Chapter Text
Thud, thud, thud. Heavy footsteps echoed down an empty hallway of Might Tower. Their source, well aware that he was alone, was giving himself this small opportunity to vent his frustration by stomping his feet like a child - the only way he could at the moment.
Pro Hero Deku, the vibrant, friendly Number One Hero of Japan, had just come out of a meeting with the Hero Commission and he did not like it. Not one bit.
‘High-profile cases,’ the PR people said, referring to flashy takedowns and major headlines and all the other glamorous bits of drama that fed the news industry, ‘will fortify the public’s view of heroes this generation, and strengthen your place as Number One.’
That was fine, except Izuku was here to solve more systemic problems than a single rampaging quirk user or a widely-publicized bank robbery. In the world Izuku wanted - the world Deku was meant to be creating - there wouldn’t be quirk rampages, or major news coverage of simple bank robberies. The quirk discrimination and rampant economic inequalities present in Japan and its neighboring countries wouldn’t exist in the first place.
Of course, only some charity work was considered ‘good PR’.
And maybe, after ten years, Midoriya Izuku just might be a little bitter about that.
Hence: stomping his way down the corridor, and using Blackwhip in the side stairwell to get down to the basement-level workshops instead of the elevator. Mei had messaged him earlier saying she had something he would want to see - or, well, she’d said something like that and he’d mentally translated.
“There you are,” Mei grabbed his elbow in a gloved hand as soon as she saw him, dragging him bodily through the reinforced doors to the lab. (He let her; she had to test that exoskeleton strength-enhancement somehow.) “You’re going to love this new baby I’ve created!”
It was… a small but complicated whorl of material suspended in liquid inside a tube of glass. Izuku stared at it, trying to figure out what it was, for five whole minutes before he had to give up and ask. Mei, good friend that she was, waited for him.
“This,” she proclaimed, gesturing dramatically, “is a vocal implant that you can toggle to change your voice!” And explained that, unlike Shinsou’s multi-option voice changer mouth guard, the implant was, well, implanted, and then he could activate or deactivate it with a thought, to deepen his voice. What made it better, of course, was that it was made of components that would never break in a fight - they bent and flexed back into place with the help of some very intricate tech that Izuku let her handwave over explaining, because he was one hundred percent for it.
Mei beamed. “Great! The surgery is tomorrow. I scheduled it with your secretary last week!”
Oh, Mei.
Having access to the latest in both technology and medical professionals with fantastic healing quirks - the very best the government could give him, which meant they could also take it away - meant Izuku was out for two hours and back on-duty in twelve, having had plenty of time to adjust to his new voice-changer overnight. He’d practiced with it all day during his office hours; it ranged from just a half-octave below his normal voice, all the way to a hair-raising, bestial growl that might have scared an intern in the third-floor bathrooms. Maybe.
But most of his ‘recuperation time’ was spent lying in bed in his apartment, grinning at the ceiling as he pondered all the possibilities this change opened up for him. Specifically, the stack of case files Izuku had been setting aside for months ever since he’d shot up in the hero rankings and become unable to walk around without being recognized. He’d begun to envy Yagi his relative anonymity in public, but the retired Number One had had the same problem, back in his prime: “The perils of the limelight, Young Midoriya,” Yagi had nodded sympathetically when he brought it up. “Everyone knows your face and voice.”
And now his voice could change; and he could already change his hair and face. Giddy excitement filled Izuku like a cup flowing over - at last, at last, he could do a covert mission! At last, he had a proper disguise!
So Hero Deku went out on patrol, doing the usual rounds of his Tokyo territory, so to speak. He signed autographs, caught a purse-snatcher (Izuku was beginning to believe purse-snatchers were paid actors, because never in his life had he seen one succeed in their crime), visited a noodle stand that would get swarmed by fans once he left, and smiled bright as sunshine for all and sundry, green and glowing.
And after six hours, knowing he’d probably flattened the crime rate for the evening with just the reminder of his presence, Hero Deku signed off for the next two days, shedding his costume and gear for civilian clothes in the locker rooms of his agency.
Midoriya Izuku’s driver brought him home to Musutafu - to the second apartment he’d bought for when he had days off, not far from Mom’s - and he laid down in his bedroom there, for a full night’s sleep in anticipation of the short vacation he had reserved for the month.
Not.
Stealth: one of Izuku’s favorite quirks in One For All. Thirty minutes after his driver left, a nondescript businessman in a simple black suit, notable only for his curly white hair, stepped out of Hero Deku’s apartment building and got into a cab a few streets away.
He didn’t smile. Hero Deku and Midoriya Izuku smiled at everyone; this stranger, still nameless, stared out the window and didn’t speak at all, save to tell the cabbie where he wanted to go.
“The Uscru district, Yokohama.”
It was a long trip to Yokohama by car. Izuku passed the time in abject silence, browsing the internet on a burner phone; then he lay back against the seat, surreptitiously cushioning his head with a tangle of Blackwhip, and closed his eyes to think.
He went into something of a meditative state as he turned over several pertinent case files in his mind, thumbing absently over the leather cover of the pocket notebook he’d been saving for a special occasion. (It was black with gilt-edge pages. He had no idea what that bit of glamor had caught his eye in the store, but it had.)
Some two hours later, they arrived.
Uscru, the harbor entertainment district: a desolate neighborhood centered around Vos Gesal Street, it was bookended by casinos to the north and south, and contained three of the city’s most unkempt subway stations and the highest concentration of drug sting operations in the region. Years of mismanagement by careless limelight heroes, who ignored this part of their jurisdiction in favor of the opera house neighborhood to the west, had resulted in a resident population with no trust in heroes or police: it had long ago fallen to organized crime to maintain order, instead, which they did. For a fee. From then on, the place had become yakuza HQ.
If the cabbie was uncomfortable driving into such a dangerous area, he didn’t say a word. He could have - Izuku would have redirected him to the opera house and then walked the rest of the way. Instead, with hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, the driver pulled the taxi up to a stop on the western fringes of the Uscru district. He then accepted Izuku’s fare and a generous tip without a word, nodding quickly, and drove off as fast as he could manage once Izuku had left the car.
It was now one a.m..
Izuku ran his fingers through his hair, yawned, and began the walk to his destination.