Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"What do you mean you lost him? Did you at least get It back?!"

"... No. I’m sorry, but he—”

“Sorry? You’re sorry? Oh, trust me, you don’t know the meaning of the word — but you will. Just you wait until the Director hears about this—”

As he has every day for as long as he can remember, Izuku wakes up to Ketsu nibbling on his ear.

“Come on, Izuku,” his daemon whines, “you can’t sleep in or we’ll be late! I don’t want to be late.”

“Ngh,” Izuku replies, bundling himself up in his sheets and burying his head back in his pillow.

He gets three seconds of quiet before he hears the slight whoosh of Ketsu shifting forms, and then hands drag his sheets away from him.

Ketsu loves turning into a monkey because it lets him do that. Izuku can’t wait for him to settle into literally anything else, though he’s unfortunately sure Ketsu would still find a way.

“Izuku! Ketsu! It’s time to wake up!” Kaa-san’s voice drifts in through the door, and Ketsu shifts back into a small grey tabby.

(He says smugness looks better on cats. Izuku’s inclined to agree.)

“Come on,” Ketsu says. “Kaa-san’s making breakfast.”

As if on cue, Izuku’s stomach grumbles, and Ketsu laughs. He’s lucky: as a daemon, he doesn’t actually have to eat anything. He’s made of Dust (not to be confused with minor-d dust) and runs on… something else. The power of the universe, according to some religions, though most scientists at least seem to agree it’s probably some kind of elemental particle.

Of course, not being able to eat also means Ketsu’s never actually been able to taste their mother’s food… So maybe he’s not that lucky, after all.

When they get to the kitchen Kaa-san greets them with a smile. She pulls Izuku into a hug and presses a kiss into his hair, and behind him, Ketsu turns into a hummingbird so Jondu, their mother’s hummingbird daemon, can give him his own version of good morning hug.

“Sit, sit,” Kaa-san laughs. “I’ve made breakfast, and Izuku, I’ve packed your lunch too, it’s on the counter. Don’t forget it!”

“It was one time,” Izuku whines, but Kaa-san laughs.

“Don’t worry, I’ll remind Ketsu,” Jondu’s voice comes from above. It’s always a little startling, how deep his voice is for such a little thing, but Izuku’s mostly used to it now.

“Thank you, Jondu,” Kaa-san replies, and her daemon flits over to her shoulder. Ketsu flies back down and shifts into a mouse to crawl under Izuku’s arm — his daemon is kind of a bother, sometimes, but Izuku loves him.

He has to, really — Ketsu is his only friend.

So here’s the problem: not only is Izuku quirkless, but his daemon is still unsettled (‘It’s not that unusual,’ Izuku wants to protest, but that would do more harm than good so he doesn’t) and Ketsu is male.

That, too, is stupid — plenty of people have same sex daemons, which, besides, shouldn’t even matter when daemons aren’t human and don’t really have genders (at least Ketsu doesn’t, though he still prefers ‘he’).

But then again, Aldera Secondary School is pretty stupid. If Izuku could go somewhere else, he would. He can’t though, so he doesn’t.

As he walks into the school, someone shoves into him, nearly knocking him to the ground. They don’t apologize, and neither do their daemon, circling around their head in mocking circles.

“He knew we were there,” Ketsu complains against Izuku’s ear. He sounds incensed — Katsu has always had a much harder time than Izuku at letting go of their anger at the way they’re treated.

“It’s okay,” Izuku whispers back, hand coming up first to rub his shoulder — that shove isn’t the worst he’s ever had, and it shouldn’t even bruise since he didn’t fall, but right now it still hurts — and then to pet Ketsu’s soft fur.

He’s a brown harvest mouse right now. He sticks to smaller forms at school — easier to hide and stay close to Izuku, where he doesn’t risk getting grabbed by a bigger daemon.

It’s happened before, and Izuku still remembers that awful, awful tear in his chest as he’d watched a flying daemon carry Ketsu away while her human laughed.

That had been the only time the teachers at Aldera had ever said anything about the way Izuku is treated here, but still. Izuku’s not risking a repeat, not for anything — and neither is Ketsu.

“I’m fine,” he continues, and gives a little smile as Ketsu first huffs then settles.

“Whatever,” his daemon says. “We’ll be out of there soon, anyway.”

Izuku hums in agreement, but his heart starts pounding in his chest. This year is his last one at Aldera — next year, Izuku’ll be a high school student.

A hero student, hopefully.

“Soon,” he repeats, and forges onward.

Classes are boring. The teachers never call on him unless it’s to ridicule him in front of the class — the History teacher particularly likes to call on him to ‘fact check’ pre-quirk History in a tone so falsely kind that Izuku always, always shivers at hearing it — and these days, his classmates mostly ignore him.

Even Kacchan.

(He’s been different lately, though. Ever since the beginning of the year, when he and Chikara had gotten caught by that sludge villain and almost died, they’ve been… quieter.

Izuku would hesitate to call them subdued, because Kacchan probably doesn’t know the meaning of the word and Chikara, as the dragon she settled as, couldn’t be subdued if she tries.

Ketsu doesn’t, of course, and just occasionally mumbles he hopes that makes them less of an asshole.)

They’re busy, though. The period for high school entrance exams is drawing nearer and nearer, and everyone’s getting ready for them — Izuku included.

Fortunately, that means he also has more time to prepare for his own exams. More specifically, UA’s entrance exam, since that’s the school they’re aiming for. They’re the school All MIght went to, and the best in all of Japan. Izuku needs to get in, but without a quirk…

Ketsu tugs on his earlobes, his tiny teeth just sharp enough to cause pain, and Izuku shoots him an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he whispers. He’d promised Ketsu he wouldn’t dwell on it anymore, that they’d do their best with the hand fate had given them.

So what if they don’t have a quirk? Izuku’s clever and smart, and he’s really good at making plans. He only knows some self-defense, yes, but surely he can convince Kaa-san to sign them up for something else once he gets into a hero school and she can see he’s able to handle himself.

It’ll work out.

“Focus,” Ketsu whispers back, and Izuku nods quickly before bending down over his workbook. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the teacher start to make the rounds, and his heart starts to pound.

Don’t notice me, don’t notice me, he chants in his head. Ketsu shivers, and curls up on his shoulder, his cold nose pressed against Izuku’s neck.

No such luck, of course.

Arigawa-sensei stands over him for a long moment, her squirrel daemon looking down on them from her shoulder with beady eyes. He whispers something into her ear, and she hums.

“Midoriya,” she says, and her voice cuts through the air like a death knell. The class falls silent, holding its breath. “You’ll come see me after class, will you?”

She doesn’t say anything else, and doesn’t wait for Izuku to acquiesce before leaving, moving on to the next student. Her daemon, though, keeps staring at them, smiling a creepy kind of grin, until Izuku gives a shaky nod.

The instant he turns away, Izuku heaves a shaking breath. His limbs feel like overcooked noodles, and he’s very glad to already be sitting down.

“That was scary,” Ketsu states, his voice shaking a little. “What do you think she wants?”

Izuku bites on the end of his pen, shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he replies quietly, even though they both have an idea.

There’s really only one reason Aldera’s teachers want to meet with him: in their words, to ‘help him’.

In his, or Ketsu’s, to convince him he can’t be a hero.

It’s not something they dare to discuss here though, where they can so easily be overheard by classmates who’d rather laugh at his pain than help.

The boy who’d carried Ketsu away is still here, after all, sitting two seats to the right of him. He’d only gotten a week’s detention for his feat too — Izuku, a two-day suspension. For the shock, supposedly.

There are many, many reasons why neither Ketsu nor Izuku can wait to get out of here.

Arigawa-sensei isn’t actually the worst teacher they’ve ever had. She’s not even the worst one this year. She’s actually one of the better ones — which always makes it harder not to care about she says.

Her daemon betrays her, though. His beady eyes stare at Izuku and Ketsu like they’re lesser than them, and he never stares like that at anyone else. And if her daemon thinks that way… Well, it’s pretty clear Arigawa thinks so too.

She pretends otherwise, though. Puts on airs, affects kindness to tell Izuku just how concerned she is about his future, and oh, but won’t he at least consider some different high schools, with different programs?

“It’s safer to have backup plans, you know,” she says, smiling softly. “Why, when I was your age I didn’t, and when I failed to get the school I wanted, I ended up having to do a lot of work to find something that would work for me — and I did, but you should learn from my mistakes. Be better than I was.”Even her eyes are kind — but beside her, her daemon stares at them with disdain.

“Does she uses that story on every student, or are we just special?” Ketsu whispers bitterly into his ear, and Izuku only just manages to bite back a nervous chuckle.

Still, Ketsu’s voice helps him relax: he’s not alone here, faced with Arigawa-sensei’s fake concern and her daemon’s disdain as they try to shove their choices upon him.

Izuku is never alone.

“Here,” Arigawa-sensei says, pushing a series of brochures at him. “Just take a look? They have some good science and literature programs. You might find one you like.”

The paper feels cold and sticky in his hands, but Izuku forces himself to accept them. “Thanks,” he mumbles, even though he plans to throw them out as soon as he gets home. “Was that everything?”

Arigawa-sensei smiles. “Yes. You can go now.”

Izuku nods stiffly and puts the brochures into his bag. He’s halfway to the door when Arigawa-sensei calls out to him again.

“Oh, and Midoriya?”

“Mmh?” He stops but doesn’t turn around. On his shoulder, Ketsu shivers — he wants to shift into something bigger, something that can protect them. Izuku can always tell.

“We expect good things from you,” Arigawa-sensei lies. “You’re smart. Don’t make the mistake of choosing the wrong path for your skills.”

Don’t be a hero, she means, and Izuku swallows past the lump in his throat. His eyes sting, and Ketsu’s angry hiss fills his ears. “O-Of course,” he stutters out, and then rushes out of there.

He doesn’t hear if Arigawa-sensei says anything else, but he doesn’t care. He feels too angry and hurt to care, and he runs blindly out of Aldera, tears running down his cheeks and blurring his vision.

“It’s n-not f-fair,” he hiccups out through the tears, tossing away his bag and letting himself fall to the ground. He doesn’t care where he is, as long as it’s away from that school and its people — away from everyone in general.

Ketsu jumps from his shoulder to shift into his hummingbird form.

“They’re all idiots,” he hisses, the flutter of his wings like a kiss against Izuku’s cheeks. “They don’t deserve us!”

Izuku sniffles. Ketsu keeps ranting, but Izuku’s attention drifts. There is something slightly comical about his daemon, looking so tiny and harmless, taking the shape of their mother’s daemon to make them feel better, while also sounding so angry he could tear down walls.

A giggle slips past his lips first, and then a second one, and then a third. Before he knows it, Izuku is laughing — properly laughing, with mad gasps for air as his sides ache and burn — and then the laughter hiccups back into sobs.

Ketsu nests in his hair, tapping softly against his skull, until Izuku chuckles wetly again.

“It’s not fair,” he says, face buried into his knees. He sniffles and grimaces in disgust: he should clean up his face — he doesn’t even have a tissue, though, and Izuku doesn’t really want to use his sleeves.

“Bag,” Ketsu says, perking up from his head, and Izuku startles.

Right. He always carries a pack of tissues in his bag, just in case. He stands up on shaking legs, and sniffles again, using his hands to wipe the wetness under his eyes. His head pounds in rhythm with his heartbeat as he walks slowly toward his bag.

“Nice toss,” Ketsu states, and Izuku’s cheeks burn.

“I don’t know how that happened,” he replies, bending down to pick up his bag.

It had ended up going farther than he’d thought it would, but Izuku hadn’t really been thinking about a direction or a distance when he’d tossed it. He’d just been angry, and hurt, and the bag reminded him of Aldera, which reminded him of how nobody but him and Ketsu thought he could be a hero.

Truth be told, he is still angry and hurt over it, but the tears have helped dull the ache a little. It’s manageable now — back to its normal standards.

Sighing, Izuku tugs on the bag’s handle.

And tugs again, when it doesn’t come.

“Huh,” he states dumbly, staring down, and Ketsu chitters out a laugh. He flies down and shifts into a mouse again to get a closer look, disappearing from sigh.

“It’s stuck,” he says when he comes back. “There’s a storm drain, and I think the books inside shifted and caught on the edges? If you twist it, it should come out fine, but I don’t think you want to keep tugging.”

“Thanks,” Izuku absently replies, already kneeling down.

The ground is cold and rough under his knees, but Izuku grits his teeth and follows Ketsu’s instructions as best as he can.

As promised, it only takes a little twisting to get the bag free. It’s slightly dirty, and his books look to be a little bent, but at least nothing seems wet, ripped or otherwise broken. A win, really, in Izuku’s book.

He moves to stand up, tugging the bag over his shoulder, when Ketsu darts down into the drain.

“Wait—” Izuku shouts out after him, dropping down to his knees again. “Ketsu, what are you doing?” His voice echoes a little, but although Izuku waits for its with bated breath, he doesn’t feel the telltale tear in his chest of his daemon wandering too far from him.

(Back before the incident at Aldera, he and Ketsu had used to practice walking away from each other, trying to increase their range until they could get one just like a hero, who could leave their daemon at one end of a disaster site to help civilians while fighting villains at the other.

They hadn’t had the heart to since, but the last time they’d checked, their range was at almost ten meters.)

“I’m okay!” Ketsu shouts back up, his voice echoing and distorted as it drifts up. “I just thought I saw something down there.”

Izuku frowns and checks his bag again. It still looks fine to him. “From my bag?” he asks.

“No, no, not that.” There is a rustling sound, a metallic clank, and then Ketsu speaks again. “Here, I’ll show you.”

It takes Ketsu only a few seconds to come back, but to Izuku, they will like forever. Anything could happen down there. Ketsu could run into some wild animal, who could attack him where Izuku wouldn’t be there to help him — nevermind that wild animals normally know to stay away from daemons.

Ketsu’s shifted again, is Izuku’s first thought when he sees his daemon again. He’s a tarsier now — a small monkey with huge round eyes — and he’s taking advantage of his finger-like appendages to tug something behind him.

It’s a very small satchel back. The dark leather is worn but still feels strong under Izuku’s fingers as he gingerly picks it up. It’s unadorned, but a golden buckle gleams on top of it, sealing it shut.

Izuku stares as Ketsu shakes and scrambles over, shifting into a black cat and nosing at it.

“What is it?” Izuku asks.

Ketsu gives his best cat impression of a shrug. “No idea. But it looked important. I think someone may have lost it?”

Izuku nods. His fingers curl around the leather, and it creaks reassuringly. There is something hard inside, but Izuku doesn’t dare open it just yet.

Later, he decides. Once they’re home.

Once they’re home, he’ll open the bag and look inside, and then he and Ketsu will work on finding its owner and giving it back to them.

Help someone. Be heroes, just for one day.

Chapter Text

“So my old enemy is missing… Interesting.”

“Yes. All Might’s vanished. No one can seem to find him—”

A laugh. “And they won’t — not when he can tell they’re coming.”

“No, but that’s just it — they’re saying he’s also, you know, lost It. That this is why he left.”

A deep breath, like a rattling snake, and then a laugh. “Oh, really? The heroes have lost their biggest asset, just like that?”

“That’s what they’re saying, yes.”

“Well, in that case, it would be foolish of us not to take advantage of this… golden opportunity, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that right… Doctor?”

“... Yes, All For One.”

By the time Izuku gets home and manages to sequester himself in his room for some privacy, he’s practically shaking with curiosity. The leather satchel feels like it’s burning a hole through his bag, and Izuku upends the latter on his bed without remorse — though with a slight apology to All Might as it sprays dust all over his face.

Ketsu must be feeling similarly restless, because he’d shifted through half a dozen forms on their way back, and doesn’t seem very intent on stopping now.

“Well?” he asks, turning back into a cat to jump smoothly on Izuku desk before shifting down to a rabbit.

“Just a moment,” Izuku replies, carefully plucking the satchel from the pile on his bed and deposing it on his desk.

He sits down on the chair and just eyes it for a moment. It feels… important somehow, and Izuku can feel his hands getting sweaty just at the thought of opening it.

“Should we… open it?”

Ketsu’s nose twitches and he jerks his head up at Izuku. “What? What do you mean, ‘should’ — I thought that that was the whole point of bringing it back here! To open it!”

Izuku feels his cheeks flush. His fingers twitch against the leather, coming to rest at the buckle. It is cold and hard against his fingertips, and he bites down on a shiver.

“Well, yes, but what if what’s inside is like, super personal? What if we’re not meant to open it?”

Ketsu thumps against the desk, hissing. “Well, we can’t very well know who it belongs to if we don’t long,” he reasons.

Izuku nods, conceding the point. “Still…”

“Oh, give it here,” Ketsu says, shifting back into a tarsier and dragging the satchel away from Izuku before he can protest. “If you won’t, I will.”

The buckle clinks when Ketsu works it open, and the leather creaks and shifts.

“Here,” Ketsu says, sliding the opened bag back to Izuku. “Now, you can say you didn’t open it.”

“That’s not any better!” Izuku protests, but well, his daemon’s right. They had said they’d look inside, and they do need to do that if they want to return it.

Hopefully, there’ll be a nice ‘Property of —’ sign sewed on somewhere inside, and Izuku and Ketsu can find that person and give them back their possession. It looks precious, they must be missing it.

“So?” Ketsu asks after a beat. “What’s inside??”

Izuku takes a deep breath and tilts the satchel to the side, letting his contents slide out into his hand.

It does look even more precious than the satchel had led them to think: it’s a small square-shaped case of golden metal. Its edges have been smoothened by age and wear, and Izuku’s fingers find the catch almost like they were meant to.

The device opens with a very soft snitch, and Izuku lifts the cover to reveal its contents. Ketsu hops to his side and leans in closer to get a better look—

And Izuku almost lets the alethiometer slip right through his fingers and smash against the table.

“Is that—?” Ketsu’s eyes seem even wider than usual in this form, and his voice shakes.

Izuku rather understands the feeling. His voice, if he could find it, would probably do the same if he tried to speak.

He gingerly sets the device on his desk, the lid still open, exposing the delicate workings inside.

Now, Izuku has never seen an alethiometer before. Nobody has — not in real life. There are only a handful left in the world, and they’re all kept under lock and keys in either the most prestigious universities, the most well-guarded museums, or in very, very private collections.

The last time an alethiometer had even been on Japanese soil had been almost thirty years ago, and the security measures around that visit were still talked about today to demonstrate the benefits of private security.

Izuku had had to do a presentation on it last year for his History class though — alone, since nobody had wanted to work with him — and he still remembers the handful of pictures he’d managed to find.

The alethiometer had been lent to a university to a team of researchers doing a study on Dust and its effects on pre-cognisant quirks, and for an entire day, volunteers had been allowed to request and try making alethiometer readings as part of the experiment.

A lot of people had actually scoffed at that part — both back then and during Izuku’s presentation. Everybody knew you needed years of study to be any good at interpreting an alethiometer’s response. Even if the internet had made the Books of Symbols widely available to the public, that didn’t replace the knowledge needed to read the minute twitches of the alethiometer’s thin gold needle as it spun around and pointed out at your answer.

And that was if you even managed to ask your question correctly in the first place, since that required knowing the symbols well enough to in the first place.

“We can’t keep it,” Izuku blurts out, turning pleading eyes to his daemon.

Ketsu nods back, speechless for once.

He switches into a harvest mouse again, and shuffles into the discarded leather satchel, examining its insides.

“I don’t see a name,” he reports anxiously a moment later. “Do you think there’s something on the alethiometer?”

Izuku swallows. His hands shake a little — he can’t believe he’s holding an alethiometer. “Maybe?” he answers, but he knows he sounds as doubtful as he feels.

Still, it’s worth a try.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard they look, neither Izuku nor Ketsu can find any trace of anything identifying on either the alethiometer or its satchel.

Izuku sits back in his chair, and just stares.

The alethiometer, glinting in its case, seems to stare back at him, hypnotizing and mysterious.

Izuku swallows and blinks, breaking the spell.

“What should we do?” he asks his daemon.

Katsu paces on the desk. “I don’t know.”

Izuku nods. “We can’t… We can’t just bring an alethiometer into a police station,” he whispers.

Katsu raises his head, nose twitching. He nods. “No, we can’t. That would be…”

“Bad,” Izuku finishes.

It’s not that they dislike the police, or mistrust it — well, not really. Not any more than anybody else, really.

It’s just…

This is an alethiometer. They’re priceless artefacts, and the fact that Ketsu stumbled upon one of them down a storm drain already seems impossible to Izuku, and he was there.

At best, the police will assume he’s lying and laugh him out of the precinct.

At worst…

At worst, they might try to keep the alethiometer for themselves — sell it off, maybe.

“We can’t,” Ketsu repeats, his thoughts clearly running along the same lines as Izuku’s.

Izuku swallows. “So we… Do we just keep it?”

Ketsu shrugs. “For now? Maybe whoever owned it before will come looking?”

Izuku nods, but he does so dubiously. He can’t really see how anybody would even find them, but then again, he has no idea what kind of person would even own an alethiometer.

Somebody rich, probably, but Izuku’s mind draws up a blank after that.

“Okay. Okay.” Izuku’s hands shake as he takes the alethiometer in his hands again. He closes the small golden as carefully as he can, and sets it back down on his desk.

Like this, it looks so ordinary. Nobody could ever guess at what was held inside — Izuku certainly hadn’t.

He carefully slides it back into the satchel again, buckles it closed, and places the satchel inside his desk’s drawer.

And then Izuku tries to forget all about it.

Of course, forgetting about something like an alethiometer is easier said than done.

It helps, then, that the news that night offers a distraction so readily.

Pro Hero All Might has gone missing, the news anchors report.

The reporter herself doesn’t seem like she believes it, and Izuku exchanges a panicked look with first his mother and then Ketsu as she keeps talking.

It’s true, the reporter explains. A week ago is the last time All Might was seen — rescuing a group of teens from a poisonous villain. Sources inside the Hero Commission have—

Her panda daemon startles and the feed freezes.

“Kaa-san?”

“It’s probably just our connection again,” Kaa-san replies, Jundo fluttering above her head. “You know how bad it can get.”

Izuku grimaces, shoulders falling. Boy, does he know — if he’s not watching his All Might movies from the collection his mother bought him and they’re on TV, he’ll always miss the best part because their connection will cut off at the worst moment.

Kaa-san says it’s because there are too many people watching at the same time, and now that they’ve taken to recording things instead to rewatch them later, it’s mostly okay, but it still happens a lot.

Not usually during the evening’s news, though.

“It’ll probably come back soon,” Kaa-san says, and as if she prompted it, the feed returns.

Is it Izuku, or does the reporter’s smile look a little bit tighter now? They come back in the middle of a sentence, though, and Izuku leans forward in his seat as she predictably cuts to footage of All Might’s fight with that poisonous villain.

Izuku had seen it already, of course, but it’s always great to rewatch All Might in action — and so close to where they live, too! All Might’s moved to or close to Musutafu months ago now, and Izuku still hasn’t managed to catch a glimpse of him. These videos are the next best thing, though.

The segment lasts a while longer — as expected, really, for a subject about All Might — and they leave it off with a few theories on what All MIght is probably up to, clearly trying to be reassuring to the public.

Izuku doesn’t feel very reassured.

“Kaa-san… “ Izuku asks, Ketsu climbing up his legs and curling on his knees, “Do you really think All Might is missing?”

It seems inconceivable, really. All Might’s All Might. The number one pro hero — number one heroes don’t just go missing, after all.

Kaa-san smiles back at him reassuringly. “I’m sure he’s just fine.”

With All Might still missing, Izuku forgets all about the alethiometer. He has school, and only a limited number of weeks left to prepare for UA — what little time he has left that isn’t spent on revising for exams and trying to piece together a training regimen that won’t harm him or scare his mother is spent on the internet, trying to find if there’s new information on All MIght’s disappearance.

There isn’t anything — or if there is, Izuku can’t find it.

Ketsu takes to pacing across Izuku’s desk nervously as Izuku does his research. The theories they’re finding are starting to get darker — no one’s really come out and outright said they think he might be dead, but it’s on everyone’s mind nonetheless.

School, too, feels different. Everywhere does, really. It’s like a shadow’s been cast over the world, and Izuku shivers under it.

And then, one day, Izuku needs to start a new notebook and he opens his desk drawer again, and finds himself faced with the alethiometer he’d been trying to forget.

His heart starts to race and his hands tingle.

When he looks up at his daemon, Ketsu looks similarly frozen on the table.

“Do you think…?” Izuku starts to ask, keeping his voice low.

Not because he fears being overheard — he and Ketsu are practically alone, and Kaa-san doesn’t really listen in on them anyway, and who else would even bother? — but because voicing it out loud would make it too real.

Ketsu visibly hesitates before nodding his head. “We can try,” he says, and for the first time since he put it out of his mind — well, tried to at least, since Izuku had truthfully only partially succeeded — Izuku reaches for the drawer under his desk.

The alethiometer is right where he left it, and Izuku swallows thickly as he unwraps it. It gleams in the light, and Izuku takes a moment to just look at it. He stares at the symbols and at the little needles for probably too long, since Ketsu comes over and nudges his head under Izuku’s hand.

“Now what?” he asks.

Izuku looks away from the alethiometer and sighs. “Now,” he says, “I look up how to attempt an alethiometer reading.”

Fortunately, thanks to his past homework, Izuku has a pretty good idea of where to start — the internet.

Choosing the first symbol for the question he wants to ask is actually pretty easy.

Izuku picks the Sun. One of its top meanings is ‘truth’, according to what he found, which suits Izuku wanting to know about what happened to All Might, but also… All Might is like the sun himself, radiating warmth and life wherever he goes.

He’s Izuku’s favorite hero for a reason, after all.

The second symbol is a little harder. Izuku stares at the little engraved pictures on the alethiometer for what feels forever, until they start to get blurry. He looks at the scanned pages on the alethiometer reading website instead, hoping for inspiration.

It hits him suddenly: the Apple, for knowledge. It also means sin, and seems to lean more toward forbidden knowledge than just knowledge, but Izuku still thinks it might fit. Or at least fit well enough for him to try.

After all, All Might’s always been a very secretive hero. Nobody even knows what his quirk is (which is part of why Izuku loves him so much, really — since they don’t know, it had been easy for Ketsu to whisper it one night, under their covers: what if All Might was just like them — quirkless?). Surely the forbidden aspect of knowledge could refer to that, then.

He nods, now decided, and slowly turns the crank until the second small needle is pointing toward the apple symbol.

“What’s the third one?” Ketsu asks, tail quivering as he looks over the alethiometer.

Izuku licks his lips. “I’m not sure.”

Ketsu blinks. “What are our choices?”

Izuku purses his lips as he returns to the book. “Maybe…”

His eyes drift back to the alethiometer and land on the Candle. It seems to flicker for a moment, and then Izuku blinks, and the effect is over.

As if possessed, Izuku lifts up the alethiometer again and turns the crank for the third needle.

It makes sense, he tries to tell himself, casting his mind back to what he’s just read. A candle illuminates — it makes sense to use it to mean wanting to look for something hidden, like All Might’s location.

For a moment, nothing happens, and Izuku’s heart starts to fall — maybe he did it wrong? He opens his mouth to say… something, when Ketsu gasps.

“Izuku… Look!”

Izuku blinks and looks down at the alethiometer. His heart stops.

The last needle — the thinnest one, the one not connected to any cranks, is moving, spinning around rapidly as it circles around, rapidly pointing out at one symbol before moving on to the next, oscillating in place for less than a handful of seconds before moving again.

It lasts… maybe thirty seconds. Izuku forgets to breathe, eyes tracking the needle rapidly, and he exhales loudly when it stops, the needle falling still again.

Quickly, Izuku opens his notebook to a new page and scribbles down the symbols the alethiometer gave him.

Crocodile, Chameleon, and Thunderbolt.

“What does it mean?” Ketsu asks in a breath, his nose so close to the alethiometer he’s almost touching it.

Izuku blinks, feeling a little dazed, and a lot overwhelmed.

His brain starts whirring. “Well, the Crocodile can mean America, but that doesn’t sound too likely…” It feels wrong, too, in a way Izuku can’t really put a finger on. He swallows. “It can also mean enterprise, though, so maybe All Might’s working? Like on a secret mission or something?”

He stares at Ketsu, who circles himself in the mouse-equivalent of a shrug. “Maybe? But then why would news outlets start reporting him being missing?”

Izuku frowns, biting his lip. “Well, they didn’t, though, did they? They just said he hadn’t been seen in several days, which was unusual.”

It is unusual, too, but probably not for the obvious reasons. All Might has gone longer without public apparitions before, though not really in recent years. What’s different about this is that nobody from his agency has come forward with an explanation, with a ‘Oh, yes, he’s taking a break’ or ‘He’s just so busy with this new case, he’ll be back soon’.

All Might’s agency is on radio silence, and that leaves Izuku feeling uneasy. It makes him feel like something bad has happened — and that’s why he had to ask the alethiometer. To try to figure out what that something was, and if Izuku can do anything to help.

His gaze returns to the notebook page where he’d scribbled the three symbols the alethiometer had pointed to.

With Crocodile (maybe?) down, that leaves two others to think about.

“The Chameleon…” Izuku muses aloud, tapping his pen against the desk. “Maybe… Maybe he’s hiding? Or hidden? That would make sense, chameleons are good at camouflage…”

A quick look at the scanned book on the internet tells him it might mean Air, Greed, or patience, though, and Izuku deflates a little.

Air… Izuku can’t make sense of air. Is All Might meant to be flying? On a plane somewhere? Does it just mean he’s still breathing, which, while good to know, isn’t actually super helpful to know?

Greed doesn’t fit All Might at all — maybe it refers to the reason why he had disappeared, then? Someone got too greedy and All Might, what, left to fight them?

“He would,” Ketsu interjects, and Izuku nods in agreement.

Patience feels like the most straightforward answer, then (Izuku’s sticking to top meanings for this, because if he starts looking into deeper alternatives he could probably spend years trying to analyze this one answer).

“I think it’s telling us to be patient? Or that All Might’s being patient,” Izuku says, looking down at the Chameleon symbol a little dubiously.

Ketsu hums. He neither sounds convinced nor unconvinced — a feeling Izuku can get behind.

“What about the Thunderbolt, then?” Ketsu asks.

“Well, the Thunderbolt’s chance, see? Luck that doesn’t depend on you.” The book had also mentioned fate and inspiration, but Izuku sort of feels like they amount to the same thing in the end, and he likes his definition best.

“So All Might’s lucky? We knew that already.”

Izuku laughs. “No.” He frowns, casting his mind back to what he’d been thinking when he’d asked his question: how to find All Might, and what had happened to him.

“No,” he repeats, surer this time. “I think it just means whoever finds him will just… be lucky?”

“Like a chance meeting? That seems arbitrary.”

Izuku shrugs, but smiles down at his daemon. “Well, of course I could be totally wrong. You know people usually spend a lot of time doing these readings, right?”

Ketsu grimaces. On his little mouse face, it still looks adorable, but Izuku knows.

“Let’s hope you were right, then,” he says, and Izuku nods.

They stare at the alethiometer for a long time before Izuku decides to put it back in its satchel, and the satchel back in the drawer.

On Sunday, Kaa-san asks Izuku to do the grocery shopping for her — she’s got an urgent project and one of her coworkers just fell ill, which means she has to go to the office for most of the day and won’t be able to take care of things at home.

“Oh no,” Izuku says. “I hope they’re okay!”

Kaa-san smiles at him gently, Jundo fluttering nervously around her head. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she says. She sounds a little annoyed, actually, which reassures Izuku that it mustn’t be too serious — Kaa-san would never be annoyed if it was.

“Now,” Kaa-san continues, “I’ve left the list of what we need on the fridge, and the money’s in the usual place. There should be plenty, but no buying All Might merch until after you’ve gotten all the groceries, okay?”

Izuku flushes pink, and Ketsu cackles loudly by his side. Even Jundo laughs, and Kaa-san’s smile widens as she bends down and presses a kiss to Izuku’s forehead.

“Kaa-san~” Izuku protests. “It was only once.”

“And we were lucky they agreed to take it back,” Kaa-san continues, her eyes twinkling merrily. “Or we’d have starved for the whole week.”

Ketsu only cackles louder, and Izuku pouts. Sometimes, his daemon is the worst.

And they wouldn’t even have starved, really — Kaa-san wouldn’t have let them.

“I love you, Izukun,” Kaa-san says, huffing out a laugh like she can read Izuku’s thoughts. She tries to neaten his hair for a moment, sighs and then looks at her daemon. “We really have to go now.”

She looks back at Izuku. “I’m really sorry — I’ll try to be home early tonight.”

“It’s fine, Kaa-san,” Izuku replies, waving her off. “I’m fourteen now! I can handle it!”

Her lips twitch, and Jundo comes down to nestle in her hair. “Of course you can. I just worry, is all.”

Izuku’s cheeks burn. “I know,” he mumbles, and finally, mercifully, Kaa-san leaves.

Alone with his daemon, Izuku turns to Ketsu. “Do you want to go now, or wait?”

Ketsu shrugs, shifting from a bird to a cat, and then a dog — Izuku suspects Ketsu just really likes changing forms, which must be part of why they haven’t settled yet even though they’re the only unsettled kid left in their class.

“I’m good with either, so you pick,” he says.

Izuku groans. “I was hoping you’d decide.”

Ketsu barks out a laugh. “Tough luck.”

Sighing, Izuku starts to move toward the door to put on his shoes, Ketsu trotting beside him. “Let’s go now,” he says. “There should be fewer people in the morning, and that way we’ll have the rest of the day to research things.”

“You mean try out the alethiometer again,” Ketsu retorts knowingly.

Izuku’s cheeks do not turn red again. “Maybe,” he replies. “So what?”

Ketsu shrugs. “Nothing. It is pretty fun to see. And maybe this time you’ll even get a different answer, too!” He barks out another laugh, and Izuku pouts.

It’s not his fault all of his questions have been about All Might, and that they’ve all led to the same answer: the Crocodile, the Chameleon and the Thunderbolt Izuku got on his first try.

Izuku’s got the sense the alethiometer might be waiting for something — of course, trying to ask the alethiometer what it was waiting for had led to a whole lot of nothing, so Izuku had stopped trying.

He still thinks about it, though. His notebooks, which used to be entirely dedicated to hero notes, are now getting split between that and alethiometer musings — what would it be like, Izuku wonders, if he were able to use the alethiometer to be a hero?

Alethiometers don’t lie. They tell the truth as the universe knows it, which means if a hero — if Izuku — could use it like that, he’d be able to know the best ways to stop the villains. Maybe he’d even be able to stop them before they could attack, if he knew how to voice his questions properly.

He’s still thinking about it when he and Ketsu finally get to the grocery shop. It’s the closest one to home, which means it isn’t the biggest — that one requires taking the train, or Kaa-san’s car — and Ketsu obligingly shifts into a mouse again to stay in Izuku’s jacket pocket, where it’s safe.

Seconds later, his head pops out, and he offers Izuku the list they’d taken from the fridge.

Izuku laughs quietly, rubbing his head as he accepts the small strip of paper.

There are only a few items on the list. Clearly, Kaa-san means to go shopping again soon, and these are only the essentials.

They’ve been here before, and have done this before too, so Izuku lets himself settle into the familiar routine of having Ketsu guide him to the proper aisles for the stuff they need. The cart fills in slowly with rice, chicken and the spices they’d run out of, before Izuku reluctantly moves to the fresh vegetable aisle.

It’s not that he dislikes it, really — it’s just that Izuku is never sure how he’s supposed to be able to tell if what he’s picking up is good or not. With rice, it’s easy, any bag will do as long as it’s the brand his mother likes. With chicken, all Izuku needs is to check the ‘eat by’ dates and how the chicken was raised.

With vegetables, Izuku needs to check for patches and mold and ripeness, and of course every single fruit and vegetable has its own mysterious rules Izuku’s meant to follow. Kaa-san’s great at it, of course: she can pick out the exact stage of ripeness she needs in tomatoes just by looking at them. Izuku…

Well, Izuku is caught staring at the tomatoes, gingerly trying to touch them to check if they seem squishy enough — but not too squishy, of course — without actually bruising them, and he wonders if maybe he can’t just get away with saying he forgot to get the tomatoes and letting Kaa-san buy them the next time she goes grocery shopping.

Of course, his mind then conjures the image of Kaa-san’s face trying not to fall in disappointment at the news, and Izuku’s stomach twists.

He puts his tomato back down — he’s pretty sure it’s not ripe enough — and fetches Ketsu out of his pocket.

“Do you think you could figure out which ones are good?” he asks in a whisper, letting his daemon run up his shoulder. “We only need two or three, really.”

Ketsu’s whiskers tickle against his throat as he replies, his voice equally as quiet, “Makes you wish you’d brought It with you, right?”

Izuku can feel his cheeks heat up even as his mouth falls open in horror. “No!” he hisses, casting a panicked look at their surroundings.

Ketsu chuckles. “What? I’m sure it would give us the best answer.”

And even though Izuku can’t picture himself ever actually using a device as precious as an alethiometer to pick tomatoes, he can’t help but start wondering about what symbols he’d use for his question.

Something to do with food, or maybe the harvest, to symbolize the tomatoes? The cornucopia, maybe, though perhaps the tree would fit better, for firmness and fertility — those sound like agriculture things, right?

And then the bread, for the food aspect, and probably the hourglass, for obvious reasons.

Izuku has no idea how the alethiometer would reply, though. It wouldn’t exactly be able to point at specific tomatoes, and he knows there’s no symbol for ‘pick that one on the top left — no, not that one, the other one’.

Ketsu bumps his head against Izuku’s neck, snapping him out of his thoughts. “You were muttering,” he says, and Izuku’s heart stops.

Thankfully, no one else is around to notice, and Izuku exhales a sigh of deep relief.

None of this, however, solves his tomato problem. They’re the last item left on his list, too.

“You should try to go for ones that are maybe a little too firm still,” a voice suddenly interjects. “That way, they’ll probably still be good if you want to eat them now, but they’ll keep for a few days if you need them to. And if you forget them and they get too ripe, you can always use them to make sauce.”

The stranger’s voice speaks of a rueful experience on that last bit, and Izuku startles, Ketsu spooking and shifting into a snake that bares its teeth.

“My apologies,” the stranger says, taking a step back and showing his hands. He gives Izuku an affable smile, but that only makes his gaunt cheeks appear darker, his eyes more sunken in. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“We’re not startled,” Ketsu replies, and both the stranger and Izuku jump and stare at him.

Izuku, because his daemon never speaks to strangers. The stranger, probably because daemons usually don’t address other humans.

“What?” Ketsu grumbles, coiling back around Izuku’s neck like a very cool, very heavy necklace. “We needed the help,” he hisses out to Izuku, “and he offered.”

Izuku flushes red, turning back to the strangers, apologizing effusively.

“It’s okay, my boy,” the man replies, waving off Izuku’s apologies with another smile. He’s starting to look a little uncomfortable though, which makes Izuku feel more embarrassed and in turn makes him want to apologize more.

It’s a vicious circle that the stranger’s daemon cuts through by returning, her smooth voice sliding through Izuku’s frazzled mumbling like a knife through butter. “Toshinori, I couldn’t find any sign of the— Oh, hello there,” she says, coming to a stop in front of Izuku and Ketsu, her tongue lolling out in a dog-like smile.

“Hello,” Ketsu hisses back, because one of them has to.

The daemon is a golden retriever — not the biggest that breed of dog can get, but a good size nonetheless. Her fur looks very fluffy, and when she comes to sit beside her human’s legs — Toshinori’s legs? — her ears flop a little, and Izuku dies a little inside.

Ketsu squeezes his neck warningly, and Izuku remembers to breathe.

Thousands of people have golden retriever daemons in Japan only, Izuku reminds himself, casting his mind back to the statistics his seven-year-old self had spent days gathering. Just because Izuku’s spotted one today doesn’t mean All Might is around (and yes, it had taken seven-year-old Izuku some time to get used to that idea) — even if this daemon looks very much like All Might’s daemon.

Because of course All Might’s daemon is a golden retriever too. A dog breed both known for its cleverness and loyalty — that fits All Might down to a tee.

Ketsu had spent many months shifted into a golden retriever when they’d been younger — both he and Chikara, Kacchan’s daemon, had competed to see who could get the one that looked closest to the pictures of All Might’s daemon. That had been when Izuku and Kacchan were still friends, though. Before anyone knew about Izuku being quirkless.

Nowadays, Ketsu knew better than to shift into a golden retriever where Kacchan and others could see it — it was still his favorite breed of dog to shift into, but he only did it at home, where only he and Kaa-san could see it.

“— and your human’s?”

Ketsu tugs on Izuku’s earlobe with his teeth, and Izuku snaps back to reality. “He’s Izuku. Midoriya Izuku,” Ketsu states, addressing the daemon, who grins back widely.

“I-I am, yes,” Izuku stutters out. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. I am Yagi Toshinori,” Yagi introduces himself. “And this is Komyo.”

His daemon preens a little at the call of her name, and bumps her head against Yagi’s knee affectionately.

“So,” Komyo asks, tail wagging as she grins up at Ketsu, “did you two need help?”

“Oh, no, we were fine,” Izuku hastily replies, momentarily forgetting that he’s not supposed to address somebody else’s daemon.

Of course, in that same moment, Ketsu dryly blurts out, “Yes, please.”

Komyo barks out a laugh. “Which is it?”

His cheeks burning, Izuku mumbles, “We might need some help picking the right tomatoes.”

Komyo’s large grin eases into something softer. “Toshinori’s great at that.” She bumps her head against his knees again, sending him stumbling half a step forward. “Aren’t you?” She turns back to Ketsu, and gives the impression of winking. “Don’t worry, little one, Toshinori loves to help.”

She says it like it’s an inside joke between them — if a weird, incomprehensible one — and Yagi shoots her a panicked look. “Komyo!” he hisses out, and she snorts back at him.

“Relax,” she says. “Help the kid out with his tomatoes — help someone. That always makes you feel better. We’re clearly not going to fi— Well, we’re not going to find what we need in this place anyway,” she corrects herself after a quick look at Yagi’s anxious face.

Izuku’s heart perks up at the thought of being able to help Yagi in return. “Oh, are you looking for anything specific? Me and Ketsu have been here plenty of times—” Ketsu and I, Ketsu grumbles quietly, copying Kaa-san’s tone “— we know where everything is already. We can help. Were you looking for the eggs? They always move those, so they can be a little hard to find…”

Yagi chuckles, cutting him off. “Do you always talk this much?”

Izuku freezes, and Ketsu curls tighter around his neck. “Sorry,” he mumbles, eyes cast down. He doesn’t know why he forgot, suddenly, that he couldn’t just… do this. “I know I can talk a lot when I get excited — but if you need to find anything here, or, or, in another shop around here, I can help!” Izuku bites his lips so he doesn’t keep talking, and his heart pounds as he waits for Yagi’s answer.

“That’s very kind of you to offer,” Yagi replies. He is still smiling — it makes him look healthier. He exchanges a look Izuku can’t decipher with his daemon before adding, “Unfortunately, I’m afraid what we’re looking for can’t exactly be found that easily.”

Izuku deflates. “Oh, well, sorry.”

“It’s no worries, my boy! We’ll figure it out — and in the meantime, we can help you with your tomatoes.”

“Actually, if you could tell us where the eggs are too, that’d be great,” Komyo interjects, and Yagi laughs.

“Ah, yes. I’m afraid we do need those.”

That perks Izuku up again, and he quickly selects his tomatoes as per Yagi’s instructions before leading his new companions toward the eggs.

“He’s just like you, Toshi,” he thinks he hears Komyo whisper in a laugh, but when Izuku turns around, the dog is merely grinning at him as she trots quietly beside Yagi.

It’s… nice, having company while he shops. Yagi doesn’t seem to mind that Izuku starts rambling sometimes — first about free-range chickens and how that really does impact the eggs, and then about cereals when they get to that aisle. Yagi even interjects with his own thoughts sometimes, which means he has to really be listening, and Izuku’s heart skips a beat every time.

It’s… different than shopping with Kaa-san. Not because Kaa-san doesn’t listen, Izuku knows she does, but because Yagi knows things. He knows a lot of things.

Some of them are oddly specific — he moves away from this one brand of sugar, mumbling something about child labor and unfair quirk regulations, and then panics when Izuku asks to know how Yagi knew about it — but most of it sort of just reminds Izuku of himself and the research binges he sometimes gets into when he can’t sleep, and his brain takes him from one website to the next.

It’s almost like having a friend, Izuku thinks, which is probably why his steps falter when they have to part once they reach checkout.

Yagi also seems a touch contrite, and they each pay for their purchases in silence.

They stop outside, staring at each other, until Izuku scoffs his feet and says, “Well, erm, thank you? For the help. AndI’llseeyouaround,Iguess,maybe?” he tacks on quickly at the end.

Yagi chuckles out a laugh. “You’re welcome — I should be the one thanking you, really, for helping me find those eggs.” Komyo nods eagerly, and says her own parting words to Ketsu.

And then they’re gone.

Izuku sighs, turns on his heels, and goes the other way.

“Do you think we’ll see them again?” Katsu hisses quietly.

Izuku shrugs. “I don’t know. I hope so. They were pretty nice, weren’t they?”

“Komyo looks just like All Might’s daemon,” Ketsu states reverently, and Izuku lets out a bark of laughter. People in the street turn around to stare, and he flushes red.

“Sorry,” Izuku mumbles quietly at no one in particular, before tilting his head toward his daemon. “She really did, didn’t she?” he whispers back in the same tone.

A chance encounter, the alethiometer had said. Izuku remembers his own words suddenly, and his heart skips a beat.

Could it be…?

But no, surely not. That wouldn’t make any sense.

… would it?

Chapter Text

Asking the alethiometer — at Ketsu’s prompting — if Yagi-san was All Might only leads to the same reading as before: All Might’s hiding, possibly in the air, possibly from someone being greedy.

“Well, that was useless,” Izuku states once the needle’s stopped spinning. He stares pointedly at his daemon, who stares back unashamedly.

“You were curious too,” Ketsu retorts. He’s a cat again, and he sniffs haughtily when Izuku tries to deny it.

Which is fair, Izuku supposes, since he had been curious, and he had been the one to ask their question to the alethiometer.

Except that now guilt churns in his stomach, and Izuku is feeling pretty glad the alethiometer didn’t give him an answer.

“What would we even do if he was?” Izuku looks away from the alethiometer to stare at his daemon again. “How would that help? We probably won’t even see him again.”

Ketsu shrinks down, and Izuku’s guilt redoubles. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and then, as an offering, he proposes, “Why don’t you quiz me about early quirk law history? That always makes you feel better.”

Predictably, that perks Ketsu right up. “I don’t know why you can’t get it right,” he replies huffily. “It’s not that hard.”

Izuku hums along. According to the information package he’s found on UA’s website, the early quirk era is part of the curriculum they question on during the entrance exam — which makes sense, really, since it’s part of the curriculum middle schools have to follow.

It has also been a large part of the written test over the past three years, according to the forums Izuku had checked, which means it’s something Izuku needs to focus on if he wants to ace that test.

Unfortunately, while he’s not nearly as bad as Ketsu implies or thinks, those laws are still the part that causes him the most problems to memorize.

Laws are just… so dry, and they’d changed so often back then that it’s hard to keep track of what was authorized when. There’s a stretch of twenty years during which the same law — a restriction on mutation quirks (which of course, back then, were referred to as merely ‘obvious and potentially harmful physical mutations’) — had been repealed twice and reinstalled every time.

Every time Izuku starts to read up on that era, he ends up looking up something else instead — for example, one of the advocates to revoke that particular anti-mutation quirk law had gone on the lead an absolutely insane life; not the least of it being how some twenty-odd years after her death, somebody had unearthed proof that she’d also been a vigilante.

Luckily, Ketsu’s better than he is at keeping them on track, which is why he takes great delight in quizzing Izuku about everything they think might turn out to help them get into UA.

Later, once his brain is buzzing with all this information Izuku feels he’ll never retain, he collapses backward on his bed.

“Do you really think we can do it?” he asks Ketsu quietly, staring up at his ceiling.

He hears Ketsu pad forward and climb on the bed, shoving a cold nose under Izuku’s chin. “I think we have to try,” he says, and Izuku swallows past the sudden tightness in his throat.

Ketsu didn’t say yes — but he also didn’t say no. He’s pretty much echoing Izuku’s own thoughts, really, but somehow it feels different to hear them outside of his own head.

“I know our chances are slim,” Izuku continues, thinking about what everyone’s told him — from the teachers to Kacchan to Kaa-san, even — “but I want to be a hero.”

Want is too small a word for the desperate fire inside Izuku’s stomach, but it’s the word everyone else understands, so it’s the one he uses.

“I know,” Ketsu replies, his voice equally soft. “I want that too.”

Izuku swallows. He hates how this year, as their dream draws ever nearer, it has only felt like it’s getting further and further away.

Izuku hasn’t trained anywhere near as much as he’d have liked. He’s managed some running, and he’s watched and tried to replicate basic defensive moves from the internet enough times that Izuku thinks he’s probably moderately okay at them. He thinks he’s put on some muscles too?

None of this feels like enough, though. Without a quirk…

Without a quirk, Izuku almost feels doomed. Even if UA doesn’t forbid quirkless students from applying, even if there is no rule anywhere saying quirkless people can’t be heroes too, it still feels impossible sometimes. Like now — especially now.

It isn’t fair, that what everyone else around him takes for granted is the one thing Izuku will never have. Is the one thing that would help him so much.

But it’d be just as hard if you had a quirk unsuited for heroics, Izuku tries to remind himself, even though he has notebooks upon notebooks proving exactly why every quirk can be a heroic quirk if its owner wants it to be.

Which means that my lack of quirk can be heroic too, Izuku forces himself to think, the way he has for years. It doesn’t work quite as well as it used to. It hasn’t in a while.

Unbidden, Izuku’s eyes drift back toward the alethiometer, still gleaming, cool and golden, on his desk.

It would be so easy to just… use it. Ask it, Can I be a hero? — or no, How can I be a hero?

It’s a wonder Izuku hasn’t yet, really.

“It’s a bad idea,” Ketsu says, but he doesn’t move to stop Izuku as he first sits up on his bed and then slowly moves toward his desk.

Toward the alethiometer.

And perhaps Ketsu is right. Perhaps it is a bad idea — Izuku has plans to get into UA’s hero course. Lately, he even has backup plans in case he doesn’t.

(They involve skirting the line with vigilantism a bit too much, though, and Kaa-san would worry if she found out, which is why Izuku hasn’t spent a lot of time on them — but they exist nonetheless.)

But this is a bad idea that won’t harm anyone, at least — or if it does… If the alethiometer says what everyone else has been saying…

Izuku swallows thickly at the thought, and his hands shake as he lifts the alethiometer and starts to page through his notebook for the page he’d copied the symbols and their main meanings.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if the alethiometer — which can’t lie and speaks with the truth of the universe — tells Izuku that his heart’s dream isn’t meant for him. At least he’ll know, though.

Out loud, he says to Ketsu, “I need to know. And, hey, everyone else has an advantage over us, having a quirk. We don’t, but we do have this,” he nods down to the alethiometer, throat still tight. “We might as well try to use it, no?”

Ketsu blinks and nods. He jumps down from Izuku’s bed, crossing the room by turning into a swallow. He perches on Izuku’s desk lamp, right above where the alethiometer had been laying.

He doesn’t bring up the answer they both fear, and Izuku’s chest unwinds with a relief so sharp he almost cries.

“What symbols are you using for this, then?” Ketsu asks, but Izuku’s already turning the dials.

The first one he turns to the Beehive — “For productive work.” — and the second to the Anchor — “For hope.”

He feels like the combinations of the two represent his dream of being a hero accurately enough.

His fingers tremble as he turns the third dial, and the third needle moves towards the Sun.

“For truth,” he says quietly to Ketsu, whose tail feathers quiver as he looks down. “And to reveal it, I guess.”

Can I be a hero? Will I be a hero?

Izuku holds these questions into his mind and repeats them, an endless loop of fear and hope and fervent prayer that he needs the alethiometer, however it works, to hear.

A beat, and then another, and the lightest of the needles — the one Izuku hasn’t touched — starts spinning.

Blood rushes through his ears, and Izuku’s eyes burn as he forces them to follow every twitch of the needle.

It moves almost too quickly for him to follow — as fast as, if not faster, as Jundo’s wings when he flutters around Kaa-san’s head— but somehow, Izuku manages to follow it.

It feels a little like what he imagines a trance would be like: for as long as the needle keeps spinning, Izuku is suspended in nothing. Time stops, or slows, or maybe disappears altogether. All that matters is the alethiometer.

The first symbol it picks is the Angel, but Izuku doesn’t get to think about what it means before it’s moved on to the next one — the Ant.

Oh, Izuku thinks, surprised by how much sense that makes, and then the alethiometer picks a final symbol and Izuku’s heart falters.

It’s the Hourglass.

Finally, the needle stops.

Izuku swallows.

“... Well? What did it say?” Ketsu asks, his voice shaking slightly.

Izuku wants to buy himself time by saying he needs to look at his notes — needs to analyze those symbols (he will, later, too) — but the truth is, he doesn’t need to. He knows what the alethiometer answered him already. Somehow, he’d understood it as it had happened.

“It said…” He trails off, wondering how to put it into words.

How is he supposed to say that while the alethiometer didn’t say no, it didn’t say yes either?

“It said that we needed to keep working at it, and that something would change,” Izuku finally says.

“That’s vague.” Ketsu hangs his head down like he’s pouting — hard, in a bird, but Izuku can always tell.

He barks out a laugh. “It is, yes.”

“But at least it’s not a no? And we were already planning to keep at it. We’re not giving up, remember? We’re getting into UA, like All Might did, and we’ll be great heroes.”

Izuku smiles — he gets the feeling Ketsu is saying this as much for himself as for Izuku, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t mean it, and it’s nice to hear anyway.

Ketsu suddenly perks up. “Oh, I know! Ask it what we should do now! Where we should go!”

Izuku blinks, and his protests die on his lips as his eyes widen. Excitement starts to bubble up in his chest.

“Do you think that’ll work?” he asks, but he can already feel that it will.

Ketsu thrills out a laugh. “It won’t hurt to try — and it’s either that, or I’ll start quizzing you again.”

Izuku gives out an exaggerated shudder, and picks up the alethiometer again.

What should we do now? he asks it, and his heart soars as the needle starts spinning.

Guided by the alethiometer, Izuku spends the rest of his Sunday cleaning around the house. Kaa-san isn’t there yet, but she’ll probably appreciate coming home and not having to do all the things she didn’t have the time to because of work.

It’s a weird thing for the alethiometer to suggest, but it’ll make Kaa-san happy — and, as Ketsu said, it’s either that or trying to cram more ancient laws into his head.

On Monday, Izuku leaves class quickly. He’s usually the last one out in an effort not to be noticed, but it’s different now: he has something waiting at home for him.

This time, the alethiometer seems to tell him to go back out; so, after exchanging a nonplussed look with his daemon, Izuku goes back outside.

He ends up helping Netsuya-san, their eighty-something-year-old neighbor with her groceries, and she gives him a little bag of biscuits he munches on happily as he keeps walking.

“Do you think that’s what the alethiometer wanted us to do?” Izuku asks out loud, before blanching as he realizes what he’s said.

Luckily, nobody else seems to have to — they all keep on moving along the streets. Ketsu still bites his ear sharply.

“Maybe we should use a code name for it,” he mumbles, half to himself, half to his daemon. His fingers twitch toward the bag where he keeps his notebook, but it’s probably an equally bad idea to keep any code he might use somewhere so easily accessible.

The answer comes to them at the same time, and they both blurt out, “Tou-san!”

See, they don’t exactly have a father. Or well, they do, but only in the sense that everyone has one. Kaa-san didn’t make them alone, after all, even if Izuku absolutely doesn’t want to think about it.

So they have a father. Technically. They’ve just never really… met him. He’s out there, somewhere. Kaa-san doesn’t really miss him — says he was nice and had a fire quirk when she’s in the right mood to talk about him — and Izuku doesn’t really miss him either.

It’s hard to miss something you’ve never actually had.

Besides, he has Kaa-san and Jundo, and they’re better than any father could be.

It’s why using Tou-san as a code word is so perfect, though. Nobody would suspect it: the only one who’d be able to tell is Kaa-san, and Izuku just has to keep not talking about the alethiometer in front of her. He can do that.

Izuku nods to himself, starts on another biscuit and keeps walking.

He wonders what the alethiometer is waiting for. It keeps answering Izuku’s questions — whether they be about All MIght’s fate (still unknown, still casting a shadow over everyone’s daily life despite the consistent ‘no need to worry’ messages the news bring about) or about his own future — by telling him to be patient and keep working diligently.

The deadline for UA applications is drawing nearer though. In a little over a month now, Izuku will have to sit with all the other UA hopefuls, and take a shot for his dreams.

It somehow feels impossibly close and so far away that just the thought of it sends shivers running down his spine, and Izuku finds himself mumbling about quirk analysis to help himself calm down. It helps, and it’s even good preparation for the written exam, since it always includes a section quirk analysis.

He’s so lost in his thoughts — had that woman’s quirk only been the gossamer wings on her back, or did she have other insect-like mutations, like the slight sheen on her throat seemed to imply? — that almost walks right into a wall, having missed a turn somewhere.

“Careful!” Ketsu hisses, bumping against his neck to stop him.

Izuku blinks, stops, and stares. “What the… Where are we?”

Ketsu shuffles from his collar to the top of his head. “I think… This might be Dagobah beach?”

He sounds dubious about it, and it’s easy to see why: what’s in front of them doesn’t look like a beach at all. Izuku can’t even hear the waves, or smell the ocean; all that’s in front of them are piles upon piles of garbage — heavy appliances, clothes… Someone even seems to have left their whole library, bookshelves and books included.

Looking down reveals the sand, but Izuku wouldn’t like to walk in there — as Kaa-san would say, it looks like a recipe for getting hurt and having to visit the hospital.

Carefully, Izuku walks closer. “How long do you think it’s been like this?” he asks Ketsu quietly.

“I don’t know.” Ketsu shuffles on his head, tugging on his hair. “A while? Remember, Kaa-san forbade us from coming this way when we were… maybe eight? Or nine.”

Izuku nods. Now that Ketsu’s mentioning it, he does remember something like that. He hadn’t really cared back then, though he had found it unfair before Kaa-san had distracted him with more All Might merch — he can see why she found it necessary now, though. Eight-year-old Izuku would have probably ended up getting lost in there.

“That seems like such a short time for this much… stuff to accumulate, though,” Izuku notes. “Why hasn’t anyone done anything about it?”

He feels Ketsu shrug. “I don’t—”

“What is it?” Izuku hisses when Ketsu suddenly falls silent.

“Somebody’s coming,” Ketsu hisses back, shifting on Izuku’s head. He’s still a mouse now, but the way he’s holding himself tells Izuku he’s readying himself to shift into something bigger and scarier if he needs to, and Izuku’s heart swells with affection for his daemon.

He sees the daemon that comes bounding up to them first, and Izuku’s knees turn to jelly at the familiar yellow-gold fur and lolling grin.

A face he hadn’t really expected to see again comes into view soon after, body half-eclipsed by the massive microwave oven they’re carrying, and Izuku’s face breaks into a grin. In his hair, Ketsu goes limp.

“Yagi-san!” Izuku greets enthusiastically, right before he remembers it might not be appropriate to be so eager to see someone he’d only met once before, in a grocery shop.

Komyo’s head snaps up in surprise, a growl on her lips for an instant before her eyes narrow in on them and the easy grin returns. Yagi, in a move startlingly similar to his daemon, also tenses first before recognizing Izuku.

“Midoriya-shounen,” he says, huffing slightly as he walks closer. His back cracks when he bends down to rest the oven on the ground, and he winces when he straightens back up. “My boy, what brings you here?”

Izuku’s cheeks flush red. “I was just… walking,” he says, which is true. “Exercising,” he adds, which isn’t. He peeks around Yagi’s back, but the man seems to be alone, and what he sees doesn’t exactly explain what’s going on.

“What are you doing here?” Izuku asks, scratching the back of his neck.

Yagi-san exchanges a look with her daemon, who merely scoffs back at him with a pointed look before turning her face away.

Yagi-san sighs. “The last time I came here, this place was a beautiful beach,” he says ruefully. His eyes shine with a distant light: he is remembering something, but whatever it is, it is bittersweet. “I didn’t know it had gotten like this, but I thought I might start helping clear it up.” His lips twist into a wry grin and he lets out a chuckle. “At least a little — it seems a little hopeless, I know, but…”

Izuku shakes his head, fists clenched by his side. “It’s not!” he protests. “I’m sure if people start to see us clearing up the beach, they’ll start to show up to help too.”

The people that live around here can’t like that it’s like this, after all. Izuku and his mother don’t even live that close-by, and he already knows she dislikes it. There are plenty of people with closer houses, who’d probably enjoy having the beach back.

“Us?” Yagi-sanasks, eyes twinkling.

Izuku blinks. “Huh?”

“You said, ‘us’,” Yagi-san repeats. He looks half stunned, half amused, and Izuku’s blush darkens as he realizes what he’d implied.

“That’s not— I mean, I didn’t mean to presume, I just— I want to help, but of course, if you’d rather—”

Komyo’s loud bark of laughter cuts Izuku off, and he finds himself eyeing the piles of garbage with longing. Now would be a really good time for one of them to collapse and swallow him up.

He whimpers, and Yagi’s voice, warm and amused, cuts through his spiral of shame. “She’s laughing at me,” he says, “not at you, I can assure you of that.” When Izuku looks up, his lips are quirked up into a weird grin Izuku can’t quite decipher. “What you said… reminded her of something she’s told me before.”

“Oh.”

Yagi-san hums in amused agreement. “Anyhow, I’d be honored to have your help with this, my boy.” He stares back at the almost literal sea of garbage behind them, and winces. “I’m afraid this will take some time…”

“It’ll go faster if more people join in, though,” Izuku interjects confidently — and then, even as his heart starts to panic from how bold he’s just been, Yagi-san nods.

“Quite right, too, my boy.” He turns to his daemon. “Now, it’s been a while since I last had to make something like posters calling for help, but I’m sure I can remember how those work…”

Komyo snorts and mumbles something that Izuku can’t hear, but that makes Ketsu chuckle in his hair, where he’s still quietly settled.

“I can help with those,” Izuku finds himself saying, even though he’s never made a single poster in his life.

It can’t be that hard, though. All they’re doing is asking people around the beach to come and help them — hopefully with cars and stuff they can use to carry all of this stuff to the recycling centers, where it belongs. They’ll stick some posters to trees and ask the local shops to advertise the event, and hope some people will show.

And in the meantime, Yagi-san has his own car, where he’s already piled up two broken bicycles, a rusted coffee machine and now, with Izuku’s (admittedly, mostly useless) help, a microwave oven.

It’s a small start, but it’s a start anyway. Izuku’s always been taught that these count just as much as the bigger ones.

Kaa-san says no on the beach clean-up project until Izuku tells her this isn’t just him doing this — Yagi-san’s posters had worked impressively quickly, drawing half a dozen people forward to help on the first day they’d been spread out.

She still needs to talk it over with Jundo, though, and Izuku and Ketsu wait in nervous silence as they deliberate.

“Alright,” she finally says, “but we have rules.”

“Huh-uh,” Izuku agrees, already nodding. He can’t believe he’s actually going to be helping people like this — helping make their neighborhood a better, safer place. It almost feels like being a hero already, and Izuku’s heart couldn’t soar any higher… Except if maybe he was accepted into UA’s hero course right now.

(No such sign comes from the heavens, though, and Izuku sighs. Looks like he’ll still have to try his luck at the exam.)

“Firstly, this comes after school.” Her eyes are as unyielding as stone, and Izuku nods again — he hadn’t been planning on skipping for this, even though Izuku’s not really sure Yagi-san has anything else to do of his days, and at least two of the people who showed up to help are retired and can thus spend their whole days helping if they want to.

“You will text me when you get there, and text me when you leave, so that I know where you are.”

Her third rule is for Izuku not to stay up too late, and it goes with rule number four, which is that he cannot let his grades slip — even though the school year’s practically finished already.

Izuku nods along to those rules too, of course. His goal is still to be ready for UA, after all, but this endeavor has the benefit of also helping him do that: Yagi, in addition to being surprisingly knowledgeable about a whole bunch of things that Izuku might use in his exam essays, also apparently works/teaches at a gym, and agrees to coach Izuku a little after catching him attempting to stretch.

Apparently, Izuku had been doing it wrong.

“Like this, my boy,” he says, demonstrating.

Izuku, still hoping the ground would just open up and swallow him — and wouldn’t that just be such a cool quirk to have too? — watches him closely and then tries to copy him.

They’re minute adjustments, Yagi-san assures him with a kind smile, but Izuku can already feel the difference.

Izuku mostly keeps up a chatter as they work. He’s been paired up with Yagi-san by a pretty much unanimous decision — since he’s the youngest and Yagi-san helped start this, they seem to think it makes sense. Not that Izuku’s complaining: no offense to everyone else here, but Yagi-san is the best one here.

He doesn’t look strong, is the thing. His skin is very pale, which makes him look a little sick and, Izuku suspects, older than he really is. Komyo trots up beside him, sticking close unless she’s not — they’ve got a pretty impressive range — and since now Izuku’s also close-by, he notices things about her he hadn’t before. Things he couldn’t have before.

Komyo has scars.

The very thought feels blasphemous. Daemons don’t scar easily. Touching somebody else’s daemon is taboo — Izuku doesn’t know anyone who’s tried it, and he can’t really imagine ever trusting anyone that much — but to harm somebody else’s daemon is… beyond that.

Some villains do, Izuku knows. Some villains actually delight in targeting daemons, and using them to hurt their victims, or hold them hostage, or make them do what they want…

Most of them, though, don’t — or they let their own daemons take care of it, which isn’t great but is less horrifying.

Komyo’s scars are well hidden — her fur only mostly covers them, but they’re also so pale that at a distance, they fade into the gold of her coat. That means they’re old. Probably sustained over a length of time, too, and Izuku’s stomach quivers to know what might have caused them.

Who might have caused them.

In his hair, Ketsu shivers.

Komyo doesn’t let anything show, though. If her scars bother her, she never says it. At most, she’ll sometimes appear a little too on edge — when somebody accidentally makes something fall, and metal screams, or that time Ketsu left Izuku’s pocket to fly all the way to the top of the pile they’d been working through to oversee.

Yagi-san seems less on edge, but he probably just hides it better. A smile can hide a lot of things, after all — Izuku learned this a long time ago, trying to make sure Kaa-san didn’t worry about him.

He does look a little sickly, though. Izuku’s noted it before, because it’s really impossible to miss — something about Yagi-san almost seems… faded, like a watercolor painting that used too much water and not enough paint — but despite that, Yagi-san behaves like he’s still full of life.

He’s stronger than he looks, too: he can carry more than everyone else, and he has little tips that help everyone carry their loads better. He says it’s something he’s learned at the gym he teaches at, but that doesn’t sound quite right — not that it matters, really. Izuku’s just glad for the help.

He wonders what Yagi’s quirk might be, though. With his strength, and him teaching at a gym, Izuku thinks it might make sense for it to be strength-related, but Komyo snorts out a laugh when Katane-san suggests it after he helps her lift an actual fridge, and Yagi-san denies it.

Izuku considered some kind of perception quirk, too, because Yagi-sanalways seems to know when somebody’s doing something potentially dangerous, but it turned out that Komyo was just spying for him. He has no obvious mutation, either, and Izuku’s pretty sure that if he had a healing quirk of some kind, he’d have used it the time Yoshima-san cut up his hand on some broken glass instead of patching him up by hand and sending him to the hospital.

That leaves Izuku with… some kind of mental enhancement quirk, or…

No, no ‘or’. Izuku will not let himself think about the alternative. Quirkless people may represent twenty percent of the population still, but that’s globally. In Japan, that percentage is actually much closer to ten percent, and in Izuku’s generation…

Well, there’s a really good reason why his classmates spend their biology class jeeringly calling him a ‘dying breed’.

Yagi-san could have a mental quirk. They’re rarer, but he’s certainly smart enough, and knows enough things about so many different subjects that he could, plausibly, have a mental quirk helping him along.

Izuku could ask. Most people ask each other their quirks upon meeting (it’s how he knows the quirks of everyone else who shows up to help clear the beach, really — Izuku hasn’t shared his for obvious reasons, but he thinks some of them suspect anyway).

He’s known Yagi-san for several weeks now, though. It feels odd asking now when he hadn’t before, so Izuku just suffers, and pretends he’s doing it to sharpen his analysis skills.

He’ll figure it out. Somehow. Hopefully soon.

Because of the cleaning effort at Dagobah beach, Izuku’s schedule has needed to adjust. He does his homework and prepare for exams either in class — the teachers are usually happy enough to ignore him if they can; or at least, they are until they can call on him to try to remind him of what he is, which still leaves Izuku with plenty of time before that to do his own things — or on the car trips to the recycling center.

The biggest change, though, has been that Izuku’s taken to asking the alethiometer about what he should do in the mornings instead of the evenings. Mostly because he doesn’t really have time in the evenings anymore, but also because that leaves him all day to try to analyze the answers he gets, even if they barely change from one day to the next.

(Izuku’s growing kind of tired of seeing the Ant every morning, but the answer to Can I be a hero? still isn’t a no, so he’ll take it. He’d take a lot worse.)

His days have never been busier. Since the Dagobah operation doesn’t happen on every day of the week — just every other one, really — Izuku still has plenty of time to wander around town again.

It worked out pretty well the last time he did it, too, since that’s how he found Yagi-san again.

Besides, it’s really nothing new. Izuku and Ketsu have been wandering around Musutafu for ages, though it was usually in search of hero fights they can analyze — and maybe heroes they can get autographs from, but shh.

They’re not looking for hero fights now, but they’re also not not looking. The way Izuku figures it, if the alethiometer wants them to find a hero fight, they will.

Mostly, though, it just says ‘keep doing what you’re doing’, so Izuku and Ketsu keep wandering.

It’s actually kind of fun. They’ve found a lot of places they hadn’t really known were there, despite living in Musutafu all their lives, and sometimes, they even get to help people along the way.

And then…

And then there are the other things.

Like now, when two people walk into the alley Izuku’s already crouching in, trying to lure an injured cat out of its hiding spot, and clearly start to conduct some shady business.

Izuku freezes, and Ketsu, who had been creeping toward the cat, stills as well.

What do we do? Izuku mouths at his daemon, heart pounding in his chest.

I don’t know, Ketsu mouths back. His eyes dart between Izuku and the underside of the dumpster, where the cat is hiding, and the pounding of Izuku’s heart redoubles.

He’s hidden, right now. Izuku can see the two men, if only vaguely, through the gap between the dumpster and the wall, but they can’t see him or Ketsu.

They can’t see them, as long as neither of them moves, or gives them reason to. If that cat makes noise…

Izuku swallows, and a quick nod of his head has Ketsu withdrawing and returning to his side.

It isn’t late, but the walls rise high, and they’re slanted in a way that barely lets any light in. It’s good for Izuku’s cover, but it also hides the two men’s faces in shadows — which is bad, since Izuku’s pretty sure they’re villains.

He’s been seeing more of these people lately, while he and Ketsu go on these walks. He’s never really seen them from this close, though, or while being so unable to escape.

Relax, Izuku tells himself as he lets his fingers run through Ketsu’s soft fur. They don’t know you’re here, and they’ll leave soon enough. You’re safe.

Slowly, the pounding in his chest eases — and with it gone, Izuku suddenly realizes how quiet this alley is.

How easy it is to overhear the men talking.

“—ki isn’t happy,” the first one is saying. He’s got a gruff voice, like he’s perpetually on the brink of a really nasty cough — Izuku mentally labels him Smoker, because there’s no way he’s not one.

(They’d had a smoking neighbor for a while, and his voice always sounded really rough. He’d moved away years ago, but Kaa-san still used him as an example of why Izuku should never, ever pick up smoking.)

“When’s he ever happy?” the second one replies with a scoff. His voice is much lighter, though, and risking a better look through the small gap in between the wall and the dumpster, Izuku sees that what he’d first thought was a fur collar is actually the man’s daemon: a white ferret curled around his neck.

He can’t see Smoker’s daemon from here, but that only means it’s probably something else small enough to carry on his person.

Smoker’s rough bark of laughter echoes loudly off the walls, and it makes Izuku miss some of what Ferret Guy says.

“Anyway, do you have it?”

Smoker snorts. “Do I ever?” He opens a briefcase, showing Ferret Guy its content.

Ferret Guy whistles happily. His daemon perks up too, and leans in toward the briefcase.

Smoker jerks it away. “Money first.”

“What? No freeby for an old friend?”

“God, I wish — can you imagine what we could do with this thing? But no. Boss’s orders — no freeby this time.” He shrugs. “I’m pretty sure it’s too rare to make easily, though — you’re getting a good deal.”

Ferret Guy hums. “How do I know it works, then?”

Smoker tenses. “What, don’t trust me anymore?”

Ferret Guy barks out a laugh. “Please, I never trusted you.” He must have given some kind of sign — a look, maybe, or perhaps a nod — because his daemon suddenly jumps off his neck and onto the briefcase.

Smoker shouts, and swings it around, but the ferret daemon’s already jumped ships. It’s hard to see from all the way over there, but Izuku thinks he can see something clenched in between her teeth.

It glints in the light as she climbs back up Ferret Guy’s legs, handing him whatever it is she just stole.

“Give that back,” Smoker hisses.

He’s not moving to pursue, though, and Ferret Guy doesn’t look very concerned.

Which makes sense, Izuku realizes with a quiet gasp — Ferret Guy must be using his quirk! He hasn’t taken his eyes off of Smoker: he probably has some kind of eye-contact-based immobilization quirk he’d started to use when Smoker had tried to stop him.

“I don’t think so,” Ferret Guy says cooly.

Smoker snarls. “Karsa!” he shouts out, which Izuku first thinks is a strange thing to say — or at least, he does before he sees the dark shape that suddenly dives down from the sky and snatches the ferret daemon off of Ferret Guy’s shoulder.

He screams, and tries to catch her, but he’s too late — his fingers barely graze his legs.

Izuku’s breath catches in his chest in remembered pain, and Ketsu presses in closer.

Smoker whistles, and his daemon must do something, because Ferret Guy crumples to his knees. “Stop, please,” he pleads, anguish ringing in his voice.

Smoker hums thoughtfully, standing over Ferret Guy’s prone form. “Not so smug now, huh?” he says disdainfully. He clears his throat, an ugly, gurgling sound, and spits to the side. “Now, Karsa’ll give you your daemon back — as soon as you give me the money you owe me for what you just took. You do have it, don’t you?”

Ferret Guy shivers — in pain or fear, it’s hard to say — but he nods fervently. “I-I have it. Just give me—”

Smoker spits again, only this time it’s a spike the length of Izuku’s hand, and it cracks the concrete less than an inch away from Ferret Guy’s face.

“No funny business,” Smoker says nastily, “or the next one goes through your hand.”

Another spike is already peeking out through his lips, and the part of Izuku’s mind that isn’t panicking is absolutely fascinated — how does that quirk work? Is he solidifying his saliva, or is it something completely different?

Ferret Guy manages to raise his head. He looks up, and clenches his hand against his chest as, presumably, Karsa carries his daemon higher up.

“No funny business,” Smoker repeats. “Or I’ll have Karsa drop your daemon. From that height… Well, you better hope you can catch her.”

“Fuck you,” Ferret Guy spits back, but he gets his knees under him and stands up. He digs through his pockets and takes out his phone. “Your money’s here — now bring her back down.”

He would sound more threatening if his voice wasn’t shaking, but Smoker shrugs. “Start the transfer.”

“My daemon—”

Smoker’s eyeroll is evident in his tone. “Karsa!” he calls out, and this time, his daemon descends slowly.

Like this, it’s even more obvious that Karsa is some kind of bird of prey. She’s still carrying the ferret in her claws. She looks frightfully limp, and Dust bleeds from the scratches Karsa must have inflicted while they were fighting. The sight of it, golden and terrible, sends shivers down Izuku’s spine.

She perches on the dumpster at the other end of the alley, closer to Smoker than Ferret Guy. The loud metallic thump she makes when she lands there with Ferret Guy’s daemon feels like it reverberates through Izuku’s very soul, and he clenches his teeth.

Please, he thinks, and trails off after. He doesn’t really know what he’s pleading for — for everything to turn out alright, maybe.

Ketsu shifts under his fingers. He still has them tangled in his fur, and at this point, Ketsu is pretty much plastered against Izuku’s legs, a very nice distraction from the way they’re starting to ache from being kept in a single uncomfortable position for so long.

He doesn’t speak, but neither does Izuku — the situation is so tense it could snap at any moment, and Izuku really, really doesn’t want to draw attention to them right now.

He’s got a nasty feeling that wouldn’t end well.

“Here,” Ferret Guy says. His voice cuts through Izuku’s reignited panic, and his phone lets out playful little sounds as he enters some kind of code.

It’s so ridiculous and at odds with the situation that Izuku has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing.

Smoker seems less amused, though, because he growls and tries to snatch the phone from Ferret Guy’s hands. “Give it here—”

“Lia, now!”

It happens so quickly Izuku isn’t even sure he caught all of it.

No, he’s sure he didn’t — his line of sight is still very restricted, and there’s only so much he can put together from the sounds he hears.

Here’s what he knows, though:

At Ferret Guy’s signal, Lia the ferret does… something. Probably fights back, biting Karsa somewhere important, judging from both her pained cry and Smoker’s scream as he falls to his knees.

Ferret Guy snarls and rushes him. They grapple for the phone, and Smoker’s briefcase — their daemons, too, are still fighting, and the sounds of that fight are far more disturbing than the ones coming from the one Izuku can see.

Izuku doesn’t know why Ferret Guy isn’t using his quirk. Maybe he can’t focus it with his daemon so busy, or maybe there’s some kind of restriction to it Izuku hasn’t considered.

Smoker, however, doesn’t seem to have either of those issues. He gurgles his throat and his cheeks sink in as he prepares to spit, and then—

And then Ferret Guy gives a triumphant shout, and Smoker screams out in denial, spit and drool spilling from his lips.

“No! What did you do!?”

Ferret Guy laughs. It’s clear he’s just won — Smoker has stopped fighting, staring down at his hands in horror and tugging at his own cheeks like he’s looking for something. Behind them, his bird daemon isn’t making much noise anyway, and Lia slinks back into view, her white fur speckled with gold.

“Looks like we got that freeby after all,” she jokes at Ferret Guy, climbing back on his shoulder.

Ferret Guy laughs. “Looks like.” He tosses a smug look at Smoker. “But hey, at least now we know it works, don’t we? Tell your boss we’ll do business with him if he has more of these lying around.”

Smoker growls, but doesn’t protest. “I will.” He sounds defeated though, and Ferret Guy laughs again.

“Come on, it’s not that bad, I’m sure. You’ve even said these were temporaries, didn’t you?”

“... they are,” Smoker replies reluctantly.

“Then I don’t see an issue!” Ferret Guy tucks his phone back in his pocket, and gives a mock salute. “Pleasure doing business with you, as always — you know how to get in touch, right?”

Smoker scowls. “Yes.”

“Fantastic.”

Ferret Guy whistles and turns on his heels to leave. In just a quick few steps, he’s out of the alley — and a few moments later, so’s Smoker and his daemon.

Izuku blinks, shakes, and starts breathing again.

“We need to tell someone,” Ketsu whispers against his leg.

Wordless, Izuku nods. We will, he wants to say, but making sound still feels too dangerous right now.

But later, when they get home, Izuku makes sure to write down everything he and Ketsu remember from that encounter.

And then, for good measure, they add everything else they’ve noticed recently.

“We’ll send it to the police anonymously,” he says. “They can get it to the heroes, or something. They’ll take care of it.”

Ketsu, currently curled up on his knees as a green rabbit, nods.

This is, as it turns out, but the first time they need to.

All Might’s absence, it seems, has truly sparked the criminal underworld into some kind of frenzy — or perhaps Izuku had simply never noticed how present it was before, when he hadn’t been looking.

Not that he is looking now, of course.

Just… If his feet point him less toward hero fights and more toward dark corners where he might overhear something useful, well… That’s not really Izuku’s fault. It’s just luck, really.

He just hopes it’s helpful, too.

“Is that…”

“Another one? Yes.”

“Damn. I’d love to know where they’re getting their info from. What — you don’t agree?”

“It’s not that. It’s just… Doesn’t this feel… familiar, to you? Like we’ve been through this before?”

“You’re thinking about Him again, aren’t you? All Might? Tsu—”

“He’s not dead. We’d know if he were.”

“And I told you I completely agreed. There is something more going on there — but two police officers are hardly going to be the ones to crack that case wide open.”

A snort. “Why not?”

“You know why.” A sigh. “You think this might be Him, then — reaching out?”

“I… No. If it was Him, he wouldn’t have — he’d have contacted us directly. No need for this… anonymity. But it does remind me of when he first started out, before…”

“Before he teamed up with Sir Nighteye and actually opened up an agency.”

“Yes. I didn’t know it was him at first, of course, but he’d send… info packets to police stations and other hero agencies.”

“Packets like this one?”

“... Yes.”

“Damn. And you don’t know how he did it? How this one is doing it?”

“I — No. And I doubt it’d be replicable either way.”

“Shame, that — well, whatever. At least we have this, I guess.”

“Yeah. at least we have this.”

The morning three weeks before the UA entrance exam finds Izuku hauling a washing machine off Dagobah beach with Yagi-san’s help.

It’s only the two of them today, and Ketsu flies above them, calling out obstacles for Komyo to clear up. The last thing they need right now is to trip on some kind of wire buried under all this sand.

It’s a nice day, even this early, and it’s quiet. Despite them having only been doing this for a few weeks now, Izuku can already tell the difference. There’s still a lot of beach to clean, of course, but their little patch of it is growing much less clustered at least.

Earlier, Izuku even thinks he’d seen the ocean.

He really likes mornings like these. He’s only had a few, of course — during the week he has classes, so Yagi-san doesn’t really let him come and help before school — but they’re peaceful, even if the manual labor is gruelling.

“So, UA, huh?”

Izuku freezes. The washing machine collides painfully with his shins as Yagi-san keeps carrying it for another step, and the pain whites out Izuku’s thought process.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, my boy, I should have been more careful…”

There is something almost funny about the way Yagi-san frets over the smallest things, Izuku decides.

He’s fine with big wounds — carries the biggest first aid kit Izuku’s ever seen, actually — but sometimes Izuku will bang his elbow or knee on some sharp corner, and Yagi-san will look like he’s the one who’s been stabbed.

Ketsu thinks he has a guilt complex, which sounds slightly mean but also a lot accurate, but really just mostly makes it embarrassing when Yagi-san makes them stop for what will amount to, at most, a nasty bruise.

Izuku’s gotten worse at school — hell, he’s gotten worse at home, tripping over his All Might toys.

“It’s fine, really,” Izuku says, demonstrating by poking at his reddened skin and biting back a wince.

Judging from Yagi-san’s pursed look, he wasn't quite successful.

Izuku deflates. “I’m fine, really. It wasn’t your fault — and you helped, when you noticed!” he adds, nodding to the water bottle Yagi-san had fished out from somewhere as soon as he’d sat down Izuku (very unnecessarily, if you asked him).

“I’m still sorry, my boy.”

“Well, it wasn’t your fault,” Izuku grumbles down — and then he tilts his head to the side so Ketsu can perch on his shoulder.

“I surprised you, though.”

Izuku’s cheeks flush, and he starts playing with the hem of his shirt. “I… Yes,” he says, because there’s no point in lying when his actions had made it so obvious.

“We didn’t really try to hide it,” Ketsu interjects, pausing in his grooming to shoot first Komyo, then Yagi-san, a defensive look.

They hadn’t, too. Izuku’s never hidden how much he loves heroes — especially All Might, who is also some of the other volunteers’ favorite hero (for some reason, it always makes Yagi-san start to stutter or stumble when he overhears them, which is as concerning as it is funny).

He hasn’t hidden how much he wants to become one, and Yagi-san has helped Izuku figure out the best way to strengthen his muscles in the short time he has. Yagi-san can’t be that surprised.

Unless, of course, UA alone isn’t what this is about.

Izuku’s stomach starts to tie itself up in knots, and he swallows. When he looks up and away from the fraying end of his shirt, Yagi-san is staring at him with intense and yet understanding blue eyes.

He licks his lips and nods. “I want to go to UA, yes.”

He says it cautiously, even though he knows Yagi-san isn’t like everyone at Aldera — that he won’t laugh because the quirkless kid is clearly aiming far above his lot in life. It’s an ingrained habit by now, though. Not at Aldera, because it doesn’t really work there, but everywhere else, like maybe if Izuku pretends he doesn’t care for it as much as he does, it’ll hurt less when they mock him.

(Well, it’s not really a habit around strangers, since strangers are pretty much always supportive of teenagers who want to be heroes, but Yagi-san isn’t exactly a stranger anymore, so…

Izuku would care if Yagi-san told him he couldn’t go to UA, is the point.)

“That’s wonderful, my boy. It’s a great school.”

Izuku swallows and digs his feet into the sand. “I’m trying for the hero course there — and I know it’s a longshot, because it’s the best in the country and they only take the very top applicants, and the entrance exam is rumored to be hellish, but—”

“Midoriya, my boy, no need to justify yourself.” Yagi-san laughs. “If you feel like you have to try…”

Izuku nods, throat tight. “I do.”

Yagi-san nods, though his earlier bright smile shrinks down into something almost sad. “Heroism is a dangerous business, though. It isn’t always… safe,” he states carefully.

Izuku’s stomach twists, and he suddenly knows exactly what this is about. All Might — the hero Izuku’s claimed to be his favorite, Japan’s number one hero — who is still missing.

“You think he’s dead too, then,” Izuku says, because it’s been a few weeks now, and they still haven't heard anything. Izuku doesn’t believe it, but the theory has been growing in popularity. People have started to turn toward the numbers two and three to fill in for All Might’s absence too.

Yagi-san chokes on air at Izuku’s words, but he waves Izuku’s attempts to help. He rests a hand on Komyo’s help, taking in great gulps of air until the last of his coughing subsides.

“I’m sure All Might’s… fine,” he replies, an odd tilt to his mouth.

“I hope so,” Izuku replies, biting on his lips. The alethiometer still seems to say All Might’s alive but hiding, but it’s being very quiet on details, and Izuku can’t help but worry. What threat could be so bad that All Might would have to hide from it?

(The alethiometer’s also very light on details on that part. It points to the Serpent, the Bird and the Chameleon, and while the first and the last just seem to be more of the same ‘evil, greedy… something plotting in the darkness’ thing, Izuku isn’t really sure what to make of the Bird in this context.

He feels like it must have something to do with the soul, especially since spring or marriage, which are the other main associated meanings, wouldn’t work, but Izuku also doesn’t understand what it’s supposed to mean.

It can’t be good, though.)

“Ah, well…” Yagi-san trails off into an awkward cough. “Anyway, are you feeling… ready for UA?”

Izuku stares down at his knees. “I…”

He wants to say yes. Of course he wants to say yes.

Getting ready for UA has been what his whole year has been about: Izuku’s done so much research he sees the words ‘entrance exam’ and ‘rate of admission’ in his sleep sometimes, dancing just out of reach.

At Aldera, his teachers seem to have mostly given up on him. The students either laugh in his back (when they bother to think about him) or loudly talk about how hard it would be for them to get into UA with their quirks, so it must be impossible for Izuku to try to do the same.

Kaa-san probably thinks he hasn’t noticed, but Izuku’s seen the worried looks she and Jundo send him sometimes — they don’t say the words or anything like that, but Izuku can read it on their faces every day now.

They’d used to say it — had used to apologize to Izuku for how hard his life would be without a quirk. But Izuku had stopped listening a long time ago, and after a while, Kaa-san had stopped speaking about it.

Now, Izuku doesn’t know what words she would use; if she would tell him good luck or tell him to give up and do something else. Be something else. He doesn’t know what she’d say, so he’s been trying very hard not to give her a chance to say anything.

He doesn’t want to know if Kaa-san really thinks he can be a hero or if she’s just humoring him.

But with all of this going on, plus everything he’s been doing with the alethiometer and this beach cleaning project — which has actually helped him become stronger too — Izuku just feels like he’s running out of time.

He always was, perhaps, but Izuku only truly feels it now.

Izuku sighs, licks his lips and grimaces when he tastes sand. “I’m not sure,” he says, and presses on his lips to keep everything else from spilling over. Yagi-san doesn’t need to hear that.

Yagi-san stares at him. The blue of his eyes seems brighter somehow, and Izuku feels his back straighten — when Yagi-san stares at you like that, it feels like he can see straight into your soul.

“Well, my boy, if you’re asking me, I think UA would be a fool to turn you down.”

It’s the first time anyone beside Ketsu has told Izuku they believe in him, and it’s so earnest, and so kind, that really, Izuku doesn’t think anyone could blame him for devolving into tears.

The morning of the UA entrance exam dawns bright and early.

Early, because Izuku is so stressed he might miss it that he set his alarm three hours before his deadline (which would let him arrive at UA a comfortable thirty minutes early).

This time, even Ketsu eyes him blearily as he drags Izuku out of bed. He’s a cat again, and he yawns widely as Izuku checks on his bag again, just to make sure he has everything. The last thing he wants is to be missing a pencil or an eraser (or anything, really) when he has to take the exam.

But as they carefully make sure everything’s ready, and start to wake up more, Izuku starts to feel… excited. Nervous, too — so nervous he feels like he could be sick with it — but also excited.

“This is it,” he whispers, and Ketsu headbuts his leg.

“It is,” he replies. He jumps up onto the desk as Izuku stifles a yawn and lets himself drop onto the chair, absentmindedly opening his drawer to get the alethiometer out.

It’s crazy, really, the kind of things you can get used to: just a few months ago, Izuku would never have dreamed of being here, holding one of the world’s rarest artifacts in his hands, and yet he is. And yet, he has been every day for the past months.

Today, though, Izuku’s hand hesitates as he opens the golden box. He licks his lips and turns to his daemon.

“Do you think we should…”

Ketsu eyes him back for a moment, tail swaying in the air.

“Isn’t this cheating?” Izuku continues, feeling his brain start to run in manic circles. “It kind of feels like cheating — precognition quirks are rare but if somebody finds out you used one to take an exam you’ll be disqualified and it definitely counts as cheating, so you’d be barred from taking exams again for five years, and—”

“Breathe, Izuku.”

At his daemon’s urging, Izuku heaves in a great gulp of air.

“Okay, so first off, there’s no way anybody will think we used an alethiometer, even if they somehow thought we cheated — and second, we’re not cheating.” For a cat, Ketsu can do a very great ‘I’m rolling my eyes at you because you’re being dumb’ impression. “You’re not asking the alethiometer for answers or anything like that, you just want to know if there’s something you should do.” He bumps his head against Izuku’s arm. “That’s different.”

Izuku exhales slowly. It is different.

“Yes, it is,” Ketsu confirms, which prompts Izuku into realizing he’d spoken that out loud without realizing it.

Oops.

Ketsu jostles his arm again. “Now, come on — the sooner you do this, the sooner we can finish getting ready, and the sooner we’ll be at UA.”

Izuku’s heart skips a beat. UA. It feels like a dream to even be able to go there for a single day — their security is so good they only let people in on entrance exam day, and even then you need a little security card to justify your presence. Pretty much every other day, only students and employees are allowed in — which means that unless Izuku gets in, he probably won’t be able to visit again.

He swallows.

By now, the steps to asking the alethiometer for answers are familiar. Izuku’s fingers know the way, and he is, he feels, better at holding the questions he asks in his mind. He still isn’t sure if his interpretations are really worth anything — how could they be, when he’s never properly studied this field and bases everything on either gut feelings or stuff he found online? — but to ask eases something in his mind nonetheless.

He expects a similar message to the one he’s been getting for weeks: persevere, and something will happen.

He even knows the symbols the alethiometer would use.

Only…

Only, this time, they are different.

Izuku watches, his heart in his throat, as the thinnest needle moves first to the Baby, then the Bread, and finally, after what feels like forever, the Alpha and Omega symbol.

He swallows again. His hands are shaking when he lays the alethiometer down on his desk — he almost wants to ask again, repeat his question (What do I need to do today?, always underlined with Can I be a hero?), but he knows that will be useless. All that would get him would be the same answer.

When he looks to his daemon, Ketsu appears frozen. His tail is curled around his leg, and he’s almost hissing at the alethiometer — any other time, Izuku might laugh at him: to be scared of such a small thing is ridiculous, and his daemon should know better.

And yet…

Izuku’s heart trembles in his chest, and his throat feels tight.

For the alethiometer to give them such a new message now… Right before the entrance exam? To warn them about an unavoidable sacrifice, about something they will be helpless to change? That feels unspeakably cruel.

“Maybe…” Izuku licks his lips, trying to inject cheer he doesn’t feel into his voice. “Maybe it’s saying we’ll succeed?”

After all, the Bread means nourishment too, and coupled with the Baby, which can also represent the future… Maybe the alethiometer is saying that Izuku’s dream will be fulfilled. Will be fed, in a way, as far fetched as it sounds.

Ketsu sighs and paces the length of the desk. “Maybe,” he says, but he doesn’t sound convinced either.

Izuku’s eyes fall on the symbols again. The needle is inert again, but the way it still points to the Alpha and Omega — to the symbol of finality, of inevitability — feels ominous.

Something is coming. Izuku’s hands prickle with it, and he can taste it in the back of his throat.

Something, he knows, will change today.

“Our sincere apologies, but this train has been delayed due to an ongoing villain attack down in—”

Panic seizes Izuku’s chest as he keeps reading the message the train station broadcast on its alert panel. Someone is reading it out loud over the speakers too, but panic has made it sound like white noise too.

“They say there’s a replacement bus at Kuromo station,” Ketsu whispers against his ear, tightening his tail around Izuku’s neck for a second before letting go. “We’ve got plenty of time to get there, don’t worry.”

Izuku heaves a shaking laugh, nodding.

Ketsu’s right, of course. Potential villain attacks are only one of the reasons why Izuku planned so much time to get to UA: this is probably the most important exam he’ll ever have to take. Izuku can’t miss it.

Izuku doesn’t even really have to make a decision. The platform is crowded, and loud, and growing more so as more people start to realize what Izuku has — mainly, that they will have to seek an alternative route — but that crowd starts moving quickly.

The morning rush, Izuku guesses, even as it guides him away and out of the station again.

The crowd splinters off there — Izuku needs to get to Kuromo station to catch the bus to UA, but others need to head to different stations that are closer or further off, and —

“This way,” Ketsu says, using his teeth to tug on Izuku’s collars and point him left.

“Thanks,” Izuku whispers back.

He could speak louder, of course — there really is no rule that says you need to whisper to your daemon. In fact, even the ‘rule’ of not speaking to another person’s daemon is mostly an unspoken courtesy thing. Izuku doesn’t really like to be so loud in public places; especially crowded ones.

He sets off in the direction Ketsu pointed, hurrying. Kuromo station is the furthest off in the list of alternative routes the train station had offered, but it is still not close by, and the bus goes slower than the train. Luckily, Izuku’s schedule should more than cover the differential, but it can’t hurt to make haste, just a little.

He lets Ketsu quietly quiz him on his history again — Izuku thinks he’s gotten much better at it, and even Yagi-sanhad agreed on the few occasions the older man had quizzed him too — and he tries to keep his head down and walk fast. Kuromo station, unfortunately, isn’t in the best part of town, and the last thing Izuku needs or wants is to get mugged on his way to the UA entrance exam after avoiding a villain attack.

(He can’t help but wonder what heroes are there, though. Kamui Woods, maybe, to catch the villain in his lacquered chains? Death Arms, subduing them with jets of water? Or maybe Mt. Lady who, as a newer hero to the scene with such an unusual quirk, is a hero Izuku has paid a lot of attention to lately?

And what about the villain? Who are they? What are they doing? Is there more than one?

Gosh, but Izuku wishes he could see it — hero fights are always so informative!)

They’re almost there when Izuku sees something out of the corner of his eye and stops.

“Did you…?”

“What?” Ketsu turns around, but it’s clear he didn’t see anything.

Izuku’s hand tightens around his bag’s straps. “I thought I saw…” He trails off, casting a nervous glance to their surroundings.

It’s a normal street, really. Not particularly crowded, but not abandoned either. There are a couple cars coming up, and a few others driving away, and the light of the cross Izuku needs to get to just turned red.

As Izuku stands there, a business man shoves his way past him, knocking his briefcase into Izuku’s knees. Ketsu hisses into Izuku’s ears, but the man and his daemon — some kind of large dog — are already much further up the street.

“He’s lucky you didn’t fall,” Ketsu complains.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” Izuku mumbles back, but the quick look he takes to make sure nobody else is about to walk into him brings his eyes toward a small offshoot alley.

It’s what had drawn his eyes earlier, Izuku realizes, moving toward it despite himself.

“Izuku!” Ketsu hisses. “Is that a good idea?”

“I don’t know, but I thought I saw something before.”

The mouth of the alley is very small. It is, in fact, barley an alley at all — maybe two people could stand there side by side, but they would need to be rather thin.

The ground looks damp somehow, even though it hasn’t rained in a while, and Izuku’s nose wrinkle at the smell.

“It’s dark,” Ketsu notes, shifting on Izuku’s shoulders in that way that means he’s preparing to turn into something bigger and more menacing. “I don’t like it.”

Truth be told, Izuku doesn’t like it much either, but the feeling from earlier hasn’t left him. There is something about this place, about what he thinks he saw, that he can’t leave alone.

“It’s just for a minute, Ketsu,” Izuku replies. This close to the alley, their voice echoes through the length of it, and— there! There is somebody in there!

A very small somebody, Izuku realizes suddenly, his stomach dropping, as his eyes adjust to the darkness and land on a small, huddled figure dressed in white.

“Oh. Hello, there,” Izuku says, lips twitching up into a small smile despite himself. “What’s your name? Are you lost — I can help you find your parents if you want.”

He’s moved into the alley proper now, making his steps as slow and non threatening as he can, but at the sound of his voice, echoing in the darkness, the little girl still flinches.

“N-No,” she stutters out. She sounds about as scared as she looks — no, not scared, panicked. She’s cuddling something up to her chest, and tries to hide it when Izuku steps closer. “D-Don’t. I’m fine. We’re fine,” she says, and Izuku catches a glimpse of defiant fire in her eyes before the panic extinguishes it again.

Her eyes dart around the alley, flashing red in the low light, and Izuku raises his head in front of him, crouching down to get eye-level with her.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m not going to hurt you, see?" He displays his empty palms again. "I’m Izuku, and this is Ketsu,” he adds, nodding down to his daemon who waves a paw.

The girl stares back at them blankly, but at least she seems to have stopped shaking. The thing in her arms unfurls, revealing a fluffy white bunny, and Izuku’s lips twitch into a smile before he can restrain it.

“What’s your name?” he asks, still keeping his voice low.

She eyes them for a long moment before looking down to her daemon. They do not speak out loud, but their silent conversation must carry enough weight to it that she relents, nodding slightly.

“I’m Eri,” she whispers. She doesn’t stutter this time, but her voice still sort of breaks around the words.

She does not offer a name for her daemon, but while Ketsu shifts uneasily around his neck, Izuku decides not to ask.

“Well, Eri, what do you say we get out of this place? It’s not very nice, is it?”

She hesitates but shakes her head.

Izuku offers, but Eri doesn’t take his hand as they walk out of there. It’s probably for the best, considering how narrow the place is, but Izuku would probably feel better if he had that reassurance she was still there.

She’s so quiet, and so small, that she feels almost more like an apparition than a little girl.

She sticks close, though. Half a step behind him, maybe, and Ketsu doesn’t need to be told to keep an eye on her.

They only need a few steps to step back into the light, but even so, they feel like forever.

“There,” Izuku starts as soon as they’re out, “isn’t that better?”

He turns to face Eri, and freezes. In the light, she looks…

Well, it isn’t that she looks particularly injured, or even that unhealthy. Sure, her arms are covered in bandages, but they seem clean. Her feet are bare, though, and her dress, which had seemed so brilliantly white in the dark alleyway, actually looks greyer out in the daylight. Its hem is frayed, too, and the bottom is stained dark from whatever had been on the ground in that alley.

Her pale hair barely covers a tiny nub of a horn, peeking out of her head, and when she catches Izuku looking, she flinches back and tries to cover it.

Mostly, she looks sort of homeless, and Izuku’s mouth runs dry as he remembers her telling him No when he’d asked about her parents.

What happened to you? he wants to ask, but he swallows down the question. This is neither the time nor the place, after all.

Instead, he says, “Do you have someone we can call?” She shakes her head, shoulders drawing up. “Somewhere you need to go?”

Again, she shakes her head, and Izuku bites his lips. He looks around them, but what few people are around are now giving them a wide berth — not that Izuku can really blame them. They probably look pretty odd.

“Well, how about we go to the police station, then? They can probably figure out how to help you.”

A hero might help, too, but there isn’t any around, and Izuku’s not quite sure how one goes about actually calling one. They always just sort of… show up when there’s danger, which implies some kind of reporting system, but Izuku definitely doesn’t have access to that.

He briefly toys with the idea of contacting someone — Kaa-san, or perhaps Yagi-san? — but this is something he can probably handle on his own without bothering them.

Besides, the police are there for a reason, and Izuku’s pretty sure they handle missing kids.

At the words ‘police station’, though, Eri flinches a little, her daemon cuddling closer to her chest.

Izuku’s steps falter. “Do you… not want to go?”

She looks down and shrugs.

“They can keep you safe, I promise. I know it’s a little scary, but they’re good people.”

Or at least the ones Izuku sends his information to are. He’d know — the alethiometer confirmed it.

Eri just stares up at him in confusion.

“They’ll help you,” Izuku reiterates, and his heart twists when that doesn’t appear to clear up any of the confusion.

Izuku sighs, and bends to his knees again. “How about this,” he starts. “I go with you to the station, and I stay there until someone helps you, okay? And we can leave anytime you need or want.”

“Izuku, we—” Ketsu hisses in his ear, but Izuku shakes his head, keeping his focus on Eri. This — She is more important.

He extends out a pinky, and smiles. Eri stares at it, her brow furrowed, for longer than feels natural, and Izuku’s heart pangs again as he realizes she probably doesn’t know what he wants.

“You take it with yours,” he says softly, “and we shake on it. And then it’s a promise.”

Her eyes dart back to her daemon, whose nose twitches, but she gives a tiny nod. Slowly, she extends out a pinky — casting Izuku questioning looks all the while as if to check she’s doing it right — and hooks it around Izuku’s extended finger.

As she does so, her bunny daemon twitches and shifts into a white butterfly. He flutters upward silently, and nests himself against her pale hair, almost obscuring the tiny nub of a horn.

Like this, and as long as his wings do not move, he’s almost invisible.

As soon as Izuku thinks this, of course, she does, and the light catches on iridescent wings, revealing paler lines.

Izuku’s heart lurches in his chest. At first, he assumes they’re a choice — markings, the way butterflies have (Ketsu had experimented a lot with butterfly shapes one month, so Izuku’s seen a lot of options) — but they’re not. They can’t be.

They’re just like the marks on Komyo: they’re scars.

He swallows.

“I promise I’ll keep you safe, okay?” he says, shaking their suspended fingers.

She nods, but Izuku can tell she doesn’t really believe him. He rises to his feet again, and to his surprise, Eri doesn’t let go of his finger, even shuffling closer to him.

Conscious of Eri’s shorter stride, Izuku keeps his steps slow and measured. He can feel Ketsu’s impatience, though, accompanied with a slight bit of panic.

We have time, he tries to tell himself, shutting the little voice telling him to find an adult to trust Eri with to the back of his mind. Even so, part of him can’t help but start to shiver in trepidation: the UA entrance exam will start soon, and Izuku is barely on the way yet.

But he cannot leave Eri like this — she is here, and real, and in need of help. Izuku can’t just leave her behind — besides, he promised.

As they walk, Izuku starts to tell her more about his favorite subject: heroes. She’s still quiet and reserved, but she listens to his every words, and even if she had seemed a little confused at first, her eyes are slowly filling with light as Izuku narrates some of his favorite All Might fights for her, and how he defeated all of the villains he’s ever come across.

“All Might,” he tells her with a grin, “is the best hero. I want to be just like him.”

Eri nods at that, like it makes perfect sense to her — ‘Of course Izuku wants to be a hero!’ her serious eyes seem to say? ‘What else would he be?’ — and it makes Izuku want to melt into a puddle of tears.

They’ve barely reached the end of the street they’d been on — luckily, Izuku knows his way around here and knows the police station isn’t too far away — when his eyes catch Eri wincing, and he stops.

“Oh, right,” he says, stomach falling and cheeks heating up — how could he forget?? “You don’t have shoes — walking can’t be very comfortable.”

She doesn’t look injured, at least, but Izuku has the terrible feeling that she’d probably hide it if she was. That earlier wince of pain is gone now, and she’s withdrawing on herself again, shoulders curling inward protectively in a way that makes Izuku’s chest ache.

“I’m fine,” she says, but the way her voice shakes belies that.

Izuku offers her another smile. “Do you want me to carry you? We can go faster this way too, and you won’t have to walk.”

“I can walk, though,” she protests.

“But you don’t have to.” Izuku grins down at her and raises their linked hands. “I promised, remember?”

Slowly, she nods.

Getting her situated on Izuku’s back is easy. Ketsu shuffles down to the ground, shifting into his favored cat shape to walk beside him, and Eri hooks her arms around Izuku’s neck, resting her head on his shoulder. Her chin is a little bony and digs a little too much into Izuku’s skin, and he has to shift his bag forward to make room for her too, which unbalances him for a few moments, but overall, it’s simple.

She is far too light, though. Izuku can feel her bones beneath too-thin skin: fragile, like a bird’s.

He starts moving faster — not because of any deadline, but because he suddenly thinks she needs to be safe, in police custody. Maybe even a hero’s, if they can get one.

They’re only a few more streets away when a figure melts out of the shadows. A man, with short dark brown hair and some kind of mask covering his face. He stands there, for a moment, and his piercing gaze makes Izuku’s steps falter.

“There you are, Eri,” he says, and even though he doesn’t speak loudly, his voice carries as though he had.

Around Izuku’s neck, Eri’s arms tighten like a noose.

“You worried me — I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he continues.

It’s the perfect dialogue for a parent looking for their child, but something about it rings hollow. Perfunctory.

Or maybe it’s the way Eri’s started to shake, just a little.

The man turns to Izuku. His voice affects warmth, and he extends out a gloved hand. “Thank you for finding her, young man. Children, you know? I turned away one moment and she was just gone.” He makes a beaconing gesture. “Now, Eri, come here — let’s not bother this young man any more than we already have, huh?”

“She wasn’t a bother,” Izuku replies before he can stop himself, his hold on Eri tightening. He casts his eyes around, looking for some kind of escape, or help — a hero would be great right about now, but they’re probably all busy at that accident from earlier still — but nothing comes to him. He swallows, and takes a step back.

They could run, Izuku thinks wildly. He’s good at running, and even with the added weight of both his bag and Eri, Izuku could probably outrun this man. The mask, at least, doesn’t look very conducive to physical exercise.

By Izuku’s legs, Ketsu starts to let out a low hiss.

As if sensing their thoughts, the man shifts forward. He moves languidly, though, almost as if they’re boring him.

“Eri,” he calls out again, “I won’t ask again: come here.”

When Eri doesn’t move, he sighs and makes to take off his gloves, muttering something to himself that Izuku can’t hear.

Eri’s hold on his neck tightens, almost cutting off his hair, before loosening. She lets out a soft gasp of air, almost like a sob, and asks, “Let me down, please.”

Izuku doesn't move to. “You don’t have to,” he says, stomach twisting. “I promised, remember?”

Eri nods, but repeats, “Let me down, please.”

It tears at Izuku’s heart, but there is nothing he can do. He sets Eri down gently, and watches her walk to the man’s side — her father, maybe? but no, that doesn’t feel right — with his heart in his throat.

“Good girl,” the man says, slipping his glove back on and extending his hand out to Eri, who flinches as she takes it. “Now come on, it’s time to go home.”

He twists on his heels without another word or look to Izuku, but Eri’s red eyes linger. Izuku’s heart lurches in his chest, and his feet follow with it — too late, though.

By the time the words trapped inside Izuku’s chest have stumbled out and he’s managed to catch up to where the two had been, the street is empty.

There is no trace of that man, nor of Eri, and Izuku’s stomach falls.

“This is bad, isn’t it?” Ketsu says, voicing the thought Izuku wouldn’t.

He swallows and nods, picking at his backpack’s straps as he puts it back on his back. “I think so, yeah.”

Ketsu hums and rubs his head against Izuku’s head. “Let’s tell the police then. Send them a report like we usually do — and you can ask the alethiometer about her again when we get home from the exam.”

The exam.

Izuku’s heart starts to race as he remembers, and he takes off running, Ketsu speeding beside him and shifting into a bird between one step and the next.

What time is it?

How long had he spent with Eri? How long does he have left to retrace his steps and find the bus that will take him to UA — how long until the exam starts and Izuku forfeits all chances at entering his dream school if he’s not there?

Izuku doesn’t know, and the not knowing terrifies him. Running, he doesn’t have the time to check, but what if…

What if it’s too late already?

“Sir, you’re going to want to hear this.”

“What is it?”

“Our sources inside the police… They’ve mentioned something interesting.”

“Oh?”

“Oh yes. Someone has been feeding them information about yakuza operations. Information they shouldn’t have without access to some… alternative sources.”

“I see... And I should care about this… why, exactly?”

“Because they’re about to conduct a raid on them, looking for some kind of weapon that is said to be able to erase quirks.”

A laugh, dry and shaking. “That is very, very intriguing. What else?”

“... They’ve mentioned a child. An important one, connected to those weapons.”

If he could have, All For One would have smiled. “Is that so? Well, in that case… What do you say we crash their little party, my good doctor?”

“Oh, I believe I have just the thing.”

Eri’s room is dark. It is always dark, except for the times where Chisaki comes to get her, or her guards let her play with some toys to pass the time before Chisaki comes for her.

It is nothing like the outside world had been — there had been so much light there. And for once, the light hadn’t meant something bad was coming.

The light had led her to Izuku, who had been… nice to her — or at least, that’s what Eri thinks nice is. He’d promised to help her, and he’d carried her when the ground had hurt her feet.

Izuku hadn’t harmed her. Of course, he didn’t know Eri was cursed — that she deserved everything that happened to her — but even so, Eri thinks he wouldn’t hurt her even if he did.

“Do you think we’ll see him again?” she asks Junshin.

Her daemon is a bunny again — they both like how soft he is like this, and how easily he fits in her arms. That’s never stopped Chisaki from taking him, of course, but here, in the darkness where they are as safe as they ever are, it’s… nice.

Junshin presses closer against her chest. “It’s better if we don’t,” he mumbles, and Eri’s heart gives a funny pang.

“Oh,” she says, her fingers halting in Junshin’s fur. “Right. Of course.”

Of course, Junshin’s right. It is better for Izuku if they don’t meet again — Chisaki already doesn’t like him, had nearly…

Eri presses her eyes shut against the images of Chisaki’s quirk being used on nice, smiling Izuku, but they don’t stop coming anyway.

“It’s safer like this,” Junshin continues, twisting inside her arms until he can lick her fingers. It tickles, and sends the images back into the corners of Eri’s mind.

“He was nice, though.”

“He was,” Junshin agrees. He sounds… tired, and maybe a little sad. Eri feels that way too, though, so it’s fine.

“Come on,” Junshin continues, hopping down. “We should try to get some sleep while we can.”

Unspoken is the fact that Chisaki will be coming for them tomorrow — he always does, when he has to punish them.

Eri swallows the whimper blooming in the back of her throat, and nods. Junshin can’t really see it, of course, but it’s the thought that counts.

She doesn’t really know if they fall asleep, or how long they were asleep if they did. All she knows is that Junshin presses a cold nose against her neck to snap her into focus, shaking against her skin as outside, loud screams echo down the corridors.

Eri shivers and hugs Junshin tighter. She knows those screams. Knows what they mean.

Somebody out there is dying. Maybe… Maybe a lot of somebodies.

It’s okay, she tries to tell herself, pressing her hands over her ears so she can’t hear it as much. It’s okay, Chisaki will put them back together afterward.

He hasn’t put back together Misaki-kun, though, who had always smiled at Eri and given her a lollipop once, and told her tales of the outside world. She doesn’t think he would have put Izuku back together either, if Eri had let him touch him — it was why she had had to go, after all. Return here, where she belongs.

The screams go on for what feels like forever, but eventually, they end and silence falls.

It is a different silence than the one Eri is used to, though. A quieter silence.

A deadlier silence.

She swallows, but uncurls from her bed, tiptoeing towards the door. She stops in front of it, trying to devine what’s on the other side through the cracks on the side of it. Barely any light filters in, and she knows from experience it’s useless, but she tries anyway.

“We should hide,” Junshin whispers to her, even though in the silence his voice feels as loud as a scream.

“What if… What if they’re all gone, though?” Eri counters in the same hushed tones.

She can’t hear anything, after all. Usually, she can always at least hear something. Voices, in the distance. Footsteps, echoing endlessly.

Screams, sometimes.

But now, there is nothing.

Until suddenly, there is.

The door opens with a soft shnick, but the light that pours in is blinding after so long spent in the darkness.

“There you are,” a voice says as Eri stumbles backward, Junshin quivering against her chest. Her heart is pounding. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“F-For me?”

As Eri’s eyes adjust to the light, the figure in front of her resolves into the outline of a man. A tall one, dressed in some kind of suit.

He has no face, only dark mist rolling in like an endless void.

“Eri, Eri,” Junshin starts to whisper urgently, but Eri already knows what he’s going to say.

That man, if he even is one, doesn’t have a daemon.

“My master wants to meet with you,” he says, his voice toneless. It’s like he doesn’t notice Eri’s sudden panic, or the way Junshin is clinging to her, trying to press ever closer.

This is wrong, Eri’s brain whispers. This is very, very wrong.

The deamonless man doesn’t wait for an answer and waves a hand, opening a vortex in front of her. It is dark and Eri cannot see the other side of it, and she doesn’t dare move towards it.

“I can’t leave,” she says, proud of the way her voice barely shakes. “Chisaki will be mad if he finds out I left.”

“I assure you, he is no longer an issue.”

Eri’s heart rises, then falls. “Oh.”

The daemonless man waves his hand again, and the portal grows wider.

“After you,” he says, but Eri doesn’t get the feeling she has much of a choice here.

Then again, she never really has had much of one before.

(Except once — Izuku had given her a choice, hadn’t he? He’d asked if she wanted to come, and worked around her doubts when she hadn’t, and—

Izuku isn’t here, she reminds herself sternly. And it’s for the best that he isn’t.)

Taking a deep breath, and with Junshin still trembling in her arms, Eri walks through the portal.

She does not look back.

Chapter Text

As soon as he gets the call, Naomasa knows the raid can’t have gone well. He is no hero, merely a police detective — for them to be calling him so soon means something went wrong.

It means that something went wrong in a way that doesn’t require heroes, though, and that is both reassuring and very, very concerning.

He very carefully doesn’t panic — at least, not outwardly. It is, he has found, a very important skill for a police detective to have: the ability to project a cool facade no matter what; even if, inwardly, Naomasa’s heart is racing and his stomach is twisted up in coils so tight he almost wants to vomit.

Whatever happened, it was his info that led the heroes there. Well, the info he got from their mysterious informant, anyway — but it’s information Naomasa had vouched for and vetted. And yes, maybe Sansa had had a point when he’d said it was because the method reminded him of All Might’s early days, but he had also done his job. The information had checked out.

It is useless, of course, to go over all this before getting there. Naomasa’s mind is already throwing countless theories at him, each worse than the last, but the fact remains that he will not know what happened until he gets there.

Luckily, being police means he doesn’t really have to follow traffic laws, and can get to the compound they’d identified as belonging to the Shie Hassaikai.

It is somehow more impressive in person than it had been over pictures, but also something of a let-down.

The buildings are ordinary, the types Naomasa could walk in front of without taking a second glance. There are thousands of places just like this one in Musutafu alone, much less its wider area — it is, Naomasa thinks, a perfect place to hide for a yakuza group. Nobody would think to look for them here.

Nobody really had, in fact, until their informant had pointed them in this direction, and Sir Nighteye had confirmed it.

Sir isn’t Naomasa’s favorite hero to work with — that is still All Might, even if Naomasa would appreciate not being left hanging with the paperwork — but he’s also far from the worst. Being more devoted to collecting information and coordinating larger operations, Nighteye’s agency works more closely with the police than most hero agencies, which means he and his sidekicks/partners rarely share in the condescension a lot of limelight heroes have toward the police force.

In fact, Naomasa would probably actually enjoy working with Sir and his teams if not for, well, the All Might issue.

Now, Naomasa doesn’t quite know how or why the two had separated when they’d formed such a good team — Sir’s precognition quirk actually completed All Might’s skills really well, even if All Might had his own… ways at finding out future events — but he knows they didn’t part on good terms.

But both Sir and All Might know Naomasa is still in contact with the other, which has led to some… awkward tension.

And of course, now that All Might is actually missing, things are actually worse, not better, because Sir is obviously worried and refuses to admit it, instead taking an attitude that screams ‘I warned him and he didn’t listen’ that helps no one.

Makoto, unhelpful as ever, suggested locking the two of them inside a room until they talked about their issues the last time Naomasa had complained to her.

“Somehow I don’t think that’d work,” he had replied, and his sister had shrugged with a grin.

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” she’d said, but actually, Naomasa could and would, as she said, ‘knock it’.

One didn’t need precognition to know that trying to reenact a romantic comedy plotline with two not quite feuding pro heroes who refused to speak to each other without an intermediary (and even then, only when absolutely necessary, which had turned out to be almost five years ago, even if Naomasa did his best to subtly relay news of the other’s health when he could) would not end well.

All this to say that when Naomasa finds himself faced with Sir when he gets to the scene, he sighs and steels himself for some not-so-subtle hints about All Might’s fate that will, of course, lead nowhere.

Even less so with All Might gone, vanished who knows where for some unknown reason.

(Oh, Naomasa has a few inklings as to what, exactly, could cause Toshinori to disappear like this, and he likes none of them.

Especially with the way the Hero Commission has been sniffing around lately, asking too many questions they shouldn’t have known to ask.

Somebody had talked. Naomasa doesn’t know who, not yet, but they will not be happy when he finds them.)

“Detective Tsukauchi,” Sir greets him. On his shoulder, his bat daemon stays silent, staring into the distance the way it usually does, and Juri, Naomasa’s own daemon, only nods at her solemnly.

“Sir Nighteye,” Naomasa replies, inclining his head with his own nod. “You called me?”

“We called the police, yes,” he replies. For once, he doesn’t try to make a joke, and even his usually peppy sidekicks are looking unusually grim.

Naomasa’s stomach twists — this can’t be good. Juri huddles closer to his leg.

“I came ahead. Sansa’s bringing more people soon — there was a robbery down on sixth, and most of our people were sent there.” Naomasa tries to peek past Sir’s shoulders, wanting to figure out what they're walking into, but he sees nothing unusual there. “Is there… Is there anything I need to warn him about?”

Centipeder snorts loudly, arms crossed over his chest. He looks tired, Naomasa notices, and his face is drawn with some kind of wry amusement that barely hides his discomfort.

Bubble Girl’s face, however, is much more telling: she is unarmed, but holding her daemon to her chest, fingers tangled tightly in his white fur. She’s so pale she looks like she could be sick at any moment.

Or rather like she was sick only moments ago.

Naomasa swallows. “That bad, huh?”

Sir’s lips are pursed thin. “Worse,” he confesses with a tight nod.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Centipeder agrees, and after a quick look to Sir’s face to confirm, Naomasa winces.

“Shit,” he swears.

Between Sir’s quirks and their years of heroism, they’ve seen a lot of horrible, twisted things. Most villains are glorified petty criminals, after all, but some of them… Some of them are — well, Naomasa would hesitate to call anyone evil, but it’s really the only name that fits for some of them.

All For One, for example, comes to mind, but luckily, All Might got rid of him years ago.

There have been others, though, both before and after him, and well — All Might’s missing now. Just as he’d wanted, the ‘Symbol of Peace’ had acted as a deterrent, and with it gone now, with no explanation…

It is perhaps only a matter of time before something truly terrible comes out of the woodworks.

And according to Sir’s face… Perhaps it even already has.

“Is it safe? Do you need us to apprehend anyone?”

That is why the police are there, after all. Most of the time, they were the ones making sure the villains the heroes caught were imprisoned properly. If this is as bad as Sir’s words seem to imply — as bad as their information had said, considering this is a yakuza operation involved in quirk experimentation — it makes sense for them to call the police.

Though the fact that Sir called the police instead of more heroes still isn’t a good sign — nevermind that they don’t seem to have caught anyone…

Oh.

Oh.

Naomasa’s an idiot.

“There’s no one left inside, is there?”

Sir’s lips twitch into a humorless smile, and his daemon nods. “Clever as ever, detective. If you would follow us…”

“It’s not pretty,” Centipeder warns him. He doesn’t make a move to follow when Sir starts moving toward the large entrance to the compound, and neither does Bubble Girl. Naomasa’s stomach roils with dread, and he tastes bile at the back of his throat, but he forces himself to swallow and follow.

As he passes in front of them, Naomasa pauses and says, “You’ll—”

“We’ll brief your colleague when they arrive,” Bubble Girl pipes in. Her smile shakes around the edges, but she’s looking less green.

Naomasa nods back at her with a thankful smile, and hurries to catch up to Sir Nighteye, Juri almost running by his side.

The first thing inside the compound is a large courtyard. It is empty, and although they cross it quickly to get to the main building, Naomasa can’t help but feel… uneasy.

It takes him perhaps too long to put his finger on why though, but when he does, the realization makes him shiver.

It’s too quiet. ‘Silent as a grave’ is not an expression Naomasa has heard used often, or if he has, he’d always thought it misplaced, because in a city things were never completely quiet. It fits here, though. It fits very well.

“This is bad,” he hears Juri say, and silently agrees.

He still only understands how well that expression fits once they step inside the buildings proper, though.

There is no light inside — the windows are understandably covered — and the only illumination comes from the open door behind them, casting dark shadows on the floor and walls, forcing Naomasa’s eyes to blink and adjust.

The first thing that hits him is the smell. Thick and musty, kind of cloying. Naomasa inhales and tastes copper, and coughs, bringing his elbow up to his mouth to cover it.

Similarly, Nighteye has drawn some kind of handkerchief to protect his mouth. It doesn’t appear to be helping much, for his face is still set into a deep grimace.

Naomasa swallows and steps forward. His feet stick to the ground and he shivers — he doesn’t need to look down to know what he’s stepping into.

What they’re stepping into.

What it’s impossible not to step into.

The floor is covered in blood. The walls, too. It drips off the curtains, leaving darker, thicker pools of red beneath them.

In most other places, though, it covers everything like a thin mist, which somehow still seems to hang in the air, coloring the atmosphere red. Where it’s thicker in places, however, chunks of… things Naomasa would rather not identify linger, clearly tossed there by something much, much stronger than them, and probably a lot angrier too.

Juri shudders at it and refuses to move — Naomasa has to lean down and let her climb on his shoulders to get her to move. He huffs a little at the weight and winces at the knowledge of the bloody paw prints that most now rest on his back and arms.

“It’s like this everywhere,” Sir states, and his voice echoes through the silence like a gunshot.

“Shit,” Naomasa swears. “Do you have any idea what could have done this?”

Sir shakes his head. “No. People put up more of a fight further inside,” he nods toward a set of descending stairs half-hidden in the darkness, and Naomasa grimaces at the bloody footprints he sees leading up to them, “but they were clearly taken by surprise.”

Naomasa arches a dubious eyebrow. “Just before you were to raid them? Seems like quite a coincidence.”

“Quite.”

Naomasa swallows. He does not voice his thoughts, and neither does Nighteye: clearly, though, they’ve had the same one.

Somebody had known about the raid, and interfered before the heroes could get there. But who?

“Any trace of the…” Naomasa hesitates on the right word to use. “Drugs? Weapon?”

Once again, Nighteye shakes his head. He looks more annoyed this time. “None. We found a lab, but it’s empty — and in a similar state as the rest of this place.”

Unusable, Naomasa reads, and he grimaces.

“And the girl?” he asks, recalling the last packet of information they’d gotten — it had mentioned a child — a girl this group had been eager to get back.

(Well, the connection hadn’t quite been obvious there, but Naomasa knew how to read between the lines, and the timing would have been too much of a coincidence. There had to be a connection.)

“No trace of her.”

Juri’s arms tighten around his neck, making it tougher to swallow, and Naomasa’s stomach twists. Nighteye continues to speak, the lines around his eyes drawn tight in frustrated anger, “There was a child’s room — Bubble Girl found it. It looked untouched, but it was empty.”

“Which means they either moved her, or whoever did this took her with them.”

Nighteye inclines his head. “Exactly.”

That can’t be good.

When Naomasa repeats that sentiment out loud, Nighteye nods again. “We will try to find her, of course, but whoever intervened was good. They didn’t leave a trace — erased everything behind them, and didn’t leave any survivors. We’ll try, of course, but…”

“That’s why you need the police,” Naomasa realizes. “To help you process all of this.”

“Yes,” Nighteye admits. “I’ve called in some favors to get someone with a quirk that might help us retrace what happened, but I’m loath to ask them to step in here if conventional methods might work first.”

Naomasa nods. He’s pretty sure Nighteye means he called Rollback, a mostly-retired pro hero who has the ability to see the past events around whatever object she’s in contact with — he knows why she chose to retire, and bringing her to such a violent scene, while helpful, will probably only reopen wounds she’d rather have left alone.

“We might not have a choice,” he cautions. “If they took the girl, it can’t have been for a good reason.”

Nighteye never voiced it outright, but he has no doubt come to the same conclusion as Naomasa himself: whoever she is, she has to be connected to the weird quirk-erasing drug their informant had reported. Add to that the fact that she is a child, and…

Well, rescuing her and keeping her safe are part of the job description — for both of them.

Nighteye sighs. He looks exhausted, suddenly, and Naomasa can’t help but feel a little guilty at the sight of it, even though he has done absolutely nothing that would explain it.

He knows what Nighteye will say next before the man even opens his mouth.

“Are you sure you don’t know where All Might is?”

Naomasa casts one last look at their blood-drenched surroundings and shakes his head. “I’m sure. He hasn’t been in contact.” Naomasa grimaces, and by habit casts a cautious glance around himself — they’re alone though. He sighs, and adds, “I have been… watched, however. That might be why.”

They move back toward the door and Nighteye tucks his handkerchief away. “Yes, I as well.” He seems perturbed by it. His lips quirk into a wry smile. “Of course, they must be disappointed — All Might hasn’t contacted me in almost a decade. I rather doubt he will start now.”

“You tried to contact him, though,” Naomasa counters, because he knows as much.

Nighteye seems startled that Naomasa knows as much, and his eyes narrow then relax. “I did, yes,” he admits, his lips twisting downward. “Not that much came out of it. I had thought to— well, it is of no matter now. Without him, It is lost to us as well.”

Not that either of us could use it even if it wasn’t, Naomasa bites back. The alethiometer and its uses, as outlandishly impossible as they’d seemed every time he’d seen All Might question it without the books, have always been a point of contention between All Might and Sir Nighteye.

Sir believes the alethiometer should be shared, should be used more freely. All Might doesn’t — and honestly, Naomasa agrees. The knowledge of the alethiometer’s existence and placement in All Might’s hands is a closely guarded secret, and that’s why it is so effective. If it were known…

Well, there’s a reason all other alethiometers are kept in universities, with a months-long waiting list if you want to ask them a question, is all Naomasa will say on the subject.

The light, once they reach outside, is blinding. Naomasa only realizes how used he’d gotten to the stale air inside until he breathes in a lungful of clean, untainted air and doesn’t taste copper on the back of his tongue.

The reminder of it makes his stomach roil — worse than that, he knows he’ll have to go back inside with his colleagues to collect the evidence and see if they can find anything usable.

He is not looking forward to it — but at least he’s prepared for it now.

His fingers twitch with a sudden urgency. “We need to find out what happened,” he says. “Before they do it again.”

Nighteye nods, his eyes gazing off into the distance much like his daemon does — what are they seeing? Naomasa wonders. Is it merely the police cars arriving, or have they used his quirk somehow, to try and see what will come next?

Naomasa shivers. He isn’t sure he wants to know what Nighteye saw if that’s the case.

“Yes, we do,” Nighteye whispers, and the words are almost lost to the wind.

Kaa-san doesn’t ask him how the exam went when Izuku gets home. He doesn’t really know why — perhaps she didn’t want to know, or perhaps she only needed to look at his face to know the answer. Izuku certainly feels as though his failure is written all over it anyway.

He collapses headfirst onto his bed. His eyes prickle like he wants to cry, but the tears do not come. They haven’t yet — Izuku thinks he might still be in shock.

Ketsu jumps on the bed and comes to curl beside his neck, his fur soft and tickly against Izuku’s skin. He doesn’t turn his head to see what form Ketsu’s chosen now, but he thinks it might be a rabbit — like Eri’s daemon had been when they’d met her.

They lie there in silence for a long while, Izuku’s head racing from all the things he could have done differently, before Ketsu finally speaks.

“They should have let us in,” he says, his voice soft and yet as sharp as any blade.

Izuku swallows and curls in on his side. He doesn’t reply — the sight of UA’s closed gates is still too fresh in his mind.

They had been so close, too. So close to getting there on time, even after everything that happened with Eri. But Izuku had lost time helping her — though he wouldn’t call that time ‘lost’, per se, merely well-spent — and then lost more time trying to find where she’d vanished off to, and then he’d had had to wait for the replacement bus, and his mind had still been on Eri and how he’d get the police to find her (he hopes the information he gave them helps, he really does he should try to get more but he doesn’t want to look at the alethiometer right now because why didn’t it warn him about this?), and then—

Well, and then Izuku had finally gotten to UA and looked at the time, and seen he was too late. Not by that much, really, but enough that the man stationed at the entrance had taken one look at him and told him he couldn’t come in.

“Exam’s already started,” the man had said, a sharp grin baring teeth that made Izuku want to back away carefully. “No late entries.”

He’d seemed oddly familiar, really, but his unimpressed glare when Izuku had tried to explain about the train and what happened next had been so cutting Izuku’s words had dried up in his mouth, and he’d realized keeping his head down was probably best.

“O-Okay,” Izuku had said, and then he’d left, clutching his now useless UA entrance pass to his chest. It had felt a little like what he imagined dying would be, he had thought. In some ways, it still does now: there is a gaping hole inside Izuku’s chest, and he doesn’t know how to fill it.

How it can ever be filled.

The worst part, he thinks, is that he didn’t even get the chance to try. If Izuku had managed to take the test, and been rejected, the way everyone seems to think he would — not Yagi, though, his brain whispers, and not Eri-chan either — that would have been one thing. Izuku thinks he might even have been able to… accept it somehow. Redirect his focus to something else — support, maybe, or using his analysis to help heroes?

Izuku has never really spent much time thinking about it, but he has thought about it. It would have been impossible not to, with everyone at school insisting for years that he would never be able to go for his dream.

… He will have to think about it now, though. He can probably still attempt UA’s entrance exam next year, but that’d put him a year behind everyone else even if he did pass. As for other hero schools…

Izuku swallows, fists clenching tightly around his bedsheets, distorting All Might’s grinning face into a mockery of itself.

Well, a lot of them don’t accept quirkless students. Not all of them of course, but enough don’t that Izuku’s choices are severely restricted: more so by the fact that almost all of them are too far from home for him not to have to get a place closer to the school, which requires money they do not have.

UA wasn’t only his best shot, it was pretty much his only shot, and Izuku blew it. Like an idiot. Like the Deku everyone says that he is.

Izuku swallows again. His throat feels so tight it’s hard to breathe, and his nose burns. he wants to cry still, but the tears do not come.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, though he does not turn toward his daemon, who is the only being here Izuku could even be addressing. Despite this, Izuku isn’t sure who he’s really talking to: Ketsu? Himself? Yagi-san and Eri-chan, whom he’s surely disappointed now?

Ketsu presses closer against his neck. “Don’t be,” he says. “It wasn’t your fault. We couldn’t have known this would happen.”

Izuku sniffles. “Yes, we could have.” His eyes dart, unbidden, toward his desk. The alethiometer is hidden away again, of course, but Izuku can almost sense it there, can almost feel the weight of it in his hands.

An inevitable sacrifice, it had said, and Izuku shivers as his mind conjures up Eri’s face as she’d walked away, looking so defeated she hadn’t even been able to be sad about it.

Or was it referring to Izuku missing the entrance exam? Was that the sacrifice he had to make, for some unknown and obscure goal he knew nothing about? That didn’t seem fair — but nothing about this day had been fair so far.

A knock on his door surprises him.

“Izuku? Are you alright?” Kaa-san’s voice comes in muffled through the door, and Izuku rolls on his back, staring up at his ceiling. It is the only part of his room not covered with hero merchandise — Izuku’s never regretted how much of his room bears his heroes’ faces before, but now that he knows how unlikely it is for him to join them, he almost does.

He won’t, later, he doesn’t think, but right now it just hurts.

“Izuku?” Kaa-san calls again, her voice soft with concern. “Ketsu?”

Wordless, Izuku groans in reply. he lifts up his pillow and buries his face into it — perhaps if he presses hard enough, it might even swallow him up and save him from having to face what’s happened.

“I’m coming in,” Kaa-san says. The door creaks as she pushes it open and then closed again, and Jundo’s wings flutter loudly as he flies up to the bed, perching himself beside Ketsu, rubbing his head against Izuku’s deamon’s softly.

Despite himself, Izuku finds himself smiling. He lets the pillow drop a little, and hugs it to his chest.

Kaa-san’s steps are soft and hesitant as she steps into the room, and she takes Izuku’s chair and uses it to sit by the bed.

“Are you alright?” she repeats, running a hand through Izuku’s hair.

“I—” Izuku chokes on the words and blinks past sudden tears, sniffling. He hugs his pillow tighter. “I missed the exam,” he says, and the story tumbles from his lips.

Kaa-san’s hand in his hair doesn’t falter, but it tightens a few times when Izuku tells her about Eri before she forces herself to relax.

“Oh no,” she says, her eyes wide with some kind of fear. “That poor girl — did you… You said you were going to tell the police about her?”

Throat tight, Izuku nods. “I did, yeah.”

He feels guilty for not telling her the truth: that he did not, as she probably assumes, simply go to the police station and make some kind of statement, but rather, that he’d anonymously delivered some information again, pulled together from what he remembered, the alethiometer reading from this morning, and everything else he’d seen recently.

That he’s done this before, too.

She’d worry if she knew — she might even cry, too, or argue that she wants him safe, and… Izuku doesn’t want to argue. He doesn’t know how to tell her that this — all of this, not just him helping Eri but also him using the alethiometer to put together information that can help people — isn’t just something he wants to do, it’s something he has to do.

“What did they say?”

Izuku swallows. “That they’d look into it.”

It’s probably not really a lie, Izuku reasons, guilt churning in his stomach. After all, if he had actually gone to them, this is probably what they would have told him.

Kaa-san nods. “We can put up posters, if you’d like?” She frowns. “Though if she knew the person who came for her…”

Posters are a good idea, but what would they even say? They don’t have a picture to put up, and the police — and the heroes, most likely — are going to be handling this. They’ll probably do a much better job of it than Izuku too.

They weren’t the ones who’d just let her walk away when she looked so scared, after all — right after promising to keep her safe too.

“Well, I’m sure the heroes will find her,” Kaa-san offers with a smile.

Izuku nods, wincing as the gesture makes Kaa-san’s finger tug on his hair painfully.

“Sorry, baby,” she says, extracting her fingers gingerly.

“‘s fine,” Izuku mumbles back. He shifts so he’s facing Ketsu, and the sight of his daemon self-sufferingly putting up with Jundo preening his fur makes him smile.

“It’s going to be okay, you know?” Kaa-san says softly. “We’ll figure something out, okay? For- For you. Maybe I can contact somebody at UA and ask them if you couldn’t take the exam again? Tell them about the circumstances?”

Her voice shakes hesitantly as she speaks, but Izuku’s heart swells in his chest.

He turns back to face her. “But… You don’t want me to be a hero.”

He meant for it to come out as a question, but it doesn’t. The words are flat and incredulous in his mouth: this is something he’s known for a long time. Almost as long as he’s known he doesn’t have a quirk: Kaa-san doesn’t want him to be a hero. It’s too dangerous, and too risky, and too… Too much.

Kaa-san flinches at his words. “Oh, Izuku…” Her eyes brim with tears. “It’s not that simple. I just…” She sniffles and blinks back tears. “I just want you safe, and happy, okay? You’re my baby — our baby,” she corrects, sharing a quick look with her daemon, who almost aggressively cuddles Ketsu closer.

“We want you safe. Being a hero… It’s so dangerous… You won’t be safe, but—”

“Kaa-san,” Izuku can’t help but start to protest.

“But,” Kaa-san cuts him off with a sharp look. Her voice still shakes, but she holds steady. “But it’s your dream.” She smiles wistfully. “I still remember when you first saw that video for the first time — you turned to me and said, ‘Kaa-san, I’m gonna be just like him one day! Save people with a smile!’” Her own smile turns watery as she looks down at him.

“You’ve always wanted to be a hero. You’ve never… You’ve never let anyone tell you that you couldn’t be.” She sniffles again. “Not even… Not even me.” She bows her head. “S-So don’t give up now, okay? We’ll figure something out. Give you a fair shot, at least, okay?”

Izuku’s heart fills so much of his chest he can hardly breathe around it. Beside him, on the bed, Ketsu isn’t moving either.

The moment pauses, and stretches, and still, Kaa-san holds his gaze, tearful but certain.

Izuku licks his lips. “You… You really mean it?”

Kaa-san’s eyes soften. “Yes, Izuku, I mean it. I’ll… I’ll help you try, at least, okay? I love you, and I’ve seen how hard you worked for this. I don’t… I don’t know if the world will let you be a hero, but to me, you already are, okay? You… You helped that girl and did everything you could for her even though it was dangerous, and you had to get to your exam.”

She leans forward, back bending until she’s almost bowing. “Even if… Even if you don’t end up going to a hero school, you’re already a hero, Izuku, but— but we’re going to try to make sure you do, alright? We’re going to try.”

Kaa-san’s words are so close to everything Izuku’s always wanted to hear her say that at first, he doesn’t believe it. They cannot register. He and Kaa-san never really talk about heroes — or rather, about him wanting to be one.

You’re already a hero.

Izuku’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. Words swim in his head, rushing forward all at once and sticking at the back of his throat, and he can say none of them.

He chokes on a sob instead, and then another and another.

It feels like broken glass is shifting inside of his lungs, but Kaa-san draws him up into her arms, Ketsu turns into a hummingbird as well so Jundo can tuck him under his wing, and Izuku heaves a trembling breath.

He finally, finally cries the way he has wanted to since that man told him he couldn’t come in. He breaks down, the stress and fear and anger and exhaustion and everything of the day finally watching up to him — but it’s okay.

Kaa-san is there to hold him together.

Chapter Text

If someone had told Toshinori a year ago — hell, even months ago — that this would be where he’d end up, he wouldn’t have believed them.

After all, a year ago, he had still been the number one hero: All Might, the hero everyone believed could do anything, save anyone.

(Of course, figuring out what to do was easier when one had as much help as Toshinori had had, even at the lowest points in his career.)

If somebody had come up to him and told him that in a few months’ time, he wouldn’t be a hero anymore, that he’d be hiding and working in a gym — helping clean up an abandoned beach in his free time, of all things…

Well, he would have thought this was probably either a very elaborate joke, some kind of mistaken identity, or a villain’s poor attempt at a distraction.

It is, however, none of those things.

Toshinori hasn’t been out patrolling as All Might in weeks now — months, really, but counting the time in weeks makes it feel shorter and less like a failure on his part, even though he has been doing… other things. Less legal things (though technically as he does have his pro hero license, does it even count as illegal if he simply… doesn’t advertise himself as All Might?).

He has been coaching all kinds of people at the gym he’d found employment at (mostly an excuse to stay in the area and try to find… what he’d lost), which is a mostly legal job, if dubiously obtained.

He has also been helping clean up Dagobah beach.

It makes him feel almost ashamed to see it. As a much younger man, it had been a beautiful place, but Toshinori hadn’t thought about it in years, and hadn’t really planned to do anything concrete with it until young Izuku had spurred him on.

Some hero you are, that little snide voice at the back of his head whispers, and Toshinori bows his head under it.

And raises it when Komyo tugs on his leg, gesturing pointedly with her head in the direction of the beach’s cleared entrance, where a familiar figure is carefully making his way through the much diminished piles of trash.

Unbidden, Toshinori’s curl up into a smile.

“Over here!” he shouts, and bites back a laugh when Izuku yelps loudly and almost trips on sand.

The boy jogs up to him, still blushing when he catches up, and his daemon jumps off his shoulder to go cozy up with Komyo. That sight makes him smile too: his daemon has never been shy, but it’s still rare to see her warming up to someone so quickly.

Komyo might tease him for getting himself a mini-me to mentor, but she had adopted Ketsu just as instantly as Toshinori himself had done Izuku.

“Yagi-san! Hi! I didn’t think you’d be here!” Izuku exclaims, his cheeks burning with embarrassment.

Toshinori smiles back as he greets the enthusiastic boy back. “And I didn’t think you’d be here — shouldn’t you still be…” What do young people even do these days after exams? Celebrate? Rest? “I know you had some exams,” he settles on, even if Toshinori had only known about one exam specifically. “Did they go… well?”

His stomach twists. He wishes he could have done more to help young Izuku than give him some advice and a few pointers on fighting stances — well, that and helping him use their beach cleaning endeavor to help him put on some muscles. He wishes he could have…

Well, Izuku has a heroic spirit. That’s been obvious for… a while now. Once, Toshinori might have even tried to see if he had the… spark, or whatever it was that Nana had seen in him that let him do the same thing she did, but unfortunately, that avenue of thinking had been closed to him before he’d even met Izuku.

Izuku’s smile freezes on his face and Toshinori’s stomach falls.

Oh.

“I… didn’t get in,” Izuku says, shoulders drawn in, gaze fixated on the ground like he’s counting every grain of sand — normally, this is where Toshinori would make some kind of joke about that, to lighten the mood and make the boy smile, but he finds that he doesn’t have the heart to now.

He falters. “Ah, well… I’m sure it didn’t go as poorly as you think? Entrance exams can be… tricky, especially for heroics.”

Nedzu had been trying to get him to come teach at UA for several years now, at the very least as some kind of guest lecturer. Toshinori hadn’t really considered it very seriously — he was always so busy, and he probably wasn’t cut out to be much of a teacher, even though it would be nice to see the new generation of hero hopefuls up close…

Those talks had been enough for Toshinori to learn more about UA’s entrance exam, at least — more specifically, how it was graded not only on heroic strength but also on heroic spirit — and he rather doubts the other schools don’t have their own similar systems in place to screen out applicants.

“All hope isn’t lost!” Toshinori adds, going for a cheerful smile.

But Izuku only shakes his head. When he looks up to stare at Toshinori again, his eyes are full of tears. “I-I’m sorry,” he stutters out, sniffling. “I wasted your teachings — you helped me so much, and…” He sniffles again. “I didn’t… I didn’t even make it to the exam. That’s how I know I didn’t make it.”

“Oh,” Toshinori breathes out softly, feeling his own shoulders drop. And then, at Komyo’s pointed glare and cough, he hastily adds, “I promise I’m not disappointed in you.”

“Really?” Even Ketsu looks incredulous at that, and Toshinori rubs his neck sheepishly.

“Really,” he confirms. “I’m sure you did your best to get there, and if you missed it, you must have had a good reason.” His lips quirk up despite himself. “After all, you mentioned it often enough that I know nothing short of a minor apocalypse would have kept you from that exam.”

Izuku flushes pink, but his fingers keep playing with the hem of his shirt — his shirt, which ridiculously enough only says Pants in laconic black script.

Toshinori sighs. “If anything… If anything, I’m disappointed in myself.”

Izuku’s head snaps up so quickly it’s a wonder Toshinori doesn’t hear a crack. “What?! No! No way, it wasn’t your fault, I’m the one who—”

“Hush, my boy,” Toshinori interrupts, amusement warring with his shame. “I…”

He hesitates.

The truth is, Toshinori feels ashamed because if he hadn’t run like a coward, he would have been able to help. Would have been able to go to UA and ask them to consider young Izuku, even though he had missed the entrance exam. It wouldn’t have guaranteed his admission, of course — nobody, not even the number one hero, could do that in a school run by Nedzu — but it would have given Izuku a chance.

A chance to prove himself as Toshinori knows he could.

“Ah, it is of no matter,” he finally says, wincing inwardly at the curious, defiant light still shining in young Izuku’s eyes. “Just the ramblings of an old man,” he jokes, purely for the way he knows Izuku will react.

As predicted, the boy splutters loudly. His daemon hisses, equally as loud, and Komyo, that traitor, barks out a laugh.

“You’re not old!” Izuku protests. “And it really wasn’t your fault,” he tacks on, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He grimaces, and exhales a long sigh. “I probably wouldn’t have passed even if I had gone,” he mumbles quietly, eyes shining with tears again.

Toshinori’s mouth runs dry. “My boy… Whatever gave you that idea?”

Izuku exchanges a panicked look with his daemon. “I… It’s just… I…” He digs his foot into the sand, and visibly swallows. “I’mquirkless,isall.”

Toshinori blinks. “Sorry?”

Izuku’s face turns red. “I’m quirkless,” he repeats, enunciating it clearly this time. His shoulders are squared and his gaze is defiant again — like he expects rejection, Toshinori realizes with a heavy heart.

“That’s why… That’s why it would have been hard for me to get in even if… Even if I had shown up to the exam.”

Toshinori’s first thought is that this explains a lot. Izuku’s skittishness, his eagerness to help — no, to prove himself, Toshinori realizes — the way he almost obsesses over quirks… Even his drive for heroism, which Toshinori still admires, had been colored with a touch of fervent desperation that only now makes perfect sense.

His second thought, shamefully, is I didn’t think there were still quirkless children being born.

It’s a stupid thought, really. Of course there are. Less than in his generation, maybe, but even following the harshest decline models for quirklessness his time had come up with, there would still be a good percentage of the population being born without a quirk.

Enough of them, at least, that Toshinori should have thought about it before, should have realized. Shouldn’t have assumed Izuku simply had some kind of mental quirk, or perhaps a minor quirk that only activated under specific circumstances. Something outwardly unsuited for heroics, maybe, but still very much present.

Ah, but there is no fool like an old fool, isn’t there? he thinks to himself ruefully.

After all, assuming young Izuku had to have a quirk despite him not showing any sign of it, or volunteering any information about it the way most people did these days, was rather hypocritical of him considering Toshinori himself was in the same situation.

Well, mostly the same situation anyway.

Was he…

Komyo glares at him again, before nodding solemnly. It is permission, even though he doesn’t really need it. In truth, he has been thinking about this for… some time. And perhaps this beach isn’t the best place for this conversation, but at the very least, it is secluded and there is no risk of them being overheard, seeing as they are the only two people around.

Come on, Toshinori, you’ve jumped off buildings before! You’ve fought villains! Even now, his mind shies away from the memory of All For One and what that mockery of a man had done, but that is the point. Toshinori has faced much worse before, and won.

Talking to young Izuku shouldn’t feel that scary, nor be that hard.

Izuku needs him, too. He still looks like he’s bracing himself for a hit — perhaps not a physical one, but a hit all the same — and Toshinori would be a poor hero if he let it go one for any longer.

With one last look at his daemon, Toshinori inhales a deep breath, and takes the plunge.

“My boy,” he starts, “there is something I must tell you. Something I should, perhaps, have told you a long time ago. I—”

“We’re also quirkless,” Komyo interrupts.

Toshinori’s mouth snaps shut with a click, and he throws his daemon a confused look. ‘I thought you wanted me to tell him?’ he tries to convey silently.

She rolls her eyes back at him, tongue lolling out of her mouth. ‘You were taking too long,’ she projects back, smug exasperation readable in every line of her body.

In front of them, Izuku’s brain visibly reboots. He gapes. “You.. You’re quirkless? Really?”

If Toshinori had thought Izuku’s eyes had been bright before, it was nothing compared to now. Izuku’s eyes looked like they were filled with stars, and Toshinori almost had to take a step back.

“Wow, I’ve never really… met anyone else who’s quirkless before? That’s so— What do you— Oh, but I know, you’ve said already, and you probably don’t want to answer all of the ‘but how is it, being quirkless?!’ questions, right? They’re the worst, and, and— Do people also look at you weirdly?” Izuku frowns, biting on his lips. The pit he’s dug into the sand with his foot widens, and then collapses back on itself. Izuku doesn’t appear to notice, his lips still moving so quickly they’re almost a blur. “Well, they probably don’t, right, because you’re like, you, and…”

His voice drops even lower, in that hazed mumbling state Toshinori’s usually heard reserved for a particularly fascinating quirk or the logic problems Toshinori had given him to keep his mind busy while they worked — also to help him prepare for the exam. It quickly becomes indiscernible, really, but Toshinori’s learned from experience that it’s best to let it run its course. Izuku will snap himself out of it sooner or later, really.

And almost on cue, Izuku’s jaw snaps shut with a click. His cheeks look even redder than before.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “It’s just…”

“We’ve never really met anyone else who was quirkless before,” Ketsu finishes, weaving between Komyo’s paws to get back at Izuku’s side. “It’s…”

For once, both he and Izuku appear speechless, and Toshinori smiles.

It fades pretty quickly though, as the nerves return. “That isn’t… all I wanted to tell you, though.”

Izuku blinks, throwing a confused look first down at his daemon and then back to Toshinori. “Huh?”

“Yes. You see, when I told you before that I believed you could be a hero, I obviously didn’t know about your situation—”

“Toshinori!” Komyo hisses, and Toshinori hastens to continue, seeing that Izuku is starting to deflate and pale again.

“But I obviously haven’t changed my mind.” His voice softens naturally, and he lets it. “My boy, of course I believe you can be a hero. Look at how many people you’ve already helped here? Sure,” he continues, rolling over what are sure to be some of Izuku’s protests, “the beach isn’t completely cleaned yet, but it will be, and I know you will be there to see it. That you will be helping make it happen.” His lips twist into a fond grin. “After all, why else would you be here?”

“I just needed to get out of the house,” he mumbles. “Kaa-san… Kaa-san’s going kind of crazy. I think she wants to petition UA to try to let me in?”

His tone is half-disbelief, half-exasperated fondness, and Toshinori bites down on a laugh. Komyo doesn’t.

“I’m glad your mother supports you,” Toshinori states truthfully.

Izuku’s fingers pick at his shirt again. “Yeah. Me too. It’s kind of… new, though.” He still sounds half-bewildered. “I thought… She didn’t really like me wanting to be a hero.”

Toshinori swallows and nods. “It is a dangerous job.”

That must be the wrong thing to say, because Izuku scowls and stomps on the sand. “I know that! I’ve studied a lot of heroes, you know, I know the statistics! I know…” His voice breaks. “I know a lot of them don’t exactly make it into a peaceful retirement.” His glare is scorching. “But I still want to do it. We need heroes!”

Just as quickly as it had appeared, the fire goes out of him, and Izuku shrinks down on himself.

Unbidden, however, Toshinori’s thoughts drift back to weeks ago, when he’d only just met Izuku. ‘He’s just like you,’ Komyo had stated, already laughing at him. Since then, Toshinori had seen glimpses of that truth — none, however, have been as blatantly obvious as it had been just now.

Because when Izuku had said ‘we need heroes’, he’d clearly meant, ‘I need to be a hero’. Toshinori recognizes the drive. He thinks, perhaps, he had lost some of it over the years. That perhaps it even started after losing Nana… And then the fight with All For One and all it had cost him (the scars on Komyo, which still, impossibly, hurt sometimes)...

And after that… Well, there’s all that came after that too.

Meeting Izuku, though, seeing his unfailing, unflinching drive to be better? It makes Toshinori want to be better too. It reminds him that he doesn’t need all the tools he’d used to be a hero. That maybe he doesn’t need to be number one to be a hero.

After all, yes, there have been a resurgence of villains since All Might vanished, but the rest of the heroes are strong. Endeavor, Hawks, Best Jeanist and everyone ranked after them… They’re all good heroes. Amazing heroes, that the people can rely on to save them.

It is good, knowing that the foundation of their system is strong, even if… Well, even if some of the goings-on are suspicious.

Out loud, Toshinori says, “I am not disagreeing with you, my boy. But I also understand your mother’s point of view.”

Most of Toshinori’s interactions with parents happened after he rescued their children, really, and while he has never felt it for himself, he has seen plenty of examples of that visceral fear parents will have for their child’s safety.

Izuku sighs as Ketsu rubs his head against his leg. “I do too, I think.” At Toshinori’s surprised look, he adds, “She explained it to me. I… worried her.”

Toshinori’s lips quirk into a humorless grin. It’s clear that worrying his mother is the last thing Izuku wanted to do. “I believe that’s a parent’s prerogative, my boy.”

“I can handle myself,” Izuku replies mulishly. But then his face… eases again, and he looks up at Toshinori with wide eyes. “You really think I can be a hero, then? Even though I’m quirkless?”

And maybe, in another world, Toshinori would have said no. Maybe in that world he has a quirk, and has seen how tough heroism can be even when nature gave you a power to defend yourself — in that world he might think, if you don’t have that advantage, how could you keep yourself and others safe?

In that world, he might say no, I don’t believe you can be quirkless and a hero. Or at least, not a hero in the way Izuku means it — as the profession rather than the aspiration. That would, most probably, be the latest mistake in a long line of them.

But fortunately, this isn’t that world.

In this world, Toshinori snorts and exchanges another look with his daemon, who stares back in pointed encouragement.

He could still say no, he knows. Izuku wouldn’t even hold it against him — he knows, just as Izuku does, what his odds are (even if he hadn’t let himself think of them in a long time).

Toshinori, though… Toshinori would hold it against himself.

He lets his smile turn wry. “My boy, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to tell you ‘No’,” he says, and leans back on his heels to watch the penny drop.

First, Izuku’s brow furrows and Ketsu freezes, paws half-buried under the sand. Confusion ripples slowly across Izuku’s face, spreading as Izuku starts to mutter to himself again; the lines above his brow deepen, and he looks at Toshinori again, and then at Komyo.

“You…”

Realization finally dawns on Izuku’s face. “You?!?” His mouth falls open in a wide gap and he stumbles backward and then forward, almost tripping up over the sand again. “You’re a hero? And you’re quirkless? B-But how?” He frowns, lips pinching into a pout. “I’ve never heard of a quirkless hero — and we’ve looked — but then again you’d probably hide it, just in case… Were you pretending to have a quirk? Or maybe just underground, lots of underground heroes keep their quirks on the down-low—”

Toshinori laughs as the mumbling starts up again. “You know, it would be easier to answer your questions if you left me some time to speak,” he teases.

“Sorry,” Izuku blurts out. “I’m just… Why doesn’t anyone know about you?”

Toshinori winces? “Ah… That is, well…” He scratches the back of his neck. Izuku’s eyes sharpen.

“You were faking a quirk then,” he states.

“I… yes,” Toshinori admits, even though it had never been quite as easy as that. “People made assumptions, and I let them, and it… helped.”

The light shifts in Izuku’s eyes. It’s hard to quantify, but Toshinori thinks the boy might be disappointed, which, in turn, makes Toshinori’s stomach drop.

I should have been better, his conscience whispers to him, and he nods back to it, throat tight.

But Izuku still trusts him. Still looks at Toshinori like he’s a hero — he always had, actually, even before he’d known Toshinori really was one. In light of that, what is one secret worth, especially when it could help so much?

Izuku had said his mother supported him, and Toshinori’s glad of it, really, he is, but she’s still only one person. Toshinori would only make two, of course, but as All Might he has a reach Izuku’s mother wouldn’t have.

Even if he… isn’t really All Might right now.

“... Yagi-san? Are you alright?”

Izuku’s worried voice snaps him out of his thoughts, and Toshinori shakes his head with a wry grin. “I’m fine, my boy. Just…” Toshinori takes in a deep breath, and slowly pushes it out. In, and out, the way Nana had taught him so long ago it almost feels like it was in a different life.

“Just tell him, or I will,” Komyo grumbles, and Toshinori barks out a laugh. Trust his daemon to hold him accountable when his nerves get the better of him.

Izuku’s eyes oscillate between Toshinori and Komyo. “Tell me what?”

Toshinori heaves another breath. “The truth is… The truth is, I am All Might — and that is how I know you can be a hero too.”

A silent pause, and then:

“Izuku, pinch me,” says Ketsu, turning urgent eyes on Izuku. “I think I’m dreaming.”

“... I think we’re both dreaming,” Izuku replies slowly, not taking his eyes off of Toshinori.

Komyo lets out a groan, trots forward, and uses her paw to swat at Ketsu’s ears — gently, of course, but in her equivalent to a pinch, probably. “There,” she says gruffly, “you’re not dreaming.”

Ketsu blinks slowly, and Izuku gapes.

“We’re… not dreaming?”

Toshinori chuckles. “No, my boy, you aren’t. I am All Might — truly. Now, I know it might be hard to believe when you see me like this,” Toshinori’s lips pull down into a self-deprecating smile as he gestures at himself — he’s fully aware that the way he looks these days doesn’t exactly make the words ‘number one hero’ come to mind, “but I assure you, I am not ly—”

Izuku shakes his head urgently. “No, no, it’s actually not that hard to believe?” Izuku flushes red. “I mean, I did kind of think that you looked sort of alike with, erm, All Might when we first met? And obviously, Komyo looked just like All Might’s daemon too — which I know isn’t proof, but makes perfect sense now! — and, erm, you kind of laugh the same as him too? I mean, as you.”

He frowns, visibly repeating his own words to himself in his own head. “You have the same laugh as All Might — or I guess All Might has the same laugh as you? And one time, when I asked you about vigilante rehabilitation programs, you said—”

“‘They’re a good idea but underfunded’,” Toshinori repeats alongside Izuku, recognizing the cadence of his own words. It had been one of the subjects he’d helped Izuku revise for his exam, but more than that, it was also—”

“All Might said the exact same thing during that interview on Japan News four years ago,” Izuku continues triumphantly. He blinks. “Or, erm, I mean, you said that?” He blinks again, and lets out a kind of strangled noise while Ketsu shifts into some kind of… small rodent and buries himself into the sand.

Toshinori arches an eyebrow. “I… didn’t know you’d listened to that interview.” It definitely hadn’t been one of his most popular ones — probably because Toshinori had tried to address real issues instead of talking about his past rescues the way interviewers preferred.

Izuku’s cheeks, impossibly, seemed to darken even more. “I, erm, listened to a lot of All Might’s interviews. Your interviews — ohmygod, you’re All Might!”

Realization seems to hit Izuku all over again, his eyes flowing wide open in a mix of horror and awe — and then his eyes roll to the back of his head and his knees buckle under him, and he faints.

When Izuku comes back to, his mouth tastes like sand. It crunches uncomfortably against his teeth, and he pulls a face, bending to the side to try to spit it out.

He doesn’t really succeed, and on top of that, he has to open his eyes and realize he’s just done that in front of All Might.

Ketsu had the right of it, he thinks mournfully. Izuku, too, would really love to be able to burrow himself into the sandy beach and hide from everyone. It would probably be less embarrassing than knowing that Yagi-san is All Might.

…

Oh god, had Izuku… said things? What had he said? All Might’s his favorite hero — is a lot of people’s favorite heroes — and he’s been hanging out around Yagi for weeks now, Izuku knows he’s mentioned All Might before.

“Are you alright, young Izuku?”

Arggh. All Might calls him by name — is it too late to flee the country and change his name? Kaa-san would probably help; she keeps saying his father works in America. They’d even have an in there.

The other half of All Might’s revelations finally catches up to him, and Izuku quickly sits up, uncaring for the way the sudden movement makes his head spin a little.

“You… You’re quirkless.” Izuku almost feels hysterical. “All Might’s quirkless? But how?”

It makes no sense. Everyone knows that All Might has some kind of strength quirk, that he… that he…

… Had All Might ever said he had a strength quirk? Had he ever mentioned a quirk at all?

Ngrk. Earlier, Yagi had said he’d let people assume, and it… Well, it fits. Impossibly, it fits. Izuku’s brain hurts.

Izuku runs through all of the All Might interviews mentioning All Might’s quirk he remembers, but all his brain can come up with is All Might laughing and smiling around the questions, saying stuff like, ‘A quirk like that would certainly be useful!’ or ‘Wouldn’t that be nice!’.

“You never actually said you had a quirk,” Izuku voices out loud.

Yagi smiles proudly. “Caught that, did you?” He huffs ruefully. “I’ve never had a quirk, much like you, but I had… something else.” His face twitches like he’s just tasted something sour, and he sighs. “And eventually, that something got me friends clever enough to help me… fake it. It’s amazing what you can do with good support equipment, really,” he adds with a wink.

That’s… not something Izuku would have considered. Of course, in his defense, real support equipment, designed by good support companies, are expensive — much too expensive for a student, really. But Izuku manages to get in somewhere… Well, hero schools usually have contracts with support companies — not to mention their own support courses.

Izuku only realizes he’s mumbling again when Komyo barks out a quiet laugh, and he cuts himself off with a squeaking sound, cheeks burning.

Somehow, it feels worse to ramble now that he knows who Yagi truly is, even though Yagi had only ever seemed to enjoy it.

“You said you had… something else helping you?” Izuku finds himself asking, desperate for a change of subject, mind latching on to the first thought that comes to it.

It takes him a beat, but Yagi nods. “I did, yes. It was given to me by my master — she saw something in me, and… Well, I guess the best way to say it is that she passed it on to me.”

Izuku frowns. “Like a family heirloom?”

Yagi laughs, and then seems surprised by it. “Ah— Yes, almost exactly like that, yes. She had inherited it herself from her master, and he from his.”

Mind racing, Izuku starts to imagine some kind of superweapon — lucky that quirks can’t be passed on, and All Might just admitted to not having one, or Izuku might have thought that was where he was leading him to.

“It served me well for many years. After we met, I actually thought that I— well, it matters little now, I guess.” Yagi heaves a long sigh — even Komyo’s tail drops in defeat. “I lost it. Not too far from here, actually,” he adds, with a humorless grin. “I was careless in a fight against a villain and… It fell out of my pocket.”

Unbidden, Izuku’s hand drifts to his own pocket, where a precious cargo sits. After Eri, he had thought it would be prudent to… carry it with him everywhere.

He should have thought of something safer than his pocket, though, Izuku thinks shamefully.

Letting his hand drop back to his side, Izuku licks his lips. “What was it? The thing you lost? Maybe I can help — the posters worked last time, didn’t they?”

Yagi’s lips twitch up into a grin even as he shakes his head. “I’m afraid this isn’t the type of object you’d want to advertise has gone missing.”

And All Might, Izuku reminds himself, is still officially missing, so it’s not like Yagi can use that to search more. He’d probably tried that first, come to think of it — maybe this is the super-secret mission nobody knows about! The one that took All Might away from active duty!

Which only makes it more important for Izuku to help!

He squares up his shoulders. “Well, I can still help you look, then. I kind of know this neighborhood,” better since the alethiometer had started sending him on these journeys too, “and two pairs of eyes are better than one!”

“He’s not wrong,” Komyo answers, grinning from ear to ear.

Yagi shoots her an annoyed look before returning to Izuku. “My boy… It might be dangerous. And this isn’t your responsibility. I was the one who foolishly lost it.”

Izuku crosses his arms and stares up at him mulishly. “I want to be a hero. I wouldn’t be a very good one if I ran in the other direction just because it might be dangerous.”

“I…”

“Let the kid help, Toshi. Better with us than have him try it on his own, anyway.” Komyo shoots Izuku an oddly knowing look for a dog before returning to her human. “You know he would.”

Izuku feels himself blush. He is suddenly glad that Ketsu is still hiding in the sound — at least this way his own daemon can’t call him out on it too.

There is a long moment of silence, only rhythmically ruptured by the sound of the waves breaking on the shore, until finally, Yagi sighs.

“I suppose you do know this neighborhood better — and it’s not like we’ve managed to get anywhere with our search yet.”

Inwardly, Izuku’s heart flutters in triumph. His hero is trusting him to help — quirkless, little nobody Midoriya Izuku; even though Izuku hasn’t managed to get into any hero school this year.

Outwardly, he swallows and nods. “I won’t disappoint you.”

“My boy, you could never.”

“So, what are we looking for?”

Yagi lets out a chuckle. “Well, I appreciate your enthusiasm at least.” He sighs. “Maybe we should sit down — this might take a few moments.”

He grimaces as he bends down — waving off Izuku’s concerns with a joke about his age, again.

Izuku sits down across from him, cross-legged, careful not to touch too much of the sand with his bare hands in case of some glass or other sharp object still hidden there. Ketsu, of course, chooses that moment to resurface, shifting back into a white seagull (he says it’s thematically appropriate, but really Izuku knows he just likes having wings).

“So, bear with me for a while, my boy, this will sound… a little unlikely.”

Izuku arches back an eyebrow, because really? After Yagi-san just revealed that he’s actually quirkless AND All Might?! Izuku thinks he can handle ‘unlikely’.

Yagi snorts wryly, inclining his head. “Ah, yes, I do see your point. But this is… different. It isn’t just about me.” He licks his lips and looks to his daemon, who nods back at him. “I… I don’t suppose you know much about alethiometers? They’re a rather obscure field of study, and they’re so rare I cannot remember if they’re really taught in classes at your age—”

“No,” Izuku blurts out, interrupting. His hands drift to his pocket, gripping it tightly - even through the cloth, Izuku can feel the metal bite into his fingers, hard and unyielding.

“Ah — yes, as I said, that’s no surprise. They’re… They’re this device that—”

Izuku shakes his head. “No, I meant… I know what an alethiometer is, I had to do a presentation on them for school and I looked into that experiment, you know, that they did at that one university? The one where they asked all kinds of people to come up and try to ask a question and—” Izuku cuts himself off, biting his tongue, aware that he’s started to ramble nervously again. Before Yagi can speak again, he tacks on, “Is that what you’re looking for, then?”

Beside him, Ketsu huddles closer, pressing himself against Izuku’s knee.

Yagi blinks. “Ah. Yes. It is — well deduced, young Izuku. So you see why I couldn’t exactly ask anyone to look for it.”

Distantly, Izuku nods. Of course Yagi couldn’t — hadn’t Izuku had these exact same thoughts when he’d considered handing what he’d found to the police? Weren’t they why he had ultimately decided not to — at least in part?

He swallows and licks his lips. “About that…”

“Yes?”

“IthinkIknowwhereitis.” At Yagi’s look of confusion, Izuku’s cheeks heat up and he repeats, eyes aimed down at his shoelaces, “I know where it is. I think.”

“You do?” Komyo scrambles up from where she’d been lying down, and Toshinori’s voice turns urgent. “Are you sure? Where— How do you…?”

Slowly, Izuku puts his hand in his pocket. “I’m pretty sure,” he says. “Unless there are two alethiometers lost in Musutafu somehow.”

In natural light, the alethiometer’s gold shines differently. It’s brighter, somehow. More eye-catching. It reminds Izuku how precious what he is holding is. How special. How rare.

It does not belong to him, no matter how useful it has been. “Here,” he says, twisting on his knees and awkwardly shuffling forward to press it into Yagi’s hands. “I found it,” he explains lamely.

Yagi looks at a loss, turning the alethiometer over in his hands to inspect it. Izuku sits back, cheeks burning again — he took good care of it, he thinks, but he’s suddenly terrified Yagi will find some scratch or nick he might have caused.

“Where was it?” Yagi asks quietly.

The story stumbles from Izuku’s lips quirkly: how Ketsu had accidentally caught sight of something in the gutter, how they’d brought it home and decided to try to find its owner, how they’d wondered if they should just give it to someone — or even just tell someone — and finally, how Izuku had ended getting used to asking it questions, though he omits saying he’d used it to try to find All Might himself several times.

(In retrospect, the alethiometer had pretty much led him right to All Might himself, and Izuku had dismissed it pretty much instantly… Whoops?)

Yagi stays silent while Izuku talks, Komyo growing more and more amused by his side while he only seems to get more confused.

“You’ve been able to read it? Without the books?”

Startled at hearing Komyo address him directly, Izuku jumps. He feels weird answering her, but she did talk to him, so Izuku nods. “I… Yes? Should I not have?”

But even as he says it, Izuku knows he shouldn’t have been. That the way he has found it so easy to guess at what the alethiometer tells him is at odds with what every study done before says is needed to interpret alethiometer answers.

Each symbol has dozens, if not hundreds of meanings. Academically, analyzing an alethiometer reading can take weeks, if not months — years, even, sometimes.

That Izuku only needs a few minutes… To call it unusual would be a misnomer.

“I told you so,” Komyo tells Yagi smugly, and Yagi nods back, giving her head a stunned pat.

“You did, yes,” he says. He sighs again, looks down first at the alethiometer and then back at Izuku. “It is… rare, to find someone able to read the alethiometer without using the books. Before you, I… I had only met one other person with that ability.” His fingers twitch around the alethiometer’s casing, and he swallows visibly.

“And you,” Ketsu pipes up. “You can do it too, can’t you?”

Yagi smiles ruefully. “I could, yes. I used to be better at it, however. Lately, my abilities to read the answers to the questions I asked has been… diminished.” He runs his hand through Komyo’s fur, and Izuku suddenly remembers the scars there. They look old — but then again, what does he know about the way scars heal on daemons?

Yagi fidgets with the alethiometer for a while longer, before holding it out.

For a long moment, Izuku just stares at it, nonplussed. It takes Ketsu picking at him with his beak for him to start moving again. “I— What? Really?”

“I want you to have it,” Yagi says. He’s smiling, but there’s little joy in it. He looks tired, but also hopeful, which is somewhat reassuring. It doesn’t stop Izuku’s hands from shaking as he accepts.

“Really?” he says, pulling the alethiometer back across his knees.

“Really,” Yagi replies, lips twitching. “It sounds like you’ve already been using it to do some good, and if you still want to be a hero… Well, you’re going to need it. Heaven knows I did.”

“It’s an alethiometer,” Izuku states faintly, fingers curling around it like the precious cargo it is. “It’s yours — and you’re just giving it to me?”

“It has, I suspect, been yours for some time now,” Yagi counters. He lets his grin widen. “Now, tell me more about your forays into vigilantism, that sounds like quite a story.”

Izuku splutters. “That’s not— I wasn’t— That’s not what it was,” he protests, even though, in retrospect, it probably was.

… It definitely was.

“Oh god,” he hears himself say. “Kaa-san can never know.”

Yagi laughs loudly, Komyo’s barking laughter not far behind, and Izuku considers throwing himself into the waves.

“We won’t tell her, my boy,” Yagi says once his laughter has quieted — his lips keep twitching though, and Izuku does not trust it.

And then he has to inwardly berate himself for saying he might not trust All Might.

“Now, if you don’t want to tell me about your adventures, what about asking a question? Surely you have some things you’d like answered still?”

It takes Izuku an embarrassingly long moment to realize Yagi means using the alethiometer, not just asking him.

“Oh.” Izuku fidgets with the cool metal in his hands, swallowing thickly. “I don’t know. I…” But a question comes to him already, and he swallows again. “I… might have something.”

Yagi’s eyes crinkle knowingly. “I thought you might.”

Izuku carefully opens up the alethiometer, heart fluttering nervously as the symbols are unveiled.

He knows this, has done it dozens of times by now — it still feels different, though, having an audience. Having All Might there.

Where’s Eri? Izuku asks, and turns the dials.

The not-man who brought her here is called Kurogiri. Eri knows this because she’s heard the people around here call him that, not because he’s offered. He isn’t… bad company, per se, but he’s so unsettling that Eri prefers to be alone than to be around him.

Junshin always shakes in her arms for a long time when Kurogiri is around. It is just… wrong, for someone to have no daemon and still be moving. When Overhaul took a daemon away, the person left as well.

(Except for Eri, of course, but Junshin always came back too. So it has to be different — it simply has to.)

There are only two other people in the… facility she was brought to. They both have daemons, but they make her almost as uneasy as Kurogiri. One of them is a doctor, and he has the same light in his eyes when he sees her that Overhaul did.

The other…

The other is bed-ridden, and nice, with a skittering spider daemon that always says hello to Junshin — and Eri absolutely does not trust him.

They probably think she does, of course. Eri is used to adults just assuming she thinks they know best. They do, sometimes — Overhaul had wanted to help her, because she’s cursed. Or he’d said he did, at least.

In the end, he’d just wanted to try to use her curse for himself, and he’d kept taking her apart to do it — but he’d pretended to be kind, too, in the beginning.

This man, this… All For One… He reminds Eri of him. Of the Chisaki before the Overhaul, even though she cannot recall that time very well.

But that’s why she knows she cannot trust him. He wants something. He took her, told her he wanted to help her — that he could help her with her curse — but he’s still keeping her inside.

She’s not locked in a dark room here, maybe, but she’s still locked inside. Eri tried, once, to leave.

A portal of swirling dark mist had opened right in front of her and deposited right back where she’d started, by All For One’s bedside, where he’d told her with a rasping voice that it wasn’t safe for her outside.

“We wouldn’t want you to get harmed, would we?” he’d said, but something about the way he’d said it had made Eri’s stomach roil.

She’d wished, back then and still now, that she could have stayed with Izuku. He’d been nice. Really nice, not fake nice like the people here, who only stayed that way until they took what they wanted and didn’t have to fake anymore.

She doesn’t like this place either. It’s clean, and big, so so far Eri hasn’t run out of places to explore — sometimes, the doctor asks her to sit with him and he takes readings of her and Junshin. He hasn’t taken blood yet, but Eri knows he has what Overhaul made, and his eyes shine with that mad gleam that says it’s only a matter of time before he will.

And then…

And then, Eri doesn’t know. She doesn’t think they have anyone here with a quirk that’d let them put her back together if they took too much — but she also hadn’t thought somebody could still move without their daemon, and they’ve proven her wrong on that already.

Junshin stays as a butterfly almost all the time here. She misses his weight in her arms a lot — he doesn’t weigh anything as a butterfly, and sometimes she starts and thinks he’s gone and her chest grows tight, because what if she’s like the other… things here now? Forever alone, with nobody to share the darkness with? That sounds so terrible Eri tries not to think about it.

She overhears things, though, while she wanders. The doctor and All For One, talking together about the thing they took from Overhaul.

About where it came from.

About what it — what she could do.

Eri always leaves quickly when they talk about that.

Sometimes, though, they discuss other things. Other plans — bigger plans. Somebody important has gone missing, she learns — All Might, All For One calls him derisively, but also using the enraged tone Overhaul had reserved for people who tried to touch him.

All Might is important to the plan — or maybe something he owns is? All For One needs it, anyway, and so he wants to find All Might.

“He would be no match for my Nomus,” the doctor says.

All For One gives a slow, rasping laugh. “No, I suppose not. Not after what happened the last time we met, anyway.”

“Of course, we still need to find him...”

“Oh, we don’t need to worry about that — do you remember how Musutafu’s police department has been dealing with some kind of vigilante lately?”

“Oh?”

All For One’s smile is audible in his next words, and despite herself, Eri shivers. “It seems like the police department has been unable to identify where our mystery player has been getting his information. Why, in fact, it almost seems like he conjures it out of nowhere…”

“It could still be a quirk.”

“Yes. And what an… interesting quirk that would be.”

The doctor laughs long and hard. “Oh, I see. Any idea on when we might be able to… host our new guest?”

“Soon. I’m just waiting for a few last pieces to fall into place — speaking of which…”

“Eri, why don’t you come in,” All For One’s daemon finishes for him, her voice drifting from above.

Eri’s heart ratchets up in her chest as she snaps her head up and finds herself staring into the spider’s many eyes. Even in the darkness, they glimmer menacingly.

She feels Junshin shift on her head, his hold tightening around her hair. “Don’t,” he whispers with a shaking voice, but Eri nods.

She knows they don’t really have a choice.

The door opens on its own when Eri walks toward it, and the daemon scuttles forward ahead of her. That range is impressive, and it makes Eri’s stomach twist uneasily again. Her arms feel empty without Junshin there — him trying to comfort her in this shape just doesn’t feel the same.

All For One is still in his bed, hooked up to all kinds of machines, but he’s sitting up this once. Somehow, despite the fact that Eri can’t make out his eyes, he stares right at her.

“Ah, Eri — welcome. I’m so glad you could join us.”

“Really? Now?” the doctor interjects, arching an eyebrow dubiously.

“No time like the present,” All For One replies. His mouth is covered with a breathing mask, but Eri still feels like he’s smiling. She doesn’t like it.

“Come closer,” he says. Eri feels like she’s moving through molasses as she does.

“Did you know,” he starts, his voice going almost soft, “I can take other people’s quirk for my own use?”

Eri’s heart stutters. “Like my curse?”

“Like your quirk, yes. I can sense that it’s… interesting. Very strong.”

“It’s bad,” Eri mumbles.

All For One snorts loudly, slashing a hand through the air. “Nonsense. It might be… dangerous, yes, but only because you cannot control it yet.”

Yet, he says, and Eri’s head spins. Her hands clench at her sides. “Can’t you just… take it?” she mumbles.

“Ah, not yet,” he replies, and his face turns toward the doctor. Eri’s eyes follow him, and she barely manages to hide the flinch that comes with it.

The doctor’s eyes are lit with a terrifying inner fire. His daemon is nowhere to be seen, but then again, she always is. Eri knows he has one, though, she can feel it — he just seems to have a very, very long range.

“I can help you control it… For now,” All For One continues, turning back to her.

Eri can feel her Junshin move up to protest, and she moves to speak before he can. He’ll get them in trouble if he does, and this isn’t Overhaul. She doesn’t want to find out what happens if they can’t put him back together too.

“What— What do you want me to do?” she asks.

Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe if she does well enough, he’ll even take back that ‘yet’ and take her curse — her quirk — away.

“Heal him,” the doctor interjects, his eyes hungry as they roam between them. “His injuries are beyond most healing quirks, but your quirk… your quirk seems to be able to restore things to the way they were when certain events took place. You can just… will the trauma away.”

Eri swallows, her throat tight. Under those eyes, she wants to hide — but hiding has never helped, and going along with it has always made things go faster.

She nods. “You can… You can stop it, though? If my curse… If it goes too far, you can stop me, right?”

“Eri, don’t—” Junshin tries to protest again, but Eri ignores him, twisting her fingers together as she waits for an answer.

“Of course I can,” All For One replies, leaning forward and grabbing her hands in his.

His hands are cool and dry — they don’t quite feel alive, and some instinct makes the hair on the back of her head stand up. Suddenly, Eri wants to run; but All For One tightens his hold on her hands, tethering into place.

“Whenever you’re ready, dear Eri,” he says, and his voice is soft but there is nothing in it. No feeling.

Eri shivers again, but nods. The faster she does this, the faster they’ll let her go. Let her retreat back to her room and hide.

Slowly, she starts to reach for the pool of… something that always swirls inside of her. She closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see what happens in case it goes wrong again, and lets the power wash over her.

It feels cold, like resting your burning forehead on cool stone. It builds and builds and builds, and Eri can feel the horn on her forehead start to finally shrink down.

She hates having to do this.

The hands in hers tighten and then fill up, feeling less like bones covered in skin and more like real hands. They warm up, too, until—

Everything stops.

“What?” Eri’s eyes snap open, and All For One lets go of her hands, unhooking the mask from around his face.

“See?” he tells her. “No harm done.”

This time, when he looks at her, Eri can see his eyes. Can see his smile, the way it makes his face crinkle, just a little.

If she hadn’t met Izuku before, hadn’t seen what a real smile should look like, Eri might have been fooled. But she has, and this smile is too… perfect. It’s like a picture of a smile pasted onto a face, all of its edges smoothed out until it looks like every smile out there but also none of them at all.

It makes Eri want to turn around and leave, even though she can’t.

“It worked?” Junshin croaks suddenly. Eri's heart skips a beat in worry, but All For One barely looks in her daemon’s direction.

“As I told you it would,” All For One replies. He stares down at his hands, turning them over and over, flexing his fingers. “Impressive,” he breathes out. “Truly remarkable.”

“Indeed,” the doctor echoes. “Are you sure we can’t—”

“Not yet,” All For One snaps out sharply, and the doctor falls silent, lips curled into a dissatisfied pout.

“As you wish.”

All For One turns to her again. “Now, Eri, why don’t we go get something to eat? You must be starving after all this exercise.”

She isn’t. Eri’s stomach is so tied up in knots she doesn’t think she could swallow anything.

She nods anyway, too eager to get out of this room.

All For One smiles and leads the way. Eri, heart heavy, follows.

“‘Join the Hero Commission,’ they said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ they said,” Eishi grumbles, wincing as he rolls his shoulders — he’s had a crick in his neck for the better part of this week, and nothing he’s tried has managed to get rid of it.

His computer, as though sensing Eishi’s about to insult it, beeps at him. Tough luck — it’s his fault Eishi’s in pain and they both know it.

“Fuck you,” he mouths back, deleting the message before he can read it — it’s another reminder to send in his reimbursement paperwork. Joke’s on them: Eishi doesn’t have anything to get reimbursed. The ‘joys’ of an office job.

“You know, nobody told me there’d be this much paperwork,” he grumbles again. This time, though, he's addressing his daemon, Hyouri.

She blinks beady eyes at him, and yawns widely. “Would you have said no if they had?” she retorts. “Because I seem to remember you being so desperate for food that wasn’t dry ramen you said ‘I’ll take anything, Hyouri, as long as I don’t have to hear ‘I’m sorry, but you’re just not the proper fit for our company’ again.”

Heishi pouts and tosses a paperclip at her. “I do not sound like that.”

“Sure, sure. I— Wait, somebody’s coming.” She jumps down from the computer screen she’d perched on, trusting the membrane between her wrists and ankles to let her glide down.

Once, Heishi had thought having a flying squirrel for a daemon was very cool: he got the best of both worlds, not just a bird, and not just a mammal. Now, he just wishes Hyouri would stop trying to fly everywhere when she doesn’t have to. She’s always insufferably smug about it, and more than once, Heishi has had to hurry up after her when she wandered a little too close to the edge of their range.

Luckily, this isn’t one of those times — not just because it’d hurt and Heishi is not a masochist, but mostly because their boss is the one who just walked into the office.

“S-Sir,” Heishi stutters.

Hakamawi just waves a hand dismissively. “Don’t mind me, Hamano. Just dropping some files with you — they’re top priority, okay? Make sure they get where they need to as soon as possible.”

Heishi whimpers.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, sir. I’m on it, sir.”

Hakamawi eyes him for a moment longer before nodding. “See that you are,” he states before spinning on his heels. His hyena daemon trails after him, shooting one last grin at Hyouri before she goes.

Once they’re both gone, Heishi shudders. “And would you like some ass-kissing to go with that,” he mumbles meanly, pulling the files toward himself. “Ow! You bit me!”

Hyouri ignores his look of betrayal pointedly. “And you need to be more careful what you say in this place.”

Heishi winces. “I know, I know — sorry.” He swallows and heaves a sigh. “Let’s see what we have here, then, alright?”

Hyouri nods.

“Let’s see…” Heishi unclips the first page and skims through it quickly — he’s not exactly supposed to do that, but how else is he supposed to make sure all the information gets to the right destination? “Midoriya Izuku, huh? Wonder who you are… Or what they want with you…”

“He’s suspected of having something to do with an information leak in the police department,” Hyouri states dryly into his ear. “And a connection with All Might. It’s written right there, too.”

Heishi shoots her an annoyed look. “I was getting to that, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replies primly.

The rest of the file is rather short, and pretty dry overall. It is fascinating, however, because of everything that’s not in it: a case number, or an agent assigned to it.

Instead, what’s written under the ‘contact’ field is simply a number — an office number. Heishi rather suspects if anybody were to call, they’d get a very generic ‘We’re sorry but the person you’re trying to contact is busy at the moment. Please try again later.’ message.

Of course, somebody trying to call the second time would get an actual agent, but… Well, there’s a reason Hyouri just told him he should be more careful in this place, and a reason why Heishi would love to quit his job but can’t.

Secrets. So many secrets.

He swallows, puts the file back together and stands up. Looks like he has a few copies to make, and a system to update before sending this off through the proper… channels. Especially if he wants this to go through as quickly as Hakamawi wants.

Sorry, Midoriya — whoever you are, Heishi ruefully thinks to himself as the printer whirs to life. Looks like you’re about to get some visitors.

Chapter Text

[Midoriya Izuku’s phone]

‘You have 6 new messages.’

‘Message received Today, at 4:37pm from Kaa-san’

“Hi, Izuku, it’s me. I’m just calling to tell you I might be home a little late tonight — Saki’s out sick today so we have to make up for her work… Anyway, can you pick up some eggs on your way home? I don’t think we have any left, and I was planning to get them, but I won’t have the time. There’s money in my desk drawer if you need it! Please be careful, I love you, see you soon!”

‘Message ended.’

You have 5 new messages.

‘Message received Today, at 8:13pm from Kaa-san’

“Hi, Izuku, it’s me again… Can you call me back, please? It’s okay if you stay out for a little while longer, but I need to know where you are. Just… Call me back, okay? And… Be safe, baby. I love you.”

‘Message ended.’

You have 4 new messages.

‘Message received Today, at 9:29pm from Kaa-san’

“Izuku, baby, where are you? I’m getting worried. I’ve called Origawa-san, but they told me they hadn’t seen you at the beach today, and Mitsuki told me Katsuki said he hadn’t seen you since classes ended… I’m getting really worried, please call me back.”

‘Message ended.’

You have 3 new messages.

‘Message received Today, at 9:59pm from Kacchan’

“... You better fucking call Auntie Inko, Deku! The old hag woke me up for this, I’m going to fucking kill y—

‘OI, BRAT, WHAT ARE YOU SHOUTING FOR?’

‘FUCK OFF, OLD HAG, THIS DOESN’T CONCERN YOU, I’M JUST—’”

‘Message ended.’

You have 2 new messages.

‘Message received Today, at 10:03pm from Mitsuki-san’

“Sorry about my brat of a son, he’s just worried, ahah. Speaking off — Inko’s freaking out, so give her a call, okay? Or she’s gonna storm the local police station and declare you missing, and trust me, nobody here wants that. Just… come home, kid, okay? Your mother’s waiting for you.”

‘Message ended.’

You have 1 new message.

‘Message received Today, at—’

Call ended.

Izuku pictures himself floating in a deep ocean, untethered from everything else in the world. The light does not reach him, sound is muffled — there is something he is missing, too, something that escapes him, slipping through his mental fingers every time he tries to reach for it.

It is something that makes his heart threaten to start racing, but whatever it is, it cannot reach him here.

Izuku drifts.

“Excuse me, Midoriya-san told us her son was helping you all out here?”

“Midoriya-kun, ‘helping out’? Tsk, this whole thing started off as his idea. Well, his and Yagi-san’s of course. Wish my grandkids would be so involved in taking care of this neighborhood — years we’ve been telling the city they need to do something about Dagobah beach and what did they do? Nothing, is what! But Midoriya-kun saw it and decided to help — did you know the kid wants to be a hero? I’m sure he’ll be great! He—”

“Erm, yes, thank you, ma’am. About Midoriya Izuku… Have you seen him recently?”

“Well, yes — oh, wait, no. He had that exam earlier this week, didn’t he? So he said he might miss a few days… He was here last week, though! Really hard at work, too… Such a good kid, really. I wish my—”

“Erm, erm. And what about this… Yagi-san, was it? Have you seen him recently? Do you know where we might be able to find him?”

“Oh, yes, of course! Well, he isn’t here today, of course, but he was there last time… He’s a gym teacher, I think? Or maybe coach, I never really got the difference. I think I have the address somewhere in my bag… Just let me find it — wait, why are you asking me all this? Did something happen to Midoriya-kun?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, ma’am. Now, if you could give us that address, we’ll be on our way…”

“Oh, hi, your assistant said you were the manager here? We just have a few questions regarding one of your employees? A… Yagi Toshinori?”

“What, why? Is he in some kind of trouble?

“Ah, no, sir, we’re just trying to… find him.”

“Did he do something? Because I have to tell you, that doesn’t seem like him at all.”

A snort. “Model employee, huh?”

“Well, yes. I know it must sound trite to you, but he’s just really good at his job. Enthusiastic, always greeting people with a smile, eager to help… Everybody loves him.”

“Oh, I bet.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing. Now, when did you say you last saw him?”

“I… didn’t. And I’m sorry, but if this isn’t some kind of official investigation, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You understand, of course.”

“... We do. And we’ll be in touch.”

“I’m sure.”

…

“Why did you agree to leave so easily? He could have told us something!”

“He wouldn’t — he’s already decided we’re government goons and he needs to protect his precious star employee from us.”

“But… we are government goons.

“Not the point. Anyways, we don’t need him — I got Yagi’s schedule on our way in, he’s not scheduled to work today, but he has a… a self-defense class tomorrow? Seriously?!”

“Well, if we’re right, he is the number one hero.”

“Ugh, yes — but all the more reasons why he shouldn’t be here — he should be out there, helping us!”

“Hey, I’m not disagreeing with you. Anyway, what now?”

“Well, now we come back tomorrow.”

“If he gets tipped off we’re looking for him?”

“Well, then things get interesting.”

“... Oh, do you think he has a safe? It’s been a while since I last got to break into one.”

“Place like this? Probably not. But if Yagi is who we think he is… And if he has what we think he has, then he’s probably keeping that in a safe.”

“So you think it’s really real, then? A real alethiometer, one nobody knows about?”

“Maybe. He definitely had something — and he should be using it for us instead of selfishly keeping it to himself.”

“Did you really have to hit him so hard?”

A sound, like somebody is shrugging. “We had to make sure he would be unconscious.”

“Hm. Well, I suppose if it comes down to it, I can always heal him.”

“It won’t. He’ll be perfectly fine — I told my Nomus to be careful with him. I’ll start bringing him out soon.”

“Good work. Keep me updated.”

“Of course.”

“Here.”

Something cold and hard presses against his lips and Izuku opens his mouth reflexively. Cool water slips in through his lips and Izuku swallows, slowly at first and then more greedily, realizing suddenly how parched he is.

The voice laughs and the glass retreats. “Easy — wouldn’t want you to choke now, would we?”

Izuku whines, mind still too sluggish and slow to form real words. It feels like he’s swimming through molasses: everything is hard and exhausting — all he can care about is that water, and it coming back.

“Mmh. Maybe I should have waited a little longer to pull you out,” the voice says.

The words make a faint alarm ring at the back of Izuku’s mind, where a dull throb persists — but then the water returns, and he loses track of it.

This time, Izuku makes the effort to drink more slowly, and the voice chuckles. It makes the water in his stomach roil uneasily, and Izuku stops drinking.

“Done?” the voice asks.

Izuku croaks out something he hopes is a yes, but it’s hard to say for sure. His mouth still feels stiff and unwieldy, his lips and tongue not quite obeying him.

“Good.” Something snaps right next to his ear and Izuku jumps in his seat, eyes flowing open.

Huh. He hadn’t even realized they’d been closed before.

The face in front of him is blurry at first, but after Izuku blinks a few times, it comes into focus.

The man in front of him, leaning over a metallic table with a jovial kind of smile under a bushy mustache, is vaguely familiar.

Izuku frowns, brain still running sluggishly as he tries to remember where he’d seen him before.

In the end, it is the lab coat that clues him in.

“Doctor… Tsubasa?” Izuku asks.

The man’s grin widens. “Young Midoriya! I didn’t think you would remember me! And it’s Ujiko, actually.”

Izuku blinks. His next words are still slow, his tongue a little stiff, but they come more easily than before. “It was a very memorable day for me,” he says ruefully.

Ujiko (apparently?) laughs. “Of course, of course. Quirkless, in our age… Truly wonderful.”

Izuku shivers. It’s the first time he’s heard his quirklessness referred to as such, and the excited gleam in the doctor’s eyes suddenly feels far more menacing than jovial. He swallows, then blurts out a disbelieving, “Wonderful?”

“Yes, yes, of course. To be a blank canvas like you are… Opportunities like yours almost never happen anymore — ah, the things we could have done if I had managed to… Well, it matters little now, I guess. You’re here. And with such precious cargo too…”

Heart pounding in his chest, mind struggling to understand what Ujiko — the quirk specialist his mother had taken him to see when he’d been six, when it had started to become clear his quirk wouldn’t come — is saying, Izuku shakes his head.

“I… What?”

Unbidden, his eyes fall on the table in front of him. Its surface is bare and the metal shines a cold, harsh silver in the light — not that Izuku cares much for that as soon as his eyes fall on what lies at the center of the table.

He lurches forward in his seat — and is jerked back instantly as the tight binds securing his wrists, ankles and waist to the chair make themselves known.

Had they always been there? How had he missed those before? Heart racing so fast it threatens to burst out of his chest, Izuku pushes at the bindings again. The chair rocks a little, and his stomach lifts with hope, and then — a cry of pain.

Izuku freezes, his heart in his throat, mind blank with panic.

And then the pain hits. It is everywhere and everything, all-encompassing in the way Izuku has only felt once before: when that kid’s daemon had taken Ketsu and carried him away, stretching their range beyond its limits.

Only this isn’t that. Ketsu is still inside their range, he hasn’t been taken away, he is just…

He is being hurt.

Somebody, or something, is hurting Izuku’s daemon and it feels like his soul is being ripped apart.

“Now, now, I remember you being a well-behaved boy,” Ujiko says, with the same soft and gentle smile he’d used to tell Izuku he would never have a quirk, but it was nothing to be afraid of.

That smile now makes Izuku want to vomit.

“Let him go, please,” he hears himself beg.

“And you won’t try to free yourself again? That was very rude, you know. After I made sure those cuffs were padded well enough they wouldn’t leave bruises…”

“I promise,” Izuku sobs. “I promise.”

Ketsu, he bites back, hiccupping another sob — and then as suddenly as it had appeared, the pain stops.

Izuku heaves in relief, slumping forward as far as his bindings will allow. His face is wet, and he feels like he’s just come out of the worst flu of his life, but Ketsu isn’t in pain anymore.

“Izuku!” he hears his daemon shout. “Izuku! I’m okay!”

Izuku’s lips let out another wet sob, this time stained with relief, and he croaks back and, “I’m fine!”, even if it isn’t quite true.

“I’m fine,” he repeats, eyes quickly searching the room until he finds — and there he is. Izuku’s heart lurches as he finally sees where Ujiko has been keeping his daemon.

Ketsu is in a cage. It is big — far bigger than needed for the small form his daemon prefers, but not so big that Ketsu would be able to shift into the bigger shapes he can use without getting hurt.

The bars on the sides of the cage are so tightly welded that the only way Ketsu would be able to escape is if he turned into a fly, and even then, Izuku thinks it might be a tight fit.

As Izuku watches, a dark hand withdraws from the top of the cage, slamming it shut behind it. The figure it belongs to is too deep into the shadows to see clearly, but even the shape of its presence makes Izuku’s stomach roil and his mind scream with this is wrong, this is wrong.

He swallows, shares one last long look with his trembling daemon — oh, how he wishes he could be holding him right now — before turning back to Ujiko.

“What…” He licks his lips and tastes salt. “What do you want?”

Instead of answering the question, Ujiko leans back in his chair and sighs. He crosses his hands in front of him on the table — out of reach of the alethiometer, Izuku notes with no small amount of relief.

For a moment, Ujiko just eyes him almost… curiously. No, not curiously. Hungrily. Like Izuku is some puzzle he can’t wait to solve, or some new mystery he’s eager to dissect.

It makes Izuku’s mind flutter with panic, and is almost enough to make him try to free himself again — but the memory of the pain he’s just felt freezes him in his seat.

Later, he tells himself with a resolve he doesn’t quite feel. Later, when Ujiko isn’t there anymore and he and Ketsu are alone — that’s got to happen at some point, right? — Izuku will try to escape.

In the meantime, Ujiko clearly wants something from him. The way he’d taken Izuku — and Izuku still cannot remember how that happened, nor how long it has been (god, he hopes it hasn’t been too long. Kaa-san must be worried sick!) — the way Izuku had woken up still drugged with who-knows-what, Ujiko’s utter calm while that… thing grabbed Ketsu and hurt him…

All of this speaks to something far more dangerous than Izuku is equipped to handle — and yet handle it he has to.

At least, it seems like Ujiko wants something from him. Izuku can’t imagine having something like the alethiometer falling in the hands of this, this villain would lead to anything good, but if he’s anything like everyone else, he probably can’t use it without the books of readings, or at least, not well.

Which means…

Which means that he needs Izuku. For what, Izuku doesn’t know, but maybe if he finds out… No, when he finds out, maybe he can use that once he’s escaped. Report them to the heroes.

As long as Izuku is needed, too, Ujiko will keep him alive. Somehow, Izuku doesn’t think someone who is so… blasé about hurting somebody else’s daemon would have much qualms about — Izuku swallows — killing him if he became useless. So Izuku has to buy time, and not be useless. Surely… Surely, Kaa-san will have already reported him missing. It can’t have been too long, but Kaa-san probably wouldn’t wait very long anyway. She has a sense for sniffing out when Izuku’s in trouble.

Real trouble, at least.

And if Kaa-san reports him missing, then that means people will get involved. The police, at the very least, and if someone can get a hold of Yagi-san — of All Might...

Hope ignites in his chest, and Izuku almost cries from it. He is far from safe, but he almost feels saved already. He will get out of here; Izuku just knows it.

“What do you know about Dust?”

Ujiko’s voice, coming after so long, startles Izuku out of his thoughts and he jerks his head up.

“Huh?” He frowns. “What does that have to do with why I’m here?”

Ujiko smiles that same grandfatherly smile he had before — the one that says ‘you are a child and I know better than you’ and ‘I am a kind, gentle old man and you should trust me’.

Izuku had fallen for it once before — he doesn’t think he ever will again.

Ignoring Izuku’s question, Ujiko repeats his. “It’s simple: what do you know about Dust?”

Izuku swallows and licks his lips. “I… Not much,” he says, which is true, at least. “I know it’s the stuff that makes up our daemons,” that much, everybody knows, “and that there was some old, pre-quirk era research into it that was… pretty much terminated even before the advent of quirks.”

Ujiko lightens. “Yes. Yes. And do you know what they found?”

Izuku frowns. “I thought they didn’t find much of anything? And that’s why the research was terminated? It cost too much money and didn’t bring in enough results, and then a few years later quirks appeared and everyone got into researching that instead, and so researching Dust kind of… stopped. Mostly,” Izuku adds, because he’s pretty sure those universities doing alethiometer studies are also doing some Dust studies.

He shrugs, trying to indicate that this is all he knows — because it is all that most people know. All that the schools teach anymore. Trying to find more is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. No, a needle in a stack of needles — only all the needles have disappeared a long time ago and all you are left with is the picture somebody took of that pile of needles.

Pre-quirk era records are… sparse. And usually very, very restricted, especially when it comes to sensitive material.

And Dust research definitely is sensitive.

When Izuku risks a glance up, Ujiko looks disappointed, and Izuku starts to fidget with his seat, digging his fingernails into the soft wood where he can reach it.

“Dust,” Ujiko starts to say, “is so much more than what makes up our daemons. It is what makes all of us. The world — the universe, even. Dust runs in everything. Dust runs everything. And yes, daemons share a closer, deeper connection to it, but… eventually, everything returns to the Dust.”

Ujiko’s voice takes on a fervent tone, and his eyes grow fever-bright as he continues to speak. “What do you think makes your little device work?” He looks down to the alethiometer, fingers twitching toward it before he reins them in. “Dust, of course. Somehow, an alethiometer is able to use the currents of Dust that flow around all of us and translate them into answers we can understand.”

He sighs again. “As for that research… They were visionaries. Ahead of their time — I’ve been able to salvage and recreate some of their work thanks to my benefactor, but… Unfortunately, much of it has been lost to me.”

Izuku senses that he will regret asking, but some part of him can’t help but wonder — what had they found?

When the words stumble from his lips, Ujiko gives him his most terrifying smile yet.

“I knew you’d understand,” he says, grinning eagerly. “I saw it in your eyes — you have a wondering spirit. A questioning mind, just like I do.” His eyes flicker to the alethiometer. “I wonder if… Ah, but no, it is not that simple.”

Feeling sick, Izuku spits out, “I’m not like you.”

Ujiko chuckles. “Deny it all you want, but there is still some part of you that wants to know everything. That questions everything.”

Speechless, Izuku shakes his head. His eyes find Ketsu again, pleading with him for… something, and Ketsu stares back silently. Over this much distance, Izuku doesn’t dare to say anything out loud, not when they’ve got such dubious company; and clearly, Ketsu feels the same way. Still, just being able to read the trust in his daemon’s eyes eases the vice around his lungs.

When he looks away, Ujiko is talking again. “As for what they’d found… Did you know... There was once a knife so sharp it could cut through the fabric of the universe. I have tried to recreate it using quirks, but alas... My attempts were... imperfect.”

“That’s not possible.”

Ujiko laughs. “Oh, I assure you, it is very possible. Unfortunately, it was found to be… not as effective as they’d hoped, and the requirements…” He shakes his head. “Far too many people faltered in the face of what the science truly required, and the experiments were hushed up and buried. A shame, really, when we know what they could do… A way to use Dust as energy… Imagine the possibilities!”

Izuku tastes bile in his mouth, and tries to swallow it back through his tight throat. “You’re speaking of the severing experiments,” he says, and is proud of the way his voice doesn’t shake.

Ujiko nods, his grin more suited to a proud parent seeing their child learn a new trick than to anyone talking about what had been, and still is, one of humanity’s greatest crimes.

“Of course,” Ujiko says while Izuku tries not to get sick. “The bond between a human and their daemon is… powerful. Infused with Dust — and really, why do we even need a daemon? If we could use them, utilize their Dust in some way… Imagine the power we could gain!”

Horror and dread replace the sick feeling in his gut, covering it and smothering it until they’re all that remains. “You’re insane,” he breathes out. “Severed people… Everyone knows you can’t live severed from your daemon!”

Once, when Izuku had been… eight, their class had had a showing of an old documentary on war crimes in the pre-quirk era — ‘see how much better, how much more civilized we are now,’ had been the theme of it, really, but Izuku remembers the part where they’d talked about severed prisoners of war the clearest.

It had only been the shortest of mentions, really — less than a minute, at most, as though the producers had known they needed to keep that part hidden because it was too horrible to consider — Izuku can still see it. He still has nightmares about it sometimes, even now. The way the people in those pictures had looked… Dead and empty despite still being alive, clutching their daemons to their chest and not recognizing them...

Izuku hadn’t been the only child to throw up that day, nor had Kaa-san been the only one to pick a fuss about it with the school’s administration.

As far as Izuku knows, that film has never been shown again since that year.

Ujiko sighs longly. “Of course, the process isn’t complete yet — but living without a daemon is entirely possible. See?”

He nods at something in the distance, and the figure Izuku had only glimpsed before as it withdrew from Ketsu’s cage steps into the light.

Its grotesque, inhuman form almost makes him gag. Its skin is dark, but not in a natural way. It almost looks oily somehow, and Izuku avoids looking at — unfortunately, that only means staring into the creature’s face and…

It looks wrong. Not entirely emotionless, somehow, but instead of that being a relief it only fills Izuku with more dread. And then the creature turns and…

And…

Izuku gags again as he catches sight of the exposed brain.

How, he wonders, feeling half-mad, can anyone look at that thing and not feel how wrong it is? How can they look at it and call that living?

“This is one of my Nomus,” Ujiko says, pride dripping from his every word like some sickly, cloying honey.

The Nomu steps closer into the light, and Izuku sees the wings, huge and stretching behind it, and his mouth grows dry.

Suddenly, he is little again, watching a flying daemon carry Ketsu away while his daemon fails to fight it.

After all, when even its human had a wing quirk, what chance did Ketsu have, with no quirked human of his own to bolster himself?

“Tsubasa?” he breathes, feeling sick again.

The Nomu doesn’t react. Tsubasa’s daemon — Izuku can’t remember if she had even settled before the other boy had left, but she had liked taking huge, winged forms. Even after what she had done, Izuku had admired her for that — is nowhere to be seen.

Ujiko blinks in surprise at the name, eyes flickering between Izuku and the Nomu-that-was-Tsubasa. “Oh, right, you two grew up in the same neighborhood, didn’t you? I didn’t realize you must have known each other.”

Swallowing thickly, Izuku nods. He cannot take his eyes off the Nomu, silent and still but for an almost aborted swaying into place — as though it was trying to reach for something, and then remembering it wasn’t there anymore; and then forgetting it had already tried and doing it all over again.

“We… had friends in common,” he hears himself say. “What… What happened to him? Did you…” sever him? he doesn’t say — can’t even get the words out, even if the result is right in front of him.

Ujiko scoffs. “Him? No.” He almost sounds disappointed now. “I didn’t get the chance to try it before he… well, before he fell.”

Tsubasa had an accident, Ujiko reveals. Izuku is still struck numb with horror, but for some reason, he can hear every word.

Tsubasa’s parents sent him to his grandfather after an incident at school, Ujiko says, before chuckling and telling Izuku, as though he is telling him a secret in confidence, that he was the grandfather — a youthful mistake, he calls his son, and then chuckles to himself again, as though that was a funny joke.

And then Tsubasa had some kind of accident once he was there. Broke his neck. Ujiko describes it clinically, his voice only coloring with feeling once he starts telling Izuku about the way he’d managed to save something of his grandson.

“His daemon wasn’t quite gone yet, you see. Did you know, when someone is teetering on the edge of death, their daemon will sometimes just, flicker? It is a beautiful sight. And if you’re quick about it, you can harness it. Do great things with it.”

He looks to the Nomu again, gaze half-fond, half-proud. “He isn’t my best work, of course, but…” He shrugs and turns back to Izuku. “Do you see, now? Sometimes you need to push a few boundaries in the name of progress.”

“That’s not progress,” Izuku blurts out, before biting his cheeks so hard he tastes blood.

Luckily, Ujiko doesn’t appear to take offense. He only looks disappointed again.

Keep him talking, Izuku reminds himself.

“What does this have to do with quirks?” he asks, mind latching on the first thing it can think of. As if on auto-pilot, Izuku continues, “Earlier, you said something about me being quirkless, and how that’s a blank canvas — but none of what you said involves quirks.”

Ujiko laughs, the proud, excited gleam back in his eyes.

“Ah, yes. That — did you know there is an intense debate in the scientific community regarding the origin of quirks? It’s been going on for… oh, over a century now.” He chuckles, but doesn’t wait for Izuku to answer.

“Some people believe it was some kind of quantum event, made manifest — but of course, that is ridiculous. Adding the word quantum in front of something doesn’t make it magically more plausible than anything else.” He laughs again, the sound grating and mocking. “Others have theorized a force we don’t know yet — which, really, is them trying not to use the word ‘magic’ — or a cosmic radiation event, even though humanity would probably have died out then. Somebody even offered up alien visitation once, early on, but of course they were shut down rather quickly…”

“What do you think it is, then?”

“Oh, I think the why matters far less than the how, in the grand scheme of things — although, of course, the two are connected. But quirks, much like daemons, seem to be a manifestation of Dust — one specific to each individual. Isn’t that simply fascinating?”

It is fascinating. Izuku can’t deny that, though he would hate to know how exactly, the doctor managed to get this information. The connection between quirks and daemons has been established since pretty much the advent of quirks — how else would daemons be able to access their human’s quirks? — but as far as Izuku knows, it’s been assumed to be a manifestation of the connection between human and daemon rather than Dust-related.

Which, in a way, was Dust-related anyway, since that connection links back to Dust too.

But if quirks are a manifestation of Dust and quirkless people don’t have one, then… What does that mean?

The doctor laughs. “I can see your brain churning from here. You want to know what this means for you, right?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and Izuku slowly exhales in relief.

“It’s quite simple, really. We all only have a certain amount of Dust — children have more, adults a little less. Some say it’s used up by life, others simply by our daemons settling and then living, but that’s not what matters here. What does is that quirks, as a manifestation of that Dust, use it in the same way a daemon does. So you, as a quirkless person, would seem to have more Dust at your disposal than a quirked individual your age. Their quirk is usually… in the way, so to speak.”

Izuku shivers. Somehow, in this case, he can’t imagine having more Dust at his disposal — whatever that even means — will lead to anything good.

“Oh, the things I could have done...” Ujiko sighs to himself, before shaking his head ruefully. “But I’m getting away from the point — and seeing as you are here now, with this…” He points at the alethiometer again. “Well, perhaps it was indeed better I stay away.”

“Earlier, you asked me why you were here… Well, we — I need you to answer a question.”

Izuku swallows and lets out a nervous question. “And what makes you think I’ll know the answer?” he asks, trying to discreetly pull at his bindings again. His wrists feel sweaty now; they are far more slippery. As Ujiko had told him before, they weren’t tied on too tightly. Maybe Izuku can—

Ujiko laughs, freezing the blood in Izuku’s veins. Blood thumping in his ears, Izuku leans back in his chairs, trying as hard as he can to make it look like he hadn’t been doing anything.

Izuku needn’t have bothered. Ujiko’s eyes burrow straight into his, yes, but his attention is elsewhere.

Ujiko leans over the table and taps the alethiometer’s casing with his nail.

“Oh,” he says, “I'm sure you can figure it out.”

Izuku swallows again. Ujiko is looking at him now, and Izuku feels pinned under the doctor’s intense gaze, like a dead rat ready to be dissected.

“Just one question?”

Ujiko smiles. “To start with.”

“Don’t do it, Izuku!” Ketsu shouts, and the muscles in Ujiko’s forehead twitch. The Nomu steps forward again and Ketsu backs away, shifting into a mouse and huddling in a corner, trying to stay out of reach. Still, Izuku knows his daemon — he knows Ketsu is still trying to tell him not to do it.

And of course Izuku won’t. He’s not stupid: Ujiko’s all but admitted it’d start with one question, and then it wouldn’t end.

But… They need to buy time. Izuku had no idea how long he’s been missing for already, or how long there might still be before a rescue might come. He does know that Ujiko seems to… like him, which makes him feel like ants are crawling over his skin but also doesn’t seem to guarantee he won’t hurt Ketsu again, at which point Izuku doesn’t know that he just won’t cave in — only this time he’d be too hurt to resist after.

Even now, he can still feel his muscles aching from what had happened earlier.

Maybe… Maybe Izuku can give a false answer, though. Ujiko can’t be able to read the alethiometer like Izuku can — otherwise, there’d be no need to keep him around like this — which means he might not be able to tell if Izuku… well, if Izuku lies to him.

… Of course, Izuku doesn’t know what Ujiko’s quirk is. Or who else might be around — the doctor keeps slipping up and using ‘we’, after all, which definitely implies he’s not working alone.

Not that Izuku thought he was — somehow, Ujiko seems like the type to get lost in his research without somebody to turn him in the right direction. Or in this case, all the wrong directions.

So outright lying might be out… Izuku bites his lips, mind racing — all this really gives in is to tell some of the truth. Just enough that it sounds like Izuku told all of it, but while still withholding enough of the important parts that it won’t really help the villains.

Hopefully.

Lying without lying. Izuku bites back a hysterical chuckle — well, at least he has practice. Though at least Kaa-san didn’t threaten to torture his daemon when she asked Izuku where his bruises had come from...

Casting one last look toward Ketsu, willing him to understand Izuku’s plan, Izuku swallows and nods.

“I’ll need to be able to use my hands,” Izuku says, voice shaking a little. Still, he manages to hold Ujiko’s gaze — though he isn’t quite sure how.

Out of the corner of his eye, Izuku sees the Nomu inch closer to Ketsu’s cage and his heart beats so hard it hurts. Ujiko shakes his head though, and the Nomu stills.

Izuku breathes again. “I’ll need to turn the dials,” he says, hands sweaty around the wood of the armrests. “I don’t… I don’t know if it’ll work as well if somebody else does it.”

Ujiko hums and strokes his chin. “And I can trust you to behave?”

Izuku swallows. “The rest of me will still be tied up,” he points out. He doesn’t look toward Ketsu, nor the Nomu, and somehow his voice doesn’t shake this time.

Ujiko grins jovially again, chuckling. “Yes, I suppose that is true. And my Nomu will move faster than you do, anyway.”

Izuku can’t quite suppress his flinch as the doctor stands up, his chair’s legs scrapping loudly against the floor.

“I suppose we needed to make some arrangements anyway,” he says, stepping around Izuku and moving behind his field of vision. Izuku’s heart starts to pound again.

“What—”

“No need to worry, this is all harmless — but well, you could hardly expect us to resist the opportunity to measure a spectacle like an alethiometer reading properly. Especially a real alethiometer reading,” the doctor says, coming back into view, rolling some kind of machine behind him. It is unlike anything Izuku’s ever seen before, but it does remind him of those heart rate-measuring machines in the TV shows Kaa-san likes. Only with more wires, and a headset.

Ujiko makes quick work of it. The electrodes settle on his forehead smoothly, so cold Izuku shivers again — though that could also just be from having the doctor standing so close.

He attaches the wires that don’t go to the headset to something on Izuku’s back and finally, finally bends down to unstrap his wrists.

“Remember,” he starts, and Izuku cuts him off.

“No running,” he promises, though he silently adds yet.

Ujiko smiles and pats him on the shoulder. “Good. Now, you’re ready.”

He steps back but doesn’t return to his chair on the other side of the table, instead hovering to Izuku’s left, next to the machine. He flicks a switch, and the machine whirs to life — is Izuku imagining it, or did he feel a prickle on his forehead, where the electrodes rest?

Throat almost too tight to breathe properly, Izuku lifts his hands and picks up the alethiometer. Doing so pulls at the bindings around his waist, almost cutting off his respiration, and Izuku leans back in his chair thankfully, setting the alethiometer down on his knees.

Looking down at it, gleaming golden in the light, Izuku is suddenly hit with the certainty that he’s making a mistake. That he shouldn’t be doing this.

But what other choice does he have?

Surely it can’t be that bad, he tells himself.

Out loud, he says. “What—” His voice dies and he clears his throat. “What question should I ask?”

Ujiko’s eyes shine hungrily as he answers. “How do we get the energy we need?”

Stomach sinking, Izuku starts to spin the little dials. He tries to take as much time as he can, but even so, he knows he is going far more quickly than anyone else would in his situation — except perhaps All Might, apparently.

Finally, as he settles on the third and last image — the Moon, for the mystery presented to him, and to help him know what he needs to conceal in his answer — the final needle stirs and starts to spin.

Beside Ujiko, his machine starts growing louder.

Izuku’s stomach roils — he’d been half hoping the reading would fail. He almost wishes he could close his eyes, but instead they’re riveted to that needle, tracking the way it moves, spinning faster and faster, only pausing minutely over the answering images.

As the alethiometer gives Izuku its answer, Izuku’s stomach only sinks lower and lower. His mouth runs dry — Ketsu had been right, and that little voice at the back of his head too: Izuku shouldn’t have done this.

Not when… Not when this is the answer.

“Well?”

Izuku blinks, only now realizing that the needle’s stopped moving. That the alethiometer is done.

“What did it say?” Ujiko insists.

“I…” Izuku blinks. “Dust,” he blurts out, because that is what the alethiometer told him to say. “The answer is Dust.”

He only hopes it is the right one.

From the way the doctor’s smile widens, baring his teeth, Izuku thinks it might not be.

Chapter Text

“Students, can I please have some quiet?” Ishihara-sensei asks. “I have an announcement to make.”

It takes the extras a little time, but they do quiet down, and Katsuki perks up a little in his seat. Announcements at Aldera aren’t common — this might cut through the monotony at least somewhat.

“As you might have, erm, noticed,” Ishihara-sensei continues, tugging at his collar nervously, “Midoriya has been… absent since yesterday. Now, Midoriya-san reported her son’s disappearance to the police, and today a police detective will be coming here to ask you some questions about the last time you saw Midoriya.”

Of course, the instant he finishes speaking, the room bursts into noise again, and no amount of calling for quiet can make those extras keep it down.

Katsuki tunes them out, scowling deeper into his shirt. Chikara, of course, seems as impressed by the ruckus as he is, and looks as though she’d much rather be flying outside than stuck in here.

Katsuki gets that entirely. Now that he got his UA entrance letter — first place, too, as he’d always known he would do — coming every day to Aldera to finish the year seems even more pointless than it had been before. And now that Deku is missing… once again stealing the attention that should be Katsuki’s…

Well, let’s just say this class just got even more infuriating — Katsuki had gotten enough of this at home, where the old hag had spent hours alternating between trying to console Auntie Inko and haranguing the neighborhood into starting up a search party already.

He kicks his desk, loudly, and the class falls silent. Sheep — all of them.

“Can we just get this lesson started now?” he says in a drawl, not even looking at the teacher — not that Ishihara-sensei even deserves that title, with how useless he is.

As if on cue, the man speaks. “A-Ah, yes. Today, we were going to review polynomial functions. Now, who can tell me what—”

Ugh.

Katsuki shares an exasperated look with his daemon, and settles for another long day of wishing he could just be at UA already.

The police detective Ishihara comes in late enough in the afternoon that Katsuki can see almost everyone had forgotten he was supposed to show. Katsuki hadn’t, but he had been starting to think that maybe there was some truth to Auntie Inko’s rants, and that the police were truly as useless as they looked.

He’s a rather tall man, but rather bland beside that. No discerning feature, and the kind of face you could see anywhere. He’s not really somebody you’d notice, and Katsuki dismisses him almost immediately, just as Chikara does his monkey daemon.

He introduces himself as Detective Tsukauchi, and smiles.

“This won’t take much of your time, I can assure you,” he tells Aribata-sensei, and Katsuki snorts when he hears some of the extras complain at that.

Tsukauchi’s lips twitch up, but he maintains a polite smile as though he hadn’t heard a thing anyway.

Aribata-sensei smiles thinly back at him. “Of course, of course. Take all the time you need. We’re all… deeply concerned about young Midoriya’s situation, and are eager to see him return.”

Chikara scoffs quietly, and Katsuki clenches his fists tightly — what a lovely bunch of bullshit that was. Every teacher in this school is a fucking hypocrite — at least when Katsuki went off at Deku, he didn’t try to pretend he liked the useless nerd the next moment.

Tsukauchi, at the very least, does seem to have at least one brain cell, because a muscle in his jaw jumps. “I… see,” he says, before his face smoothes over. “Then you won’t mind if I start right away, will you?”

“O-Of course not,” Aribata-sensei stutters out. “Go ahead.”

One by one, the detective calls out the students into the corridor. It takes only a handful of minutes every time, but Katsuki can see that this will take the majority of their class time anyway, which seems to gleefully delight the extras behind him.

Aribata-sensei could try to keep going with her lesson, of course, but she’s not that good of a teacher. That, and her useless butterfly daemon is clearly trying to spy on what all of the extras are saying.

Katsuki works on the math worksheet while he waits for his turn — and finally, that detective peeks his head back into the class and calls out his name.

Katsuki scowls as he stands up, and Chikara slithers after him. By now, the class has been rearranged to make sure she can fit in between the rows — she’s not that big, for a dragon, but she’s still the biggest daemon in their school (except for those unsettled kids who sometimes try to play at being tough) — so it’s easy for her to step in after him.

To her credit, Tsukauchi’s daemon doesn’t appear intimidated by her — not even when Chikara bares her sharp, sharp teeth. He barely even flinches either, seemingly only looking down from his notes to make sure Katsuki’s who he says he is.

The questions are standard: when had he last seen Deku, where had he last seen Deku, how had he been then, did he give any indication he might be willing to run away or… do something drastic the last time Katsuki had seen him?

Katsuki scoffs and scowls at all of them, and tells him, “‘Last week’, ‘Here’, ‘Fine, I guess’, and ‘Hell no’.”

The last one makes his chest grow tight and his fingers twitch with the need to blow up something.

“‘Hell no’,” he repeats, and Tsukauchi arches back an eyebrow, finally looking up from his notes.

“Are you certain? Some of your classmates have been hinting that—”

“Fuck them,” Katsuki interrupts. Chikara digs her claws into the floor, sending shards of wood flying. “They don’t know Deku like I do — nerd’s too fucking obsessed with his stupid useless dream and crying at everything to… to do anything.”

“So his behavior didn’t change recently? No… unexplainable variation in his normal behavior?”

“What do I look like, his keeper? I don’t care what he fucking does with his time,” Katsuki spits out, but his mouth runs dry and he has to swallow.

Because the truth is…

The truth is, Deku had changed. Not that Katsuki had cared, or even been watching — he had other goals and better things to do with his time than to chase after fucking Deku again, and after… After, Katsuki’s focus had needed to be entirely on his dream. On getting in UA, and becoming number one. Being better than All Might.

And he’d done the first, just like he’d planned.

But while he’d been doing that, Deku had…

Deku had what? Katsuki snorts to himself. He doesn’t know what Deku had done. Just that one day he’d started mumbling in class again, a new kind of fever in his eyes — even his dumb fucking notebooks had changed.

And he’d kept muttering about his fucking father, which didn’t make any fucking sense—

“His father?” Tsukauchi’s pen halts over his page. Even his daemon has frozen.

Katsuki scowls harder and bites his tongue — fuck.

Out loud, he says, “Yeah. Fucking dumbass kept mumbling about something his father was asking him to do? Or something, I wasn’t listening. But it’s fucking dumb, because everyone knows Auntie Inko’s dumb husband split ages ago. So it can’t have been Deku’s real father.”

It’s not that — whatever secret Deku had been keeping, it had nothing to do with his shitty dad. But of course, Katsuki can see that the detective’s already latched onto that as his answer to everything.

Of course, Katsuki thinks wryly. The absentee father coming back to take his son is probably a better option than ‘the quirkless kid offed himself’, no matter how dumb both of these storylines are.

“Do you have any idea where I might be able to find this—”

“Nope,” Katsuki replies, rocking back on his heels and popping out the ‘p’. He shoves his hands back in his pockets. “And I don’t remember what the bastard was called either.”

Tsukauchi makes another note in his dumb notebook — which does not remind Katsuki of that dumb fucking nerd — and nods.

“Well, alright then. Thank you for your help, and if you can think of anything else, you can—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll contact you somehow.”

With Deku being missing, Auntie Inko has been coming over for dinner. The old hag had had to practically drag her home with her, and tell her that Izuku would want her to take care of herself, to get her to agree to stay for longer than the ten minutes it had taken to look at the neighborhood canvas Katsuki’s old man had put together.

Katsuki knows this because he had been there, watching, and he’d seen the way Auntie Inko just… kept crying, in a way that was much worse than usual.

Deku, Katsuki had cursed in mind, but Deku hadn’t shown up — just like he hadn’t shown up back at his and Auntie Inko’s place, where his mother had been waiting for him.

And now Auntie Inko is picking at her plate, half-crying half-ranting about how useless the police is and how they don’t seem to take her claim seriously because it hasn’t been very long yet, and ‘children run away all the time’ and ‘he’s that age, perhaps he was just unhappy at home’.

“He wasn’t unhappy at home,” Auntie Inko sobs, head falling on the old hag’s shoulder.

Katsuki’s fingers tighten around his chopsticks, and he takes a swig of water to try to swallow past the sudden tightness in his throat.

Maybe Deku had been happy at home, but at school…

Well, he’d always been rather miserable there. Had Katsuki… Had he… Would Deku really, like everyone said he had…

But no. Katsuki shakes his head, taking a particularly violent bite of his noodles. Deku wouldn’t.

He also wouldn’t run away.

“I just feel like they’re not listening to me,” Auntie Inko says, still crying into the old hag’s shoulder. Her food lays abandoned in her bowl, barely touched. “Like they’re not doing anything!”

“A detective came to school today,” Katsuki blurts out, before shoving a forkful of noodles into his mouth so he doesn’t have to answer. He doesn’t mention any of the things the detective had implied, though.

Auntie Inko looks like she’s about to cry, and the old hag pats her on the arm, shooting Katsuki a grateful smile.

“See?” she says. “They’re working on it! I’m sure they’ll find Izuku soon. Right, Masaru?”

Katsuki’s father jerks in his seat in the way that says his wife just kicked him under the table, and he nods. “Of course. You shouldn’t lose hope, Inko. Izuku’s a tough boy, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Auntie Inko sniffles, wiping her face with a new tissue. “I h-hope you’re r-right,” she hiccups between her tears.

That night, Katsuki has the dream again. The one he hates.

In it, he’s back at the beginning of the year, in their dumb classroom as the day ends and he says something to Deku. His palms spark up, like they always do, and Deku flinches back, like the pathetic nerd that he is — always thinks he’s better than him, but can’t even look Katsuki in the eyes for more than five seconds.

Pathetic nerd who thinks he can apply to UA and steal Katsuki’s glory despite being less than useless.

Katsuki knows this is a dream because in the real world, Katsuki had left then, called by… something. He doesn’t even remember what, it had been so insignificant.

In the dream, though, Katsuki stays. Hurls more insults at Deku, the way he always had, and laughs as he blows up his notebook and throws it out of the window. His brain somehow manages to make Deku’s distraught face look so very real, but all Katsuki can do is laugh, the way he always has.

Deku grows smaller and smaller, his shoulders quivering as he keeps crying, and he keeps inching closer to the window and the part of Katsuki that is aware he is dreaming is screaming at him to wake up, half-mad, half-terrified and feeling sick from both, because this is new.

This wasn’t part of the dream before — this bit hadn’t happened. This bit is purely Katsuki’s mind making shit up.

Deku gets to the ledge and for some fucking reason Katsuki isn’t trying to stop him — his fucking legs won’t move, and he just keeps laughing at him instead — and then, and then—

And then the dream shifts, and Katsuki is back under that overpass, the way he had really been that day, hands sparking in frustration at his sides as he kicks some dumb empty can of soda somebody had littered this place with.

The darkness feels darker in this dream. Heavier, too, and Katsuki can already taste that disgusting slime at the back of his throat even though he knows, he knows this is long over now, and that he hadn’t back then.

But this is a dream, a nightmare, really, and in sleep boundaries shift and change and meld together, and so because Katsuki remembers drowning he suddenly is.

There is something primal to the fear of drowning, the fear of dying that Katsuki hadn’t known existed before.

At first, he had fought back. Screamed as the villain in the slime — the villain that was the slime — told him to give up and just let him take his body; like Katsuki fucking would.

He’d tried to blow it up, but the fucking slime was wet, and that made his explosions less effective — for every one that did something, five more did nothing, and yes, each one let Katsuki gulp in air that tasted of rotten things, but then he was drowning again.

Then he is drowning again, both here and there at the same time, watching the scene from behind and feeling it from the inside at the same time — and for a split second, Katsuki forgets he is in a nightmare.

Forgets this already happened — that he lived.

For a second, he feels it again: that awful, yawning despair, fueled by the certainty that nobody was coming, that nobody had heard him or that they just wouldn’t get there on time.

That Katsuki had been too weak to win.

He chokes and wheezes, tasting slime and something earthy and rotten — the world grows blurry, both because he’s running out of air and because the sludge covers his eyes now too, stinging as it turns the light a sickly yellow.

Come on, Katsuki begs, eyes burning. He doesn’t know who he’s even addressing — himself or someone else. Anyone else.

The pressure on his lungs and throat tightens until they burn, burn, burn, like somebody shoved shards of glass down his throat and then lit it on fire, and Katsuki can feel himself grow weaker still.

He manages to look down and catches sight of Chikara too, caught in the sludge, and then, between one heartbeat and the next, she turns into golden Dust, swirling into the sludge before vanishing, little stars winking out one by one.

The voice in his ears laughs and Katsuki—

Katsuki wakes up, chest heaving, gasping for air like he’s just escaped drowning again. He yanks his sweat-drenched sheets away from him and stumbles to the bathroom, collapsing over the sink and retching up nothing, choking up on the remembered feeling of having that thing shoved down his throat.

When Katsuki’s heart stops racing quite so urgently, he opens the faucet with shaking hands and splashes cold water on his face, rinsing his mouth slowly until he can feel like he won’t feel like retching again if he tries to swallow anything.

He straightens up, and the face in the mirror doesn’t look like him — this weak, red-rimmed eyes boy with too-pale skin can’t possibly be him.

“Fuck!” Katsuki swears between his teeth, clenching his fists and punching down on the sink — gently, because he’s not that stupid, and the last thing he needs right now is for his fucking parents to wake up and act all concerned over him.

Chikara pads slowly into the bathroom after him, her claws clicking on the tiling.

She doesn’t ask him if he’s okay, just comes to press up against him — a silent ‘We’re okay’. Even if they hadn’t saved themselves, somebody had.

Katsuki scowls, the cheerful voice that had greeted him when Katsuki had drifted back to consciousness echoing through his mind again. All Might — where are you now?

The silence doesn’t answer him, of course.

“Come on,” Chikara says softly, bumping her head against his side. “We should get back to bed.”

Katsuki hums but follows her out of the bathroom.

The sheets don’t feel that comfortable anymore, as twisted as they are. Katsuki can almost feel the nightmare oozing off of them, even though that’s stupid and impossible, and he tosses and turns, finally setting on his side so he can stare into Chikara’s shining eyes.

And maybe it’s that dream, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s pretty sure Auntie Inko is still sleeping on their sofa somewhere — not matter the reason, really, but Katsuki’s mind drifts back to Deku.

His mouth goes dry, and he clenches his fists around the sheets.

“You don’t really think that Deku would… That he would…”

Chikara huffs in disdain, and Katsuki’s lungs start working again.

“Right. Dumb thought.”

“It was,” she replies in a low rumble. “Ketsu wouldn’t let him even if he wanted to, anyway.”

“Well, if he’s not dead then where the fuck is he?” Katsuki growls, punching his pillow to get it into a more favorable shape. “What, did that useless idiot actually get kidnapped somehow? Who’d even want him?” He scoffs and punches his pillow again. “And what is the police even doing to find him? Dumbass fedora guy who came in but had nothing useful to say, and it’s been days! Auntie Inko’s right, what have they been doing?”

“Clearly not their jobs,” Chikara says, shifting and curling onto herself, making her scales glisten in the pale light.

“Duh.” Katsuki scoffs again, flipping on his bed to stare at the ceiling, and then rolling back onto his side to stare at her again.

“We’d be way better at it,” he tells her, heart starting to race as he starts to warm up to the idea. They’re practically heroes already — first at the UA entrance exam out of all of Japan! — and finding Deku wouldn’t even count as vigilantism. Not if there isn’t any villains (and why would there be, when it’s Deku?), and especially not if they don’t get caught.

“You want to go look for Deku?” Chikara asks, and Katsuki bristles at the bemusement in her voice. He almost lets his hands spark up, but refrains at the last second — he’s not in the mood to deal with the old hag’s shrieking right now.

“It’s not that I want to,” he replies through clenched teeth, sitting up and crossing his arms over his chest so he can stare down into his daemon’s luminescent eyes. “It’s that everyone’s clearly useless, and we could do a fucking better job.”

And if Katsuki can rescue that fucking dumbass, then Deku will owe him. Will finally have to see that Katsuki is better than him, and will stop trying to look down on him, to try to make a mockery out of Katsuki’s dream — as though becoming a hero was so easy even someone as insignificant, as worthless as shitty Deku could do it?!

(And maybe then Katsuki will be able to forget the way he hadn’t even been to save himself before All Might had to intervene.)

Aldera Middle School is a crappy place to be, but Sugimoto Orime has made it her own. She makes sure she knows everything and everyone well ahead of time — which is why, when Bakugou Katsuki finally approaches her, fists popping with tiny explosions she thinks are supposed to scare her, she’s waiting for him.

He doesn’t even give her a greeting, though, or even the courtesy of an introduction — just glares down at her, his daemon glowering behind him, and angrily shouts, “Tell me where that shitty Deku is!”

Orime can feel her lips stretching into a morbid grin as she leans back into her chair. “So it’s true? He’s really missing?”

Bakugou scowls harder. “What, can’t do it?”

Orime continues, sharing an eager look with Miyu, her chihuahua daemon. “Do you think he really did it, then?” she asks, leaning in.

This time, Bakugou’s scowl deepens. “Did what?”

Orime rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so thick — you know what I mean. Do you think he jumped? Or took some pills? I hear those can work fast…” Her daemon nods along.

Bakugou’s face tightens with anger and he takes his hands out of his pockets, palms sparking. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Orime flinches back at first, before squaring off her shoulders. She knows his type, knows him — with a spot at UA, he won’t dare make waves in such a public place. Even if it is just Aldera’s shitty cafeteria.

“What, like you haven’t thought the same? Haven’t said the same? Please. I’d rather be dead than quirkless, and I’m sure he was the same,” she states, not quite managing to bite back her shiver at the thought.

Bakugou’s large dragon daemon steps out from behind him, her teeth bared. It almost manages to hide the way Bakugou flinches — almost.

“He wouldn’t,” he states, dark scowl returning.

Orime snorts. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

“Whatever,” Bakugou echoes, fists clenched by his sides. If she could, his dragon looks like she’d probably be huffing smoke — she eyes Miyu like he’s some tasty treat she can’t wait to gobble up, and Orime pulls him to her chest almost reflexively.

The dragon’s grin widens, baring more teeth, and she steps aside for Bakugou. “Whatever,” he repeats. “I just need to know if you can do it or not,” he spits out.

Orime rolls her eyes, but one look down at Miyu, still quivering in her arms, has her relenting — after all, the faster she does this, the faster Bakugou will leave her alone again.

“Sure,” she says. “But I need something of his. And it won’t work if he’s dead already,” she adds after a beat, heart clenching like it always does when she remembers how exactly she’d learned that particular limitation of her quirk.

(There are, after all, probably easier ways to learn that your grandmother just passed than to try to find her — practice, with the necklace Obaachan had given er just for that purpose — only to realize that your quirk wouldn’t work; wouldn’t provide the crisp location it did for living people.)

“It’ll work,” Bakugou replies. “And you can use this.” He slams down an old notebook in front of her, and Orime barely has the time to catch the name Midoriya Izuku, sprawled on the cover, before his hand covers it and he slides it forward.

Orime doesn’t ask where he got it from, and carefully sets down Miyu on the table to take off her gloves and pick up the notebook.

Instantly, she can feel the connection — and scowls.

“Well?” Bakugou asks gruffly, a note of urgency in his voice.

For a moment, Orime considers lying. Whatever Midoriya’s up to, it’s probably nothing good — like him — and Bakugou would deserve it. But… Rumors are that a detective came to their class yesterday. If they somehow learned what she’d done… Well, Orime doesn’t know what they’d do to her, but it probably wouldn’t be good.

“I’ll write down the address for you,” she says, already scribbling it down. Using her quirk, she can get a vague picture of the location she seeks, but all she got here was a bunch of identical buildings. Not even nice buildings — terrible, generic ones. The kind of place Orime wouldn’t be caught dead in.

She folds the paper in two and extends it out. Bakugou reaches out for it, and Orime snatches it back, holding it out of reach.

Bakugou’s hands start smoking, letting out tiny pops, but Orime holds his gaze unflinchingly. “But,” she says, baring her teeth, “you’re going to owe me a favor for this.”

“Whatever,” Bakugou snarls back, grabbing the paper. It’s so sudden that Orime barely has time to let it go, but it’s lucky she does, or it’d have gotten ripped up in. He pivots on his heels and stalks off, his daemon walking leisurely by his side.

“Pleasure doing business with you!” she shouts at his retreating back, ignoring the sudden restart of the chatter around them.

Bakugou just raises his middle finger back at her, not even turning his back, and Orime bites down on a laugh.

She doesn’t know if Bakugou will make it to number one, but there’s no doubt in her mind that he’ll at least be in the top ten eventually. A favor from him… might come in handy in the future.

Besides, Bakugou isn’t the only one from Aldera aiming to get into UA — and while Orime has no interest in becoming a hero, she will join UA’s Management course next year. Having an in with one of the heroes in training there already… Well, that’s no small thing.

Definitely worth whatever Bakugou finds in that place, anyway.

Despite what the doctor had said, he does not come to Izuku with more questions to ask the alethiometer. Somehow, the answer Izuku gave him keeps him busy enough that he doesn’t have to, and whatever he’s working on, it’s got him excited.

Izuku tries not to feel too much dread about that, and fails. He just hopes the alethiometer led him to a good enough lie that Izuku didn’t just ruin everything.

At least, he thinks as he looks down at his lap, they’re not keeping him and Ketsu separated anymore. The ‘cell’ they’re in now — the doctor had called it his room, and it functions as a kind of bedroom, but it’s definitely a cell — isn’t great, but it’s better than being tied down to a chair and away from his daemon.

“Come on,” he whispers, “I can’t hear anyone, we should try again.”

Ketsu shivers in his arms, but he nods. “Alright.”

Izuku shuffles closer to the door, keeping his ears strained on any sound on the other side of it. Only silence echoes back, and his heart pounds a little harder.

“Be careful,” he whispers, and Ketsu nods before shifting into an ant. Izuku lifts him to the lock, and watches with his heart in his throat as Ketsu crawls through to the other side.

The next handfuls of seconds are the longest in Izuku’s life. His mind comes up with so many nightmare scenarios he takes to digging his nails into his leg to drag himself out of them

And then the lock clicks open and Izuku chokes on a sigh of relief, scrambling to his feet and out of the door.

Ketsu shifts into a mouse again and runs up his leg, settling in Izuku’s jacket’s pocket — Izuku’s hand curls underneath it just to feel him and he takes a moment to just breathe and let his heart settle down.

Now, for the hard part: getting out of wherever this place is without getting caught.

But first, getting the alethiometer back. They can’t leave it there — fortunately, Izuku saw where the doctor left it when Ujiko was taking him to his cell. Of course, nothing guarantees that this is still where it is now, some unquantifiable length of time later, but Izuku has to at least try.

The thought of leaving this place without at least trying to get the alethiometer back — when it’s his fault they have it — makes his stomach churn, and Izuku starts walking faster.

The corridors are empty and dark — cold, too, though that is perhaps more in Izuku’s mind than anything else. Izuku’s footsteps echo in the silence, which grows more oppressing with every step.

All the doors here are locked and Izuku’s fingers itch with the need to open them — what if they’re hiding other people like him, being kept against their wills? But try as he might, Izuku can’t pick up any sound coming off of them, and they definitely don’t have the time to try.

Somehow, Izuku doesn't think Ujiko or his mysterious benefactor would take kindly to Izuku wandering around when he’s supposed to be in his cell. Ketsu shivers in his pocket at the same time as Izuku’s mind conjures back the picture of that Nomu, holding down his daemon — he doesn’t want to find out if they have a worse punishment still.

Finally, though, They seem to leave that part of the building for another Izuku recognizes more: it’s the one he had woken up in. His heart kicks up another notch, racing harder. Even though neither the doctor nor his creature are here, the place feels more ominous than ever; the cage where Ketsu had been kept seems to gleam in the darkness, and Izuku gives it a wide berth even as he crosses the room as quickly as he dares.

By some miracle, he doesn’t trip up over anything, and the door at the other end is unlocked. Its hinges are even well-oiled: they do not make a sound as Izuku pulls the door open and shuffles through.

It gives into another corridor, and Izuku forces his mind to go through what he remembers one more time: one, two, three doors and then, a bend in the—

“Izuku!” Ketsu hisses urgently. “Somebody’s coming!”

Izuku’s blood runs cold in fear. His eyes roam around him for a place to hide, but the corridor is barren — luckily, the doctor’s room is still right there, and Izuku ducks back inside, plastering himself against the wall and against a cupboard and hoping he won't get noticed. With any luck, he can slip right back through the door after whoever is coming goes through — perhaps they’ll even pass right by this room.

He strains his ears until he can finally hear what Ketsu must have: heavy footsteps, dragging on the floor. Muffled voices, arguing with an annoyance that sounds… familiar.

Izuku’s heart skips a beat, then restarts. “What—” he hears himself say, before forcefully clenching his mouth shut.

The more he waits, the surer he is, and Izuku swings back out the door.

“Kacchan?” he blurts out, finding himself faced with the scowling blond. “What are you doing here?” His voice rises with his panic, and Izuku’s heart runs so quickly it feels like it’s about to give out.

Kacchan’s eyes narrow at him. Behind him, Chikara lets out a low growl. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here, Deku? Do you have any idea what kind of shitfest you kicked up back home? You mother—”

Izuku winces and shakes his head urgently as Kacchan’s voice starts to raise. “Shh! K-Kacchan, please, we need to be quiet. I don’t— I’ll explain, but please, don’t…”

Izuku swallows. Kacchan’s hands are clenched into fists by his sides in the way that usually means he’ll start letting out explosions soon, but somehow, he must also be able to feel how unnatural this place feels, because he only scowls harder.

“You’d better,” he hisses out. “Now come on, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Wringing his hands, Izuku shakes his head. “No. I can’t. Not yet.”

Kacchan stares at him incredulously, jaw clenching. “Why the fuck not?!!”

Izuku flinches, but squares his shoulders — this is far too important to be scared. Besides, everyone in this place is far scarier than Kacchan could ever be.

“I’ll explain later,” Izuku repeats, grabbing Kacchan’s arm to pull him along.

Kacchan shoves him back, pulling his arm free, and Izuku stumbles. He keeps going though, and Kacchan doesn’t even insult him this time, only falling into step beside him. Izuku… Izuku isn’t sure what he’s feeling about this, but he knows he’s feeling something.

“So, mind telling me where the fuck we’re going?” Kacchan whispers at him angrily. Chikara is half a step behind them, and her presence at his back somehow makes Izuku feel more at ease and more anxious at the same time.

He swallows, mentally counting doors again and leading them to the bend in the path where he last saw the doctor go to.

“Because I’ve been through there, and there’s nothing here,” Kacchan continues. “The exit’s that way,” he adds, nodding in the opposite direction.

Izuku’s heart jumps in relief. he wants nothing more than to follow Kacchan out of this dreadful place, to leave it behind and feel safe again, but he can’t. Not yet.

“They took something I had when they took me,” Izuku whispers back urgently, his throat tight. “I can’t let them have it.”

Kacchan scoffs. “Nobody fucking cares about your hero stalking journals, Deku! Let’s just fucking go!” He grabs Izuku’s arm, his grip painfully tight — and this time, Izuku is the one tugging himself free.

“They’re not stalking journals,” Izuku hisses back, cheeks burning. “And that’s not what I’m after! Now if— if you don’t want to help me, just l-leave already. We’ll be fine!” Izuku’s chest heaves but he stands his ground.

Kacchan’s glare grows harder and meaner, but Chikara calls out his name, and he takes in a deep breath and the fury seems to recede. “This isn’t over, Deku,” he hisses through his teeth, pointing a finger at him like a dagger.

Izuku swallows and nods, his heart in his throat.

“Come on,” he says quietly, “it should be this way.”

“You don’t even know where you’re going? Typical,” Kacchan grumbles. He follows, though, falling back into step with him, and Izuku’s heart lifts a fraction.

The door is right where Izuku remembers it, and they reach it after only a couple more minutes — which is lucky, because Kacchan looks like he’s about to blow.

“It’s locked,” Izuku says after trying the handle.

“I can—” Ketsu starts, but Kacchan shoves them aside and slams his hand against the lock.

The explosion that follows is muffled but still loud enough that Izuku’s heart runs wild with dread.

“Why did you do that?” he whispers-shout. “If they heard—”

“Relax.” Kacchan rolls his eyes, shoving his way past him and through the door. “If anybody was here they’d have found us already. Now hurry up and grab your… thing,” he says with a disdainful scowl.

Ketsu, now a cat again — though a bigger one than he usually prefers — hisses at them and bounds off after Izuku as he, too, steps inside the room.

It is… disappointingly mundane. Izuku wasn’t exactly expecting torture devices to line the walls, but the room he stepped into looks like it could belong to any doctor in Musutafu, and that feels wrong somehow.

“Hurry up!” Kacchan hisses at him, and Izuku snaps out of him, hurrying to the desk, tugging every drawer open, digging through the contents quickly.

He finds what he’s looking for in the fourth one, and his heart swells with so much relief Izuku thinks he could cry.

“Is that an—”

Kacchan’s voice by his ear startles him badly enough that he slams the drawer shut again, only narrowly avoiding slamming it over his own fingers.

“It’s nothing,” Izuku blurts out, slipping the alethiometer in the pocket Ketsu had been in earlier.

Kacchan’s eyes narrow at him darkly. “Didn’t look like nothing.” But before Izuku can open his mouth, he scoffs loudly. “Whatever. Keep your dumb secrets — I don’t care. Let’s get out of here.”

Heart pounding again, Izuku nods quickly.

He wishes he could bring more out of this place with him — some of the doctor’s research, at least — but Izuku wouldn’t know where to start, and they can hardly afford to waste the time it would take to ask the alethiometer.

Izuku will just have to do his best to remember everything about this place so he can pass on the information to somebody else.

Hopefully… Hopefully that will be enough.

The Midoriya home is lovely. Naomasa has been there already, of course, the first time Midoriya Inko had called to report her son missing, and he had thought it even then.

He thinks it now still, but the atmosphere inside of it feels different. Heavier — more weighed by grief and anxiety. It is almost palpable, and even Juri seems to feel it, shivering as they cross the threshold.

Midoriya-san greets them with a nervous smile, her hummingbird daemon flitting above her shoulders before finally nesting off on her head. Her eyes are painfully bright with hope.

They sit down in her living-room, Naomasa’s hands curled up around a cup of tea he hadn’t had the heart to refuse when Midoriya-san had practically shoved it at him.

“Midoriya-san,” he starts, at the same time as she blurts out an urgent, “Did you find anything?”

Naomasa blinks, swallows, and clears his throat. The tea in his hands suddenly feels burning hot, even though it’s just the same temperature as before. He doesn’t let it go.

“Unfortunately, nothing yet,” he confesses, and hates how his stomach falls as the way Midoriya Inko visibly deflates.

“Oh,” she says weakly, fingernails tapping against her cup.

“I do however have a few questions for you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Anything.”

Naomasa nods, and licks his lips. “Yesterday, I went to visit your son’s school, and…” He trails off, unsure of how to reveal to this woman — to this mother — that everyone there seemed to, if not outright hate her son, at least show him a level of disdain and disregard that left Naomasa baffled.

Yes, Midoriya Izuku was quirkless, but he was far from the only one — Naomasa himself had certainly never had as hard of a time in school as Midoriya-kun seemed to have.

“They don’t like him much there, do they?” Midoriya-san finishes for him, tone knowing. Her eyes are sad, but the way her hands are fisted over her lap now, cup of tea discarded to the side, tells Naomasa all that he needs to know: this is a woman who has been angry over her son’s treatment for a long, long time, and who has been powerless to change it for probably just as long.

“They didn’t seem to be on very friendly terms,” Naomasa replies, hiding his wince and keeping his tone professional.

Midoriya-san nods like this doesn’t surprise her.

It probably does not.

Naomasa clears his throat again, and after a quick look to Juri, starts to say, “One of his classmates, however, mentioned something interesting? He said that your son had been scribbling down in his notebooks a lot, during class but not about class?”

Midoriya-san’s lips twitch up into a real smile for the first time. “His hero notebooks, yes. Oh, right,” she adds, probably reading the confusion on his face. “He likes to write down what he learns about heroes, and their quirks? He wants to be a hero, you know,” she adds at the end, almost like a bittersweet afterthought.

Naomasa nods, mentally fitting in that puzzle piece into the wider picture of Midoriya Izuku. “They said he hadn’t been writing about heroes, though. They mentioned hearing something about Midoriya-kun — I mean, Izuku — mentioning his father? And things they were asking him to do? Do you have any idea what those could be? Or if Izuku might have been in contact with his father?”

“I— What?” For the first time, Midoriya Inko looks more shocked than worried. “I— No, that’s not possible.”

Juri jostles his leg pointedly, and Naomasa clears his throat again. God, but he hates having to ask these kinds of questions. “Are you sure he wasn’t in contact with him? It wouldn’t be the first time that a parent—”

Midoriya-san shakes her head. “No, but you don’t understand. Hisashi’s dead — he’s been dead for years.” Her eyes go a little bright, but she heaves a shaking breath and pulls herself together. “There was a, a plane crash while he was on his way to America for a work conference and…” She swallows, voice growing thick. “He didn’t make it.”

“My condolences,” Naomasa automatically offers.

“Thank you,” Midoriya-san accepts with a tired smile. “But now you see why this can’t possibly be Hisashi.”

“I… Yes. But I thought your husband was…”

“Gone?” she finishes for him, smiling wryly. “We told the children that when they asked.” Her cheeks darken with shame and she bows her head down. “Mitsuki wanted to tell them, of course, but I insisted… Izuku was so young, and this was so soon after his diagnosis… I didn’t want to burden him — and, I suppose, the fiction made it easier to believe he might still be out there,” she confesses ruefully.

“I know…” She sighs. “I know it wasn’t the best idea. We— I should have told Izuku a long time ago.”

She probably should have, yes, but it’s not exactly Naomasa’s place to judge here. He does feel a little unimpressed, but mostly, he is frustrated as seeing the closest thing he had to a lead vanish into thin air.

“Well, seeing as it couldn’t have actually been your husband, then,” Naomasa says, feeling a little awkward at having to phrase it so tactlessly, “do you have any idea who your son could have been referring to? Anyone you can think of?”

Midoriya-san starts to shake her head, then pauses and opens her mouth. “I… Well, I don’t know for sure, but… He did start helping clear out Dagobah beach recently — oh, you probably wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

Naomasa shakes his head, and Juri’s head perks up in interest.

Midoriya-san blushes. “It’s this old beach that’s been turned into a dumping ground over the years, and well, when Izuku found out he started helping clear out the trash there with some of the other residents in the area.” Her lips curl into a wry, but proud smile. “He was using it to train for the UA entrance exam.”

Her tone deflates a little at the end, and Naomasa doesn’t need to ask her to know how that went.

“Do you know any of the names of the people there?” he asks. He’s not holding out hope for a lead, but maybe someone will know something.

“I… Well, not all of them — I think some people only came a few times, or when they were free, so I don’t remember their names.”

“That’s perfectly alright,” Naomasa reassures her before she can spiral any further.

“I have met a few of them, though — I can give you Origawa-san’s contact information, I think they’re the only one I have a phone number for…” She frowns and bites her lip, and her daemon flutters up to her ear, whispering something. Her eyes widen. “Oh, right — I think Izuku brought back a flyer from Yagi-san’s gym once, I should still have it around here somewhere, let me get that for you…”

Naomasa’s heart skips a beat, and his teacup slips through his fingers. Luckily, Juri manages to catch it before it shatters on the floor, but Naomasa’s legs are drenched in lukewarm tea.

“Oh no!” Midoriya-san grabs a box of tissues and pulls a handful out. Her arm is halfway toward him when she realizes where it’s headed, and she flushes bright red. “Erm, here. I’ll… clean up the sofa.”

Naomasa accepts the tissues and busies himself with trying to absorb as much of the liquid as he can from his trousers, but he can already tell it’s pretty much a lost cause.

“You look like you pissed yourself,” Juri cackles helpfully, handing him more tissues.

Naomasa shoots her an unimpressed look. “At least it wasn’t boiling anymore,” he mumbles back.

“Lucky,” his daemon replies with another chortle.

Pausing in his patting, Naomasa listens closely for Midoriya-san’s actions. She’s still bustling in the kitchen, apparently looking for a mop — she really shouldn’t bother, Naomasa can use some more tissue paper instead — and Naomasa’s heart pounds in his chest as he turns back to his daemon.

“Did you hear what she—”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Juri interrupts with a stern look, though Naomasa can tell she’s as hopeful as he is. “I’m sure there are plenty of people called ‘Yagi’ in Japan.”

“But what if—”

Midoriya-san’s return cuts him off this time, and Naomasa sits back down, though he avoids the still slightly humid spot where he’d previously been. Juri swats his legs and he springs back up almost immediately.

“I — Do you need help?”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, this shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

“That’s alright.” Naomasa swallows, and pulls his hands behind his back so she can’t see him fidget with his fingers. “Do you mind if I ask you a few more questions about… what was it you called him, Yagi-san?”

Midoriya-san shrugs. For a moment, her eyes fall on a photograph of her son and she sniffles, before squaring off her shoulders.

“Of course,” she replies demurely. “Anything that can help.” She sets down her mop against the sofa’s edge. “Wait a moment, I’ll get that flyer, I remember where it is now.”

She does indeed come back with a flyer soon after. The garish colors advertising some kind of self-defense class look like the type of thing Toshinori would enjoy, and Naomasa forces himself to quell back his hope.

He quickly scans the flyer, but nothing really jumps out to him. He memorizes the address and the contact number on the page just in case, though he suspects Midoriya-san will let him keep it.

“Yagi-san helped Izuku start this project,” Midoriya-san muses out loud. “They got on well — I don’t think Izuku would have been calling him father, though,” she adds with a bemused twist of the mouth.

“And that’s Yagi…”

“Oh. Oh — erm…” Her brow furrows, clearly in thought, before her face clears up. “Oh, right, I remember — Yagi Toshinori, that’s it! Why? Do you know him?”

Naomasa’s heart lifts then falls, then lifts again. He swallows back a strangled laugh. “Kind of,” he says, Juri unnaturally still beside him. “If he is the Yagi Toshinori I know, anyway.”

Naomasa’s half hoping he’s not. Because if Midoriya-kun disappeared while in contact with Toshinori — with All Might, while All Might went on the run to hide from something that worried him enough to do so — then this case just got a whole lot more complicated.

“Hello? Is this the Musutafu gym? I’m calling about one of your employees, on behalf of the police department. My name is Detective Tsukauchi, and I would— Wait, what do you mean, when my colleagues came by yesterday?”

“Tsukauchi? What are you still doing here — have you seen the time? Go home.”

“I will, I will — just… Say, Chief, you didn’t send anyone to investigate to a gym in Musutafu, did you?”

“I.. Not that I can think of. Why?”

“Just something the owner said, about telling my ‘colleague’ to come back with a warrant. But I can’t find any trace of anyone filling in a report saying they’ve gone there in the past… five years.”

“I see. Aren’t you working on that missing kid case?”

“Midoriya Izuku, yes. But the mother said he knew somebody who worked at that gym, and they haven’t been seen since either…”

“You think they might be involved?”

“I, erm, no — that is, probably not. They might know something.” A pause, a deep breath. “Also, I think Midoriya-kun might have been our informant.”

“How do you— Never mind, of course you do.”

“Just something I saw in the kid’s bedroom. And a hunch.”

“Shit. Think somebody caught on?”

“Well, it’s certainly possible. I can think of a number of quirks, at least, that could have led anyone to that kid… But his intel was mostly on the Shie Hassaikai group, and well, they’re gone now.”

“Somebody took them out, though.”

“Yeah, that’s my worry too. Hence why I was asking if you knew anything about someone being sent to that gym.”

“No, sorry. Do you think it was a mole?”

“An imposter is more likely.”

“... I’ll put on a new pot of coffee.”

Naomasa stumbles home just as the sky is starting to lighten again. His brain is buzzing tiredly from a mix of too little sleep and too much caffeine, and he tosses his keys onto his desk without looking to see where they land.

He’ll be able to find them again no matter where they land, really.

He doesn’t turn on the lights, navigating by memory toward his kitchen, hoping he can pour himself a glass of water before heading to bed for some well-deserved sleep, which is why he thinks he should be forgiven for not realizing he’s not alone until the floorboards creak behind him.

Naomasa spins around, throwing his half-filled glass of water and cursing himself for not having his service weapon on him, when he recognizes the tall figure in front of him just as it ducks.

The glass goes sailing over his head and shatters against the wall. Naomasa barely notices, hand groping at the wall until it hits the light switch.

He flicks it open, and light floods in his vision.

Toshinori smiles back sheepishly at him, Komyo shooting him a painfully familiar unimpressed look.

“I told you we should have called,” she grumbles, just as Juri walks up to her and pokes her shoulder. She bears it with good grace.

“Where have you been?” Naomasa blurts out, gaping. “What even— What happened?!”

Toshinori winces and scratches at the back of his head. “That’s kind of a long story. I—”

“Does it have anything to do with Midoriya Izuku?”

“Young Izuku?” Toshinori frowns. “Some of it, yes, but how do you—”

Naomasa shoots him an incredulous look. “Isn’t that why you’re here now? Because he went missing?”

Toshinori’s mouth falls open. “He’s missing? What? What happened? When did it happen? Do you know who took him?” His eyes burn as he fires off question after question, and Naomasa shivers at the purely All Might intensity of it.

Sometimes, it is too easy to forget that Toshinori and All Might are one and the same — and then something like this happens, and Naomasa wonders how he could have ever forgotten.

Naomasa heaves a long sigh and runs a hand across his face. “For a few days — I went to visit his mother and she gave me that flyer for your gym.” Toshinori grins sheepishly again at that, and Juri swats Komyo’s shoulders. “I called them, but they said somebody had already been there looking for you… Which is why I thought Midoriya-kun’s disappearance might be connected to you.”

Toshinori blanches. “I might be worse than you know,” he says.

Naomasa’s blood runs cold. As one, he and Toshinori say, “He has the alethiometer.”

“How did you know that?”

It’s not funny, but Naomasa lets out a snort nonetheless. “I’m a police detective — it’s my job to know these things. Also, your boy has been leaving information to the police about yakuza affairs to pass on to heroes for weeks now.”

Naomasa’s treated to the rare sight of Toshinori being surprised by something, and he smiles wryly. “We almost thought it might be you, but you probably would have found a safer way to get that information to us.”

By leaving it in Naomasa’s home, probably instead of the police station.

Naomasa sighs. “I don’t think anyone else put it together — almost everyone is assuming either some kind of foresight quirk or an inside man, I think… I did, too, at first, but once I found out you knew him…”

Well, at first Naomasa had considered that Toshinori might be using Midoriya to pass on the information he got, but the timing didn’t quite make sense for that, and anyway, the way the information they got was structured made much for sense if it was done by a teenager rather than an adult.

Also, Toshinori wouldn’t do that.

“Somebody might have,” Toshinori replies gravely. “I think… No, I know at least someone in the Commission knows about the alethiometer.”

“You mean that was a Commission agent, posing as a detective, trying to find you at the gym?”

Toshinori nods.

“They’ve been after us for a while now,” Komyo states. “But we’ve managed to avoid them. But if they found Izuku…”

“It might not be them,” Naomasa cautions.

Toshinori frowns at him. “Who then?” he asks, but he probably already suspects it too.

Naomasa still doesn’t want to be the first one to say it but… “As All Might, you have plenty of enemies. Maybe one of them tracked you down.”

Toshinori visibly swallows. His hands shake for a moment before he stops them, and beside him, Komyo goes deadly still.

“No.” he shakes his head. “Only one of them knew about the alethiometer, and… No, it’s not possible.”

Softly, Naomasa says, “You asked it, and the alethiometer never said he was dead.”

“It was inconclusive,” Toshinori replies, shaking his head rapidly. “There’s no way… No, it must be the Commission.” His lips are pursed like he’s tasting something foul, but his eyes… Fear shines in his eyes, and Naomasa sighs.

Well, it’s not like they really have any evidence either way.

“So, now what?” he asks.

“Now, we—” A loud ringing interrupts Toshinori, and they all jump. Toshinori digs his phone out of his pocket — and then stops, staring at it.

“Well, what is it?” Komyo asks when it becomes clear Toshinori is frozen in place.

Toshinori raises his eyes away from his phone, looking down first at his daemon and then at Naomasa.

“It’s… Izuku,” he says, saying the name like he can’t believe it’s real. “He’s calling me.”

Naomasa’s heart skips a beat. “Well, what are you waiting for! Answer it!”

Toshinori blinks, then fumbles with his phone. It clicks once as he presses answer, and then he presses the phone to his ear.

“Hello? Izuku, my boy, is that you?”

Naomasa can’t hear the answer, but judging from the sudden relieved — if slightly incredulous — smile splitting Toshinori’s face, it has to be.

“You’re — slow down, please. You’re at… ‘Kacchan’s’? Who’s Kacchan — oh, I see. Yes. Don’t move, I’ll be right there.”

Toshinori ends up the call, and stares down at his phone like he can’t believe it’s real.

“That just happened, right?” Juri blurts out.

Toshinori lets out a slightly hysterical laugh, hand dropping down to pet Komyo’s head. “It… did, yes. That was… That was really Izuku.” He looks toward Naomasa again. “I’m sorry, I need to go.”

Naomasa nods. He wants to go with them, of course, but honestly, he feels tired enough he knows he’d probably crash before they even got there.

So he just swallows back a yawn instead, and says, “Let me know if you need my help with anything. I’ll handle the paperwork.”

Toshinori shoots him a bright, if slightly sheepish, smile. “I will,” he says.

And almost as suddenly as Toshinori had returned to his life, he leaves it again. Somehow, though, Naomasa suspects he won’t wait months to hear from Toshinori again.

It’s probably not a very good sign, but Naomasa is kind of looking forward to it. He wants — no, needs — to know what is going on.

Until then, however, his bed is calling his name.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean, ‘he’s gone’? I thought you said you had secured him in his room?”

“We did, yes, but he must have figured out a way to escape somehow…”

“And I presume he took my alethiometer with him when he left, didn’t he?”

“I… Yes.”

“Brilliant. And why didn’t you at least keep the boy and his daemon separate to make sure they couldn’t run off, then? I assume you have a good explanation for that one?”

“That wouldn’t have worked. I needed him to be coherent if I wanted him to answer more questions for us.”

“And how did that work out for you, then?”

“Oh, not bad! Not bad at all — we don’t need him. I got all the answers we need from the readings I took during our little… session together.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Of course, I would have preferred to use the boy, which is why I kept him, but in his absence… In his absence, the girl will certainly do.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“Well, then we’ll still have the backup plan, won’t we?”

“And you’re sure it’ll work?”

“Absolutely. Young Midoriya gave us everything I could ask for, and more. It will work.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“It will. I ran the calculations, and they will work. Now… All we have left is to get everything in position.”

“Good. I’m looking forward to it.”

“As I am.”

Kaa-san is there when Kacchan leads them to his house. She’s crying over a stack of paper while Auntie Mitsuki pats her back, Jundo fluttering from shoulder to shoulder in distress.

Kacchan, of course, slams the door open and shoves Izuku forward.

Kaa-san falls on him with a sob, pulling him against her chest and running her hands over his back and head. “Izuku! What happened? Where have you been? Oh, I’ve been so worried, thank god you’re alright — are you alright? Do you need anything? I can—”

Izuku hugs her back tightly, finally feeling the tight knot of dread and fear in his chest start to loosen. He chokes down on a sob, and hugs her tighter.

Auntie Mitsuki, meanwhile, is alternating between yelling at her son and trying to pull him into hugs he fights back against. “What the hell, you brat? Where have you been? And how did you even find little Izuku?!”

Izuku swallows and breaks away from his mother. “Yes, Kacchan, how did you find me?” he asks, frowning. “I didn’t even know where I was.”

Kacchan crosses his arms and scowls again, avoiding yet another of his mother’s attempts at a one-armed hug — he does, however, accept his father’s offer of a glass of water.

“I just asked that dumbass girl at school,” he says, chin raised defensively. “It wasn’t hard — besides, that place was a dump.” He sneers. “Took me and Chikara all of five seconds to sneak in and find you.”

Chikara’s snort says it probably was a bit more than that, but not much. Izuku’s heart pounds at the reminder, but… Kacchan hadn’t been there before. He hadn’t seen the doctor’s experiment, hadn’t heard him extol on them and how all daemons should be eradicated.

(Izuku still doesn’t know what happened to the doctor’s daemon. He doesn’t think the man severed himself — the doctor seems to smart to try it until he ‘perfects’ his solution, whenever that is — but Izuku also never saw the man’s daemon. It could have been in his pocket, but something tells Izuku that is unlikely.)

And then Kacchan’s words really register and Izuku translates them. “You mean Sugimoto-san?” he blurts out, remembering the cool girl a year below them sitting in the middle of the cafeteria like it was her throne and they were her subjects.

She had sort of reminded him of Kacchan at first, but Kacchan had never been this manipulative. It was pretty clear Kacchan only felt disdain for his ‘friends’ — though somehow they couldn’t see it — whereas Sugimoto sat in the center of Aldera’s rumor mill and made everyone dance to her tune like a spider, glutting herself on everything everyone would tell her.

Honestly, Izuku had been surprised to find that her daemon had settled as a chihuahua. He had expected some kind of insect, really, like a queen bee or a spider, or perhaps even a snake.

“And she helped you?” Izuku continues, incredulous.

Kacchan scowls harder. “Eventually.”

“But—”

“Drop it, Deku,” he spits back — which of course, prompts both their parents into calling him out for that name.

Izuku flinches back when Kacchan’s hands spark up in frustration, mouth twisting like he’s tasted something foul.

“I-It’s okay,” he stutters out, well aware that no amount of parental intervention will stop Kacchan from using that name. It’s never worked before, after all.

Kaa-san doesn’t look happy about it, but a pleading look from Izuku has her relenting. Auntie Mitsuki slaps the back of Kacchan’s head, but settles down too.

“We should… get going then,” Kaa-san says, shifting back on her heels while Jundo hovers above her head before nesting in her hair. “Get out of your hair.” She offers a trembling smile to Auntie Mitsuki, who grins back more widely.

“You know you’re never a bother, Inko. And neither are you, Izuku, no matter what my idiot of a son yaps about,” she says, laughing when Kacchan snarls back at her.

Izuku laughs nervously, edging away from them. He has fond memories of coming here when he was younger, of course, but ever since the doctors confirmed he was quirkless… Well, Izuku hasn’t spent a lot of time at the Bakugou’s. He doesn’t think he wants to start now — besides, Kacchan would probably kill him.

And then a thought hits him and he freezes, hand shooting out to grab Kaa-san’s arm and hold her there. “We can’t go home,” he blurts out.

Kaa-san frowns. “What? Why not?”

Panicked, Izuku’s eyes first finds Ketsu’s and then Kacchan’s, whose brow twitches first in annoyance and then in understanding. He scowls harder.

Izuku turns back to his mother, wringing his fingers. “What if… What if they come looking for me there? We— I— We should stay here for now, just in case.”

Kaa-san draws closer again. “Izuku, what are you talking about?” Jundo flutters down to her shoulder. “Should I call someone? The police — they were looking for you, you know… We should probably call them anyway,” she mumbles nervously.

Izuku’s heart soars then falls. “Call someone! I— Yes, I know someone we should call.” He pats his pockets before remembering he obviously won’t have his own phone, and feels his cheeks heat up. “Can I use yours?”

Kaa-san nods and hands him her phone. It takes Izuku a few seconds to navigate the unfamiliar interface, but finally, he gets to the call screen. His fingers shake a little as he enters the number he’s miraculously memorized (okay, yes, he may have spent too long looking at those numbers once he’d learned Yagi-san was All Might) and his heart pounds in his chest as he presses call.

The line rings for what feels like forever before it connects. A familiar voice filters in through, and Izuku’s chest collapses in relief.

“Yagi-san!” he blurts out. “I need your help. I…”

Yagi Toshinori is a much taller man than Inko would have thought. He has a kind smile and kind eyes, although he also looks tired, and his dog daemon practically runs up to Ketsu when they arrive, checking him over.

Something inside of her chest eases at the sight, and she exhales in relief.

Izuku is here. Back in her arms, or within reach anyway, and he is safe. No matter what he got himself mixed up into, Inko will support him. God, but those days where she hadn’t known where he was or what had happened to him… Even now, with him back in her sight, Inko can feel the cold terror seeping into everything, turning the world colorless and tasteless — she got him back, but it clearly isn't over.

And somehow, this Yagi Toshinori is involved. It makes Inko want to hate him for that, but the way he so clearly shares in her worry, the way Izuku lightens at seeing him halts her in her tracks.

They care for each other. Call her a fool, but she doesn’t think Yagi means her son any harm — rather the opposite, even.

“My boy, are you alright?” he asks. “What happened — I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I only just heard — did you escape?”

“I’m fine,” Izuku says, which is almost already more than Inko had managed to get out of him, too glad to see him to push for more. Yagi’s voice and demeanor, though, carries a sense of duty and urgency that has even Inko’s spine straightening just to hear it.

On Izuku, the effect is even more obvious. He looks toward Yagi like a flower seeking the sun, and part of Inko’s heart twitches at it — had she done this by not letting him know the truth about Hisashi? Had she made the hole in Izuku’s life that he has obviously been trying to fill with this man?

Her son had never seemed to want a father in his life before, but looking at them now, Inko thinks perhaps he had needed one somehow — or at least a fatherly figure. Heroes (and particularly All Might, wherever he may be) had seemed to fill in that role for a long time, but it’s not the same, is it?

It doesn’t really matter, in the end. If Yagi can help Inko make sense of what happened to her son and can help her protect him, then she’ll more than gladly accept him coming into their lives.

They can never have too much help when it comes to Izuku, anyway.

I only just learned, Yagi-san had told him. His eyes shone with worry, but he was saying ‘I didn’t know you were missing’ and ‘nobody was coming’, and Izuku’s blood runs cold.

It doesn’t matter that he got out already, that he hadn’t needed the heroes’ help. For so long in that place — first when he’d been tied to that chair and then later, in that barren room — Izuku had kept himself together by telling himself that the heroes were coming. That they knew how to find him, and that he only had to stall for a little while longer.

But that hadn’t been true, had it? It had just been a fiction Izuku had made to reassure himself. His knees go weak — if he hadn’t escaped, if he had waited in that cell for a rescue like he could have… A rescue that might never have come… What would have happened then?

His knees go weak — and then his eyes find Kacchan, who seems to have finally gotten away from his parents, and something in Izuku’s chest shakes itself loose. Kacchan had come. It still feels ridiculous to think it — Izuku had been so sure he’d been hallucinating, at first, when he’d looked through that door and seen Kacchan’s face staring back him, but it had been real.

It is real.

Just as the fact that Kacchan is now scowling at All Might is real.

“— rescued him from some shitty building in Kamino ward,” Kacchan is saying, explaining again how he’d asked Sugimoto-san for her help to get that location.

“You didn’t rescue him — Izuku was well on his own way out. If anything, you made it more likely for us to get caught!” Ketsu spits out suddenly, bristling and jumping forward before Izuku can hold him back.

“Sure, because you were doing such a bang-up job of leaving that place,” Chikara retorts with a disdainful snort. “Wandering around in the wrong direction.”

That was to get the alethiometer! Izuku almost blurts out, biting his tongue at the last minute.

Something flashes in Chikara’s reptilian eyes — disappointment, maybe. Had she been hoping Izuku would slip and mention it out loud in front of everyone?

Too bad for her Izuku doesn’t need to mention it by name.

He turns toward Yagi-san, his throat tight, and says, “I needed to get something back.” His hand drops to his pocket, and Izuku pats it in a pathetically obvious attempt at reassuring himself that it is still there.

Yagi’s eyes widen in understanding. “So they knew, then.”

Stomach churning, Izuku nods. He almost expects to be scolded, to be blamed — everyone usually does: poor, quirkless Izuku, the source of all the issues on Earth.

But Yagi-san just smiles wryly, bowing his head while Komyo pads over to Ketsu, bumping their heads together compassionately. “I’m sorry, my boy. I never meant for you to get involved in this.”

Izuku shakes his head rapidly, stepping closer. “No, no, it wasn’t your fault — I’m the one who…” He cuts himself off, flushing red, as Yagi-san shakes his head.

“No, I should have known better. I did know better — I just thought, foolishly, perhaps, that you would be safe…”

“Erm, erm.” Kaa-san clears her throat loudly and steps beside Izuku, putting a hand on his shoulder. Next to Yagi-san, she seems very small, but she carries herself as if she were taller. Her eyes are burning with a kind of anger Izuku has never seen before, and Ketsu quickly comes to hide between his legs as Kaa-san glares up at Yagi.

“What is all this about, then?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

Yagi startles, and his cheeks flush a little.

Komyo snorts, and buries her head into her paws. “Oh, good luck with that one,” she says, only chuckling at Yagi’s betrayed look.

“Nothing,” Izuku blurts out, at the same time as Yagi-san replies, “It’s complicated.”

Kaa-san’s eyes narrow, and Izuku shrinks down on himself. “Which is it, then? Nothing or complicated?” she asks.

“I…” Yagi-san casts a quick look around the room, wincing when his eyes fall on the Bakugous. Uncle Masaru has been pretending to wipe that table for the past five minutes, and Auntie Mitsuki’s face is mirroring Kacchan’s exact face of “I want to know what is going on”, only slightly less angry.

When she notices Yagi’s gaze fall on her, Auntie Mitsuki snorts. She looks back to Kaa-san, who seems to convey something back silently, and sighs loudly. “Masaru, brat, let’s go,” she says, projecting her voice. “Let’s give these three the room.”

“WHAT?” Kacchan yells. “But I went there with Deku, I deserve to know what the fuck is going on, you shitty old hag, let me—” His voice cuts off with a yelp as Auntie Mitsuki grabs the back of his shirt and forcibly tugs him forward.

“I wasn’t asking, brat. You can ask Izuku later if he’ll fill you in — if he wants to,” she adds, looking pointedly at Izuku.

It’s clear she wants to stay. That much is obvious in her eyes, which burn with curiosity even now as she and Uncle Masaru coral Kacchan and Chikara away — but she still leaves.

Without the Bakugous in the room, the atmosphere feels completely different. Some weight seems to have been lifted off of Yagi-san’s shoulders — though most of it returns when his focus shifts and his eyes meet Kaa-san’s insistent gaze again.

“Ah,” he says.

“You can tell me anything,” Kaa-san says, and Izuku only realizes she’s talking to him again when she takes his hand in hers. “I don’t… I’ll help you, okay? No matter what it is, no matter how big it is… I’ll help you. You don’t need to be scared.”

Izuku’s eyes burn as he nods. He opens his mouth and then closes it again, the words sticking in his throat. He doesn’t even know where to start. What to say. He spent so long hiding this from her so she wouldn’t worry, and now… Now it looks like Izuku will have to tell her anyway.

“I’m afraid this isn’t just Izuku’s secret to share,” Yagi-san interjects. For once, he isn’t smiling — his face is deadly serious. He looks to the door the Bakugous just left through again, but he must decide they are far away enough to share that he nods.

“You see, I was in possession of a device that, through circumstances outside my control, ended up in your son’s hands. I thought — hoped, really, that anyone who knew I had it would never even think to suspect him.” He swallows thickly, head bowing further down. “They should never have known about him.”

Kaa-san’s eyes flicker between Yagi and Izuku. “What device?” she asks.

Yagi-san’s gaze turns back to him, soft and light — it’s your choice, it seems to say, but really, what choice is there? Not tell Kaa-san and leave her wondering? Leave her worrying?

No, Izuku won’t do that. He can’t.

His hand shakes as he reaches into his pocket, and he only barely manages to bite down on a shiver as his fingers hit cool metal.

“Here,” Izuku whispers, extending it out carefully.

Kaa-san’s mouth widens in surprise as she accepts it, equally as careful. “Is that…” Her voice dies down as her fingers find the catch that keeps the alethiometer closed, and she flips its lid open. “That’s an alethiometer,” she says, voice strangled. “I’m holding an alethiometer.”

She seems shocked enough that Izuku’s stomach sinks with guilt, and he takes back the alethiometer from her, eyes drifting idly over the symbols before he closes it again, obscuring them to view.

“A-And that’s why you wanted to call Yagi-san instead of the police? Why somebody took you?” Kaa-san asks, her voice faintly ringing with panic.

To both questions, Izuku nods. His gaze drops back to the alethiometer, fingers tracing the metal slowly as he remembers the last question he’d asked it to answer. His mouth grows dry.

“I… They wanted my help with something.” Even just saying that leaves a bad taste in Izuku’s mouth. Ketsu leans against him, trying to comfort him, and Izuku takes a deep breath before continuing. He looks up into All Might’s eyes and says, “They wanted… They wanted to use Dust as some kind of energy. I don’t really know what for, though, but it can’t be good.”

His fists are clenched so tightly he can feel his nails digging into his palms. Izuku won’t be surprised if he finds bloody half-crescents there later.

“Dust?” Kaa-san echoes. “You mean what makes up our daemons?”

His throat tight, Izuku nods. He doesn’t take his eyes off Yagi-san, who had, the instant Izuku had mentioned Dust, blanched so drastically it was almost a wonder he hadn’t simply collapsed.

He looks… haunted. “Are you… Are you sure?”

Izuku’s stomach rises in his throat, but he nods. “Yes. There were...” His eyes flick to his mother and he bites his lips again — telling All Might about the Nomus would be one thing, but his mother? He doesn’t want to tell her about those.

He doesn’t want to tell anyone about those, really — even thinking about them is too horrible, these half-dead things that weren’t stitched up right that Doctor Ujiko had paraded around like they were his pets or something…

No, if Izuku could help it, he’d never think about them again.

“He knew how to take it and use it,” Izuku finishes lamely.

Yagi flinches and his gaze drops down to Ketsu as Komyo lets out a whine. Izuku’s daemon gets it first, shaking his head and repeating that they’re fine.

“I-Izuku?” Kaa-san’s voice shakes and Izuku’s heart twists inside his chest — she sounds faint, and this is exactly what he’d been trying to prevent.

“I’m fine,” he repeats, echoing his daemon, because he is now. The doctor didn’t… Well, they had been hurt, but they’re fine now.

He doesn’t say that, of course, because he knows that wouldn’t go over well, so he just repeats that he’s fine again, smiling at her.

To All Might, he adds, “We have to stop them. They have something planned, and they had me ask something to the alethiometer and I think I managed to stall them, but we have to stop them.”

Yagi-san blinks and the light returns to his eyes as his jaw sets. “If you think you stalled them, my boy, then you did.”

Izuku’s cheeks flush red at the praise, and Kaa-san lets out a sudden chuckle she probably didn’t mean to give.

Yagi-san sobers up and the levity leaves the room. “However, you are right. If…” He visibly swallows. “If this is who I think it is, then we need to act, and we need to act quickly.”

The knot at the back of Izuku’s throat tightens.

“What does that mean?” Kaa-san asks, her eyes narrowing as she crosses her arms. “For Izuku, what does that mean that you need to act?”

Yagi-san sighs. He suddenly looks more tired than Izuku’s ever seen him look before — also more determined. When he finally smiles, there is little joy to it, but it makes his eyes shine with determination, almost like a challenge to do better.

He looks like All Might.

Izuku can tell the moment Kaa-san sees it because she gasps and Jundo topples off her shoulder, only catching himself in midair.

“You…”

“Ah, yes.” Yagi-san’s smile turns sheepish. “I am. And if you would allow me, I believe we will need your son’s help to do what needs to be done.”

Izuku’s heart skips a beat, and then another. It is everything he has ever dreamed of hearing since he was five years old — All Might, asking for his help to defeat a villain.

It is nothing like he thought it would be.

Kaa-san turns worried eyes towards him. “Izuku…” She stops there, biting at her lip, and Izuku’s stomach lurches.

“Kaa-san,” he says. “I have to…” go, he doesn’t finish. Help, he doesn’t say.

Her eyes soften — she heard it anyway.

“You stay safe, alright?” she says, yanking him into a tight hug and sobs against his neck. “You come back to me.” She turns to Yagi-san. “You make sure he comes back to me, alright?”

Soberly, Yagi-san nods. “I promise I’ll do my best to see to that,” he says.

He doesn’t, Izuku notes with a sinking stomach, promise that Izuku will come back.

But then, you already knew how dangerous this would be, Izuku reminds himself, the doctor’s smile flashing before his eyes as he extolls on how free someone would be without a daemon and how easily he can make it happen.

Yagi-san’s hand falls on his shoulder and Izuku barely refrains from flinching at the suddenness of it.

“We should go, my boy.”

Regretfully, Izuku untangles himself from Kaa-san’s arms. “I’ll be fine,” he tells her, and Ketsu echoes his words.

He just hopes circumstances won’t make liars out of them.

Chapter Text

When Shouta’s phone wakes him up at an ungodly hour in the morning, he knows it can’t be good news.

He is proven right moments later when he finds a message from Nedzu, telling him to come into UA early and urgently today.

Fuck. The one advantage of kicking out his class last year (even if most of them had been re-enrolled later) was supposed to be that Shouta wouldn’t have to deal with this type of thing — and his next class isn’t due to start for weeks yet.

Shouta’s supposed to have actual free time now, and he had been looking forward to using it to catch up on his sleep. Not to be pulled back to UA before classes were even meant to start.

“Hizashi’s asking us if we got a message from Nedzu too,” Isamashi grumbles at him. His daemon, the traitor, has climbed onto the bed where Shouta had dropped back his phone, even though that bed is hardly meant to accommodate a full-sized panther. She’s now shamelessly looking at the avalanche of new notifications — typical of Hizashi, really, who has never learned not to send fifty messages when one would suffice.

“He thinks it’s actually important,” Isamashi says, and this time a note of worry colors her voice.

Shit, Shouta thinks, because now he is worried too.

He grabs the phone again, but Nedzu’s message hasn’t changed — just a request for them to get there as soon as possible, and that he had an urgent matter to discuss.

Knowing Nedzu, ‘urgent’ could mean anything from the next budget meeting to the end of civilization as they know it, and Shouta feels a tell-tale prickle of adrenaline trickling down his spine.

Something tells him this meeting isn’t about budget, which means the collapse of civilization is officially on the table. If Nedzu is summoning him, when he knows Shouta is meant to be on his day off, as well as Hizashi, who at this time should be getting on the radio… Then it probably really is urgent.

Fuck, Shouta repeats emphatically to himself, stumbling back out of bed and into the first clean hero uniform he can find.

Well, mostly clean, anyway. It’s not covered in blood, at least. Or, well, Shouta doesn’t think it is — luckily, black hides it pretty well, so even if there was some blood, nobody would really notice.

He almost trips over his own feet in his haste to get out of the bedroom. The coffee takes too damn long to percolate and Shouta spends that time strolling through the news, trying to find what might have sparked Nedzu’s sudden summon.

Apart from yet another batch of articles about their missing number one hero and how well Japan is still managing without him — purely a PR stunt, Shouta snorts disdainfully, because the villains haven’t quite gotten that memo yet — there doesn’t seem to be anything specific happening.

Which means whatever is going on is probably actually bad, if Nedzu is the only one aware of it.

“Coffee’s ready,” Isamashi signals just as the machine beeps to let him know, and Shouta pours as much of it as he can into a travel mug.

Something tells him he’s going to need it.

When Yagi-san had told him they were going to UA, part of Izuku had wanted to scream.

The rest of him had mostly been struggling not to faint, because that meant this was really serious, but also that Izuku was almost definitely about to meet a whole bunch of heroes in person.

He might just die.

“You won’t die, kid,” Komyo snorts from the backseat, and Izuku flushes red. Yagi-san, of course, just shoots him an amused look as he shifts into reverse and parks the car.

“Somebody should be here to—” he starts to say as he turns the motor off, and then cuts himself off as a figure appears under the streetlights. “Ah, yes, here he is.”

At Yagi-san’s prompting, Izuku gets out of the car. His legs shake a little and Ketsu jumps into his arms and climbs up around his neck, where he settles as a very fluffy scarf.

The figure that comes out of the darkness is short. Much shorter than Izuku would have expected.

He is also some kind of animal — an odd combination of dog, mouse and maybe bear as well — wearing a suit.

Izuku recognizes him instantly and gapes.

“It’s Principal Nedzu!” he blurts out, at the same time as Nedzu jumps up to introduce himself.

“Ah, I see you’ve heard of me,” Nedzu says with a slight grin, his eyes glinting as they stare at Izuku.

“Huh-uh.” Izuku nods rapidly. His hands twitch, and he bemoans the fact that he, for once, is not carrying any of his notebooks — he could have asked for an autograph!

Or perhaps not, he reasons. It’s probably not the right time for an autograph…

“I have to admit, Yagi-san, I wasn’t expecting your call,” Nedzu says as they start walking. He swipes up a card and the wall opens up — and just like that, Izuku is finally walking inside UA.

It is… almost disappointingly normal.

“Aah,” Yagi-san says with a wide grin, “I wasn’t expecting to call either. Unfortunately, this isn’t something I can handle alone.”

He looks like he wants to, though, but Nedzu only nods sharply before guiding them deeper into UA.

Once, it would have been Izuku’s dream to just stop and stare at them. In that dream, he’d be walking in through the front door, having earned his spot there, in the hero course.

But this isn’t that dream, and Izuku doesn’t have any time to stop and stare at anything. Yagi-san’s stride is almost twice that of Izuku’s, and for someone so short, Nedzu sure can walk fast.

Nedzu leads them to a conference room. “I hope you don’t mind,” he tells Yagi-san with a sharp grin as he opens the door, “but I invited some other heroes as well.”

For a moment Yagi-san freezes, looking almost like he wants to protest. But then his eyes drop to Komyo, who stares back up at him. “We’ll need their help,” she says.

Yagi-san sighs and shakes his head, but he doesn’t deny it.

Nedzu goes in first, but Yagi-san pauses at the door for a moment, just looking at Izuku. There is something… sad in his eyes. “My boy, you don’t have to come.”

Of course I do! Izuku almost protests, but that would be the childish answer. The obvious answer.

The truth is, All Might is probably right — they don’t have to be there. Izuku can probably just tell everything to All Might and let the heroes handle it — All Might had said he could read the alethiometer as well.

Except…

Except they took him once already. Except that Izuku helped them, even if he didn’t want to and even if he tried to phrase it in the least harmful way possible.

Except that this might be Izuku’s only chance at being a hero, and he has to see it through.

He needs to see it through.

So he swallows and shakes his head. Behind him, Ketsu straightens up too.

“I’m coming,” he says, and moves past All Might and into the room.

For an emergency, the room isn’t as full as Shouta would have thought. Yes, most of UA’s heroic staff is there — Hizashi, Nemuri and himself, for one, but also Vlad and Cementoss — but the only outside hero present is Sir Nighteye.

They all look about as informed as Shouta himself is, which Nighteye is obviously finding very frustrating and yet pretends to hide. Shouta drops his head into his arms to hide his amused snort, and closes his eyes. If he has to be there this early, he might as well take a nap while they wait.

Unfortunately, they don’t have to wait for long.

The door swings open suddenly, allowing first Nedzu to enter. He flashes them one of his quicksilver grins, thanks them all for coming, and then plops himself down in his seat. There are still, tellingly, two seats left empty, and Shouta’s eyes return to the door.

A short green-haired boy walks in. He looks almost familiar, and his stride, confident at first, freezes as he finds the room staring at him. He flushes a bright red, and his daemon, some kind of lynx, spontaneously turns into a bird and flies up to hide into his hair.

By Shouta’s side, Isamashi lets out a snort.

“H-Hi,” the boy stutters out — and just like that, Shouta recognizes him.

It’s that kid, he remembers. The one who missed the entrance exam, and had almost started crying when Shouta had told him he couldn’t go in.

The sight had almost tugged at his heartstrings, but if the boy couldn’t manage to show up to an exam on time, they probably didn’t want him in UA — better to have him fail now rather than later, when the stakes were so, so much higher.

The second figure that walks in right after the boy also looks familiar, but in a different way. If the boy had tickled Shouta’s memory, this man is… Looking at this man is like looking at a funhouse mirror, expecting to find something only to see something distorted, just to the left of it.

He is very tall, with two long blond strands framing his gaunt face. When he spots the boy, still standing frozen only a few steps away from the entrance, his face splits into a wide grin and he lets out a loud chuckle that only makes the boy turn redder.

Hearing that chuckle makes the funhouse effect even weirder, and Shouta can feel his fists clenching on the table and his eyes narrowing, almost burning with the urge to use his quirk — not that he would, of course. Not only would that be too much of a hassle here, but Nedzu is the one who brought them here, to this emergency.

They are obviously connected to it.

And then the man’s daemon walks in. A golden retriever, with bright, clear fur that Shouta has seen way too many times on billboards and posters, mirroring her human’s bright grin.

Hizashi, of course, gets there first.

“Shit!” he shouts, his eyes going wide. “You’re All Might!”

The room bursts into noise as most everyone here reverts into something like a teenage girl faced with her first crush — All Might, to his credit, seems to be handling it well enough.

The kid…

Well, the kid is still frozen in awe — but at least he has the excuse of being an actual teenager.

Isamashi calls out to him first. “Hey, kid.”

His head jerks up toward Shouta and he flushes red again. “M-Me?”

Shouta arches back an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. A silent Do you see any other kids here?

The kid seems to understand him, at least, because he nods and says, “Y-Yes?”

Shouta nods back to Isamashi, who yawns back at him and stalks forward, flicking her tail behind her in that way of hers that says she finds him lazy and she doesn’t approve.

Tough luck: she’s worse than him most times.

“Don’t just stand there,” she says, ignoring the ruckus with practiced ease — Shouta’s classes have been worse than this before, though perhaps not by much. “Grab yourself a seat — and if you can…” Her lips curl up and reveal her teeth as she looks down to the other heroes, who, apart from Nighteye (who seems to be struck with some kind of fear) and Nedzu (obviously just enjoying the chaos as he pours himself tea), are still clamoring around All Might.

“Do something about him,” Shouta finishes for her, nodding toward All Might and letting out a tired yawn.

The kid’s green eyes sharpen with resolve and he nods resolutely once.

Mmh, interesting, Shouta thinks, leaning back in his seat to watch the show.

It doesn’t disappoint.

Despite being awestruck not five minutes ago — and clearly still not being over it, if the way his voice keeps dropping into hushed mutterings every time he comes face to face with a new hero and squeaks out an apology, cutting himself off, is anything to go by — the kid actually manages to weave in his way to All Might.

Meanwhile, Isamashi corrals back Hizashi’s daemon, which fortunately prompts him to step back as well. With a sheepish look toward Shouta — who doesn’t hide how unimpressed he feels — he redirects Nemuri as well, who starts apologizing for her eagerness with a wide grin in the same breath as she kicks Vlad in the knees.

(There is a reason her daemon settled as a praying mantis, and Shouta is reminded of it every day.)

“It is no worry,” All Might tells them with a rueful smile as he follows after the boy, his daemon chuckling behind him. She, after all, had mostly avoided getting besieged the same way All Might had — though Shouta had definitely seen Kenso, Hizashi’s daemon, talking her ears off.

Once everyone is seated again, Nedzu clears his throat and sets his teacup down. He grins at them above it, and Shouta knows he isn’t the only one to feel a shiver of unease run down his back.

“Now that we’re all here,” Nedzu says, “let’s get started.”

Mirai hadn’t expected to see Toshinori walk through that door.

He doesn’t really know why — in retrospect, it was kind of obvious that he would have to be involved. Too many things have been happening lately for their number one hero not to be involved.

The boy is new, though. Mirai doesn’t recognize him, but he knows who he is nonetheless. If Toshinori brought him there, there can only be one reason: he had found the successor Mirai had tried so hard to tell him he needed.

He stares with some trepidation as both the boy and Toshinori sit down.

Nedzu, after having announced that this meeting has started — and was called by Toshinori, who has something he needs to share — falls silent again. He plays with his teacup, and Mirai would have accused him of not paying attention if he didn’t actually know that Nedzu wasn’t probably also already plotting three steps ahead of them.

“Thank you all for coming,” Toshinori starts, with the easy commanding tone he’s adopted so many times over his years as number one — when he speaks, people can’t help but listen. Even now, with just these few words, Mirai can see the effects of it: backs straightening, eyes focusing… Even in himself, who knows it’s happening and wants to stay mad at Toshinori, who he hasn’t seen in years and who has still barely spared him a glance now.

“As you’ve probably gathered, yes, I am All Might.” He gives them a large smile and lets out a chuckle most of the room can’t help but echo back at him.

“Excuse me, All Might, sir,” Vlad King starts, “but weren’t you… missing?”

“Just All Might,” Toshinori replies with an easy smile. “Or… Yagi, I suppose,” he adds with a wryer twist of his lips. “And yes, I have been missing. Technically.” He grimaces, and sighs. “I suppose it might be easier to just show you,” he says, and Mirai is struck with the sudden knowledge of what Toshinori is about to do.

“Izuku, my boy?” he asks, turning to the green-haired kid who’d been mostly silent until now.

“Y-Yes?” The boy startles violently in his chair, but this time, when eyes turn to him, he doesn’t freeze. “Oh, right.” His jaw sets and he nods, before plunging his hand into his pocket.

The device he extracts out of there is easily recognizable, but Mirai’s heart skips a beat nonetheless. Miukeru presses closer to his neck, as though feeling his turmoil, and Mirai presses a hand against her fur in return.

The alethiometer clicks as the boy — Izuku? — sets it on the table. Nedzu doesn’t appear surprised to see it, but he nonetheless sets his tea down again, leaning forward in his seat, an eager gleam shining in his eyes.

Mirai suppresses a grimace — he isn’t sure he wants to know what a world where Nedzu has access to an alethiometer would be like.

Midnight is the first one to react.

“Is that an alethiometer?!” she blurts out.

Eraserhead isn’t far behind her, though, looking between the alethiometer, Toshinori and the boy with an increasingly unimpressed look.

“That’s an alethiometer,” he states, echoing Midnight’s words — though where she had sounded incredulous, he mostly just sounds done. He looks up to Toshinori, and his brow twitches. “You gave a child an alethiometer.”

“I didn’t,” Toshinori starts to protest boisterously, at the same time as the boy blurts out, “He didn’t!”

Toshinori falls silent and the boy turns red again as the focus returns on him. The muscles in his jaw jumps, but after a quick look to his daemon, now back in his lap, he repeats. “He didn’t give it to me. I found it.”

Eraserhead snorts loudly. “Yes, because that is so much better.”

“Regardless of how he found it,” Present Mic intervenes, shooting Eraserhead a look that somehow has him relenting, “I think we all would like to know what it has to do with anything.”

“And how you ended up with it in the first place,” Vlad King grumbles, turning expectant eyes toward Toshinori.

Miukeri quivers against his neck, and Mirai holds his breath.

When Izuku sets the alethiometer on the table, Toshinori feels as though he could burst with pride. That can’t have been easy, so soon after trying to protect it from the people who had taken him, but his boy had done it.

His colleagues’ curiosity, of course, is entirely understandable, and Toshinori finds himself smiling for a second before clearing his throat.

The room falls silent again.

“To answer your question, yes, that is indeed an alethiometer.” He lifts it carefully off the table and sighs as he runs his fingers across the smooth surface — how many times had Toshinori used it over the years, ever since Nana had handed it to him with a smile for the first time and told him, ‘Why don’t you try it, huh?’?

It feels… odd, almost, knowing that the alethiometer doesn’t really belong to him anymore — that Toshinori willingly left it in someone else’s hands.

“I have had it, and used it, for many years.” He can see the effect his words have on his fellow heroes — their confusion, their questions, the way this actually clears up things for some of them… The way Mirai’s jaw jumps as Toshinori reveals his own secret so casually — but that’s what Mirai’s never really understood: this is Toshinori’s secret to do what he wants with.

And if he wants these heroes to help him — and he does, if they’re the ones Nedzu brought together after his request — then Toshinori has to be honest with them.

He looks to Izuku — Izuku, who Toshinori had so foolishly put in harm’s way by not telling him about all of this, simply because Toshinori had thought (had hoped) it was over and dealt with.

Izuku, who even now could leave but instead chooses to stay and help them.

His boy is already a hero. Toshinori can’t wait to see what he’ll become next — but first, they need to handle this.

He turns back to the gathered heroes. “In many ways, the alethiometer has been to me what your quirks have been to you. Yes,” he adds before anyone can interject, “I am still quirkless.” His lips quirk up into a fond smile as he thinks about David again, who had taken the opportunity to create tools somebody could use to fake a quirk and be a hero as a challenge rather than the impossible task so many others would have assumed.

His story unspools from there: how he had started his career by researching attacks carefully, a hero more in line with what Nighteye (or underground heroes) do these days rather than the spotlight heroes people think of when they hear the name All Might — how that hadn’t been enough, how Toshinori had used every trick he could think of to make himself better, to make himself look invincible.

It certainly helps, he thinks ruefully, when you have an alethiometer at your disposal helping you get ready, and a devoted support team, excited to invent newer tricks for their rising hero.

And then…

And then, All For One happened.

“You must understand, I was aware of him already. We were aware of him,” Toshinori says, thinking back to Gran Torino, who had always known who had killed Nana, and Mirai, who had seen what would kill Toshinori himself, eventually.

Nedzu already knows, too — but then again, Toshinori suspects that Nedzu had known about All For One well before he had known there was an All For One. The pattern of his crimes was actually pretty distinctive, and how Toshinori himself had found the villain the last time they’d fought.

“Even knowing about him, he still…” Toshinori swallows and Komyo presses against his leg in silent support. “He still almost defeated me. Us.” His eyes flicker over the room, where everyone is staring back at him. They are listening attentively, but they are unafraid.

They do not yet know what Toshinori does. What Izuku has learned much too soon — the All For One and his people have always been a very specific kind of monster; one that nothing can prepare you for.

And still, Toshinori will try.

“His quirk,” Toshinori says, “lets him steal other quirks. And he has stolen many, many of them over the years he’s been alive.”

Eraserhead’s eyes narrow in comprehension, but it’s Present Mic who speaks next. “He has a longevity quirk.”

“It is likely he has several,” Nedzu interjects, hands folded on the table. His eyes are shadowed, and Toshinori nods in agreement.

“Yes. Along with many other quirks. I can give you the rundown of the ones I encountered the last time we fought, but that won’t be all of them — and we don’t know in what state we will find him. I thought…” Toshinori’s fists clench by his side, his stomach churning with a mix of fear and anger and guilt. “I thought he was done for, but he must have somehow managed to heal from his injuries at least enough to organize… something.”

“And that’s where the boy comes in, I assume?” Vlad King asks gruffly.

Izuku startles violently, and Toshinori can’t resist a quick smile, even if the subject matter is nothing to smile about.

“Yes.”

Nedzu takes over, “Midoriya-kun here was captured several days ago by someone we believe to be associated with All For One.” This isn’t news to Izuku — Toshinori had done his best to brief him in the car, even though they hadn’t had much time, but the boy still startles a little, shifting in his seat uncomfortably.

”He managed to escape,” Nedzu continues, “however what he has told us gives us reason to believe All For One is planning something. Something big, and that will happen soon — more so, perhaps, if he has already realized that Midoriya-kun has escaped.”

Mirai’s eyes narrow. “And how did he escape, then? If he was caught?”

Izuku must catch the implications behind Mirai’s question as well, because his eyes harden — even if his cheeks turn red again. Beside him, Ketsu starts to snarl, unveiling very, very pointy teeth.

Izuku licks his lips and scratches his forearms, but when he speaks his voice is steady and barely carries any trace of his usual nervousness.

“I didn’t see All For One, just his doctor, but he… He wanted to ask me a question,” he says. “Using the alethiometer.” His cheeks darken a little, and his eyes flicker over to Toshinori and then his daemon, but he keeps talking. “I… I didn’t want to, but I answered him — I asked the alethiometer and it said it was the best choice,” he hastens to add, even though nobody looks to be blaming him.

Izuku’s eyes flicker over to Mirai again. “A-Anyway, after I answered him he kind of… left us alone? He c-came back sometimes, and he’d talk at us a little, but we were mostly alone.” He frowns and bites his lip, looking down. “I think he was really busy. But that means that Ketsu and I managed to… leave.”

The room fills with impressed mutters, and Toshinori’s chest hums with pride.

“What was the question?” Eraserhead asks suddenly.

“Huh?”

“The question this ‘doctor’ wanted to ask you.”

Izuku swallows visibly before answering, his fingers tensing in his daemon’s fur. “It was something to do with a project he’d been working on already. He… He’s been researching Dust, and how to use it — a-and he severs people and uses that in his experiments.”

Toshinori’s stomach churns at the reminder, and more than one person in the room goes a little green at the thought.

None of them, Toshinori is grimly satisfied to see, seems inclined to disbelieve Izuku.

“I don’t know what the experiment is, but I tried to lie and so I just said they needed Dust.” Izuku’s eyes flicker over the room. “It seemed safer, but I think… I think the doctor didn’t really need my answer. That he just wanted an outside confirmation.”

Toshinori grimaces — that sounds all too likely, if this doctor has been working on All For One’s project for as long as Toshinori suspects he has.

Izuku takes a deep breath and looks around the room again. His fingers curl around the alethiometer. “I don’t know exactly what they have planned, but I can find out.”

Keigo’s phone starts ringing as he’s greeting his fans. He’s got a dozen feathers spread around, carrying various bags and stuff — he’s not exactly paying attention, because this is the type of thing he could pretty much do in his sleep, but also because he’s been on edge over the past few days.

Something is about to happen. It’s been brewing for a while now, ever since All Might disappeared, propelling Keigo in his de facto number two spot. Perhaps most people wouldn’t notice, but Keigo has.

It’s hard not to, when villains haven’t been acting out as much as they should have with the number one hero mysteriously missing. Oh, of course there are those who believe it’s just a sign of their system working as it should, but Keigo knows better. The Commission is much too antsy about this for it to be normal.

No, something else is going on.

So when his phone starts ringing, screen depicting a number he hadn’t really thought he’d see, Keigo’s heart starts to race.

“Sorry,” he shoots out into the crowd with a calculated apologetic smile, “duty calls.”

He grins wider as he waves goodbye to the civilians, and takes to the skies.

Ori comes to glide beside him almost instantly, and something inside his chest loosens a little, as it always does. Technically, they are separated, the way a lot of heroes chose to be, so she doesn’t have to fly so close. Doesn’t have to fly at all. He’s still thankful that she does. Thankful that here, in the sky, he can have her by his side.

“What do you think they want?” she asks him.

Keigo shrugs, beating his wings and carrying himself higher. “Let’s find out, shall we?” he says with a mirthless grin, and picks up the phone.

It isn’t every day, after all, that Nedzu himself calls on him.

Junshin hears the footsteps first, and his nose quivers. It tickles against Eri’s skin and she lets out a small puff of air — and then she hears the footsteps as well and falls silent, her heart racing inside her chest. She pulls Junshin closer to her chest.

The keys let out a metallic ringing sound as they’re taken out of a pocket, and a voice hums some kind of cheerful tone Eri doesn’t recognize as the lock clicks into place. Moments later, the door swings open smoothly.

It’s that man. The one she’d helped before, the one who’d said he could take their curse — their quirk — away.

Eri swallows.

He is smiling when his eyes fall on her, but it still looks wrong. Still feels wrong.

Eri’s hands tighten around Junshin, who presses himself harder against her.

“Hello, Eri,” he says.

“H-Hi,” she mumbles back, looking down. “Are you here to t-take my curse away?”

She dares to look up into his eyes again, and catches the ends of some flash of an emotion she doesn’t quite recognize there. His smile grows wider and he bends his knees to get on her level.

Up close, his smile looks scarier still. “Soon,” he says. “But first, you’re going to help me with something very important, okay?”

He offers out a hand, and Eri’s heart skips a beat. He is lying. She can tell he is lying — men who smile at her like that are always lying. Still, she can feel something bubble inside her chest; something like hope.

“You p-promise?”

All For One smiles again, all sharp edges and none of that easy kindness Izuku had shown her, what feels like forever ago. “I promise,” he says.

Eri’s blood runs cold, but she takes his hand.

What other choice does she have?

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.”

Keigo exchanges a look with Ori, who seems to tell him ‘if he wants to do it, let him’, and shrugs.

“Well, it’s your call, I suppose,” he says.

Yagi Toshinori — All Might — smiles back politely.

Keigo’s smile twists and turns into a grimace as they start walking, and he stares up into the glimmering glass panels of the Hero Commission’s headquarters’ building. He scratches the back of his neck.

“Gotta admit, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when Nedzu called me in.”

All Might laughs. His daemon trots by his side, and even though they are not in costume, that sight combined with that laugh makes it very, very obvious who exactly is walking beside him.

Well, obvious to Keigo, apparently, since the handful of passersby that are walking by the Commission’s headquarters barely turn their heads in their direction. Ori preens disdainfully on his shoulder, and Keigo smothers an amused snort at her reaction. Like him, she can’t really imagine being that unaware of their surroundings.

“What were you expecting then?” All Might asks, dragging Keigo back to the present.

“Oh? Erm, I don’t know, something more… action-based than escorting you to the director’s office. I feel like I’m in high school,” he jokes with a wink, even though he wouldn’t really know.

“You were the best choice,” All Might replies with a shrug.

Keigo’s lips twist into a humorless smile. “And the one approved by your little machine, I suppose?”

All Might’s lips twitch as he inclines his head. “That too.”

Keigo’s wings quiver at his back at the reminder — an actual alethiometer, right there, in the hand of a hero for so long… No wonder the Commission had sort of snapped as soon as they’d found out. Keigo’s pretty sure they’d used to have their own, a long, long time ago — well before they’d called themselves the Hero Public Service Commission at all — but that had either been lost, stolen, or reappropriated. Universities were pretty much the only places you could reliably find one of those now, and getting granted access was notoriously complicated.

“And you’re okay with just… walking right in there after you left to stop them from getting their hands on it?”

All Might arches an eyebrow, and Keigo rolls his eyes. “What? I work for them, and I appreciate what they do — I never said I approved of everything.” Or that he likes it, Keigo thinks but doesn’t add.

“And that,” All Might says, “is why you were the one tasked with escorting me inside. Besides, this is more important than personal feelings — everyone in this building is currently in danger.”

Pulling back the hero mask he’d just barely started to take off, Keigo nods solemnly. “I remember,” he says, because he does. Just the reminder reignites the sick feeling that had spread through his chest earlier, when he’d gotten to some kind of secret meeting inside UA, where they’d told him about a villain’s plan so atrocious it could only be true.

Finally, they reach the door, and Keigo grins at the guard there, saluting him sloppily.

“You ready?” Keigo whispers as they’re let in — easily, so easily, shouldn’t this be harder?

All Might smiles back, his grin half the hardened one he shows criminals, half the one he’d given them earlier, inspiring hope in the face of what looked like an impossible mission against a villain who could take their quirks and wouldn’t hesitate to sever them from their daemons.

“Ready,” he says, and picks up the pace.

Keigo almost asks him if he’s worried about the others, but… Probably better not to jinx them.

Hizashi grimaces as he looks at the dilapidated building Midoriya’s indications had led them to.

He looks down at the notes Nedzu had given them on location again, but they do not change.

“Looks like we’re in the right place, then,” he says, quietly adjusting his directional speaker. The place doesn’t look to be in the type of state that’d withstand too many of his strongest attacks — if any — and Hizashi would definitely rather avoid sending the building down on their heads if he can avoid it.

And he can avoid it.

“Looks like,” Kan replies grimly.

Hizashi can see why villains would pick this place, really. This neighborhood isn’t completely abandoned, but it looks that way at first glance. It’s remote enough that there probably wouldn’t be any neighborly complaints if an odd noise or two happened, but still close enough to the city and transportation that it makes for a good central meeting point.

None of that, of course, changes the fact that the building itself just feels creepy.

Hizashi’s about to step closer when Kenso comes flying back. He raises his arm and she lands on it, preening for a second before saying, “Nighteye found an entrance. Come, I’ll show you.”

She takes off again, and this time Hizashi and Kan follow her.

Hizashi’s not really sure what to think of Nighteye. Sure, he’s a great hero, and his gimmick is certainly fun, but he’d been… clearly at odds with All Might during that meeting, and it leaves Hizashi feeling a little uneasy.

Not that it’s any of his business, of course. And a foresight quirk is nothing to scoff at, if they can’t be in the alethiometer team.

(Hizashi’s mind is still reeling from that one, honestly. A genuine alethiometer, and somebody who can read it just like that? Both Midoriya and All Might have argued it’s not a quirk, but it certainly feels like one to Hizashi.)

As Kenso indicated, Nighteye is waiting for them in front of a large metallic door. Its paint looks slightly rusted, but a closer look makes it clear both the hinges and lock are new.

It is, of course, locked.

“Just give me a moment,” Hizashi says, already taking off his glasses.

Kan, of course, already knows what he’s doing and just lets out a groan, while Nighteye arches an eyebrow but sidesteps away from the door.

A lot of people assume the speaker is the only support item Hizashi carries; and in all honesty, that is pretty much the truth. Hizashi doesn’t really count anything else he carries as a support item — all he needs is his quirk, really. The speaker helps for the big stuff: helps him direct and modulate it better.

For the small stuff, however…

“Ahah,” Hizashi whispers triumphantly, pulling free the left temple of his glasses. He spares them a mournful glance as he slides them into his pocket, and crouches down to jam the temple into the lock.

It only slides forward a few millimeters, but Hizashi doesn’t really need more. He creeps closer to the end sticking out of the lock, until his mouth is almost touching it, and starts a low hum in his throat.

“Cover your ears,” he hears Kan advise behind him, but Hizashi is too focused on hitting the right pitch to catch Nighteye’s response.

Hizashi opens his mouth and lets the temple vibrate — and with it, the lock. He keeps his volume as low as he dares, and he doesn’t think his voice carries too much. It’s definitely less noisy than trying to break down the door, which Hizashi knows Kan had been about to ask.

This close, he can hear the lock click open, and he closes his mouth again, shutting off his quirk.

He grimaces a little as he straightens up — doing this always leaves him with an itchy throat, though it passes quickly — and tugs the now-bent temple free from the lock.

With a flourish, he pulls the door open. “After you,” he says, and winks.

The inside of the place is as gloomy as its outside. It looks to be as deserted as Midoriya had told them, too, which gives more credence to his easy escape story — not that Hizashi didn’t believe it, of course, but it’s still nice to have confirmation.

Midoriya had also warned them about doctor Ujiko’s creatures — the thing he’d run his severing experiments on — and how they might be in the building. As such, they go through the building slowly and quietly.

Granted, Hizashi isn’t the first person you’d think of when you think of ‘quiet’, but since they need somebody who can also help subdue those… things if need be, he was probably still a good bet.

It doesn’t stop him from wishing he could have gone with the others, though. Storming the Commission headquarters — even though Hizashi knows that’s not exactly what they’re doing — sounds much more like his style.

They find the room they believe to be the doctor’s office easily enough, and Nighteye gets busy copying every document he can get his hands on. Hizashi scans a few pages before he has to stop, feeling too sick to continue, and goes to help Kan gather up the files instead.

Which is how he catches sight of the girl’s picture.

Her file is with it, thin as it is, and Hizashi's mouth runs dry. Eri, it says, and he suddenly remembers what Midoriya had told them, how the alethiometer had revealed to him that All For One’s plan would involve using a girl he’d found once before.

If she’s still here… Maybe they can rescue her first.

“Vlad,” he calls out quietly, and Kan’s head snaps to him. Hizahsi shows him the file and Kan nods.

“Go,” Nighteye tells them, barely lifting his eyes from the papers he’s sending off to his agency. “We’re clearly alone in this wing of the building, I’ll be fine. Let’s meet back here in twenty minutes — unless something comes up.”

Hizashi nods and takes off, file in hand. It lists a room number, but it’s not like they have a map of the place, so they have to go through every door anyway.

“Think we’ll find her,” Kan asks him after the fifth empty room.

Hizashi bites his lips as he tugs open a sixth door. “I… Maybe.”

“But you don’t think so.”

Heart heavy, Hizashi shakes his head. “This place looks empty. She was probably there, but if Midoriya says things will happen at the Commission building… That’s probably where she’ll be too.”

“Shit.”

Hizashi snorts out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you said it — still, let’s keep looking. Who knows, we might get lucky.”

“Yeah, because that’s likely.”

The last thing Eishi expects today is for a ragtag team made up of two pro heroes and a kid he’s pretty sure is supposed to still be missing to burst into his office while he’s hiding under his desk.

Well, he’s not exactly hiding, per se, just… making adjustments. Very important, very necessary adjustments to the… cables under there. If someone who was looking for him — like, say, his boss — were to pass by his desk and think him gone, well, that would just be a funny coincidence, wouldn't it?

Totally unplanned.

Which is also why he stays under his desk at first when the three come in.

“You sure it’s there, kid? Place looks empty.” Midnight says. She doesn’t sound judging, just on edge, but the kid shrinks in on himself almost as though she’d scolded him — Hyouri starts glaring at her, and Eishi just knows if his daemon could get away with it, she’d be throwing paper clips at the pro hero.

Not that Eishi can blame her — that kid looks even cuter in person than on paper. Eishi’s never thought of himself as a particularly parental type of guy, but this kid could make him reconsider.

“No, this is where we’re supposed to go,” the kid — Midoshi, Midora, no, Midoriya! — says, frown audible in his voice. He’s clearly looking down at something in his hands too, and the two adults with him fall suspiciously as he waits.

When he looks back up and shakes his head, proclaiming this room to be the right one, Eishi could swear the whole room exhales at once.

“We’ll just have to take a look around,” says the other hero in a gruff voice. He’s wearing all black with a length of white scarf-like material around his neck, and Eishi doesn’t recognize him, which means he’s probably underground.

Great. Underground heroes are the worst. Well, the best, technically, but also the worst because they’re much more independent from the Commission, which means Eishi has no idea who they are most of the time.

Which would usually be great fun to think about, except that now, one of them is in his office, stalking forward with a black panther daemon, and all that stands between Eishi and them is a flimsy desk that doesn’t even hide him all that well.

Maybe he should just stand up. Reveal himself.

That would be a good idea, wouldn’t it? Make it easier on everyone.

“Eishi,” Hyouri starts to whisper.

“Not now!” Eishi hushes back.

Which is, of course, when someone clears their throat behind him.

It’s the kid. Of course it is. His daemon, some kind of cat that eyes Hyouri with the kind of unimpressed look only cats can give, is draped over his shoulders, and though the kid is clearly nervous, he holds himself with the kind of determination Eishi’s only seen in heroes and agents before.

Fuck, he thinks to himself, and crawls out from under his desk.

“Hi,” he says, and gives a little wave. “How can I help you?”

Midnight and Scarf Guy exchange incredulous looks.

“We need,” Midoriya starts, before Midnight cuts him off, stalking forward in a sultry way.

She points an index finger at him and trails it down the side of his face, just light enough that it barely counts as a graze. Her mouth curls into a heart-shaped pout, and her whole body seems to… undulate somehow.

(It’s fascinating, really. How does she do that? Can anyone learn how to do it? Wait, no, Eishi, focus.)

When Midnight speaks, her voice is pitched low and breathy, and she flutters her eyelashes at him. Behind her, Scarf Guy looks away with the tired eyes of somebody who would rather be anywhere but where he is, which, mood, Scarf Guy. Mood.

“We need your help,” Midnight says, voice still pitched into a soft croon. “See, my friends and I have gotten a little lost, and we were hoping you could… point us in the right direction.” She flutters her eyelashes a little more, and sits up on his desk, pulling herself closer to him. Her daemon is nowhere to be seen, but Eishi almost expects to find it cuddling up to Hyouri when his eyes flick over to his daemon.

“I…” Eishi blinks and carefully back away, only narrowly avoiding hitting his elbow against his computer screen — if he breaks another one, they’ll probably take it out of his salary this time, and that would suck. He picks up Midnight’s finger and pushes it away. “Do you mind… not touching me? Please?”

Midnight blinks, her spell broken, and she leans back. Eishi’s heart shivers in relief and he exhales a deep breath.

“W-What?” She pouts, scowling dangerously at Scarf Guy who can’t quite hide his grin into his scarf fast enough. “This usually works.”

Eishi can feel his cheeks redden. “I… Sorry? I just… don’t.” He clears his throat and looks around the room frantically until his eyes fall on Midoriya again. “I can… probably help you still? I mean, if it’s just directions and all, I know a lot of things. This building is kind of a maze, really, I’m not surprised you got lost…”

Scarf Guy’s face is out of his scarf and he’s looking at Eishi suspiciously now. Eishi’s blood runs cold and his voice petters out into a nervous laugh.

“Why are you helping us?” Scarf Guy asks, hands creeping up to his neck.

Eishi swallows. “Truthfully?”

“That’d be best, yes,” Midnight quips. She still seems miffed by Eishi’s earlier lack of reaction to her charm, but Eishi can see her starting to discard it to focus on him again.

She probably won’t use her quirk on him if they want something from him, but that doesn’t exactly make him feel much safer considering the other two strangers in the room.

(Eishi knows better than to discard someone the Commission had him approve a mission for, even if they’re still a teenager. Perhaps because they are still a teenager, even.)

Despite knowing they’re the only one here — and that he could take care of any recording devices should there be any around — Eishi still looks around the room nervously for a moment before blurting out, “Honestly, I’m just hoping I can quit after that.”

“What?”

It’s hard to say who looks more surprised among the threes, but Eishi ignores that, forging on. “Yes! This job kind of sucks, really, but I can’t just quit it without a good reason, and if I get fired I lose all my benefits, but I figure if I say some intruders threatened me, I can probably use the vil— I mean, the safety clause to say I’d feel safer working elsewhere, and they’d have to let me go.”

“Oh god, he’s an idiot,” Scarf Guy says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Midnight barks out a laugh. “Come, now, Eraserhead, that’s just mean! He’s clearly just overworked — you’d think you could identify with that.”

Scarf Guy — Eraserhead, apparently — shoots her a look so venomous that if was his quirk, she’d probably be dead, before sighing and returning to Eishi.

“Right. I guess you can say we threatened you or whatever. Now, help us.” He nods to the kid, who steps forward again.

“So, we’re trying to get to the sublevels — there should be a second basement under the one that’s one the plans, but because it’s not on the plans we can’t figure out how to access it short of just, breaking through the floor,” Midnight’s not-so sheepish look makes it very clear whose plan that had been exactly, “and when I asked the al— I mean, it seemed like you could be the person to help us with that.”

He doesn’t go into any further detail on how he found Eishi — on the thirteenth floor, nonetheless, which isn’t as far above ground as you can go, of course, but definitely isn’t close to it either.

“Right,” Eishi says, mouth running dry. “And… why do you want to go down to the sub-basement?”

The three of them exchange a look and Eishi curses himself — he’s never been the best at hiding his own thoughts, but he had been trying to hide. And failed, evidently, as always, which is disappointing — Eishi really thought he’d been getting better.

Eraserhead’s eyes narrow at him again. “What do you know about it,”

“Nothing,” Eishi replies quickly.

… Too quickly.

“Just tell us what we want to know,” Midnight tells him, crossing her arms over her chest. Behind her, Eraserhead’s daemon yawns, unveiling a truly impressive row of teeth.

Eishi sweatdrops. “I… It’s not that easy! This isn’t a, a small thing, like telling you where to find the elevator or stealing some office supplies! This is… This is big.” Hyouri presses closer to him in silent support, and Eishi takes a shaking breath.

Midoriya steps forward. His green eyes are kind, and his smile makes Eishi’s shoulders drop back down a little, even though he seems to inexplicably be leading this little trio. “You’re scared,” he says, and Eishi bites down on his tongue to keep out from blurting another lie.

“It’s okay,” Midoriya continues, still smiling. “I’m scared too. But we know that villains are planning to use whatever is on that sub-basement to hurt a lot of people, at best, and they have a little girl with them that really deserves better, so we’d really appreciate your help. Please?”

Eishi’s blood runs cold in his veins. Shit, he thinks. “Fuck,” he says.

Eraserhead’s lips quirk up into a quick grin before falling back into his resting scowl.

“I, yes, okay. Shit— I mean, fuck— I mean, this is bad. This is really bad.”

Both Midnight and Eraserhead straighten up, while Midoriya’s jaw jumps. “What is it?” they ask, pretty much all at once.

Eishi grimaces. He looks down at Hyouri, torn, but she mouths at him, “Go on. Tell them.”

“I…”

The truth is, that sub-basement is a huge, huge part of why Eishi really, really wants to leave this place. It’s not just the paperwork, or the shitty assignments, or his boss, it’s… that. What he learned they were keeping there.

It’s why he needs to have a good reason to leave. Or well, Eishi hopes they’ll let him leave, at least — the Commission has all kinds of secret-keeping quirks, or memory-erasing quirks he’d be willing to let them use on him, even. Surely if they’re worried about an information leak, they’d be able to use one of those before letting him go…

But Eishi had always wanted to tell someone. To let them know what went on there — or, well, what had probably happened at some point, since he’s fairly sure those machines haven’t been used in a while.

(Or at least, he hopes so. They look… suspiciously well-maintained for abandoned pieces of equipment, but Eishi tries very, very hard not to think about that.

He’d probably never be able to sleep again if he didn’t.)

“It’s where they keep some old… equipment they confiscated — not to use, just to… keep it safe.”

The two pro heroes don’t blink as Midoriya asks, “Severing equipment?”

A chill runs down Eishi’s back. His mouth falls open. “I— Yes, how did you know that?”

Midoriya’s mouth purses thin. “Just a guess,” he replies wryly before taking a deep breath. He looks to the two heroes and nods to himself before turning back to Eishi. “So, can you take us there? We’ll… take care of those things.”

Eishi’s heart lurches with hope. “You will?” he asks, voice painfully raw.

Midoriya smiles again, and for some reason, Eishi can’t help but to trust him.

“I… Yes, okay, alright, I’ll show you the way.”

“Great,” Eraserhead interjects gruffly, already pivoting on his heels. “Then let’s get going.”

The Commission employee the alethiometer had led them to in turn leads them to a hidden elevator. He even has the code to activate it, though he makes them promise they won’t tell anyone he had those codes.

Which they do, of course. Izuku’s pretty sure neither Eraserhead nor Midnight care that much, anyway — all they tell the man (Hamano, apparently, since he’d blurted his name maybe five steps away from his office and then spent the rest of the way to the elevator looking like he regretted it deeply) is to get out of the building as quickly as he can.

It’s good advice. Izuku almost wishes he could take it — only, no, he doesn’t really, because Eri is probably down there, and she needs help.

The doctor and All For One are probably down there too, with her, and they need to be stopped. Izuku… Izuku wants to see it happen.

No, he needs to see it happen.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Ketsu whispers in his ear, and Izuku flashes him a quicksilver smile.

The elevator opens into an empty corridor. In his mind, Izuku half expected it to look like the place the doctor had kept him, or perhaps something like the set of a horror movie: a dark and damp corridor, lit with flickering lights, sending shivers of unease down his spine.

Well, the uneasy feeling is there. The rest, not so much.

It is a corridor, but it looks very clean. Sterile, almost like a hospital, if a hospital looked as dead as this place felt, with its grey concrete walls and grey concrete floors.

The lights are pure white, and they turn themselves on as someone walks by.

“Stay behind us,” Eraserhead tells him, exchanging a quick look with Midnight, who nods back and steps closer to Izuku. His capture scarf unspools slightly from around his neck, and Izuku’s inner fanboy dies a little.

(Is he going to see Eraserhead in action?? And Midnight??)

They creep further into the corridor, but they thankfully don’t meet anyone. At last, though, they reach a door. It even has a little window, though Izuku is too short to look through it.

Eraserhead and Midnight aren’t though, and the way the lines on their faces tighten after they stare through it tells Izuku all that he needs to know.

His heart starts to race. “They’re in there, aren’t they?” he whispers, Ketsu shifting nervously around his neck, his claws catching on Izuku’s skin.

Eraserhead nods. “Yes.”

Izuku makes a move to open the door but Eraserhead shoots him a glare that halts him in his tracks.

“Stop,” the man says. “What’s your plan?”

Izuku blinks. He looks over to Midnight, but she’s now grinning at them, and mimes locking up her lips. Clearly, she’s not going to be of any help.

“My… plan?” he asks, refocusing on Eraserhead.

Eraserhead arches an eyebrow. “Yes. Or are you planning to just… rush in there?”

Izuku had been, but something tells him that wouldn’t be the right answer.

“I… thought I would be going to grab Eri, and you would cover me and… take care of anyone here who’d try to interrupt,” he says, mind half racing. “I mean, they’re both men so Midnight’s quirk should work on them, and Eraserhead, your quirk should mean you can take them by surprise and nullify some of their advantage,” he starts to mumble.

Midnight snorts out a laugh and Izuku’s head snaps up. He catches sight of a wide grin splitting Eraserhead’s face before the man conceals it, and Izuku’s cheeks heat up.

“Not bad,” Eraserhead tells him, and Ketsu squeaks around his neck.

Eraserhead’s daemon huffs out a laugh as well. “Stop teasing the kid,” she says, nodding toward the door. “We’re wasting time.”

The mood sobers up. Midnight and Eraserhead exchange another look before nodding.

“Now, remember, the goal is to go unnoticed for as long as we can,” Eraserhead tells him before reaching for the door’s handle. “That means staying low, and keeping quiet. Understood?”

“I—” At Eraserhead’s pointed look, Izuku’s mouth snaps shut with a click, and he nods silently.

Eraserhead nods back again. This time, he pulls the door open.

It luckily doesn’t open into the room itself, but rather on some scaffolding that overlooks it.

It’s actually kind of perfect, Izuku thinks, before realizing how much more exposed they are up there than they would be down there, amongst all the shelves and boxes that litter the ground floor.

Izuku looks down and spots both the doctor, happily fiddling with a machine that makes Izuku’s head hurt just looking at it, and the man who must be All For One.

He looks in a much better state than Yagi-san had said he should, but it’s not really a surprise.

Almost on cue, Eraserhead lets out an annoyed hiss — no doubt he’s spotted that too.

Slowly, they walk down some stairs. Izuku keeps his steps light, trying to copy the way Eraserhead and Midnight move in front of him. He thinks it minimizes the noise he makes — at least, neither of the men in the space below them look up.

They pause when they reach the bottom of the stairs. There, they are utterly concealed from view — which unfortunately means that they can’t see the doctor and All For One either.

Something clangs and Izuku’s blood freezes in his veins — and then the doctor’s voice, as chilling as ever, runs through the room. He sounds happy. Too happy.

Behind him, a machine whirs to life. Izuku aborts a step forward, gritting his teeth.

“Careful,” Eraserhead mouths quietly, his hand on Izuku’s arm holding him in place.

Izuku takes a deep breath, and forces his fists to unclench. He nods toward a path to the left, in the direction he thinks he had seen a place they could have been keeping Eri while they were descending.

Eraserhead’s eyes borrow into his, but eventually he nods, and they start walking again.

Eri is where Izuku had thought she would be. Izuku’s heart lifts at the sight of hair pale hair, draped over her back, and then falls again as he realizes she’s in a cage similar to the one the doctor had put Ketsu in.

She’s not moving either, and Izuku rushes forward before Eraserhead or Midnight can try to hold him back.

“Nononono,” he mumbles, falling to his knees by the cage, fingers running over the metal, trying to find the catch.

For an impossibly long moment, he thinks he is too late. That Ujiko and All For One have accomplished what they set out to do — that they severed Eri and used the energy from that to… open up a door (Izuku still isn’t sure what that’s supposed to mean, but all the alethiometer would answer when Izuku asked it was ‘a door, a path, a way’, which didn't really explain anything.

And then Eri shifts and moves and the room fills up with air again.

She lifts her head to look up at Izuku, and says, “‘zuku?”

Izuku’s breath catches on a sob. His fingers shake as they finally find the latch and tugs it open. “Yeah, it’s me.”

Eri unfurls slowly, and Izuku exhales another shaking breath of relief when he sees her daemon in her arms, nose twitching feebly.

"Hello again, Eri,” he says, smiling as widely as he can and slowly pulling her out of the cage. She comes easily enough, if with some confusion. “We're here to rescue you," he adds, nodding toward Midnight and Eraserhead.

The two heroes are both on their knees, and while Eraserhead isn’t smiling the way Midnight is, his face has clearly softened as well.

"But he said," Eri starts, pulling Izuku’s attention back to her.

"He was lying," he counters, rising to his feet and extending a hand out to Eri. When she takes it, Izuku’s smile turns just that little more real.

Which, of course, means things were due to go wrong.

And they do.

With a loud scraping sound that makes the hairs on Izuku’s arms raise up, the full shelves that had been keeping them from view are shoved to the sides.

The man who can only be All For One steps forward with an easy smile. “And we have guests.”

“We’re not—” Izuku starts to say before he remembers himself and shuts up, moving in front of Eri to keep her from view.

All For One lets out a chuckle, as though he hadn’t been interrupted. His eyes almost seem to twinkle as he says, “You’re just in time.”

Izuku freezes but Midnight and Eraserhead spring into action.

Midnight rips open half of her costume, sending a cloud of pink mist in front of her. Eraserhead’s scarf lifts up at the same time as his hair, and Izuku catches sight of glowing red eyes before All For One starts to laugh.

“Really? Is that the best you can do?” He offers Eraserhead a condescending smile, merely waving a hand through Midnight’s quirk, dismissing it away from him. “How long do you think you can keep that up?”

Eraserhead already seems to be feeling the strain — can he even erase more than one quirk at the same time? Is that why Midnight’s attack didn’t work? — but he grits his teeth and sends his capture weapon forward.

It snakes through the air, almost too fast for Izuku’s eyes to track properly, but All For One evades it like it was never even a threat.

And perhaps it wasn’t, Izuku realizes, dread pooling in his gut.

“Let’s go,” he whispers to Eri, gently tugging on her hand and taking quick steps toward the stairs they’d come from. “While they’re distracted.”

Eri follows him quietly, and they manage to reach a new hiding place, behind the shelves All For One had pushed away earlier. From there, Izuku can see that while Midnight’s quirk had been useless on All For One, it had at least incapacitated the doctor, and he exhales a sigh of relief.

That’s one less problem, at least — although he doesn’t doubt that All For One has a way to wake him up if he needs to.

Izuku’s eyes find the stairs easily. They’re close, and within reach, but just as Izuku starts to take a step in their direction, Eraserhead lets out a grunt of pain and Izuku freezes.

His hands drop to his pockets, and he swallows.

“Just… Wait a minute, okay?” he tells Eri, who nods back at him.

Her eyes stay intent on him as Izuku quickly takes out the alethiometer. “Come on, come on,” he mumbles to himself, turning the dials as quickly as he dares.

“Izuku… Are you sure this is the time?” Ketsu whispers worriedly into his ear.

For the first time, Izuku ignores his daemon’s remark, focusing instead on his question.

How do we beat him? he asks — no pleads, and mercifully, blessedly, the needle starts to move.

“Oh, now, that just won’t do at all.”

Izuku only has the time to catch one single symbol of the answer — the Marionette — before the alethiometer gets ripped out of his hands.

“No!” he shouts, Eri startling at his side, but he’s too useless to catch it.

It slams into All For One’s hand, who smiles down at it before slamming its lid shut.

“This was mine first, you know? A gift, to my little brother. He was… very ungrateful.” All For One sighs and shakes his head, and he crooks his fingers forward.

Izuku’s arms are pinned to his side by a great weight, and he can’t move. He can barely even breathe. His feet brush against the floor as he’s dragged forward by some unseen force, and he manages to catch a glimpse of Eri, in the same situation and floating beside him before it’s over, and they’re back where they started, standing in front of All For One.

Only this time, Midnight and Eraserhead are both pinned to the ground. They look… alive, Izuku notices with a racing heart, but he doubts All For One will let them stand up again soon.

“Let her go,” Izuku shouts out, when All For One makes to drag Eri forward.

She’s not even struggling. She just looks… defeated already. Like she doesn’t understand why she should fight. It turns Izuku’s stomach, and makes his blood run hot.

“And why would I do that?” All For One asks, amusement ringing in his voice.

He stops bringing Eri forward, though, and Izuku’s chest lifts with hope.

The Marionette, he recalls. It’s not much of an answer, but surely it can give him a clue.

Think, Izuku berates himself, willing his brain to work faster. Just think!

He casts his eyes around the room, looking for something, anything to help him figure out what the alethiometer wanted him to know.

His eyes land on the machine, still whirring softly behind All For One, the doctor’s form half-slumped over some kind of console.

It hurts to look at it even more than it did before, but Izuku’s heart lurches in his chest.

Oh, he thinks, stomach falling. That’s it, then.

He licks his lips. “Take me instead.”

All For One arches an eyebrow. It is not a refusal, though, and Izuku’s chest fills with a sick kind of hope as Ujiko and All For One’s plan becomes clearer.

“You need Dust for that machine to work, don’t you? The doctor— Ujiko, he said that quirks muddied the waters, that they made it harder to access. Well, I’m quirkless, so you wouldn’t have that problem. And you need a child, too, right?” he adds, struck by the knowledge — because of course they do. Otherwise, they wouldn’t risk using Eri — not when All For One could just take her quirk the way he’s taken others.

Izuku’s still staring into All For One’s face with a confidence he only half feels, so it’s easy to catch the glimmer of interest that shines through those eyes. All For One’s quirk into a smirk.

“Interesting,” he says. “You would… surrender yourself like this, for a child you barely know? How… heroic of you.” He spits out the word ‘heroic’ like it’s a curse, but Izuku’s back straightens at the sound of it.

“Yes,” he states. Urgently, he adds, taking a step forward that surprises him more than anything else, “You want to do this now, don’t you? We’ll keep fighting otherwise, and we didn’t come alone. Somebody’s bound to find you here, and interrupt — and something tells me you don’t want that to happen while you’re in the middle of whatever this is.”

“Kid, no!” shouts Midnight. She tries to stand up but All For One must do something, because she groans and gets slammed back down against the ground, unable to say anything else.

Izuku’s heart pounds in his chest, and his feet itch to run up to her, but he can’t right now. Besides, if Izuku keeps staring down All For One, holding his attention, maybe he’ll forget about the two heroes he’s keeping down.

All For One’s smirk widens into a terrifying grin, and he barks out a laugh, clapping his hands once. “Very well. Since you’re offering so… selflessly to help us,” he says with a mocking drawl, “who am I to disagree? Come here.”

“Izuku, what are you—” Ketsu whispers against his neck, his voice full of urgent panic.

“Shh,” Izuku whispers back urgently, his heart pounding in his chest. “I have a plan.”

“Is it a good one?”

No, Izuku doesn’t say, hysterical giggle trapped in his throat. “Shh,” he repeats.

They walk closer to the machine slowly. Eri huddles next to him — All For One insists she comes along so that Izuku doesn’t “get any ideas” — and Izuku bites his cheek as the sound from the machine starts to fill his head.

It doesn’t hurt, per se, but it feels like it should.

They stop in front of it, and All For One opens some kind of door, revealing a bare compartment inside. “After you,” he gestures, but Izuku doesn’t move.

“What’s your plan?” he blurts out instead, closing his eyes for an instant and feeling Ketsu slide down his back. He doesn’t know what shape his daemon has taken, but he doesn’t need to. Not now. Not yet. “I mean, you want to use the energy from…” even now, Izuku can’t say ‘severing us’ without tasting bile, so he just says, “this,” while gesturing at the machine, “to do something, but what? I don’t think you’re planning on eradicating daemons, or whatever your doctor thinks you’re doing.”

All For One laughs. “And why should I tell you?”

Izuku crosses his arms. “I’m volunteering, aren’t I? Don’t I deserve to know?”

Amusement flashes over All For One’s face. “Haven’t you asked the alethiometer? Shouldn’t you know all of my plans already?”

“I…” Izuku swallows. “It just said something about opening a door, but it doesn’t make sense.”

All For One’s grin widens. Beside Izuku, Eri lets out a whimper, and Izuku squeezes her hand tighter, trying to convey a silent ‘it’s okay’.

“So it’ll really work,” All For One exhales in a fervent breath, fingers trailing over the metallic door like a caress.

Izuku frowns, stomach churning uncomfortably. “What will work?”

All For One eyes him pitifully. “Haven’t you guessed? A door that simply needs a tremendous amount of energy to open… A pathway, opening where there is none...”

“Like a rainbow?” Eri pipes in, her voice so soft Izuku almost misses it over the whirring of the machine and the buzzing in his head.

All For One arches an eyebrow but smirks. “An old legend — but there might be some truth to it.” To Izuku, he says, “Imagine, being able to cut through the very fabric of the world itself. To go anywhere. Anywhen, in a snap of a finger.” He snaps his fingers for illustration. “And I’m not talking about something as simple as a quirk — but something that transcends that.”

“That’s impossible,” Izuku blurts out, but even as he says it, he knows this is what the alethiometer meant when Izuku had asked it about it.

He tries to imagine All For One being able to go back in time and change the past, and his stomach fills with dread. He tastes bile again.

All For One shoots him an annoyed look for the interruption, but his smile returns when Izuku flinches back.

“Not impossible,” he says. “Merely… difficult. But imagine the possibilities… Traveling to a new world — one without those pesky little heroes.”

“Without anybody to stop you, you mean.”

“Stop me? Ha, is that what they told you they had done?” All For One’s grin turns pitying again. “Do I look stopped to you?”

Izuku bites his cheek until he tastes copper, but he doesn’t reply.

Eventually, All For One lets out a disappointed sigh. “Nevertheless, in this world… I am reduced to working in the shadows. To hiding — but in a new world, I could be a god. Worshipped again.”

“I… see.

All For One laughs again. “You don’t, but you do not have to.” His smile sharpens and then hardens, like the blade of a knife. “Now, why don’t you go in?” He tilts his head to the side. “Or I could put you in, I suppose,” he adds, lips twitching as Izuku’s torso once again feels seized by the enormous weight that had dragged him around before.

“No need,” Izuku blurts out, stepping forward.

“Izuku…” Eri says, pulling back on his hand worriedly.

Izuku grins back at her as best as he can. “I’ll be okay,” he says, carefully letting go of her hand. His heart pounds inside his chest as his plan concretizes, and he hopes fate doesn’t make a liar out of him. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Eri’s face doesn’t change as she nods, but something sad flashes through her eyes, and Izuku’s heart twists in her chest.

He wants to promise, but the words stick in his throat. He doesn’t want to lie to her, even inadvertently. Instead, he gently pushes her back. “Stay safe, okay?”

“Huh-uh.” She nods, and Izuku’s grin lightens a little.

“Now,” All For One insists urgently, and Izuku walks back toward the door All For One is still holding open. The space on the other side looks large enough to hold several people, but it also feels wrong, and Izuku’s stomach quivers at the sight of it. He swallows back reflexively, and halts just to the side of it.

This way, All For One is almost in front of the door.

“Well?” the villain asks.

“I…”

All For One’s eyes narrow. “Where’s your daemon? They’re not supposed to go with you in there.”

“Behind you,” Izuku blurts out, heart thundering in his chest.

For a terrible, terrible moment, Izuku thinks it won’t work. That all For One, with all his quirks, will somehow see right through him.

But as Izuku had thought, All For One underestimates him: he only sees a teenage boy, quirkless and desperate to help a child, who thinks doing this might be the only thing that can give his life some meaning.

He isn’t entirely wrong, mind you, but Izuku is also more than that.

Izuku wants to be a hero, and heroes never quit.

All For One turns around, just for a fraction of a second, but he’s distracted.

“NOW!” Ketsu shouts, and the room springs into action again.

Eraserhead’s head snaps up, his eyes glowing a fiery red, and he sends out his scarf away from himself — not to capture, which All For One had clearly expected and manages to avoid, but to trip him up.

To unbalance him, and bring him right in front of the machine’s door, where he had planned to shove Izuku through.

It is almost easy to push him through instead and slam the door shut behind him.

Something screams above them and drops down from the sky, coming to scratch at the door, but it’s only a spider, and while it clearly tries to access All For One’s quirks, the theory Nedzu had formulated back at UA, once Izuku had told them what to expect, actually holds true.

“You can’t do this!” All For One’s daemon yells, but it’s useless. All For One can’t access his quirks while he’s inside the machine — the field it generates, meant to cut through a human and daemon bond when focused, interferes with Dust in such a way as to make quirks useless while inside of it.

A more general application of Eraserhead’s quirk, almost.

“Well played, kid,” Eraserhead says, grunting as he gets up to his knees.

Now that the adrenaline is sort of dying down, Izuku’s knees are starting to shake a little. “Thank… you?” he says. Ketsu jumps down into his arms and Izuku hugs him to her chest. Eri comes back as well, peering up at him. “Is it over?” she asks.

“Yes, it—”

“Never,” All For One’s daemon snarls, jumping away from the door.

Izuku doesn’t know what it meant to do. Perhaps it had a plan, or perhaps it simply wasn’t used to not being able to call on its human’s quirks.

It hardly matters when Eraserhead’s daemon jumps down on it, pining it to the ground — and not, Izuku notices, with as much care as it could have.

Unfortunately, the panther’s jump takes her right above the machine’s console, where Ujiko still lays, half slumped over.

Or rather, laid.

Izuku’s heart thumps in his chest as the doctor slowly slides down to the floor, landing with a muffled sound that nonetheless feels much louder than it should.

Izuku realizes why half a second later, as the machine’s pitch, which had somehow lowered, suddenly kicks back again, louder than before. The ground almost shakes, really, and the banging from the room they’d locked All For One redoubles, his shouting deafened by the door and the sound of the machine. His daemon shouts too, redoubling in its struggles, and then—

And then a strident noise, and everything falls silent again.

It all happened so fast none of them even got the time to move.

“Shit,” Eraserhead swears. His daemon takes her paw off All For One’s spider daemon’s back, but its legs only twitch feebly.

Izuku feels sick. “Did we…”

“You did nothing,” Midnight interjects, gracing Izuku with a shaky smile. Her face is too pale for that not to be a lie, though. She turns to Eraserhead and nods to the now silent machine. “Should we…”

She doesn’t get to finish her sentence, as a large pulse of… something, spreads out from the top of the machine. It is blinding, forcing everyone to shut their eyes, but it doesn’t hurt.

When Izuku opens his eyes again, he sees…

He sees…

Something.

It is hard to describe.

No, it is impossible to describe. How could words ever suffice to render a tear in the world. A hole in reality — not a black hole, or a portal like quirks can make, just… a tear. Shimmering, translucent fabric hanging in front of them where they should be nothing but empty air, leading out to… something else.

Izuku’s heart beats so fast it threatens to rise up his throat. His hand reaches out to it — to that tear — before he comes back to his senses and stops.

Distantly, they start hearing footsteps, running out toward them. Ah, Izuku thinks, so All Might must have managed to talk the director into evacuating this place.

His eyes do not drift away from the tear. His mouth runs dry.

“What… What do we do with it?”

Izuku doesn’t know why he’s the one asking the questions. He’s not a hero — not even a hero student. He doesn’t even have the alethiometer anymore, which means he can’t ask it this question.

Without it, hoping to close some kind of dimensional rift opened by severing a hundreds-year-old villain feels… well, hopeless.

He looks to Eraserhead and Midnight for answers, but they seem as lost as Izuku feels. Just as entranced, too, if more cautious, telling Izuku to back away from the rift.

He starts to, and then stops when he realizes Eri isn’t following.

“Eri, come here,” Izuku says, but the little girl shakes her head.

“It’s okay,” she says, brow furrowing slightly as she steps closer. “I think… I think I know what to do.

“That’s too dangerous!” Eraserhead calls out, voice tight. His scarf shoots out again, no doubt to grab Eri and pull her to safety, but instead of reaching her, it gets blown off course by some unseen wind, drifting through the tear.

Another step, and Eri reaches it.

It’s… smaller than Izuku had thought. It doesn’t quite reach the ground, and it is only a little taller than Eri. Izuku tries to hurry to her side, but this time, Eraserhead’s capture weapon doesn’t miss his target and Izuku finds himself pulled back and away.

“What are you— Let me go!” Izuku shouts, struggling, but Midnight hushes him.

“I think… I think she’s okay,” she says, an incredulous note ringing through her voice.

Izuku’s eyes jerk back toward Eri, catching her just as she gets up on her tiptoes and reaches for the jagged edges of the rift.

His next words of protest die on his lips as she just… pinches it closed again. It hardly makes sense. Izuku’s seeing it and his brain still refuses to compute what he’s seeing, and in mere moments, it’s over. The rift is gone, and Eri rocks back on her heels, turning back to Izuku with the brightest eyes he’s seen on her.

“Was that okay?” she blurts out, shoulders starting to fall as she no doubt catches on to the tense atmosphere of the room.

“Yes,” Izuku replies instantly, at the same time as the heroes start to praise her actions — while also telling her to be more careful in the future. “Of course it was. You did great.”

Eraserhead’s scarf finally slides off him, and Izuku races back to Eri’s side. He doesn’t pull her into a hug, even though he really wants to, but he hastily checks her over, and exhales in relief when he can’t find any injuries.

“Well, that was… something,” he says, nervous laughter trapped in his throat.

And then, of course, the door bursts open, letting in first Hawks, who flies quickly around the room before dropping down among them, then All Might, and finally, some armed Commission agents Izuku doesn’t recognize.

Heart in his throat, Izuku inches closer to Eri. He takes her hand again.

“Is it over?” she asks him in a quiet voice.

Izuku’s heart skips a beat. “Yes,” he whispers back. He feels light, suddenly, and blinks rapidly. “Yes, it is,” he repeats, voice faint.

Eri nods, but Izuku only distantly notices.

It is over, he realizes. Really over. Izuku is quickly ushered away from the room by the Commission agents — who seem kind of confused to find him here, but mostly appear to be suffering under the misconception that Izuku had been brought there along with Eri (nobody seems to be correcting them, so Izuku doesn’t either) — but not before he catches sight of them prying the door to that machine open, revealing the blank-faced man inside.

Izuku blinks and they are too far now for him to see more, but he knows that sight will haunt his dreams for a long, long time.

His eyes drift down to Eri, who looks up at him with bright eyes.

Izuku’s heart lurches in his chest, and he squeezes her hand gently.

It was worth it.

Everything, he thinks, was worth it if that’s the ending they get.

Chapter Text

Meeting again at Dagobah beach after everything that happens feels… a little unreal, Izuku isn’t going to lie about that. Even more so knowing that Izuku is going to meet All Might there.

Well, Yagi-san, officially, but… Same difference.

It’s the first time they’ve met since everything that went down at the Commission headquarters, too. Izuku hasn’t actually heard much from everyone who was involved since — Kaa-san has been burying him under hugs and mountains of his favorite foods, and they’ve been keeping busy preparing a room for Eri when she gets out of the hospital (which should be soon now).

Kaa-san hasn’t even forced him to go back to class yet (which Izuku is very thankful for, because Kacchan wants an explanation and Izuku honestly isn't sure what he’s supposed to tell him, if anything).

“Hello, my boy,” Yagi-san greets him with, and Izuku almost starts crying.

“H-Hi,” he stutters back, and Komyo barks out a laugh.

After the perfunctory greetings, they slowly start walking. Dagobah beach still isn’t completely cleared up yet, but this stretch of it is, all the way to the ocean, and they stop there for a moment, listening to the waves. It’s soothing.

“I have something for you,” Yagi-san tells him suddenly, just as Izuku is starting to wonder if Ketsu is going to try to join the birds they can hear calling above, or if he’ll stay down there, in the sand — he thinks it might be a toss-up, really. Ketsu likes to stick close after everything that happened, but he also loves to fly, and this place is safe.

“Huh?” Izuku asks, looking up at Yagi-san.

“Here,” he says, handing out a familiarly-shaped package, wrapped in cloth.

“Is that…” Izuku’s throat closes up and he swallows past a sudden dry mouth, his fingers twitching around the package.

Yagi-san’s lips curl into a wider smile, and his eyes twinkle. “Why don’t you try and open it?”

Izuku’s fingers shake as he attacks the knots keeping the package closed. He already knows what he’ll find inside, but somehow, the sight of that golden casing still steals his breath away.

“Are you sure?” Izuku asks, eyes jerking up to All Might again. “I thought… I thought it had been lost.”

Yagi-san nods with an amused hum. “Oh, yes. Destroyed, really. Whatever that machine did, it tragically rendered it useless.” And then, before Izuku’s stomach can start to churn with panic, he winks.

“That…” Izuku licks his lips. “Will that even work?”

Yagi-san shrugs, looking out into the horizon. “Hm. Maybe. Truth be told, the only people who’d know to look for it are in the Commission, and they currently have other matters to handle.” Yagi-san’s eyes take on a hard glint as his mouth purses into something resembling a scowl. “I don’t know what they were thinking, keeping that machine there…”

Izuku nods along quietly, alethiometer cradled against his chest. “Do you think they were working with All For One then?”

Yagi-san sighs. “I’d be lying if I said the thought didn’t cross my mind, but… I don’t think so. I think All For One just did what he did best, and took advantage of other people’s bad decisions.”

“That makes sense,” Izuku says, digging his toes into the sand. “If it had worked, people would have blamed the Commission, and heroes.” They still were, as far as Izuku knew, but it hadn’t really reached the public.

The only way Izuku even knew was because he had the context to read between the lines in the many, many articles that had been coming out in the past week about an incident at the Hero Commission headquarters leading to a change in leadership, and because he’d texted Yagi-san, who’d told him about some of it.

“Indeed,” Yagi-san says, flashing Izuku a proud smile that makes him flush. “But enough about this — high school starts in just a few weeks. Have you figured out what you will do?”

“I…” Izuku’s stomach churns. “Not really. I still want to be a hero, of course — now more than ever, even! — but I don’t know…” He looks down at his hands, and finds himself staring into the polished surface of the alethiometer, reflecting his face back at him.

“I didn’t exactly get accepted into any hero school,” he continues, guilt curling in his guts.

Kaa-san had tried to appeal, Izuku thinks, but they’d told her it was too late. he’s pretty sure they’d laugh him off if they knew he was quirkless too.

“Mmh,” All Might says, eyes twinkling again. “I might be able to help you with that.”

Izuku’s heart lurches in his chest. The alethiometer almost slides through his fingers as he takes a fumbling half-step forward. “W-What?”

Yagi-san laughs with All Might’s booming laughter, and Komyo trots over to bump her head against his leg. “Toshi, stop teasing the boy,” she says, but it’s pretty clear she’s grinning as well.

Yagi-san’s mirth eases up into a softer smile. “When I said I had something for you earlier, I didn’t just mean this,” he says, nodding down to the alethiometer.

“Oh?”

“Yes.” This time, Yagi-san pulls free an envelope from his pocket. It is slightly crinkled around the edges, but Izuku’s hands shake as hard when he accepts it as they had when he’d taken the alethiometer.

“Open it,” he says.

Fingers trembling, Izuku does. The letter inside is short, but it doesn’t need to be long. Izuku’s hold on the paper tightens, threatening to tear it, and he forces himself to release it. His eyes start to burn.

“Is this real?” he asks, voice raw. He doesn’t dare take his eyes off the letter, lest its content changes.

“My boy, what else would it be?”

“Izuku, what is it?” Ketsu asks, coming over.

Wordless, Izuku just extends out an arm for him to climb up and take in the letter too.

“You— That— What?” Ketsu stutters out once he does, almost toppling off Izuku’s shoulder. “This says we just got admitted into UA’s hero course,” he says.

Izuku nods, still speechless. His fingers trace the unfamiliar words, and Nedzu’s signature, at the bottom of the page.

“The staff at UA was rather impressed with how you handled yourself during this whole crisis,” Yagi-san says smugly. “And they agreed when we pointed out it’d be a shame to let you slip through our fingers.”

Izuku chokes out a sob. “Thank you,” he breathes out.

Yagi-san laughs again. “No, my boy, thank you.”