Chapter Text
Civilians wouldn’t be surprised to find out UA owned five helicopters, four for training and one that could serve as either luxury, medical, or rescue transportation. They would be surprised to find out that UA owned a helicopter at all. The general public tended to think pro heroes could fly, despite the fact that of the top ten, only five could even get off the ground for any length of time. Hawks and Ryukyu could fly, of course, and All Might’s recent access to Flight added him to this list. Endeavor and Ingenium, however, could more accurately hover at most, or fall with style.
Most of UA’s teachers could fly, but only because they had pilot’s licenses. Recovery Girl wasn’t one of them. She sat in the back taking care of the still unconscious Mandalay, with an airsick Power Loader sitting beside her clutching a thankfully unused barf bag. Thirteen, or rather Anan, since her helmet was off, occupied the pilot’s seat while Hound Dog had squeezed himself into the co-pilot’s chair. He turned back to glance at her. “How’s the kitty-cat, Chiyo?”
“Still unconscious, poor thing,” she said, grateful that sound proofing technology had advanced to the point that you could ride in a helicopter without having to wear noise cancelling headphones and yell to be heard. “I’m getting too old for this.”
“If the Youthful Heroine is too old,” Higari said, “we’re all in trouble.”
Recovery Girl sighed. “I’m just tired of seeing young people getting hurt.”
“They’d be getting hurt anyway,” Ryo said softly, “but I know I feel better with you around to help patch them back up.”
“Physically, yes,” she muttered, then she shook her head. “I caught myself almost telling one of Higari’s students that I didn’t want to see her in the infirmary again the other day. Maybe it’s time I get out of the game before I make a mistake I can’t fix, if I haven’t already.” Anan set the helicopter’s landing skids down on the roof of the Minato Ward Central Hero Hospital with a gentle bump.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Higari muttered, “I doubt Hatsume would have paid any attention to what you said anyway. God knows she doesn’t listen to a word I say, especially ‘No.’”
“It doesn’t, but thank you for trying, dear.”
Ryo squeezed Anan’s shoulder gently as he extricated himself from the co-pilot’s seat. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll get the kitty-cat.” He lifted the stretcher out of the cabin, and then turned back and eased Recovery Girl down onto the roof of the building. “You two and Thirteen be safe in Kamino,” he called back.
“We will,” she said with a salute, while Higari climbed into the co-pilot’s seat. He never got sick when he was at the controls. “Wish us luck.” Ryo pushed the stretcher toward the elevator as they quickly got clear, letting the helicopter take off into the night sky.
Ryo pressed the button, and they waited in silence for a few moments. “Chiyo, you know you can talk to me anytime you want. Not as a therapist, but as a friend. I can recommend someone to you if you need some professional help. There’s no shame in it.”
“I might just take you up on that,” she said, reaching over and petting the fur on his leg. “You’re a good boy, dear.”
He grinned and winked. “You mean all this time, it was me? Whew, it’s been driving me crazy for years!”
She blinked, then slapped a hand against her forehead. “Who’s a good boy?” she muttered with a groan.
“I am! You said it. No take backs!” They laughed as they rode the elevator down to the second floor.
“No time!” Fumikage said. “I need your bracelet, damn it!” She took it off and tossed it to him and he quickly slapped it on his wrist, the size automatically adjusting to fit his wider arm. He pressed the button frantically. “It’s not working, and she’ll recover soon!”
Toru grabbed his flailing arm. “Calm down, it’s coded to my fingerprint.” She looked at his wild eyes. “Are you… sure?”
“Do it.” She pressed the button and Fumikage screamed.
A brilliant red light filled Fumikage’s world, flooding into every fiber of his being, and his nerves felt on fire. He wondered briefly if this was the light that brought the universe into being during the Big Bang, or perhaps this was the glow that would herald the arrival of the Big Crunch and mark the end of all things before a new cycle would begin. For just a moment, the universe held its breath, and all was the silence of a cemetery in the dead of night.
Then, Dark Shadow screamed, and the world trembled with the force of her cry.
Fumikage clutched his head as he felt as though the bones in his body were being ground into powder, but Izuku had borne the same because of his unwitting treachery. He didn’t deserve the cold comfort of crying out, so he gritted his teeth and took the pain due to him.
“No! Fumi, please, don’t do this!” Yosuzume cried, and his heart broke here in the blinding red light. “Please, please, I’m scared.” The terrifying form of an angry Miyazono was gone, replaced by the pathetically small form of the Dark Shadow he’d known since his quirk first appeared. The light was slowly shredding her. She sounded small and pitiful as she repeated, “I’m scared.”
“I… cannot stop it,” Fumikage breathed. “The pain is too much, and I’ve fallen unconscious.” He gasped as the pain increased, and he realized it wasn’t physical. Each moment, the cruel insults of his childhood classmates or punishments from bigoted teachers came to mind, things he didn’t even remember dredged up and parading in front of his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Dark Shadow.”
“Don’t call me that,” she begged, “I’m Yosuzume! I’m Yosuzume!” She shrank again as the light tore the darkness of her form asunder. “I hate you so much!”
“I… thought you were me,” he said, reaching out a hand. He saw a vision of his parents crying as he looked through a crack in the door, knowing they couldn’t protect their son. “Isn’t that what you told me?” The anguish of Miyazono’s death, still raw and never truly grieved, gripped him now. He’d tried to convince himself that he’d put that pain behind him, but he’d acted like a delusional fool. “If… I truly am looking into a mirror, then know that I love you, Yosuzume. I… never knew, and I’m sorry for what I carelessly did to you… to us… to me. I love you, and I always will.”
She’d become so small and tiny, but she reached out. “I do love you, Fumi,” she whispered fiercely.
He carefully pulled her into a hug. “You never deserved my pain, and I’m so sorry. You,” he paused and shook his head, “you were never Yosuzume. You were always my Dark Shadow. You were an Enenra! A divine being of smoke and darkness, kind enough to appear to me, even if I wasn’t pure of heart like the legends say.” She reached up and touched his cheek with a wing, and then her form dissolved into black smoke that settled gently on his skin. There, in that blinding crimson light, Fumikage curled into a fetal position.
No shadows were left for Fumikage to hide behind, here in this omnipresent light. All he could see was the truth of what he’d done, both as himself, as Dark Shadow, and as Yosuzume. If he wanted shadows, he would have to cast them himself.
Although his phone was undoubtedly destroyed somewhere on campus, Izuku’s shield armor was able to emulate his phone. He knew the school had called his mom and Ochaco’s parents, but he called them to ensure they knew they were both safe now.
Izuku delighted in hearing Ochaco ramble in a stream of consciousness about anything and everything fueled by the pain medication the hospital had given her. It had started with a discussion of their classes, but rapidly jumped to them forming a hero agency before graduation, and then somehow got on a surprisingly intricate talk about how the class would handle a zombie apocalypse. He tried not to blush when she concluded that ultimately the two of them would be the only ones left and would have to quote repopulate the earth unquote.
Izuku laughed until tears were rolling down his face, and her pout only made the entire thing funnier to him. Naturally, Tenya and Shoto chose that moment to arrive bearing pastries. “We are here with doughnuts,” Tenya said proudly.
“We brought four dozen for the two… what’s wrong?” Shoto asked.
“Zombies just killed the entire class,” Izuku laughed. “I’m in mourning for both of you.”
Shoto just looked confused, but Tenya smiled fondly. “Ah, pain medication. I would not poke fun at her if I were you, my friend. Let’s not forget that you rambled for two hours once about how it is unfair that men cannot wear skirts while under the influence of pain medication. Something about how bracing a nice breeze can be for the nether regions.”
“I have never said anything of the sort,” Izuku protested.
“I have witnesses, including Mr. Aizawa and All Might,” Tenya said.
“Hey, zombies! Doughnut me!” Ochaco said, holding out a hand. Shoto obliged and placed a jelly-filled doughnut in her hand. She bit into it shamelessly, red preserves covering her face. Despite having her mouth full, she groaned “Brains” in pleasure which triggered another round of giggles, including Shoto and Tenya.
Izuku shrugged. “She was imagining how the class would handle a zombie apocalypse. Evidently, she and I were the only survivors.” He purposefully left out the bit about repopulating the earth.
“Zombies are flammable,” Shoto said with a shrug. “Wait, would the zombies keep their quirks?”
Ochaco shook her head. “They’d be Nomu,” she said, or rather mumbled, her mouth full of partially chewed pastry.
“I would merely surround my base with treadmills,” Tenya said smugly. “My family owns plenty of them, and they could be hooked up to generators to produce electricity.”
“You guys don’t even have the excuse of being on drugs,” Izuku said rolling his eyes. “Thanks for the doughnuts, though.”
“Just call if you want more,” Tenya said. “We’ll be in the waiting room nearby if you need anything.”
As the door closed, Izuku heard Shoto mutter, “Treadmills? That’s ingenious. Tell me more.” This caused another round of giggles, and then they started munching on the doughnuts in silence.
Izuku admitted to himself that he was impressed. He knew when Tenya brought four dozen, he expected Izuku to polish off three doughnuts for every one Ochaco ate, but she kept up with him pastry for pastry. He wondered where she was putting all of it. He glanced at Ochaco as she tipped an empty box to pour the bits of flaked off glaze and powdered sugar into her mouth. “Mmmm! Sugar Rush! I’m super strong now. Ochaco smash!”
“That’s Rikido’s quirk, not yours,” he said. “Want me to go see if there are any more?”
“Nah,” she muttered. “Sleepy now. Rest.”
Izuku took her hand and held it as she closed her eyes. He smiled as her breathing leveled out and she started making the most adorable snores. If his phone were in one piece, he’d have recorded it, but hopefully he’d get plenty of opportunities in the years to come. He yawned and bent over the bed, knowing his back would ache when he woke up, but the Izuku of the future could worry about that. For now, he just wanted to be as close to Ochaco as possible as his eyes drifted closed.
“Kitty!” Ryu stage whispered, holding his hands up in the air dramatically. Officer Sansa Tamakawa, trusted left-hand man to Detective Tsukauchi, groaned in tired resignation as the other officer chuckled in what better be sympathy. Pro Hero Hound Dog rushed forward and grabbed the feline officer in a huge hug. “Ha! Didn’t even have to chase you this time, Officer Kitty!”
Sansa briefly wondered if he could get away with tasing a pro, but the paperwork would probably be worse than just enduring it. “It’s Officer Tamakawa,” he said, rolling his eyes, “or Sansa. Just… anything but Officer Kitty, I’m begging you, Hound Dog. I’ve been assigned to guard the UA students, otherwise, you bet your flea-bitten ass I would have run.” Why, he wondered for what must be the millionth time, do people with dog-based mutations love me? At least he stopped short of trying to lick my face.
“Hound Dog,” an exhausted voice said, “leave the officers alone.” Sansa saluted Eraser Head. Sure, sometimes the underground hero looked like he really wanted to give the feline-featured officer a scratch behind the ears, he’d never actually sunk to that level. He couldn’t even really blame Hound Dog, though, considering Principal Nezu stood beside Aizawa, and, well, the instincts that sometimes came along with an animal-based mutant quirk were more real than most liked to admit. If Nezu took off running, Sansa couldn’t say for certain that he’d be able to avoid pouncing.
Sansa saluted, but that had just as much to do with Recovery Girl’s arrival than any official requirement. The one time he’d been stabbed, she cut weeks off his recovery. “Your injured students are all here. Bakugo in room two-two-zero, Tokoyami in room two-two-one, and Uraraka in room two-four-one.”
“Thank you, Officer Tamakawa,” Nezu said politely, as the four heroes headed to room two-two-one. Moments later two students, one with frog features and the other who just looked like a set of empty clothes, fled the room.
The frog girl put a finger to her chin. “You went invisible, Toru, ribbit,” she said.
“Oh, darn, sorry. Nezu’s scary,” the other girl said, slowly becoming opaque. They both bowed to the officers. “Thanks for watching over our friends. Do you need anything? Our friend brought doughnuts.”
“We’re on duty, and that’s just a bit too stereotypical for me to admit,” Sansa said with a grin, “but thanks for asking.”
“Um,” the blonde, formerly transparent, girl said, “could I… scratch behind your ear?” He leaned down with a nod, and she reached over and scratched. The two girls walked away giggling, but when they were almost out of earshot, he heard, “Oh, my God! His fur was even softer than it looks!”
He glanced over at his subordinate, desperately trying to hold her own laughter. “If you tell anyone, Kaniyashiki, they will never find your body.”
Officer Monica Kaniyashiki looked straight ahead. “You can just call me Kaniko,” she said, “Officer Kitty!”
The hospital room was brightly lit, despite the late hour. Indeed, extra lights had been brought in, all focused on the bed. Recovery Girl read through the chart with a sigh. “Physically, he’s fine. All the numbers are in established ranges for his physiology. If he were a regular patient, once he woke up, I’d let him walk out the door.”
Aizawa frowned. “We can’t allow that. Tell me what they said again, Nezu, slowly, like I’m an idiot who would have first year students infiltrate a villain hideout.”
Nezu sighed. Evidently, and despite extensive explanation of Nezu’s reasoning behind choosing to use first year students for the rescue mission, Shota Aizawa had decided on passive aggressive sarcasm as his form of protest. It was frighteningly effective. “According to Ms. Hagakure and Mr. Shinso, Mr. Tokoyami insisted that Dark Shadow had betrayed him and the school to the League of Villains. Dark Shadow appeared during the escape mission and struck Ms. Hagakure and attempted to strangle Mr. Shinso,” Nezu said. “Mr. Tokoyami activated a flash grenade hidden on his person, stunning the quirk long enough to allow Ms. Hagakure to place her quirk suppressant bracelet on Mr. Tokoyami and activate it. He screamed and fell unconscious. He claimed to be unaware of Dark Shadow’s duplicity.”
“I’ve been itching to talk to Tokoyami,” Hound Dog said. “Sentient quirks are extremely rare, literally one in a billion, and there’s fierce debate in the psychological community if they’re real or not.”
“She’s real. I’ve talked with her,” Aizawa said. “My quirk, and that bracelet based on it, hurt her!”
“Hurt her how?” Hound Dog asked, leaning forward.
“Well, she said she forgot things, more of them the longer my quirk was active, and the losses were permanent. It hurt her to forget,” Aizawa sighed.
“While rare, Dissociative Identity Disorder is not quite as rare as the ten or so sentient quirks. Do you know if Tokoyami had any instances of abuse in his early life?” Hound Dog pressed.
“He grew up in a rural town with mutation features,” Recovery Girl said. “I’d be amazed if he didn’t, the poor thing.”
“If he constructed another personality to handle that abuse, it’s possible he used his quirk to make an imaginary friend real. Quirk manifestation and the age when children are most likely to have an imaginary friend coincide. It could have been a vicious cycle until she became a fully distinct personality, one with a ready ‘body’ to control so she didn’t have to take over the host.”
“I’ve talked to Dark Shadow,” Aizawa insisted. “They have different likes and opinions. They’re like night and… well, later at night. They were two separate people.”
Hound Dog shook his head. “That’s exactly how DID presents. There’s no scientific proof that quirks can have a consciousness, and the only ones that do also have some tangible manifestation that might just be a projection of another identity.”
Aizawa turned his back to Tokoyami just to be safe and finger spelled “O-F-A.” Out loud, he said, “He’s had that bracelet on for hours. Who knows what that may have done to Dark Shadow?”
“Noted, but also an outlier,” Hound Dog said. “Either way, I’ll need to see Tokoyami regularly.”
“Can we remove the bracelet safely?” Nezu asked.
“The lights are on, and I’m in the room,” Aizawa said. “I can keep Erasure active long enough to get it back on if we need to.” He fixed his gaze on his student and entered a code on his phone. With a few flashes, the bracelet shut off.
After a few moments, Tokoyami coughed and slowly opened his eyes. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but that led to another coughing fit. Recovery Girl passed him a glass of water, which he took gratefully and drank with his head turned to the side. He set the glass down carefully. “Thank you. I know why you are here.”
“We were worried about you, kid,” Aizawa said, “that’s why,” but Tokoyami shook his head.
“I betrayed my friends and UA to the League,” Tokoyami said. “For no other reason than bitterness over my treatment as a child. I was a fool and deserve whatever punishment you consider fit.”
Hound Dog sat down on the bed, gently squeezing the teen’s calf through the sheets. “I thought it was Dark Shadow who did that. You can hardly be blamed for her actions, can you?”
“She… explained it to me. All my anger and hatred, every negative thought, I pushed onto her,” he whispered. “I… did something horrible to her, but in the end, she was me.” He shook his head. “She said her name was Yosuzume, but in truth, she was Enenra. When the bracelet activated, she… started to forget, and I remembered. I remember all of it now. Everything I tried desperately to keep in the dark. Please, I beg you, the fault was mine. Don’t… let her memory be sullied because of my mistakes.”
“Can you still use your quirk, Mr. Tokoyami?” Nezu asked. Tokoyami glanced at the lights meaningfully, and without taking his eyes off the boy, Aizawa flipped the switch, leaving only the normal nighttime lights on in the room.
“I… she’s not here anymore,” Tokoyami said. He held out his hands, and darkness seemed to ooze from his pores, grasping the glass of water in a clawed talon. “The darkness is still within me, though. It always has been, I just denied ownership and, more importantly, responsibility. It was me, sir, it was always me. Every horrible act, every harsh word, the hatred of people without mutations, deep down, that was all me. I’m… not as noble a person as I deluded myself into thinking I was.”
“There’s no other consciousness?” Hound Dog asked gently. When Tokoyami shook his head, Hound Dog nodded. “We’re going to have meetings a couple of times a week to help you work through this, okay, fledgling? We’ll have you leaving the nest in no time.”
“I… think I need that,” Tokoyami admitted. “I remember all that she knew now, all those memories are now mine. I have some information on the League of Villains that might be helpful. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to provide that now that I’m no longer a part of the hero course.”
“Did you expel him and not tell me, Mr. Aizawa?” Nezu asked.
“I did not,” the teacher said. “You, Tokoyami, are going to need to work hard to get caught up now that you’re in full control of your quirk. Your time as a double agent gathering information isn’t going to excuse you from the Hell classes that I’m going to put you through in the second semester. Am I clear?”
“Yes sir!” Tokoyami said, sitting up a bit straighter.
“If you’re feeling up to it, a detective will be in soon to take your statement,” Aizawa said to a quick nod from Tokoyami. The teachers filed out of the room, with Aizawa the last one. He nodded toward the bracelet. “On or off?”
“There’s no longer any risk in leaving it off,” Tokoyami said. “I am beginning to know who I am now, and I have no doubts about who my real friends and allies are. I would like to ask for a favor, even if I do not deserve it.” Aizawa nodded. “If possible, I would like to change my hero name. Can I be called… Dark Shadow, the Enenra hero?”
“Run it by Midnight and Present Mic. I’m shit with hero names,” Eraser Head said, but he turned back and made sure his expression wasn’t hidden by his capture weapon so that his student could see the genuine smile on his face. “But for what it’s worth, I like it, kid.”
Izuku opened his eyes, and then blinked multiple times. He stood in the familiar valley, but the castle had changed. Parts of it remained the familiar stone, but polished metal had been incorporated into the structure. Instead of the familiar moon, the sky featured two, one with rings. “What happened?” he wondered.
“I… think it’s my fault,” and while it was the voice of his dream girl who said it, he didn’t expect her here in his dream. He turned to find Ochaco in a near death grip hug from Nana.
“Ochaco? What… are you doing here? How are you here at all?” he asked. She squeezed out of Nana’s grasp and hugged Izuku with all her strength.
“That’s our fault,” Nana said. “The meat popsicles, that is. We… were worried about you, kiddo, so we pulled a, damn, what does Toshi call it? A Hail Mary! You two had been, you know, smooching before you got kidnapped, so we started the transfer of One For All just long enough for me to tell your adorable girlfriend here where the bad guys had taken you!”
“Yes,” another familiar voice added, and Izuku spun around again to find Sakutaro standing there beside his brother, “and we didn’t anticipate that the result would be the formation of another Core of One For All. Nevertheless, it appears that your young lady friend is now the first in a new line of people who will hold One For All. Not only that, but the two of them are linked. Who knows, perhaps in time, you both will be capable of communicating telepathically through the bond. It’s utterly fascinating. Of course, with two of them now, maybe the name is somewhat misleading. Ones For All? Seems a bit awkward to say.”
“I’ve got to sit down,” Izuku muttered. He expected a bench, but a floating padded chair appeared. “Why’s there a science fiction spin on everything?”
“Why wouldn’t there be?” Ochaco asked with a giggle. “It’s awesome.”
“Won’t One For All hurt her?” Izuku asked.
Yoichi shook his head. “We don’t believe so. None of the power transferred, so it is essentially an empty reservoir that she can fill.”
Izuku shrugged. “That’s fair.” He glanced at Nana and chewed his lip. “I…”
“Kiddo, you don’t have to say anything,” she said. “I already thought of you like a grandson, so nothing’s changed. I don’t want you blaming yourself for anything he did. All that stuff happened before you were even born.”
After a hug to Nana, Izuku turned to Sakutaro. “I used my father’s quirk. How did that happen?”
“Noticed that, did you?” Sakutaro said with a sigh, and he sat down on his own floating chair with a nod of appreciation to Ochaco. “During his youth, All For One stole Yoichi’s quirk many times as, well, practice, I suppose. Often enough that there was some blending between the two, and we’re fortunate that they didn’t completely merge. All For One was originally only the ability to take quirks, while Yoichi’s was the ability to give them. All For One evolved to allow quirks to be given, but the process is imperfect, so a lot of… garbage data comes along with the quirk. All For One’s personality is imbedded in any quirk he holds long enough, and over time he’s used this to manipulate his pawns. Yoichi’s quirk, in contrast, allows the quirk to be transferred with no strings attached – the pure essence, if you will.”
“That still doesn’t explain how I’ve got Dragon’s Breath!”
“And Warp Gate,” Yoichi said softly.
“Yeah, and Warp Gate… what?”
Sakutaro sighed and shot a dirty look at his brother. “Well, since you asked. All For One and One For All are linked. When he tried to steal your quirk, it opened a connection between the two. Because of your own will, and that of your protectors in this world, he can’t take One For All, but you can take quirks from him. Your emotional connection to your father allowed you to reclaim Dragon’s Breath. Fortunately, he was unable to use it due to his injuries, so he probably hasn’t noticed. That’s a good thing, because he would prioritize your death, even if it cost him the chance to regain One For All.”
“What about Warp Gate?” Izuku asked.
“Well, that one is my fault,” Sakutaro said with a sigh. “I used your natural quirk to enhance the fragments of All For One that remained embedded in One For All, even after all this time. The Nomu are his shock troops, but his imbedded personality is the key that unlocks the door. Technically, they are still part of All For One. Access to the DNA of one of the Nomu gives you a chance to… copy their quirks, but it does take time. One For All needs to clean the garbage data before you can take it, otherwise we’d run the risk of a more recent copy of All For One, the person, getting access to this place. While held prisoner by the League, you spent quite a bit of time with Kurogiri. You weakened his grip on Kurogiri and gained a lesser version of Warp Gate for your trouble.”
“I didn’t have access to Kurogiri’s DNA, though,” Izuku said, feeling a bit sick to his stomach.
“He fed you by hand, didn’t he?” Sakutaro asked. “Yum, sushi with Kurogiri flakes. It only takes a few live cells. One For All can give quirks, but it can only receive them by essentially copying them. That requires DNA and the will of the owner of the quirk, and it takes years of reinforcement unless the quirk has All For One’s personality imbedded in it. That allows One For All to recognize the quirk as freely given.”
The entire world seemed to tremble. “What was that?”
“I think your hunky teacher is trying to wake you up,” Nana said with a snort.
“Oh, my God! Grandma!” Izuku muttered.
“Hey, kiddo, I’m dead, not dead,” she cackled. “You know what I mean!”
Shoto Akatani stood outside the door on the third floor of the hospital and took a deep breath. Tenya had offered to accompany him, but he’d shaken his head. Shoto wasn’t used to having friends yet and wasn’t sure what the correct limits for friendship were. He suspected they probably shouldn’t be expected to include an awkward meeting with his father. Slowly, he reached up and knocked.
The gruff voice that dominated his childhood answered with a simple, “Come in,” but the only time he’d heard it quite that soft was on television. Never in a personal setting like this. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.
He certainly didn’t expect to find Burnin sitting at his father’s bedside. Her face lit up. “Hey, Hot Stuff! Wasn’t expecting you here!” She glanced at the bed, then back at the carefully schooled expression on Shoto’s face. “Yeah, anyway, it’s been a long night. Mama Kamiji’s baby girl needs some coffee to keep her cuteness. I’m going to the cafeteria. Either of you want anything?”
“No, thank you,” Endeavor said softly, his eyes locked on his son and his expression as neutral as he could make it. “At least, nothing for me, please.”
“I’m fine, Moe,” Shoto said. “It’s good to see you.”
“Hey, you too, Hot Stuff,” she said, shuffling from foot to foot. “I’ll just… get something to eat. I’ll be back in, say, thirty minutes. That good?” Both men nodded, and she fled like Hell was five steps behind her.
“Sho… Thermodynamic,” Endeavor said finally after nearly a minute of the two of them silently staring at one another. “Your principal and homeroom teacher stopped by earlier and told me of the mission you participated in. Seems like you did very well. I… you should feel proud.”
“My cousin was captured by villains,” Shoto said. “I couldn’t just ignore it.”
Endeavor shook his head. “Of course not. I… family is… more important than anything.”
A hot rage seemed to crawl up Shoto’s throat, but at the same time his blood felt like ice water in his veins. “Are you… seriously going to lie there and say that to me?” he asked.
Endeavor shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Sho… Akatani. I don’t know if there is anything I should or can say. Not that any words would make up for the things I’ve done. I… wanted something, from the moment my quirk first came in. I wanted to be a great hero, to save lives, but I also wanted the respect and admiration and power that came with it. Somewhere along the way, I forgot my original goal, and just wanted the incidentals. It might not have made me a bad hero, there’s something to be said for having ambition, but it made me a bad man, a bad husband, and a worse father. Instead of what a father should be, supportive of his children’s hopes and dreams, I saw my children as tools to achieve my goals.”
“You think you’ve changed?” Shoto asked with more than a little skepticism.
Enji Todoroki looked down and shook his head sadly. “Do you remember the last thing you said to me? I’ll never forget. You spoke about your cousin, and said, ‘I envy Izuku. His father may have died, but at least his dad was a hero worth looking up to.’ I… should have been that sort of man to you, and all your siblings. I should have been the one who would stand between you and the monsters of this world, but instead, I became the monster. Natsuo was right. I don’t deserve your forgiveness and never will. All I can do now is try to keep the monsters away from you, and I’ve looked long in the mirror and know I’m one of them.”
“Fuyumi told me about this,” Shoto said. “I… didn’t really believe her.”
“Fuyumi is kinder to me than I deserve,” Enji said, and then gave a wry smile. “Also, I probably didn’t do as good a job as I should have in making sure she saw an optometrist regularly.” A chuckle escaped before Shoto could clamp it down, and with a bit of despair, Enji realized that may have been the closest to hearing genuine laughter from any of his sons as he’d ever gotten.
“So, what now?” Shoto asked.
“That’s entirely up to you,” Enji said. “If… you want to see me, I will do my best to be different than I was before, but I have no right to ask that of you. All I can promise is that, no matter what you decide, I will keep the monsters away, even… especially… if you decide I’m one of them.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” Shoto said, finally.
“That’s already more than I feel I deserve.”
“Sorry to wake you,” Aizawa said as Izuku sat up slowly, “but your back will thank me in the morning.” Izuku noted All Might setting a huge vase full of flowers on the table beside Ochaco’s bed. “We’re checking in on all the kids. I’m glad you both made it out safe.”
“Thank you, Mr. Aizawa,” Izuku said. “How is… everyone else?”
“Tokoyami is fine, but Dark Shadow is a different matter,” Aizawa said. “It’s up to him how much he tells you, but it’s personal and probably painful, so tread softly. He’s still got his quirk, kind of. You already know how Ochaco is. As for Bakugo….”
“He’s our next stop,” All Might said. “I must admit, I was impressed by the young man’s courage, despite his earlier… behavioral issues. He did prove his heroic spirit by confronting All For One, no matter how foolish it was.”
Izuku took a deep breath. “I could feel the darkness in him, stronger than ever, until All For One grabbed him and threw him at me. It’s… gone now. I thought he was dead for a moment.”
“What do you mean by gone?”
Izuku sat his cube on the bed and activated it. “Since Oracle came in during Hosu, I’ve been able to sense Bakugo. That corruption in his mind. It took me a while to figure out that it was the mental clone of All For One inside of him. I could sense it anywhere on campus, at least the main part, even when you had him underground. He’s right across the hall now, but,” and Izuku shook his head, “I sense nothing. I…think All For One took the corruption out of him, and it was tied to Bakugo’s quirk.”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” All Might said with a sigh. “That’s unfortunately the case where All For One is concerned.”
“There are a few other things,” Izuku said, “and it’s a lot to unpack. The vestiges started a transfer of One For All to Ochaco so Nana could give her my location. Yes, she had some of my DNA from us kissing, and nothing else,” Izuku said quickly to keep All Might from straining his eyebrows. “It… created a new instance of One For All, but it’s still linked to the original. If anything happens to me, all the power should be able to transfer, but Ochaco can also build this one from the ground up in a worst-case scenario.”
“That’s troubling,” Aizawa said. “You were enough of a problem before thanks to that quirk. Now I’ve got two of you to deal with.”
“I’m a delight, and she’s even more so,” Izuku said with a wink. “The other two things are… difficult to explain. When All For One tried to steal One For All, I found out that the door swings both ways. I… reclaimed Dragon’s Breath from him. If he knew, he’d never dare let me close enough to touch him again.”
“You said two things,” Aizawa prompted, dreading whatever Izuku saved for last.
Izuku held up a hand, and a swirling green portal appeared in the air. He reached into it and gently pulled his pillow from his bed in the dormitory back out. “If I get DNA from a Nomu, and have maybe an hour of contact with them, I can, at least in part, copy their quirk. This is Kurogiri’s Warp Gate. It’s all based around some sort of strange math system, and I haven’t even started to figure out what the characters mean, so for now it is limited to line of sight or places I know. Ultra Augmentation has already changed it enough to change the color.”
“You got… DNA from Kurogiri?” Aizawa said with a look of horror on his face.
Izuku shook his head. “Not like that. He hand-fed me sushi because All For One ordered him to make sure I was in relatively good health. It wouldn’t work on anyone other than a Nomu unless they were specifically trying to let me copy their quirk. All For One is taking and forcing, One For All is giving and accepting. That’s the difference, but whatever All For One has touched, the consent is implicit because….”
“The one you refer to as Sakutaro,” All Might concluded.
“Exactly,” Izuku nodded. “He’s like the original root password, hardcoded into the system. I’m not exactly in a rush to swallow bits of Nomu, but if we get desperate, the option is there. Disgusting, but there.”
“Did you notice anything about the… darkness in Kurogiri?” Aizawa asked, almost scared to hear the answer.
Izuku winced. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but the longer he was near me, the smaller it got. Kurogiri might be the oldest Nomu still active, but he’s… they’ve really done a number on him. If we could catch him, though, I might be able to break his conditioning fully with enough time.”
Say what you want about Kai Chisaki, but his genius could not be denied. To him, multitasking came as naturally as breathing, so he watched four different closed-circuit monitors while waiting for the latest test results and reviewing the dozens of major operations that kept money flowing into the Shie Hassaikai’s coffers. Three of the cameras rotated their view between a multitude of cameras both inside and outside of the Yakuza’s main base. The fourth constantly watched a single room and the most valuable item in his possession, the key that would bring down this society and place him at the top. A nearby television tuned to the Tokyo New Network announced that All For One had been captured by All Might and some new hero. “Looks like we can accelerate our plans.”
“That’s great news,” Irinaka said. “I’ll tell the boys to start squeezing every yen they can out of our rackets and expand into other areas.”
From the couch nearby, Kurono sighed. “What’s that idiot doing?”
Chisaki looked up, idling flipping the switch that would let him hear the audio from the fourth camera. The voice of the low-level kobun filtered over the speaker. “-e’re going to play a little game, Princess! You like games, right? This one’s a fun game that boys and girls play together. It’s like pretending you have an ice cream. Do you like ice cream? I sure do! You should be grateful, because you usually wouldn’t get to play this game until you were much old-”
The rest of the speech was lost to the slamming of the door against the wall as Kai Chisaki, also known as Overhaul, ran out of the room with Kurono and Irinaka hot on his heels. He stripped off one of his gloves on the way. Fortunately, he always kept his greatest possession close, and he didn’t even bother opening the door. A touch served to warp it around the door frame. The kobun had only had time to undo his belt, and his pants were still on. “Tsuda,” Overhaul said, “a word outside, please.” No sense in not being rude.
“Oh, um, sure thing, Overhaul, sir,” the fool said, desperately trying to redo the belt. “Ha, um, stupid thing. Keeps coming loose. I guess I lost a bit of weight. Eri here was nice enough to tell me it was undone, didn’t you, Princess?”
She looked up with fear and nodded quickly, but Eri would agree with what anyone said. Chisaki had made certain of that. “I’m sure. It won’t take long. We’ll talk in the conference room.” Tsuda stepped out into the hallway, and Overhaul glanced at Irinaka. “Fix the door, please, and keep an eye on Eri until we come back.” Tsuda breathed a sigh of relief at the words, “until we come back.” He thought he might be getting a promotion. In a way, he was. To an example.
With a salute, Irinaka leaped out of the small, black doll he usually inhabited. “Of course, Overhaul.” He leaped into the door and reshaped into to fit the frame perfectly.
Tsuda walked confidently into the conference room, having deluded himself that everything was fine. Overhaul was the type of guy who would just kill you on the spot if you displeased him. Maybe he’d done a good enough job to get his own racket to run. Thank God he’d held out this long, and he’d almost blown it in a moment of weakness. “You, um, wanted to talk to me, Overhaul?” he asked with a bow.
“You’ve been watching Eri for two weeks, haven’t you?” Overhaul asked. Tsuda nodded. “Have you won her trust? Is she happy? Do you play games with her?”
“Well, she’s shy, you know? Doesn’t really talk much, but she’s been watching ‘Preyure,’ and seems to like it! I was going to buy her some toys from it on my next day off, out of my own money, too! I want to do a good job.” The words tumbled out of Tsuda’s mouth in the face of Overhaul’s unblinking stare. “We, um, haven’t played any games. She’s been too shy for that, I swear.”
“That’s good,” Overhaul said eventually. “Just one more question, then. Do you like ice cream?” His hand shot out and Tsuda exploded before reforming a moment later with a gasp.
The kobun looked down in horror at his pants and the stumps where his hands used to be. “What…?”
“Someone who likes ice cream as much as you do should have all they want, so I’ve made sure to seal every possible exit below the neck. Call it a bit of good humor,” he turned to Kurono. “Get your hands on as much ice cream as you can. Tsuda here is going to have an ice cream eating contest against Tabe, and Tsuda will win. Have Rappa see that he does.”
“With pleasure,” Kurono said.
“But… please. If I can’t, you know, my bowels will rupture,” Tsuda said.
“That’s the idea. Make sure everyone knows, Kurono. Once that’s done, I want a new volunteer to keep Eri safe.”
“Of course,” Kurono said with a bow, leading the man to his fate.
Kai poured sanitizer on his hand and started scrubbing, but then a dark portal appeared in front of him. Kurogiri from the League of Villains stepped through, and Overhaul cursed that he hadn’t had time to dispose of the tracking watch All For One had foisted on him. “Kai Chisaki. I am here for your monthly report.”
“I don’t think you’ve been keeping up with the news, Kurogiri,” Chisaki said. “The entire world just watched your boss being loaded into an Iron Maiden, and one of the new models. Even I couldn’t escape from one of those. All For One may have been able to force us to cooperate, but your Dark Lord of the Underworld isn’t in power anymore. While I respect you, my agreement was with him, not you. Now!”
Multiple doors to the room opened, and Yakuza enforcers rushed in, firing at Kurogiri until their guns clicked. Kurogiri stood there impassively, surrounded by hundreds of small portals that sealed closed without a sound. “I am most disappointed, Kai Chisaki, and I am not the only one.” He waved a hand and dozens of portals opened across the compound before vanishing again. One out of every ten members of the Shie Hassaikai collapsed to the ground. Where Kurogiri had teleported their heads to, only the Nomu himself could say. “Even if the Master were truly held, his will is still free, and I am the harbinger of that will. Now, give me your report, Kai Chisaki, or the next time, I will not exclude your chief lieutenants or your precious Eight Bullets.” Biting down his anger, Chisaki delivered the report. “Very well, continue your progress, but remember, my Master wants minimal damage to the girl. Do not test him on this, he will know.”
Kurogiri is correct, young Chisaki. I will not be as forgiving should the girl be permanently damaged, or if a repeat of today’s foolishness happens again, a voice echoed in his skull.
“Slow and steady it is then,” Chisaki muttered. Someday, he’d develop a permanent version, and looked forward to shooting Kurogiri and All For One himself.
“Kitty!” Chief Tsuragamae yelled, and Sansa turned sharply toward him, ready to give the chief a piece of his mind. HR had explicitly said that people with animal mutations needed to keep instinctual influences under control. Sure, the Police Force couldn’t really enforce that with heroes, but internally… Hell no. Then he blinked.
“Chief? What happened to your… fur, sir?” Sansa asked. “It’s like it turned grey overnight.”
“Oh, I’m not your chief, I’m retired, woof,” the man said, a large box tucked under his arm. “He’s my son.”
Sure enough, the Chief of the Tokyo Police Force turned the corner. “Dad! You can’t just run off like that. You’re not the young pup you used to be, woof.” He turned and saluted his two officers. “Good to see you both, officers Tama and Kani, right, woof?”
“Tamakawa,” Sansa said, trying to suppress a sigh.
“Kaniyashiki,” the other officer said with a similar expression on her face.
“Sorry,” the chief said, “but I was kind of close! My dad knows one of the UA students, wanted to say hello and wish the boy a speedy recovery. Which room is Fumikage Tokoyami in, woof?”
The door to room two-two-one opened and Detective Tsukauchi stepped out into the hall. “Oh, hello Chief Tsuragamae. Mr. Tsuragamae! I haven’t seen you since the academy. How’s retirement treating you?”
“Naomasa!” the older man yelled with the same energy he’d yelled “Kitty!” before, pulling the detective into a hug. “Retirement’s boring as Hell after all those years teaching at the academy, but at least my game has improved. If you fancy a quick match, I’ll give you a handicap.”
“True,” Tsukauchi said, “and you’d still beat me.”
“You’d have a shot, woof!”
“And… that was a lie,” Tsukauchi said with a grin. “What’s the retired commandant of the Police Academy doing here so late?”
“Blame these old floppy ears. They hear very, very, very well! I heard Kenji talking about UA students being injured, and I know one of them.”
“Midoriya’s fine, sir,” Tsukauchi said.
“Midoriya? No, woof, I’m talking about little Fumi!” Mr. Tsuragamae said. “We’re birds of a feather, or well, he’s a bird, I’m a dog.”
“Well, he’s awake. I just got done taking his statement, if you’d like to go in.”
“Thanks, Naomasa,” Mr. Tsuragamae said. “And if you see Nezu wandering around here, tell him where I am. I want to widen my lead, woof.”
Mr. Tsuragamae slipped into the room, and the boy in the bed glanced up at him. “Um, hello, sir. I think you might have the wrong room.”
“Oh, no, I don’t, little Fumi,” the man said, handing over the box. “I even brought you a get-well gift, woof. Open it up!”
“I’m fairly certain I’d remember meeting you,” Fumikage said.
“Just open your present and you’ll figure it out, woof,” the man said with a smile.
Fumikage shrugged and opened the box. Inside was an intricately carved wooden chess set that folded in the middle to serve as a container for all the pieces. The white pieces were all dog themed, while the black pieces were variations of different types of birds. “It’s beautiful… Junichiro?” Tears started to form in the corners of his eyes.
“We meet in person at last, little Fumi,” the man said with a grandfatherly smile. “You can call me ‘grandpa,’ if you want. Junichiro’s easier to type than to say, and I’ve long thought of you as a grandson. I heard about what happened from my son. He’s the Chief of the Tokyo Police Force, and a pathetic chess player. Say the word, and I’ll disown him and adopt you! Would you like a hug?”
“I could use one… grandpaw.”
Shota Aizawa and All Might sat beside the bed of Katsuki Bakugo, and it almost felt like they were attending a wake. Katsuki’s skin, except for the angry red scar that ran from his right ankle up to his right eye, shared the same white shade of a corpse that had bled out. He did take slow breaths, though, and the heart rate monitor showed a slow, but steady beat.
“It doesn’t seem right,” All Might said, after the silence became too much for him. Aizawa raised an eyebrow questioningly. “I mean, I think this is the quietest I’ve ever seen young Bakugo.”
“Someone is going to pay for this,” Aizawa swore. The door opened and a nurse walked in carrying a syringe. He glanced at All Might, but pretended not to notice and nervously made his way to the IV. That’s when Aizawa’s capture weapon shot out and ensnared the man’s arm. “What the Hell are you giving him?”
“Aizawa! Let him go,” Recovery Girl said from the door. “Really. This is a hospital. It’s fifty milliliters of nitroglycerin mixed with saline. I prescribed it.”
“His body doesn’t produce nitroglycerin,” All Might said. “It’s a similar compound, but different.”
“God help me, the big buffoon’s been watching old medical dramas again. Where did you get your medical degree from All Might?” she asked. “It’s similar enough that his body reacts to it just like it would to nitro. And his body doesn’t produce it anymore, that’s why he’s gone into withdrawal. Just like we’d treat a heroin addiction with methadone, we’re using the only substitute we’ve got for the chemical he did produce. We’re going to have to wean him off it slowly.”
“Sorry,” Aizawa said quietly to the nurse. “The kid’s been through a lot.”
The nurse nodded. “I saw the news early. Looks like you all went through the wringer protecting the city. Thank you for what you did tonight.” He administered the dose and fled the room.
Aizawa looked up. “Wait. You said his body doesn’t produce it anymore? Bakugo did lose his quirk like Izuku feared.”
She took Bakugo’s pulse more for something to do rather than any need for it considering all the monitors attached to the boy. “I ran the test myself, praying that someone had screwed up. Quirks are tied to chromosome thirteen, and there’s always one big area that covers the quirk. The rest is mostly pseudogenes and a few isolated pockets of active genes that cover other miscellaneous factors. It’s as distinctive as a fingerprint, and I know class 1-A’s quirk factors like the back of my hand thanks to one member of the class. Bakugo’s, well, I know his better than most, because his genes were the only ones that never changed. It’s completely disabled, all pseudogenes now. The area of his brain that controlled his quirk is mostly dormant according to his MRI, and, if you need more proof,” she flipped Bakugo’s hand over and scratched at the slightly darker region that always produced his sparks. The darker skin flaked away, exposing new, paler skin underneath. “No more sparks. For all intents and purposes, Katsuki Bakugo is now quirkless, and barring some kind of miracle, the poor boy always will be.”
“What is this?” Tomura asked in a raspy voice as his Master removed his hand from his forehead. He wasn’t sure exactly when Kurogiri brought him here, as he’d passed out from… maybe relief, maybe something else… at seeing the Master still free. His chest started itching and burning almost immediately, but the vise-grip on his lungs eased, too.
“Merely a regeneration quirk, Tomura,” the Master said. “I know you’ve complained before that your…” he paused and turned his head at Kurogiri expectantly.
“…Party does not have heals,” Kurogiri said, suppressing a sigh.
“Yes,” All For One said with satisfaction, “and so I have made arrangements that it will not be an issue, at least for you and young Himiko. As for the others, you must decide which pieces are important, and which can be sacrificed.”
Kurogiri started to open say something, but Tomura held up a hand. “They’re all elites. I don’t have any scrubs in my party. We’re going for the achievement. We’re going to clear the raid with zero deaths. We can bring in NPCs if we’re expecting a wipe and let them tank.”
“Very well,” All For One said with a smile. “I’ll be counting on you to get my quirk back, young Tomura, and I know you’ll succeed. I’ll have the good Doctor create more copies of Regeneration for your friends, but that may take several months. In the meanwhile, we have some interesting projects of our own to undertake while the heroes believe they’ve won.”
“We lost the last of our spies on their side,” Tomura said, internally seething and thinking, it’s my quirk. “Both sides are blind.”
“Not quite, thanks to my clone,” All For One said, “but it is rather limited. Fundamentally, you’re correct. The board is covered by the fog of war. We will need to do the unexpected, and act in secret, to bring about everything we want. Go, spend time with your… friends, young Tomura.”
Kurogiri took Tomura away, and All For One smiled to himself, there in the dark. He breathed deep, ruined lungs aching from the exertion of the past day, but all the pieces were in place. With his rich voice, All For One spoke:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
There, in the darkness, beneath a prison named for a mythological Hell, no one heard All For One speak. Soon, though, the world would feel the power behind those words, and break underneath their weight.
Ochaco woke up a few hours later, her hand intwined in Izuku’s. She felt much better, and they’d taken her off the pain medication thanks to how quickly she healed. Sometimes she forgot that one of Izuku’s quirks was a Regeneration Field that extended to those he cared about. If she needed any proof of how he felt, recovering from a dislocated shoulder and concussion overnight would certainly do it. “Hey,” she managed to choke out, but her throat felt like sandpaper.
“Holy whoa, you’re awake. Hold on,” Izuku said, rushing to the sink and filling a glass with blessedly cool water. “You had me worried for a bit there.”
“I’m tough!” she replied with a grin. “Came in second in the UA sports festival, believe it or not.”
“Oh, I believe it,” he said. “I was certainly tongue tied after your fight.”
“Har Har, Mr. Funny Man. When can I get out of here?” she asked.
“Soon as Recovery Girl discharges you. I think she is checking up on Fumikage right now. We can go home or, if you want some extra credit, we can help with the clean-up in Kamino. Thirteen is on site, if that makes a difference,” he said with a grin.
She smiled and winked. “I’m pretty sure some cute boy once said, ‘Any time you help, you’re being a hero.’ So, let’s go help. After all, we are here.”
“Should I be jealous of this mysterious cute boy?” he asked.
“Maybe. He is so my type.” She laughed and he stole a quick kiss, but silently promised to pay her back later. “What did you do all night while I slept off the drugs?”
“Well, I slept most of the night too. I’ve only been up a little bit. I was just reading some of Kenji Miyazawa’s poetry. I think Cementoss checked in a few hours ago and left a copy of Kaze no Matasaburo with Mr. Aizawa.”
“Oh, I love Ame ni mo makezu,” she said.
“Ha, I just got to that one.”
“Read it to me.”
Izuku rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s heard it a million times.”
“I’ve never heard you read it to me, though,” she said, turning on the puppy dog eyes. “Please, Izuku. I’m injured. Ouch, the pain.”
“Okay, my poor, pitiful love,” he laughed. He sat down, opened the book back up, and took her hand.
“Unbeaten by the rain
Unbeaten by the wind
Bested by neither snow nor summer heat
Strong of body
Free of desire
Never angry
Always smiling quietly
Dining daily on four cups of brown rice
Some miso and a few vegetables
Observing all things
Leaving myself out of account
But remembering well
Living in a small, thatched-roof house
In the meadow beneath a canopy of pines
Going east to nurse the sick child
Going west to bear sheaves of rice for the weary mother
Going south to tell the dying man there is no cause for fear
Going north to tell those who fight to put aside their trifles
Shedding tears in time of drought
Wandering at a loss during the cold summer
Called useless by all
Neither praised
Nor a bother
Such is the person
I wish to be.”
“That was beautiful,” she sighed in contentment.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, leaning over her. “The only part of all of this I never dared hope for. You’re my hero, Ochaco.”
“And you’re mine, Izuku.” She used her quirk to raise herself up enough to kiss him, just like she did at the sports festival, and it was even better than the first time.
“Let’s go out there and be heroes together,” Ultra said.
My Hero Academia: Ultra Achievement – Beginnings Saga: End.
To be continued in: