable.”
“What will you do?” Izuku asks again.
“Me? Nothing,” he says. His enormous shoulders shrug. The muscles underneath are wrong somehow. “I’ve realized something, Foresight is not the kind of enemy which can be fought from the front. You’re right about that. But here is what you haven’t said.”
“What is that?” Izuku asks.
I am the Overlord of Knowledge.
“That you fought Foresight,” All for One says. “For years, you went against an opponent which took only months to tear my empire from me. And you even stole from him, stopped his plans, helped his enemies. You are the one most suited to fighting this enemy.”
“What are you offering?” Izuku asks.
“Everything,” All for One says, he holds out his hand. There’s a black dot in the center of his palm.
He rests his hand on Izuku’s forehead.
The wall of the building collapses. Light pours into the dark room. Izuku hears shouting from outside. The sounds of battle.
He stares at All for One.
Izuku feels strange. Like ice is running through his veins. Like All for One sent pure cold from his hand into Izuku. He feels like he’s not quite in his body, like he’s only just connected to his chest and the rest of him is floating. He feels his quirk start to move sluggishly, like it’s being pressed down into him.
“You will become me,” All for One murmurs. Izuku can feel the rage and triumph in the words.
Then Izuku feels like he’s burning. The heat is sudden and intense and Izuku can’t even bring himself to scream.
All for One lets Izuku fall to the side, and Izuku lays sprawled on the ground. Then the ground around him turns liquid black.
The last thing that Izuku sees is the heroes rushing toward All for One.
- - -
Izuku might have blacked out, because he feels himself jerk awake.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been unconscious.
He hauls himself off of the ground and to his feet.
He’s in the bar. The one where he’d first met the villains as Overlord of Knowledge. The secret hideout.
It’s empty, from what Izuku can see. He sighs, then a wave of pain sends him back to his knees.
It’s his arms. It feels like the skin is tearing at him. He throws off the suit jacket he’d been disguised in and stares at his hands.
There’s something deeply wrong with his quirk.
Not in the same way that it’d been wrong before. It isn’t aimless or confused. Now it feels like it knows exactly what it’s doing.
And it’s attacking Izuku.
The vines, which had only ever felt like ink on his skin, now are like cuts across his forearms. Instead of smooth skin, the vines are lines of raised scar tissue. The skin around each is red and swollen.
The worst of the pain is on his hands. The back of his wrists feel pitted and searing, and Izuku sees a thick knot of dark vines in the place where his quirk rests when it’s not active.
There’s another pain though, sharper and stranger. Izuku flips over his hands and finds two small black holes in his palms.
Like the ones on All for One’s hand.
Izuku stares for a long time, mind muddy with pain.
He watches, as the vines swarm across his arm and slowly sees the pattern in it. The pain stays, but it fades to the back of his mind. He feels tired. Scared. But he just needs to keep going for a little while.
His quirk isn’t attacking Izuku.
It’s attacking what All for One gave him.
The vines continue.
They wrap around the holes in his palms. Whatever it is, it wants to spread, widen its influence. Izuku feels something in his gut, and knows what the holes are. They’re a quirk. A quirk with a mind. Like his own quirk. Something which has goals, and wants to use him to achieve them.
He reaches his mind toward the pinholes. The motion is like reaching to his own quirk for guidance, but this quirk doesn’t want to help him, doesn’t want him to understand.
Izuku doesn’t let it stop him. He’s spent his entire life dealing with an unwieldy quirk. This is his specialty. This is what he’s been learning to do for over a decade.
Izuku reaches into the quirk.
It feels like All for One.
Not like just a quirk. It feels like his mind is there.
The thing launches another attack.
Lines of black spring from the pin-holes, they spiral across his arms, up his shoulders and toward his head. They want to take control.
Izuku reaches for Foresight and it answers him. The vines tear apart the black lines. It hurts. Izuku ignores it.
The vines close around the holes. Blocking their power. Suffocating it like a snake around a rat.
Izuku doesn’t know how long it takes, but he feels All for One’s influence wink out.
He slumps down.
He did it.
All for One tried one last trick. He gave Izuku his quirk, and sent part of his consciousness along with it, hoping to take over Izuku.
One last shot at continuing his legacy.
Izuku doesn’t know what to think about this. He’s too tired now. The pain has faded, and he watches as the vines retreat towards his hands.
They’re different. Lighter, a little greyer. With a silvery sheen rather than a dark one.
His quirk feels wrong. Ill fitted, like it’s been stretched, then shrunk back down onto him. The familiar shape has changed, and some parts feel thin and weak.
Izuku pulls himself to his feet.
He should get out of here. Find Leader and Slingshot, get them out of Kamino.
There’s someone standing in the open doorway.
Shigaraki.
He’s wearing his whole villain getup, with the exception of the hand over his face. Which he’s gripping in one of his real hands.
When Izuku meets his gaze, Shigaraki dissolves the preserved hand and steps forward.
“I knew it,” he breathes. His eyes are wild, with deep bags underneath them. His smile is wide, and his lips are stretched and cracking. “I knew you weren’t who you said you were.”
“I’m the Overlord of Knowledge,” Izuku says, pulling the dredges of his persona around him. “It’s not my real name, or even my only one, but what’s a few false identities between friends?”
“You’re Foresight, aren’t you?” Shigaraki says, like Izuku had never spoken. “I thought something was off. You and him showing up at the same time? Too weird. Sensei didn’t notice. You were too exciting for him to doubt. A little mini-him? Nothing else in the world could have caught his attention like that.”
Izuku should lie. Should make a big speech and make a big thing out of it. But he’s tired, in pain, and his quirk feels like it fits him wrong.
Izuku just stands there.
“You’re good at it, though!” Shigaraki croons. He takes a few deliberate steps forward. “Such a good liar, must have been tricky, keeping all those identities separate. You did such a good job.”
Izuku steps back. Shigaraki follows, only an arms reach away. He smells like formaldehyde and rot.
“You made a few mistakes though,” Shigaraki says. “You made it too neat. Everything lined up too well. And Overlord only knew things which weren’t helpful to our cause. The cops thought Overlord was real, but no real villains had ever met him, and I asked a lot of them. Your scar.” Izuku’s back hits the wall, Shigaraki runs a pinky along Izuku's face—where his scar should be. “Well that was the last confirmation I needed.”
Izuku can’t quite breathe.
“So many mistakes,” Shigaraki says, smile cutting across his face.
Izuku looks away from Shigaraki and glances at the door. He freezes.
Shigaraki sees it and twists around.
He’s hit by a wave of ice. It launches him away from Izuku, toward the back of the room.
Izuku scrambles away, and manages to get a few feet before losing his footing. He sprawls across the icey floor on his back. A face comes into view above him.
“Shoto?” Izuku asks.
“Hello Izuku,” Shoto says, then grabs Izuku by the arm and hauls him to his feet. Izuku almost falls and Shoto grabs his shoulder to steady him. “Are you alright?”
Izuku wants to cry. He wants to laugh. He wants to scream. He wants to sleep for an entire day.
“Ehhh,” Izuku says. He sounds like a deflating balloon.
“Let’s get out of here,” Shoto says.
Izuku looks up at where Shigaraki had been a moment before. There’s a wall of ice across the entire room. Izuku can’t see through it. He does know that there’s a back door to this room and Shigaraki won’t be held back by ice for long. Not when he can dissolve anything he touches.
“Yeah,” Izuku says.
Shoto has to half-carry Izuku at this point, but he brings them to the front door and up the stairs to the street. It’s light outside, which confuses Izuku for a moment, then he realizes that it’s predawn light, and he’d been captured by All for One for an entire night.
Then there’s the sound of a guttural scream. Izuku’s stomach drops. It’s a Nomu. Shigaraki has a Nomu.
“You need to leave,” Izuku says. “Right now. I’m the one he wants.”
Shoto takes one look at Izuku, then picks him up in a fireman’s carry and starts running.
Izuku’s clinging on for dear life, but he hears it when the Nomu smashes through Shoto’s ice wall.
Then Shoto skids to a stop. Izuku twists around and sees a second Nomu blocking their escape.
Izuku really hopes that the last thing he does isn’t getting his friend killed.
“Foresight!” Shigaraki screeches from the door of the bar. “This is the—”
A wave of blue fire washes past Izuku. It forms a circle around them. Shoto drops Izuku and brings up walls of ice around them.
Then the Nomu start screaming.
It’s awful. Izuku presses his hands to his ears. The wrongness inside his quirk grows at the sound.
The screaming cuts off. The silence is almost worse. The fire dissipates. Where the Nomu had been, there’s now only charred lumps.
As the light spots clear from his vision, Izuku sees Dabi. He’s standing in front of Shigaraki, who’s shaking in rage.
“You,” he screams. “You’re with that bastard? You joined that cowardly, lying—”
Izuku doesn’t know what Shigaraki would have called him, because Dabi sends a wave of fire at Shigaraki.
It’s quick. Dabi at least gives Shigaraki that.
When there’s nothing but ash left, Dabi turns back and looks at Izuku, then his eyes shift to Shoto.
He sticks his hands in his pockets and saunters back to them.
“Hey there kid,” he says. His voice is exactly the same as it’s always been. Like he hadn’t just killed someone. “You caused a lot of trouble today. How’d it all work out for you?”
Izuku stares at him.
“I’m going to start crying soon,” Izuku says, because that’s the truest answer he can give.
“Fair enough, want to see some fireworks?” Dabi asks.
- - -
After Dabi sends a spiteful farewell burst of fire at the villain bar, he turns around and leads them to a car—one that Izuku suspects hadn’t been his this morning. He drives. Shoto and Izuku sit in the back together. Izuku’s tired enough that he almost melts into the car door once he has a chance to sit down.
“So anyways,” Dabi says blithely. Shoto and Izuku had been silent since Shigaraki. “I saw all the fighting and chaos and such, and then I thought; if All for One was to send the kid somewhere, and he’s not dead, where would it be? So I grabbed your Todoroki friend and we started scouting places. Good thing we got there at the exact time that we needed to be there, huh?”
Dabi looks through the rear view mirror and makes very intentional eye contact. Izuku stares at him, then rolls his eyes. That makes Dabi smile like he’s figured something out. It’s not a nice smile, but Dabi’s smiles never are.
“Lucky that it worked out that way,” Dabi says, then reaches forward and turns on the radio.
No one talks for the rest of the drive.
Soon enough, they arrive somewhere Izuku doesn’t recognize.
It’s been thoroughly destroyed. It looks like it might have been office buildings once. Not anymore. Buildings have collapsed. Streets have been torn up. Izuku hopes that the area has been evacuated.
When they get out of the car, Izuku sees who’s fighting.
It’s All for One and All Might.
Izuku stares at them. The actual fight is happening blocks away, but Izuku shudders at the attacks that All for One is using.
Izuku feels something land on his shoulders. He stiffens, then realizes that it’s Dabi’s jacket. Dabi, now only wearing his t-shirt, just shrugs.
“Thanks,” Izuku says, he wraps it tighter around him. He ignores what he’s pretty sure are bloodstains.
“Come on,” Dabi says, grabbing Izuku by the arm, “Let’s get a better view.”
He pulls Izuku along, and Shoto trails behind him like a lost duckling.
Dabi brings them to a fire escape, but Shoto insists on using his ice to taxi Izuku up to the top of the building. Dabi mutters something and climbs the fire escape.
Once they’re above street level, Izuku gets a better few, and sees the start of the sunrise. No wonder he feels exhausted. The light feels good though, and the warmth that comes with it.
They settle on an air conditioning unit to watch the fight.
It seems like it’s been going for a long time. There’s a wide perimeter around the fight, enforced by the police, and a number of other heroes are jumping in to help when they can. None of them hold a candle to All Might. Izuku hasn’t seen him fight with this intensity in years.
Izuku watches as All for One’s arm grows horrendously and he sends a punch at All Might which is so powerful it tears up buildings behind him.
Then he feels something. Something familiar. It’s a pull from his quirk. A normal one. Izuku almost sobs.
He listens to it. His wrists pull at him, and he holds his hand out to Dabi, like he’s waiting for something.
Dabi gives him a look. Then grins widely and tosses Izuku something from his pocket.
It’s the phone. The flip phone which All for One had given him. Izuku looks up at Dabi.
“After I heard about you, I grabbed it.” He shrugs. “Thought it might be useful.”
Izuku just nods and snaps the battery into place. He powers it on and opens All for One’s contact.
He pauses, wondering what to write, then his fingers move.
[Overlord]
I’ve escaped their watch, your gift is seated. Your legacy is secure, friend.
Izuku closes the flip phone, then drops it on the ground and smashes it under his foot. It breaks into a hundred very satisfying pieces.
Izuku looks back to the fight.
All for One pauses in the middle of an attack. His head tilts like he’s listening to something no one else can hear.
He laughs.
The sound is amplified. Far past what should be possible with human vocal cords and lungs. The sound booms past them, even from blocks away.
“All Might!” he crows. He moves upward, floating into the air to hover above the battlefield. “You think that you have won today? You’re wrong. Today was the worst mistake you’ve ever made. Today, my successor, Overlord, has risen.”
A light appears in All for One’s hand. It’s blindingly bright, even from this distance.
“He’s taken on my power,” his voice booms. “He’ll soon be even a greater enemy than me. Today will be the first day of your downfall. From my ashes, your doom will come.”
The light grows, then grows more.
Then it explodes outward.
Izuku barely has time to register what’s happened, but Shoto reacts instantly. A sphere of ice surrounds the three of them.
The shock wave hits a moment later. There’s the sound of cracking. But the ice shield holds.
Finally the sounds end.
Shoto and Dabi simultaneously summon their fire to melt the ice. Between the two of them it only takes a minute for them to bore a hole through the wall.
Dabi steps out first.
“Holy shit, kid,” he says with clear appreciation.
Izuku follows him out.
There’s destruction everywhere. The windows of every building within four blocks of the fight have been shattered. There’s scorch marks on anything that was facing the blast.
When Izuku looks back toward where All for One was, he sees destruction.
The few buildings that were left near the fight are destroyed.
Where All for One had been, there is only a crater.
“Looks like the old man bit it,” Dabi says contemplatively. “Huh.”
Then he takes another look at Izuku. His face twists. He takes a step toward Izuku and puts a hand on his shoulder.
“Everyone was evacuated,” he says slowly. “The heroes had warning. This is about the minimum destruction which could have happened.”
“Yeah,” Izuku says faintly. That’s the point where he starts crying.
Neither of the Todorokis know what to do, so they just sit on either side of Izuku as he curls into a ball and cries his eyes out.
It’s the most cathartic moment Izuku has had in months.
He feels like a huge weight’s been lifted off his chest.
None of it is his problem anymore. All for One is dead. His followers have been scattered or arrested. Izuku doesn’t have to worry about any of it now.
- - -
When they climb down from the roof and walk back into the street, the heroes are waiting for them.
Dabi pulls up short and grips Izuku’s shoulder with iron fingers.
Eraserhead is there, along with the other hero from before. Izuku doesn’t know how they found him, but he has no choice but to talk to them.
Eraserhead is standing in front. He looks years older. His scarf thing looks mostly shredded. There are holes and burned patches across his jacket and pants. His goggles are missing.
Izuku touches Dabi’s hand and he lets go. Izuku steps forward.
Izuku tries to figure out what he’s supposed to say.
The heroes don’t scare Izuku like they did before. Now they just seem tired. Like they’re going through the motions of finishing the investigation.
“He took it then?” Eraserhead asks.
Everything that Izuku had been about to say goes out the window. He very carefully doesn’t react, and thinks about what the heroes know.
They know that Izuku was captured as Foresight.
They saw All for One use his quirk on him and then saw Izuku fall.
And now they’ve found him, beat up, wearing a bloodstained coat, with tear tracks on his face, looking about to collapse.
And they have no idea how many little things had to line up for this day to end as well as it did. They think that Izuku’s quirk failed and he barely survived.
They think that All for One took his quirk.
Izuku looks away from Eraserhead. Shoto has gone very pale. Oh yeah, he has no idea who All for One is, or what he could do. Izuku only then realizes he has no idea how or why Shoto is here.
“He took your quirk?” Shoto asks in a strangled tone.
Izuku resists the urge to immediately cave and tell him it's not true. He needs to be strategic right now. The next couple minutes will be very important for how this plays out.
“We got him though,” Izuku says. He looks Eraserhead in the eye. “He’s gone now.”
“Yeah,” Eraserhead agrees. “You got him, Foresight.”
Izuku doesn’t need to fake how tired his smile looks.
“You made a real mess, you know that?” Eraserhead says.
“Yeah,” Izuku agrees. “I know. It was the only way to take him down.”
“That other villain is still out there, though,” Eraserhead says. “The Overlord of Knowledge. We know that All for One gave his quirk to Overlord. He’ll be looking for you.”
Dabi makes a stifled noise. Izuku looks at him.
With the scars that cover his face, Dabi’s not an easy person to read. But Izuku’s picked up the knack for it by now, so he knows that Dabi is trying not to laugh.
Hopefully the heroes think that he’s just worried for Izuku.
“I know,” Izuku, who has an ironclad poker-face, sighs. “I know how to disappear though.”
“Without your quirk?” Eraserhead asks. He takes a few steps forward. Izuku sees Dabi tense beside him. “We can hide you.”
“Thank you,” Izuku says, “But I think that I’d better not.”
“We can’t just let you go,” Eraserhead says, “Not after everything that’s happened.”
Izuku looks at him. His tired eyes and stooped frame.
He knows that Eraserhead is a good hero, that he only wants to make the world a better, safer place. Izuku knows that he would keep his word. He would do everything in his power to protect Izuku.
But Izuku’s not in the habit of telling the truth. Not when his quirk tells him to do otherwise.
And right now his quirk is telling him to talk to Shoto.
“Shoto,” Izuku says, turning toward him. “Can you tell them how we met?”
Shoto looks a little startled.
“Oh.” He looks at Izuku. Shoto’s not quite the actor that Izuku is, but he hesitates in a convincing manner. “Okay.”
He turns to Eraserhead.
“His name is Akatani Mikumo," Shoto says. "He worked for a number of years at the Todoroki compound as a gardener. He was my friend for much of that time. That’s why I didn’t tell you that I knew him after Stain’s attack.”
Eraserhead seems shocked at how straightforward the answer is.
“Is that enough?” Izuku asks.
“That is—” Eraserhead stops and looks over Izuku’s face again. Izuku knows he looks absolutely miserable at the moment. “Yeah. Yeah that’s enough for today. We’ll find you again. And if you ever need help, we’ll be willing.”
“Thank you,” Izuku says, genuine this time.
There’s a honk from the street.
The trained fighters startle. Dabi summons his flames. Shoto’s right side freezes over. Eraserhead whips his bandage toward the noise.
“Hey Sparky!” Leader calls cheerily from the back seat of Slingshot’s car. “How’d it go?”
Izuku, who has slow reflexes at the best of times, hadn’t yet moved.
“It went pretty bad!” he calls back. The heroes and villain around him slowly relax.
“Hard knock life!” Leader replies. “Want a ride back home?”
“Absolutely!” Izuku shouts back. “Give me a second!”
“I’m going with you,” Dabi says levelly.
“Oh. Alright,” Izuku agrees when he sees Dabi’s expression. He turns to Shoto. “Thank you, for, uh, saving my life?”
“You’re welcome,” Shoto says.
Izuku hugs him. Shoto freezes, then pats his back a few times.
“I’ll see you around,” Izuku says, then pulls back. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Shoto echos, a slight smile on his face. Izuku grins back.
He turns to Eraserhead. He just sighs, then gestures for Izuku to continue. Izuku marches to Slingshot’s car, Dabi in tow. Dabi joins Leader in the back, and Izuku’s getting in the passenger seat, when something stops him.
The other hero, the one with the future seeing quirk, steps forward.
“Foresight,” he says. “I’m sorry for the harm I caused you.”
Izuku looks at him, and sees the devastation in his face. The guilt there.
That stops Izuku in his tracks. He can’t quite stomach the idea of this hero spending the rest of his life feeling guilty for something he didn’t do. Well. Izuku makes poor decisions all the time. What’s one more?
Izuku stoops down into the car.
“On my mark,” he tells Slingshot. She blinks at him, then suppresses a smile. Izuku stands, still half in the car.
This isn’t really a good idea, and it isn’t something that his quirk wants him to do. But Izuku is done with causing people pain today.
“Okay,” he shouts back at the heroes, being fully honest with them for the first time. “I thought I should tell you that he didn’t actually succeed in taking my quirk. Thanks for all the help though! Okay now!”
Izuku manages to swing himself into the car as Slingshot floors the gas. His door bangs shut beside him.
Izuku sees Eraserhead fling his bandages at the car, but they’re already too far. The other hero looks dumbstruck. Shoto looks relieved.
Izuku hopes that Shoto doesn’t get in too much trouble for this.
“Left!” Izuku shouts, buckling his seatbelt. Slingshot makes a hairpin turn and the heroes are out of sight.
Dabi is laughing hysterically in the back seat.
They continue through the streets at breakneck speeds for a few minutes, with Izuku giving them directions from his quirk.
Eventually the sense of urgency disperses.
“Okay, we’re good,” Izuku says.
Slingshot slows down to a normal speed, then joins the stream of traffic.
“Kid,” Leader says from the back seat. Izuku looks back at him. His face has a sort of seriousness that Izuku has never seen on him. “Promise that you will never, ever, do anything like that again.”
“I will never, ever, do anything like that again,” Izuku says with complete sincerity. “I hated every single thing that happened today.”
Leader relaxes into his seat.
“You’ve got blood on your coat,” Slingshot says, “Did you get hurt? Should we take you to a hospital?”
“No, I’m fine,” Izuku says. “This is Dabi’s coat.”
Then something occurs to Izuku.
“Wait, did you get hurt?” Izuku asks.
“Not my blood,” Dabi says with a smirk.
“You’re super creepy!” Leader chirps. “I’m Leader, it’s nice to meet you!”
Dabi doesn’t seem to know what to do with Leader’s enthusiasm, and says nothing. Leader, however, has never been one to be discouraged by silence.
“Thanks for helping rescue Sparky! I’m a bit of a criminal myself, but all that fighting stuff is a bit out of my wheelhouse. I’ve always been the type to avoid the fighting part of villainy. Not that I don’t do interesting things sometimes! I lit a warehouse on fire today, which I think is some signifi—”
“You lit the warehouse on fire?” Dabi asks. He sounds baffled. “That was you?”
Izuku leans against the car door and closes his eyes.
“Yep! It was my first arson, actually, I’ve got a bingo card I’ve been filling out with different crimes and this might fill out a row. Which I think—”
—Izuku flinches as something touches his arm.
He’s disoriented for a few seconds, then realizes he’s in Slingshot’s car. It's parked on the side of a familiar street and is softly clicking in the cool air. They’re outside his apartment. Dabi had opened his door and is looking at him.
“Oh.” Izuku blinks heavily, he must have fallen asleep. He feels even more tired than before. “Thanks.”
He unbuckles and steps out of the car, except he’s exhausted and almost falls before Dabi grabs his arm and hauls him upward.
Leader and Slingshot are standing on the sidewalk.
“Hey kid,” Leader says, he pulls Izuku into a hug. “Please don’t commit any more crimes, okay?”
“Alright, will avoid that,” Izuku agrees.
He hugs Slingshot, and then she gives him a bag. It takes him a few moments to realize that it’s his bag. The one he threw at the hero. He has no idea how Slingshot even got it, had she talked to the hero?
Whatever.
Izuku half leans on Dabi as the two of them get back in the car. He waves as they drive away.
“I left my keys in the apartment,” Izuku says meditatively.
Dabi takes a deep, calming breath. But he doesn’t let go of Izuku. Which is good, because he would have fallen on the pavement if he had.
“Fucking babysitting duty,” Dabi mutters. But he helps Izuku up the stairs. He takes a tool out of his pocket, then uses it to pick the lock.
He drops Izuku on the bed, then looks around.
“What’s with the plants?” he asks.
“My official quirk is that I can make plants grow good,” Izuku says.
Dabi stops.
“That’s dumb as shit,” he says.
“Yep,” Izuku says. He hasn’t yet moved from where Dabi dropped him.
“Don’t die when I’m not there,” Dabi says.
“Okay, thanks.” Izuku says, because that’s about as nice as Dabi gets.
Dabi mutters something, then stomps out of the apartment. But he shuts the door behind him and Izuku hears the click of it locking.
Izuku makes the monumental effort to turn his head toward the window. It’s now fully light outside. It would absolutely suck if he couldn’t fall aslee—
And he’s out.
- - -
Aizawa Shouta sits down heavily on his desk chair. Yesterday had been a headache of unimaginable scope.
There had been property damage the likes of which they hadn’t seen in decades. Dozens of heroes had been involved. Multiple police departments had been mobilized. A minimum of a dozen procedures had been either ignored or actively broken. Not to mention the injuries All Might sustained from All for One's final attack.
At least now some of his questions have been answered.
There are still problems. The Overlord of Knowledge is still out there. And if All for One had been telling the truth, then he’d inherited the villain’s quirk. But that was a known threat. Something that could be worked on over time. It will take Overlord time to establish a power base, and when he does, the heroes will be ready for him.
Shouta sighs and pulls his computer to him.
He’s not pleased that Foresight, or rather, Akatani had managed to escape.
He really should have immediately got him in quirk-suppressing cuffs the instant he’d found him with Todoroki and the villain Dabi.
But the kid had looked exhausted.
It hadn’t hit Shouta until that moment that Foresight really was a kid. He couldn’t have been older than Shouta’s own students.
Something in Shouta’s chest had twisted at the idea of arresting him. Even after he’d told them that his quirk hadn’t really been taken. Shouta had made only a token attempt to capture him.
Mostly, because he knew that the kid was in danger from Overlord, and it wasn’t like the heroes had done anything to earn his trust.
But Shouta did have a name, and at least a few years of work records on the vigilante.
He sighs and runs a search on Akatani Mikumo.
He sees a few years of records. Years of perfectly normal existence. With taxes and an address. Perfectly solid.
But the instant he looks deeper it’s obviously a fake name.
Akatani Mikumo had been made up three years ago. As far as fake identities go, it’s solid, but there isn’t much to make up for the fact that his school records, his parents, and his address are all fabricated.
Shouta sits at his desk, very carefully not moving, for several minutes. The urge to smash his computer into tiny pieces is almost unimaginable.
God.
Fucking.
Dammit.
- - -
A week after Kamino, Izuku asks his mom if he can move back in with her, citing loneliness. She enthusiastically agrees and within a few days he’s back in his old room.
He spends his time reconnecting with her and managing his schoolwork.
Over the next months, almost without Izuku noticing, things start to feel normal again.
He texts Shoto. And in return, gets stories about being a student at UA and all that it entails. Shoto insists on meeting up every week to teach Izuku self-defense and Izuku reluctantly agrees to do so.
Dabi takes to sending him updates on how the criminal underworld is changing in the wake of All for One’s disappearance. He also tells Izuku about the heroes’ increasingly futile attempts to locate Foresight.
He meets Leader and Slingshot for lunch occasionally. Which is as entertaining and comforting as they’ve always been. They tell him that, for whatever reason, they’ve taken to faking further sightings of the Overlord of Knowledge. And have been growing an objectively harmless, but widely feared network of contacts.
And Izuku’s nightmares are mostly gone now.
Everything is quiet and uneventful, until his quirk tells him to get a cat.
- - -
“Are you sure you want her?” the veterinarian asks.
“Yeah I’m sure,” Izuku says. He runs a hand along the cat’s back. They’d said that her name was Chimera, but Izuku thinks that's a bit mean. He’s going to call her Bella.
“Animals with quirks aren’t the easiest pets,” the vet says again. He’s been trying to dissuade Izuku since he first came in. “Especially this girl.” He holds out his hand to her and she sniffs his fingers. “She’s sweet, but she’s had some serious health issues in the past, and it’s not going to be the easiest thing to take care of her. It’s a big responsibility.”
“I’m sure I want her,” Izuku says. He looks the vet right in the eye.
“Okay. Okay,” he says, lifting his hands. Izuku had copied that particular facial expression from Dabi and it tended to make people do what he wanted. “I’ll get the paperwork.”
Once he’s gone, Izuku crouches down and looks Bella in the eye. Well, one of them. She has one normal cat eye, and a few other ones.
She’s one of the rare animals with a quirk. But as far as anyone can tell, she can’t control it. The vet told Izuku that she had already been through a few owners, who had given her back after learning how much work she was. Growing new limbs and organs occasionally would do that.
“Hi,” Izuku says. Bella makes a noise like a distorted purr. She waddles over to him, inconvenienced by the different lengths of her legs, but not dissuaded by it.
Izuku pets her some more.
It takes another hour to get all the adoption papers in order and get her back home.
Izuku unlocks the apartment.
“Mom!” he calls. No answer. She’s still at work then.
He carries Bella into his room, closes the door, then opens her carrier.
She waddles out, and Izuku feels a pull from his quirk.
It’s different than it once was. Heavier, slower, but with greater pressure. Today is the first time it’s been active beyond the soft nudges of daily life in the months since Kamino.
Izuku reaches out his hand and sets his palm on the cat’s head. She purrs.
The vines curl along the entirety of his body, thin and fractal.
Izuku feels something new in his quirk. A sort of emptiness opens up in his palm, and then he feels something pass from Bella to himself.
Izuku breathes in and out slowly. Then he passes out.
He wakes up to the sound of purring. Normal purring, not the strange noise that Bella had been making before. He opens his eyes and sees Bella. She is sprawled across his chest and looks quite content.
She now looks like a perfectly normal cat.
“Oh,” Izuku says. She meows back at him. Then she gets up and starts exploring his room.
Izuku looks at his arms.
The vines are shrinking. Curling into twin dots on the back of his wrists. Now silvery gray, instead of the dark green they once were.
Izuku feels something new under his skin. It’s flowing and changing, like a liquid swirling through his body.
It’s not painful, but there’s that same feeling of wrongness as when he’d first got All for One. It’s not nearly as intense though.
Izuku concentrates on his hand. The feeling is unnatural, but then his own quirk spreads out and helps him. The skin changes to silver, then green. The fingers lengthen and shorten.
He examines the changes. Then he pushes the new quirk down and his hand returns to normal.
“Huh,” he says.
Bella walks over to him and Izuku pets her.
His quirk settles into his bones, satisfied.
So he has a shapeshifting quirk now?
The heroes are still looking for him. Izuku wonders if, armed with this new quirk, they’d even have a chance at catching him.
Izuku laughs.