Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku Midoriya – Registered Quirk: Prodigy

*****

“Oh yeah, Midoriya wanted to go to UA, too, right?”

That’s enough to grab Izuku’s attention and drag him out of his thoughts. The whole class, which had been comfortably noisy and distracted up until now, has turned its attention to him.

The tension is broken by an explosive palm coming down on his desk. Izuku manages to avoid flinching as he feels the heat coming off it. “Hey, Deku, what’s a reject like you think he’s doing trying to stand in the same ring as me?”

“It’s… not like that.” He gives as cheerful a smile as he can. He doesn’t hope for even a second that he’s managed to make it look genuine. “You don’t have to worry about me getting in your way, Bakugo. But this is something I’ve got to do, for my own reasons.”

Bakugo scoffs, hands still smoldering, but turns back to his own desk. Izuku knows better than to expect that to be the end of it, but Bakugo knows better than to start anything in the middle of class.

Sure enough, his notebook gets ripped out of his hand just as he packs up to go home. “We’re not done talking yet, Deku.”

An old bit of knowledge tugs at the back of his mind, spilling over into a dull headache and a ringing in his ears. Oh, so that’s happening. Fantastic.

“Hey, what’s that Katsuki?” one of Bakugo’s lackeys asks, eyeing the notebook. “Eh? ‘Future Analysis?’ Seriously? Midoriya, don’t you have an intelligence quirk?”

Izuku tightens his fists, partially out of genuine frustration and partially because of how every word pounds against his skull. “It’s not good for someone to rely completely on their quirk, Kawaguchi. You never know when that kind of thinking might fail you. Bakugo, may I please have my book back?”

In response, the other boy sets off a firecracker burst of explosions right against the notebook and tossed it over his shoulder and out the window. “What book?”

Izuku groans internally. If he’d known this was for sure happening, he’d have taken precautions. A decoy notebook, maybe. Or a protective coating. But it’s too late now, and Bakugo is already going with his monologue.

“Most top-tier heroes have stories about them from their school days. When I make it big, I want the shine of being known as the only student to get into UA from this middle-of-nowhere junior high. I mean, I am a perfectionist, after all.” He reaches over and puts a smoking palm on Izuku’s shoulder. “So anyway, don’t bother applying to UA. Got it, nerd?”

Izuku hardly hears the taunts of Bakugo’s lackeys over the roaring in his ears as they walk away. He hears what comes next, though.

“If you wanna be a hero that badly, there’s a quick way to do it. Believe you’ll be born with a stronger quirk in the next life, and take a last-chance swandive off the roof!”

He doesn’t know any of the million terrible things that Izuku could throw back in his face in response to that, and Izuku doesn’t have the heart to say any of them. Instead, he mutters under his breath, “If only you knew.”

“Eh? What was that?”

“I said good luck on becoming a hero. I hope you become a great one.”

*****

I can’t believe he’d seriously say that. Izuku thinks to himself. Doesn’t he… No of course he doesn’t realize the damage that sort of thing can do to a person. Maybe someday, but not yet. That doesn’t make it okay, but… His migraine has mostly faded now. The way his ears ring and hands shake has nothing to do with that.

He keeps his head down and face hidden with a ball cap and medical mask as he walks, keeping slightly to the shadows and side streets, eager to avoid drawing any kind of attention to himself. A bad habit, he tells himself, but not one that he’s ever seriously tried to unlearn in all the years he’s had it. He slips into a shaded underpass, too lost in thought to notice the faint rumbling in the pavement below his feet.

The manhole cover explodes open, and he’s pinned down by sludge almost before he realizes what’s happening. Choking mucus forces its way past his mask and down his throat. His eyes water as he tries in vain to cough it out.

“Oh, my, a perfect hiding place just for me! You’re my hero!” gloats the villain.

Izuku has some choice words in response to that, but he’s a little too preoccupied with not being able to breathe to say them. He frantically claws at the slime for he doesn’t know how long before eventually giving up. He forces himself to stop struggling and use what oxygen he has left to think. The villain’s eyes look semi-solid, possibly vulnerable, but there was no way he can reach them from where he is. He can think of two dozen quirks off the top of his head that, properly applied, could easily counter the advantages of a liquid body. Unfortunately, he has access to exactly none of them.

There’s nothing he can do. Well, that isn’t completely true. There’s still one trick still up his sleeve, a trick that he swore years ago he would never use again.

As his vision starts to go black, he realizes that his past self was a filthy liar.

A single thought takes over Izuku’s mind; I wish I had taken a different way home. He closes his hand tight around that wish, hanging on for dear life, and the whole world crumbles under his fingertips.

He hopes the next world will be a little kinder.

*****

Izuku Midoriya – Quirk: Fateless

Chapter Text

“My boy, you are worthy to inherit my power.”

Raw emotion rips a strangled cry from Izuku’s throat and tears from his eyes as the memory speeds by like a bullet.

“W-what?”

It’s only the first of many. More flashes of potential streak through the void around him. Training under the greatest hero of all time. Demolishing the zero-pointer. USJ. The sports festival. Summer camp. Kamino Ward. All Might… All Might survived Kamino here.

“What? No. No, wait, stop-”

Uraraka, Iida, Tsuyu, Todoroki, Aoyama, Aizawa, and dozens of others faces that he’d only ever seen from across a battlefield or on news reports. His friends. Even Kacchan, though by the look of things that particular friendship took some time to sort itself out. The Hosu incident, rescuing Eri, fighting the PLF-

“No! No, stop! I don’t want this! I-I take it back!”

The memories come even faster now, blurring and slipping through his grasp. Meeting the past holders. Graduating. Starting his own agency. Climbing the charts. A hundred thousand disasters where he was able to give people hope. Starting a family. Dismantling the New Hero Killer Society. All Might’s funeral. His mother’s. Choosing a successor. His own… end. A golden future.

One by one, all the bright moments wink out like stars, leaving him cold and alone in the space between worlds.

*****

When Deku comes to, someone is shaking his shoulder. “Hey. Hey, are you alright?”

He wants to curl up into a ball and cry. Instead, he manages to pry one eye open and see who’s there. An older businessman – someone he’s never met before in any of his lives. Small mercies.

“Ah, good. I was worried. Here,” he helps hoist Deku to his feet. “Is there anyone I can call to come and get you?”

Deku’s still unsteady. It takes him a second to completely register the words. “To come- um, no. I’m all right.”

The man looks at him disbelievingly. He says something else, but it’s lost on Deku. He’s beginning to collect his wits just enough to panic.

“No, really, I’m alright. It’s a medical issue, it just caught me off guard today. Thank you for your concern.”

He bolts before anything more can be said. The man calls after him, but he doesn’t look back. Once he’s fairly sure he’s lost anyone following him, he ducks in an alley and begins gulping down air. Right, fourteen years old. Out of shape. No One For All. He leans against the wall and slowly slouches down to the ground, hoping that it will help with how his head is spinning.

“I take it back.” He whispers hoarsely. “I wish I never used my quirk.”

He waits. Nothing. Of course. He’d only ever found three rules for his quirk, but the third rule was that he can’t reset a reset. Second is that he can’t reset anything that happened more than a few minutes ago, and he has no idea how long he’s been unconscious for. By how thirsty he is, probably quite a while.

That was another thing. A reset always left him disoriented, but it had never caused negative effects on that scale before. His inner scientist chides him for not seeing it coming sooner. Quirks are physical traits, after all. Incredible as they may be, they have hard limits. There’s a solid chance that he’s beginning to approach his.

Physical limits. His thoughts snap back to how today was supposed to go – would have gone, if he had just held on a little longer. All Might’s going to be past his limit. He staggers feverishly back to his feet and takes off running again.

He eventually makes it to the small market where Kacchan is attacked by the sludge villain. He expects to find the scene engulfed in flames and chaos like he remembers, if not worse.

…Nothing? It’s wrong. It isn’t right at all. This is right where… No. It was right where the attack happened. But here and now he never accidentally knocked the bottle from All Might’s pocket. Things are already beginning to take a different shape. The people going happily about their afternoon business without a care in the world are proof enough of that.

*****

He’s not quite sure how he makes it home, but the next thing he remembers is trudging through the door of his apartment. His mother is pacing back and forth and talking nervously to someone on the phone. “…and I don’t- wait, he just walked in! Mitsuki, I’ll call you back!”

He finds himself enveloped in a tackle-hug that nearly knocks him off his feet. “Izuku, where were you?! You wouldn’t answer your phone! I was so worried!”

“Oh, um. I was tutoring some other kids from school. Sorry, I must have forgotten to turn the ringer on.”

She squeezes a little tighter before letting him go. “Please don’t ever scare me like that.”

“I won’t. I’m sorr-” He stumbles for a few steps as he follows her inside, only steadying himself as she catches him.

“Izuku honey, are you okay?” She put a hand up against his forehead. “Oh sweetie you’re burning up. Go lie down and I’ll get some porridge started.”

He doesn’t have the energy or the will to argue. He tosses and turns for a while, drifting uneasily in and out of sleep and only picking at the food his mother brings him. Once he’s sure she’s asleep, the dam finally breaks.

He cries. He cries as a scared, small child. He cries as a boy who is forced much too quickly to become a man. He cries as an old man who has lost too much and seen too much. He mourns friends who he will never know quite the same way again. He mourns for children who might never be born. He mourns for a future that will never come to pass, because that is the first and greatest of the three rules that he must obey; that he can never live the same future twice. He mourns, and at the end of it all there is the sort of quiet which you only find when you have no more tears left, which feels as if it will go on forever. And he finally drifts off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

*****

In the morning, his fever has lifted, but his mother insists he stay home from school and get plenty of rest. Both know that he’s at no real risk of falling behind in his studies. That he could probably teach half the classes he’s in goes unsaid.

He sits down with a new blank notebook. There was space left in the last one, but it seems fitting that he make a fresh start. There are a thousand things he wants to write down, to never forget, and he’s not sure what to start with.

He will never be that man again, any more than any of the friends he hasn’t met yet will turn out exactly as he remembers them. He’s already burned that ship. But for once, he’s done running from his own future. He was a hero, and he will be again. If he’s not the New Symbol of Peace, then he’ll make another way.

He makes up his mind and decides to begin by writing out a title.

‘Hero Analysis for the Future No. 1’

Chapter Text

They’re halfway through dinner when Inko sets her chopsticks aside and fixes her son with her best Concerned Motherly Stare. “As much as I appreciate this, you don’t normally offer to tackle dinner if you haven’t been feeling well. What’s going on, Izuku? Is everything really okay?”

Izuku’s smile dims a bit, and he begins picking at his pasta like he’d rather be anywhere than here. “…I reset again,” he answers after a moment of silence.

“Oh, sweetheart-” she’s cut off by him shaking his head.

“There was a villain attack. On the way home from school. It got bad. I thought-” his voice cracks, “I thought I wasn’t risking anything.”

Without saying anything, she stands up and moves around the table to wrap him in a hug. The sun’s already down by the time they’re both done with the first round of crying.

He tells her about it. Not everything, she knows, but it's enough, and she understands. Seventy years is a long time, and she knows he has his share of reasons for not wanting to relive every moment of it. Some of the things he tells her sound like they come out of a story book. Other bits like they’re from a horror novel. She listens intently to all of it.

“It sounds like you helped make a wonderful future.”

He gives a wistful smile. “It was. It really was. I just… I helped so many people, Mom. I can’t just let all that disappear. A-and I know that it’s dangerous, but I have to try, and I have to get in close to action if I’m going to make it work. I have to make it into UA again.”

Her heart aches as she tries to figure out how she’s supposed to respond to that, after everything he’s told her. “I don’t like it, Izuku.”

“But-”

It’s her turn to cut him off with a shake of her head. “I don’t like it, but I understand. I promised, back when you first told me why you needed to become a hero, that I’d support you. If I’d known that this is what it would lead to, maybe I wouldn’t have, but I did, and I’m going to stick to that. But I want something from you in return.”

She can tell he’s hesitant, but he nods for her to continue.

“You said that when you were there, you made a promise to me that you’d be careful if I let you keep being a hero. I want you to make that same promise to me now. Do what you think you have to to save them, but no unnecessary risks.”

“I… I can do that. I promise.”

“Good. If you’re doing this, is there anyone that you can get help from?”

He clasps his hands in front of himself, thinking. “Maybe. The list of people who’d be ready and able to help a time traveler is pretty short, but there’s a couple that I can think of. I know where they’ll both be next year, but it’ll take some time to track them down this far back. In the meantime, the most I can do without drawing too much attention is some well-placed hints in the right places.”

She gives him the most encouraging smile she can, given the circumstances. “Then let’s start there.”

*****

When Naomasa’s cell rings, he has to fumble with his pocket for a few seconds before pulling it out. He doesn’t recognize the number, but he can spare a minute. “Hello, Tsukauchi speaking.”

“Ah, Tsukauchi!” The voice on the other end is gruff but high-pitched, like a child trying too hard to sound grown up. “I’m glad I still had your number. It’s been too long.”

“…Who is this?”

“It’s Yamikumo.” *ping* A lie right off the bat. He’s half tempted to hang up. “I’m a good friend of Toshinori Yagi’s.”

That gets him to sit up straight, not only because of who that name belongs to, but because the person on the other end actually means what they’re saying this time. “Is everything alright?”

There’s a chuckle on the other end. “He’s not in any trouble, if that’s what you’re wondering. I need to ask a favor of you.”

“I’m listening,” he says, grabbing a notepad.

“In the past few minutes, the Idaten, Fatgum, Eraserhead, and Nighteye hero offices have received calls from this number directing them to identical dead drops located near their agencies. All the information contained in them is true and accurate.”

What is this, a bad spy novel? “What information? What does this have to do with Toshinori?”

“It doesn’t, unless he gets involved. But I need someone trustworthy to vouch for my information. Who better for that than the upstanding police detective with a direct line to the Symbol and a lie-detector quirk that works over the phone?”

Naomasa’s pen comes to a screeching halt. It feels like someone just injected ice into his spine, because even if this person somehow knows him through All Might, he’s never mentioned that part of his quirk to the man before. “Who are you?”

“Me? I'm just a concerned citizen." *ping* "Remember what I said about my intel. True and accurate. I’ll be in touch if I learn more.”

“Wait-”

The person on the other end hangs up before he can ask more. He quickly checks the call history and runs the number. It belongs to a train station payphone in Musutafu.

He picks up his phone again, this time to send a call of his own. It rings twice before the man on the other end picks up. “Tsukauchi! How are you doing today, my friend?”

“All Might. It’s good to hear from you. I’m… well, I’ve actually got a mystery I was hoping you could help me solve.”

Chapter Text

Tensei has been in the hero business for over a decade, but he still has to admit that he’s a bit starstruck to be walking into the Nighteye Agency. He’s not in the spotlight much, but he is the former sidekick of All Might, and went on to open one of the most successful investigative agencies of its size in the country. He would’ve loved to tour this place as a kid, but there isn’t much time for that sort of thing today.

As he enters, he hears a bout of wet coughing from behind him and holds the door. The older man ducks his head in thanks as he follows Tensei inside, tucking a handkerchief back in his pocket. “Thank you very much. Are you Ingenium?”

“I am,” he replies. “Are you also here for the meeting?”

“Ah, yes!” The man gives a sunshine smile that seems entirely too big for his skeletal frame, fishing a card out from his pocket, offering it to Tensei with both hands. “My name is Toshinori Yagi. I’m All Might’s secretary, and I’ll be representing him today.”

Tensei is silently glad that he’s wearing his helmet, because he can only imagine what his face looks like right now. This whole thing just rose very, very high above his paygrade.

They’re both quickly greeted by a sidekick who introduces himself as Centipeder before showing them to the agency’s spacious meeting room. The other four are already there. He recognizes Fatgum and Nighteye, and Aizawa he remembers from UA, even if they were in different classes. A hasty introduction gets him acquainted with Nighteye’s other sidekick and Detective Tsukauchi. After that, it’s right to business.

“Now, we’ve all already confirmed that the information left for each of our agencies last week matches up, but as Mr. Yagi and the All Might agency were not given the same information, we’ve compiled the key points,” begins Bubble Girl, firing up the projector.

“The Shie Hassaikai are a known villain organization, one of the last remnants of organized crime in Japan from before the rise of superhuman society. However, their size and use of quirks in their crimes is limited, so they’re only recognized as a minor villain organization by the Hero Commission.”

She flicks to the next slide. “First and foremost, among the information given to us is general information on the organization. A rough outline of their territory and criminal activities – weapon and drug smuggling, mostly, along with altercations between their people and other criminal organizations – nothing that’s not already known by the authorities. But then here’s where things get interesting.”

The next slide has sketches of three different men, some with the men bare-faced, and others with them wearing western plague doctor masks. “Kai Chisaki, Hari Kurono, and Joi Irinaka. Supposedly, these three are some of the highest-ranking members of the Shie Hassaikai, under the boss himself, with Chisaki being his adopted son. Yamikumo also included detailed analysis of each of their quirks, far more than anything we currently have on them. And then, finally, there’s this.”

The slide switched again, this time to show a sketch of a young girl with wide eyes, wavy hair, and a small horn growing over her right brow. “This is Eri. She’s five years old, biological granddaughter of the yakuza boss, taken in by the organization after her mother abandoned her. Supposedly, her quirk has the ability to rewind living organisms – age, evolutionary advancement, injury, memory, physical state, and so on. And according to the information, Chisaki is in the early stages of experimenting on her in the hopes of creating a weapon that can destroy quirks from her cells.”

They’re all startled by a sudden thud; Fatgum’s fist pounding against the table. “How do you get that low? To do something like that to anybody, let alone a kid,” he seethes.

“Superhuman society’s full of scum like that,” Eraserhead replies. “Assuming it’s true, of course. The information’s detailed, I’ll give it that. We’d be foolish not to investigate further. But how do we know this ‘Yamikumo’ isn’t feeding us bad intel?”

“For that question, I’d like to turn things over to Detective Tsukauchi,” Nighteye says.

The detective shuffles some papers, then begins. “Shortly after he contacted your agencies, I received a call from Yamikumo. During that call he told me that all the information he shared with you was, in his words, ‘true and accurate.’ My quirk allows me to detect when someone is verbally lying, even over the phone, and in that case, he believed what he was saying. In fact, the only two lies he told me were about his name, and when he replied that he was just a concerned citizen when I asked him who he was.”

“Does your quirk filter for mistaken information?” Eraserhead asks. “If not, we could be dealing with a conspiracy theorist, or he could be delusional.”

“It’s possible,” Tsukauchi concedes, “but there’s more. I’ve worked very closely with All Might on several investigations in the past. Thanks to certain extenuating circumstances, I was at one point filled in on his true identity. Yamikumo knew it, too.”

The room goes silent. All Might’s identity isn’t quite on the level of a national secret, but it’s up there. Tensei certainly has no idea who he is, and he’s one of the most well-networked heroes in Japan outside of the top hundred or so.

All eyes turn to Mr. Yagi, who seems to bend slightly under the weight of the attention. “I’ve already spoken with All Might about this. He doesn’t have any idea who Yamikumo is, nor does what little we know of him match with anyone entrusted with that information. It seems that our mysterious informant has quite the knack for gathering information. All Might will, of course, be happy to cooperate with this investigation for as long as it goes on.”

With the pause that follows, Tensei decides that now’s a pretty good time to get the question off his chest. “Why us?” He takes the stares of the others as a signal to continue. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, my agency and I will help to the full extent we can. If this guy’s telling us the truth, and it sounds to me like he is, then that’s not something I’d feel right walking away from. But of those of us here, only Nighteye’s agency is strategically located relative to these guys, and they’re the only ones with an optimal setup for taking down groups like the yakuza. We’re dealing with someone who can apparently toss out the number one hero’s name just to grab attention. So, if he had his pick of anyone, why us? What’s Yamikumo’s game here?”

“In my case,” Fatgum says, “it’s probably because I used to tussle with those kinds of guys back in the day. Drug smugglers in the like.”

Nighteye steeples his fingers. “Regardless, it’s a fair question, one of many I’m afraid we don’t have the answers to. Bubble Girl, would you please pull up the photo?”

The image changes again. This time, it’s a grainy still taken from a security feed. One of the figures is zoomed in on. They’re short, though not drastically so. Oversized winter coat. Baseball cap. Medical mask. Sunglasses. “This is the clearest image we have of the person we believe to be Yamikumo. Unfortunately, if that’s true, it seems that he’s taken extra precautions to protect his identity.” Nighteye looks around the table at each of them in turn. “Gentlemen, if we’re all in agreement, then it looks to me like we have a new pair of investigations ahead of us. The first into the activities of the Shie Hassaikai, and the second to answer the following questions. Who is Yamikumo, and what, exactly, is he up to?”

*****

Izuku takes another gulp of his black coffee and green tea with a few shots each of caramel syrup and espresso. It’s an incredibly cursed combination that he’s taken to calling ‘the blackwhip special’ and no, he will not be taking criticism. He’s several centuries into developing his caffeine habits and nobody is going to stop him now.

He acquired this monstrosity of a beverage at a specific café for two very specific reasons. The first is that the owner of that café is a very kind older gentleman who doesn’t question Izuku’s life choices and occasionally offers him baked goods to sample. Izuku’s also 90% sure he’s immortal – at the very least he’s never seen the man age at all in two (or was it three?) different futures – so maybe that’s three reasons.

The other reason is that the café is very conveniently located near the neighborhood that he’s been staking out on weekends and after school for the last month. Or, if you want to be specific about it, the various hardware and convenience stores around the neighborhood.

He’s almost managed to track down his other candidate, but he needs to get this person on-board before moving forward. Whatever the team he puts together for the shenanigans coming over the next few years is going to end up looking like, it’s going to need a backbone. Luckily, he knows someone with the right mix of know-how and adaptability needed to fill that role. Unluckily, he has to find her first, and she’s always the kind of person who’s more likely to go on a tangent about her contingency plans and codewords for if she encountered time travelers (lucky him) than something inconsequential like what middle school she went to. Hence, the stakeout.

His persistence pays off when he finally catches sight of a familiar face charging into the hardware store. He folds up the newspaper he’s been reading and polishes off the last of his drink before tossing his styrofoam cup in the trash. When he sees her exit the shop with a bag full of machine parts, he strolls up waves cheerfully. “Hello, miss! I was wondering, would you happen to know anyone around here who could help me with Support Form T2?”

Hatsume’s in his face and gripping him by the shoulders in the time it takes him to blink. “You’re serious?”

The glint in her eyes reminds Izuku of how a mad scientist looks when examining a particularly promising lab specimen, which causes part of his brain to immediately begin reassessing whether or not this part of his plan falls under ‘unnecessary risks.’ He nods, which is apparently enough for Hatsume because she begins dragging him down the street by his arm.

“Wait, where are we going?”

“Where else? My home base!”

*****

As it turns out, ‘home base’ is a literal description. Hatsume’s house is huge. Not Yaomomo-level huge, but enough to still be impressive. Izuku wracks his brain trying to come up with what her parents do for a living. He’s sure it must have come up at some point, but the only family he can remember Hatsume talking about regularly were her ‘babies,’ invented or otherwise.

The front door slams inwards as Hatsume barges in. Izuku follows her a bit more warily, keeping eyes peeled for anything that looks ready to explode, ignite, or apply hydraulic pressure. Instead he's treated to a flurry of activity in the form of four or five children younger than himself running around.

“Hey everybody! I’ve got a guest over for a little bit! Be nice!”

A little girl who looked like a miniature clone of Hatsume with orange hair appears from… Izuku isn’t quite sure where she appears from, actually. “Did you get a boyfriend, Nee-san?”

“Even better! He’s from the future!”

Next thing Izuku knows he’s being mobbed by an entire crowd of Hatsumes, each one with the same manic gleam in their eyes. Eventually, the Hatsume manages to extract him from the troop of her siblings and shove him into a bedroom full of half-assembled machines and electronics before slamming the door behind her.

There’s more of them. At least six. He planned for one Hatsume. And now all of them know he’s from the future. Okay, breathe. The oldest of them is what, twelve? Maybe? Who’s gonna believe a twelve-year-old if they start talking about someone being a time traveler? He decides, for the sake of his sanity, not to focus on the fact that his entire plan hinges on certain people believing a fourteen-year-old when he talks about exactly that.

Hatsume is practically bouncing up and down. “So, time travel. How does it work? What’s the future like? Were you able to bring back anything with you? Are my babies really famous? You seem really young, why’d they send you back? Ooh, is there some kind of apocalypse?” Izuku can’t help but think she’s asking that last bit with way too much enthusiasm.

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, one thing at a time. It’s not a physical thing, so no, I don’t have any future tech for you.”

She frowns at that but motions for him to continue.

“My quirk basically lets me turn my life into a giant time loop, so I’m older than I look. And in the loop I know you from, you did some support work for the current number one hero, so yeah, you get pretty famous there.”

That causes her to brighten back up. “Yes! So, what’s our plan?”

“What, you’re in? Just like that?”

She rolls her eyes. “You knew my secret code. I’m not dumb, I know that most people think having stuff like that is pretty pointless. That’s not the sort of thing that’s likely to spread beyond the person I told it to, and if I told you then that means we were friends. I’m not gonna risk life and limb for you or anything, but yeah, I’m in.”

He blinks, taken aback. He’s never disliked Hatsume, beyond some mild annoyance and fear for his own safety, but the most he’d ever thought of her was as an acquaintance and coworker. That she’d considered him a friend had never really crossed his mind. He’ll have to be sure to make this worth her time.

He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a stack of papers, then hands it over to Hatsume. “Things are gonna get pretty crazy for the heroes in the next few years. My plan is to make it as easy for them as I can. I’ll be training to get into UA, but I might have to work behind the scenes a bit too, and for that I’ll need gear.”

She looks it over, muttering to herself. “Let’s see… adjustable hyperdense weights to build endurance… grappling lines for mobility… is this all?”

“For now, yeah. Why, what else were you thinking?”

“Come on, you’ve got to have some secrets tucked away in that brain of yours! You can’t just show up practically on my doorstep and not let me stretch my wings a little.”

He rubs the bridge of his nose. There’s a hundred and one ways this can go wrong, but Hatsume does good work, and he really does need her help. “I’ll… send you some notes, but you’ll have to keep them under wraps. No incorporating them into your inventions without clearing it with me first. There’s some villains out there who’ll wreak absolute havoc with this kind of tech if they catch wind of it.”

“Deal…” she agrees in a heartbeat, putting out a hand and giving him a questioning look.

He shakes it “Midoriya. And now that you’re part of the team, you’ll need this.” He fishes a small flip phone out of his pack and hands it to her. “Prepaid American phone, unregistered. I’ve got the number for mine already saved on it. Use this if you ever need to get a hold of me in an emergency, which will ideally be never.”

Hatsume nods, seemingly satisfied with the arrangement, before throwing the door open. Six children, each with the same tubular hair as Hatsume in a rainbow of colors, collapse in a heap like a stack of cartoon characters. As Izuku looks on in mild horror, Hatsume just looks annoyed. “Don’t worry. You’ll have to get used to the walls having ears around here, but I’ll make sure they don’t say anything.”

“But Nee-san,” one of them whines.

As the whole group begins bickering, Izuku takes a deep breath and considers his options. They already know. Probably best to get this out of the way now.

“Excuse me.” He squats down slightly and puts on his best ‘I am here!’ smile. It feels good, like an old glove that you’ve worn so many times that it’s stretched to fit you perfectly. “I know I might not look like it yet, but I’m not just from the future. I’m a hero too, and I want to help as many people as I can while I’m here. But you know how heroes like All Might have secret identities?”

A few of the younger ones nod.

“Well, I do too. So if I’m going to keep being a hero, I need people to keep it a secret. What do you guys say, can you help me out? It'd be like you were my sidekicks.”

As he watches the wonder slowly dawn and sparkle in their eyes, he thinks to himself that maybe this future won’t be so bad after all.

Chapter Text

Izuku raps gently on the door and waits, taking in the night around him. The run-down apartments around him creak and groan gently as the breeze blows past them, and Izuku pulls his thin jacket a little closer. This spring is always unusually warm, but he’s glad he brought an extra layer nonetheless.

Just as he’s wondering if it would be rude to knock again, he hears a bolt slide and the door opens a crack. A giant man with a Komodo dragon quirk and a wrinkled white tank top glowers down at him through the gap. Izuku’s pretty sure he smells cheap beer.

Izuku bows slightly. “Good evening, sir. Is your son home?”

“You know him?”

“We know each other through a game.” It’s not necessarily a lie, just not the entire truth.

The man scrutinizes him for a moment more before snorting and throwing the door open. “Shuichi! It’s one of your little friends from the internet!” He steps aside to let Izuku in. “Left-hand door at the end of the hall,” he grunts, before closing the door and falling back onto the sofa.

Izuku mumbles out his thanks and heads down the hall. Iguchi is already peeking out of his room, and gestures for Izuku to hurry up and come in. The room is full of clutter, but Iguchi seems to have pushed most of it out of the way and shoved the empty food containers into a trash bag. Izuku appreciates the effort.

“So,” Iguchi says, taking a seat on his bed and offering Izuku his desk chair, “you’re Savepoint.”

Izuku nods and takes a seat. “Midoriya is fine in person though, if you prefer.”

“You’re shorter than I imagined,” Iguchi says, before immediately cringing. “Sorry, I mean-”

Izuku just chuckles and waves him off. “Don’t worry about it.” He smiles, and a little bit of the tension seems to drain from Iguchi’s shoulders. It’s a good start. “Thank you for having me over.”

“Sure, sure. But uh,” he hesitates. There’s doubt there, to be sure, but Izuku’s known Spinner before. He’s the sort of person who wants to believe in things. “That stuff you talked about over the chat. Time travel and-and changing the future and all that. You’re serious? I’m not being punked or anything, right?”

“Dead serious.”

“Okay, cool. That what I thought, but…”

Izuku nods. “I get it. It is pretty crazy. Speaking of, I’m sure you must have questions.”

“Just one, really. Why me? I’m just some loser from Jaku. Why not pick someone, y’know, powerful?”

In retrospect, Izuku figures he probably should have seen that coming. The guy always does have self-worth issues. “Because even if power will get you a lot of places, I’ve seen a lot of good get done by people without ‘the right power’ who were still willing to try. Beyond that, though, I think you’re selling yourself short.”

Iguchi raises an eyebrow, clearly not buying it.

“I’m not just saying that. I’ve seen timelines where you go toe-to-toe with pro heroes with less than three months of combat training. Which I suppose brings me to the second reason,” he says as the young man’s eyes bug out. “The possible timeline where I know you from… well, let’s just say that both of us fell in with the wrong crowds and went down some pretty bad paths because of it. I want you to have a shot at a better future than that. And if it’s what you want, I think you’ve got what it takes to do some real good.”

Iguchi sits there processing for a good minute before answering. That’s fine by Izuku. Things might be different by this time next year, but right now he’s got all the time in the world.

“You really think you can make me important?” For the first time that night, there’s life in his eyes. Worn, half-desperate life, but life just the same.

“’Course not. You’re important because you’re a person, not because of anything I can do. But if we work together, we can make an impact.”

Iguchi sits for a few seconds more before seemingly making up his mind and nodding. “Alright, I’m in. Where do we start?”

“Ever hear of Dagobah Beach?”

*****

Shuichi wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting from the random who had sent him a friend request out of the blue and then managed to convince him he was from the future. Someone a little bit terrifying, at the very least.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t the weedy kid with a voice crack and dark circles under his eyes that rivaled Shuichi’s own who showed up on his doorstep. Early on, he’d been half ready to just turn him away and go back to hiding from the world… But he’d changed, somehow, once he started talking. It wasn’t so much what he said (though that threw him for a loop all on its own), but the way he talked, the way he smiled and seemed so sure of what he was saying, it made Shuichi imagine for just a second that maybe things really could change for the better.

When he gets off the train in Musutafu, though, it isn’t Midoriya the all-knowing time traveler who greets him with a smile and a wave, but Midoriya the plain-looking teenager. He and the girl next to him are both dressed in slightly older clothes good for working in, same as Shuichi, and he’s carrying a tote bag full of something. Shuichi tries to make himself look as small as possible and heads over to them. “Yo.”

“Glad you could make it. Iguchi, this is Hatsume, she’s a friend of mine who’ll be acting as our support. Hatsume, this is Iguchi, he’ll be training with me.”

Shuichi looks around to make sure that nobody’s close enough to eavesdrop. “Now when you say ‘friend,’ is she a time traveler too?”

Hatsume bursts out laughing, earning the group quite a few curious stares. Shuichi sinks further into his hoodie and fights the urge to crawl into a hole somewhere and sleep until history’s forgotten his name.

“No, but I wish. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a baby that can do something like that for years.”

Shuichi shoots a startled look at Midoriya, who is suddenly very eager to clarify that part of Hatsume’s vocabulary for him.

“But anyway,” he says, turning to her, “I already told you that time machines aren’t a thing.”

“They’re not a thing yet!” she counters. “As soon as I can crack the code, they’ll always have been a thing!”

The exasperated look on Midoriya’s face tells Shuichi that this is far from the first time they’ve had this exact conversation, and it's probably just as far from being the last.

*****

Shuichi’s jaw drops when he sees what Midoriya expects them to tackle. “I thought you said we were starting training by cleaning a beach. You didn’t say anything about a scrapyard.”

Midoriya just fishes out three pairs of rubber work gloves from his bag and passes him one. “Sorry. We’ve gotta condition our bodies before we start going into the real heavy stuff, and this is what I’ve got. You might hate me by the end of the year, but I promise it’s effective. Besides, there’s plenty of parts here that Hatsume can salvage to use for gear.”

Glancing over, Hatsume does in fact look like Christmas just came early and they’re about to break into Santa’s workshop.

“Wait, you’re expecting us to be able to clean this entire beach in half a year?! How the hell are we gonna do that?! We don’t even have a way to move half this shit out of here!”

“Language. And I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Someone will be coming along in a week or two to help us with that, and we can work on the small stuff in the meantime. It’s better to start small, anyway.”

It’ll be months before Shuichi realizes that Midoriya never actually said he asked anyone to come help them.

Chapter Text

“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell us that your older sister is Rei Hatsume. The Rei Hatsume.”

“I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal about this.”

“Why am I-” Iguchi throws up his hands in exasperation. “She’s only one of the most famous cosplayers in all of Japan! She’s done big stuff at Comiket, the World Summit, Nico-”

“Hmm,” Hatsume scrutinizes him. “Stalker,” she teases.

“What? No! She’s just really cool.”

“Stalker~” she sing-songs. “And as a younger sibling I’m contractually obligated to deny any and all comments on my friends’ parts that my sister could possibly be cool.”

The whole affair quickly devolves into lighthearted bickering, and Izuku sighs as he hefts the rusted remnants of what he can only assume was a toaster into his wagon. He puts on his best ‘disappointed grandpa’ voice. “Children, please, behave.”

It has the intended effect in the sense that they stop arguing. Unfortunately, it’s because they’re now too busy laughing at him. Admittedly, that probably would have worked better coming from someone with actual adult vocal cords and not someone who’s just trying to beat puberty for the fifth time.

“Oh, man,” Iguchi wipes tears from his eyes, “that reminds me, how old are you actually, Midoriya? I know you mentioned that time travel does weird stuff to aging, so you’re really, what, eighty?”

Wow, rude. Kids these days. Didn’t their parents teach them better than asking peoples’ ages? Still, these are his friends, so he supposes he can indulge them. “I’m whatever you get when you load a fifteen-year-old brain up with a little over three hundred years of lived experiences. If you ever figure out whether I’m older or younger than I should be, let me know. I’ve been trying to puzzle that one out for decades.” He turns away from them and goes back to loading his wagon. “If we count everyone, I’ve had six children and thirteen grandchildren. Farthest I ever got in a single branch was ninety-one years old.” When he doesn’t hear any response or activity from the other two, he looks back to find them just staring at him.

“Holy shit,” Iguchi whispers almost reverently.

Hatsume nods in agreement. “He’s not just old, he’s old old. He’s practically a mummy.”

“Language. And that’s Mummy-sama to you. I’m still plenty spry enough to-” he cuts himself off as he hears some of the rubbish crunch and shift under someone’s movement. No, wait, two someones. He holds a finger to his lips to signal for the others to be quiet, and peeks around the nearest mountain of junk. It’s just enough to catch sight of two familiar heads of blonde hair, and he can only half suppress the smile that tries to spring to his face.

All Might and Mirio seem surprised by the sudden appearance of three strangers, but the younger man recovers quickly with a bow and a wave. “Ah, good afternoon. Sorry if we’re interrupting something.”

“Not at all! The three of us are just using this place for some exercise and training, and we thought we’d do some cleaning while we’re here. Not much we can do about the big stuff, though. Anyway, we’ll do our best to stay out of your way.”

The two heroes glance at each other, and Izuku wishes he could hear the silent conversation he knows is going down right now. After a moment, All Might nods and breaks the silence. “Actually, I was hoping to help Togata here with just that. I have a truck that could help with clearing out some of the heavier things. With that in mind, would it be all right if we joined you?”

“Of course. I’m Midoriya, this is Iguchi and Hatsume.” He offers out a handshake.

All Might takes it, hand firm and steady despite appearances. “I’m Yagi, and as I said before this is Togata. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you training for?”

Izuku grins. “We’re gonna be heroes.”

*****

Once All Might and Mirio join the crew, and especially once summer break hits, the cleaning begins in earnest. It’s still a grind, but the work that would have taken him over nine months on his own is disappearing into nothing behind his eyes.

Having the familiar faces there is also a bittersweet blessing in its own right. They might not be the exact people he knows, but right now any differences are so small as to be inconsequential. Even in his civilian identity All Might radiates a quieter version of the sureness and peace that always follows him. Mirio, hero hatchling that he still is, is already beginning to show the shape of the Number One hero he becomes in so many timelines. It’s comforting to have them around, like Izuku’s finally got solid ground under his feet after months of treading water.

He can tell that he’s not the only one their presence affects, either. For all that his loud mouth hides it, Iguchi is still unsure of himself. The younger boy seems to see something of Tamaki in him, and surely but ever so slowly lures him out of his shell. More than once he’s stumbled upon Hatsume happily talking All Might’s ear off about the latest advances in support equipment, while he politely nods and soaks in every word. So far, he’s been presenting himself as a long-retired minor hero, which Izuku thinks he would buy easily enough if he didn’t already know the truth. He does wonder what kind of alias “Ford Torino” is supposed to be, though, even if he did probably have to come up with it on the spot.

“Mr. Yagi” calls him one morning in the middle of September to let him know he’s not feeling well enough to make it that afternoon, he’s sorry for the short notice, and will the group still be able to meet without him? Izuku hides the worry in his voice when he replies that yes, they will be fine, and he hopes he feels better and to please let Izuku know if he needs anything.

His worry lessens considerably – in fact, it’s almost impossible for him to keep a straight face – when, in place of Mr. Yagi, All Might shows up in the flesh to encourage and commend ‘the future heroes who are doing such a wonderful job helping their community.’ He has an even harder time not bursting out laughing when Iguchi shows up the next week wearing a brand new All Might hoodie.

*****

It’s nearing the end of October, and Izuku’s hot and sweaty from exercise despite the crisp air. He sits down with his back against the seawall to catch his breath and get some water out of his bottle. All Might is spotting Iguchi and Hatsume as they lift a couch into the back of his truck. They’ve finished everything but this final stretch, and the beach looks amazing. The public response has been slow, but a few people have already begun to show up before the weather really gets too cold to enjoy the area.

“So, you think you’re ready?” Mirio’s voice shakes him out of his thoughts as the boy takes a seat on the ground next to him.

“Oh, Togata. Ready for what?”

“UA. You said that’s what you’re training for, right?”

“Ah, well yeah. I don’t think I’m ready yet, so I’ll keep training, but this was definitely a good start.”

“Yeah,” he surveyed the beach. “We really did a good job. Hey, now that I think of it, I came here because Mr. Yagi suggested it, but what gave you the idea to clean the beach in the first place?”

“Well, it needed cleaning, didn’t it?”

Mirio stares at him in shock for a second, then laughs. “You’ll make a good hero, Midoriya.”

“Thanks, you too. I bet one day they’ll call you ‘The Brightest Hero: Lemillion!’ or something like that.”

“Aww, you’re just being nice. Not that I don’t appreciate the compliment, but there’s a lot of people out there who are gonna shine brighter than I will.”

“Hm. We’ll see.”

*****

“What’s on your mind, Lemillion? You’ve been quiet this whole patrol.”

The young hero snaps from wherever he’s been back to reality and gives a slightly sheepish smile. “Sorry, Sir. I was just thinking about someone I met while training with All Might. He reminds me a lot of you, actually.”

Mirai raises an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about; I can’t quite seem to narrow it down. If I had to explain it, I’d have to say you both have the same sort of… heaviness to you, I guess.”

“Is that so? Maybe I should go on a diet.”

After a few seconds, the joke sinks in and Mirio goes from looking confused to laughing heartily. “That’s pretty good, but I don’t mean it like that. Maybe it’s better to say ‘sureness’ than ‘heaviness’. It sort of feels like you bend the world into a better shape around you just because you choose to, if that makes any sense.”

“Not particularly, but thank you for the compliment all the same. Maybe you can introduce the two of us some day.”

“I’d like that. Oh, I know! He said he’s applying for UA. If he gets in, we should offer him an internship.”

“On thing at a time, though I’ll certainly file that under advisement.”

They arrive back at the agency, pushing open the glass doors to find Toshinori there waiting for them.

“All Might, you’re early!”

“A bit, yes. I finished my patrols for the day and decided to come straight here rather than risk being late.”

“Fine by me,” Mirio says, “Should I go get changed and meet you back here before we head to training?”

“That would work just fine.”

“Lemillion was just telling me about someone the two of you met on your beach excursions,” Mirai says as they watch him leave. “He’s applying to UA, I believe?”

“Young Midoriya.” All Might nods. “He’s been quite the pleasure to work with. I think he’s got a bright future ahead of him.”

“Speaking of the future…”

All Might’s face darkens. “I thought I asked you not to bring that up again.”

“He’s ready. If you’d just-”

All Might lifts a hand to silence him. “Young Togata truly is a wonderful hero student. I understand the potential you see in him, and I’ll be more than happy to help you continue his training. But right now, we have no idea if the secret of One For All has been compromised. While Yamikumo seems to have the best intentions, we know almost nothing about him, and I won’t take the risk of making this power a burden for him. You’re not to mention it to him. That’s my final say on the matter.”

Chapter Text

Izuku knocks on the door and waits. A minute later there’s scuffling on the other side, and a boy and girl who are both very emphatically ten and a half years old open the door for him.

“Kichiro, Mika, good afternoon. Is your sister around?”

Kichiro steps out of the way so he can come in out of the cold, shaking his head as he does. “She went out on another parts run. Something about that secret weapon you’ve got her working on.”

“No explosions yet, I hope.”

“Just one so far, she’s been being really careful with it.”

Izuku grunts. All things considered, that’s pretty good. Possibly a record when it comes to something this complex.

“Oh, Papa said to send you to the kitchen if you came by today,” Mika piped up.

“Ah, thanks, I’ll head that way then,” he says, ruffling her hair.

Somewhere in the house, someone is playing the piano. If he had to guess, that’s probably little Haruki. Out of the whole family, she’s got the greatest talent for and fascination with music. Over the course of the past few months, he’s learned to roll with and even appreciate the happy chaos that seems to come with seven exceedingly intelligent and energetic children being home educated under the same roof.

Seeing as he was already far past the point of being able to keep a perfect secret, he already bit the bullet and filled in Hitomi and Noriaki Hatsume in on the basics of his situation months ago. He’d expected to have to scale back his plans at the very least, if not find a whole new equipment supplier (didn’t Denki have a sister in the support department?). However, both parents turned out to be very enthusiastic about the idea of their daughter training under a time traveler with experience in both the heroics and support fields. He’s glad they have such a high opinion of him, but he’s not entirely sure whether he should be thankful or worried that Hatsume comes by her eccentricities honestly. In either case, their help and the use of their back yard for training has been invaluable ever since they finished up the beach cleanup.

Today, Noriaki has light violet skin accented by a crisp white dress shirt and turquoise eyes and hair. “Hot coffee’s in the pot on the counter,” he says, taking a sip from his own mug before turning the page of his newspaper.

“You’re a hero and also a saint,” Izuku says without even a hint of irony.

“Glad you think so. Repay me by telling me this week’s lottery numbers?”

Izuku grins, starting to spoon sugar into his coffee. “You know it doesn’t work like that. But you might keep an eye on the news coming out of Yamagata prefecture. There’s a rookie hero named Skylight who operates up there who’s probably gonna get big in the next few months.” It’s a sort of game they play; Mr. Hatsume asks him something that could potentially destabilize the timeline, and Izuku instead gives him a piece of harmless knowledge that the hero marketer-turned-house husband should find interesting all the same. Good, wholesome fun.

“Worth a shot,” he says, shrugging. “And I’ll keep that in mind.”

They chat for a bit longer before they hear the door open and Hatsume blows in on a gust of cold air, cheeks flushed and carrying several bags full of electrical parts. “Ah, good, you’re already here. Come on, I want you to check my progress.”

He follows her to her room and workshop, taking a moment along the way to check the samples he has incubating under a heat lamp. Five of them seem to be coming along nicely, with the sixth looking a bit wilted. He’ll probably have to scrap that one. It’s a shame, but still better than he had hoped for given that he’s basically having to jury-rig everything rather than doing this in a lab.

“Ta-da! Super special order babies one and two!” Hatsume declares, wheeling out two mannequin busts covered in parts and wires. Probably borrowed from her mother.

(Isn’t Kacchan’s mother a fashion designer too, or is he getting her mixed up with someone else? Is there some sort of grand temporal pattern where his friends’ parents are all into fashion? Something to tuck away for later.)

“We’ll have to wait a couple weeks for the last bits to finish developing before we can test them, but you did good. Real good. When’d you last sleep?”

“Recently.”

“’Recently’ only counts if it’s within the last 48 hours.”

“Slightly less than recently.”

He tosses a pillow at her. “24 hours. No inventing. No tinkering. No working on designs.” She gives him a pitiful, offended look, like a cat who can see the bottom of her food bowl. Unfortunately for her, he built up an immunity to that sort of thing long ago. “If you want a part in thins, you’ve gotta take care of yourself. That’s the deal. I’ll be by this weekend to help with some of the final wiring.”

“Fiiiiine. I’ll see you then.”

*****

After waking up from a 12-hour crash, Mei sits downstairs in the kitchen, eating left over curried rice her parents saved her (has she mentioned how much she loves her parents? She loves her parents) while she sketches out designs in her notebook. What? Inventing is what she lives for.

So far, she hasn’t been able to get Midoriya to let slip anything about next year’s class beyond one of them having an engine quirk, and she’s already got a generalized cooling baby that she can probably adapt for that. That leaves her stuck working on generalized equipment for the support course entrance review… unless.

She flips to a clean page and begins on some rough sketches. Normally for hero costumes, you’d want something eye-catching, but vigilantes and underground heroes have the opposite goal; stealth and anonymity. Theoretically you could go for something that does both at once, like Edgeshot’s early outfits, but he had the benefit of being able to avoid damage and attention by extending himself out. Midoriya and Iguchi are going to need some more practical protection than that, even with their ace-in-the-hole.

The end result is full of clean lines. It’s not so tight that it’ll prevent their mobility, but it won’t be getting caught on anything either. Hoods and masks to protect their identities – Iguchi’s is curved out a bit to accompany his snout. She’s even managed to shrink down the steel boots and air funnels Midoriya asked for and work them in. She’ll probably still need to get Mama’s feedback on what kind of fabric would be best…

It’s not until Yuuna walks into the kitchen blinking the sleep out of her eyes that she looks around and realizes that the sun’s already come up and her rice has gotten cold. Ah, well. The greatest inventors should be ready to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of their clients, and what Midoriya doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Go Beyond, Plus Ultra!

*****

The sound of running feet and children laughing is music to Inko’s ears. She wouldn’t trade what she has with Izuku for the world, but she does sometimes wonder what things would be like if she and Hisashi had tried for one or two more. She’s not a lonely person by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s grateful all the same for the Hatsumes inviting her and giving her an excuse to get out of the house for the holidays.

After a bit, she wanders over towards the side of the living room where Iguchi is doing his best impression of a pot plant, save sipping on his punch ever now and then. “Not much of a party person, I take it?”

“Ah, yeah, I guess.” He looks into his cup and swirls his punch around. “Never been to many parties, really.”

“Well, there’s no shame in that.” They both silently take in the chaos around them. Mrs. Hatsume seems to be trying to corral a laughing Mei and a somewhat flustered Izuku under a sprig of mistletoe with no success. “I’ve been meaning to thank you,” she says at last.

The young man starts and looks over at her. “What’d I do?”

“You were there for him. Whatever brave face he puts on for the rest of us, my son has not had an easy life. There’s not many people that he can call his friends yet.” She takes a sip of her own drink and reminisces. “A decade ago, my little boy went somewhere, and I couldn’t follow him. But you could, and you have. So, thank you for watching out for him.”

Iguchi barks out a startled laugh. “I should be thanking you and him. Before all,” he gestures his hands around wildly, “this, I was just empty. Now I’m actually going somewhere with my life, even if I think I might be a little crazy to be doing it.”

She giggles. “I think we might all be, a little. If it helps, it is something you can get used to.”

“I’ll drink to that good news.” He empties the rest of his cup. “You know, I haven’t actually told the others yet, but I think I’m actually on my way out of that hellhole.”

“Oh?”

He nods. “Found a little appartment in Naruhata. It’s not cushy or anything, and I had to take out a loan, but I’ll be able to pay it off pretty quick, and it’s better than where I’m at. There’s a convenience store up there whose manager agreed to take me on.”

“Well I’m happy for you. Anything in particular that brought on the change?”

“Only a few more months until shi- stuff starts getting crazy, right? Figured it’d be better if I was a little closer.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you. I’m sure Izuku will be thrilled when you tell him. Speaking of…”

Izuku trots over to them. “Sorry to interrupt, Mom, but can I borrow Iguchi for a second? Hatsume and I need him for something.”

“Of course, the three of you go have fun.”

*****

Hatsume drops the duffel bags down on the ground, the thin layer of snow making a satisfying crunch as they land. “Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas!”

“What’s all this?” Iguchi asks.

“Why don’t you open that one up and find out?” Izuku says, hefting his own box in his arms.

Iguchi reaches down and slides open the zipper, pulling out something that looks like a sleek, matte grey astronaut helmet.

“It’s god a voice modulator already built into it. Voices are probably less important to cover up than faces, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”

Iguchi’s eyes go wide as he realizes what she’s talking about, and he scrambles to pull out a mottled jacket and pair of pants in the same dark grey as the helmet. Izuku opens his bag and finds a matching set. The fabric’s stiff, almost like thin cardboard, same as a lot of his old hero costumes.

Underneath it is the real centerpiece of the costumes. What looks like a dull, pared-down combat vest with a circular slot of metal in the center of the chest. “This,” he says, holding it up, “is a modular Quirk Overlay Unit. It doesn’t implant quirks so much as temporarily project one onto your body. One at a time only; most people can’t handle more than two quirks at once without risking brain damage. Can run for an hour tops, takes three hours to recharge.”

Iguchi’s jaw drops open. “We’ve got future tech?”

“Yes and no. It’s all based on weird quirks and mothballed tech I’ve encountered, but it’s never quite been put together like this. We’ve got five quirks to work with; close-range aerokinesis, muscle enhancement, radio hearing, one that disassembles manmade objects, and Hatsume’s Zoom. Hopefully, I can get us one or two more, but that’s it for now.”

“How’d you even get your hands on that sort of stuff?” he asks, lifting up the vest to examine it closer.

“Hair samples, mostly. There’s one more part to the costume.” He passes the box over to Iguchi, who gingerly takes it and opens it up to reveal a shinai. “You said you used to do kendo as a kid, right? It’s one of the reinforced ones they use in the real heavyweight leagues. We’ll work out what other gear you might need as you refine your fighting style a little, but it should be good for you to start with.”

“We’re starting this soon?”

“Yup, you’re ready. Only question left is, where do you want to start?”

“Hold on. This whole operation was your idea. Shouldn’t you pick where we go first?”

“I’ve got some ideas, but being partners isn’t just for show. I trust your judgment. So, who do you want to help?”

Izuku watches as Iguchi’s eyes begin to shimmer a bit. “You guys…” He rubs them on his sleeve. “Alright, if we’re doing this, I do have an idea.”

*****

Shuichi leaps across the rooftops, strengthening quirk burning under his skin. He’s glad that Midoriya made him take a few days to practice before they set his plan into motion. He’d assumed that controlling it would be a like flicking a switch, and he’d been right. What he hadn’t expect was his body feeling like it was trying to speedrun every growth spurt he’d ever had all at once the first time he turned it on.

Ahead of him, Midoriya skids to a halt on the edge of the roof, putting up a gloved hand to signal him to wait.

Looking into the alley below, there’s no doubt that they’re in the right place. Lady with an otter mutation being harassed by four guys in skull masks. The Animal Rejection Clan, or at least punks who’ve decided to follow their example by making themselves a nuisance and harassing people around his neighborhood.

Some sort of blackness spreads up the skin on the neck of one of the thugs, and another one blasts the lady with some sort of blue energy from his hands. She flinches and screams, and Midoriya is already leaping down, kicking up a gust of wind in his wake. Shuichi is half a second behind him, running down the side of the building and aiming for the energy user.

They’re all startled, and a blast of air from Midoriya’s hand knocks down the one with the bat before they can react. Mr. Electric manages to get off one more shot before Shuichi hits the ground. It hurts, but more like a really bad static shock than anything that can stop him. His sword connects with the man’s head, and he crumples in a satisfying heap.

His buddy whips off the chain that he was using as a belt, and it begins swinging and twirling it around like he’s controlling it. Shuichi tries to close in, but the chain catches his sword – not completely, but enough that the guy can get out of the way – and then snakes around and whips his shoulder.

He retreats slightly, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Bat Guy is back on his feet and dashing right for Midoriya, who’s dancing around the guy who Shuichi is pretty sure where the rubber smell is coming from. “On your left!” he calls, voice coming out weird through the mask, but his warning’s already unneeded. Midoriya is already twisting out of the way, and the bat whiffs the air where he was standing a moment before.

With a roar of wind, Midoriya begins ricocheting off the walls of the alley like he’s been shot out of a canon. The next thing Shuichi knows, both Chain Guy and Rubber Guy are down and Midoriya is touching down on the pavement next to him.

Looking around at his fallen buddies, Bat Guy reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like crumpled bits of paper before tossing them into his mouth. “Well, well, well. Looks like we’ve got ourselves a couple of heroes to deal with.”

“You bet your ass you’ve got a couple heroes to deal with!” Shuichi yells, hefting his sword.

“Don’t take the bait,” Midoriya gently cautions. “You go high, I’ll go low.”

“Got it.” Midoriya once again dissolves into a blur of motion and Shuichi charges Bat Guy. He intercepts his swing and tries to translate the motion into a shove. The guy barely budges, but it’s enough that he doesn’t see Midoriya coming from behind with a low roundhouse kick.

The guy’s leg twists just enough to knock him off balance, and he goes down on one knee. Shuichi brings down his elbow hard on the top of the guy’s head, and with one more strike of his sword he’s out.

“You hurt?” Midoryia asks, fishing out some rope from a pocket on his belt.

He shakes his head.

“Check on her and make sure she’s okay while I take care of these guys.”

Oh, right, the lady. Somewhere in the middle of the fight, Shuichi had lost track of her. She’s sprawled out on the ground and pressed up against one of the alley walls, watching them with wide, frantic eyes. She tries to back away as he comes close, so he tries a different approach.

He squats down and sets his sword far away from him on the pavement. “Don’t worry miss. We won’t hurt you. It’s safe now.”

She doesn’t visibly relax, but her breathing quiets a bit.

“It looked like one of those guys hit you right before we got here. Can you tell me if you’re hurt anywhere?”

“N-no,” she squeaks out.

“Okay, I’m glad to hear that. Is it alright if I come a little closer to help you up?”

She hesitates for a moment, then nods.

Careful not to move too quickly, he helps her up, making sure she’s able to stand alright on her own. “It’s usually better to have someone you can trust watch out for you a little while after something like this. Do you have a phone on you? Is there anyone who you can call to come and pick you up?”

“Y-yeah, my sister.”

“Okay, good. If you’d like, you can step out onto the sidewalk while you call her. We’ll make sure these guys don’t make any trouble.”

He and Midoriya stay until she confirms she’s getting picked up, then put in an anonymous tip to the police and book it. By the time they make it back to where they stashed their bags, his right arm is actually starting to hurt quite a bit.

As he pulls off his jacket, he catches sight of a patch of reddish brown. Ah. That’s blood. His blood. Fantastic.

“You good?”

Shuichi shows him. “I knew I got hit, but it just stung a little bit. Didn’t know it did damage.”

“Yeah, adrenaline’ll do that to you. Lucky it’s not too bad. Jacket probably took most of the blow. Hold up for a second.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out a bottle of water, a handkerchief, a tube of something, and a roll of bandages.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I was a paramedic my first time around. Remind me I’ve still got to teach you some emergency medicine.” He washes the cut off, applies some of the stuff from the tube to it, and wraps it up. “That should take care of it.”

*****

They’ve made it to the train just fine, having swapped out their costumes for exercise sweats. Midoriya has his eyes closed and his head leaned back.

“About how long do you think we were back there?” he asks, quiet enough that if Midoriya is really asleep it won’t wake him up.

He cracks an eye open and looks over. “Minute, minute and a half. Why?”

“Really? I dunno, it just felt like longer.”

Midoriya just shrugs. “Drawn out fights get more attention, but most heroes will try to finish a fight as quickly as they can unless they’ve got a quirk that specifically lets them outlast though opponents. Less risk of damages that way.”

“Ah.” The ride in silence for a little longer. “Hey Midoriya-”

“Izuku.”

“Huh?”

“Izuku. We fought together, so I’m Izuku.”

“…Call me Shuichi, then.”

Izuku nods, both as acknowledgement and for him to continue.

“What was with the human cannonball act back there?”

 “Ahhh. It’s called Full Cowling Shoot Style. I’m used to using it with a little more power to back it up, but the old geezer I based the basics on had an air jet quirk, so I figured I could adjust it for use with Bluster.”

“How much more power?”

“Mm, I’d say I top out at about seven percent of my old maximum, when I use it in tight bursts like I have been? Definitely less than ten percent.”

Shuichi wheezes. “Ten percent… just what sort of monster were you?”

Izuku gives a positively terrifying smile. “A very, very good one.”

Chapter Text

Izuku waits, leaning up against the UA wall, people watching. He mentally checks off a box every time a someone he recognizes goes by and tries guessing the quirks of those he doesn’t. It’s not like he’s worried that anyone will be missing, but it’s something to keep his mind off the screaming migraine that is the timeline itself bearing down on him, trying to force him away from this future. Today is Important, it changes things, and that means he’s not supposed to be back here. He knows it, too, he just doesn’t care. If he can get past this, then the rest of the days will start running together and the pain will be back to manageable levels for the most part.

He waits until he sees Kacchan and Ochako – not his Ochako, he reminds himself, for all the good it does – pass by before taking a gulp of his drink and heading for the gate himself. There will be no tripping over his own feet today.

Mic is a wonderful hero and a wonderful teacher and a wonderful guy but Izuku can’t help but wonder why he has to be so loud. As they start passing out the written exams Izuku lets memory and autopilot take over. Perks of having studied all of this before.

*****

Getting out in the fresh air helps a little. He finishes off the blackwhip special left in his thermos and tugs his battle shield off the bus. It’s nothing fancy, just a big, tough, rectangular sheet of metal with two straps to hold it by.

Luckily, he doesn’t need fancy.

He positions himself near the gate, trying to play it as casual as he can so that he doesn’t give the game away to the other participants. Better they figure it out for themselves.

As soon as Mic gives the word, he’s off. A one-pointer rolls up to meet him just a few seconds after he makes it through the gates. Rather than trying to dodge or block, he leans into its swing and makes a rough chop at its shoulder joint with the edge of his shield. The piece of metal is almost torn from his grip by the impact, but the robot’s arm is torn off with a satisfying screech. Despite the pain still blossoming between his ears, he smiles. One down, lots to go.

*****

Even before the rumbling starts, he feels the warning prickle behind his eyes. The zero-pointer is here. He begins working away from the center of the mock cityscape, helping cover others or finishing off one-pointers as he goes. Without One For All, he doesn’t have to worry about a repeat of last time’s performance, but he’s eager to get out of the path of the giant machine all the same. For a while, everything goes swimmingly.

And then someone screams, and like an idiot, he looks back.

Once again, Ochako’s leg is trapped under debris as the zero-pointer approaches. Whatever’s left of his sanity after all this time is desperately trying to relay to the rest of his brain that this is only barely Ochako as he first knew her. That she doesn’t know him at all, and he doesn’t owe her anything. That they have teachers on standby just for this sort of thing. That, knowing Nedzu, he’s probably watching this whole thing with his finger on the emergency shutoff button (albeit laughing maniacally at the same time).

Sanity is for suckers.

He tosses down his shield and begins running towards the danger. Caving the thing’s head in isn’t an option this time around, so he’s going to have to improvise. What can he – aha, there. He can work with this.

He snags the other examinee’s sleeve, and she twists around to look at him like he’s crazy (not that he can make much of a defense against that now). “Someone’s trapped, we have to save her!” he shouts. Then, realizing that she especially would have a hard time hearing him over all the noise, he points to where Ochako is. She looks conflicted for maybe two seconds, then nods and begins running with him.

He braces against the largest piece of concrete so that it won’t collapse as soon as its support is gone. Kyoka plugs her jacks into the lower chunk and vibrates until it crumbles. As soon as Ochako gets her foot free, he hoists her up and slips her arm over his shoulders, then half-supports half-carries her as they hobble away from the wreckage. He hardly notices the added weight over the white-hot poker that someone must have inserted in his brain in the last thirty seconds.

By the time he gets his senses back, they’re over a block away from the now-inactive machine. There’s a bitter and acidic taste in his mouth, and way too much vomit on the ground to just be Ochako’s. A rather green-looking Kyoka stands off to the side, squeezing her eyes shut and doing her best to plug her ears.

His emergency training kicks in, and he begins checking them over for injuries. Kyoka seems thankfully unhurt beyond some sensory overload, and Recovery Girl comes by part way through his checkup of Ochako. “I don’t think it’s broken, but she’s at least got a bad sprain and some bruising.”

“Hmm,” She looks over the foot before planting a kiss on Ochako’s forehead, engulfing her in a mint green glow as the quirk sets to work. “Looks like you know a little about this sort of thing, eh? But what about you, sonny? Looks like you took a nice hit to the noggin.”

“What” No, I’m-” he rubs his nose and his hand comes away red. Ah. That’s blood. His blood. Fantastic.

*****

“Come on, Deku!” Kacchan calls. “If we’re not back soon the old hag’s gonna let me have it!”

“I’m coming!” He bounces his ball one more time before cradling it in his arms. “I’ll race you!”

“Hey, no fair!”

But Izuku thinks it’s very fair. Kacchan’s stronger and faster, anyway, and he’s already pulled so far ahead after a minute that Izuku’s giving everything he’s got to not fall further behind. He’s trying so hard, in fact, that he forgets and doesn’t stop to look both ways at the sidewalk like Mom taught him.

He barely has time to register anything when he hears the tires screech. All he can think is please no.

He closes his hand tight around that wish, hanging on for dear life, and the whole world crumbles under his fingertips.

*****

He wakes up in the nurse’s office. The ache is still there, but it’s lost its edge. He’s weathered the worst of it for today. Once Recovery Girl is finished checking him over for signs of concussion or quirk overload, he’s released and sees himself out. Mei’s waiting for him by the gates, decked out head to toe in support gear and grinning wide.

“Wow, I was wondering why you were taking forever. You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“Mmph,” he responds. “Car, actually. But that was a long time ago. This is time sickness; trust me, it’s worse.”

That’s enough to get her peppering him with questions all the way to the train station until he feels like his head’s gonna split open again, but one in particular catches him off guard.

“Was it worth it?”

“Yeah,” he says without hesitation. “Yeah, it will be.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki shoves Deku up against the wall and hooks his hand under his collar. “What kind of dirty tricks did you use to get in?! Huh?! ‘The first of his school to be accepted into UA,’ that’s what they were gonna say about me! I told you to go somewhere else! My future’s already in pieces because of you!”

Deku has the audacity to scoff. “You done?”

Katsuki stills. “What did you just say?” he grits out.

“I asked, ‘Are. You. Done?’”

He’s not entirely sure what happens next. He sees red, and his free hand is sailing towards Deku’s face. The next moment, he’s up against the school wall with his arm being twisted behind him. On instinct, he releases an explosion and hears Deku grunt in pain. When he turns around, the other boy is stumbling back before falling into a combat stance, front of his uniform torn and smoldering. When and where did Deku learn a pin like that?

“Hero schools take fighting a lot more seriously than Aldera. If you want to go, then we can go right here, right now, but if that happens then neither of us are getting in. So, how badly do you want to be a hero, Kacchan?”

He scowls, but the crackling and smoking in his palms subsides.

“Good,” he eases up his stance. “Got it all out of your system? Then let’s talk.”

Katsuki looks, really looks at Deku for the first time in a long time. There’s no fear on his face right now. Not even the damn pity that he always had when they were kids, like Katsuki was some sort of weakling who needed saving. No, right now the damn nerd’s eyes are stern and fierce and full of something else that Katsuki can’t quite place. Condescension, maybe.

What the hell happened?

“Do you seriously think that, by the time you graduate from UA of all places, that anyone is going to care about what middle school you went to?”

Katsuki’s scowl deepens. He had thought that, or at least assumed as much without really thinking about it, but when it’s put that way… “What’s your point?” he growls.

“My point is that you’ve got the same future now as you did this morning, so go and make something of it instead of wasting all your energy on me!” he shouts, before steadying his voice. “I got accepted into UA. I am going to go to UA. I am going to save people. I did not get first place in the entrance exam like you did; I didn’t even make top twenty. I am not going to win the sports festival. I am not going to be the number one hero or surpass All Might, and I’m not trying to. If you’ve got a problem with any of that, if you think I’m doing all this to spite you or that I’m some sort of threat? Then that’s on you. But I don’t need to get out of your way because we’re not even on the same path.”

Hot, thick rage is boiling in Katsuki’s gut, but he’s being held back by two things. The first is that, as much as he hates it, Deku is right about hero schools and fighting. If he lets loose right now, all his work really will be for nothing. He might have a temper, but he’s not stupid.

The second is that he was wrong about something, or maybe he was tricked. Either way, he’s beginning to realize that he has no idea who the person in front of him is. And while that puts him even more on edge, it’s also just enough to give him pause.

He settles for a particularly rough shove before storming away. “This isn’t over. We’re not done. Not by a long shot.”

*****

Izuku’s rolls over to check the clock, and “4:02 AM” blinks mercilessly back at him. Three hours until his alarm is even set to go off. He briefly considers trying to get back to sleep, but his brain’s already running he knows himself well enough to know it’d be a wasted effort. At best, he’ll drift off just before he gets woken up again, and then he’ll be in a bad mood for the whole day. Better to just get a move on now and then crash this evening. They won’t have anything today besides the apprehension test, anyway.

On his third try, he manages to get enough willpower together to push himself out of bed and to the restroom. Once he’s done showering, he slips on his school uniform, takes a minute to absorb the fact that he’s actually in his old school uniform and wow where did the time go, and tiptoes into the kitchen to make himself breakfast and lunch, leaving Mom’s portion and a note in the fridge. Then he brushes his teeth, gathers the rest of his belongings, and slips out the door without more than a whisper.

He has the makings for coffee at home, but he’s got extra time today and the Lonely Owl apparently goes out of its way to cater to nocturnal cryptids, so he decides to take a detour and support the local economy. He considers stopping by the Hatsumes’ and catching the train with Mei, but orientation day is important, and he doesn’t want to throw her off her game by disrupting the sleep schedule that he desperately hopes she has.

Armed with medically inadvisable amounts of caffeine, he arrives at UA just as it opens it gates. Cementoss seems surprised to see him there, but after a minute of letting the slightly over-enthusiastic heroics student in him shine through, everything is smoothed over. He makes his way to the door to Class 1-A , begins to reach for the handle, and stops.

The door’s not locked, and he’s not fighting time especially hard this morning. He just can’t open it. How many times has he walked through this door before? How many memories that haven’t happened yet – that might never happen – all started in this room?

He doesn’t know exactly how long he stands there lost in thought, but he doesn’t snap out of it until he picks up on someone moving around nearby. He shakes himself, then looks around to see Tenya coming down the hallway.

“Hello!” he greets Izuku, chopping the air as he does so. “Am I correct that this is classroom 1-A?”

“Ah, yeah, it is,” he says, smiling as he pushes the door open. He blinks for a moment in the dark as his hand instinctively feels for the light switch. Looks like they’re the first ones here.

“My name is Tenya Iida from Somei Academy, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Tenya says with a bow that would be too formal for anyone else.

“Likewise. I’m Izuku Midoriya, please take care of me.”

According to the class printout, the roster is the same one that he remembers, but the seats are shuffled around. He’s assigned seat 15 this time around, which he gratefully sinks into before resting his head on the desk.

“Midoriya, did you not rest well? I understand that it is only orientation day, but maintaining a sleep schedule over breaks is essential not only for good academic performance but also for general health.” To anyone else it would sound harsh, but Izuku knows Tenya well enough to pick up on the note of concern in his voice.

He shrugs as he sits up. “I’m all good. My quirk just comes with ‘chronic migraines and mental fatigue’ as fun side effects.”

“Ah, my apologies for assuming,” he says, his voice a little quieter this time. “If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

“Noted and appreciated, but I came prepared,” he says, holding his coffee cup up.

He sits back and quietly and watches as the rest of the class trickles in, eyes prickling slightly as his gaze settles on each of them in turn. Good. He’d be worried if any of their timelines were drastically thrown off this early on.

He gets ready for something to explode when Kacchan walks in, but the boy just glowers and growls slightly before taking his seat and kicking his feet up, which draws the bulk of his attention to an argument with Iida over proper seating etiquette.

“If you’re going to waste time making friends rather than getting ready, you’d have been better off applying somewhere else. This is the UA heroics course, not kindergarten.” Aizawa rises suddenly from behind the teaching podium, making half the class jump and sending those who were still up dashing to their seats.

“That’s better. It wouldn’t be rational to waste any more time, so I’ll get right to the point. I’m your homeroom teacher, Shouta Aizawa. Nice to meet you all.” He pulls a UA exercise uniform out from the desk. “You’ll find more of these up here. Find one in your size, then go get changed and meet me out in the practice field.”

Midoriya hides his grin behind his cup as the rest of the class begins murmuring among themselves, trying to figure out what exactly is going on. Never change, Eraserhead.

On the way to the changing rooms, Ochako slows her pace until she’s walking next to him. “Hi! I just wanted to say thanks, for the, y'know…”

He waves her off, but gives a friendly smile, not letting any strain show through it. “It was no problem, I’m glad everything turned out alright. And, hey, looks like all of us got in anyway, so it turned out it wasn’t even a big risk or anything.”

“Hmm, but wasn’t it still a risk when you did it? You could have been getting more points.”

He shrugs and rubs the back of his head. “Maybe I could have, but I’m not worried. Anyway, let’s do our best now that we’re here, huh, Uraraka?”

A look of confusion crosses her face and is quickly replaced by a smile that’s just the slightest bit sheepish. “Yeah! Um, sorry, I know that we’ve already met and all but things were kind of hectic, and sometimes I’m not great with names…”

Internally, Izuku is screaming because he’s just now realizing that he used her name which she hasn’t told him yet and he’s pretty sure he may have just made the rookiest of all rookie time traveler mistakes short of erasing your own existence, and that’s not even a possibility for him. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If this is an omen, it does not bode well for the rest of the school year. He knows the only thing saving his hide right now is that people like to explain away slight discrepancies like this all on their own.

Externally, he maintains his smile and says, “Ah, no worries! I’m Midoriya, but Midori or Izuku works too if that’s easier.”

“Okay, Midori it is! So, what do you think Mr. Aizawa has us getting all suited up for?”

“Oh, you know. Probably just a team-building exercise or something,” he says, innocently.

*****

Once Eraserhead is done setting twenty teenagers at each other’s throats for the right to pursue their continued education and putting the fear of God into Minoru Mineta by expelling him and re-enrolling him on the spot, the entire class troops back to the classroom to pick up their printouts and then head home. Izuku hums happily to himself as he walks along. He’s gone the entire morning without drawing undue attention to himself, which he counts as an improvement. It probably helps that he’s not having to wrangle a visibly self-destructive quirk this time around. Also, 16^th place is nothing to sneeze at for someone with no physical enhancements. Note to self: hardcore vigilante training gets better results than the American Dream Plan. There’s something about jumping from rooftop to rooftop that you just can’t get doing anything else.

As he’s doing a quick scan over his printout, he feels someone tap on his shoulder. He turns around to see Kyoka standing there, twirling one of her earlobes. “Hey. I was hoping you’d make it in.”

“Hi. Um, can I help you with anything?”

“Actually, yeah. I still owe you a favor for back at the entrance exam, and I don’t like owing people.”

Now he’s just plain confused. “What on Earth would you owe me for?”

She crosses her arms, and they’re starting to draw a few curious stares. “Without your idea, I wouldn’t have broken into the top ten. Even if it’s just the entrance exam, that’s gonna be worth a lot when I start looking for internships. So, how can I repay you?”

His brain whirs for a second as he tries to figure out what she’s talking about, then the answer clicks. “The rescue points.” She nods in confirmation. “Nope, no way am I taking a reward for that. You did all the heavy lifting, and I was just trying to help out.”

“And it’s still not something I would have even registered in the middle of what was going on if you hadn’t stopped me.” She narrows her eyes, and he knows from years of friendship that trying to outstubborn her isn’t going to work.

“I- look, we’re like a month out from the sports festival, right? I won’t ask you to throw a match or anything, but maybe I can call in a favor then if there’s a team event or something? And if there isn’t then we’ll just call it even after the festival in exchange for you waiting.”

She thinks it over for a moment before nodding. “I can live with that. And I might not owe you as much as I owe him, but that goes for you, too,” she says, spinning around and pointing an earphone jack at Ochako.

“Huh, me? B-b-but I didn’t do anything! You two saved me!”

“Come on, there’s gotta be something small I can help you out with.”

Ochako, on the other hand, might be able to talk her way out of it. While the two of them are talking back and forth, he seizes the opportunity to gather his things and slip out of the classroom.

Chapter Text

Shoto tucks into his noodles, eager to fuel up for the rest of the afternoon. So far, the subjects covered have only been mildly challenging, nothing he can’t handle, as expected for this early in the year. He expects that foundational hero studies will be the same, but he wants to be ready for anything, especially seeing as it’s being taught by All Might this year. Whatever his personal feelings towards the man himself might be, he has nothing but respect for the power and dedication that it must have taken him to become the number one hero. He’s bound to have high expectations for his students, and Shoto fully intends to live up to them.

He’s more focused on his food than anything right now. There’s plenty of activity going on around him, he just doesn’t really care; he came here to be a hero and show up his old man, not make friends. Still, he’s trained his awareness of his surroundings for years, which means that it takes some effort on his part not to jump just a little bit when he realizes that someone’s appeared in the spot next to him at the table without his noticing.

“’Afternoon!” his classmate chirps with entirely too much energy for someone as tired as he looks. “Hope nobody was sitting here.”

Shoto stares for a moment, trying to remember his name, before his brain makes the proper connections and he realized that he’s talking to him. “No.”

“Great.” He claps his hands together and looks down at his tray of food. “Let’s eat!”

Shoto watches for a minute as the other boy starts devouring his lunch before turning his attention back to his own. That’s it then. He’d just wanted to check if anyone was sitting there. Nothing more.

“So, who’s your favorite hero?” he asks after a minute.

The question catches Shoto off guard. “What?”

“Your favorite hero. Mine’s probably All Might, but Eraserhead’s pretty cool, too.”

The wheels in Shoto’s head spin, trying to make sense of whatever this is, but he’s coming up empty. “I… don’t really have one,” he admits. “Who’s Eraserhead?”

The boy looks at him in confusion, then visibly bluescreens for a second before recovering and smacking his palm to his forehead. “Sorry, he’s an underground hero, I should have figured most people wouldn’t recognize him. I mean Mr. Aizawa.”

Huh. If nothing else, that answers one thing he’s been wondering. He knows that all the UA staff are current or retired pro heroes, but he hasn’t been able to place their homeroom teacher yet, and he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with that information yesterday at their ‘orientation.’ Still, that one question is suddenly replaced with several more about the boy sitting next to him who’s rambling on about heroes around bites of his beef bowl, pausing every now and then to ask what Shoto thinks about this rookie’s debut or that team’s spot in the rankings.

It’s a distraction. Not entirely unwelcome, but not something that will do him any good in the long run. He does his best to stamp out the questions as they pop up in his mind. He has more important things to worry about.

*****

Izuku raps his knuckles against the helmet a few times, decides he’s satisfied with the hollow *thunk* it makes, and slips it on to finish his costume. Seeing as he doesn’t have any sort of physical enhancements and he can’t exactly bring an Overlay Unit to school with him without raising all the wrong eyebrows, he’s taken a little bit more of a practical, gadgeteer approach this time around. The keystone of his costume is a set of light armor; not enough to hinder his movement, but enough to protect his vitals. Secondary to that are his utility belt and cape. He also has a small arsenal of custom weapons, but he won’t be wearing those today. There's no reason to go into a practice session like this loaded for bear; he doesn’t actually want to hurt his classmates, and being killed by Recovery Girl on his first day would really put a damper on his plans. The whole ensemble is mostly brown and green with some silver highlights, and makes him look like some combination of ancient Greek soldier and a character out of an isekai novel.

He walks out of the large hall connecting the changing rooms to the training ground and is greeted by All Might complimenting all their costumes. Izuku relaxes and lets any nerves drain away as All Might launches into an explanation of the bomb capture exercise, despite the dull discomfort that’s starting to bloom in his temples. It’s nostalgic, being back here, ready to go back into action alongside his friends. That, and he knows that random lotteries tend to be, well, random across all timelines, just so long as his presence has some effect on the events leading up to them. So a quick, ‘accidental’ bump into All Might a few minutes ago, and he’s already resolved most of today’s headaches, both figurative and literal.

“…And for our fourth round, we will have Midoriya and Uraraka as the villains, facing Bakugo and Todoroki as the heroes!” All Might announces.

If looks could kill, the police would be hauling away Kacchan any minute now. The icy stare that Shoto is giving him and Ochako isn’t much better. Sometimes, he wonders if the universe likes proving him wrong.

*****

Ochako isn’t sure what to make of her teammate.

When she first met him, she’d been half out of it with pain and worry, but she couldn’t help but feel like he knew what he was doing. Like he was somehow used to rescuing people from giant robots. Like everything was going to be okay. Sure, he’d passed out in the end, but right up until that moment it had been like he was completely in control of the situation.

Yesterday and today, though, that feeling had almost completely dissolved, and all that was left behind was a nice but plain and quiet boy who seemed content to watch the world as it went by. The closest thing she’d seen to how he’d been back at the entrance exam was when he hadn’t gotten his feathers ruffled at all by Mr. Aizawa’s antics, but even that might have just been his laid-back aura absorbing the shock. Even now, when he’s all decked out in his costume, it feels like Midori is just going to fade into the background if she looks away for too long. She’s not even sure if she’s seen him use his quirk yet.

She shakes her head and fixes her attention back on the screen, hoping to find some sort of inspiration in Sero and Kirishima’s fight against Iida and Asui. She’s up against someone who came in first in the entrance exam and someone who got in on recommendation; if she wants even a chance of winning, she needs to keep her head in the game. “Any ideas for our round?” she whispers, leaning over towards Midori.

He shakes his head. “We’re lucky they won’t be able to use their quirks to the fullest indoors, but…” He shrugs.

She nods and turns her attention back to the screen. Every time Iida and Asui manage to slip past Kirishima and start trying to navigate through the web of tape that Sero’s set up, it slows them down just enough for Kirishima to start pulling them back gain. She feels a little bad for them. She’s not an expert or anything, but it seems like they’re both pretty good, they just got a bad match-up too.

Midori hums as time runs out and the first two teams start making their way back. “Hey, All Might. Just making sure, but we’re allowed to use whatever gear we bring with us, right?”

“Hm? Yes, that’s correct, Young Midoriya.”

“Cool, thanks.”

She shoots a curious look in his direction, but he either doesn’t see her or just doesn’t react.

After they finish discussing the performances of the first round participants as a class, All Might escorts the next group to a nearby training building. As soon as they’re out the door, Midori grabs herself, Yaoyorozu, and Ashido and pulls them to the side. “Alright, I’ve got an idea that will benefit both our teams,” he says in a conspiratorial tone. “Yaoyorozu, your quirk lets you create inanimate objects, right?”

“I- yes, it does. You’ve been watching me?”

“I’ve been paying attention to everybody, even back at the entrance exam. I’ve got an intelligence-boosting quirk, and studying quirks has been a hobby of mine for years, which brings me to my offer. Uraraka and I will need some special equipment if we want to take on Kacchan and Todoroki. I want to offer a trade of information about your opponent’s quirks in exchange for the gear.”

“Hmm… I’m not sure,” Yaoyorozu glances to her teammate. “What do you think, Ashido?”

The very pink girl puts a finger on her chin, thinking through it. “I guess working together makes some sense since we’re both villain teams, but how do we know your information’s any good? No offence.”

“None taken.” He lazily jabs a finger at Yaoyorozu. “Object creation quirk. It doesn’t seem to convert mass directly from your body, but the process might be using some physical resource as a catalyst. Lipids, maybe? And between the book on your costume and how much you were checking your phone before making the more complex objects for Mr. Aizawa’s test, you probably have to have a reasonable degree of knowledge concerning the specifics of the objects you create.” His pointing shifts over to Ashido. “Acid secretion quirk, based on the scent of that liquid you were skating around on yesterday. It didn’t seem to corrode anything it touched though, so it’s probably either a weak acid, or you can control how corrosive it is. I’m leaning a little bit towards the latter, since that would definitely be helpful against the robots in the entrance exam. You also seem pretty strong and fast even without your quirk, so I’m guessing you did a lot of athletics back in junior high, or maybe dancing.” Finally, he gestures to Ochako. “Gravitational suspension quirk, probably a five-point contact one based on how you hold your pinky finger out whenever you reach for things. You seem to get nauseous when you use it over long periods, so maybe using it causes feedback in your inner ear or something. I’m not sure if your limits are based on mass, weight, or time, though.”

The three of them stare at him for a moment, gobsmacked, before she speaks up. “Wow, you got all that after a day and a half?! That’s amazing!” she whisper-shouts.

He rubs the back of his head, his glove making a slight scratching sound on his metal helmet as he does. “T-thanks. Like I said, it’s a hobby. Anyway, do we have a deal?”

“Would it be alright if you give us the information now, then I make the gear for you after Ashido’s and my match to save energy?”

“Works for me.” Midori straightens up, and there’s a shift in the air. She can’t see his face, but she thinks she can hear a smile in his voice. “Alright, here’s the plan…”

Ah, so that’s where the boy from the entrance exam went.

*****

“And, start!” All Might’s voice crackled over their earpieces.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road!” Small sparks of electricity arc out as Denki cracks his knuckles. “Ready to go, Hagakure?” he asks, glancing over at his invisible teammate.

“Yup! Before we go in though, I should probably get undressed. Don’t look.”

“Sounds goo- wait, what?!” He asks, doing a double take.

“Hey, didn’t I just say not to look!” she squawks, thwacking him a few times with the glove she just slipped off for good measure.

“Okay, okay, fine, sorry!” he says, turning away with his ears burning. It’s not like I’d see anything anyway. She knows that, right?

They waste about two minutes of their precious time just trying to find where the bomb’s holed up, but eventually something catches Hagakure’s attention and she calls him over to her location over their intercoms. When he got there, he found a pool of some clear liquid pooling out from underneath the door. He rubs a little bit of it between his finger and holds it up to his nose to take a whiff. “Huh, smells like lemons,” he whispers.

“You think they’re behind there?” the empty air whispers back.

“I’d bet on it. Here, stand back a ways. I’ve got an idea, but like I said, my quirk’s kind of prone for friendly fire.”

“Alright, I’m good!” he hears from further away.

He kneels down and presses his palm against the puddle before letting loose with his quirk. The sudden yells and thuds on the other side of the door make him cringe internally. He’s not really a fan of the idea of tasing his classmates, especially a couple of cute girls, but at the end of the day they’re all here to be heroes and give it their all. He stands back up and opens up the door, signaling for Hagakure to come closer.

They’ve definitely got the right place; the bomb is up against the opposite wall, next to the windows. The entire floor of the room is covered in a thin layer of the same stuff that was seeping out from under the door, and the lemon scent is much stronger now with the door open. Halfway into the room, Yaoyorozu and Ashido are laying on the ground, wrapped up in what looks like some kind of hazmat suits. Huh, they really went all out with the villain thing. Got new costumes and everything. “Well, that takes care of that, I guess. After you, m’lady,” he says with an exaggerated accent and bow.

“Why thank you, kind sir,” Hagakure says with a giggle and similarly exaggerated high class accent. He can’t really see her, but a trail of small splashes and ripples begins moving across the room towards the bomb, and he’s only a few steps behind.

Suddenly, one of the girls’ arms snakes across the floor and snatches where Hagakure’s last splash was. She shrieks and, based on the sudden impact that knocks him backwards, falls over.

“Young Hgakure has been captured!” All Might announces over his earpiece. With horror, he looks down to see a circle of capture tape floating just off the floor, and Yaoyorozu and Ashio rising from the ground. He lets off a weak burst from his quirk, but Hagakure’s yelling and the way the other two seem completely unfazed quickly shuts down that idea.

Crap, they’re insulated somehow. Aaaaaaand coming right towards me. He lifts up his hands in a placating gesture, searching frantically for some way to zip past them and get the bomb. “H-hey now. What if we all talked this out? Guys?”

*****

“In five minutes, the hero team will break in, and the battle will start. Midoriya and Uraraka, try to get into the mindset of the villains. And all of you don’t be afraid to go all out or get hurt. I’ll put a stop to things if they begin going too far.”

“Yes, sir!”

Shoto watches as their opponents head inside, Midoriya carrying a bucket full of water and Uraraka carrying a… plastic water gun? It’s enough to pique his curiosity, but nowhere near enough to worry him. Maybe they’re hoping he’ll somehow freeze himself. Their mistake.

He turns to his teammate. “My name is Shoto Todoroki. My quirks allows me to generate ice from my left side. I recommend that you stand back while I freeze the building, then we both split up to search for the bomb.”

“Eh?” Bakugo spins around to face him, eyes narrowed. “Trying to edge me out of my glory, Peppermint?”

Peppermint? “It’s the most efficient method, unless you’ve got a better idea.”

“Do I look like I give a damn?” He shifts his gaze back to the building. “If you’re worth that fancy recommendation spot of yours, then either of us should be able to match Round Face in a fight with no problem.”

“Round…? Do you mean Uraraka? What about Midoriya?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?! Of course I can beat Deku!” he snaps with more heat than Shoto’s seen from him yet, which is saying a lot. “Only thing the bastard’s quirk is good for is acting like a know-it-all, anyway.”

“You know him already,” Shoto concludes after a moment’s consideration, earning him a growl from Bakugo. Undeterred, he presses on. “What is his quirk?”

“Some intelligence booster. ‘Prodigy,’ maybe. Turned him into a genius overnight back when we were kids. Dunno why the damn nerd never just tested out and skipped a few grades.”

“Good to know. Anyway, if you don’t actually have a plan beyond running in guns blazing, then you should know that I’m ready to win this match without you.”

“Whatever, Peppermint. Just stay the hell out of my way.”

“And, start!” All Might relays over their earpieces.

As if on cue, Midoriya – apparently sans cape – pops up in one of the windows on the uppermost floor and begins spraying Bakugo with the water gun.

“Augh! What the- Get down here you damn nerd!” Bakugo shouts, propelling himself upwards with his explosions. As Midoriya scrambles back, he manages to get a grip on the window ledge and hauls himself.

Shoto weighs his options. He could just freeze the whole building and complete the exercise himself, but if Bakugo takes out Izuku quickly enough then he’ll be wasting another searcher. And if Bakugo does somehow get captured, All Might will announce it and he’ll just freeze the building then. He makes up his mind and heads inside without using his quirk.

*****

“Alright, so,” Izuku says, setting the bucket down by the door, “to start with, let’s collect all the junk around here into a big pile.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Simple,” he says, raising an index finger and winking behind his helmet, “you’re going to be our secret weapon, and I want to give you as big an arsenal as I can.” He starts pulling some of the heavier objects closer together. “See, normally I’d say we should both guard this thing, but if Todoroki ices the whole place over, I’ll be useless to you. But you should be able to dodge his freezing by making yourself float. And until then, I’ll try to burn through some of their time by leading Kacchan on a merry chase.”

“Wait, you’re leaving me alone? How do you know he won’t just rush past you and come find me?”

“Trust me on this one, I’m sure of it.” He weighs the water gun in his hands, then does a few practice sprays across the room. “Kacchan and I went to the same junior high, and he’s got it out for me. He might want to win, but I guarantee you he won’t want to pass up a school-sanctioned brawl.”

*****

“Young Bakugo has been captured!” All Might announces over his earpiece, and Shoto doesn’t waste any more time once the distant explosions grind to a halt. The exercise is almost half over, and he still hasn’t found the bomb yet. He presses a hand up against the wall just long enough to coat the entire building in a sheen of ice before resuming his search, forcing open each door he comes across to check the room behind it, then moving on to the next room once it turns up empty.

Some doors are easier than others. Covered in ice, it takes some shoving to open them up, even if they’re already open a crack. The best ones are the ones that are already open wide enough he can just duck his head in.

He’s in the middle of forcing his way into yet another room when something crashes into his head from above and he is suddenly very, very cold. He fights off the instinct to reach for the hot half of his quirk, instead batting away whatever just hit him. The plastic bucket clatters onto the floor, and past the feeling of being soaked in some sort of super-chilled liquid he makes out someone’s voice. He only has another half-second to register what they said before he’s scrambling to put up a shield of ice over himself.

“Release!”

*****

“…so when you have a mixture of glycerin and water, like I had Yaoyorozu make for us, it becomes an antifreeze. Non-toxic, too, so we don’t have to feel bad about using it.”

“Wow. Is that going to cancel out Todoroki’s quirk somehow?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think that would work. But it will be able to get very cold without freezing. That means we can use it to make a trap. And then, when it has him off-balance, that’s when you make your move.”

*****

He manages to block the pile of junk that comes crashing towards him from above, but by now he’s starting to feel the costs of using so much ice, coupled with whatever they doused him with. He sees Uraraka’s hand, but he can’t react quickly enough as it slaps into his shoulder and sends him sailing across the room.

He manages to bring up another wave of ice to catch himself, but now he’s disoriented in more ways than one. He’s been trained in a lot of things, but maneuvering in a zero-gravity environment is not one of them. He catches sight of something hurtling towards him, so he bats it away out of instinct. His hand wraps around Midoriya’s cape – so that’s where it went – and he pushes it out of the way just in time for Uraraka to body slam him.

He begins calling up his ice, but by now she already has herself wrapped around his left arm.

“G-got you,” she stutters out through chattering teeth.

And sure enough, there’s the capture tape wrapped around his bicep.

He lost.

*****

He lost.

And he didn’t just lose, he lost to Deku. Useless, good-for-nothing Deku. It was like every punch he threw, every explosion he let off was already predicted four moves ahead of time. The nerd hadn’t just been fighting, he’d been fighting like a damn pro. In the face of Katsuki’s speed, strength, and quirk, that had been his one saving grace, but it had turned out to be more than enough. Katsuki goal had been to beat the nerd to a pulp, but he had only needed to wait for the chance to get in one good grapple.

“Man,” Deku says, stretching as the ice that the half-and-half bastard trapped them both in melts away, “that was a good fight. I bet you would’ve beat me if we’d been doing that for real. Probably still could have, if you’d focused on the capture rather than fighting on its own.”

Katsuki stares blankly at the hand up that Deku’s offering before slowly pushing himself to his feet. He doesn’t feel angry right now. He doesn’t.

He is angry.

“Shut,” he plants an explosion directly in the middle of the damn nerd’s chest, sending him flying back and knocking the wind out of him, “up!”

He dashes forward, adding the momentum of the rest of his body to a powerful swing of his right bracer. This time the damn nerd can’t react fast enough. He doesn’t see it coming. “You think that was funny?! Leading everybody along by the nose all those years?! Huh?! Who the hell do you think you are?!”

He grabs him by the shoulders and swings around, sending him crashing into a wall. He raises his hand to keep going, but someone catches it from behind.

“That’s enough, Young Bakugo,” All Might says, and his voice leaves no room for argument. “Whether you win or lose, you have the chance to learn from your mistakes. But attacking your opponent after an exercise has ended is conduct unbecoming of a hero and a student of UA.”

He turns his attention away from Katsuki, and he releases a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

“Young Midoriya, are you alright?”

Deku coughs a few times before giving a shaky thumbs-up. “Great. And… Kacchan, it was never about leading people on. But time changes people. Not always a bad thing, but it's the truth.”

*****

Shota goes over the tapes of the exercises, scratching out pointers and critiques for each of the students as he notes them. When he reaches the final exercise, he pauses. And rewinds, and watches, and pauses again.

Utter and complete lack of cooperation with his partner or the exercise in general aside, Bakugo’s performance is top notch. Beyond his athleticism and powerful quirk, the boy has clearly trained intensely, probably for most of his life. Making fine, mid-air adjustments with a quirk as volatile and indiscriminate as Explosion isn’t something that can happen overnight.

All of which just makes it more impressive that Midoriya was able to not only evade and hold his own against Bakugo, but eventually capture him. Part of that, of course, was due to the nature of the exercise – it’s far easier to wrap capture tape around an opponent than it is to physically incapacitate them, especially when your opponent has a physical quirk and you don’t. Based on their performances in the entrance exam and apprehension test, there’s no question in Shota’s mind that Bakugo would win in any real physical competition between the two. And yet…

There’s a fine but present line between people who are skilled because of talent or study, and people who are skilled as a result of practical experience. Bakugo is a finely-honed ball of combat instincts who checks off the first two boxes in spades.

Now why, against all logic, can’t he shake the feeling that Midoriya is fighting like someone who falls into that last category?

“Oh, hey, which two are those?” Hizashi asks, leaning over his shoulder to get a better view of the computer screen.

“Bakugo and Midoriya.”

“Ah, the loudmouth and American kid.”

“American? I didn’t see any sort of overseas study records on his transcripts.”

“Oh, not actually American, but you should have heard him in class today. Kid’s got a better accent than I do. Said his mom’s a translator and he’s got some internet friends overseas when I asked about it, but still. Kind of makes you wish you had an intelligence quirk back when we were in school, eh?”

“Hnn,” he grunts, fixing his attention back on the screen. More puzzle pieces. There’s a hard limit to how far he’ll pursue them – his students have the right to their privacy – but he still wonders. Just what sort of mystery are you, Izuku Midoriya?

In the meantime though, he has more pressing things to worry about. Things like getting these notes finalized, preparing for tonight's patrol, and deciding what should be done about Bakugo.

Chapter Text

Izuku melts into a comfortable blob on his desk and basks in the bliss of being ignored. He had assumed that the time an aspiring paparazzi broke into his office for a scoop (or tried to, anyway) was the peak of his media troubles, but going through this morning again has definitely made him reconsider his stance.

“First off, apologies for the media nuisances outside,” Aizawa says. See? This man gets it. “Now, we have homeroom business to address.”

Nothing about yesterday’s exercise? That catches Midoriya’s attention. His head snaps up and eyes scan the room, settling on Kacchan’s empty desk. This doesn’t bode well. He doesn’t miss school. If he’s not here, then something’s going on, something that Izuku hasn’t anticipated. He learned to clamp down on the god complex that comes with time travel a long time ago, but it doesn’t change the fact that all this makes him uneasy.

He’s grounded again by the sudden clamor all around him. That’s right, the class president elections.

“Silence, please!” Tenya calls. “Leadership comes with serious responsibility. It’s not a job for just anyone who wants to do it. It’s a calling that requires the trust of those around you. If we want to use democracy to choose on a true leader, then we should hold a proper election.”

There’s some muttering in rough agreement, until someone points out that Tenya has his hand raised higher than anyone.

“We haven’t known each other for that long,” Tsuyu points out. “It’ll be hard to vote for people without a clear idea of who we should trust.”

“Plus, won’t everyone just vote for themselves?” Eijiro asks.

Tenya’s about to respond, but Izuku beats him to the punch. “Why not have nominations, then?” Everyone turns their attention to him. “If most people vote for themselves, then in the end it’s really only going to be a couple people who vote for someone else playing kingmaker. But what if we made it so that, by taking yourself out of the running, you get to nominate someone else, and then the whole class picks from the nominees? So for example, I nominate Iida; his first instinct when he found out I have migraines is see if he could help at all, and that seems like the kind of guy I’d be comfortable representing me.”

“You’re not going to vote for yourself?“ Ochako asks as Tenya splutters at the praise.

He gives a shrug and a tired smile. “I’ll still be glad to help out where I can if people want, but no. Leadership’s just not the job for me.”

Tenya clears his throat. “I am honored by your nomination, Midoriya. Is anyone opposed to using the system that Midoriya has suggested? Mr. Aizawa?”

“I don’t care what you all do, so long as you decide by the end of the period,” he says, retreating into the comfort of his sleeping bag. See? This man gets it.

There’s some murmuring around the classroom as everyone tries to sort out their next move. There seems to be a general hesitance for anyone ese to take themselves out of the running until Shoto speaks up. “I nominate Yaoyorozu.”

After that, things seem to get moving again. By the time everyone’s satisfied, it’s Tenya, Yaomomo, Denki, Mina, and Tsuyu on the ballot. A few minutes later and Tenya is president, Yaomomo is vice-president, and all is right in the world.

It’s a comforting lie, and one that Izuku is sure he’ll tell himself plenty more time today.

*****

Katsuki vibrates his foot and tries not to growl as the first bell rings. This is a waste of time. He should be getting to class, but no. He’s stuck here waiting for the principal to call him in. The late bell and a few more minutes after that tick by before the door opens.

“Please, come in, Mr. Bakugo!” announces a squeaky voice, and Katsuki checks himself before reacting to the… person? In front of him. The principal looks like a big white plush toy more than anything. A plush toy in a sweater vest with a giant scar over one eye.

He sulks inside the office and takes a seat when the principal directs him. It’s a big, modern room with huge windows, mostly empty except for the hardwood desk and some bookshelves along the walls.

“Tea?” the principal asks, pouring himself a cup from a small electric kettle?

“No.”

“As you wish.” The principal takes a small sip of his tea, then places the cup down on a coaster and steeples his paws. “Now, can you tell me why you think I called you here today?”

Katsuki grits hit teeth and forces back the first answer that pops into his mind. “Because I broke the rules of an exercise and you wanted to talk to me about that, sir.”

“That’s certainly part of the issue at hand. I’d like to give you a full opportunity to explain your actions from your own point of view. What led you to believe attacking Mr. Midoriya was an acceptable course of action?”

“I kept fighting because Deku used some sort of dirty trick to win. I’m not the kind of person who just lets people walk over me like that. Sir,” he adds, belatedly.

“Oh? I’m not sure I follow. I reviewed the tapes of the exercise myself, and while you both certainly fought fiercely, I can’t say that I saw anything that would lead me to believe that Mr. Midoriya cheated.”

“No, you don’t understand! Deku can’t fight like that! There’s something going on with him!”

“And what, exactly, leads you to believe that you know how Mr. Midoriya can and cannot fight?”

“I-” A cold feeling settles in Katsuki’s chest as Deku’s words ring in his ears. ‘Hero schools take fighting a lot more seriously than Aldera.’ For once, he keeps his mouth shut.

The principal studies him for a moment in the silence. “I see. Well, I suppose that does answer a few things I had questions about. Tell me, what do you think my quirk is, Mr. Bakugo?”

What kind of waste-of-time question is that? “Mouse mutation?”

“Interesting. Many people would have hedged their guesses with several animals, or generalized their answer with something like ‘an animal mutation.’ But I suppose that’s beside the point; my actual quirk is High Spec. It increases both my physical and mental abilities; the former from those of a small mammal to roughly the level of a weak human, and the latter to the point of superhuman intelligence capable of analyzing the past, present, and potential states of all sorts of things.” He takes another sip of his tea. “Back to the main topic at hand; attacking a fellow student with your quirk outside the limits of an exercise is both conduct unbecoming of a hero, and grounds for beginning expulsion proceedings.”

“What? No! You can’t just-”

“I can,” the principal assures him without raising his voice, “and when I do so I am not as lenient about it as your homeroom teacher. I have no intent of letting your behavior become a recurring problem, Mr. Bakugo. But never let it be said that I am inflexible. As I said, my quirk allows me to see and analyze potential to a certain degree, and the potential I see in you is very great indeed. Not so great that I am going to allow this infraction or any others to go unaddressed, but I’d hate to see it go to waste or, worse, be misapplied.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, Mr. Bakugo, that I’m willing to give you a chance, for other peoples’ sakes if not yours. With certain conditions, of course. First, your classmates are in the midst of deciding their class representatives as we speak. Regardless of the outcome of this conversation, you will not have any say in that decision-making process. Second, you will meet with me during your free study periods to discuss the nature and ethics of heroics until I’m satisfied that we are on the same page, and I will most likely give you independent assignments to go along with these sessions. Third, you will stay behind at school tomorrow while the rest of the class is on a field trip to learn about and practice rescue heroics for the same purpose.”

“You… you can’t,” Katsuki repeats numbly. His whole life has been building up to this point and this rat just… “It’s not-”

“Fair? Indeed! You will have to work much harder than your classmates to avoid falling behind, and I will have to take time out of my already busy schedule to help correct an issue I played no role in creating. I should say it’s quite unfair to both of us. Do we have a deal?”

Katsuki feels hollow. He want’s to be angry, wants to shout that this isn’t right, that he doesn’t deserve this, but something smothers the sparks every time he tries. “…You already know. As soon as I walked in the door, you knew how this whole thing was going to go.” He looks to the principal for confirmation, and finds only a serene smile and something unsettlingly familiar and unplaceable glittering in his dark eyes. He takes a deep breath. “Dammit, fine. You’ve got your deal.”

*****

Today, Shoto notices when Midoriya slumps into the seat next to him and slides his food tray onto the table. He wonders if yesterday was somehow not a fluke, and that this is going to become a regular thing. Midoriya’s face seems the tiniest bit tighter today compared to yesterday. His ever-present smile a little thinner but no less warm, the bags under his eyes a little darker. When he looks around, he doesn’t seem to see people so much as he seems to see past them and out the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the cafeteria.

“I never formally apologized, about my exercise partner yesterday,” he says, scrambling for small talk.

“Huh?” Midoriya pauses with his spoon halfway up to his mouth, looking genuinely bewildered. “Oh, that. Don’t apologize. Not Kacchan’s finest moment, maybe, but it’s not on you to carry other people’s decisions for them.” He sips some of the broth from his spoon and flinches, reaching for his drink. “Ow, hot. How about you?”

“What about me?”

“How are you doing after yesterday’s class?”

“Fine,” he says, just a bit too sharply. “It showed me weak points I still need to cover. Endurance. Situational awareness. Planning.” Shoto’s torn between keeping this conversation in the familiar waters of tactical planning and quirk use, and trying to steer it away from things that will force him to acknowledge his wounded pride and the grudge that he’s very carefully trying not to hold against his classmate. Then Midoriya burns himself on the soup again, and Shoto has an idea. “Pass your bowl this way.”

Midoriya raises a questioning eyebrow, but does so.

Shoto holds his right hand against the side of the bowl and calls up the barest sliver of his quirk. Chilling food and drinks is a trick that he figured out years and years ago, right after his quirk came in. There’s no real use to it, apart from a cheap trick but it’s his. One of the first things he taught himself to do all on his own.

He passes the bowl back, and his classmate takes a tentative sip before tucking in. “Much better, thanks!”

It’s at that moment that the alarms go off. A canned female voice is instructing all the students to evacuate the area in an orderly manner. Over the confused shouting of the students, he recognizes the words ‘Level 3 security breach’ from the student handbook. It means that someone just successfully broken into what might just be the most secure school campus in the country. He’s standing up to join the throng of students dashing for the exits when Midoriya grabs him and drags him under the table.

“What are you doing? Don’t you know what that alarm means?”

Midoriya doesn’t look at him. He’s staring straight ahead, lips pressed tight, like he expects to be able to see through the school’s walls if he stares hard enough. “It’s probably not an attack. If it was, we would have heard a commotion from the reporters out front. Either way, if we go now, we’ll just add to the chaos and we’ll be trapped by the crowd. Give it a minute to sort itself out. If things don’t clear up by then, you can boost me up with an ice pillar, and we can try to get everyone’s attention and calm them down that way.“

The logic is sound, and the certainty in Midoriya’s delivery is enough to make him wait. Their patience is rewarded less than a minute later when Iida’s voice rings out across the cafeteria, alerting everyone that it’s just the press and urging them to keep their wits about them before someone is trampled or crushed.

The room skitters to a halt, and soon everyone is moving outside in an orderly fashion. Sure enough, it wasn’t villains; just a swarm of journalists. On the march back to class, Shoto leans over and asks Midoriya why he didn’t just grab everyone’s attention to begin with, if he had it figured out.

Midoriya’s grin widens, and Shoto feels a chill that has nothing to do with his quirk.

“I’m more of a ‘behind the scenes’ person.”

Chapter Text

“Remember, don’t focus on today’s news, it’ll just stress you out.”

“I know.”

“Oh, and Ms. Yamada said that she’d still like to get together for lunch with you one of these days when I saw her yesterday on the way home.”

“Thank you, dear.”

“Oh, and-”

“Izuku.”

He stops trying to make his way out the door and gives his mom his full attention. She’s wringing a handkerchief and holding back tears. She looks… not haunted, but worn. Old. It’s a look he’s seen on himself that has nothing to do with his quirk or his age. After all, he’s been a parent too. He knows what it is to worry.

“Please be safe.”

He lets himself be pulled into a hug, and returns it with a squeeze. Mom hugs are something you never outgrow. “I will. I promise, I’ll come back to you.” A grave smile plays over his lips. “Everyone gets to go home today. I’ll make sure of it.”

*****

Izuku slots his helmet into place and exhales quietly. Looking around, just about everyone else is chattering excitedly about the upcoming field trip as they congregate around the bus. Izuku’s plenty wired himself, but for entirely different reasons. Up until now, he’s been preparing for war; but today is the day that it really begins.

“Mr. Aizawa, where’s Kach- ah, Bakugo and All Might?” he asks, taking note of the conspicuous lack of yelling and spiky blonde hair.

Eraserhead’s dark eyes peek out form under his bangs, lazily scrutinizing Izuku. “Bakugo is engaged in other extracurricular activities and won’t be joining us today. All Might is responsible for himself, but he’ll probably meet us there,” he says in a tone that doesn’t leave room for additional questions.

Izuku nods, but behind his faceplate he’s biting his lip and trying to sort through a hundred different ideas and possibilities as Iida herds everyone onto the bus. In every one of the four timelines he’s lived, the USJ attack is regarded as both a fiasco and a miracle on a massive scale.

He gravitates towards the back of the bus, leaning his aching head against the back of the seat. USJ is a fiasco because a bunch of terrorists break into possibly the most prestigious hero school in the entire country without so much as tripping an alarm, and the only thing that prevents it from becoming a complete disaster is the timely intervention of All Might himself. And on the flip side, it’s a miracle because twenty first year students manage to hold their own against villains on their third day of school with no fatalities. Well – his eyes drift to the front of the bus – never any student fatalities, anyway.

The problem is that even though the roster for class 1-A has changed through the years, he’s never heard of or seen today playing out with only nineteen students.

He closes his eyes and clenches and unclenches his fists a few times. Nothing about today is fair. No, that’s not right; nothing All For One has his fingers in is fair, and there’s no use wasting his energy worrying about that. The most he can do right now is put his trust in the people around him and take away as many of the enemy’s advantages as possible.

After all, nobody said he had to play fair either.

*****

Toshinori coughs a few times into his handkerchief and shifts his weight a bit so that his oversized suit settles more comfortably around his shoulders. He walks hastily through UA’s empty halls towards the teachers’ lounge, trying to stay a few steps ahead of his frustration and shame. Stupid, stupid. You just can’t leave well enough alone when you see people in trouble, can you? There were other heroes on scene who could have handled it. You’re more than just Young Mirio’s mentor now. You’re a teacher, and that means certain responsibilities to both your students and your juniors.

He needs to make this right somehow. He’s been active all morning, but if he pushes it, he should be able to make it to the USJ and make a brief appearance. Ten minutes, at least. Yes, ten minutes should do nicely. But first, he needs to stop by the teacher’s office. He’ll collapse if he doesn’t let himself rest for just a moment, and that won’t do anyone any good.

In the middle of the remains of his lungs trying to cough themselves up, he opens the door to the teachers’ lounge only to find that it’s not quite as deserted as he expected.

Nedzu is seated on the room’s main sofa, holding an electronic tablet half his size and giving some sort of lecture. Young Bakugo is perched on a chair, apparently trying to ignite the cup of tea he’s holding by staring very hard at it. They both look up as he enters.

“Ah, Mr. Yagi! What a pleasant surprise. I was under the impression that you would be elsewhere today.” Nedzu says, and Toshinori gets the distinct impression that he’ll be getting a lecture of his own at some point.

“Ah, yes, well, there were… scheduling conflicts. I should be out of your hair in a moment, I just needed somewhere to catch my breath.”

“Nonsense! There’s no need to hurry,” says Nedzu, sliding over to make room. “Sit for a bit and recover.”

Somewhat apprehensively, Toshinori does so.

“I was just talking with Mr. Bakugo here about the origins and fundamental tenants of heroics. Exposing yourself to risks in order to protect civilians and one’s community and so on. Perhaps you have some insights to share?”

Bakugo’s eyes flick towards him before returning to his tea. “You a pro hero, Skeletor?”

The startled laugh that escapes Toshinori’s lips is enough to send him into another coughing fit. ‘Skeletor,’ that’s a new one. He’ll have to tuck that away for later. “Not as much these days. Though…” Should I reveal that? I suppose there’s no harm, and it might help me get through to him, “I do work closely with All Might. That’s actually why I’m here at UA; I’m his assistant.”

That does the trick. Young Bakugo… well, ‘brightens up’ certainly isn’t the right word, but he seems to be paying attention. “And I would certainly be glad to answer any questions you have in regards to heroics.”

Young Bakugo looks back into his cup, and for a moment Toshinori is worried that he’s lost him again. And then, “How did All Might become number one?”

Toshinori pauses, gathering his thoughts. “Before I answer, please understand that it wasn’t All Might’s intention to become the number one hero, specifically. When people from my generation were growing up… it’s hard to get across exactly what it was like. We didn’t have a Symbol. Villainous activities were tearing the country apart, and people were struggling to hang onto a sense of normalcy. All Might decided the solution to that would be to become a pillar the people could hold onto; someone who wasn’t just tough on crime, but who could lift up the country. And that’s what he did.”

“That doesn’t make any sense though. If a bunch of extras were latching onto him, that just means that he’d have to worry about hauling them along or getting in the way. Sure, he always wins anyway, but it’d still slow him down. Why not just get even stronger and make all the criminals too afraid to try anything?”

Always wins. Ha! “Have you considered that that’s what made him a hero instead of, say, a warlord?” Young Bakugo doesn’t respond. “Maybe, if he put all his efforts into crime fighting, All Might could have eliminated crime for a little while. But what would happen when braver or smarter criminals began showing up? All Might the hero can only do so much. But if you look at All Might the Symbol, the person who tries to set an example for all of superhuman society to act on, then he can combat villains everywhere. I… hope that makes sense.”

Young Bakugo doesn’t look like he completely understands – at the very least, he doesn’t seem to agree – but he’s thinking, and that seems to be enough for Nedzu.

“Excellently put, Mr. Yagi. Now, onto the next-” he’s interrupted by a chime of ‘A text message is here!’ and glances over at Toshinori with a patient gaze.

He offers a sheepish grin and reaches into his back pocket for his phone. “I’m sorry, I must have forgotten to silen-” his words die on his lips when he sees the message popup on the screen. He clicks it and frantically scans the contents before turning it so the principal can see.

Unknown Number

USJ under attack. Approximately 75 villains attacking USJ. Villains have signal-jamming quirk preventing alarms from activating or information from getting out. Major threats: villain covered with hands has five-point contact disintegration quirk, avoid at all costs. Black mist villain has warp portal quirk, and can cut objects caught in portals. Giant black bird villain has super-regeneration, shock absorption, and greatly enhanced speed and strength almost on par with you. -Yamikumo

The principal makes a quick glance at it and begins tapping on his tablet. “Try contacting Aizawa by phone.”

Toshinori nods and does so, only for the call to fall through. Nedzu seems to be having similar luck with Thirteen, and Young Bakugo shoots questioning looks between the two of them.

Nedzu taps his tablet a few more times, and his voice echoes out over the school speakers. “All battle-capable teachers please report to the vehicle depot. We have a potential level three security breach involving active villains in an auxiliary campus. We leave in two minutes. Students, please return to and remain in your classrooms. Class representatives are in charge until further notice.” He turns to face Toshinori. “Please alert All Might and have him get to the USJ as soon as possible. We’ll be there to back him up as soon as we can.”

He nods and sets to it, but not before Young Bakugo has jumped to his feet. “I’m coming too.”

“You will stay here, Mr. Bakugo. An active villain fight is not a place for a student in his first week of studies.”

“The hell I will! I can fight!”

“No one is questioning your courage or your ability, Mr. Bakugo, but you aren’t trained to work as a coordinated team like the teachers are, and we have a duty to both yourself and your parents to keep you safe. If you choose to follow us, I can’t spare the resources to stop you. You might even be able to incapacitate a few villains on your own before everything is over; I’m sure the media would be thrilled to have a story like that to sink their teeth into. But afterwards, there would only be so much I could do to protect you from vigilantism charges.” He tosses his tablet on the table and hops down to the ground, straightening his suit. “In your words, slow down and show me you have what it takes to be a hero.”

*****

“Nice to… League of Villains… been presumptuous… take his last breath… All Might should have been here… part I am to play.”

Over the pounding in his head, Kurogiri’s words sound like they’re coming from miles away as Izuku’s ears try to make sense of them, but it’s just enough to tell him how far along they are. He throws out an arm to try to catch Eijiro before he charges in, only to stumble as his arm catches thin air. The boy dashes by on the other side of him, accompanied by… Denki? They both vanish into the void, and moments later Kurogiri’s warp cloud sweeps over the class and knocks him off his feet. Just before he’s teleported away, he manages to fumble something out of his utility belt and fling it into the darkness. He hopes it’s enough.

Rather than the scent of saltwater and being slapped in the everything by an indoor sea, Izuku’s shoulder slams into something cold and hard. He rolls and tumbles down it before skidding to a stop on dirt and gravel. He’s vaguely aware of people around him. A lot of people. Villains. The temperature drops again, and the shock of it brings back some of his senses. Landslide zone. The cold means that Todroki’s here, too. Who else? Looking around, he can’t see anyone else, but…

“Hagakure! Get behind Todoroki!”

“I can’t!” she calls back. “My angle got twisted when we fell!”

Her voice surprises Shoto, but he adjusts his stance to cover roughly the area where the sound came from. Izuku rolls and scrambles to a half standing position so he can get behind him himself. His hand feels for someone invisible and, once he finds something, he nods to the other boy. “Clear. Now, Shoto!”

He braces himself as frigid air washes over them and a massive wave of frost ripples out from Shoto, trapping all the villains in sight and leaving only the patch where they're standing untouched.

“You good?”

“Fine,” says Shoto, even as frost is trying to encase his right side and frozen mist is pouring out of his mouth and nose.

Izuku unhooks his cape and tosses it to him. “You need to keep your core temperature up. With Bakugo missing, you, Kaminari, and Tokoyami are our heavy hitters.” He turns to the girl next to him and puts his hand on what he hopes is her shoulder. “Sorry, Hagakure. I only have the one, and Shoto’s quirk means he’s gonna need it more.”

“N-n-no worries,” she chatters out. “How d-d-did you kn-know I was here?”

“Lucky guess,” he lies. He’s come back to this day a thousand times in memory and late-night talks. A trial by fire on this scale isn’t the sort of thing that people forget easily.

“We should interrogate them to find out what their plan is,” Shoto says after a moment, glancing around at the frozen villains.

“We’ve got enough information already. That warp villain said they were here to kill All Might, right? They wouldn’t be trying that unless they have people capable of countering or matching him. My money’s on that giant bird villain and the guy covered in hands.” Izuku tests the ice, taking a few experimental steps to see how well the metal cleats on his shoes grips the ground. Once he’s satisfied, he turns back to face the other two. “Todoroki, you take Hagakure and work your way towards the entrance. If others are able to escape, that’s the most logical place for everyone to meet up. See if you can get anyone outside to call for help.”

“And what are you planning to do?”

“Run interference. Mr. Aizawa’s strong, but he can’t last forever in these conditions. I’ve got some gear that might help.”

Shoto looks like he’s ready to argue, but Izuku taps the side of his helmet. “’Behind the scenes’ person, remember? I know how to keep myself out of trouble. It’s fine; we’re all going to get out of this.” He says this last bit as much for himself as he does for the others.

The unease on Shoto’s face doesn’t disappear, but he nods. “We’ll meet you at the front. Watch your back.”

“You too. Now get going.”

*****

Izuku scrambles to the top of a hill of a hill of dirt and broken up stone on the edge of the landside zone to get a better view of the carnage. Villains are laid out all across the central plaza, and Aizawa is facing off against a familiar young man with shaggy grey hair and questionable fashion choices. One of his arms is already dangling uselessly at his side. Not good, to say the least. Izuku quickly begins pulling the bits and pieces of his secret weapon out of his utility belt and sliding them together.

There’s a hammering of footsteps and a sickeningly loud crunch, and Izuku has to force down the twisting feeling in his gut as he peeks back over the ridge and steadies his gun. Eraserhead is lying face down in a growing pool of his own blood. Benito’s giant, black hand is wrapped around his head and slowly pulling it back up for another smash.

He squeezes the trigger, and a dart launches out with a faint puffing noise.

*****

“What’s poneratoxin?” Hatsume asks, glancing over his shoulder as he puts the finishing touches on his costume and gear submission to the support companies.

“Bullet ant venom, or in this case the synthetic version. Single most painful venom on the planet and, as it turns out, a moderate inhibitor for a lot of physical enhancement type quirks.” He winces slightly as certain unpleasant memories come to mind and rubs his upper arm. Some things are best learned in any way that isn’t first-hand experience.

“You really think they’ll let you carry that kind of thing?”

“Only because I’ve added a lot of notes showing that I understand the risks and proper use. ‘Acceptable use of force’ winds up being a lot different when you’re fighting alongside and against people who can bring down entire buildings with a wrong move.” He momentarily wonders what new horrors Hatsume might unleash upon the world with this information in mind, but thankfully she’s already sidetracked herself.

She points to another sketch in his notes. “What about these?”

“Ever heard of throwies?”

She shakes her head.

“They’ve been used off and on in a lot of street art since as early as the turn of the millennium. They get really big with the kids on I-Island in a few decades. Anyway, the basic setup is that you strap together an LED, watch battery, and a small magnet, then toss it at something metal. This takes the same basic idea, but it swaps out the LED for a miniature speaker.”

“Communication?”

“It can be used that way, but I’ve got something else in mind. You know infrasound?”

“That’s just sounds that are too low for most humans to hear without some sort of enhancement, right?”

“Bingo. There’s certain infrasound frequencies that will disrupt the inner ear and cause all sorts of problems with enough exposure; vertigo, nausea, disorientation. That’d be good in combat against pretty much anyone in a drawn out enough fight, but there’s one class of quirks that almost universally require the users have sensitive inner ears to coordinate and use them properly.”

“What quirks?”

A sharp grin spreads across his face. “Warp quirks.”

*****

Benito roar-screams and drops Eraserhead’s… well, head. Physical injuries are one thing, but toxin resistance is a whole other kind of quirk; this pain is going to last him a while. Izuku gets off more shots. Two, three, four, miss, five. And then, as he’s reaching for the next clip, a shadow appears from nowhere and is on him.

The floor drops out from under him, and Izuku’s attempt to roll into a standing position winds up with him flat on his back. There’s a hand reaching right at his face, and on instinct he forces the one thing he knows is within reach – in this case, the gun – between him and it as he rolls out of the way.

“A sniper, huh?” the young man asks, gun crumbling in his grip. Behind the disembodied hand gripping his face, Izuku is pretty sure he can see his red eyes narrow and look past him. Risking a quick glance back, he sees Benito writhing on the ground. “What did you do to my secret weapon?”

“What weapon?”

In a blink, he’s dashing towards Izuku, who flips a combat knife out from his belt in response.

“Kurogiri!” he calls, but is forced to flinch back at the last second when no help comes, knife narrowly missing his hand. Behind him, Kurogiri is doubled over and looks like he’s trying very hard to not just melt into a puddle. Camouflaged against his metal collar, Izuku can just make out the bump of one of his throwies.

“Sorry, maybe I should have asked which weapon.” Izuku’s mind is racing a hundred meters a second. He was hoping to avoid being caught at all, but he’s well past that point now. He’s also the only thing standing between the unconscious Eraserhead and a killer. The text should have already gone out, but the rescue is going to need time to get here, time that they don’t have.

Well, time for the ace in the hole, then. “Hello, Tenko.”

It’s either the exact right thing to say, or else the exact wrong thing. Shigaraki zeroes in on hims and charges even faster than before. “How do you know that name?!”

Izuku just manages to dodge out of the way, making another swipe and getting his knife disintegrated for his troubles. “You won’t know if you kill me. Plus, I just took out two Nomu without even using my quirk. Isn’t it worth it to keep me alive a little longer to talk?”

His breathing and the scratching at his neck are getting heavier and faster. Izuku’s pretty sure he sees blood. “Hhhhs. Filthy cheater. Fine, talk, starting with how you know that name.”

“Same way I know lots of things,” he says holding his hands in a placating gesture. “I talk to people. I listen. It’s how I know your name. It’s how I know your quirk. It’s how I know you and Kurogiri over there could’ve been heroes in another life-” he’s cut off by another swipe from Shigaraki, but this one is either half-hearted or disoriented compared to the others, and he quickly returns to his scratching.

“What makes you think I’d ever want to be a hero? They’re all scum, and everyone who follows them is a dupe who can’t do anything for themselves.”

“But you did. Maybe some part of you still does, I don’t know. I know about Hana, though.” Shigaraki inhales with a sharp hiss. “I know about your grandmother.”

Shigaraki charges him again, faster than before but sloppy, like a puppet with his strings cut. Izuku can still stay a few steps ahead of him in combat, a familiar pang in his head warning him whenever Shigaraki’s disintegrating touch comes to close.

“She’s dead, they’re all dead, you annoying little glitch. You can’t know that!”

“I can! I can because I knew Nana Shimura! I’ve walked with her and fought with her and cried with her! I know you’ve got some of her face. I know she would have never abandoned your father to protect him if she knew the monster it would turn him into, or what her killer would do to her grandson!”

A cry of what Izuku can only think of as animalistic rage escapes Shigaraki as his fingertips brush against Izuku’s chestplate, destroying it. They both stand panting, tired. Neither of them are endurance fighters yet, and both of them are nearly spent.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the same as you, Tenko. Just someone who fell through the cracks. An old ghost.”

The silence hangs in the air for a moment, and is broken at the same time as the giant doors of the USJ.

“It’s fine now!” rumbles a voice so large that it leaves no room for disagreement. “I am here!”

“Finally,” says Shigaraki. “I was worried this raid was going to be a bust.”

That’s all Izuku hears before he’s all but teleported to the entrance of the plaza alongside Eraserhead.

“I’m sorry that you had to go through this, Young Midoriya. Please take your teacher and escape. The school staff members are on their way to help. I will handle the villains.”

“Yes, sir,” He says, pulling Eraserhead into a position where he can hopefully keep his head from bouncing too much. Glancing back, Benito seems slower than he remembers. Less coordinated. He supposes he has the bullet ant venom to thank for that, but that’s not what worries him. He’s not even especially worried about the faint trail of steam behind All Might that he’s almost certain he sees.

All Might is faster than he should be.

*****

The other pros arrive in just a few minutes, and everything switches gears from chaos to a more intense, organized chaos. Izuku prioritizes what little medical aid he can give everyone, but he only has basic supplies and there’s only so much that they’ll let a student do.

He’s dimly aware of the fact that Kurogiri managed to scrounge up enough determination to escape with Shigaraki when it became clear that the tide was turned in All Might and UA’s favor, just like he’s vaguely aware of the police officers that he gives half-truths when they ask for his statement. Yes, he did engage Shigaraki. No, it’s wasn’t intentional. He split off from his group because he wanted to make sure his teacher and any others who might have gotten separated were safe, and decided to try to incapacitate the large villain when he saw it poised over his teacher. Yes, he tried to buy time by talking. No, he didn’t go in with a specific plan. He’s pretty sure he brought up quirks at some point. Did you know that he’s pretty sure he heard them say something about that bird villain having multiple quirks? Is something like that even possible?

There’s ambulances. Aizawa and Thirteen are both rushed to the hospital, of course. In fact, Eraserhead is lucky. If he’s right – he can’t be sure, but if he is – then the injuries are less extensive than last time.

What’s worse is that it’s not just the teachers this time. Minoru and Eijiro are thankfully in better condition after Recovery Girl tends to them. Minoru got his leg broken, and Eijiro got hit with a light burst of Denki’s quirk.

He’s most worried about Yaomomo. He wasn’t able to get a clear look before they carried her away, but… that much blood is never good, and neither are head wounds. He wants to say something to help the shaking Kyoka who’s currently being comforted by Rikido and Mina, but what can he say? What right does he have to say anything at all?

They were lucky today, and it doesn’t feel like it in the least.

****

The rest of the day passes in a haze of unreality. Talking to people feels like going back and forth with animatronics. Everything around him is cardboard cutouts in the background of a school stage play. It’s not until halfway through dinner that he even really notices the taste of the food, and by that point reality sets in again and his appetite is gone.

He sets down his chopsticks and excuses himself, but his mom catches his sleeve. “Izuku.” There’s tears welling in her eyes. “You don’t have to keep doing this alone. Wasn’t that the point of you reaching out to Iguchi and Hatsume?”

He grits his teeth and tries to be strong, to just make sense of it all, but he can’t. “I just… it’s not right.” He voice cracks and could tears start trickling out. “We’re just kids. They’re just kids. They shouldn’t have to go through this, but he doesn’t care about that. And I’m so, so trapped right because – because I don’t know if trying harder is just going to get everyone killed. Time’s weird and people are weird and I’m the only one who knows even close to enough to help, but even I can’t save everyone.”

She pulls him close, and the floodgates open. At some point they migrate to the couch, because that’s where Izuku wakes up when there’s a knock on the door.

“Wonder who that could be,” his mom says sleepily.

“No idea,” he says, getting up to look then opening the door.

“Dude, are you— oh shit, are you okay? You look like hell.”

“I feel like it,” Izuku says, too tired to scold him. He holds the door open a little wider for Shuichi. “Come on in.”

The young man comes in and slides his shoes off, looking awkwardly for a place to sit before Izuku gestures to the couch. “I sent the text and destroyed the phone like you asked, but then when I never heard back from you…”

A small pang of guilt strikes at Izuku. He’d told the crew there might be some radio silence, but Shuichi’s still a beginner. It’s natural to assume that he’d worry. “Sorry, I was kind of out of it this afternoon.”

“Was it bad?”

“Always is. The League plays hardball. Near as I can tell though everyone’s… well, they’ll pull through from what I’ve heard.”

“Well that’s good, right?”

“It could be worse,” he concedes. “What’s done is done. The kids are gonna need to bounce back for a little bit after this, and that’s something I’ll have to leave in their hands and Hound Dog’s. Anyway, I appreciate your help. It really made a world of difference out there today.”

“Hey, no problem. I just wish I could’ve helped more.”

You and me both.

“Anyway, uh, you’re probably really tired so I’ll just be going now.”

“Oooooh no,” his mom says in the Mom Voice, and Izuku knows that Shuichi’s fate is already sealed. “You’ve already spent all the time and effort coming out here, we won’t make you head back tonight. I’ve got a guest mattress I can set up, and there’s leftovers in the kitchen if you haven’t eaten yet.”

“A-ah, well, I wouldn’t want to impose…”

“Nonsense. After all you’ve done, you’ve at least earned the right to stay over when needed. Think of it as working overnight at your main hero office, if that helps. Izuku would you help me set things up?”

He shoots Shuichi a sympathetic look as he goes to help her out. This is how Mom deals with situations that are too big for her. She makes herself responsible for people and tries to make sure they’re taken care of.

Some small, treasonous part of his brain snarks that that seems awfully familiar.

Chapter Text

Izuku is standing in front of a glass tank filled with purple, faintly luminescent liquid. Floating inside is a woman – no, a superhuman woman – covered in muscles and surgical scars and glistening tar-black skin.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” says the old man by his side.

“It’s all certainly incredible,” he says, turning his chair and rolling along to survey the rest of the tanks in the row. He’s not quite sure if he’d call her ‘beautiful,’ but power has charms of its own.

He checks off the boxes on his clipboard as he passes each remaining tank. Two specimens with Fear Detector quirks. Perfect Timing. Replay. Two specimens with Zero Gravity. Gravitational Time Dialation. Minor Gravikinesis. Pop Off. Hardening. Creation.

Now it’s his turn to evolve, to become a weapon that will bring about a better future. A man with half a face lays a hand on his shoulder, and he lifts himself out of his wheelchair and into an empty tank. The doctor watches with gleaming eyes as the tank fills with liquid. He should drown, but he doesn’t. In fact, he’s more alive than ever. His body grows large and gnarled and black. He leaves his mind behind him. Eraserhead lies broken and bleeding at his feet.

He roars.

*****

Izuku wakes up ready to fight, his finger braced against his thumb and held out in front of him. But there is no One For All to answer his call. He’s in his old bedroom, surrounded by the anatomy posters and hero merchandise that have crept back out of storage over the past year.

He runs his hand down his face as he feels his heart rate drop back down to normal. It’s probably been half a lifetime since he last had a dream that bad. He checks his phone. Too early for anyone else to be up, too late to try to get back to sleep after something like that.

He swaps out his pajamas for some light running clothes and his tracksuit. There won’t be any more school until after the weekend while UA and the police stage their investigation, but he needs to do something to kick his brain into gear and get his body moving.

He slips quietly through the living room where Shuichi is snoring, scratches out a note for his mom and leaves it on the table, then slides out the door without so much as a whisper. The only lights out are from streetlamps and the occasional car as he does his warmup stretches.

The pavement’s already finished giving off the last of yesterday’s heat and the cold air stings his eyes. His form’s a little clumsier than normal, his feet pounding the pavement a little harder than they need to, but he doesn’t care about that this morning. He just needs to move.

He decides to deviate from his usual route to give his brain something to latch onto. The businesses and residential areas he passes all still seem to blur together after a while, but it’s a refreshing change of pace. He glances down to check his location, and it’s only the quick and sudden static in the back of his head that lets him look up just in time to skid to a halt and narrowly avoid crashing into the person rounding the corner in front of him.

“Sorry, sorry… Tokoyami?”

Fumikage is dressed in black jeans and a hoodie complete with faux-fur trim. “Midoriya. I didn’t expect to meet you again so soon. It must be fate.”

“Ha,” he laughs dryly. “Maybe something like that. So… what are you doing here?”

“I suppose I should ask you the same thing. I live nearby.”

“Oh…” He checks the map on his phone again. “I was running and uh, guess I lost track of time. And distance.”

“Hm. Well please, don’t let me interrupt you.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. Actually, do you want to join me? Running’s better with company.”

“I’m not a very fast runner. Or the most engaging companion.”

Izuku waves him off. “That fine, I probably need to start switching to a cooldown jog anyway. It looks like there’s a Mickey D's pretty close by. Maybe we could grab breakfast, if you haven’t eaten yet?”

He seems to consider it for a few moments, then nods his head once. “Very well. Lead the way.”

*****

“Hm.”

“Hm?” Izuku asks, testing the temperature of his coffee.

“I was thinking about what Mr. Aizawa said about UA not being the sort of place where you could expect to fraternize with your classmates very much,” he says, taking a bite out of his hot dog. A shadowy claw reaches out from under his jacket and snatches some of the wrapping paper before retreating, and Izuku hears a lot of small ripping and tearing noises. “Not that any of us could have foreseen the effects of recent events.”

“Yeah… How are you holding up?” he asks, unfolding the wrapping of his egg sandwich.

“Very well, I think, all things considered. Neither Koda nor I were scathed in the attack, and I hear that our classmates fought admirably. As unsettling as all this is, I take heart in that.” He takes another bite and a sip of some apple juice, and looks curiously at Izuku. “I was especially interested to hear what you did?”

“What? I-I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s different than what I heard. From what I gleaned talking to Shoji and Hagakure and Todoroki, you left to fight the leaders of the attack on your own.”

“Oh. That.” He rubs the back of his neck. “It wasn’t really impressive, I distracted them more than anything… I wish I did more.”

“How could you have?”

“I dunno, just… hypothetically, if you could go back and live yesterday over again with what you know now, would you trust yourself to change anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“You ever hear of the butterfly of doom? It’s this old storytelling twist where a character tries to fix a problem, but while they’re doing it something small happens – like stepping on a butterfly – that causes a chain reaction further down the line that results in an even bigger problem than what they were trying to fix. So what if you went back to yesterday and were able to stop the whole attack, but you didn’t know if it’d cause the villains to do something to get stronger behind the scenes and attack again anyway?”

After a moment’s consideration, Fumikage responds. “I see your point, but I think you’re missing an even bigger one.”

“What’s that?”

“If you’re too focused on butterflies, you won’t be able to see what’s right in front of you or where you’re going.”

“…Huh. I guess not.” He takes a bite of his sandwich and washes it down with some coffee. “Anyone ever tell you you’re wise beyond your years?”

“Yes, and I’d ask that you not start.”

“Fair enough.” Izuku has been called an ‘old soul’ enough times to know how quickly that sort of praise loses its charm.

The sun’s just rising over the rooftops when he parts ways with Fumikage.

*****

Toshinori is sitting in Tsukauchi’s office going over the case report from yesterday when his phone vibrates with yet another Unknown Caller. He shows Tsukauchi, then hits answer. “Hello? Who is this?”

A gruff but slightly high-pitched voice answers. “Toshinori, it’s Yamikumo. Can you talk?”

He switches to speaker phone. “I’m in Tsukauchi’s office. We’re alone.”

“Good, then he can vouch for what I’m saying. First off, I need to know, are the students and teachers okay?”

“We can’t reveal-” Tsukauchi starts, but Yamikumo cuts him off.

“I don’t need specifics, detective. I just need to know that they’ll live.”

Tsukauchi looks hesitant for a moment, then nods to All Might.

“At the moment, they’re all stable. That’s all I can say.”

“Good enough for now. I’m sure you have questions.”

“Several. Starting with how you knew the attack was happening when every alarm and wireless signal was being jammed.”

“I’d love to tell you, but I’m pretty sure I’d be putting a lot of good people at risk if I did.”

He looks to Tsukauchi, who nods in confirmation. “Alright, then how about  something about yourself? Why did you introduce yourself as a friend of mine?”

“Because it’s true, at least from my point of view. Not that I blame you for not remembering me; an unfortunate side effect of my quirk, and it’s been a long, long time since we first met besides.”

Toshinori’s eyes widen while Tsukauchi scribbles out notes. Even if it’s just a side effect if his quirk, it’s the first solid lead they have on Yamikumo’s identity beyond the one picture. He waits for Tsukauchi to signal for him to continue. “Why are you doing this, and why all the secrecy?”

“The secrecy is because revealing too much about myself would draw all the wrong kinds of attention and make it even harder for me to help than it already is, and I’m helping because I care and have people I want to protect. Simple as that. Speaking of, how’s the progress on the Eri case?”

“That’s classified,” Tsukauchi says.

There’s a sigh on the other end of the line. “Always a stickler for the rules, weren’t you Tsukauchi? But I understand. Onto other things. I take it you recognized the workmanship behind the villain you fought, Toshinori?”

His face darkens. “I was hoping it wasn’t him.”

“I’m afraid it is. All For One survived.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive, I’ve seen him with my own eyes. The tests the police are running on that nomu will back me up when they come back.”

“I see. Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“Afraid not. There’s still too many unknown variables at this point, and acting too soon might force him further into hiding and make him impossible to track. There is one more thing, though. I don’t mean to pry, but… you have found an inheritor for One For All, haven’t you?”

“With all due respect, Yamikumo, I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“You can’t fight forever, Toshinori. You know as well as I do that quirk doesn’t stop growing, and your body can only handle so much.”

“Be that as it may, whatever decision I make has nothing to do with a faceless stranger on the phone. Goodbye.”

“…Goodbye, All Might. I’ll be in touch.”

Chapter Text

Come Monday, Izuku’s relieved to find that most of the class is bouncing back well from the events of the week before. Kyoka’s temper is maybe a bit shorter than usual, and Minoru and Koji's ever-present nervousness is rearing its head, but they’re making it through it. They’re tough kids.

“Everyone please take your seats!” Tenya announced from the front of the room.

“…Iida, everyone’s already in their seats,” Denki says.

“Yeah, you’re the only one who isn’t,” seconds Sato, and Izuku is extremely grateful that he doesn’t draw attention to the other empty seat in the classroom.

Tenya makes his way to his seat, chastising himself the entire way, and sits down just as the door opens. Eraserhead comes in, to the collective astonishment of the class, and Izuku takes a moment to check him over for injuries. There’s bandages, of course; he’d be surprised if there weren’t. A neck brace too, by the look of it. But he’s using his arms (if gingerly), and Izuku can see more of the man’s face than he remembers. He definitely shouldn’t be up and about yet – if Izuku still had his medical license, he’d probably be tempted to handcuff the man to a bed – but internally he breathes a sigh of relief. Eraserhead is going to be fine.

Eraserhead brushes off the various questions of concern. “My well-being isn’t important. We have other things to attend to. First and foremost, the U.A. sports festival is approaching quickly.”

A wave of excitement and relief sweeps through the class. Everyone knows about the sports festival. Even now it’s the most widely watched sporting event in all of Japan, and it only gets bigger in a few decades with the formation of the International Youth Quirk Games.

“Is it really okay to host the sports festival? What if there’s another attack?” ask Kyoka, and a few of the others mutter their assent.

“That point’s already been discussed by the school staff. Apparently, this is the to show that UA withstood and is recovering from the attack. Still, we are taking precautions. Event security is going to be at least five times as strong as previous years.

“We’re also doing this for the students’ benefit. Grades can only show so much when applying for hero internships, especially your first time. That’s where the sports festival comes in. Top pros from all around the country will be watching. This will be your chance to really show what you can do. Your chances are limited, so try your hardest.

“Homeroom dismissed. Iida, Midoriya, meet me in the hallway.”

Izuku blinks at the mention of his name and then, once he’s taken about five seconds to process what was actually said, he follows Tenya out the door. “Sensei?”

Aizawa’s eyes flick to Tenya, who clears his throat. “My apologies, Midoriya, but I was actually the one who wanted to speak to you.”

“Oh, yeah? Shoot.”

“It’s about Yaoyorozu.”

Izuku sucks in a sharp breath. He was wondering where that gnawing feeling in his gut went.

“She’s stable!” Tenya quickly clarifies, “She’s alright, but… her left eye was badly damaged by one of the villains’ attacks. Even taking healing quirks into account, it will still be a while before she can resume normal classes, and even once she returns she’ll need to prioritize her studies and further recovery. As such, she’s asked me to find a replacement for class vice-president in the interim.”

“Oh. Okay. What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, I was- I was hoping you’d take the position.”

“Me?”

Tenya nods and chops the air a few times for good measure. “Yes. You showed impressive composure and judgement during the training exercise and, from what I hear, the villain attack. Your analytical skills are also clearly very developed. I’d be honored to work alongside you for the good of our class.”

A half-dozen other responsibilities flash through Izuku’s mind. He has to train Shuichi more. He’s got to put a stop to whatever nonsense Stain is up to, maybe even save Tensei while he’s at it. He’s barely figured out his game plan for the training camp. Kamino is still up in the air. He’s got to find a way to arrange things so that Eri can be rescued. He doesn’t even want to think about the MLA with his current resources. Yeah, no, that’s not happening. “Iida, I appreciate the offer, really, but that’s just not where my skills lie. But… there might still be something I could do.”

He adjusts his glasses. “I see. What do you have in mind?”

“If I give you my contact info, can you pass it on to Yaoyorozu? If she wants to reach out for help with anything we’re going over, I’d be happy to help. Oh, and if you’re looking for a new vice president, you might check with Asui during lunch. She seems like someone who’d be good at managing the class.”

“An excellent idea, Midoriya. I’ll reach out to her, and I’d be happy to pass your information and offer along to our classmate.”

“If that’s all,” Eraserhead drawls, “then you’re dismissed, Iida.” The other boy nods and returns to the classroom, and the pro shifts his gaze to Izuku. “Now for you, problem child.”

Izuku doesn’t squirm under his gaze, but he does stand a little straighter. “Sir?”

“I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about what you did last week, but I do have a question for you. Do you know what my response is to students who rush into danger like that.”

“…An essay on safety?” he asks hopefully. He already knows what’s coming.

“Close, I expel them.” He lets the threat hang in the air for a moment. “At least, that’s my normal approach. I can recognize that last week’s events took place under extenuating circumstances. I don’t want it to become a habit. You’re still young, but believe me when I say that you’re not immortal. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll try to limit that kind of behavior in the future,” Izuku lies through his teeth. “Those were extenuating circumstances and definitely not something I should treat as normal.”

“Good. Thank you for your time. I’ll be expecting that essay on proper emergency safety by the end of the week. Four pages.”

Sometimes, Izuku wishes he remembered how to keep his mouth shut.

*****

Ah, the sports festival. He remembers cheering on Shun from the stands. Despite her best efforts, she never placed or got scouted for the Games, but that didn’t matter to him. She went in to every year and every round with just as much fire as her mother and himself before her, maybe even more. Grew up to be a fine young woman and fine hero too, just like he always knew she would.

“-ri? Midori?”

He’s shaken out of his memories by the spitting image of Shun in her school years standing in front of him. Well, almost. She did take after his side of the family in the hair department.

“O-oh, Uraraka. Sorry, I was spaced out. What were you saying?”

“No problem! I was just checking with you and Todoroki if this spot was free.”

He looks to Shoto, who just shrugs and take another bite of his rice. “Sure, have a seat.”

“Thanks! So, either of you have any big plans to prep for the sports fest?”

“I’m just going to continue my normal training,” Shoto says.

“Same for me,” Izuku says, deciding to leave the actual contents of Shoto’s training – and his own for that matter – as a subject for a different time. “I’m planning to do my best, but I’m also working on not overdoing it with my quirk, you know?”

“Oh, right, your migraine thingy. I get it. It’s the same with me and my nausea if I overdo it. What about you, Todoroki? Is that why you don’t use your heat very much, because of a limit?”

Shoto goes very, very still. Izuku tries to play damage control, “I mean, that’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it? Especially if we’re going to be competing in a few weeks-” but Ochako already seems well-aware that some invisible line has been crossed.

“It’s fine,” he says in that icy tone that Izuku is becoming all too well reacquainted with. But then he takes a breath, and his expression and posture soften. “That’s part of it. It’s a sore subject. I’m not interested in talking about it further.”

“Gotcha.” Ochako prods absently at her rice a few times. “You know, my plan was a lot like yours, Midori, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Oh?”

She nods. “I mean, I was gonna try no matter what, but after I last week… I dunno, but it doesn’t really feel right for me to hold back at all.” She pumps her fit a few times with a shaky, determined smile on her face. “So, I’m gonna go all out! Everyone’s gonna know my name by the time I’m through. Plus Ultra! Right? …Hey, what’s that look for?”

“H-huh? What look?”

“Just then, you got this funny look on your face, like you were all stunned or something.”

“Oh. It’s nothing.” Memories creep back, and for a moment, he smiles without having to try. “You just remind me of someone I used to know, is all.”

*****

“Outta my way, extras! I’ve got an appointment to keep.”

Hitoshi pushes and slides and elbows his way through the crowd. When he gets to the front, he finds himself standing face to face with the human embodiment of an attitude problem. Spiky blonde hair, red eyes. An explosion quirk of some sort, if the grapevine’s got it right. Scowl, ruffled clothes, stomps around school like he owns the place. Hitoshi has had plenty of time to get to know people like him back at Nabu. Normally, he’d have the good sense to stay back and out of the way. But today, with a motive in his head and the crowd at his back, he’s feeling bold. “So, this is the legendary class 1-A. You seem pretty arrogant to me. Is the whole hero class like this?”

He’s vaguely aware of some of the other students fidgeting and shaking their heads in the background, but taking his eyes off blondie now feels like it would be a mistake.

“Man, I was looking forward to getting into the hero class, but hearing you talk like that’s making me pretty disillusioned.”

Blondie gets right up in his face, but doesn’t make a move. “I said I have somewhere I need to be. Don’t make me late.”

Hitoshi weighs his options and takes a step sideways with a flourish. “As you wish, your highness.”

Blondie growls – growls, ha! – at him, but stalks past without saying another word. The rest of the crowd parts for him, clearly intent on not drawing his attention any more than they already have.

“Sorry, what was that you were saying about getting into our class?” one of the hero students asks.

“Promotions!” someone calls out from the back of the room, and a few students move just enough that Hitoshi can just make out a green blob laying face-down on his desk. The boy lifts himself up with enough tiredness that Hitoshi feels it on a spiritual level and drags himself to the front of the room, studying the crowd. “You’re after a course transfer, right? Administration’s never publicly confirmed it, but it’s a pretty open secret within the school that the majority of students who’ve moved into the heroics course from the other three gave a good showing in their first or second year sports festivals. Good for people who aimed for the hero course, but wound up going into general studies because of their exam scores.”

Hitoshi’s eyes narrow. “There’s also rumors that they transfer students out of the hero course if they don’t perform well.”

The tired boy shrugs. “Sure there are. Probably confirmation bias, though. If a student had behavioral problems or a lack of dedication that led to them being expelled or moved to another course, it makes sense that their performance in the festival would suffer from the same problems.”

“You sure seem to know a lot about this.”

Another shrug. “I like to keep my ear to the ground. Same as all of you, right? That’s why you’re here scouting out the competition.”

“Scouting? Not quite, at least for me. More like a declaration of war.” He raises his voice slightly to make sure the rest of the crowd can hear. “I came to say that even if you’re in the hero course, if you get too carried away, I’ll sweep your feet out from under you.”

There’s exclamations from both the crowd and within the classroom – mostly the crowd – but they die out within a few seconds. Something in the air’s shifted, like the pressure before rain, and everyone can feel it. The tired boy is gone, and in his place is someone who commands, if not everyone’s respect, then at least their attention.

“A declaration of war, huh?” He claps his hands. “Alright then! Show of hands, how many of you are in another course right now and seriously hoping to use the sports festival to break into heroics?”

There’s a pause, and one of the girls in the crowd slowly raises her hand. Following her example, a good third of the crowd raises their hands. Hitoshi sees a few others without their hands raised who he knows are trying to get in, too.

“Awesome, then let me give you a fair warning about what that means, at least for our class. On the first day of school, we didn’t get to go to orientation like everybody else. We got a printout, and then we went and had to take a test to prove our physical skill, with the promise that we’d be dropped if we didn’t score high enough. Three days later, we got attacked by villains who were fully ready to kill us. Hopefully if you get in, nothing like that will happen to you, but every person in this class is here knowing that we’ll have to face down villains like that again someday.

“That’s why I’m not worried even if those rumors about students being removed from the hero course are true. Everyone here’s already undergone a trial by fire and come out alive. It’s not something to brag about; we didn’t choose this ahead of time, but it’s what happened, for better or worse.”

He points to the boy over Hitoshi’s shoulder with a square chin and bright red patterns on his skin. “You. You got a reason for wanting to be hero?”

“W-well, it’s just a good career choice, you know? Like, if you want to support a family?”

He nods. “Nice. It’s good to be a realist about this sort of thing. Keep in mind that being a hero would probably demand a lot of your time and attention, but I can respect it.” Hitoshi’s half sure that he sees one of the hero girls’ jaws drop in the background.

“What about you?” he asks the girl with cat ears toward the front of the crowd. Hitoshi can’t quite make out her response clearly, but he’s pretty sure it’s something about a hero saving her when she was younger. Whatever it is, it’s enough to make the green-haired boy smile. “Hey, me too!” Then he turns to face Hitoshi.

“What about you, Hitoshi Shinso? Why do you want to be a hero?”

The sudden use of his name shakes his composure a bit, but it’s also enough to break whatever charm this guy’s got going on. Dull spite knots itself up inside him. Of course he’s just like everyone else, making sure that people meet his standards. That they’re ‘worthy’ of being heroes. “Does it matter?”

“It does if you want it to be enough to hang your hopes on. Enough to get you through double shifts and enough to keep going even when the rest of you wants to quit.”

He claps his hands again, and suddenly the tired boy is back and everyone can breathe easy again. “But! That’s different for everyone. So long as you’re really set on helping people, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Anyway, if you’d tossed down the gauntlet while Kacchan was here, I’m sure he’d have accepted on behalf of everyone, but since he’s not…” he look around at his classmates, “everyone ready to work hard and do our best at the festival?”

There’s some hesitance from a few people, but in a few moments the class reaches a consensus. The tired boy turns back to Hitoshi and offers out his hand. “Alright then. May the best man win.”

Even as Hitoshi shakes it, he can’t shake the feeling that he just stepped on a landmine.

*****
A few weeks later
*****

Katsuki scuffs his shoes along the ground, trying not to let the principal’s slow pace wind him up. “Remind me why we’re doing this again?”

“Because the weather is wonderful today,” Nedzu says, inhaling deeply. “Even a hardened bureaucrat can only put up with four walls and a desk for so long. Do you have any outdoor activities, Mr. Bakugo?”

“I… hike. Mostly during summers,” Katsuki admits.

“Ah, splendid! I’ve never gone hiking myself. Never seem to have the time, but the accounts I’ve heard sound wonderful. If I ever get the opportunity, perhaps I’ll ask you for trail recommendations.”

They – mostly Nedzu – make a little more small talk. Katsuki’s still not a fan, or very good at it, but he manages.

“I’ve been following your academic progress closely, and I must say I’m impressed.”

Katsuki hopes so. How the hell is he supposed to leave his mark at a place like UA if he slacks off? Still… “Not like it’s a fair challenge,” he grunts.

“Hm? Ah, you mean the absence of Miss Yaoyorozu. I hadn’t realized that you paid any special care to that.”

“Of course I care!” he explodes. “What, you think I’ll be happy with being the best just because some lucky shot managed to take out Ponytail? That’s not a victory, that’s bullshit!”

“Ahhh. I think I understand now,” Nedzu says. “Well, then at least I can give you a reassurance that Miss Yaoyorozu is expected to return next week after the sports festival.”

Katsuki perks up at that. He hasn’t managed to outstrip Deku’s intelligence quirk yet in academics, but constantly going up against just him and Four Eyes was starting to get old.

“Speaking of, I’m sure you’re looking forward to the opportunity to… stretch your wings, let’s say. Any special plans for the festival?”

Fire crackles in Katsuki’s palms. Now the old rat’s talking his language. “What else? Dominate, and don’t let anyone hold me back.”

*****

Shuichi peers in through the warehouse’s second story window, making mental notes of everything he sees. He never really put much stock in the visual enhancements his Gecko quirk gives him, but with a copy of Hatsume’s Zoom, it makes for a pretty handy recon tool. He silently moves along to the next window and the one after that, then moves a couple rooftops over to meet with Izuku. “Looks like they’ve got six trucks parked inside here,” he points out a spot on the rough blueprint of the warehouse that Izuku’s put together. “Saw some people milling about inside too. Only one with what looked like a clear quirk give-away was a big dude who looked like a rhinoceros.”

“Were you able to get a headcount on them?”

“Nine, maybe? Could be more that weren’t out in the open though.”

Izuku nods. “I’ve been monitoring their radio coms. They’ve been pretty good at limiting the chatter, but I’ve at least got enough to confirm this is the right place and they’ve already got the trucks loaded up.” Shuichi can hear the edge in Izuku’s voice even through the voice modulator and frankly, he can’t blame him. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do…”

*****

CRASH!

Izuku rockets himself through one of the boarded-over windows, shielding himself with a burst of air. Shuichi counts to five then slips through the opening, keeping to the darker corners of the warehouse and working his way down to the trucks. Izuku’s drawing the attention of the villains, giving him space to work. Most of them have already been disarmed with well-placed air bursts, but a few seem to have ranged emitter quirks of some sort. Better be extra sure to steer clear of them.

He reaches the first truck and places his palm on the hood before applying a gentle pulse of Breakdown. The only giveaway is a faint creaking noise; thankfully not enough to draw attention, not with Izuku flying around the place like some unholy hybrid of wracking ball and ballerina. Still, it’s gonna give someone the surprise of their life if they try to fire up the engine. Everything goes fine until he gets to the fifth truck.

He’s lucky that he gets the stupid one. Instead of pulling his gun and, you know, taking advantage of having a ranged weapon, the villain shouts and charges Shuichi a he draws it. He makes the split second decision to dash towards him and tuck into a roll, knocking the guy’s feet out from under him. They both wind up in a tangle of limbs, and the gun goes off, thankfully without hitting anyone. Rather than risk a repeat performance, he grabs the gun and pulses Breakdown again. It disassembles itself in seconds, and the villain’s surprise at losing it gives him the opening he needs to smack his head against the ground, enough to daze him and let Shuichi get away and slam his hands against the hoods of the two remaining trucks.

The good news: Breakdown works wonders, and the trucks are definitely out for the count, their front ends crumpling under his touch. It looks like the guy he tussled with also went down a lot harder than he first thought.

The bad news: Breakdown costs stamina, and he didn’t regulate that last pulse too well. Also, Rhinoceros Dude is charging straight at him.

He uses the split second he has before impact to swap out his overlay disc for Muscle Enhancement, and launch himself backwards. He considers reaching for his sword, but with how thick skinned this guy looks, he doesn’t want the chance of it being ineffective. Instead, he keep both hands open and himself mobile.

The thug hits hard and fast and seems to knows his way around a fight, and a year ago he would have spelled the end for Shuichi. But now he’s fast and strong and experienced, too. Every-time the villain brings down his boulder-like fists, Shuichi is gone and the craters they leave only hurt the floor of the warehouse. Eventually, he manages to snag the guy’s arm and pull himself up with his grippy fingers before bringing down a two-fisted blow on the guy’s head. The villain wobbles for a second, then is out like a light.

By now, his energy reserves are running low. Izuku’s managed to mop up most of the other villains, but there’s still a couple giving him trouble. He hangs back for a moment, not wanting to dive in until he sees a clear opening where he won’t get in the way.

And then one of the villains gets Izuku with some sort of rippling energy thingy, and hanging back isn’t an option. He looks for- aha, a wheel that fell off one of the last two trucks. He tosses it at one of the villains as they advance on Izuku. It glances off one of them and distracts both long enough for Izuku to regain his footing and take them both out. Afterward he doubles over, holding his hand to his side.

Shuichi rushes over. “You okay man?”

“Fine,” Izuku wheezes. “Lots of bruised ribs, I think. Nothing’s broken.” He takes Shuichi’s hand as he helps him up. “Come on, help me get the trucks open.”

They do, and Shuichi has to fight back the urge to vomit. Or maybe break someone’s face.

People in chains and handcuffs. People in cages. People who’ve been reduced to nothing but their power, power that you could buy if you were rich and well-connected and scum enough. One of- shit, no, not just one. There are kids here, plural. Youngest one can’t be older than ten. He’d known they were going after quirk traffickers but… shit, nothing could have made him ready for this.

They get the people out of their cuffs and out of the vans as quickly as they can. It’s easier said than done. Most of them are slow and disoriented – drugged, probably, to make them easier to lock up and transport. One guy, a little younger than Shuichi himself, seems a little more cognizant, though. Maybe he’s got a quirk that makes his resistant to drugs or something. Whatever, Shuichi isn’t going to force that out of him. Not now.

He asks if they’re heroes. Izuku tells him “not officially.” Then he hands the kid a bright orange flash drive and tells him to watch over the others until help arrives and pass it along to either the police or some hero named Eraserhead if he shows up.

It doesn’t feel right to leave, but Izuku’s already called the cavalry to come in and tie everything up. As a couple vigilantes, they can’t afford to hang out very long.

On the train ride back, they’re both quiet. Izuku nurses his side and leans back in his chair with his eyes closed.

“Man, you’re screwed with the festival in a couple days.”

Izuku chuckles, wincing a little when he does. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got the weekend. You heal fast, right?”

“A little? It’s not real regeneration or anything.”

“Still better than nothing, and we’ll get to put that overlay disc of yours to some good use. Maybe I’ll tell Recovery Girl I fell down some stairs or something too… How’re you feeling after all that?”

Shuichi snorts. “Lot better than you.”

“I don’t mean it that way.”

“…It’s- I don’t feel happy. I don’t really know if I can, right now. But… we did good, right? We helped those folks. That’s… it’s gotta be enough.”

Izuku nods and winces a bit more. “Sounds about right. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Hey, it’s not like you dragged me into anything. I’m choosing to do this. By the way, how’d you know where to find those guys in the first place? You raided them before.”

“Never seen anyone in that warehouse before. I just- I know the right places to look for that sort of thing and the right people to ask.”

“Oh, so like underground heroes and stuff.”

“I… am very tired and very sore, Shuichi. I don’t feel like talking much.”

“Ah, okay. Got it.”

When Shuichi glances at Izuku’s face, it looks more pained than when they got on the train.

Chapter Text

Izuku hangs up and discreetly breaks the burner phone before tossing the remains in a public trashcan three blocks down. Between the dead drops and trying to pass on the intel about the Hassaikai’s movements via Eraser, he’s been hoping that they got the hint, but calling it in to make sure is a risk he’s willing to take. He needs them to be busy today.

With that taken care of, he makes his way to the school, pulling a couple of painkillers out of his pocket and swallowing them with some of the blackwhip special from his thermos. He could have just taken them when the pain started setting in at home, but he wants to make these last as long as possible. Through the end of the second round, at least.

As he flashes his school pass and ducked through the student entrance, he catches sight of a familiar figure and quickens his pace. “Yaoyorozu! Yaoyorozu, hey!”

She turns around and gives him a sweet smile. He makes sure not to let his reaction to the white medical eyepatch over her left eye show on his face. “Good morning, Midoriya.”

“It’s good to see you again. Wait, are you going to be competing?”

Her smile falls just enough to be noticeable. “I’m afraid I’m not quite ready for that yet, but I’ll be in the stands and paying close attention.” The sadness is gone as quickly as it came, and there’s a light in her good eye. “I’ve already fallen behind too much. I don’t intend to any further. Do you have a specific strategy in mind for today?”

“Mm…” He pretends to think the question over. With all due respect to the others’ work ethics, he’s going to be very strategically lazy today. There’s very little that has to be taken care of at the sports fest that can’t be taken care of in the long term. Todoroki’s already opening up a bit, even without a proper breakthrough. There’s no real need to impress anyone, least of all Gran Torino. He’s got Mei’s help, a favor in his back pocket, and a few plans for Shinso already put together. And on top of it all, he’s got a splitting headache. Yup, definitely a lazy day.

“Try not to get blown up?” he suggests. She laughs at that. They make their way through the halls until she has to split off to head to the stands and he makes his way to the prep room. He knows it’s selfish, given what she’s had to deal with, but the talking makes him feel better.

He recognizes that light in her eyes. Yaoyorozu is a survivor. She’ll be okay.

They’re all gonna be okay.

*****

“Midoriya,” Shoto begins.

Izuku looks up blearily. “Bwuh?”

“Looking at things objectively, I’m definitely stronger than you.”

Oh. You have got to be kidding me. His luck cannot be this bad. He’s been very careful not to do anything that would make him stand out this semester. He doesn’t even have One For All. But here they are, doing this dance again, same as last time.

“But… from what I’ve seen, I also think you’ve developed your skills the most out of anyone else here. That’s admirable, but it also means I’m going to have to beat you if I’m serious about being the best.”

The entire room goes silent, until Denki pipes up. “Oooh, are we gonna see a clash of the titans?”

“Cut it out,” Eijiro says, gently nudging him out of the way. “Come on guys, can’t we not pick fights right before the start?”

Shoto shrugs him off, but doesn’t take his gaze off Izuku.

Izuku shoots Ei a grateful smile, but turns back to Shoto. Time wants to play hardball, fine, he can play hardball. Time for Operation: Brute Force Friendship. “Not quite sure what you mean by that, but do what you think you have to. I’ve got an idea for how to raise the stakes, though, if you’re interested.”

Eijiro facepalms, but Shoto quirks an eyebrow.

“The events themselves change, but every sports festival has three rounds. In every event where one of us comes in behind the other, we’ll owe them one favor. Hey, Kacchan, you want in on this?”

“Eeeh?” Kacchan asks, scowl curling up into a grin that shows far too many teeth. “You said yourself that you can’t win the sports festival. Really that eager to make your defeat even worse, Deku?”

“Now wait just a moment!” Tenya interjects, chopping the air and adjusting his glasses. “While I’m inspired by your dedication, I cannot condone gambling between classmates!”

“It’s just a few small favors, Iida. What do you two say? Are you in?”

“Your funeral, but you don’t have to ask me twice.”

Todoroki waits for a second longer before putting his hand forward. “I’m in.”

Izuku accepts and shakes it.

*****

Shota lifts his coffee mug and takes a sip, eyes skimming over the various feeds from different points in the course. The new scar tissue on his elbow still catches a bit, but Recovery Girl really is a miracle worker. Being able to get out and do some proper work over the weekend didn’t hurt, either.

Really, they should have gotten Vlad to do this. He’d take better to the whole announcer bit and, if Shota’s being honest with himself, he’s better at running analysis of large groups like this. Still, no use letting a crisis go to waste; he keeps a close eye on things, interrupting Hizashi every now and then to offer a bit of analysis or technical commentary.

As usual, the heroics students are leading the pack, and that’s even without taking into account the blockage caused by Todoroki freezing the executor bots.

Well, there’s something interesting at least. One of the support course students is starting to pull ahead. Hah, grappling hook and jets, a rational counter for the climbing obstacle. Now if only the rest of students would stop wasting so much time chit-chatting on the course…

“And now we’ve got our frontrunners approaching the final obstacle at a breakneck pace! It’s flashy, it loud, and if you don’t watch your step, you’ll be sent flying! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our competitors to the minefield!”

This one had, surprisingly, been Power Loader’s suggestion. Apparently his problem child hasn’t managed to completely turn him off explosions yet-

And speaking of problem children, why is one of his flying through the air?

Hizashi is screaming commentary next to him, but Shota tunes him out in favor of keeping an eye on things. Midoriya’s somehow increased the yield of the mines’ explosions, using a sheet of training bot armor to ride the force of blast. Right before his trajectory carries him into Bakugo and Todoroki’s scuffle, he flips his weight around so that the metal sheet hits the ground and sends him flying again.

He lands just past the edge of the minefield, rolling with the momentum and springing back to his feet. Whatever had set off Bakugo and Todoroki is suddenly no longer important enough for them to focus on each other, and both rocket forward after Midoriya, Todoroki’s ice covering the mines and making a clear path for the rest of the competitors behind them.

Unfortunately for them, Midoriya’s nearly as fit as they are without taking quirks into account, has a head start, and is at a full sprint already. He crosses the finish line second before the other two and promptly collapses, spitting bile on the grass and dirt. Seriously? Don’t you do anything by half measures, problem child?

While the expression is relatively muted on him, Todoroki looks like someone slapped him with a fish, at least from this distance. Unhappily, Shota notes that this was probably a necessary learning experience. Whatever his reason for shying away from his prokinetic abilities, he’s been coasting on half power all semester. He’ll need to find a way around that limit soon if he wants to keep himself and others safe in the long run.

Bakugo’s probably in the best shape of the three, but he’s curling his fingers and clutching one of his wrists. So that’s where the limit of his power is, then. Shota was wondering why he didn’t just launch himself over the mines like he had the first two obstacles. The anger on his face is to be expected, but he’s keeping a handle on things this time. Good. He’s growing.

Midoriya staggers to his feet as the others start to filter over the finish line, hoisting his left fist over his head and giving the audience what might be either a brilliant grin, or a grimace.

*****

As soon as she retrieves her cart of babies, Mei makes a beeline for the winner of the first round. “Hey, Mummy-sama! You ready to put that plan of yours into action?”

Midoriya gives her a thumbs-up and finishes saying something to another girl – probably one of the people from the hero classes – and giving her an apologetic smile. She looks a little down, but still offers him a fist bump before heading off. “You got the gear?”

Mei taps the handle of the cart. “Right here, five custom-made babies ready to go!”

“And none of them are going to explode?”

“Wellllllll…”

“Hatsume.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. We’re probably fine.”

He sighs. “You know, that’s probably as good as I’m gonna get.” He turns towards a cluster of her students. “Hey, Jiro!”

A girl with purplish hair and a pair of… tentacles? No, she knows this one, earphone jacks! Midoriya had her make a special baby with her in mind! She looks over at the two of them.

“Remember that favor you said you owed me?”

The girl droops a bit, but begins making her way over. “Seriously, with that bounty on your head?”

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he assures her. “Now come on, we’ve got to go get the fourth member of our team before he does something dumb.”

“Who are you thinking?” Jiro asks.

Midoriya doesn’t say anything in response, instead just smiling and leading their team over to a group of three boys; two blonds, and one with shaggy purple hair.

“Oi, Shinso! Want to join our team?”

The purple one – presumably Shinso – turns around narrows his eyes, while the other two stand around and stare off into the distance. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Yup. What do you sa–*” Midoriya freezes mid-sentence, face going slack.

Jiro startles a little bit next to her. “What’d you do?”

Shinso smirks. “Just rounding out my team.”

“About that.” Mei steps forward and smacks Midoriya on the back of the head, snapping him out of it. He blinks a few times to get his bearings, then gives a tired smile.

“Like I was saying, you in?”

Shinso just looks at him in disbelief. “How did you… What happens if I’m not?”

Midoriya shrugs. “I won’t say anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. Hatsume here already knows so she could throw together some support gear for you, but she’s not after a spot in the hero course or anything. If you do join up, though, you get two hero students actively using their quirks with their own training, plus the support gear.”

“Would someone please tell me what’s going on?” Jiro shouts.

Shinso looks between the three of them, then sighs. The two students behind him suddenly come to, looking very confused. “Okay, I’m in. Since you already seem to know my name, and my quirk, tell me yours.”

“Izuku Midoriya. My quirk’s Prodigy, a pretty general intelligence booster with an added emphasis in absorbing information. This is Mei Hatsume, her Zoom gives her telescopic eyesight, but her real strength’s inventing.”

“Jiro. I can amplify sounds by plugging my Earphone Jacks into things, and I still don’t know anything about you.”

“…Hitoshi Shinso. My quirk’s Brainwash.” He half-heartedly glares around at them, almost like he’s daring them to do something. When nobody does, he continues. “If someone responds to me when I talk to them, I can grab control. It’s sort of like they’re on autopilot, so complex stuff’s off the table. A big enough jolt will shake them free-” he glances in Mei’s direction. She just smiles at him, waiting for him to get to the end so she can start her sales pitch. “-and if I want to control multiple people, I have to target them each separately, or else backlash’ll knock me out.”

Jiro takes a breath. “Okay. Okay.” She turns to Midoriya. “Look genius, I’ve got no idea how, but it’s pretty clear you’ve been planning this for weeks. So, you want to fill the rest of us in on the plan?”

“Gladly. We’re going on the offensive.”

“So you’re planning on losing the ten million point headband at the start, then making it up by taking a bunk of other headbands?”

“Oh, no, we’ll be hanging on to the big headband too.”

Jiro and Shinso gape at him, then look at one another, then back at him. “You know, on second thought, maybe this team isn’t the best idea.”

“Wait, wait, wait, at least hear out the rest of the plan! Hatsume, if you would?”

Mei’s smile manages to get just a little bit wider somehow, and she immediately sets to work undoing the latches on her various containers. “I’ve got so many amazing babies to show you guys!”

“Inventions! That’s what she calls inventions, it’savocabularythingjustrollwithit,” Midoriya clarifies, because he refuses to call things by their proper names and also hates fun.

She hefts a slightly bulky vest out of its case and presses it into Jiro’s arms. “Got a chest-mounted sonic canon for you, Earphones-kun! The plugs for it are just under the collar there! I wasn’t able to get your size, but there’s adjustable straps. And don’t worry about the weight either; this was a rush job, but I’m sure I can hack off at least thirty percent of the weight on the next model!”

“N-next model?” Jiro asks, but Mei is already launching into her next spiel.

“And for you, Brainwash-kun,” she holds up a lower face mask covered in adjustable plates and dials, “here’s a special voice modulator. It’ll keep people from noticing when you’re talking, and you can make yourself sound like other people! That last bit might take some practice, though.”

Shinso takes it and turns it over in his hands a few times, inspecting it skeptically. “That’s not going to work. My quirk loses its effect if my voice goes through electronics.”

“No problem! There’s not a single electronic involved!”

“…Huh. Okay, what else is there?”

“Hover boots for the people in the back, some wrist-mounted capture foam sprayers, and a shoulder mounted grenade launcher. AND BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING ABOUT EXPLOSIONS,” she interjects just as Midoriya is getting his mouth open, “These are all lightweight stuff. Net pods, colored smoke, that sort of thing.”

Midoriya considers for a moment, then nods. “That can work. Okay, here’s how we’re gonna do this…”

*****

Midoriya snatches a pair of headbands off the dazed 1-B girl with vines for hair, and Koyoka throws her weight to the side to swing their group’s momentum around as the rest of the other team tries to figure out what just happened. Shinso’s trash talk has been working wonders so far. She’s going to have to keep a tight lid on things if she goes up against him in the finals.

That said, it’s dawning on her that he might actually be the least scary person on this team. Despite hardly breaking from his usual “stumble around like a zombie” routine, Midoriya’s already set himself up against the two strongest people in the class, yanked the first round out from under them, then casually dropped a plan (with pre-made gear) on their laps for an event. And as for his friend… well, let’s just say that Kyoka’s only known Hatsume for about fifteen minutes and can already tell that the girl wouldn’t be out of place in a lightning-powered lab shouting “it’s alive!”

“Jiro!”

Right, sports fest! She skids to a stop just in time to avoid crashing into another team of 1-B students and wastes no time sending her jacks after the leader’s headband. Suddenly, though, they’re blocked by something invisible but very much solid. Does one of them have a force field quirk? She pulls her jacks back almost instantly, and the rider’s fingers just barely nick one as he tries to grab on.

“Well, well, well,” he says, voice and smile both absolutely dripping with smugness, “if it isn’t the illustrious class 1-A.”

“And… who are you?” Midoriya asks.

The blond’s smile gets a little tighter, and Kyoka’s pretty sure that she sees a vein bulging on his forehead. “What, did your research not cover me? I’m wounded. Oh, well, perhaps you’ll remember after THIS!” Suddenly, two tendrils of some sort snaked out from his face and- hey wait a second! That’s her shitck!

Midoriya, for his part, doesn’t seem too caught off guard, wrapping gloved hands around the pretender’s earphone jacks and giving a tug on them to knock him off-balance. Jiro winces in sympathy, but quickly recovers when Midoriya gives the next order.

“Fire!”

Her jacks snake around and plug into Hatsume’s monstrosity, and she lets loose. The effects are immediate. The horses on the opposite team flinch back and do their best to cover their ears, but the rider definitely has the worst of it, looking like he’s about to pass out. He quickly undoes whatever it is that let him copy Kyoka’s quirk, and Midoriya immediately capitalizes on the opening.

He presses his middle two finger to his palms, and some sort of pinkish foam sprays from the wrists of his gloves, covering the other team and quickly expanding to immobilize them. Then he slips a hand under their headband, yanks quickly upwards, and they speed away.

So it continues. True to Midoriya’s word, they spend almost the entire match on the offensive, snatching up headbands left and right. Every time they grab one, Midoriya flips it inside out to hide the value. Whenever another team attacks them, Midoriya’s reflexes and Hatsume’s gadgets stymie all attempts to take their points. Whenever they go on the offense, Kyoka’s sonic canon and Shinso’s quirk break through any resistance.

And then a chill runs down Kyoka’s spine in the most literal sense possible.

Another sonic blast manages to crack the line of ice headed directly at them, but it does nothing for the other two that swing around in either direction, cutting off all angles of retreat; in just a few seconds they’re completely cornered by Todoroki’s team.

Kyoka makes a quick note of their composition. Uraraka to the back right, probably using her quirk, Iida in front for mobility, and Tokoyami on the back left with Dark Shadow playing defense.

“Okay genius, you got us this far. What’s the plan now?”

“I’ve got it,” Shinso says, but Midoriya shakes his head.

“Keep it in reserve. We can use it if things get bad, but I’ve got a plan, and you won’t want them to already know it for the tournament round. For now, focus on dodging. They can’t make this much smaller without hurting their own mobility.”

That’s all they manage to get out before Todoroki’s team charges them. It quickly becomes apparent to Kyoka that Dark Shadow isn’t just there to cover Todoroki’s left side; whenever she tries to line up the sonic canon, he makes a swipe at her that forces her to reposition. Whenever they get close, Midoriya wards them off with a spray of capture foam from his gloves, but every pass they make gets just a little closer.

Eventually, Dork Shadow gets in a lucky swipe, and Midoriya loses the band off the top of his head before they can pull out of range.

“Crap, there went our big points!” Shinso says.

Midoriya, for his part, seems only mildly worried. “Jiro, hit the wall with everything you’ve got while they’re distracted!”

She does so, then does her best to haul them over the remnants of the slick ice. They’re nearly home free when she hears a shout from behind them.

“Go, go, go! They’ve figured out they only got the bait!”

Kyoka frantically scrambles the rest of the way and takes off running, but she can already feel Midoriya tensing above her.

“Change of plans, we need to turn around!”

“What?!” she cries. “They’ll just catch us faster!”

“Just trust me!”

She grunts and throws her weight to the side, spinning them around. From there, several things happen very quickly. First, she sees Midoriya making what looks like a finger gun in her peripheral vision, and hears some sort of humming. Second, she sees a bright flash of blue light from Todoroki’s team. Third, there’s some sort of loud “bang!” sound!

Fourth, she feels something crash into her and is suddenly buried under a pile of several people, looking up at the sky.

“And that’s time, everyone!” announces Present Mic over the stadium speakers. “And what an upset this cavalry battle was; our four teams who are advancing to the next round are the only four teams left!”

Kyoka hauled herself to her feet as her own team and Todoroki’s disentangle themselves from one other. “Geez, what happened?”

Hatsume picks up a large net off the ground, beaming from ear to ear. “My baby worked exactly at intended.”

Midoriya clears his through and tosses something on the ground with a loud thump. “Just for the record, I exploded myself plenty for one day in the first round.” On closer inspection, the something turns out to be the smoking remains of the back-mounted grenade launcher Hatsume had given Midoriya.

For the first time since Kyoka’s met her, Hatsume actually looks sheepish. “I did say we we’re probably fine…”

Midoriya just sighs and shakes his head. “Yeah, yeah. Good work. To answer Jiro’s question, it looks like Iida had a super move of sorts up his sleeve. We’re lucky I caught on just in time to counter it, or else they might’ve gotten quite a few of our headbands.”

Kyoka reflects on the fact that if her bruised muscles could talk, they’d probably strongly disagree with Midoriya’s use of the word ‘lucky.’

“Anyway, what do you call that, Iida? It’s pretty cool.”

The class president adjusts his glasses, looking a mixture of frustrated and proud. “Recipro Burst. I based it off of one of my older brother’s moves. In retrospect, it’s a shame that I chose to unveil it for the first time against you; if it were anyone else, my surprise attack might have gone off as planned.”

“Ah, well, you can’t win ‘em all-” is all Midoriya gets out before Todoroki pushes in front of Iida. “Well, that’s two victories for me, I think. You want out of the betting for the third round?”

Todoroki clenches his fists, but doesn’t rise to Midoriya’s bait. “We need to talk.”

“…Yeah, okay. You go on ahead, I’ll catch up in just a second.”

Todoroki nods once before stalking off. Kyoka has no idea what’s gotten into him today, but she’s just glad she’s not that target of whatever it is.

Before he follows him, Midoriya stops to pat Shinso on the shoulder a few times and lowers his voice. “Nice going. Word of advice; if you don’t want people figuring out your quirk, don’t be afraid to throw some theatrics into the mix. Misdirection is your friend.”

“I’ll… keep that in mind,” he replies.

Midoriya nods and heads off, and before Kyoka has a chance to do anything else, Hastume is all over her, checking things on the harness and asking questions.

*****

“Midoriya, are you… a spy?”

The other boy’s nervous, clouded-over expression turns suddenly focused. “Wait, what?”

“For my father. Did he put you up to this? Or are you working for the Public Safety Commission, as their eyes inside UA? Trying to get a read on the top-ranking students?”

Midoriya looks at him, dumbfounded for a moment, then slowly doubles over in laughter. “Wait, you’re serious? You really thought I was a spy?”

“I don’t get what’s so funny. You’re clearly trained, more than anyone else here, but you didn’t take the recommended student exam. The way I see it, either someone planted you here, or you’re a refugee from some alternate dimension where you had to learn to fight to survive.”

“People can’t just cross dimensions, Todoroki. I don’t think there’s even any quirks capable of that.”

“Maybe not in this dimension.”

Midoriya groans and mutters something to himself about ‘just like Hatsume,’ whoever that is, then shakes his head. “Look, I’ll tell you what. If I ever meet a dimension traveler, I’ll owe you a week’s worth of soba.”

Shoto nods. That seems like a fair wager. “That still doesn’t explain your training.”

“Really, I just got lucky in the quirk department. That’s all it is, I promise.”

Todoroki digests the information for a moment, then makes his decision. “Endeavor’s my old man…”

He tells the other boy all about his past. About his father’s quest for glory and the destruction it left in its wake. About his mother’s words as she broke. About his oath never to use his left side in battle. Through it all, Midoriya was uncharacteristically attentive and focused, processing every word until the very end.

“Are you asking me for help? Because if so, I’ll do what I can.”

Is he asking for help? Shoto considers it for a moment. “No. I don’t want… I don’t think I am. I just… you’ve been good to everybody so far, including me. I needed you to understand why I challenged you. Why I need to push myself.”

Midoriya hums, thinking. “…Why do you want to be a hero, Todoroki?”

Shoto starts. “What?”

“Do you want to be a hero? Because the way I see it, if all this was only about spiting your old man, you wouldn’t even be here; you’d have thrown the first round, or even the entrance exam. So, why do you want to be a hero? I mean, you do want to be one, right?”

The ground feels like it’s spinning under Shoto. “I… yes, but…” …but why do I want to be a hero?

Midoriya watches for a moment, analytical bit sympathetic, before nodding. “I get it. Sorry, that was a pretty big question. How about this, then.” He raises his index finger. “Start with one person. One person you want to save. And then go after them with everything you’ve got.”

He lowers his arm and turns away. “Good luck in the finals, Todoroki.”

And then Shoto is alone with his thoughts.

******

Bonus Scene:

“Yaoyorozu, Jiro,” Kaminari begins.

The two girls turn around to look at him and Mineta. “Hmm? Did you need something?” Yaoyorozu asks.

“Well, I figured you were probably in the loop,” Mineta replies, “but I just wanted to make sure you knew. They said that all the girls who are competing have to wear those uniforms to this afternoon’s cheer competition.” He pointed to a squad of passing UA cheerleaders to illustrate his point.

“Cheer competition…” Yaoyorozu muses, “oh! I think I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

“Y-you do?!” Mineta squawks, prompting Kaminari to discreetly kick his leg. “I mean, great! I was sure we could count on you!”

“Yup!” Yaoyorozu smiled. “In fact, I think I was actually sent a message about it. Here, let’s see if I… aha!” She holds out her phone so the two of them can see it. And, more importantly, the open message on it.

Midoriya

7:43 AM: Oh, by the way, Mineta and Kaminari are gonna try a prank before the third round of the sports fest.

7:43 AM: If people didn’t get a cheer uniform provided by the school, they don’t need one. And there’s no “cheer contest.”

7:44 AM: Just trust me, it’ll make sense in a few hours.

7:48 AM: You might still see if Hagakure wants a uniform though. She seems like she might get excited about that kind of thing.

“But… but we only came up with that idea a few minutes ago!” Kaminari protests.

“So you were planning to prank us, then?”

“I-I, well…”

Both Kaminari and Mineta freeze as Yaoyorozu smirks and starts waving at someone behind them, then slowly turn around with a dawning sense of horror.

There, standing in one of the food lines and waving back, is Midoriya. On his face, a shit-eating grin that would put Aizawa-sensei to shame.