Chapter Text
I often think of the way I met him. In a scene of ice and blood and the unfamiliar, he was the only concrete presence. Even when he was moving, when he was shaking, his red shoes stayed planted on the ground as it tore and splintered beneath him, as if he was telling the universe No. He would not move, he would not shrink, he would not be silenced. Izuku Midoriya. Though, I knew him under a different name then.
I was there, standing near the entrance of the USJ. Thirteen and Aizawa-sensei had herded the students back, two Pros for 19 dimwit kids still whispering among themselves, asking if this is part of the training while a grey-skinned villain emerged from a vaporous black void, accompanied by a horde of masked mercenaries. Ice crept up my cheeks, half of my body stiff under a layer of frost.
“So the trespassing the other day was the work of these scumbags after all, huh?” Aizawa spat. He lowered the yellow goggles over his eyes, sneering down the platform at them, but the man in the center—a detached hand covering his face—hardly noticed, glancing around from side to side.
“Where’s All Might?” He asked. “Were our sources incorrect?” All Might ? I blinked. These villains are looking for All Might? A single bloodshot eye between the armless fingers widened as he sighed. “I wonder if he’ll come if we kill some kids?” The person next to him shifted uncomfortably. A man—no, a boy—in a black sweatshirt with the hood up and a traditional black and green fox mask covering the whole of his face, stood small and unsure, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and hanging back in Hand-Man’s shadow.
“There’s no way they could get into a hero school!” Kirishima yelled.
“Sensei, what about the villain sensors?” Yaoyurozu’s voice was taut.
“They must be disabled,” I said, and the steady, nonchalant hum of my voice surprised even me. “That means they have someone with a quirk that can do that. They might be fools but they’re not dumb. This surprise attack was carefully planned with some sort of goal in mind.” Aizawa’s frown deepened.
“These villains even have something to counteract the sensors. It’s possible someone with radio wave type powers is interfering.” He stepped forward and spoke to Thirteen. “Protect the kids. Get them out of here.”
Aizawa’s scarf snapped up like tendrils, his hair hovering weightless above his shoulders. Without a word, he flew down the platform, descending upon the first wave of villains with his mouth in a hard line, expressionless as I had taught myself to be. Villains lining up to face Aizawa faltered under his gaze, quirks flickering out like dead light bulbs. I pushed down the shiver even as it crawled up my spine.
“Come on!” Someone yelled, and I jerked away from the scene. The sound of thundering legs swept me up on all sides, and we booked it to the gaping doors of the USJ. Someone was screaming, the air was thin, a figure eclipsed the door.
“I won’t let you!” The vaporous man yelled, his billowy head expanding, looming, folding over us. Kirishima and Katsuki lunged forward at one. You idiots! I almost yelled after them. A hot flash, smoke, someone beside me fell over, but the air was too thick to see who. “Even if you are students,” the man’s black cloud descended over us, “You are excellent golden eggs.”
Darkness. Suffocation. My feet left the firm ground and did not return.
I knew somewhat of cramped spaces: places to hide, a stolen breath between blows, seizing moments of fear that always gave way, always, to rage. This was no different.
The ice spread the moment I hit the ground. Everything was tilted, buildings and debris sticking up from the loose soil, villains picking their way through the clutter towards me. The landslide zone . I gritted my teeth. That’s the best they can do? A silhouette lunged forward in the corner of my eye, fists raised above in his head. His yell made the very ground tremble and didn’t stop even when the ice crept up around his throat. There were more, fists and screams and thundering feet cut short to gasps of pain and shock. My right side gave the faintest groan, and I shrugged it off with a scowl.
“It’s pathetic to lose against a single child,” I said, calm. I can do this. I can do this without his Quirk. It’s not even a challenge. “Get a hold of yourself. You’re an adult, aren’t you?”
More voices and faces emerged from the woodwork. My boots skidded across the ice, throwing solid waves with my right hand. No one gets close. These are cannon fodder. They can’t possibly expect to defeat All Might. If they sent this many incompetent villains to deal with children, what’s the ace? Hand-man? Cloud-guy? What about that kid? The masked one? I skidded to a stop, blinking around me. The entire arena glistened with the soft blue glow of ice, figures frozen mid-step or jump like a wax museum, only their exposed heads groaning and tossing about. I balled up my fists, approaching a man with shark-like teeth—duller than Kirishima’s—as he struggled to breathe.
“ ‘Scatter you and kill you,’ huh?” My breath stole out in white clouds. Voices hissed in the icy air.
“This guy… the instant we warped here.”
“Is he even a kid?”
“AAAhhhh!” Someone from behind. I sidestepped, fist closing around his spear that was aimed for my head. He crystalized under my glare, and with a yank his spear snapped in half and he shattered with a groan against the ground.
“Hey, at this rate, your cells will slowly die.” The cold made my voice thick. I reached out, hand hovering over shark-teeth’s face. The air prickled beneath my palm, all energy and fury packed into that single stretch of skin. No trembling. No throwing up. No losing. Not anymore. —Perhaps, if I’d moved, perhaps if I wasn’t so, so angry, angry enough to be distracted, angry enough to kill him, then the rest of this story would never have happened. I would have lived and died with one less scar.— “On what basis do you think you can kill All Might? What’s your plan?”
If he responded, I didn’t hear.
A whistle of wind, so faint and fragile, I barely heard it. My body turned, ice wall forming up from the ground. Too slow. The bullet had exited through my back before I felt it touch my stomach. It was so much like a fire, so much like a burn… my first thought: when did Endeavor get here?
“I–I told you not to touch him!” A voice rang as my knees hit the ground. There was hardly any pain at first besides the heat. It was the sight that made me freeze. Bright red blood, sparkling like wine, dripping in veins down the ice encrusting my left side, and a gash where my stomach would be. Why’s my hero costume white? I blinked. That’s such a stupid idea. What was I thinking? Figures in the distance were fighting, yelling, but I couldn’t understand. There was a thump and a thud . My hand went to my stomach, afraid my insides would fall out, but a lightning strike of pain made me pull away. Pulsing ache, like a blister. I’ve had plenty of blisters, why was this different? Why is this so much worse? My back hit the ground, blood forming a trickling stream down the landslide hill. I’m going to die, aren’t I? There’s too much blood… I’m going to die. Upon impact, darkness ebbed over my vision, and when it faded, a fox face was peering down at me.
“Todoroki!” He yelled. The masked boy threw off his backpack and pulled a clear plastic pouch from a pocket. It swished with blood. His hands shook, sweat drenched fingers pulling uselessly at the bag, too weak to even rip through plastic. With a yell, he threw off his mask, shoved the edge of the bag between his teeth, and tore it open. “Don’t die on me.” He held the bag over my stomach and poured. The pain was closer now, hotter. My throat ripped open with screams; his face was white; steam rose out of the wound. “Hold on!” I peered down, and a wave of nausea drained the remaining blood from my face. The skin of my stomach was stitching itself together, writhing and searing, loose bits of flesh and organs slinking back into the closing hole.
Heat. Fear. A hand on my shoulder.
And then nothing.
The familiar cold called me back to consciousness.
That’s what I saw first, plumes of white breath forming above my face, my own breath, alive. Beyond it, a dilapidated and crumbling building loomed, shattered glass windows revealing an unfurnished, wall-less interior. A background building for a movie set. Its base was iced over along with the rubble and dirt around it.
“We could really use your fire quirk right about now.”
I snapped up to a sitting position. The memories flooded through my head, my chest, my stomach… my stomach. I blinked at the hole in my white costume, still crisp and vibrant with blood, but it haloed nothing more than a tender, twisting scar. The boy. I blinked up, and he was there. He hugged himself under the building’s yawning shadow, hood pulled up, hands retracted inside his sleeves. A curious sight, really. Curly green-black hair peaked out from the hood and cast long shadows across round green eyes, freckles, chattering teeth. His mask lay abandoned beside him. A villain’s mask.
I lunged to my feet, fractal patterns growing over my right palm, and he scrambled away as a wave of ice roared at his heels. I’d done that move for years, white breath filling the corners of iced over training rooms and rented arenas, tearing through anything in my path. Unstoppable.
A lurch of momentum knocked the air out of me, and my left side folded over in a muscle lock. The boy leaped and huddled under the shadow of the ice wall, but it didn’t budge another inch.
“Equivalent Exchange, you can’t attack me!” His voice cracked. My right arm fell limp at my side.
“What did you do?”
“It’s my quirk.” He drew to his feet, lips pursed reproachfully. “I do something nice for someone, they’re held to the favors I ask until we’re equal.”
“I don’t owe you anything!” I spat, even as I realized it wasn’t true. My new stomach scar shivered in the open air, wreathed in blood as a reminder of what it was minutes again. “You–you healed me.”
“You weren’t supposed to get hurt at all,” he cringed. “I talked to them, but no one ever listens. Sorry about the scar–” I started forward, followed by my shadow cast against the ice wall, but the moment it stopped, I stopped too. Something in my gut twisted. The boy stood just a few feet away from me, but my arms only trembled at my sides as I willed them to reach for him. “You can’t move.” He averted his eyes. “That’s my other quirk, Anchor. Can’t go more than five feet from where I tethered you.”
“How many quirks do you have?”
“Depends on how many times you try to kill me,” he huffed before his shoulders sagged. His eyes searched me for something, almost pleadingly, but he must have only seen the cold rage. “Three, only one more than you. Blood Bath, Equivalent Exchange, and Anchor.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m A Hero.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I spat.
“I’m not.” He held up his hands. “That’s my name. You know, the name you’re supposed to choose.”
“Your villain name is ‘A Hero’? ”
“Yeah. I mean, villain’s a strong word. So I’d prefer you call me A Hero, Todoroki-kun.” I blinked.
“Do I know you?”
“No.” His face fell. “We’ve never met.”
An imperfect silence filled the space between us, dented by screams, explosions, twangs of metal striking metal, fist striking skin. It was a warzone out there, a hurricane of rising terror, but it registered in my head as nothing more than a TV left on in the other room, bursts of static sending chills down my spine. A Hero was my age, maybe younger, with round cheeks and thrumming fingers, oversized sweatshirt too dark and plush to show the red stains. With a half open backpack, he could be a school kid if you ignored the pouches of blood peeking out from behind the zipper lip. Just a kid. The thought washed over me. He’s just a kid.
“Why are you with the villains?” I asked. “Did they kidnap you or something?”
“Sort of, at first.” He shrugged, chuckling. “But it’s my choice to be here. I have some goals I need to accomplish.”
“Is killing All Might one of them?” My skin prickled.
“No, well, maybe. It’s my Sensei’s goal, and my Sensei won’t help me if I don’t help him. And maybe… maybe the world would be better without All Might.”
“He’s the Symbol of Peace. ”
“Nothing changes in peace.” A Hero shrugged, but his tone seethed through the words. “There is something horribly wrong with the world, and nobody’s doing anything about it because they believe we have peace. I–” His breath caught. “I’m doing what I have to do to help the people who need help.”
“You’re attacking kids–”
“You of all people should know there’s something wrong with the heroes we worship!” He turned away, his back to me. “I shouldn’t be talking to you.”
“No, don’t go!” I strained against the invisible wall. Free me, at least. “A Hero, there are people who can help you. Just tell me how you’re planning to defeat All Might.”
“Only Sensei can help me,” he sighed, and glanced over his shoulder. My stomach dropped. Fat, shiny tears clustered around his eyes. “I wish I could help you, Todoroki-kun.”
“Me? Why me?”
“I should go.”
“A Hero, why did you heal me?” He fiddled with his mask, preparing to slide it on. “Who’s your Sensei? Why do you have so many quirks? What do you want?” I bit my lip, heat rising to my face. “What do you know about Endeavor?” A Hero stopped, finally turning to me. His face was stony.
“I know he should burn . And I hope, when the day comes that he finally does, you’ll be clear of the flames.”
“Why me?” My teeth grinded. “We don’t know each other. What do you care about me?”
“Todoroki-kun, some things in life are out of our control.” He tapped his fingertips together, and I stumbled forward, the invisible wall gone. “But I’ll see you again, and maybe then, I’ll tell you more. I’m sorry about everything that happened today. You must hate me.”
“I– I don’t.” The words left my mouth before I realized, and I blinked. It was true. I wasn’t even angry at him, this soft-eyed, bloodstained boy. I knew two villains who called themselves heroes, and I only hated one of them. “What will you do?”
“The one thing I can do: follow orders and hope Sensei keeps his promise. This is our debut to the world of heroes and villains, Todoroki-kun. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, we’re still nobodies.” He fit the fox mask back over his face. “Oh, Equivalent Exchange: don’t tell anybody what I look like, and if anyone asks, tell them my name is A Hero.” His quirk locked the constraints into my head. “Sorry about that. I’ll see you, Todoroki-kun.” He jogged away, holding his backpack straps like a schoolboy.
“See you, A Hero,” I said, and let him go.
All Might came in the end, and I wondered if A Hero was upset or relieved that he survived. Aizawa was injured, no one died, the police carted off the cannon fodder. It was a mess of a school day, but one with more questions than casualties. The heroes claimed this victory, but the future it promised left a sour taste on our tongues.