Chapter Text
The area around Isamu was juxtaposed with the ceiling of wherever he was a pitch black hue, seeming to suck in the light that rose in a fine mist below Isamu’s bright red shoes.
Everything seemed slightly blurred as Isamu peered at his hand curiously, twisting it around to get a better look at the strangeness that the environment had on his body. He let his hand drop downwards as he reached for the comfort of One for All, only to pause as he felt an emptiness that wasn’t there before.
No One for All. Isamu would have to rely on his physical abilities if something happened in here. Wherever here was, of course. It wasn’t the first time he’d been unable to access One for All in a situation, but he’d never been completely without it like he was currently. It was strange; different, reminding him of a time when he never got the chance to taste something as sweet as having a quirk to call his own.
He felt oddly naked as he moved forward quietly, the scenery around him barely changing as he counted his strides (which were roughly a metre and a bit; oddly enough, he’d never thought to measure his stride distance. Too busy with three million other things, he guesses.). He’d gone roughly three hundred metres when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle with a sudden influx of energy in the area.
Isamu halted and actually paid attention to the area. Now that he gave this strange space his full attention, he realised that there was whispering distorted in echoes all around him. He’d thought that the noise was this place’s wind flow, a massive mistake on his part; he should’ve known better than the assume anything. Especially when he didn’t have One for All as a backup against any potentially SSS-ranked quirks.
(Isamu wasn’t the fool his idealistic Quirkless pre-teen self had been, it had been wishful thinking for the younger Izuku to believe that he could keep up with quirks on All Might’s scale. Sure, Izuku could’ve gone into Twilight heroics while maining in Underground. But going Limelight? Being like All Might? Izuku would’ve been slaughtered. It was sad but true. Isamu’s younger self was idealistic, and a bit of a fool, but what child wasn’t at that age. It was on the adults in their lives to help see a better path for the child. Without the quirkism, of course.)
He reached into his pocket and grimaced when his hand closed around the air. Whoever had sent him to this place had decided to strip him of his weapons. Wise, but frustrating.
There was no way in hell Isamu was going to speak first to the being(s?) that was whispering all over the place. Isamu peered around the space, despite having walked carefully for as long as he had, he hadn’t come across anything. And it didn’t look like he was going to find anything.
Allowing one of his few childish habits, Isamu threw his hands up with a small grunt and allowed himself to simply drop to the ground of the place. He let out a yawn - something that made some of the whispering paused to giggle - before laying flat on his back.
The ceiling/sky of this place was rather interesting. He vaguely recalled this “blackest black” paint hued thing from the early 2000s, and Isamu couldn’t help but be reminded of the situation as he peered upwards at the darkened up.
He let his thoughts wander, almost dozing off after a while of hearing the whispers. Then, because, of course , he opened his eyes for a split second only to see a female hovering above him with a cheeky grin on her face.
Honestly, if Isamu hadn’t had the Genji twins in his class, maybe the woman’s actions might’ve frightened him. As it was, Isamu just raised an eyebrow as he took in her appearance.
The woman was dressed in what appeared to be a hero costume, but as soon as she noticed him looking at the white cape floating off her shoulders, the whole outfit changed into a baggy sweatshirt and track pants. Now that, that was something strange yet intriguing; the whole switching outfits within a second without needing to get undressed thing, that is. Isamu is firmly in the gay camp, thank you very much.
“Like what you see?” the woman smirked, giving him a teasing wink as she floated slightly closer. Just enough to be a bit of a hindrance to his comfort zone, but not close enough to break into his personal space bubble.
For some strange reason, Isamu felt like teasing her in return. But… those weren’t his feelings.
But other than the steady warmth in his chest that he normally only had with his brother and sister-in-law, there was something else hidden just under it. A couple of foreign emotions that definitely weren’t his (One was a mixture of annoyance and frustration, but there were a couple of other strange balls of emotions that were more amused) were hidden behind the urge to tease the woman back, but underneath them was this strange sense of familiarity; as if he knew this woman.
Isamu tried to recall whoever she was but struggled to pull up a memory. Reluctantly out of options Isamu shuffled his body into a cross-legged sit, “Sorry, ma'am but I’m firmly not in your court,” he grinned.
The woman laughed and let herself fall backwards, still floating in the air strangely enough, “Oh, I knew you’d be funny; Yagi did a good job picking you.”
And that’s when the amusement slink out of Isamu like a dog being scolded by its master, and instead of panicking like Izuku would’ve done, Nedzu-sensei’s voice was in his head, chiding him and telling him to think . To take in the information he had and find the solution.
Isamu had been in bed, just fallen asleep then he’d woken up in this place. That meant that either someone had gotten through the apartment’s extremely thorough security system that had been created specifically for pro-hero families or this was in Isamu’s head.
But, considering the quirk he had, Isamu already knew that he’d gotten to use previous users' quirks, why not being able to talk with the users? It had been something younger Isamu had been curious to see if it would happen, but never did, so he’d given up on it. But if this was it, why wouldn’t they have communicated with him until now?
Who was Yagi-san’s sensei? Surely he’d mentioned their name before… it couldn’t be Gran Torino, the old man was still alive, and Isamu had the vague idea that he might’ve actually met Yagi-san with the seventh user before.
It would've been during their Yuuei years; Yagi-san had debuted immediately after his third year, and Isamu couldn’t remember any other pros at the time who had been known for their super strength-
Hold up; wasn’t there that incident at the park? The first time Isamu met Yagi-san in the past? Isamu must’ve blocked it out slightly due to how nervous he’d been to see both former generations of One for All users at the time. Younger Isamu was quite bad at being so nervous that he actually forgot things.
HOLD IT. THE NAME WAS ON THE TIP OF HIS TONGUE-
“Oh shit,” Isamu blinked after his massive thought process that only took six and a half seconds in reality, “You’re Tenko’s grandmother .”
Immediately a scowl-pout appeared on the woman’s face as the whispers around them silenced before breaking out into laughter.
“Why did you bring that up,” Shimura Nana complained, crossing her arms as she finally touched down on the misty ground. “Didn’t your parents teach you to never bring up a lady’s age?”
Isamu couldn’t hold back his chuckles, “Senji and Kana knew there was no way I was going into politics or management, so they simply encouraged me in heroics,” he shrugged. The previous user of One for All probably knew that already, if she’d been inside the quirk the whole time he’d had it.
The dark-haired woman’s eyebrows furrowed and she opened her mouth only for a man to appear next to her and very unsubtly elbowed her roughly in the ribs. The man was quite short; only slightly taller than the woman beside him. His hair was the pre-quirk era typical black colour that Japanese people had naturally and the way the man had his hair parted sort of reminded Isamu of Shoto’s haircut. Minus the whole dual-coloured look, of course.
“Seventh,” the man gave her a frown, and despite the grown woman that Shimura Nana was, she wilted under it.
This must’ve been Shimura’s mentor, Isamu realised, the relationship appearing to be fatherly and daughter.
“Yoichi, they’re doing it again,” someone’s voice whined, and a brown-haired American-looking male appeared in Isamu’s sight. A familiar-looking man appeared next to him a moment later.
The American - Isamu guessed. The man was definitely of western descent, either American or European. But he had his bets on American - was much taller than the rest of them there. If Isamu were to estimate, he’d say the man was probably over seven feet, but probably slightly shorter than Yagi-san in his small form. And while he loomed over the much shorter man next to him, who had long white hair that was tied back similar to how Inko had done her hairstyle for years.
“You never shut up, do you, Malachy?” the white-haired man looked extremely done with the taller one. But despite this, Isamu could see the fondness that “Yoichi” had for the taller male.
Three more men appeared - poor Shimura, was she really the only female to have held One for All in the past? - two of them looked like they were attempting to hold the third back. Isamu was only slightly surprised to see hints of underground themes on the man’s apparel wear.
“YOU GUYS SAID I COULDN’T REVEAL US, BUT GUESS WHO’S THE HYPOCRITES-”
The bald man - surprisingly the only of them there that lacked hair on top of their head - shouting was halted by one of the men - another with white hair, strangely enough - attempting to hold him back. The man slapped his hand over the bald man’s mouth and looked like he put very little effort into flipping the bald man - who looked much more muscular than the white-haired man that wasn’t “Yoichi” - onto his back on the misty floor.
“For the love of all things holy, please shut up,” the non-"Yoichi” man with white hair hissed that the man on the floor.
Who groaned. Into the floor. Especially as the white-haired male pushed him down slightly just to get the point across before releasing the bald man on the floor.
“Hey, we voted that it was me first,” Shimura-san pointed out, looking a little smug from where she stood floating next to her mentor; Sixth.
Most of the men groaned.
Isamu just sat there on the floor still, finding amusement in this ragtag group of people who probably had spent years together becoming the best and worst people in each other's lives. As always in families.
It was actually kind of funny how much Isamu was reminded of his classmates just by watching them. All of 3-A had been chaotic in some shape or form, he had no idea how Sasaki-sensei had managed to deal with them for three years; especially when Isamu ended up becoming Nedzu-sensei’s student, as well as mixing in with the other departments (a large extent of that , was mostly Hatsume Kai if Isamu was allowed to point out.).
He just smiled his amusement to himself on the ground as the seven people squabbled in some shape or form. Completely forgetting that he was there as the bald man “Daigoro” decided to literally throw hands with “Malachy” who seemed far too stereotypical tv show American when he seemed to square up against the shorter man. Which was hilarious to see considering “Daigoro” had to be six foot two, max .
Shimura was cheering on the fight from her place in the air, while “Yoichi” seemed determined to pretend nothing was happening despite the exasperated look on his face as “Kenzō” buried his face into his hands beside the white-haired skinny man.
Isamu watched as “Hikage” and “En” grumpily attempted half-heartedly to stop the two men in a fistfight, “Hikage” having better luck at dodging failing limbs than “En” who reached out to either man with a hand and received plenty of smacks and kicks. By then the fistfight had turned into a spar turned into a brawl, and turned into a free-for-all for both men who were more rolling around on the ground than fighting.
But as amusing as this was, Isamu just wanted to know why he was here, and if the previous holders had been inside One for All this whole time, why was now the time they finally made contact with him? (He could’ve used some help when, you know, he was destroying his body by using One for All when he and Yagi had no idea how to get it to work for him.) Also, if this was One for All’s previous users, where was Yagi-san? One for All had most likely left Yagi-san in the final fight against All for One, so surely there would be some imprint of the man here.
Darn, he wished he had a notebook so he could write all his thoughts down. While he'd gotten much better at memorizing his own thought processes, there wasn’t anything quite like writing them down as they appeared.
Eventually, though, En managed to get a hand on both Daigoro and Malachy and Isamu watched closely as the dark-haired man’s hands seemed to pulse with a faint light before he withdrew his hands.
Not a second later both Malachy and Daigoro had both calmed down and were panting heavily to catch their breath. Wisely staying three meters away from one another in case another fight started; however, Isamu assumed it was more because of the glares that most of the previous One for All holders were sending the two men who acted like teenagers on a sugar-high.
That comparison made Isamu snort, and the carefree air that the seven previous One for All holders had around them stilled into a more formal feeling as they all remembered that their youngest successor was there.
(Despite being the newest holder of One for All, Isamu actually looked older than most of the users here. Hikage was probably the only one biologically older than Isamu, but Yoichi certainly looked old from the way his body appeared unhealthily even in this strange place from within One for All.)
“Yeah, hi, still here,” Isamu pointed out cheekily - pretending that he didn’t know exactly who ( cough, cough, Rei, cough ) had rubbed that off onto him - still seated on the strange ground. Which was surprisingly comfortable.
The silence tittered into something awkward as it went on longer. Isamu thought about whistling to fill the silence, but as his former year-mates had told him numerous times, it was not the wisest of choices to make if he didn’t want people to feel uncomfortable.
Isamu noticed how Shimura still looked grumpy, probably over the whole being called “grandmother” thing, so focused more on the men that were the previous holders of One for All (Minus Yagi-san, of course, who was (surprisingly) still alive, and therefore not trapped within the quirk.).
“You know who I am,” Shimura winked at Isamu. The woman giggled when all Isamu did was stare at her.
“This is En, our sixth,” Shimura beamed at the man beside her.
Her predecessor rolled his eyes at her, “Hi,” he grumbled.
“I’m fifth, Banjo Daigoro, you also might know me as Lariat!” Banjo grinned widely. He then glomped the other white-haired man that wasn’t “Yoichi”, “This is fourth! Good old-”
“Shinomori Hikage,” the man said drily, shoving at the energetic male.
“Third; Miura Kenzō,” Kenzō said simply to keep things going as Isamu was almost side-tracked by Hikage having to throw Banjo onto the floor of the strange place they were in.
“Annnnnnnnnd, I’m Malachy Banfield!” the American announced eagerly. He got smacked in the back of his head by Yoichi who looked honest to god done with this successor.
Isamu hesitated only slightly with which name was given and which was the American’s family name.
“Shigaraki Yoichi,” The shortest of them all raised his hand tiredly - ironically the same hand he’d slapped Malachy with - before dropping it to tuck his hand into his sweatpants’ pocket again. He sighed before voicing his number, “First.”
Isamu nodded. Letting his brain memorize each name and face - their quirks were quite obvious until you got to second and third, who didn’t show any type of quirk previously -
“So, why wasn’t I aware of you guys before?” Isamu asked. His closed fist was placed out from the edge of his chin, as he pondered it over in his head once again. It didn’t make sense that he was only now just getting to see or even witness the previous holders.
When the helpless looks appeared on each of the previous holders’ faces, Isamu sighed gently to himself. He should’ve figured that they didn’t know either; Yagi-san hadn’t mentioned anything about being able to meet with the previous holders, so this meant that this was probably the first time this had happened.
“Well, that isn’t-” helpful , was what he was going to say, but Isamu snapped his jaw shut when he realised he was muttering. “Okay, so there must’ve been something to do with the time travel that screwed with One for All; but a better question would be, why did the time travel happen-” he lifted his eyesight to peer at the previous holders who appeared to be in a mix of confusion, awe, and shock, “-? I definitely did not have a hidden latent quirk; we checked. So that means that one of you either has a quirk that allows for spacial movement or it was an added bonus that merged into One for All.”
Well, that part about the quirk’s history, Isamu knew. Yagi-san had told him while Izuku had been cleaning up the beach and his younger self had been far too curious to hold back his questions.
Isamu raised an eyebrow at them - Shimura, her sensei, and Daigoro were probably fine. Shimura had Float from what Isamu remembered of her, and her sensei didn’t look to have a spatial movement-based quirk with the calming down glow his hands made the other two holders. And when Daigoro and Malachy had been “fighting” each other, Isamu had seen Black Whip coming from the man. So who could it-
The shuffling of feet drew Isamu’s attention to Malachy who, despite his large height, was attempting to make himself smaller next to Yoichi who had seemly decided to just hold his hand to his face in an eternal facepalm.
Kenzō placed a hand on the American’s shoulder, keeping him from escaping. Kenzō raised an eyebrow at the taller man who sighed sheepishly. Before raising his hand, “I might, just might, have a minor teleportation quirk,” he mumbled.
Despite it being mumbled, his voice echoed in the strange place they were in.
There may have been several face-palmings. One definitely came from Isamu when he realised what Malachy was saying.
(There was an impression (a memory?) of being scattered into particles before (painfully) reforming in a secondary location. Nothing further than a hundred or so meters, and too much “teleporting” hurt like a massive migraine, but all over their body, after a period of numerous uses of the quirk.)
Isamu grimaced and had to hold his head for a moment. Good, god, Malachy had to deal with that? He’d known that quirks in the first few generations didn’t have the same defensives as quirks in the more recent generations.
“But at least that explains the time travel,” Isamu sighed. The power that One for All had collected and stored over the years must’ve meant that it had increased Malachy’s quirk’s power. Like going from a simple warp drive to a hyperdrive.
It was likely that the quirk had activated when Isamu was “in trouble” in his match with Shoto. He’d had similar experiences with blackwhip refusing to settle down when Isamu was trying to get a hold of his anger.
One of the greatest accidents in Isamu's life was a complete accident that was never meant to happen. Thankfully it did, but Isamu didn’t want to know what his life would’ve been without getting to grow up with his brother and sister, and all of their friends. The 1-A of now was great, but Isamu couldn’t imagine himself growing into the man he is now without his family.
As if the mere thought had summoned it, Isamu felt a tug in his gut. He felt sleepy, which was odd, because he’d been wide awake this whole time-
“Aw, man, Isamu’s leavi-”
⛰️
Isamu woke up to a very bright red colour he instantly knew to be Keigo’s wings.
The twenty-three-year-old was lucky that his wings were blocking the sun coming from Isamu’s windows that he’d forgotten to cover with the curtains waiting on each end of the large glass window.
The young man’s grinning face popped into Isamu’s eyesight a moment later, and it took most of Isamu’s restraint not to punch the young man he’d taken into his family.
Amusement in his chest that wasn’t his own made Isamu aware of the uncomfortable weight on his shoulders as he rolled them.
“Mornin’,” Keigo chirped rather happily.
Probably because he didn’t have to get up at the break of dawn every day to go through revisement training - the previous holders of One for All must be able to hear his thoughts, because it wasn’t just his rage he felt at the memory of Keigo telling him this - which was just him getting bet up by the Commission’s agents.
But Isamu quickly hurried that
paternal
rage into the bubble of emotions he did not deal with until he was alone; he offered the blond a sleepy smile, “Heya, Keigo.”
He rose up from the bed and Keigo moved so that they didn’t bash their heads together - they had already experienced that and were thankful it hadn’t happened again - and Isamu managed to grab a glimpse at the time on the analogue clock on his bedside table.
As an underground pro-hero, waking up at seven was a nightmare. But considering Isamu’s current schedule, it wasn’t too bad. But he cringed when saw the time.
Oh well, better to be there for Keigo and the new members of their family than to be sleeping the day away because he felt as if he definitely had not got enough sleep last night. Maybe because he apparently spent the whole night talking to the previous holders, and watching a couple of them roll around on the ground like toddlers.
(His lips quirked when he felt the amusement override the shame that he could feel.)
“Welp, time to get up,” Isamu half-muttered to himself, stretching once he’d gotten out of bed, and watching as Keigo grinned before zipping out of his room, leaving the door open for him.
At some point they’d have to set more boundaries, Isamu wasn’t sure if he was sharing One for All with Keigo, Tomura and Kurogiri yet (or if any of them knew about it properly, or at all) but it would be awkward if one of them were to barge in if he was busy with One for All, or… other things . That, maybe, wasn’t quite legal. None of them would really care, but better to let them be ignorant of some of the things he did.
Isamu pretended he didn’t hear a ping coming from his laptop as he headed out to join his family for breakfast.
He could deal with that later.