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Neito didn’t recognize the blonde-haired man sitting on the couch in the living room across from his mom. He looked around his mom’s age and spoke to her as if he knew her, but Neito couldn’t remember ever seeing him before. He’d shown up unannounced in the middle of the night, but his mom had pushed him back to his bedroom after he woke up and told him not to come out.
She’d probably be mad if she knew he was crouched against the hallway wall peeking into the room, but his curiosity got the best of him. He couldn’t help it, his mom would say fondly while ruffling his hair. Ever since his quirk had manifested, it was all he could take not to copy his classmate’s quirks and try to play with them.
He didn’t have to just have one quirk; he could have them all, and he wanted to find out what they were like.
However, his curiosity tonight was mingled with fear. There weren’t a lot of things he was afraid of – while she raised him alone, his mom took good care of him – but he could tell his mom was afraid as she spoke with the man. She was stiff as a board, her hands wringing anxiously in her lap, and although he couldn’t hear everything that they were saying, her whispering voice trembled as she argued with him.
Finally, with a dismissive wave of his hand, the man stood up and proclaimed, “He’s mine, so I’ll do as I please. I let you keep him this long, didn’t I?”
His mom jumped to her feet. “No! I won’t let you–”
With one sharp glare, the man silenced her, and she sat down, her knees buckling underneath her. She didn’t speak again after that, her face pale and her lips trembling as tears pricked her eyes. Neito wanted to run into the room and hug her – tell her that it would be okay – but he couldn’t move. Something about the way that man looked just now froze him on the spot, visions of every scary thing he’d seen on television flashing in his mind.
“You can come out now,” the man called out softly. It was such a stark difference from his behavior moments ago that Neito couldn’t help but be lulled into a relaxed state despite his wildly beating heart. The man turned around, and his eyes landed directly on where Neito was hiding, but no, the man had known he was there all along. “You’re a clever, little boy, aren’t you?”
His first urge was to run back to his bedroom, but something told him it would be useless. The man knew he was here and wanted to see him. Plus… Neito couldn’t deny his curiosity. He might know him, but there was something oddly familiar about the stranger that he didn’t understand. It drew him further into the room, into the light, until he was standing right in front of him.
“I heard someone’s quirk manifested recently,” the man stated, and Neito nodded dutifully. “Can you show me?” At first, Neito reached out to touch the man’s leg, but he held up a quick hand to stop him and said, “Not me. Why don’t you try your mother?”
Neito glanced at his mom, who was staring at him with a horrified look on her face. It was strange and made his stomach flip uncomfortably. She’d never looked at him like that before – like she was afraid of him. Peering at the man one last time, he stepped forward and touched his mom’s knee. Holding out his hands, he brought her quirk to life, his palms glowing brightly in the darkness. It was a simple, boring quirk, one he’d expected to have.
He could never have dreamed that he would be able to copy other people’s quirks.
The man smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile like his mom’s. “Wonderful.”
Pride burned inside of Neito’s chest, making him stand up straighter. Besides his mom, no one else seemed to like his quirk. Other kids got upset if he copied their quirks, and adults often scolded him, as if he’d stolen their quirk somehow. It wasn’t like that. He didn’t take them away; he just borrowed them.
“How long can you use someone else’s quirk?” the man asked.
That brief moment of pride faded, and he looked down at the ground. “Only a minute.”
“What if you could use other people’s quirks for longer? Minutes, hours, days?”
That didn’t seem possible. It was hard enough stretching that time to a minute. He used his quirk as much as he could, even if it meant getting in trouble. In the beginning, he could only copy a quirk for a few seconds, but after almost six months, he’d already pushed himself to a minute. It hadn’t been easy. He couldn’t even think about what it’d be like to hold onto another quirk for a full hour. That was as long as naptime.
The man crouched to his level, looking him directly in the eyes. He had blue eyes, just like him. “What if I could teach you to become stronger than most heroes?”
Neito’s eyes lit up at the magic word. “Stronger than heroes? Can you really?”
“Yes, I can,” the man told him. “You can live with me, and I can teach you.”
His excitement flickered like a candle. “Live with you? But…” He looked back to his mom, who held a hand over her mouth, tears falling down her cheeks, and then back to the strange but familiar man. “But what about Mom?”
The man stood up again. “You don’t want to live with your father?”
“My…” Neito couldn’t breathe. His father? He’d never met his father. He had asked his mom about him once, but she’d told him to never ask again. It was the one and only time she’d ever yelled at him. Was that why this man looked familiar? Because he was his dad?
The man – his father – held out a hand. “I have a quirk like you – and I can teach you to be so much more.”
Something in the back of Neito’s mind told him to run, but he couldn’t say no to his curiosity. He was only five. How could he know any better? He took his father’s hand, and the quiet life he’d lived with his mom became a distant memory.
*
Neito was nine when he realized that his father didn’t love him. In truth, he should’ve known it before, but he had been admittedly blinded by his own admiration. It was a cruel thing to learn while watching the most powerful man in society breathing with the help of a ventilator. All he could do was watch with pitiful eyes and a wounded heart as his father placed a hand on a confused Tomura’s shoulders, murmured words he couldn’t hear, and then sent the older boy on his way.
When Tomura stepped out of the room, he glanced down at Neito and muttered, “He wants to see you.”
A part of Neito wanted to shake his head and run down the hallway, the overwhelming jealousy and anger confusing him, but he couldn’t say no to his father. He might’ve been severely weakened by his fight with All Might, but Neito couldn’t say no to him. He had to be good. Maybe, if he was obedient enough, strong enough, he could prove to his father that he was better than stupid Tomura, who didn’t deserve nearly as much attention as he received.
With a gentle push from Kurogiri, Neito took a step forward and then shuffled into the room. Despite all the medical equipment, they weren’t in a hospital. This lab was a secret from the outside world. It was scary, especially when he saw the ugly scars covering his father’s face and all the needles and bandages attached to him, but he kept on walking until he was standing at the bedside.
He tried to say something, but not a word came out. He just blinked and closed his mouth. What was there to say? His father lost to All Might. He would never be as powerful as he’d been before. What would that mean for his goals?
“Neito,” his father said, his voice muffled by the mask. “What are you not saying?”
“I…” Neito swallowed, willing his voice to stop trembling. Tomura hadn’t cried, so he wouldn’t either. “I don’t get it. Why…?” He clenched his hands into fists at his side. “Why him? Why not me?”
It was a question he’d wanted to ask for a while, but it was only until today that he realized it. By the time his father came to collect him, Tomura had already been living with him for nearly five years. Even with Tomura’s dodgy memory, Neito had figured out he was taken in after his quirk manifested too. His father had saved him from society, but he had taken Neito from it. He gave everything to Tomura, who wasn’t even related to him by blood, favoring him time and time again.
“I’m your son,” Neito insisted angrily. “I should be–”
“You’re too young to understand,” his father told him. “You have a different role to play.”
Tears burned Neito’s eyes. “He doesn’t do anything! He just complains! Why him?”
“He’ll learn,” his father said, as steadily as the beeping of the monitor beside him, “just as you will.” What role was more important than carrying on his father’s legacy? It should’ve been him, not Tomura, who was a selfish brat even though he was five years older. He would never be able to succeed. “He has something inside of him that you don’t, something that will drive him further than you could go.”
“I have your blood!” Neito cried. “Your quirk–” He unclenched a hand and reached out for his father’s arm. “If you just let me–”
“No,” his father cut in harshly. Neito snapped his mouth shut, the rising beeping a warning sign. “You can’t . Similar as our quirks are, yours is an inferior copy. You wouldn’t be able to handle mine if I passed it onto you.” He opened his mouth to argue, but his father didn’t give him the chance. “You are my son and I trust you to follow in my footsteps, but Tomura is my successor, and he will need your support if you are to succeed.”
The cold firmness of his words silenced Neito, and he turned away, grateful that the scars covering the majority of his father’s face kept him seeing the tears streaking his cheeks. Maybe his father was right. Despite the fact that he was trapped in a hospital bed, Neito didn’t have the strength to fight him.
*
The brief loss of contact after Kamino Ward was more on purpose than Neito let on. Aside from giving them information on the Provisional Hero License Exam, he didn’t have much to pass on to Tomura, at least nothing helpful. While Midoriya once again was in the middle of everything, Neito was stuck in a boring, safe work-study. Even if he’d tried to wheedle his way in pretending to want the spotlight, it would’ve looked strange, so he kept a safe distance from both villains and heroes.
He’d left Tomura with a single bit of advice – “This is your mess, so figure it out” – and then ended their contact.
In truth, his isolation was in-part due to the conflicting emotions of anger, grief, and the ugly resurgence of jealousy upon his father’s defeat and arrest. Not only had he nearly been burnt to a crisp by a villain at the training camp, but the kidnapping went absolutely sideways. Neito had warned Tomura that Bakugou Katsuki was a terrible choice for a would-be villain despite his horrendous behavior, but he’d refused to listen. Then, after indulging in him, his father had to jump in and save the League, throwing away his freedom in the process.
And what did Neito get out of this?
A phone call from his father simply telling him, “I expect you to respect my decision, my son.”
His decision. Neito’s stomach turned at the thought. At the time, he hadn’t understood what his father meant. Not until he witnessed the fight between him and All Might and saw him save Tomura. It was the decision that Neito had known since he was a child: his father’s mantle would be passed onto someone else, not him, and he would have to stomach it. He was his blood – that much he acknowledged – but not his successor.
The pain over losing his father mixed with the bitterness about Tomura being chosen caused the gap between them to widen, and Neito used Tomura’s struggles with being cut off and on his own to his advantage. However, messy as it was, he did eventually figure it out: using Toga to infiltrate the Exam, handling Overhaul, and establishing a name for the League. By then, Neito had been given enough time to think over his position and reached out to Tomura again.
He would respect his father’s decision, but his father would do well to remember that he was his son, and those with their blood did not take things lying down.
*
Neito sneered in disdain as he walked down the streets of Deika City. In between groups cleaning up the destruction caused by the fight between the MLA and League, civilians were still living their lives like it was perfectly normal. Sure, their usual coffee shop might’ve been burned down and half the grocery store attendants were disintegrated, but things were fine now. They were all smiles and laughs even in the midst of tragedy.
How delusional. It was pathetic. He hadn’t disliked a group of people this much since Class 1-A.
“You don’t look happy to be here,” Toga pointed out as they entered the main building.
Neito gave her a sideways look and smiled. “Why wouldn’t I be? This place is so quaint.”
Toga giggled. “You’re so silly.”
He didn’t know what made her think he was silly, but asking Toga to explain herself was a terrible idea. It was best to let her chatter mindlessly and come to her own conclusions. Besides, he didn’t spend much time with the League. He wouldn’t be here now, but he was admittedly curious about these new members of the PLF. From what Tomura said, they were more smoke than fire.
Upon seeing Tomura lounging in a large chair, Neito snorted haughtily. “You look like shit.”
“Is that any way to greet your leader?” Tomura shot back.
Neito shrugged. He’d seen him throw fits over losing video game matches and once accidentally disintegrate his own clothes, so yes, it was. Luckily, Tomura didn’t seem to care, gesturing vaguely with a partially gloved hand for Toga to leave. She did so, bouncing out of the room, and Neito turned to look out the large window. The room was brighter than Tomura’s old spot at the bar, natural light filtering inside and casting a warm, strong glow. It looked more like a powerful CEO’s office than a villain’s, so proper and normal.
“Sure it’s safe for me to show my face here?” Neito asked as he watched the streets below.
“You saw what it was like out there,” Tomura pointed out. “They know they can’t match our strength, so they’re settling for hiding in our shadows.”
“Did you have to destroy half the city in the process?”
“They challenged us,” Tomura snapped, struggling to sit upright with the bulky cast on his leg. “We had to prove a point.” Neito glanced back at him, an unimpressed look on his face. “It got the job done. Everyone’s falling on their knees to appease us. They know that stepping out of line with me will involve something very unpleasant.”
Neito nodded and lifted a hand, counting off as he listed them, “A hero support gear CEO, a media mogul, a beloved politician, and… What is that last one – a gremlin?” He pocketed his hands. “They’ll come in handy, much more than your usual brand of lowlife thugs. And you’ve clearly grown stronger. I’m impressed.”
“So was Ujiko,” Tomura said, leaning back in the chair. “He’s offered me a chance to gain even more power.”
A cold feeling settled over Neito, but he kept a neutral expression on his face. “How exciting.”
Jealousy was such a difficult, festering emotion, one he’d been forced to deal with all his life. If it wasn’t his father choosing Tomura over him, it was his obsession with regaining One for All, a quirk he now knew Midoriya to possess, a quirk Neito also couldn’t obtain. It stung him bitterly, knowing that he was incapable of possessing the two strongest powers and watching them being handed to others for nothing.
“You’ll be happy to know it’s gonna be an excruciating and brutal four-month process,” Tomura said dryly.
Neito allowed a smile to cross his face. “You know me so well.”
Perhaps sensing more than just his sarcasm, Tomura added, “This is Sensei’s will.”
The smile fell. “I know. I didn’t forget.”
“Didn’t think you did,” Tomura said, eyeing him carefully. “Just thought you might need a reminder.”
“Oh, trust me, I don’t need to be reminded,” Neito replied, cooler than he’d expected with his heart beating so fast. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and gestured vaguely. “He chose you for a reason, and I have to respect that. I’ll step in line. Don’t you worry.”
Tomura drummed the fingers of his full right hand on the arm of his chair, considering him, and Neito leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, considering the man in return. At least he was a man now – his hair whiter, his red eyes sharper, his face leaner, his body relaxed but ready to move. They’d never particularly gotten along, but it wasn’t like his father had tried to instill a sense of brotherly love between them. Neito rather thought he enjoyed their rivalry, encouraging it here and there in destructive ways.
“You couldn’t do it, you know,” Tomura abruptly said. “You’re not...cruel and unforgiving.” A frown flickered across Neito’s face, but he said nothing. “You still have a heart – or you wouldn’t be able to infiltrate hero society. You don’t have what it takes to destroy everything and bring everyone to their knees.”
“No,” Neito sighed in mock-disappointment, “I guess I don’t.”
But his father wasn’t here, and he wasn’t that little boy who followed him around in awe and fear. He would listen and obey, yes, but he would also wait for his moment. After all, he was his father’s son.