Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nana Shimura felt herself die, facing her successor and smiling brightly at him. Soon, Yagi’s face faded into a stranger’s - deep cocoa eyes stared at her, dark skin and shimmering green fabric that all seemed to be blurred around the edges. The world disappeared, and Nana blacked out for a small moment.

Then, she woke up again in front of a hotel she didn’t recognize, somewhere in what seemed like Tokyo.

Nana moved towards the hotel entrance, her feet seemingly moving on their own as she didn’t even think twice about making her way forward. She pushed the doors open and looked around momentarily, her gaze soon landing on the figure of a young, teenage boy with blonde hair and wide grey eyes. He reminded her somewhat of Yagi, though this boy was so much more innocent looking. 

While Yagi radiated pure determination and hope, this stranger seemed to be glowing with… sincerity? Comfort? It was like Yagi was the healthy habits that made you feel good about yourself, while the stranger was that one hug you receive in a dark part of your life, making you cry tears of relief and happiness. Both were good, of course, but Nana enjoyed the warm embrace of the boy’s presence better. It fit her current situation better than hope.

The difference between the phrases “Things will get better,” and “Everything may not be okay, but I’m here,”.

Nana was dead anyway, so Hope wouldn’t do her much good when she couldn’t turn back time.

“Hi, Nana right? Or do you prefer Shimura? I heard that some people prefer last names…” The boy was nervous, that much was obvious. He had a charismatic air to him, but he resembled a worried mother in the sense that he didn’t want to seem insensitive when Nana had just come back from the dead.

“Nana is fine, don’t worry hun. Where am I? Who are you? I’m sure I died just earlier,” She questioned softly.

The boy visibly winced before smiling brightly once more - he didn’t seem to enjoy hiding his emotions or be capable of doing so.

“You’re currently in Valhalla, where warriors go once they’ve died. My name is Magnus, and I’m supposed to show you around since the Valkyrie that brought you here was really busy. And yeah, you definitely died just now - don’t worry though, I’m sure your Valkyrie will have recorded the better parts of your fight,” He said in a soft, gentle tone of voice. Still oh- so comforting.

It was a nice tour, with Magnus showing Nana around the hotel (Not all the floors, since apparently there were several hundred, but Nana did get to see her own floor - floor fifty-three).

After all that, she had been brought to her bedroom, and Magnus had left her to her own devices, saying something along the lines of “You’ll know when to go back down to the lobby”.

She didn’t think much of it and instead opened the door to find herself in her dream room. It was huge, with a beautiful, elegant fountain as a centrepiece. Everything was the same style as the furniture from her home, what with colourful cushions and decorations placed on the white wooden articles. Most of the decorations were yellow or red, probably referencing the hero costume that Nana was still wearing. 

She looked around for a bit before finding a comfortable long green dress in a closet, pulling it on along with a soft grey cardigan. Nana pulled her hair back into her signature partial bun and explored the room, testing the comfort of the couch and passing her hands through the clear, glittering water of her fountain before the sound of a conch horn rang out throughout the entire room.

Taking that as the sign Magnus had mentioned, Nana left her room and made her way downstairs, smiling brightly when she recognized one of her floormates as the Circus hero - Acro, who was known for taking out villains with his impressive illusion quirk. They talked for some time, soon arriving at the lobby and walking together into the dining hall.

The night went by in a blur - She got to watch her death once again from a third party’s point of view, she was then claimed as a child of Odin - a bit disconcerting, but Nana couldn’t say she was all too surprised when that fact was compared with everything else she’d seen that day.

It was only later when her Valkyrie (who’d introduced herself as Samirah al-Abbas) asked Nana about the villain that killed her, that the ex-pro hero hesitated.

“All for One… The worst villain to ever live… and the man that survived our disastrous battle. He’s… I’m sure he already knows about the Norse gods. He’s going to come for you soon.”

Nana fled to her room after that.

The look on Sam’s face hadn’t been pretty.

Chapter Text

Magnus POV

    I woke up slowly, drowsy and uncomfortable. My stomach growled as my brain was finally conscious enough to acknowledge that my body was searching for sustenance. With a deep, sleepy grunt, I hauled myself out of my nest of pillows as well as Alex’s arms and sat up, momentarily expecting to see the familiar tree that served as my room’s centrepiece. However; when I was met with a bland, hotel room-esque scenery, I remembered just where I was. 

    I wouldn’t be going back to Valhalla for a while, that I knew for sure. It started four years ago when Odin came to the hotel with a somewhat intriguing message.

→*^*←

“Einherjar, listen to what I need to say. Heimdall has seen some disturbing events that will surely affect the future of the Midgardians, as there seem to be signs of an old villain making an appearance in their cities once more,” Odin called, his authoritative voice booming through the mess hall. The Einherjar were much more silent than usual as they watched the god pacing on the raised platform that was usually used to show off the new recruits.

“As you all know, quirks have started appearing on Midgard around 350 years ago, Midgardians being born with certain powers,” He said, eyes flitting over his immortal soldiers nervously, “Some of them useless, others powerful. One such Midgardian, known by others as ‘All for One’, has an immensely dangerous quirk that allows him to use other people’s quirks. He had been quiet for so long that most of us had assumed him to simply be dead, but we were just proven otherwise by Heimdall himself,” Odin paused, allowing himself to take a deep breath for a moment before continuing.

“All for One has just gotten into a bloody battle with the current number one hero in the world, and that battle resulted in what we can barely call a tie, as both parties left the fight incredibly injured, though the hero more so. I have already sent my most trusted Valkyrie general Samirah Al-Abbas to start preparing for what will soon be a mission to shift the balance back onto the heroes’ side,” The god walked back and forth across the platform, stopping in front of floor nineteen’s table and staring down at them, “I’m going to ask floor nineteen to be the ones to take part in this future mission - one to become close associates of the pro hero industries so you can allow the battle to be in the favour of good people. You will receive more information from Samirah, so be ready for that.”

And with that, the oddly grim-looking god disappeared, leaving us all to finish our meals, which some of the more rowdy Vikings gladly did.

The mission was simple, really. We had to go to Japan and earn the trust of the hero agencies in whatever way we thought would be most helpful. Some of us would try to become heroes, others would become support heroes and the like. All we needed to do now, was wait for Sam to have all of the necessary paperwork and planning ready so that we’d be able to enter Japan seamlessly, without anyone being much too suspicious. Fake IDs, quirk registrations, a bunch of legal things that didn’t really make too much sense to me, considering I had spent my teen years homeless and doing more or less illegal junk.

Still, it was surely going to be exciting- I hadn’t had the chance to leave the hotel ever since before quirks became a thing, so it was really exciting to take part in that mission.

→*^*←

And now, here I was, inside some dingy apartment with five other people. The only good part was that Alex and I were allowed to share a room since we were technically old enough to do whatever we wanted. So there were five other rooms, each occupied by a single person except for one, where Sam had set up her little office. She worked as an online detective, anonymously solving cases. Only one person knew her real name - a fellow detective named Tsukauchi Naomasa, and apparently a very good friend of Sam’s.

We all had specific tasks to take care of to become trusted within the hero society, and Sam’s was to get on the police force’s side. Two additions had been made to our team just after Odin had made that announcement four years before - mostly because it was convenient rather than anything else. Hearthstone and Blitzen had been married for years now, and they’ve laid low in Japan for decades. Because of this, they were added to the team - the fact that Blitz had been wanting to make support gear for heroes only added even more to the benefits. He and Hearthstone were on a list to become assistant teachers at a distinguished hero school, so they were all set for what the future had in store.

Then came the Floor Nineteen gang, because we were meant to do whatever we needed to get on the heroes’ good side. Mallory, TJ, Alex, and I had decided to help out whoever needed us, working as honorary heroes with no pay. It was, by all means, going perfectly well. Alex, TJ, and Mallory were the ones that did most of the fighting, while I would use my own powers to heal people after battles, whether it be my friends or any passersby that got sucked into the fray.

It didn’t take long for us to have made a name for ourselves as vigilantes in the sector. We rarely got into fights, unlike some other vigilantes. The only times we’d fight were either when someone else was in danger, or when TJ was challenged, which never ended well for the villains in question.

Last was Halfborn, who was working to actively join the police force in hopes of doing some fieldwork. He seemed to really enjoy the job, at the very least, even though he had to hold back when it came to fights and such since he couldn’t really injure anyone too severely without any severe repercussions.

Now, here I was, shuffling out of Alex and I’s bedroom to grab myself some breakfast. The one bad thing about Japan was the annoyingly small amount of places where we could buy some falafels. Musutafu was fine and all, but Hosu city and Tokyo were much more likely to have good quality food than the city we were currently in, and that much became obvious when I had tried my first ever Japanese falafels. My heart ached as I remembered the odd spicy and sweet taste of the falafels, the combination wasn’t to my taste at all.

I grabbed some All Might-brand cereal and poured it into a bowl, likely visibly half asleep. A loud yawn made me look up from the overly sweet food, catching sight of Sam’s messy appearance - she was wearing an oversized Lunch Rush sweater, her hijab haphazardly wrapped over her messy dark hair. She completely ignored me, seemingly preferring the coffee machine over my company; understandable, considering she’d probably slept until it was morning.

The third person to wake up was Halfborn- the Viking had a wide grin on his face as he simply pulled some leftover pizza out of the fridge and heated it up in the microwave for breakfast.

“I have training again today with my seniors,” he said in passing, clearly only wanting to let us know about his plans rather than wanting to tell us a story of some sort. Halfborn had then stuffed his face and walked back to his bedroom, where’d he was likely going to get changed.

T.J. and Mallory came out at the same time, chatting to each other. Mallory took charge of the coffee machine, preparing some for both she and T.J. to enjoy, while Sam opted to take a seat just beside me and slowly sip her warm brew. I shovelled a spoonful of cereal into my mouth and smiled at her after swallowing it down.

“How’s that assignment going, huh? The one about the increased crime rate?” I asked in hopes of making conversation with Sam. She was, after all, my first friend from Valhalla, even if she wasn’t really an einherjar.

“It’s going fine, I guess. It became pretty obvious that the reason behind it is because of All Might working less, as well as Endeavour’s destructive fighting style and villainous behaviour. The top hero’s been working about three hours a day for around four years now, and Endeavour destroys so much when he fights that a lot of the victims of his negligence become villains. It’s a mess, honestly,” She said all this in two breaths, her tone of voice grim and monotone as she sipped her coffee. Sam looked so serious for a bit until she suddenly perked up and grinned at me, catching me somewhat off guard with her attitude.

“It’s fine though since there are a ton more students attending hero schools nowadays than ever before, so when they debut, they’ll definitely help with the situation! I just have to let Tsukauchi know about my current ideas and plans so that he can hopefully act on them…”

I hummed softly, a smile still plastered on my face until my bowl was empty of all traces of cereal and milk, which meant I had to take care of my daily morning chore.

Wake up Alex

Alex wasn’t hard to wake up at all or anything, and it’s not as if she would be mad at me if I did so. The problem was that she was always overly sweet with me when I woke her up nowadays, which just made me drown in embarrassment since she would almost always catch me off guard with her sleepy, dizzy opening lines. It was always when she was half asleep, which meant that sometimes, Alex thought it was a dream and would say certain things that made my damn heart melt.

I slowly got up to my feet and, after placing my now-empty bowl inside the dishwasher, I made my way back inside our bedroom and looked down at Alex, who was fully buried under the comforter, save for her messy green and brown hair sticking out from under the covers.

I gently settled down beside her on the bed and carefully pulled the comforter down to get a look at her face, a smile creeping on my own features at the calm, incredibly peaceful expression on Alex’s face. I leaned forward and nudged her shoulder softly, shaking her slowly until she finally blinked a couple of times and caught sight of my face- mismatched brown eyes hazy and blurred with sleep.

“Hey… watcha waiting for..? Hit me in the face with your face… ya idiot..”

I jolted out of my reverie and chuckled at that morning’s opening line, leaning down and pressing a smooth kiss on Alex’s lips, not going further than a small, chaste peck since I wasn’t a fan of going all out when one of us wasn’t even fully conscious yet.

“You have to wake up, Alex… We have to get ready for this evening’s patrol, which means fixing up our suits again,” I cooed gently, pressing another soft kiss to her cheek this time. This seemed to wake her up, as she yawned loudly and sat up in bed, smirking at me.

“Our suits, huh? It’s true that mine got seriously ripped up that other night, so we might as well take care of that. Is Blitz home?” She asked as she slipped out of bed, suddenly not drowsy at all anymore. Blitzen was the one that took care of al our ‘hero’ costumes, designing and making all of them fit our individual abilities.

“Yeah, he should be, considering he’s the one that asked us to go over and get our costumes fixed again,” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest, looking Alex up and down as I did so. She was a mess, that much was obvious as her bedhead made itself quite prominent as she got off the bed and trotted over to the wardrobe to pick out some new outfit, opting for something to accommodate for the warmer weather at that time of the year.

She slipped on a pair of knee-length dark green sweatpants, some bright green high tops, and an oversized long sleeve pale pink shirt tucked into the sweatpants. I would’ve probably looked like a hobo coming out of a thrift store if I tried that look, but Alex managed to look really good with the simplistic outfit on.

We talked to each other somewhat silently as she got dressed, about patrol areas and possible villains we might encounter, until we were both ready to go see Blitz and Hearthstone at the apartment that they had been sharing for five years now.

The two of them were working incredibly hard to be accepted as student teachers in UA, as their own small addition to our mission, on top of helping us with planning and making our costumes. Alex and I made our way out of the apartment building, walking close next to each other as we made our way outside for the first time that day. The moment we stepped out the door, we were hit with a wave of unbearable heat- I couldn’t really feel it that much, but Alex’s loud exclamation certainly made it obvious that it was warm.

“Holy fuck it’s so hot!!” She cried out, using her hands to fan at her already sweaty face.

“I’d cool you off, but my powers only work with heating stuff up”

She scoffed and started to speed walk to reach Blitz and Hearth’s apartment building faster, even though they weren’t that far off to begin with. It took us maybe fifteen minutes (twenty on normal occasions) to arrive in front of the building. Alex moved forward and harshly pressed down on the button where the elf and dwarf had written their names, the handwriting contrasting with each other, as Blitz wrote in swoopy, curly cursive, and Hearth had his name written in harsh, scratchy letters that looked like runes. Just under their English names were the Japanese versions of their names written in small, neat handwriting, probably by Blitz.

“Blitz, open up! We’re dying out here..!” Alex snapped into the receiver while holding the button. It took a few seconds before we heard the click of the front door being unlocked and were allowed inside the building.

I led the way, walking up the old, carpet-covered stairs to the fourth floor, where the couple lived. Knocking on one of the two doors was all it took before Hearth opened up for us, his lips quirking up ever so slightly just before he started signing.

‘Hi, Blitz is waiting for you two in the dining room. He’s got four notebooks out, I think he wants to redesign some of your things.’

We both quickly thanked Hearth as we rushed in, making our way towards the dining room where, lo and behold, Blitzen was busily scratching notes into one of his many books, right beside a drawing of Alex’s suit. Piles of dark fabric covered the table almost entirely, along with a sewing machine and Blitz’s books. I was sure his laptop was buried somewhere under the mess, but I decided against asking about it.

“Alex! Magnus! Finally, I can fix up your suits..!” The dwarf exclaimed excitedly as he shot up from his seat, smiling brightly. He motioned for us to come to sit down before settling down himself on his own seat.

I heaved a sigh and took a seat, Alex shuffling over to the seat beside mine, a smile apparent on her face. Blitz continued to search through his notes still until he pulled out a couple of sheets of paper and shoved them towards my face, making me grab them. 

They were a variety of sketches and notes about my current costume, small extra notes being taken randomly at certain places on it, questions about my powers and how they could have their best brought out through the costume. It was simple really - Blitz had written down the side effects of my powers and had sketched out a large number of ideas to go against those effects.

As I read through the notes, Blitz pushed yet another pile towards Alex, who grasped the papers and flipped through them, her face remaining a neutral mask, aside from the few quirked eyebrows she’d give at certain specific ideas that Blitz suggested.

It was boring but necessary work, choosing the things that could be added to our costumes so that our powers could be used to their fullest. It took maybe two hours for us to finish up, most of the ideas being trashed for being too bulky or flashy, or simply unnecessary. Still, we made decent progress.

Alex had chosen a belt made for her garrote to hang from when she wasn’t using it, along with shock absorption boots and a small headset so that we could speak to each other at long distances. I went with the same boots and headset, as well as a change in fabric for my clothes so that, if I healed someone, I wouldn’t be brightly glowing straight through my black outfit. That had been a problem at times, considering I became a literal beacon in the night. 

I also finally got myself a weapon upgrade - a retractable staff that I could twirl around and slam into people. I wasn’t relying on Jack for our mission for several reasons, most of which came down to the fact that having a flying, talking sword everywhere with me wouldn’t go well with the fact that this was a stealth mission.

We had left the sword at Valhalla, where he was most likely flirting with every blade that came across his path. I was sure that he was enjoying himself, so I didn’t think much of it.

→*^*←

    That same night, I was crouched down at the side of a building’s rooftop, T.J. was beside me, doing the same. As a group of four, we tended to separate for our nightly patrols, going out in teams of two, so Mallory and Alex were probably at the other side of the city, likely beating the crap out of villains.

The two of us, being much less inclined to fight (as long as T.J. wasn’t challenged), we decided to lay low and look around, listening for any signs of danger.

The night was slow and boring, so much so that I had resorted to simply practicing with my new staff while T.J. continued to listen to the city sounds. At the sound of a woman’s screaming, He shot up to his feet and caught my eye - we exchanged a silent conversation before nodding and jumping from rooftop to rooftop in the scream’s direction.

T.J would go for the offence, while I’d focus on the defence. 

Time seemed to slow down as we arrived at the scene, finding two thugs cornering a young girl. She seemed to have been trying to use her quirk, but one of the men had pinned her arms above her head to stop her from doing anything more. T.J. immediately went for the blue-haired, short man that was looking through the girl’s backpack, probably looking for a wallet or something. As he did that, I hopped down from the roof and landed directly on the taller thug’s shoulders, surprising both him and the teenage girl. With a swift and hard knock to the head using the steel part of my boot, the thug crumpled to the ground.

I got off of him and smiled at the girl despite the fact that she wouldn’t be able to see my expression through the mask I wore over the bottom half of my face. 

“Thank you… I was going to use my quirk, but he must have seen the acid coming…” She said softly, leaning against the cement wall when her legs seemed to wobble. She was probably around a year younger than my physical age, with pink skin and hair. Her eyes were black and yellow, the yellow part glowing ever so slightly in the dark.

“Are you injured in any way? I can patch you up, easy.”

She hesitated for a moment, glancing down at her legs before turning her gaze back up at me.

“Yeah.. they tackled me into the alley, so I scuffed up my knees pretty bad,” She said, motioning to her legs - blood was dripping slowly down her grazed and scratched up knees, small bits of asphalt embedded into the skin.

“Sit down and I’ll take care of it,” I crouched down after she did as I asked, pressing my hands against her bloody knees. I saw her wince in my peripheral vision, but I stayed focused on her legs and willed my hands to start glowing a pale yellow. My vision started to fade, and I started to see through the girl’s eyes, images and scenes flashing through my mind.

The girl playing rough with a boy from her preschool. her quirk developing and staining her favourite dress. Practising skating around with acid. Chasing her dream of becoming a hero. Hanging around a boy with spiky black hair and a scar over his right eye.

I came back to and saw that the alleyway was lit up ever so slightly from the faint glow that was coming from me. The girl’s legs were completely healed, and she was staring at me with visible awe.

“That was amazing! You have a healing quirk? That’s super rare, are you a hero or something?” She cried out, a huge smile spreading across her face. I laughed softly and took my hands off of her, then stood up.

“Yeah, my quirk’s main aspect is healing. I’m not exactly a hero though, not legally, anyway, so please keep quiet about me, yeah?” I said awkwardly, glancing back towards T.J.

The son of Tyr had just finished tying up the shorter thug and was starting on the bigger one. He looked up at me for a second and showed me a single thumbs-up, then went back to work on restraining the man. It was hard to tell what his facial expressions were, considering he was wearing a mask and a cap.

“Do you know your way home? Do you want money for a cab?” I asked the girl, cringing slightly when I noticed that the worry in my voice was really evident. As Alex always said, I really had to stop showing off my emotions to people on a silver platter.

“I’m fine..! I’ll call my dad to have him pick me up. Thanks again, you really saved me!” The girl bowed deeply and sprinted out of the alleyway, her oversized sweater billowing in the wind as she ran off. I sighed slightly and looked down at the villains momentarily before pulling out my flip phone and dialling the police station’s number- with a quick flick of my index finger, the voice changer in my mask buzzed to life, mixing the sound of my voice with a bunch of different pitches to make my original voice indistinguishable.

“Hello, I have two villains tied up on Hinoru Avenue, between a Tai yarn store and an unnamed pawn shop. Please come pick them up while they’re still knocked out,” I told the police officer before hanging up, not waiting for a response. The shorter the call, the less likely my phone would be tracked.

I then turned to T.J., who had just moved the villains to the edge of the alleyway so the police officers would be able to find them easily.

“We should go before someone is sent after us. We have a long night waiting for us.” I told him. He turned around, seemingly about to respond before his eyes went wide, looking at something behind me.

Oh gods, don’t tell me we forgot a villain. Please don’t let it be a villain.

“Heatstroke, Marksman, surrender now,” a deep voice called from just behind me; icey chills ran down my spine, making my whole body shudder before a loud THWACK resounded through the alleyway, and everything went completely dark.

Damn it, why couldn’t I have brought my new staff with me? I should have brought it…

The sound of fighting seemed to echo from the back of my mind, but I was too out of it to even register the fact that T.J. was alone against that guy.