Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This could be a problem.

Nedzu flicked his ears back in annoyance, enjoying being able to emote more naturally in the privacy of his office this late in the day.

Midoriya was really living up to Aizawa’s title of Problem Child. The worst part of it all was that the poor boy had literally no say in any of this. The test results had come back positive as he had feared. Shigaraki, whoever he had been born as, was indeed Midoriya’s blood relative. In fact, with how close the blood relationship showed, it was likely they were full blood brothers though half brothers with the other parents being either siblings or close cousins was also possible.

He had not wanted to be right about his suspicions but it had been obvious the moment both he and Hound Dog had caught the other man’s scent. It seemed that Midoriya had even more criminals in his family tree than first thought. Now it seemed that they would have to do the other final exam this year with how large a risk Midoriya was if he was to go rogue. Knowing how he thought while acting as a Villain would be a great help in case it became an issue further down the line.

While the Commission would write off his familial connection with the Sako family as merely his mother’s foster family, travel records and Yagi’s own testimonial showed that they were as good as blood family for the Midoriya’s. That gave him at the very least a strong connection to the most skilled thieves in the country, not that Nedzu planned on turning them in despite the evidence he himself had gathered on them over the years. It was also that family background that likely led to Midoriya’s strong sense of right and wrong and drive to do the right thing regardless of what the law might say just like his great-great grandfather Harima Oji better known as the Peerless Thief had. The man had been a more real Robin Hood figure for the Quirk community in years long passed after all.

He nodded to himself, decision made. Now to just decide who would be the other three team leaders and make the arrangements.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Izuku found himself a bit concerned with the pained look on Aizawa-sensei’s face as he walked into class that Monday following the end of their internships. “Under normal circumstances today I would be assigning you to write a paper summarizing what you all learned from your internships this past week however in the wake of both the attack on the USJ earlier this year as well as the recent attack in Hosu and a few other factors, it has been decided that you will participating in a UA style game of Heroes vs Villains for your final practical exam this term.”

He fished out a stack of Manilla folders with seat numbers on the fronts. “Before I continue, first I feel I should distribute these basic rule packets. Inside two of them are role cards, one Hero Team Leader and one Villain Team Leader. The people with these cards are the only ones in the game who will have pre assigned roles. Beyond that it will be up to the team Leaders to recruit members. That being said, if you have been assigned a role, it is up to you if you wish to reveal yourself to the class as a whole. There are pros and cons of doing so, of course, but that being said it should be obvious who is on what team even if you never publicly declare your position. All that we ask is that the Team leaders submit their finalized roster of members before the exam begins so that everyone is graded appropriately.”

With the packet now in hand, Izuku was quick to open it and peek inside before pulling out the rules in case his growing worry that he would be the hero team leader was correct. If that was true, he would wait a couple days until he figured out the other team leader- 

Oh.

Well.

That was a thing.

He was careful to keep his expression masked with the same nervous excitement as he had been wearing as he pulled out his rules, mindful of the card so it did not slip out. At the other side of the room there was a whoop of excitement as Kirishima pulled out the Hero Team Leader card and held it aloft. It was a plain blue card with “1-A Hero” written in bold lettering in white contrasting well with his own red and black card.

“Don’t worry guys! I promise to not let you down!”

Aizawa-sensei sighed. “As I was saying, while the roles for the rest of the class are currently unassigned, that can change if either you fail to end up on either final role list or if the Villain team has fewer than five total members including the Team Leader. At that point the necessary required Hero team members will be assigned Traitor cards and have to get in contact with one of the two Villain team leaders after the test begins.”

Iida’s hand shot straight up. “I’m sorry did you just say two?”

Aizawa-sensei nodded. “Of course. 1-B will be running the test simultaneously with you with their own two teams. This will create the effect of working in a city with two hero agencies and everything that comes with it. For the course of the exam proper, you will be locked into the testing site for one week or until one side is no longer able to continue either because of an in-game ‘death,’ major injury or capture. That being said, please try and avoid permanent damage to your classmates and yourselves.” Izuku blushed as that last point was clearly leveled at himself.

He sighed. “For the rest of the morning you will have an extended free period to talk and recruit as I pull each of you aside one at a time to go over the rules and answer any additional questions that you might have. Additionally, if you wish to offer to be on one of the teams without publicly announcing your intentions you can let me know and I will pass the message along to the team leader. Now Aoyama you're up first.”

The class devolved from there. Kacchan was quick to stand up and walk over to Kirishima’s desk. “You better put me at the top of your stupid list Shitty Hair.”

“Oh! And me too!”

Izuku watched his classmates unsurprised. Both Kacchan and Ashido were givens with the other leader being Kirishima. Uraraka bounced over to himself with Iida in tow. “Deku, you want to come and sign up with us for the Heroes?”

Izuku paused before shaking his head as he crossed them off his mental list of possible recruits with a bit of sadness. “Sorry, I want to see about finding out who the other leader is first. Depending on who it is I might want to try the other team for the challenge. Plus it might be fun to get the chance to fight Kacchan again.”

Uraraka looked a little disappointed but Iida only nodded. “That makes a good amount of logical sense. That being said I personally still wish to side with the Heroes to make up for my recent failings as a Hero so I apologize in advance if that means we will have to face each other in a fight later down the line.”

Izuku nodded. “That’s fair.”

Todoroki, who had strolled up halfway through the conversation, turned to Izuku. “I intend to pick whichever side you chose Midoriya. After our fight during the Sports Festival, I think it would be wise if we stayed on the same side.”

Izuku snorted at that. “Yeah I am not sure the teachers would be happy with us leveling the testing site.”

That earned a giggle from Uraraka. “I still can’t get over how intense that was. The two of you really embody the whole ‘Plus Ultra’ motto of the school.”

“Ashido your turn!” Aoyama returned to the room and began to people watch as Izuku had recently noticed was a common hobby for him.

Izuku gestured down at his packet of rules as he reached into his bag to pull out his spare notebook. “If it is alright with you guys, I want to read through the rules before I talk with Aizawa-sensei so I know what questions I should be asking.”

Both Uraraka and Iida nodded before wandering over to Kirishima’s little forming group. Todoroki just grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it up and pulled out his own packet and rules to read through. Taking a quick glance around with just his eyes to check to make sure there was no focus on the two of them, Izuku tapped his desk silently and carefully pulled his card out and quickly slipped it into Todoroki’s folder before writing. 

In a couple days if needed and allowed in the rules you are going to “accidentally” drop “your” card and claim to be the secret Team Leader of the Villains.

He nodded in understanding and wrote on the page himself.

Do you want me to try and recruit other members?

It might not be necessary. I will decide after I talk with Aizawa-sensei.

Let him know you are going to act as my official proxy and show him the card so you can collect the official goals page when you go back to see him 

Another nod before Izuku flipped the page and began to review the rules in earnest.

The better part of an hour passed before Izuku found himself stepping into the private meeting room with Aizawa-sensei. “You are already making plans, I see. Passing your card off to Todoroki was a clever idea to hide yourself from the Hero team.”

Izuku gave a shaky grin. “That was allowed right?”

Aizawa-sensei nodded. “If it isn’t specifically covered in the rules, it's allowed.”

Izuku frowned. “That is kinda a lot. It isn’t exactly a long list of rules in the first place.”

His sensei nodded. “That is by design. Part of this specific test is to test to see how far you will push the rules specifically. Nedzu has a few concerns given your family history so wants to know where you will draw your lines in the sand over what is and isn’t okay.”

That made Izuku’s brows shoot up. “My family history?”

“According to Nedzu your great-great grandfather was the infamous Peerless Thief.”

“Oh that.” Izuku considered that and the stories his grandmother had told him growing up of her own grandfather. “Yeah I guess that is fair. I mean, we aren’t blood related but I did hear a lot of stories about him from my grandmother.”

Aizawa-sensei looked surprised for a beat before shaking his head. “Anyways that would be the main reason for you being on the Villain Team as leader.”

“So how was Kirishima picked for the Hero?”

“Honestly it was purely because of Bakugou. We couldn’t pick him for rival team leader with the rivalry and history between you two but anyone else and it seemed likely he would have completely ignored them. We’re hoping that if he can learn to work under someone else willingly like this, it will make him more likely to try and listen to other Pros in the future when he does future internships and eventually becomes a Sidekick. While he mostly behaved himself with Best Jeanist from what I understand, it was not an internship without issues.”

Izuku nodded in understanding. “Yeah Best Jeanist is one of the few top Heroes he respects on an equal level he does All Might.”

Aizawa-sensei’s brows shot up in surprise. “Really? I had wondered about why he had picked to intern with him when Endeavor sent him an offer as well. That seemed like it would have been a better match in both style and temperament.”

Izuku considered that. “That’s surprising but maybe he decided against it knowing that Todoroki was already going with his father?” Izuku shook his head. “We’ve gotten off topic. Who all have said that they would be willing to play Villain?”

“Right.” He picked up a folder and opened it. “Along with obviously Todoroki, you have definites from Aoyama and Tokoyami and maybes from Koda, Shoji and Jiro so far. I’ll pass along both Mineta’s and Yaoyorozu’s thoughts another time over the next couple days if need be.”

Izuku leaned forward. “Did any of them say why they were currently undecided?”

A nod. “Koda was not really committed to the idea of either team and could go either way depending on what the different teams offered. Shoji wants to make sure that the Villain team will use his full skill set and not just his spying abilities. Jiro told me point blank that she just is going on the opposite team of Mineta, whatever that might be, which honestly is a bit concerning.”

Izuku frowned. “You know he was the one behind the prank on the girls back at the Sports Festival right?”

His teacher frowned. “Yes, but unfortunately unless the girls actually file formal complaints about his behavior, his father on the school board will continue to reject my attempts to remove him from the course. If you could convince them to do so, that would be fantastic.”

Izuku was quick to nod. “And if you could tell Mineta that the Villain team has no desire for him to join that would be great.”

“Any other questions given Todoroki has your goal list already?”

“A few. The rules bring up ‘civilians’ from time to time.”

“Largely those will be robots playing the role however there will be some paid actors sprinkled in as well as a couple third-years to play the vigilantes in place of their normal end of term exam.”

“And the two Villain teams can merge into one right?”

An amused smirk. “Correct.”

“In that case could you send a message to the other Villain team leader to contact Todoroki as my proxy to see about coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement?”

His teacher considered that. “If you want, you might be about to meet directly with them right now depending on where Vlad is in his own class line up. Do you want me to check?”

Izuku was quick to nod wondering who it could be. He was less familiar with the other class’s seat numbers so it could really be anyone at the end of the other class list. His teacher was quick to return with both Vlad-sensei and Monoma on his heels. Ah, that made sense he supposed.

Izuku quickly hopped to his feet and offered the blonde a short bow. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice, Villain Leader of 1-B.”

Monoma frowned for a hair’s breadth before breaking out his confident smirk. “I was not expecting you but I suppose that the contrast between our minds for strategy would make a more realistic challenge!”

“Actually I was picked because I am the only one in both classes with an actual Villain in my family tree as far as I am aware. I am one of the heirs of the great Peerless Thief after all.”

Monoma’s smile faltered and was immediately replaced with open curiosity and a hint of excitement. “Really? Then you know what his Quirk was? It was something subtle right? I have always wondered! I actually modeled a bit of my Hero identity after him. The Phantom Thief.”

“Oh he was Quirkless, just a really good magician.” That earned him confused and disbelieving looks from everyone else in the room. Sensing an incoming argument he continued. “My Grandmother was First generation on that side of the family. Both her mother and grandparents were Quirkless but stage magic is a family tradition from him. I’m not the best at it but that is what everyone in my family on my mother’s side does outside of me and her. I am pretty sure if I texted my grandmother she could dig up a picture of herself with him.”

Monoma fell to the floor. “My life is a lie!”

Vlad-sensei snorted. “You can freak out about this later. Midoriya wanted to talk to you about something other than his family.”

Izuku rolled his eyes and fished out his phone to hold it out to the other boy. “It’s fine, just give me your number and we can talk after school today. I am planning on grabbing two other students from other courses just as a heads up. Also if anyone asks, I am acting as a proxy and not the real 1-A Villain Leader but try not to draw too much attention to it right away if you can.”

Monoma straightened himself out and took the phone for a second to punch in a number. “Right, I see. I expect you will claim the same for me for now. And who might I ask is playing pretend 1-A Villain Leader?”

“Todoroki. He agreed to be on whatever team I was on before I handed off my card to him to let him know our team. You?”

Monoma considered that and nodded. “That is a real asset to the team. Use Tsuburaba for me. He will back the claim. We will have to discuss our possible alliance later just know I will not be playing second fiddle to you if we do merge teams.”

Izuku grinned and held out a hand to shake. “Equal partners.”

After a quick handshake the two of them left to return to their respective classes. However once Izuku reached the door he paused. Both of his classmates with superior hearing were potential teammates. “Jiro, if you are listening, Mineta is not going to be on the Villain team and Shoji, of course, we will be playing to your other strengths. You are one of the physically strongest guys in the class and we plan to use that. Please keep my identity a secret for now.”

He paused for a beat before opening the door and stepping through. “Mineta, it’s your turn.”

Izuku had just sat down and the door closed behind Mineta when Jiro poked Yaoyorozu with her Earphone Jack. “We are joining the Villain team.”

That got everyone’s attention as Yaoyorozu seemed to sigh in relief. “You got confirmation from the Villain Team Leader?”

“Yeah, they said point blank that they don’t want Mineta on their team before coming back in.”

Ashido pouted slightly. “Ah man, we should have thought about doing that.”

Jiro offered a smile. “I mean you guys could switch sides?”

Hagakure waved her off. “Nah, it is only fair that there are girls on both teams. Sucks that we will have to put up with him for the week but there are going to be more of us to keep an eye on him.”

Tokoyami cleared his throat. “If you are going to be open about your alignment with the dark it is only fair I share my own.”

Dark Shadow popped out to drape itself around his shoulders. “Yeah! This is a great chance for me to go wild and not get in trouble!”

Izuku cleared his throat. “I mean that is not completely true. You will still have to be a little careful. Some of the “citizens” in the simulation will be played by actors and a couple upperclassmen from what I understand. You don’t want to accidentally hurt them too badly.”

Kirishima looked interested in his interruption. “Wait really?”

Izuku nodded and blushed lightly. “Yeah, that is one of the things I asked about when I talked with Aizawa-sensei about the rules. I noticed that the word civilian came up a lot in the what to dos and what not to dos with them so I asked about it. The vigilantes will all be third years doing their own exam.”

Kirishima broke out into a grin. “Wow Midoriya, I am not sure if I would have thought to ask about that. Thanks! Have you decided which team you will be on yet?”

Izuku shook his head. “I want to give the Villain Team a chance to pitch their side first. Give me a couple days.”

That earned him a thumbs up. “Fair enough dude!” He turned his attention back to his already existing teammates.

After a minute Jiro drifted over following Yaoyorozu leaving the room for her own chat with their teacher before quietly speaking. “A chance to win you over huh?”

Izuku gave her a small grin before quietly responding. “I don’t want them knowing the Villain Leader for our team is me. Class 1-B is doing something similar for right now until we decide if we are combining forces or not.”

“So who all do we have so far?”

“Besides you, Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami? Aoyama and Todoroki for sure. Shoji is likely once I can talk to him properly and Koda is a current full neutral to win over. Additionally I plan on snagging two more students from outside the Hero course, Shinso and Hatsume from the Sports Festival. They stood toe to toe with us and only lost because of a poor match up on Shinso’s part and because Hatsume threw her fight.”

She nodded in understanding. “So nine members. That is more than I was expecting. Maybe this will not be such an uphill battle as I thought.”

Izuku actually considered that. “Well there is one more person I have been considering but that one depends on a number of outside factors. At the very least he would be able to help me practice my presentation.”

“Oh?”

Izuku nodded. “My cousin is a stage magician or, well, his parents and our grandparents are too but he was the one I was thinking of. Anyways I was thinking if he could infiltrate the actors to play a ‘civilian’ he could be our wild card. Once the game starts we are free to recruit from the actors if we can win them over, and having a ‘civilian’ face in our team would be useful. I’m going to try and call him after school today at some point.”

She scratched her chin. “Not a bad plan but is that allowed?”

“According to Sensei, unless otherwise stated in the rules, everything is fair game. The reason I was picked for Team Leader is because Nedzu is assessing my thinking specifically as a Villain since my family has a known Villain in our family history. My great-great grandfather was the Peerless Thief.”

Jiro looked surprised but gave a small understanding nod. Before they could really chat more, Koda approached them. ~Excuse me, I am not interrupting the Villain team’s pitch am I?~

Jiro shook her head. “No, we were just chatting about his magician cousin helping me learn some sleight of hand. You want to ask something?”

Koda gave a nervous nod before signing to them. ~I was just wondering what the Villain Team was considering offering for me to join the team?~

Jiro shrugged. “I haven’t really had a chance to consult with the boss on that. Give us a few days to get back to you?”

He smiled and nodded. ~I can wait that long. Do you know if you have enough team members yet?~

She did nod at that. “Yeah we have five confirmed in the class already and a couple of maybes including you and Midoriya here.”

He nodded in understanding. ~Okay. Thanks for telling me.~

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

As soon as Izuku finished changing out of his Hero costume following Heroics class, Izuku made a beeline down to the class 1-C classroom after sending Monoma a text that he was going to try and recruit some people before he could chat. It was empty of all students except Shinso who was working on his homework. Something that Izuku had noticed about Shinso since their fight a little over two weeks before, was that he often stayed late on campus and didn’t leave until after the Hero Course students did for one reason or another.

The boy looked up at him in confusion as he opened the door. “Uh, can I help you?”

Izuku gave him a grin. “How would you like another chance to prove that you should be in the Hero course?”

The boy narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “I would like it a lot but I don’t see what that has to do with you.”

“Sorry, I just think it is criminally unfair that you keep getting denied your rightful place in the course with such an amazingly useful Quirk for Heroics because you keep getting put in bad matchups.”

The boy frowned slightly. “So you're just pitying me? No thanks. I’m not interested.”

Izuku was quick to wave the thought off. “No, I am just saying that you should have been in our class from the start. I would vastly prefer you over Mineta. He is only still in our class because his father on the school board is making it hard for Aizawa-sensei to remove him apparently. I’m hoping that if the next time he tries, if he has clear proof that you are a better candidate for his seat in our class we can switch you.”

That earned a quirked brow. “Damn, what that guy do to you that you want him out so badly?”

“It wasn’t so much to me as all the girls in the class. He is sort of a walking sexual harassment case waiting to happen and I don’t really enjoy having him seat directly behind me in class where I have to hear him degrade our classmates under his breath all the time.”

Shinso looked a bit bewildered but gave a small puzzled nod. “Okay, so what is this plan to get me into your class over him?”

Izuku winced slightly. “Okay you are probably not going to like this part much but let me finish explaining first. The final exam for Heroics this term has already started. Basically we are playing a massive game of Heroes vs. Villains the week of finals but we have the weeks between now and then to recruit members to our teams and plan. I am the Villain Team Leader and one of my first plans of action once the game starts is to have Mineta taken out of the game to make it more enjoyable for all the girls. I was hoping that if it was shown that you from Gen Ed were better than him in a one on one fight that it would be proof that you deserve his seat more but regardless, if you were to play, it would only help prove that you deserve to be in the course when you show you can hold your own against literally anyone else in the Hero course besides me and maybe Tokoyami.”

“You're right. I don’t like it. Why should I join the Villains if joining the Heroes is an option?”

Izuku sighed. “Because it is not. I am uncertain about 1-B but I know for a fact that the 1-A Hero Team Leader will not recruit you. He won’t think of recruiting outside our class and even if you did offer, he will likely not see the need given the Hero teams are going to outnumber the Villains teams just by nature.”

Shinso frowned and slowly nodded. “So just to be clear, you want me on your team not because you pity me or because my ‘Villainous’ Quirk is perfect for the scenario?”

“There is no such thing.” The response was such a knee jerk reaction that Izuku didn’t even register that he had said it until Shinso broke into a small smile at that.

“Wow. I wouldn’t have taken that to be such an instinctual response from someone with such a ‘Perfect Hero’ Quirk. Sore spot?”

“Er… I am sort of an outlier in my family as far as Quirks go. My Mom has been accused a few times of trying to steal things when she sometimes grabs something with her Quirk while out shopping if she is too short to reach it. The whole idea of Quirks being ‘Heroic’ or ‘Villainous’ is just completely ridiculous.”

Shinso was openly smiling now. “Well damn Hero Course, you really know how to win a guy over huh? Alright, I’ll play along for now.”

Izuku grinned and pulled out his phone. “If you could add your number. I am planning on making a Villain Team Chat for planning later tonight after I do a few more things. Now if you could follow me, we have one more person to possibly recruit and to talk to about getting you some support gear.”

Shinso quickly punched in his number and handed the phone back before scooping up his homework and supplies before shoving them in his bag. They were halfway to the Support Labs when Shinso suddenly paused. “Wait, you mentioned that you thought my Quirk would work on all your classmates except you and that Tokoyami guy. Why?”

Izuku blinked. “Oh I guess that wouldn’t be obvious. The reason I was a bad matchup is because I have a sentient Quirk like he does. Mine is just less obvious about it. It was how I was able to break free.”

Shinso sighed. “Well that answers that mystery. I’ll be honest, the fact that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how you broke my control was bothering me.”

“Oh, yeah sorry. If it makes you feel better I didn’t even realize my Quirk was sentient until then too. My Quirk came in pretty late so I am still trying to figure it out.”

Shinso nearly tripped. “Shit, you're a late bloomer? Great, now I feel like an asshole for some of the things I said.”

Izuku waved him off. “It is not like you knew. Besides you were just trying to get a verbal response from me at the time. That was all fair game.”

“So is that why you break your bones when you use your Quirk? Not enough time with a Quirk counselor to get a full handle on that before starting here at UA?”

Izuku nodded. “Yeah basically that’s it. I was able to finally work out what was going wrong during my internship thanks to the Hero I interned with. He also helped me with my mobility training too as an added bonus.”

They had reached the Labs now but before they could open the door for class 1-H where his next target was, the door blew off its hinges in an explosion. “That’s it! You're done for the day Hatsume! Out!”

“But my babies!”

“No! Out!”

Izuku and Shinso watched as a soot-covered Power Loader shoved a begging Hatsume out of the doorway. Izuku scratched the back of his head. “Uh, is now a bad time?”

The pair froze for a heartbeat before Hatsume was on him. “Ten Mill! What brings you here? Do you need help making babies!”

Shinso beside him, caught completely off guard, was blushing wildly. “The fuck? TMI!”

Izuku laughed. “She means her inventions Shinso.” He turned back to the pinkette. “Yes actually but not for me yet. I have an offer for you. How would you like to be the official Support item creator for the class 1-A Villain Team for our Heroes vs Villains Final?”

Hatsume was practically vibrating with excitement. “An exclusivity deal?”

Izuku nodded. “I would like you to be an official team member actually. That way if I find myself in need of something during the exam that I didn’t think of before starting I have you and your skills.”

“Sold! What’s the plan Boss!”

Well that was easy, not that he had really expected any issues with her. Izuku gestured over at Shinso. “This is Shinso. Your first order of business will be helping him get some support items since he has none. Before I leave you two to it, can I have your number so I can loop you in with the rest of the team?”

She made grabby hands for Izuku’s phone before punching in her number and grabbing Shinso to pull him back into the Lab. Izuku found himself being stared at by Power Loader with a resigned look about him. “Of all my students, I understand why you would pick her but did you really have to?”

Izuku offered the teacher an apologetic grin. “Sorry but not only is her tech good but she has a bit of combat experience which would be good to have in an emergency unlike any of the others.”

He just sighed and shook his head. “I best get back to keeping an eye on her before she blows up your other outside recruit. Best of luck with your preparations.”

With that, Izuku was alone again. Now to head home and make a few calls.

Chapter Text

“Hey, are you busy for the next couple weeks?”

Atsuhiro hummed in consideration thinking about his recent conversation with Giran. “Not that I am aware of. I am in the middle of negotiating a new contract for future work but it is unlikely that I will be starting a new job in that time frame.”

“I was hoping you would be willing to help me with my plans for my final exam for the term. We are doing a UA style game of Heroes vs Villains and I am the Villain team leader. I was hoping that at the bare minimum you would be able to help me teach my team members some sleight of hand for the exercise? I would have considered asking your parents or our grandparents but they are still doing their show in Hokkaido and it seemed like a long trip for them to make.”

Atsuhiro almost laughed at the irony that his little Hero cousin that he had not seen in person since he was a toddler was calling him for help acting Villainous right before he took his own first real steps into Villainy. “I would be more than happy to help! Would you be so kind as to put Auntie on the phone?”

There was a sound of the phone changing hands. “Was there something you need Atsuhiro?”

“I was just wondering if you had space at your place for me to stay while I was in town helping Izuku teach his friends or if I should look for a cheap short term rental.”

“We don’t have a spare room but we can most certainly set you up on the spare futon in either my own or Izuku’s rooms.”

“That would work just fine. Would you be opposed to me coming over tomorrow?”

“No tomorrow works for us if you can do it that soon.”

“I am between jobs right now so it is no trouble. I am honored that it falls to me to teach Izuku both sides of our family business even if it is just for a game.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

After a few more shared pleasantries on his mother’s and cousin's parts, Izuku was returned his phone. Retreating to the privacy of his bedroom he dialed one of his newest numbers. “Monoma is now a good time?”

A dramatic sigh from the other end of the line. “If we must.”

Izuku rolled his eyes. “I spoke with my cousin about getting lessons in sleight of hand for my Team. Did you want to join at least for those even if we don’t end up allying in the game?”

“Yes! I mean- I am already skilled in the art thanks to my own personal training but I would be a fool to pass on the chance to learn some of the Peerless Thief’s tricks from your family.”

Izuku had to muffle his snort at the other boy’s enthusiasm. “If I had known you were as much of a fan of my great-great grandfather as I am of All Might, I would have told you sooner you know, class rivalry aside.”

There was a noise of embarrassment from the other end of the line. “No one will ever believe you!”

Izuku laughed. “Hey I wasn’t going to say anything about it, I just thought it was an interesting new side to see of you that wasn’t just you hyping your own class up over mine.”

A scoff. “Well I can’t help it if 1-B is clearly superior to 1-A. We are getting off topic though, I believe you wanted to talk about possibly working together?”

“Yeah I was thinking there would be safety in numbers if nothing else. Individually our teams don’t stand as much of a chance but combined we might outnumber the Hero teams if we take them on one at a time.”

A hum in thought. “That is an excellent thought I will admit. How goes your recruitment? I have met the minimum requirement already but I am trying to see if I can get a few extras.”

“I have five others besides myself confirmed on the Villain team from my class and two more possibilities. Additionally I was able to talk around both Shinso from 1-C and Hatsume from Support to our side.”

“So a possible maximum number of 18?”

“19 counting Dark Shadow separately from Tokoyami and 20 if my cousin can enter the exam as an actor.”

“Wait, that would be allowed?”

“If it is not otherwise stated in the rules, it’s fair game. Still that is less of a guarantee since there are multiple factors beyond our control there. Still we can count him as an honorary member since he would be helping with the preparations.”

“You know with that many members, we are just two shy of a possible full set of Major Arcana.”

Izuku considered that. “Actually with how I was thinking it would be smart to play things, we have a full set. I was thinking that we keep our identities hidden for as long as possible so we would each have two Villain identities. One as the shadow Villain group leader and one as a recruit each.”

A pause. “Well now we have to do it for our Villain group theme. We might have to stretch to make some of the Arcana match up with some of the members though.”

“I mean that’s fine. It would only help in creating confusion for the Hero teams. I think it would make the most sense if one of us as Leader was Death and my cousin was The Magician but everyone else would be up in the air.”

A hum in thought. “The other Leader should be the Tower I think if you recruited Tokoyami. He is a good fit for both the Lovers and The Devil between him and his Quirk.”

“Chaos and Death. Yeah that makes sense for the Leaders and you're right about Tokoyami…”

They spent the next several minutes bouncing card assignments back and forth between them and discussing a few ideas of how to guarantee the last couple members before moving onto more plans they had in the works. About an hour later when Izuku had to hang up to go eat dinner, the two of them had developed a bit of a more natural rapport with one another, a shared love of magic tricks and cards now known between them.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

The Hands of Fate

 

Midoriya Izuku added Monoma Neito

Midoriya Izuku has granted Monoma Neito Admin privileges

Monoma Neito added Awase Yosetsu, Kaibara Sen, Shiozaki Ibara and Tsuburaba Kosei

Momoma Nieto changed their name to Wheel of Fortunate Death

Midoriya Izuku added Aoyama Yuga, Jiro Kyoka, Hatsume Mei and 4 others

Wheel of Fortunate Death changed Awase Yosetsu to The Emperor

Midoriya Izuku changed their name to Strengthen The Tower

Wheel of Fortunate Death changed Kaibara Sen to The Sun

Strengthen The Tower changed Aoyama Yuga to The Hanged Man

Wheel of Fortunate Death changed Shiozaki Ibara to The Hierophant

Strengthen The Tower changed Jiro Kyoka to The World

Wheel of Fortunate Death changed Tsuburaba Kosei to Justice

Strengthen The Tower changed Sako Atsuhiro to The Magician

Wheel of Fortunate Death changed Hatsume Mei to The Fool

Strengthen The Tower changed Todoroki Shoto to Temperance

Wheel of Fortunate Death changed Shinso Hitoshi to Judgment

Strengthen The Tower changed Yaoyorozu Momo to The High Priestess

Wheel of Fortunate Death changed Tokoyami Fumikage to The Devil Lovers

Strengthen The Tower: Welcome everyone to our combined team!

Wheel of Fortunate Death: The future WINNING team

Midoriya and I have hashed out an agreement and picked a theme for the group of the Major Arcana from a Tarot deck since if our last possible recruitments work out we would have a full deck with the two of us holding two identities

Strengthen The Tower: We plan on playing the true identity of the team leaders close to our chest so if you could refer to each of us as Death and The Tower when speaking about your respective leaders we would appreciate it

( •ᴗ•)♡ ✧*。

Judgment: yeah i am not reading through all that mess to figure out my name

oh sweet

The World: Who is Sako Atsuhiro? The name doesn’t ring any bells.

Judgment: i will be here silently judging you hero course guys then

The Magician: I would be surprised if you did.

Hello UA students, I am Izuku’s older cousin who will be helping teach you the basics of magic tricks for you to use in the exam!

Strengthen The Tower: Atsuhiro is actually a Magician by trade like a number of members of my family

The Fool: Should I be mad about my card?

I feel like maybe I should be reconsidering my offer to make you all a bunch of babies

Wheel of Fortunate Death: The Fool represents Spontaneity and a Free Spirit upright and Risk-taking in the reverse

The Fool: Oh never mind then

Carry on

The Hierophant: I assume you most have selected all of our names with the meaning of the cards in mind then?

I would have assumed that I would have been the High Priestess otherwise

Strengthen The Tower: Yep!

It took a bit to work everything out so that even the unconfirmed fit with their cards but we are pretty sure we matched everyone fairly well 

Tarot Card Meanings

/\ so you can read up on your card

The Devil Lovers: I have to ask about my name.

Why do I seem to have two cards as well?

Strengthen The Tower: One is yours and the other is Dark Shadow

You can pick which is which, they fit the pair of you either way

The Devil Lovers: I see

Dark Shadow appreciates the inclusion

Temperance: I assume that since we will be referring to our Leaders as Death and The Tower that I no longer will be needed to pretend to be the Team Leader?

Strengthen The Tower: No you're good!

You can return my card later when you pass me my hard copy of our goal sheet

Thanks for the picture of it by the way, that was helpful while Monoma and I were figuring things out

Yuga lowered his phone as the messages continued to roll in. He was wondering what on Earth had compelled him to tell his Sensei he was playing for the Villain Team. It had been a stupid idea. There was no reason for his teacher to understand his impulsive cry for help and all it was going to do was make his position as the UA spy for All for One more precarious. But what was done was done.

Curious as to what the card chosen for himself meant he clicked the link and read.

The Hanged Man

Upright: Pause, Surrender, Letting Go, New Perspectives

Reversed: Delays, Resistance, Stalling, Indecision

“The Hanged Man shows a man suspended from a T-shaped cross made of living wood. He is hanging upside-down, viewing the world from a completely different perspective, and his facial expression is calm and serene, suggesting that he is in this hanging position by his own choice. He has a halo around his head, symbolizing new insight, awareness and enlightenment. His right foot is bound to the tree, but his left foot remains free, bent at the knee and tucked in behind his right leg. His arms are bent, with hands held behind his back, forming an inverted triangle. The man is wearing red pants representing human passion and the physical body, and a blue vest for knowledge. The Hanged Man is the card of ultimate surrender, of being suspended in time and of martyrdom and sacrifice to the greater good.”

Yuga stared at the description for a few moments before sending Midoriya a private message.

I just read the description for my card and I have no idea what to make of the fact you chose it for me.

Midoriya:

Ah sorry I guess that doesn’t make sense without context

I was hoping you would play spy for us with the Hero Team since you have given no outward indication that you are on our team

Sorry I was planning on checking with Aizawa-sensei what the rules were for someone intentionally signing up for both teams and making sure it was okay

Theoretically I think it would mean you would function like one of the “Traitors” in the example Aizawa-sensei gave in his explanation of what would happen if there were not enough Villains but I need to confirm it

Yuga stared at his phone for a second before turning and burying his face in his pillow with a scream. That done, he decided to deal with whatever this Karma was.

At the very least I can pretend to sign up for the other team.

I suspect that since I formally declared my allegiance with the Villains that my declaring myself on the other team aloud for their benefit won’t change my alliance.

Midoriya:

Sorry if it feels like I am pushing you to do this!

You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to!

It is fine mon ami!

Just the sort of cloak and dagger drama I had been hoping for actually.

So what is the plan you were hoping for with me?

Midoriya:

One of the goals for the Villains is to fake a death of a team member convincingly

I was thinking that we could “capture” and “torture” you on camera while livestreaming the Hero team before “excuting” you

After that you would fully be acting on our side until it is suitably dramatic to reveal you as our Hanged Man

Yuga blinked.

That seems a bit extreme.

I am not complaining, I merely was not expecting it from you.

I know you are not all sunshine and rainbows like our class on the whole seems to think but still.

Midoriya:

☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*(´∀｀)*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆

This is exactly why I was happy that things worked out so you could play spy

I’ve seen how much you people watch so I know I could trust you to pay attention to our classmates

Clearly he had not given Midoriya’s observation abilities enough credit.

I see.

Well I will endeavor to not let you down.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

The next day began with Izuku meeting Todoroki at the front gates before slipping away out of sight so the other boy could pass him his Villain card and goals list which he was quick to slip into the depths of his bag for the day before heading their separate ways, Todoroki to their class and Izuku to the teacher’s lounge to ask his new question.

Snipe-sensei looked up as he knocked on the door. “You looking for Aizawa? He won’t be here for another half hour or so.”

Izuku fidgeted with his bag straps. “Uh, I am not looking for him specifically, I just had a question regarding the final.”

He put down his paperwork he had been working on and gestured to one of the other chairs in the office. “Well I can help you out with that. While the Hero vs Villains assignment isn’t run for finals in the first term for first years like you guys very often, it is standard practice for my Third Years. Shoot.”

Izuku’s brows shot up at that. “Oh, I didn’t know that. Does that mean my year will run it twice?”

“Yep that is the standard procedure though you wouldn’t have the same team leaders next go round and be encouraged to mix up your teams more.”

Izuku nodded. “That makes sense.” He shook his head. “Anyways I was wondering what would happen if a student signed up for both teams.”

“Ah but they wouldn’t actually be signing up for both now would they? They would be assessed as a Villain. You planning on running the team hidden on the other side?”

“No, that would be too much of a communications hassle. I just wanted to make sure that my plan to have one of my members play spy would work.”

“Yep. I can confirm it has been done in previous years successfully though the mileage they got in each case varied based on the quality of the spy.”

Izuku grinned and gave his teacher a short bow. “Thanks Snipe-sensei. That was everything for now.”

“Have fun messing with the other team kid.”

Izuku left, pulling out his phone to quickly send Aoyama a message confirming that their thoughts had been correct and to move ahead with his plan as spy. Izuku was greeted by the sight of the morning class mostly split into two groups.

Kirishima gave him a wave. “Hey, Midoriya! Villain team leader get in contact with you yet to give you their pitch yet?”

Izuku nodded as he strolled over to where Jiro, Tokoyami and Yaoyorozu were sitting. “I have accepted the Tower’s offer.”

Confusion danced over the various Hero team members as well as a few flickers of disappointment as it dawned on them that they had lost not only Izuku but Todoroki as well as the bi-colored boy moved his seat over to sit with the small Villain group. “The Tower?”

Jiro turned to look back at the confused Hero Team Leader. “Our Leader’s Villain name. They want to stay anonymous for now so asked that we only refer to them by that name until they reveal themself.”

Uraraka huffed. “What did the Villain team offer you, Deku? I was looking forward to working together on this.”

Izuku pulled out the deck of cards he had brought with him and made a show of flicking the card he had palmed up his sleeve earlier into his fingers. “A chance to use some of my lesser known skill sets.”

Kacchan snorted. “Those stupid magic tricks you can do aren’t going to help you on the losing Team Deku.”

Izuku gave him a grin. “True except for the losing team part Kacchan. The Tower was looking for someone with showmanship skills to help teach them some tricks for their own persona and, well, my family has that in spades.” He flicked his hand again to switch the 2 of hearts in his fingers with the Ace of Spades.

That earned him a couple of cheers at the trick. Kaminari was in his face in a heartbeat. “Dude, that was so cool! Why didn’t you tell all of us you knew magic tricks?”

Izuku’s smile broadened. “It never came up. My mother and I are the only ones in my family who aren’t magicians actually.”

Ashido turned to Kacchan eyes burning with curiosity. “Is that true?”

Kacchan huffed but nodded. “Yeah, the whole lot of them are apparently a bunch of magic weirdos living up in Hokkaido. I’ve never met them but Deku used to show back up after visiting them doing all sort of stupid magic shit. It was annoying as hell before he stopped bringing that shit with him to school. The idiot has hit me in the back of the head with cards a stupid number of times practicing though I for the life of me have no idea why. It is not like he plans on doing anything with it as a Hero.”

Izuku shrugged. “It is just a hobby, Kacchan. You know it wouldn’t hurt for you to pick a few up.”

From his seat in the front of the class Aoyama gave an over dramatic shrug. “As interesting as that all is, I feel I should point out that card tricks would be no match for the Hero team’s fabulous sparkle.”

Kirishima brightened. “Oh, you want to join the team too?”

Aoyama gave a shrug. “But of course! Where else will I be able to truly shine?”

The other boy looked around the room. “That just leaves Koda and Shoji undeclared right?”

Shoji shook his head. “No, just Koda. I was just waiting on confirmation of something from the Villain team.”

Ojiro gave him a puzzled look. “You don’t have to join the Villains if you don’t want to. They have the required five they need already.”

Shoji nodded. “That is true but I think I will enjoy the challenge that comes from being on the smaller team.”

Kirishima shrugged. “Up to you man.” He turned his attention to Koda. “Do you want me to put you down for my team?”

Koda hesitated before shaking his head. ~I want to hear what both sides have to offer for me first. I already heard from the Villains but what would I get if I joined your team?~

Izuku internally grinned as he realized that his messages he had sent to both boys the previous night had been well received.

Kirishima’s grin faltered as it took him a few seconds to work out what the other boy had signed. “Uh, you would get to be a Hero like we are all training to do?”

Koda nervously flushed. ~And that’s it?~

“I mean yeah? What were you looking for?”

Todoroki gave the Hero Team Leader a considered look. “You realize most of the best signers for our class are already on the Villain team? If nothing else, he can communicate more easily with our team.”

Several of the Hero team winced as they realized the truth of that statement. Sato gave the other quiet boy an apologetic grin. “Sorry, it is not like I am not trying to get better, it is just you sign a bit fast for me to keep up at times.”

~It is all good. It is just nice to have confirmation that I won’t have to verbally speak if I don’t want to.~ He turned to the Villains. ~I guess I am accepting the Tower’s offer.~

Grinning, Izuku pulled out his phone and added the two to the chat (Koda as The Hermit and Shoji as The Chariot).

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Izuku felt a bit nervous after school as he led not only his own team of recruits but 1-B team as well home to his little apartment. It was going to be a tight squeeze. He had warned both his mother and cousin how many people were coming but it wasn’t until they were all exiting the train happily chatting with one another that it hit him just how many people were coming home with him. He had never invited friends over to his place before outside of Kacchan and now he was bringing home 18. Okay so he might not really be friends with everyone personally yet but they would be spending a week living and committing fake crimes together so it was honestly just a matter of time really.

He had already won over the hardest one in Monoma by chance and he was already on at least good terms with all of his classmates as well as the two outside Hero course recruits so that only left 7 that he didn’t really know all that well yet. Honestly Monoma was worse off since he had to deal with the fact he had been openly antagonistic towards all of 1-A for weeks and he seemed to be settling into casual conversation with at least a couple members of the group.

Finally he was at his front door and kicking off his shoes. However before too many of the others had made it through the door themselves, Izuku found himself greeted with the sight of his cousin in less then casual dress stacking playing card boxes from his spot seated on the living room floor. It wasn’t until that moment that he mentally registered the fact that his cousin seemed to actually be pretty close in age as some of their teachers. That wasn’t to say he was old at 31 but that it had never really hit him how young their teachers generally were. The statistics of how young Heroes generally retired suddenly hit him if they even lived that long.

“Oh dear, Izuku are you alright?”

Izuku shook his head to clear it of that depressing train of thought. “Sorry I just had a bit of a realization that you might actually be older than my homeroom teacher and the fact that I might have to switch career paths by the time I reach your age sort of hit me like a truck.”

Atsuhiro frowned. “Ah. I am not sure if I should be insulted that you are calling me an old man or concerned that you hadn’t considered that fact sooner given that you managed to permanently disfigure your hand before you had even been in UA for more than a month.”

As his teammates poured into the room, several of them seemed to mutter between themselves. Shinso however just squinted slightly at Atsuhiro with a tilt of his head. “No, he does have a point. Both Aizawa-sensei and Mic-sensei are only thirty and Midnight is only 31 based on the footage I watched from old sports festivals.”

Atsuhiro’s eyes widened. “Oh dear I suppose I am actually older than some of them then.”

Kaibara from 1-B raised his hand. “Okay I am just going to ask, anyone else find it weird how much older he is than Midoriya? I was expecting him to only be like a couple years older than us since he is Midoriya’s cousin.”

Izuku snorted. “There is only a year more of an age difference than there is between Iida and his older brother. It is not that weird, especially when you consider that my Uncle is 10 years my Mom’s senior.”

Atsuhiro waved him off. “It’s fine. I know it must be a bit weird hanging out in a semi casual setting with someone basically twice your age. Besides, I am here to teach you sleight of hand anyways.”

Izuku flashed his cousin a grin. “Oh should we all start calling you Sensei then?”

That earned a laugh from the kitchen from where his mother had been watching the conversation from afar as his cousin made a face at the idea. Atsuhiro waved off the idea and started picking up decks of cards and tossing them around at the others. “Just Sako is fine from your friends here, Izuku.”

Jiro smirked as she opened her box of cards. “Maybe we should call you Magician so we can all get in the habit of using each other’s Villain names.”

Izuku lit up. “Oh that is a good point. We should be doing that.”

So with that in mind, the lesson that followed was filled with not only fumbling of cards but names as well as people practiced putting Villain names with faces.

Chapter Text

Atsuhiro sat nervously in the offices of the Help Us Company as one of the acting managers looked over his resume. “So, Sako, could you explain why you have expressed interest in working with us for a one off exercise for UA? And how you even knew about it in the first place?”

“Ah. That is simple. My cousin is going to be one of the students participating in the exam and given that the Villain Team that he is a member of are allowed to recruit from the actors…”

The man nodded. “So you are applying as a faux villain actor specifically. Lucky for you one of the third years a couple years back from UA wanted to pull something similar as your cousin so I know all the protocalls for doing this. You are going to have to submit a fake police dossier to Nedzu directly before we can sign off on you and pass his background check and temporary Quirk licensing for the exercise but from what I say of your audition tapes and your skills from your background in magic for sleight of hand I think we can pencil you in as one of the low level criminal actors.”

Atsuhiro grinned. “Easily done. It will be fun working with you.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

As the time passed and the exam drew closer, the divide in the class continued to grow. This right here was the reason Shouta had always been so against the class doing this exam. Against doing the exam in any year really. His own class in his third year went nuclear when they had done it and he and Hizashi burned a lot of bridges as the “Villains” of their year and if the same thing happened with Midoriya and his team then the next couple years would be hell for the kids.

But on the other hand working toward this exam had made his son the happiest he had been in a while. Hitoshi was not exactly all that great about making friends, sharing far too much in common with Shouta himself. Honestly, the older he grew, the more Shouta found himself agreeing with his husband’s assessment that the kid could have easily actually passed as his biological son if it wasn’t for that fact that Shouta was a couple years too young and had only ever dated Hizashi.

Honestly, with how murky their family histories were as foundling orphans, it was entirely possible that they actually were related. Not that it mattered either way for them. After all, if it had, they would have taken up Nedzu’s offer to run a comparison test back when he and Hizashi had first taken the kid in.

As it stood though, Hizashi was sending Shouta looks of amusement as Hitoshi happily rambled about how the Villain Team meet up that afternoon had gone. Shouta rolled his eyes at his husband before reaching out to ruffle their son’s hair. “I’m glad that you are making friends.”

Hitoshi huffed and carded his fingers through his hair to reverse what Shouta had just done. “So you might have been right that not all your students are that bad. I still don’t have to like the ones on the Hero team though. From some of the stuff Midoriya has said about Bakugou, I am still pretty sure my first impression of him was correct.”

Shouta frowned. “Oh? And what was that?”

Hitoshi shrugged. “That the guy has a massive ego that needs to get taken down a peg and is a major hothead. At least in his defense for the second one, Midoriya says that his temper is a genetic thing. Apparently Midoriya’s aunt who is Bakugou’s mother has just as short of a temper.”

Ah. Shouta had known that Midoriya and Bakugou had a history but he didn’t realize it likely dated back quite that far. He mentally recategorized the pair of them from just school rivals to family members. “So the two of them are cousins?”

Hitoshi made a so-so gesture. “Midoriya says that they aren’t actually related but his mother and Bakugou’s have been best friends since they were around our age. She is his aunt the same way Nem is mine.”

Hizashi nodded. “You learn anything else super neat about your new friends?”

Hitoshi seemed to have to think for a bit on that. “Todoroki is apparently a bit of a conspiracy theorist. He thinks that since Midoriya’s father is not in the picture that All Might is secretly his biological father. He’s not, Midoriya’s father is just a cheating asshole so Midoriya’s mother didn’t want him in Midoriya’s life which is fair.”

Both Shouta and Hizashi winced at that and exchanged looks before Shouta gave their son a questioning look. “Should that be something to worry about for Midoriya?”

Hitoshi shook his head. “No I don’t think so. While Ms. Midoriya was pretty closed lipped about his father when the topic came up, she did mention that the guy was a Pro Hero who is just as much of a womanizer as Captain Celebrity used to be.”

Hizashi immediately relaxed and snorted. “I hate that is still vague enough that I can’t sus out who it is. Thanks to Nem, I know for a fact that we have like 3 more aromatic heroes besides her and one poly one in just this city.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Izuku spun slightly on the raised platform that they had set up in Yaoyorozu’s place. They had started relocating their after school meet ups to her mansion after that first one because of how cramped it had been in his own apartment. Today was one of their final preparation days left so they had to get their costuming figured out before it was too late. Izuku was wearing a green vest over a black button down top and black pants with some reinforced red shoes made to mimic his normal ones with a long green coat thrown over top. “I don’t know. Something still feels like it is missing.”

As several of the others around the room threw out suggestions, Atsuhiro gained a thoughtful look. He pulled out one of his marbles and snapped to release its contents before handing over a pair of gloves, a black balaclava, a large top hat, and a black and white mask. “Here, try these.”

Izuku looked at them questioningly, before taking them and beginning to pull them on. “You just happened to have these on you?”

Atsuhiro shrugged. “I was planning on using them for my own Villain costume, pairing them with my normal magician outfit.” He gestured to himself as if to make his point. “If they work for you, we can just recreate them in a more suitable color palette for you.”

Monoma made a noise of appreciation once he finished getting it all on. “You know, that goes a long way to making you hard to identify as you. Maybe the majority of us should dress up similarly? That way if we need you to be seen acting as the Tower or myself as Death before our reveal, we could maybe switch the mask for a different one and exchange and remove the colorful identifying clothing.”

Tokoyami huffed. “That is all well and good for most of you but what about those of us with mutations? It is not like those masks would do anything to disguise Shoji, Koda, Shirozaki, or myself. Plus there is the issue that one would not even fit over my face.”

Jiro lifted her earjacks up. “Add me to that count as well. I can’t wear anything that covers my ears like that without interfering with my Quirk anymore then Shirozaki can with her vines.”

Izuku winced behind the mask before tugging it off. “That is true but that was going to be an issue regardless. We can still get you guys masks even if we aren’t hiding your identities like with the rest of us for the sake of group unification, though obviously yours will have to be a custom shaped one, Tokoyami.” He turned back to his cousin. “Do you have more masks like this or are we making more of them from scratch?”

Atsuhiro fished out another marble and snapped his fingers again. “Just these six but one is technically just my template for if I wanted to make more so it's blank.

Shirozaki lifted the plain white mask from his hands and turned it over. “So we need 13 more of these with different designs and one more for Tokoyami? If I draw up a few patterns, Yaoyorozu, would you be able to create them? It seems I have found my true purpose for siding with the dark forces for this one endeavor.”

Jiro gave her a puzzled look. “No offense Shirozaki but why did you choose to side with us? I get why most of us did, either because we are friends with our class leaders or like the aesthetic or whatever but isn’t this like the complete opposite of the sort of thing you would like?”

She nodded. “True however I could not help but I could not help but see myself holding a candle to hold back the darkness of our team’s hearts.”

Monoma rolled his eyes. “I asked her to join to make sure we don’t get too carried away in the role of Villains as soon as I saw the goals sheet for the Villains. A fact I am extra glad I did given some of the shit Midoriya has been coming up with strategy wise. I am pretty sure like half of the stuff I have had to veto us doing would be considered psychological torture for our classmates.”

That earned Izuku a mix of surprised and exasperated looks from the others. His cousin however was an exception in that he just snorted. “You do have to keep in mind that his mother is one of the most ruthless attorneys in the heroics industry. Ripping apart how other people think is her bread and butter. I am frankly not surprised that Izuku has picked up on some of that over time.”

Izuku huffed and walked over and shoved the man lightly. “I am not that bad.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Eijiro was a bit worried about how the test was going to go. It wasn’t that he didn’t think that his team wouldn’t do awesome as Heroes and all that but he couldn’t shake the gut feeling that something was going to go wrong.

Unlike with the Villain team, the Hero team did not have a whole lot of prep work to do in the lead up to the test. Most of it was learning the paperwork that they would be expected to fill out over the course of the test as Heroes that they would one day be doing working as the real Heroes. After action reports, how to compile a Villain dossier on a new Villain found and how to update an old one in the database, and financial and insurance reports to make sure that everyone was “paid” correctly after a major fight.

He was slightly jealous of the Villain teams. While they had to do a lot of prep work before the test started, during the test they would not have to deal with a single sheet of paperwork. At least some of the pressure of doing the paperwork had been relieved of him by Iida and Bakugou who had ended up as his second in commands. Between the two of their detail oriented selves, he at least would not have to worry about forgetting something important.

But the test would not start until tomorrow afternoon. Today, he still had to get through the written exam and ensure that he was all packed up for the possibly week-long stay in the Hero Team headquarters. Tomorrow morning, the Villain teams would get a head start into the city to set up their bases while both Hero teams would get their “formal police” debriefing about the new Villain groups and the “Vigilantes” that they might run into.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tamaki couldn’t help but feel a spike of anxiety when he and Nejiri were told to head to Nedzu’s office at the end of the day. While they were joined quickly enough by Mirio, that feeling deep in his gut of worry did not exactly fade.

He flinched as the door to the office slid open without prompting at their arrival to reveal Nedzu sitting comfortably at his desk with his paws clasped in front of him. “Good afternoon! I am so glad you could join me. Care for some tea?”

Tamaki was quick to shake his head in denial. “I’m fine! No need to trouble yourself!”

Mirio patted him reassuringly on the shoulder as he confidently met their principal’s gaze. “Why don’t you tell us why you wanted to talk with us first?”

Nedzu smiled. “Ah, that is simple, I was hoping you would all three be open to taking an alternative final practical this semester. I find myself in need of a couple fake Vigilantes for the first year Hero course students Heroes vs Villains practical. They are going to be taking the final exam that you will be having next semester so consider this a bit of a free preview of what is to come for that. If you agree, you will have to take your written exam either this afternoon or early tomorrow morning so you can enter the faux city for the entirety of the exam, unless one of the Villains removes you from the game. I would be setting the three of you up with an apartment in the city to operate out of for the week. However, you will not be provided with your Hero costumes for the sake of realism so you will need to pack clothes accordingly. UA will be happy to reimburse you for any damaged clothing as a result after the test.”

Nejire was nodding along excitedly. “Oh that sounds like so much fun but doesn’t it seem a little mean to put a bunch of first years up against us?”

Nedzu hummed. “If it was any other group, I would agree but Aizawa’s 1-A this year is a bit different then most first year classes. That being said, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from taking down Midoriya Izuku as a Villain yourselves unless one of the Hero Teams officially recruits you into their agency. He is being graded under different criteria from the rest of the Villain students since he would be considered an ‘At Risk’ Hero student by the Commission.”

Mirio gave him a puzzled look. “At Risk? At risk for what? Villainy?”

Nedzu nodded. “All Heroes and Hero students that are discovered to have Villains in their family background are flagged for monitoring by the HPSC. Midoriya just happens to have the misfortune of a connection to the Peerless Thief thanks to his mother’s informally adoptive family. Since his mother was only fostered and not adopted formally, he wasn’t immediately flagged and he still technically isn’t but if the Commision does realize their mistake in writing off the connection, it could hurt him later on. I am hopeful that his results in this test while on the Villian team should clear him of any need of close monitoring by them later on. Personally, I have never liked their system for handling such things since it has ruined many a hero hopefuls career before they have a chance to prove themselves. After all, it seems excessive to judge a person based on what a great-great grandfather did when all living members of the family are perfectly upstanding citizens.”

Nejire winced at that. “Poor kid. He would get kicked from Heroics for just that?”

Nedzu gave another solemn nod. “Like I said, I have no fondness for how they like to do things.”

Chapter Text

Atsuhiro grinned happily to himself as he waved the special ID card that Nedzu had issued him as an “actor” for the event. As nerve racking as meeting with him had gone, what with the Chimera making it perfectly clear that he knew some of the less than legal shit he had gotten up to over the years, Atsuhiro had been cheerfully cleared to join the exercise.

“Having an actual Villain on the Villain team will most certainly make for an exciting learning experience for the students.”

Nedzu leaned forward, paws threaded together in front of him, his grin turned predatory. The air suddenly felt heavy.

“Just remember that this is still just a game. If one of my students is harmed because of you, know that there will be no place you can hide from me Mr. Compress.”

Then he leaned back and the pressure was gone. A smile. “I look forward to seeing how you perform.”

Atsuhiro shivered slightly at the memory as he slipped into the testing site alongside the other actors. He took stock of the city around him as it began to come to life. He needed to figure out where his apartment for the test would be so he could lead the Villain Team back to it so young Hatsume would be able to set up her work station, his own request for a place to stay for the week with a safe work space for her being granted with the understanding that the reinforced and sound proofed room would be completely covered with cameras and have a direct line to the teachers on staff so Power Loader could monitor things appropriately. And that as the adult he would be the only one that could open the electronic locks on the door to the room.

A fact that had made Atsuhiro shiver from the way Izuku had positively lit up to that revelation.

Atsuhiro had a sneaking suspicion that would probably not be a good thing for the other team.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Yuga yawned slightly as the Hero Teams of 1-A and 1-B settled in around the table feeling slightly jealous of his Villain teammates and the Hero ones around him. This was worse than being an actual spy. As a real spy, he wasn’t normally forced to do twice the work of everyone else. If it wasn’t for Midoriya doing all the assigned paperwork for him on the Villain side of things to make up for having to work basically overtime to play spy for him, Yuga would have just outed himself as a Villain team member by the end of the first few days of preparation.

He noted slightly bored that both Hero team leaders (the other being Kendo, their class rep) were chatting about who all was missing from the other class rosters as if they were not just about to be basically handed a list that told them exactly that in a few minutes.

He was admittedly a bit excited to see their reactions when they realized that both Villain teams had combined and that there were more Villains then the head count implied.

Principal Nedzu finally entered the room, followed by Aizawa-sensei and Vlad-sensei carrying stacks of folders. “Good morning Heroes! Are you all ready for your case debriefing because this one is a bit of a dozy!”

Nedzu hopped up onto a chair that had been set up next to the projector screen at the end of the room as the classes quieted down. The lights clicked off and Nedzu clicked the remote in his paw to start the slideshow that Midoriya and Monoma had worked so hard to make look professional. “It seems that we have discovered a new Villain group calling themselves the Hands of Fate running around in UA City.” A click to reveal a faked security camera picture of Midoriya in his Villain costume as Strength “breaking” into his own apartment, Quirk sparking around him on full display as he seemed to be using it to smash the door open. Another click to show Shinso as Judgement (basically the same outfit as Midoriya just palette swapped to lavender and with yellow accents in place of the green and red of his and his own mask) holding a gun to the head of an out of costume Present Mic who apparently had been game to play victim for the photoshoot that had been tied up and gagged to pose for a “kidnapping hostage” photo. As Nedzu clicked through the next couple of photos, Yuga found himself stifling a laugh at Mic-sensei’s clear over acting for the pictures. As a few snickers broke out around the room at them, it was clear that some of the others in the room also found it equally amusing.

“While we don’t have as many faces and real names as we have confirmed and rumored members, the police have compiled this list from those we have been able to identify. First we have Koda Koji aka The Hermit. Quirk Anivoice. He can use his Quirk to control animals around him. That includes using them to collect information to sell off to the highest bidder.” A picture of him in his Villain costume (basic black button down and dark green pants under a hooded and feathered cloak like a few others had had chosen as well as his mask) was juxtaposed next to his student ID photo used as a headshot.

A click. “Shoji Mezo aka The Chariot. Quirk Dupli-Arms. Known drug runner for the group and one of the group’s muscles.” Shoji’s Villain outfit was basically off the rack looking military pants and boots and a plain tank top that his balaclava was tucked into the top of. His mask rested comfortably over his face.

A click. “Jiro Kyoka aka The World. Quirk Earphone Jack. Like Koda, she specializes in info brokering and blackmail.” She was basically just in her Hero costume with just the addition of the mask the only real change was her top being swapped for a gray one.

Click. “Todoroki Shoto aka Temperance. Quirk Half-Cold Half-Hot. Wanted for arson and the murder of his father, the pro Hero Endeavor.” There were a few gasps around the room at the choice of charges that Todoroki had gone with. Yuga had to stifle a laugh though as he saw the picture of him in Villain costume (Another palette swap of Midoriya’s only with white and ice blue and no coat. His vest, hat, and gloves had embroidery of snowflakes and flames stitched in a pattern around the edges for the appropriate side) and was reminded of how the other boy had spotted Sako’s mask with the eye patch design that immediately called dibs on it on the basis it matched his scar. “He is one of the most dangerous of the known members of the group so I would strongly advise against trying to take him down in a one-on-one scenario.”

Click. “Midoriya Izuku aka Strength, formerly Deku. Quirk Superpower. He is also wanted in regards to Endeavor’s murder as well as the massacre of his Sidekicks and is known to be the main muscles of the group alone with a litantly of other smaller charges that you will be able to read up on later in the packet that is being passed around. Like Todoroki, as a Hero Killer he is to be considered extremely dangerous if confronted.”

Yuga watched a few of his classmates pale in the dark as it seemed to finally click that they were going to have to fight the absolute feral monster that Midoriya had become during the Sports Festival. However the clear shake that Iida had developed as a result of Midoriya’s title of Hero Killer was interesting to notice. As he took a mental note of it, he suddenly remembered that Iida’s older brother had nearly been killed by Stain just weeks before.

Oh.

Yeah, there was no way that Midoriya had not chosen to do that intentionally. So much for Monoma reigning in his psychological torture impluse that the guy apparently had. Yuga suddenly had to wonder how it was that the guy was supposedly All Might’s successor (according to what All for One had said) when he clearly would have fit right in with All for One’s crowd.

A click drew him back into the present. “Yaoyorozu Momo aka The High Priestess. Quirk Creation. Wanted in relation to Drug creation and smuggling. We believe she is using her Quirk to create the new hit drug on the streets called Destiny or at least to create the equipment necessary for the manufacturing of the high end psychedelic.” She was dressed in a flowing plan black backless dress but practical running shoes. Like the rest of the girls, she had declined wearing the balaclava under her mask and her hair was pulled up in its signature fashion revealing a pair of sparkling diamond earrings.

Click. “Awase Yosetsu aka The Emperor. Quirk Weld. A Cleaner for the group. His Quirk has been linked to a handful of recovered bodies fished out of nearby bodies of water, him having used it to tie the bodies down to a large weight.” As several of his classmates turned slightly green at the description, Yuga silently was amused to realize the boy had used his normal headband pattern of the hat he wore of his costume, a detail that had slipped by him before in his exhaustion during their meetup to decide costumes. Other than that he was much like most of the boys in the group in that he was wearing a palette swap of the look they had decided on with Midoriya, his being a deep royal blue white like his headband as accent.

Click. “Kaibara Sen aka The Sun. Quirk Gyrate. Breaking and entering specialist. He is wanted in regards to several millions yen of stolen goods.” His palette swap was purely gray and silver but his gloves were replaced with the special finger guards from his Hero costume.

Click. “Kuroiro Shihai aka The Moon. Quirk Black. Kaibara’s partner in breaking and entering.” He wore an all black palette swap of the outfit with one of the feathered cloaks in place of the hat and coat, the only white on him being the white from his mask peeking out from under his raised hood.

Click. “Tsuburaba Kosei aka Justice. Quirk Solid Air. Another one of the group’s enforcers. Often seen paired off with other members and trained as a sniper.” He wore an outfit more in line with that of Shoji, off the rack military, though his was more angled towards being urban camo and he had a jacket. His Quirk being what it was, his mask sat askew on the side of his head like a festival mask being casually worn over his uncovered hair. He was pointedly carrying the sniper rifle that Midoriya had suggested he try to get extra trained with Snipe for was slung over his shoulder in the Villain “surveillance” shot.

Click. “Tokage Setsuna aka The Empress. Quirk Lizard Tail Splitter. Awase’s partner. She keeps lookout while he cleans up the mess.” She was dressed similarly to Jiro in a casual punk style, with purple boots and top under her black leather jacket. Like Tsuburaba, her mask was pushed to the side since she had seen little point in wearing it correctly with how often she would be using her Quirk to split off her eyes and ears to spy on people.

Click. “Monoma Neito aka Wheel of Fortune or Chance as we have heard a few call him. Quirk Copy. A jack of all trades in the organization as far as we can tell and one of the Leaders’ right hands. Has been seen committing crimes as minor as breaking and entering but as major as assisting in the Endeavor agency massacre.” Yuga had to fight back a snort at his Villain persona picture as did a few others who clearly failed at the sight of it. Monoma in his costume (formal black and white except for the accent of a pastel blue tie and hat band with black polka dots) practically falling backwards from how far he was dramatically bending back in a redemption of his “Villain” laugh was far too comical. Especially since the mask on his face hid just what he was doing. Yuga wondered if the silly picture had been an intentional choice to lighten the mood as his rap sheet was read off.

Click. “Yanagi Reiko aka The Star. Quirk Poltergeist. In comparison her recorded crimes are rather minor. Just pickpocketing and a shop lifting. Still her link to the organization is clear so she is to be held under the suspicion of a possible link to other member’s crimes.” She wore a long black coat with a white fluffy collar reminiscent of the coats that most of the guys wore over a plain long black top and ripped leggings. Her silvery bangs half spilling over the black half of her mask, the star on it almost completely obscured.

Click. “Shiozaki Ibara aka The Hierophant. Quirk Vines. No actual recorded crimes but has been clearly linked to the group as a fervent supporter of the group’s leaders, often acting as their harald. Most of what we know about their leaders is thanks to her.” She was dressed in basically just a black version of her Hero costume with the white mask over her face seeming extra angelic above it.

Click. “Which leads us to Tokoyami Fumikage aka The Devil though we have also had reports of him being referred to as Lovers. We suspect the inconsistency there is a result of his Quirk Dark Shadow’s sentientance. As such Lovers might just be the code name for his Quirk that the group uses. He has been linked to a series of murders over the last few months which was what kicked off our original investigation into the group. He should be considered extremely dangerous like the Hero Killers.” Like Jiro and Shiozaki, he was mostly just in his Hero costume, the cloak just being exchanged for the feathery hooded one to up the drama factor. In the picture only the Devil side of his mask was on display (all black with a white pentagram for an eye to juxtapose to the all white side with a black heart for an eye on the other) as he was posed in costume facing off to the right side of the picture.

Click to reveal another picture of Judgement’s mask staring down a camera. “That being said there remains those we only know from a handful of sightings and by word of mouth. Pictured here is the one we only know as Judgement. Quirk currently unknown. What little we do know about him is that he is evidently the other right hand of the Leaders and his word the others carry out as law. Like Monoma he goes where he is needed so has a record to match. He is the final person we have as definitively linked to the Endeavor agency massacre.”

“As for the other members, we have only fragmentary information. That being said, we do have one more lead on a member.” He clicked to the next slide revealing a picture of Sako posing for a security camera in full colorful Villain costume. “This is Mr. Compress. From his mask and dress, it is safe to assume he is one of the currently unseen unidentified members though he has never been seen in association with another member. Normally he would be considered just a petty thief but the association is concerning.”

“That being said we do know for a fact he is not the member we only know from word of mouth as the Fool purely due to the fact that when other members of the organization have mentioned her in passing, it was with clear gendered terms. As such it seems likely that the Zero or Zippy that they talk about are also her based on their groups overall theming and context. She is wanted as the primary suspiler of the groups illegal support items and for the creation of an explosive from a bombing linked to the group.”

“That just leaves The Magician and The Hanged Man as well as the co-leaders of the group The Tower and Death. Frankly outside of the names and the genders of the first two, we have no leads for you. That being said, as some of you might have already picked up on, the Hands of Fate all take their names from the faces of the Major Arcana from a Tarot card Deck. Assuming that the likely titles are not random, then it is likely that we can infer that the two leaders took the names of the cards they felt best matched them. As such I feel it prudent to mention the most common interpretations of the cards. In the upright state Death could mean not only the literal meaning but also endings, transformation and transition to something new but in the reverse implies resistance to change, an inner transformation or inner purging. The Tower on the other hand in the upright speaks of sudden change and upheaval, chaos, revelations, and awakenings while reversed also signals personal transformation as well as fear of change and averting disaster. With all of that and the words that Shiozaki have said about the group, well their ultimate goal seems to be one of destroying the current system of doing things to rebuild the city under their control.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as Nedzu finished. Then the room erupted into chaos.

“There are 21 of them?!”

“Where did those extra members even come from?! The only one’s missing here were the ones that were named?!”

“Fucking forget that! Who the fuck are the Villain Team Leaders?!”

Seeing the opportunity that Midoriya had asked him to watch for, Yuga cut it. “You don’t think the mystery team members are among us do you? Spying on us?”

The silence that fell upon them all in the wake of his questions was deafening. As everyone began to look at everyone else but Kirishima and Kendo with clear suspicion it was obvious the seed that Midoriya had wanted planted in the group had swiftly taken root.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Neito sighed as he paused to take a break from hauling shit up the stairs. Neito knew why he and Midoriya had picked the building to set up their base in but surely they could have picked a lower floor for their main space. As he panted slightly from the exertion, he glared at the duffle bag of “special” ammunition. They couldn’t risk Sako Compressing it since trying so with the first batch had ended explosively with how unstable it was. Hatsume was a mad genius but one of her biggest flaws as a team member was that her work was basically incompatible with Sako’s Quirk.

So of course her lab had to be in his apartment several blocks away.

As a result as she knocked out production of all the equipment that the needed for stage one of the plan, they were having to haul it back to base by hand without trying to get spotted as suspicious by the “civilians” so they wouldn’t report their comings and goings to the Heroes after they arrived on site in an hour. That meant no obvious Quirk use so no borrowing Yanagi’s quirk to float the bag behind him as he climbed the stairs.

Awase came to a stop beside him on his own climb. “Uh, Chance? You good man?”

Neito waved him off. “Fine. My bag is just heavy.”

He frowned and set his own bag down to try and lift Neito’s and almost immediately fumbled and dropped it at the unexpected weight. “The fuck? What is in here? Bricks? Why isn’t Strength or Chariot carrying this?”

Neito groaned. “I might have made a rash decision to try and prove that I could handle anything Strength could. It is full of the tracker rounds and their receivers.” He held out a hand to take the bag back. Just four more flights.

His classmate winced and passed it back. “I know you don’t have to listen to me and all since you outrank me but you should probably take a break and do something else once you get this up there.”

Neito sighed and began to trudge up the stairs again. “I’ll take over supervision of the unpacking.”

Suddenly there was a flurry of fast steps before a shout below them in the steps rang out. “On your left.”

Neito watched as Midoriya basically flew up the opening in the center of the stairwell, bouncing higher and higher as he ping ponged back and forth up from rail to rail under the green sparking power of his Quirk, carrying a duffle bag under each arm like it was nothing. The bastard.

Neito huffed and buckled down to force himself to the top. By the time Awase and he were opening the door to their floor, Midoriya had gone past two more times, once back down and once coming back up, the show off. Neito decided the worst part of all of it was the fact that as cool as his Quirk would be to use, Midoriya was a Blank because his Quirk was a form of stockpiler.

Midoriya looked up from where he had been setting down and unpacking his most recent load. “Oh hey Chance, Emperor. I was wondering how long it would be before you guys caught up.”

Neito glared at the other boy before walking over to lightly swat at him as he set down his bag. “You know you could have stopped and grabbed our bags too.”

Midoriya rolled his eyes. “You were the one that said that you could carry it yourself.”

A few of the others working on setting up around the room snickered. Neito glared at Jiro, Tsuburaba and Shinso who he quickly identified as the sources. “Not a word. I control all of your fates, remember?”

Shinso rolled his eyes. “Yeah and so does Tower, Death. I am pretty sure he won’t let you sacrifice us as pieces so long as we have a part to play in his plan for chaos. Plus with the exception of Justice here, we are cards from his hand not yours.”

Neito was torn between annoyance that he was right and a happiness that had bubbled up with Shinso leaning into the card and game metaphor as fit his role in the game. “Still, I can make your lives hell so long as you are in the game.”

Midoriya threw a protean bar from the table he was at. “Take a break and have a snack. Your low blood sugar from burning all those calories is making you cranky.”

Neito reflexably caught it before giving him a glare. “I am not cranky .” Still he ripped it open and ate it. He was hungry after all.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

As Hizashi settled in to help monitor the test for a bit alongside Shouta, Kan, Maijima, Nedzu and All Might since technically one of his students was participating as well (and like hell was he missing the show, his son participating in it or not), Maijima cursed and picked up the phone beside him. On the display for the small support lab, a phone rang that a man Hizashi didn’t recognize but assumed from context was Sako picked it up with a tired sigh not even bothering to raise it to his ear, he turned to Maijima’s student and blandly spoke. “Zippy, Power Loader said no.” Hatsume huffed and stopped working on whatever she had been doing, beginning to take it apart. Sako nodded and put the phone back down on the receiver.

Shouta gave a snort of amusement as Maijima put the phone back down on the hook before adding a tally to the sheet of paper in front of himself with a sigh. There were already a lot of those and Hatsume could have only been there for 4 hours at this point. Hizashi gave the man a questioning look. “What was that all about?”

Maijima, not tearing his eyes from the screen, sighed. “She is working on building a bomb for a plan the Villains have later. It is suppose to be just a glitter bomb so we can tag people as dead without anyone actually getting hurt but she keeps trying to add real explosives to up the effective range.”

Well that was mildly concerning. “Is she not worried about hurting the other students?”

“No, not even remotely.” He sighed. “Hatsume always puts 110% into everything she works on so dialing down the yield of the explosive when given the request to make the biggest glitter bomb she could is not sitting will with her, despite knowing full well why I keep telling her no. It doesn’t exactly help that she doesn’t view explosions as a big deal with how often she blows stuff up accidentally.”

Kan huffed. “It is making it painfully obvious why she was recruited from outside the Hero course to play Villain by Midoriya though.”

Hizashi saw All Might wince at the reminder that his kid was playing Villain. Hizashi didn’t care what the guy said, he had seen the two of them together. Midoriya was his kid no matter how much he denied it. It was clear that he was uncomfortable with Nedzu's decision to name Midoriya as a Villain team leader regardless of his understanding as to why he had. It probably didn’t help that the preparation work for the test showed that he was probably going to be good at it too.

Hizashi decided to leave the poor guy be and turned to his husband. “So anything else exciting I might have missed?”

Shouta shrugged and pointed to the monitor displaying their son chatting with Monoma as they helped set up the Villain team lunch. “Nothing test related but I am sure you would find the fact that Monoma isn’t exactly denying Hitoshi’s teasing him about having a crush on Midoriya interesting…”

Chapter Text

With only half an hour left until the Hero teams would enter the "city," Eijiro found himself in an emergency meeting with Kendo. She was pacing back and forth in thought. "So we have at least one traitor each hidden among our ranks assuming the other 4 unaccounted for Villain team members are all from outside our classes."

That immediately threw Eijiro. "Wait, from outside our classes? They can do that?"

She paused in her pacing. "There was nothing in the rules that said that they couldn't. Actually the opposite given the rules explained how they could possibly recruit the civilian actors to the group after everything started. Given what little we know about this Mr. Compress guy, he was probably a plant on their part in the actors. A friend of one of our classmates willing to join in for the week."

That sparked a memory of Eijiro. "Oh! He’s probably Midoriya's cousin. He mentioned him in passing in our class since the planning for this started a few times. He is a professional magician like most of their family apparently. That probably makes him the Magician if the code names aren't random."

She nodded. "Yeah that sounds likely. That would explain how he was able to get a job among the actors on such short notice too." She rubbed the back of her neck. "I have a guess about who the Fool likely is too. From the sounds of things it sounds likely that they picked up a Support student too. That just leaves Judgment and the Hanged Man as either Gen Ed or spies with the Villain team leaders hidden in our teams. Do you have any suspects from your class because I don't. Up until now I was pretty sure that Monoma was the Villain team leader for our class but that makes sense if he was who the real one was using to lead by proxy."

Eijiro shook his head. "No, not really. I thought for a while that the whole Tower thing was just Tokoyami being dramatic pretending he wasn't actually the Villain team leader but obviously I was way off on that one. There are a couple people I am pretty sure are not secret Villains though. Ashido and Mineta namely. The first is just because I have known her since junior high so I can tell she is being honest about being on my team and Mineta because the whole reason Yaoyorozu and Jiro joined the Villain team was to avoid him."

Kendo sighed. "If only it was that simple for me. Unfortunately, given that Shiozaki joined the Villain team despite my original assumption that she was a given for my own team, it is painfully clear I don't know my classmates nearly as well as I thought."

Eijiro winced at that. "Okay but to be fair, I am pretty sure we all just assumed she would be on the Hero team, like I really should have with Aoyama."

She frowned. "Aoyama?"

"Oh, the guy who realized we probably had spies in our midst and pointed it out. He is kinda a weird guy and a bit of a loner in our class so didn't rush my desk to join the Hero team immediately but I think part of the problem is that he might just have language difficulties sometimes since he switches to only speaking French when tired."

Kendo gained a look of understanding. "Yeah, Tsunotori Pony from my class has similar issues, only English is her first language. Okay so he is another one for the probably not a suspect list then?"

Eijiro nods. “And we can add her from your class…”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Yuga was slightly baffled as Kirishima pulled him Ashido and Mineta aside five minutes until the Heroes could enter the arena only to become even more bewildered as it was revealed that somehow he had accidentally made it onto the list of Kirishima’s of classmates clear of suspicion for being a secret Villain. Now he most certainly was not going to complain about that fact even if he had less than zero idea how that he had been cleared so easily.

Midoriya was going to get a kick out of this for sure but now not only was he a spy on the Hero team but somehow he had accidentally become an inner circle member.

As they entered the arena, Yuga peeled off from the main group heading to their agency on one of the first patrols of the game as assigned to him by Kirishima out of that surprising bit of trust. It only took a few minutes for Jiro to peel herself from the shadows in an alley as he cut through it to hand him his communication equipment for his actual team.

“See about getting Tower the full schedule of patrols from 1-A as soon as you can and 1-B if possible.”

Yuga snorted. “Oh that will be more than possible. Pass along the news that I managed to infiltrate the inner circle of ‘safe’ Heroes for the Hero team leaders so I will have unrestricted access to better watch for ‘Traitors’ among them.”

She laughed. “Damn Wednesday, way to Plus Ultra it.”

Yuga gave a small sheepish shrug. “To be honest, I am not quite sure how I managed it. All I know is it will make my moment in the spotlight all the more impactful.” He was nearly back out on the street now. “Talk to you later Gaia.”

“Later Hero.”

And just like that, she was gone again just as silently as she had appeared. Smiling to himself, Yuga exited the alley. He had a patrol to finish.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

They were starting small but immediately upon game start while they waited for preparations to finish for the real start to the game. Picking up the easy points before the Heroes had a chance to really get themselves established.

One successful drug deal. A bit of graffiti. Shoplifting. Pickpocketing. A mugging.

Small stuff, just on a large scale as everyone but a few key members were out doing it. Izuku being one of them as he found himself sitting atop Hatsume’s lap as she whined about being kicked from her lab. It had been necessary since Izuku had needed to free up Atsuhiro to go case their major planned targets, taking advantage of the man’s anonymity as one of the clear actors for the event. Still while he was doing that, Izuku was left with Hatsume unable to work on her projects for later since Power Loader did not trust her to be left alone without any adult oversight after she had repeatedly tried to make a potentially actually lethal bomb to fulfill Izuku’s own request for explosives for Act 2 of their show for the Heroes.

Izuku had tried to distract her by having her set up their communications hub in the staging base but that had only worked for five minutes. That was why he had to resort to physically restraining her like this.

And it had to be him given that he and Shoji were the only ones of their group actually physically stronger than her with how much she lifted on the day to day building support gear. Between that and the fact he was one of only a handful she vaguely listened to and, well, it just had to be him.

“You don’t really have to do this Ten Mill. It was just one little bomb.”

Izuku didn’t look up from the laptop on the floor in front of him. “You could have actually killed someone. I’m sorry if I find that just as concerning as the teachers. This is just a game.”

He caught her pouting out of the corner of his eye as he had to shift his laptop just out of her reach again. “Ah, come on! I can hack into the Hero network too. I do it all the time!”

Izuku paused in his typing to turn and look back at her. “Wait, are you telling me that you regularly hack into the actual HeroNet?”

She hummed and used his shock to reach past him and pull the laptop into his lap before reaching around him on either side and beginning to type. “Oh yeah, it’s super easy if a bit boring but I get all sorts of great ideas for new babies from stuff on there.”

Izuku was absolutely stunned at the causal admittance to the major crime. “Hatsume, that’s illegal.”

“Meh, if I was going to get arrested for it, I am pretty sure Nedzu wouldn’t have just asked that I stop doing it on campus during class.”

Izuku had to take a moment to process that he might have accidentally actually recruited a potential Villain in the making. “Okay, besides the hacking and bomb making, is there anything else blatantly illegal that you get up to on the regular?” As she stopped typing for a second and seemed to have to think about it, Izuku cut her off. “Nevermind, I don’t actually want to know.”

She giggled. “I don’t think it was all too bad. I mean compared to some of the stuff you have planned, it really isn’t.”

Izuku groaned and rubbed his face. “You have a problem, you know that right? Your impulse control when it comes to illegal things?”

She gave another giggle and went back to typing, her head now resting on his shoulder. “Yeah I know but life is more fun this way so why stop myself?”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tamaki was the first of the three of them to realize the issue standing in their apartment for the next week. “Wait, do either of you know what this Midoriya kid actually looks like? Nedzu never showed us a picture.”

Nejire tapped her chin in though. “Hmm, no I don’t think so.”

Mirio also shook his head. “No but I am pretty sure that was intentional on his part. This is our final exam too. He is probably testing our investigative skills by only giving us the name to work off of.”

Tamaki sighed and slump down with his duffle bag for the week to the floor. “That figures. At least you have some knowledge of how to do that right from your time with Sir Nighteye?”

Mirio gave his bright sunny smile. “Yep! I guess we know what we are doing first as Vigilantes!”

Nejire gave a small cheer. “We so total have this! We won’t accidentally help the Heroes catch Midoriya and we will help them stop their evil deeds!”

Suddenly a thought hit Tamaki. “Oh. It’s a handicap for us. So we don’t just take out the whole Villain team in one go.”

Mirio smiled and pulled him into a side hug. “There is the self confidence in you we have been looking for!”

Tamaki flushed and buried his face in his hands. “I mean it is less self confidence and more acknowledgement that we have two years of experience over all of them.”

Nejire joined in the hug from Tamaki’s other side, making a Tamaki sandwich. “Yeah but the you of two years ago never would have said something that bold.”

Tamaki sandwich. His stomach growled at the thought earning a laugh from his two best friends as they teasingly poked at him as he felt his face just get hotter. Mirio gave him an extremely amused look. “Well I was going to ask what you two wanted to do next but Tamaki’s stomach has spoken! Let’s go get that lunch now.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Neito’s heart sank as he spotted Midoriya and Hatsume upon his return. Cuddling.

He had been afraid of that. That Midoriya was in a relationship with someone else already. That he preferred women.

It wasn’t that he disapproved of the match given that as far as the girls went, Hatsume was by far the most attractive one of the group in his book and was an intellectual match for Midoriya with the same sort of chaotic energy…

Neito paused in that train of thought and he mentally worked down the list of things he liked about her next to his list of things he had found in Midoriya.

1. Not bad on the eyes
2. Clever
3. Fun to be around
4. Could totally bench press him

Okay the last one was less important of a qualifier for dating material for him but the fact that both of them were fully capable of the feat was not an unattractive quality. He was forced to admit she was just the pink female support course variant on Midoriya now that he thought about it.

Wait.

“Shit.”

Midoriya jumped slightly in Hatsume’s lap. “Death, Judgement, is there something wrong?”

Shinso patted him on the shoulder as he walked past Neito. “Nah, Chance just figured something out I did a while back.”

Hatsume finally looked up. “Oh, is that why he was just standing in the doorway like that for so long?”

Neito winced at being called out and finally entered the room blushing wildly. “Sorry.”

Midoriya looked at him slightly puzzled. “Oh, what did you realize?”

Neito really did not want to answer that question. After all, what kind of guy just comes out and admits to crushing on both members of a couple. When he took a bit too long to answer, Shinso snorted. “Well I would say he was having a bit of gay panic it wasn’t for the fact I know he knows he likes guys from bothering him earlier so it was probably bi panic when he realized he has a crush on Hatsume here too.”

Hatsume gave Neito an odd look before turning to Shinso. “Too as in he has a crush on someone else or too as in you have a crush on me as well.”

Shinso shrugged and fell into one of the chairs. “Can’t it be both? For the record I am both bi and poly and think everyone currently in the room is dating material.”

Midoriya sputtered out a noise of disbelief and immediately hid his face in his hands. “But I am not that attractive? I have, like, the most boring face out there?”

Neito cut in before he could stop himself. “Have you even seen yourself in the mirror when your shirt is off?”

Hatsume laughed and poked at Midoriya’s stomach as she set the laptop aside. “He has a point Tower. I mean, I know I have abs but even my stomach has a bit of squish to it. You are like hugging a muscly statue.”

Shinso snickered. “Yeah I think Monoma here just has a thing for people who are buffer then him.”

Neito flushed. “That isn’t the only qualifier! I like someone who can hold an intelligent conversation with me too and you can’t deny that they are both some of the smartest people in our year, even if their areas of expertise are generally rather specific.”

Hatsume considered that for a moment before shrugging. “Okay I can live with that.” She turned to give Neito a questioning look. “Hey, out of curiosity do you maybe like Judge too or is that just a one way thing? I’m only asking ‘cause I’m always up to trying new things.”

Neito, feeling very lost, immediately turned to the smug bastard from 1-C. The one he was beginning to realize had been flirting with him since basically they had met. The guy who basically had met none of his own mentally listed qualifiers.

None except one.

“Stop that!” Neito lightly swatted at him the smug bastard as his smirk just got wider.

He chuckled with his wonderful voice that did not belong with his stupid face. “I’m not hearing no~”

As he tackled the jerk to the floor and pinned him down to earn a “kinky” from the other boy, Hatsume poked at Midoriya. “Hey are you good?”

Midoriya nodded and forced himself to take a few calming breaths. “You all like me?”

Hatsume hummed. “Yeah and probably each other too. You don’t have to if you don’t want to but the way I see it, the easiest way to work out our feelings would just be to date all of each other at once.”

Midoriya was still flushed as he looked between them all as if considering them in a new light. “Sure? Uh what now though?”

Shinso snorted from his place still below Neito. “Basically same as normal except more cuddling and hand holding. Oh and we get to do this to each other.”

His lips collided with Neito’s own.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

As Hizashi gave a small cheer at the sight on the camera that they had all found themselves focusing on given the “drama” of it and the fact that everything seemed to be smoothly for the other Villains and the Heroes were clueless still. Shouta sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “Of all the people he could have picked. The three biggest Problem Children of the other classes.”

All Might gave him a puzzled look, looking away from his kid on the screen as he tentatively had his first kiss with the girl who’s arms he had been sitting in for nearly an hour. “Pardon?”

Kan snorted. “Shinso is his and Mic’s adopted son in case you missed that fact. He is just worried that if it works out for all four of them, he just gained the other three as future in-laws.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki couldn’t decide if he was insulted or not about Shitty Hair thinking he might be the secret Villain leader. On one hand, it meant that Shitty Hair thought he would be a good Villain like all those extras started saying after the Sports Festival but on the other it meant that he thought Katsuki was clever enough to follow all of the class.

“...It is not that I don’t want to trust you Bakubro but given some of the stuff Midobro said about the Villain team leader and how he was recruited, your history with him kinda makes you a suspect. I mean, I’m not sure anyone but you knew about the magic stuff with his family to recruit him for that so unless he feely offered that about himself when getting recruited, you are sort of the only one who would have known.”

Katsuki scoffed. “He could have mentioned it the first day when Earlobes talked with him. Seriously, though, how the fuck are Giltterbomb and Raccon Eyes free of suspicion?”

Shitty Hair shrugged. “Well Mina and I go way back like you and Midoriya do so I am pretty sure I could tell if she was lying as much as I am sure you could probably tell with him. Aoyama I am pretty sure has language difficulties so I doubt the teachers would have picked him for Villain leader.”

“And why not the other four unaccounted for?”

“Kendo and I are pretty sure they have to all be from outside our classes. Mr. Compress is clearly one of the actors for the event and Fool is pretty obviously a Support student. We think that Hanged Man is probably another Support or Gen Ed with Judgement who might be trying to use this as a way of transferring in. It explains why Mic-sensei helped them with their photoshoot since he is 1-C’s homeroom teacher. Personally my money is on him also being Support since they generally work in teams.”

Okay Katsuki did have to concede a point there. He thought back to the image of Judgment in his purple and yellow and mentally tried to recall if any of the Gen Ed extras had done well enough in the Sports Festival to make recruiting them appealing for the villains only to come up empty. He did however remember the crazy support chick that had teamed up with Deku in the second round and went on to make a fool out of Glasses before disqualifying herself. “I think that Fool might be the crazy support girl from the Sports Festival that worked with Deku, Goth and Round Cheeks.”

Shitty hair brightened. “Oh! That is actually a good point. It would explain the Villain team in with the support students anyways. I’ll have to call over to Ken-”

He was cut off as an alarm began to blaze over the Agency intercom as Racoon Eye’s voice rang out over the system. “We are getting reports of a massive bombing in the city center halfway between A and B Agencies!”

Katsuki didn’t even look to Shitty Hair for guidance, he was already running out the door to respond. As he shoved open the front door, he saw the massive plume of smoke and had a moment of panic as he wondered if the idiots had used an actual bomb. But there had been no massive bang like he would have known there would be if it was real. He was a living bomb himself after all.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tamaki stared down at his two friends from his place seated on the sidewalk in shock as they played dead, looking embarrassed. Mirio especially given his Quirk. Their entire fronts were painted in bright red glitter from the bomb that they had apparently accidentally found and had been carrying. They had spotted the bag being forgotten by one of the actors at the outdoor restaurant they had been eating at, so Mirio and Nejire had decided to go after him to return the bag while Tamaki finished eating. They had not made it far when the bag exploded, “killing” them both and everyone in a 5 meter radius and “injuring” everyone in 20. All the actors in the six buildings closest to it were quickly filing out so that Nedzu could remotely collapse the buildings safely and then return to the rubble to either be saved or play dead as they were instructed.

Tamaki had completely "lost" an arm (not that it was really an issue with his Quirk, he could regrow it fast enough), having just been sitting at the edge of the center radius of the explosion. He had only survived because Mirio and Nejire had been directly between him and the explosion so had reduced the damage. He huffed and buried his face in his hands. “You two just had to leave me all alone didn’t you.”

Mirio reached up to pat him on the shoulder. “Hey you’ve got this. We’ll be cheering for you from beyond the grave.”

Tamaki sighed. “Mirio, dead people don’t talk.”

His smile turned sheepish again. Before Tamaki could think more about that, there was a series of rapidly approaching bangs as one of the Hero students literally flew into the site with his explosive Quirk. He spotted Tamaki sitting over two very red bodies and quickly came down to land next to him. “Hey, what the fuck happened?”

Tamaki shook nervously, not wanting to deal with this right now. He gestured at the remains of the bag and the canister all the glitter has exploded out of the top of. “Bomb. My friends and I saw a guy leave his bag behind while we were eating lunch and they were trying to follow him to return it when it went off.”

The other Hero students were appearing now, fishing any “survivors” from the ruins and the street as emergency vehicles began to appear. The explosive guy quickly turned to the others. “I’ve got a living witness to the bomber bleeding out over here!”

He cursed and pressed his hand to where Tamaki’s “missing” arm was in reaction to the description of Tamaki’s injury that was relayed to him over the student-teacher com network. “Can you tell me what the guy looked like?”

Tamaki forced himself to swallow down his nerves like Fat Gum had been trying to help him with. “Roughly 180 cm. Plain face and short brown hair. Somewhere between late 20s and early 30s. He was wearing an orange button down under a black vest and matching pants. He had white boots too I think.”

The other student cursed as a girl in a vaguely space themed pink suit ran up with a first aid kit. He turned to her. “Mr. Compress was the one who set the bomb. The witness got a decent look at him without his mask.”

She nodded. “Bakugou can you pull off your glove? The material will help absorb the blood while I get him over to the ambulance.”

“Don’t bother, just make him lighter and I’ll carry him over myself. Focus on getting the rubble off of people, Dumbass.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Hitoshi took a deep breath to steady himself as he watched the Heroes swarming the scene to pick out his target. He was not the best sniper out of the group; that was Justice hands down with his breath control from using his Quirk. Still, this was the moment that Tower had built up for him from the start. He closed his eyes and took one last breath as Death counted them down.

Judgment opened his eyes and lined up his scope with his target. The final count. Three. Two. One. He squeezed the trigger in unison with three others as their target's chests exploded from the paintballs impacting them. Uravity screamed in shock as the surviving vigilante immediately relaxed and fell back to the ground, clearly relieved that he wouldn’t be stuck alone without his partners for the rest of the week. But that was not what Judgement was focused on. Grape Juice was curled up in a ball on the ground now clutching his crotch having been shot there by World while he had gone for the fatal blow.

It took him a moment to find the target Tower had picked for Magician as one of opportunity given he had joined the sniper team on the off chance that Togata had survived the initial explosion. Ah, there, Gevaudan from 1-B. That made sense given the other boy’s sense of smell from his Quirk Beast could have become an issue with some of the later plans.

He pulled back from his roof edge to pack up his gun as more shouts of panic rang out. A few rooftops over Death hopped up on the edge in his all black version of his outfit with one of the feather cloaks tossed over top. He switched his modulator’s vocal feed inside his mask to the speakers they had set up in advance for the beginning of stage 2. Judgment quickly began to roof hop to get to that one alongside both Magician, Justice and World, falling into flank Death as Magician compressed all the gun cases.

“My apologies Heroes but I am afraid that their times were up. I do rather hate it when people are late for their final appointments. It often throws off the whole schedule for everyone and is awfully inconvenient for everyone involved.”

There was a shout from the street level. “Who the fuck are you?”

Death cocked his head slightly. “Why Death of course. Who else would wish to oversee the exit of so many lives? Oh, well, I suppose my counterpart Tower might as well but he is elsewise occupied for the real start of the show.” There was a crackle over the radio as both Chariot and Hermit gave the all clear. “Speaking of…”

Abruptly every building lining the street that divided the fake city in two dropped as Tower joined him on the roof edge in his more formal looking black suit, looking more like a businessman than anything if it wasn’t for the masks and gloves hiding every inch of his skin and hair. He gave a dark chuckle, his voice modulated as well but in a less artificially sounding way, merely dropping it deeper. “Now Death, what did I say about having fun without me?” There was another round of explosions and buildings dropping as the other members cleared another zone of actors widening the gap between the two Hero groups.

Even without seeing his face, Judgment knew Death rolled his eyes. Still, he stuck to the script. “I thought a little early detonation on one bomb wouldn’t hurt to set the stage. Besides, those vigilantes you were worried about nearly moved it too far from position.”

Another hair raising chuckle from Tower as the pressure he gave off seemed to lock the Heroes in place. “Oh I hardly was worried about them, I merely thought they would run the risk of throwing a few things off schedule. I do you know how you hate that my dear~”

Everyone on the roof was slightly stunned as Tower took one of Death’s hands in his and raised it up to where his mouth was behind the mask as if to kiss the back of it. Where the hell was the nervous blushing wreck of Midoriya Izuku under all of that smooth villain confidence? Hitoshi felt slightly bad for the other three with him on the roof with them since they hadn’t really had a chance to warn anyone of the change in their relationship statuses. Death scoffed and pulled his hand back. “Like you care about that. Chaos is what you live for.”

That had him chuckle again. “Ah, too true.”

Finally one of the Heroes seemed to force themself out of it. Ingenium. “Just who do you think you are?”

Tower flicked his hand to reveal a full deck of tarot cards that he began to shuffle. “We are those who wish to use the hands that fate has dealt us to reshuffle the deck.” He pulled a card from the top to reveal The Fool upright. “We will bring about a new start,” A new card, The Devil Upright, “so that devils like us can walk out in the light without fear or,” A new card, The Star Reversed, “falling into despair as your kind abandon us.” He pulled Hitoshi’s own card next in the upright alongside Justice. “We are absolution. The great equalizers. The people born of your system, reborn to show you the truth. We are monsters but ones that you created. You have made your bed. Now I am afraid it is time for you to lie in it.”

He flicked his hands to clear them for the audience below. “That being said, I am not without mercy.” He turned to Death. “I think it is only fair to give them time to mourn their dead and put their affairs in order, don’t you? After all, the game is no fun if there is no one to play it with.”

Death tapped his chin. “That is fair I suppose. Besides, it is not any other their times yet. Collecting them early could throw things off just as easily as too late. Not that I expect you care all that much given your sneaking in Gevaudan while you thought I wasn’t looking.”

Tower chuckled. “Oh darn you caught me.” He bumped his mask up against the side of Death’s face in another phantom kiss. “I had hoped to sneak that one by you.”

They pulled back from the roof edge walking over to the now changed Sako who had ducked into the roof access door and held out hands to start compressing them to slip away undetected giving the pair a clear look. “We are going to talk about all that improv later.” Hitoshi’s world slipped away before the pair could respond as one of the hands brushed up against him.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Toshinori couldn’t breathe. He was staring at the screen that up until seconds ago had held his boy. Except, that very much had not been Young Midoriya on the screen. Everything from the way his voice had been changed down to his mannerisms had screamed All for One to him. He had spoken with the same exact cadence and everything.

The way he had planned and executed this level of destruction without a second thought. The way he stood above the destruction without a seeming care in the world. And the monologinging. 

For the first time since he had met his successor, he was left horrifyingly wondering just who the boy’s father was. His stomach rolled with the worry that he might have given One for All to All for One’s own blood family. After all, both Young Midoriya’s father and biological material grandparents were a massive unknown.

A hand came down on his shoulder jolting a breath out of him. “Yo, Yagi, are you good my dude?”

Toshinori turned to Nedzu ignoring Yamada as a question reared its ugly head. “You didn’t name Young Midoriya as a Villain team leader just because of his mother’s adoptive family did you?”

Nedzu offered an apologetic look. “This cannot leave this room but no it was not. The young man Shigaraki from the USJ came back as 72% genetic match for him making him either his full brother or a half brother through an unknown sibling of his mother which given that unknown seems probable.”

Aizawa stiffened. “You are testing him not only because of the concern about him potentially going rogue but because you are hoping for insight into how Shigaraki might think.”

Nedzu gave a nod. “That is one bonus, yes.”

Toshinori flicked his eyes back up to the screen tracking Sako’s movements back to the Villain base. “You don’t think that the similarities between young Midoriya and him are a coincidence either do you?”

Nedzu threaded his paws together. “It stands to reason that it is possible. He has been around a long enough time that Young Midoriya and Shigaraki could just as easily be his great-great grandsons as they could possibly be his sons directly. There are too many unknown factors there.”

Yamada slammed his hands on he table. “What the hell are you to going on about?”

Nedzu gave him and the others an apologetic look. “The Villain who gave All Might here his injury is roughly two centuries old at this point. Up until the first Nomu appeared we had assumed that he had died in the fight that had cripled Yagi but now we are beginning to suspect he just went to ground to train his successor Shigaraki. The way that young Midroya has seemed to have decided to carry himself is making a possible familial connection to him more and more likely.” He turned to Aizawa. “You might have heard of him before in your Hero work as the Boogieman of the Underworld. He is only known by the name of All for One, his actual name is lost to history now.”

Chapter Text

Izuku fidgeted nervously under the gaze of his elder cousin. Under the gazes of all of the Villain team members really. “So, uh, we might have decided to try dating while you were all out making preparations.”

Atsuhiro snorted. “Yeah, I got that. You couldn’t have at least warned us before deciding to openly flirt with one another as Death and Tower though?”

Hitoshi cracked open an eye from where he had thrown himself on Mei’s lap after they got back. “Should probably clarify the whole poly thing too while we’re talking about it.”

As Izuku died inside with all the attention being on him, Neito rolled his eyes and slung an arm over his shoulder. “We, that is Tower, Judge, Zippy and me, are all currently dating one another while we figure things out. If anyone has a problem with that you can take it up with me.”

Jiro gave him a look of surprise. “Huh. Didn’t think you were into girls.”

Hitoshi snorted. “He is making an exception for the one chick among us that could deadlift any of us.”

Mei shoved him off her lap. “You make it sound like he is only interested in me because I don’t do girly girl stuff.”

Hitoshi didn’t even bother moving from his new place on the floor. “I am just saying that I am pretty sure he is generally into people who are physically stronger than him.”

Kaibara gave him a questioning look. “Well if that is the case, how do you factor into things?”

Hitoshi shrugged and cast a look up at Neito who was blushing nearly as much as Izuku at that point from Hitoshi calling him out like that. “Dunno. Why not ask him?”

Neito buried his face in his hands. “The jerk has the same thirst for chaos that both Tower and Zippy do.”

Izuku rubbed the back of his neck. “He is sort of the one who figured out that we all sort of liked one another and posed the idea of a poly relationship in the first place.”

Mei shrugged. “Yeah, I am not sure how long it would have taken for any of us to pick up on that fact with each other without him. I am better with machines than with people and between Chance and Ten Mill alone, I am not sure either of them would have asked any of us out since Chance thought me and Ten Mill were already dating and Ten Mill is just as socially oblivious as I am.”

Hitoshi snickered. “Yeah, it is kinda obvious that all three of them are slightly antisocial only children from how much they can’t read other people. From where I was sitting it was all pretty obvious.”

Tokoyami snorted. “I suspect that with the exception of Todoroki and possibly myself if you count Dark Shadow, everyone here is an only child.”

Todoroki however was giving Hitoshi an interested look. “I didn’t know you had siblings?”

Hitoshi sat up and shrugged again. “I don’t now. I’m adopted as an only child now but for a good part of my early years, I was a foster kid living with other kids my age. My parents are great but they don’t exactly plan on adopting anyone else any time soon. As it was, I was sort of an unplanned acquisition on their part.”

That had Izuku’s full attention given his own mother’s history. “How could that happen? The adoption process is not exactly something you can do accidentally.”

Another shrug before an amused smile crept over his face. “I was like my aunt’s cat Sushi, a foster fail. I was only supposed to live with them for a couple of months after an incident put me in their care as an emergency foster but by the time I was supposed to move out, we had all sort of become attached to one another. Next thing I know, I'm adopted.”

Izuku’s eyes widened slightly as a few small things clicked. “Most emergency fosters are Pro Heroes… Is that why you are always hanging out on campus late?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I sort of live here. Well, in the staff dorm at least. In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious from how easily I was able to rope him into the photoshoot, Present Mic is one of them. That is all you’re getting on the matter though given the fact that he is married with a kid is sort of supposed to be a secret for the sake of his public image since his agency doesn’t think he would sell as well if people knew he wasn’t single.”

Jiro snorted. “I hate that I know that would be true. For a good while my Dad’s agents had him hide his marriage with my mother and that they had me for his own image and he was just a rock star, not a Pro Hero. Obviously it didn’t last too long but that is definitely a thing that would happen.”

Izuku narrowed his eyes slightly at Hitoshi and made a mental note to ask about that later. After all, if his theory about Mic-sensei and Aizawa-sensei was correct, it was more likely that it was being kept a secret because of the other teacher’s involvement given that he doubted the Underground Hero would be particularly happy about his face being blasted everywhere as the more public Limelight Hero Present Mic’s husband.

That thought was interrupted by a text over the Villain com network from Aoyama.

Hanged Man:

?!?!?

You and Chance are dating?!?

When did this happen?!

It hasn’t even been 6 hours since I last saw you all in person?

Izuku winced and quickly typed a message.

About 10 minutes before the first bomb went off.

Sorry for the lack of warning on that for you and the rest of the team.

We are in a poly relationship with Judge and Zippy so if you want to help sow some more confusion about things with the Hero team, you can mention that I am dating Zippy or something.

Hanged Man:

Copy that.

I want the full story about this later though.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Ochako was shaking slightly as she sat down on the seat in A Agency. Her suit still was painted in “blood” from the chest of the witness that she had been about to help Bakugou transport to safety and medical treatment when he had been shot. Over a thousand dead in just minutes. Whoever the mastermind behind the Villains of both classes was someone who she was uncertain she would ever be able to look in the eye and trust again. None of the Villain team were. Not if they could do something like that without hesitation.

The fact that they could have dreamed up something like that at all was horrifying but the fact that they had been joking around like that after…

Kirishima cursed as he struggled to connect the video call with B Agency on the other side of the Divide. Most of their classes were on clean up duty still but he had forced her to take a break as she hit Quirk exhaustion point so now she was getting to sit in with him and a few others (Iida, Bakugou and Aoyama who had also been among the first responders to the attack and thus witnesses to Death and Tower’s little show) as he talked with Kendo and the others on break about what had happened.

She had lowered her head to rest on the cool metal of the table to try and will her nausea away when there was a small clink on the table in front of her prompting her to look back up. Aoyama had set a glass of water on the table in front of her with a concerned look. “Are you alright?”

She sighed and took the glass and quickly downed the cool water. “Thanks. I’ve been better but I could be worse I guess. I think I am more in shock than anything.”

He fidgeted with his own glass. “That is understandable. I will admit that performance of thiers on the roof edge was assez surprenant… quite surprising I mean. I was not aware that any of our classmates were dating one another from the other Hero class.”

She considered that. “That’s actually a good point. As far as I know the only ones I know dating are Jiro and Yaoyorozu and they are dating one another.”

He shook his head. “Midoriya is also dating that Support Girl from the Sports Festival. Hatsume I think? Regardless, I have seen them cuddling down in the support lab a few times since then.”

That was like an arrow through the heart. “Deku has a girlfriend?”

Her raised voice caught the attention of the other boys at the table. Bakugou snapped fully to attention. “What is this about Deku dating someone?”

Ochako blushed. “Ah. Aoyama and I were just talking about the people in our class that are dating so we could maybe figure out who Death and Tower are. He just said that he had seen Deku and Hatsume from the Support course together before.”

Iida frowned. “As interesting as that is, we really should not be gossiping about our classmates’ love lives behind their backs, even if I do have to question our friend’s taste in partners.”

Kirishima scratched his chin. “Huh. You think that is how they got Support students on their team?”

Bakugou however narrowed his eyes at Aoyama as the other boy shrugged. “What the fuck were you doing hanging around the Support students to even notice that?”

He rubbed the back of his neck as he gestured down at his belt. “I was hoping to maybe see about getting a smaller belt designed to work with my Quirk to wear under my casual clothes eventually once I go Pro. My current one is a oeuvre d’art… a work of art but it is also less than comfortable for wearing for a long durée- a long time that is. I couldn’t help but notice our classmate was also spending time down there too.”

Kirishima huffed. “Bakubro, Aoyama is obviously not the traitor. He was literally right there with us when everything went down.”

Ochako gave a small “oh” as the real reason for their little meeting here clicked. “We are all the ones one hundred percent cleared then?”

Kirishima shrugged. “I mean Mina is too. It is sort of why I left her in charge of organizing the others. Plus Ojiro since whoever Tower is they don’t have their clear mutations given they didn’t have a tail or horns. I figure we can get them both up to speed after they come back though.”

Iida sat back in his chair. “That only leaves Asui, Kaminari, Sato, Sero and Hagakure. I would say that we could discount the possibility of the girls being Tower if it wasn’t for the fact that it is possible the very male persona could have been created to throw us off their trail.”

Aoyama cleared his throat. “Um, have you gotten a connection yet?”

Kirishima cursed and went back to messing with the computer. “No! It's so weird! Every time I get a connection for a second I get booted right off of it!”

Bakugou frowned and got up to shove him away from the computer. “Let me see that.” He furiously typed away at the computer for a bit before curing and hard shutting it down. “They fucking hacked us. We need to hard restart all our systems at once to kick them out.” He tapped his ear to turn on the Hero Com. “Hey dumbasses, we need everyone back here for a couple of minutes to reset coms. The Villains are listening.” He looked over at Iida. “We need someone to run over to tell those idiots over in B about the hack.”

Iida glazed over to Kirishima for confirmation. Kirishima nodded. “Follow Bakubro’s lead on this. He probably knows computers better than I do.” He turned to Bakugou. “I think I am going to have to appoint you as the official communications officer of the agency for now. If we can clear Kaminari later he can take over but for now it is all you.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Yuga relaxed as he fired off another short update text from the restroom before flushing his stall toilet and stepping out to wash his hands. Somehow, despite this being a more demanding spying job than his one for All for One, it was so much easier. It was probably the fact he did not have to worry about fooling actual Pro Heroes like Nedzu and Aizawa-sensei but the classmates he had already been fooling for the better part of the semester already.

He knew just what buttons to press and when to keep the attention off of himself for too long.

He hated how naturally it all came to him at this point. The manipulation of the others.

But it was what Midoriya had asked of him so he would deliver. Maybe one day he would work up the courage to come clean with him at least and ask for help. After all, the only person he was nearly as scared of as All for One at this point was him .

If Yuga had a natural talent as a spy, Midoriya had it as a Villain, hands down. It was frankly unnerving how fast Midoriya had taken to thinking like one and how naturally he wore the persona as his own. That little show on the rooftop with Monoma had made it painfully clear how comfortable he was playing Villain. The sheer pressure he had given off for a few moments with just his presence was not something that could be faked.

He had not been pretending in that moment. The fact he had clearly meant every single word of his little speech which was concerning for multiple reasons. Especially given that from All for One’s interest in him specifically as All Might’s apparent successor, it was likely that he and Yuga shared a quirk of genetics in common. From what All for One had implied, Midoriya had been Quirkless too.

If he of all people went rogue with All Might’s former Quirk like his speech implied he was not opposed to doing, Yuga was not sure who he would betray between the boy and the Boogeyman. Perhaps, when (because there was clearly not an if with Midoriya at this point) he went full Villain Yuga might be able to cut a deal with him to act as the middlemen between him and All for One? Or perhaps he could point the two at one another to duke it out. That might solve that problem for him at least.

The door opened beside Yuga, jolting him from his thoughts. Ojiro.

The other boy waved at him slightly. “You good man? You have been in here a while.”

Yuga jerked his hands out from under the running water of the sink and turned off the tap. “Désolé. Sorry. I was perdu dans ses pensées. Ah, that is lost in my own thoughts I mean.”

Ojiro gave a small nod. “Must have been a serious train of thought to leave you forgetting to use Japanese like that. You worried about what our Villain classmates have planned?”

Yuga nodded. “I am worried about what they said about a schedule. If that mass bombing was just their opening act, I fear what they have planned for the rest of us. That the fact that Death said it was not our time to die yet means they likely have all of our deaths planned out.”

The other boy shivered slightly. “Oh, geez that is an unnerving thought. So who do you think it is? Tower from our class?”

“I am not sure.” He lied. “The fact that they got into our computers could point to Kaminari but given they have Mirdoriya’s girlfriend on the Villain team that could just be the explanation behind that.” He gave the other boy a curious look. “What are you doing in here anyways? You are clearly not here to use the toilet and I never thought you to be one for gossip.”

He winced. “Ah, no not really. I just wanted to talk with someone about what was going on privately and the others clearly are all busy with the girls and the boss coordinating recuse and body recovery at the site of the Divide and Iida and Bakugou working on getting communications back up to normal. Um, you don’t really think it is Hagakure, do you? That is Tower?”

Yuga frowned. “Why?”

He blushed. “It’s just that, well, I was hoping to ask her out at some point after this was all over but if she is Tower that would mean-”

“Oh you worry that she might already be in a relationship.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t wanna be that guy asking her out if she is already happy with someone else.”

Yuga patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Well if it is not her, then I wish you the best of luck mon ami.” He sighed. “Now if only I could find love so easily.”

Ojiro gave him a smile. “Aw, don’t be like that. You are a pretty nice guy yourself. I’m sure if you asked you could succeed in finding someone easily enough. Is there no one from our class that you like?”

At least there was an easy out for this now. Yuga shrugged. “No one single I am afraid. Besides, it seems my crush favors the fairer sex after all. Tis life I suppose.”

It took the other boy a second. “Oh, uh, would that be Midoriya or one of the girls?”

“Midoriya. Your first assumption was the correct one. While it was obvious he was flustered by girls I had hoped that was all there was to it.”

Ojiro rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t wanna assume anything but-”

Yuga laughed. “But I am very clearly gay?” He flashed a smile. “Quite true. It is not like I was trying to hide it mon ami. In fact, part of the reason I am so open about it is in the vague hope that perhaps one of our class less open about it might take the chance and try asking me out. Sadly it hasn’t worked yet but we do have a few more years here at UA so who knows what could change there.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Atsuhiro couldn’t help but feel a strange twist in his chest whenever he looked at the destruction of the fake city. Feel a growing worry for his little cousin and a stab of guilt for so whole heartily agreeing with his Villainous plans for the test that most would have considered a step too far.

Because his plans were most certainly Villainous.

He found himself worriedly wondering if his encouragement had allowed Little Izu to go further in his plans than he ever would have on his own. If by giving the boy his stamp of approval on the plans, he had absolved the boy of the normal guilt he would have felt by going this far.

There was nothing for it now though. The wheels were in motion for some of his darker plots already and there was little chance of them stopping now.

It wasn't that he felt bad about what was to come for the boy’s classmates. He was a firm believer in the thought that a good scare built character but he was worried about the fallout the boy would eventually face for all of this in their eyes.

Perhaps if it all went badly enough then Izuku might be more inclined to step back from Heroics before he permanently maimed himself further making Atsuhiro's decision to reach out to the League to do damage control pointless in the end.

Or perhaps if it goes well enough, Izuku would jump ship to make this fiction a reality.

Atsuhiro was more than a little guilty of hoping that would be the case. That they could one day work together to make their great-great grandfather’s dream a reality. To make a world where the weak and poor stood on equal footing with the rich and powerful. A world without discrimination for factors beyond one's control.

"Mister? You're being pretty quiet over there."

Atsuhiro snapped back into focus, turning to his companion for the Hero patrol watch on their next target that Izuku had posted just in case the information their spy had given them was incorrect. "Ah. My apologies Temperance. I was merely contemplating how the next act will go."

Young Todoroki cast his gaze out to the city in the direction of their soon to be target. "You are worried that the museum heist will not go well?"

Atsuhiro shook his head. "Of course not! A robbery like that should be a walk in the park given that the Heroes have no idea it is on the list of Villain goals. I highly even doubt I will require your assistance with it. No, I was thinking about what comes after ."

The boy made a small noise of understanding. "You are worried about the bank robbery tomorrow with the hostages."

Atsuhiro nodded. "Yes. While I do believe myself a good actor, I worry the Heroes will see through me before I can finish playing my role. If I get caught and removed from play, Izu will have to skip down to Plan J for all following performances."

The boy slowly nodded. "I had noticed that he was relying on you and your Quirk a lot for the plans to work."

Atsuhiro sighed. "As have I. I want to say it is only because my Quirk is one of the more versatile ones and my identity as an actor for the game makes me moving around simpler but I can't help but wonder if he finds the fact I am an adult a valuable fact as well. Between that and the fact I am his cousin, I suspect he trusts me to make judgment calls in a crisis when he can't himself. After all, unlike your class, 1-B haven't seen real fights before."

That seemed to pique his interest. "And you have?"

Atsuhiro blushed slightly behind his mask as he waved off the thought like the liar he was pointedly pretending he had not had to run from the odd Hero over the past few years when he pulled less legal jobs. "Goodness no. I am however trained in the art of escape and can take anyone with me whether they want to come along or not."

"Ah. I suppose that would be true."

Astuhiro glanced at the time on the com. “I should probably head to position now. Wish me luck!”

Chapter Text

Nedzu found himself smirking into his tea. So it seemed that Sako had come to a similar conclusion to himself about Midoriya’s lack of any inhibitions towards Villainy. It had struck Nedzu as odd at first just how… aggressive for lack of a better term Midoriya had been with his plans for the other teams.

Hopefully with his realization, Sako would begin the process of reeling in the boy a bit more. After all, the true purpose of this test had shifted the moment the man had walked into his office at UA. The moment the man’s distinctive scent had hit his nose. The moment he had the test results back after a small deception on his part to trick the man into gifting him with a sample of his blood.

After all, despite what even they might think, somehow Sako was blood-related to both Midoriya and Shigaraki. He was not as close of a relative to be sure but all three of them carried a distinctive hallmark on their genes that was likely shared with their one common ancestor. An ancestor whose distinctive DNA profile had been on the record long enough as a Villain that the HPSC had classified it decades ago.

All for One had secretly sired a child at least once.

The thought of that had sent him down a rabbithole of research into the DNA databases. After all, now that he knew the signs he should be looking for, it was only a matter of time until he got a few hits.

It was much worse than he thought.

He had only been expecting to find one or maybe two others tied to the cursed lineage.

He got four more from the HeroNet database alone.

Four more and all of their descendants.

Endeavor and thus his children (including young Todoroki Shoto who he suspected would be thrilled to know that he was likely cousins with Midoriya).

His bastard half-brother Salamander and his one (known) son.

Shinomori Hikage the Fourth Holder of One for All itself. And it clearly wasn’t One for All creating a false flag when none of the Holders after carried the marker until Midoriya.

And somehow the worst discovery thus far, Sir Nighteye. Sasaki Mirai.

It was that last part that made Nedzu hold his tongue on the topic for now. After all, there was no chance that Sasaki knew any more than Midoriya did about the familial tie (even if the fact that All Might had accidentally likely chosen his former sidekick’s nephew as his successor amused him greatly).

He would wait to break that news after he had time to figure out how their family tree was puzzle pieced together. There had been only the one evening before the test left and he had spent most of it making sure he had every confirmed family member of All for One compiled.

For now though, he needed to watch and learn how Sako carried himself as a full Villain and not just the thief he currently was. After all, while Midoriya was a rather low risk of joining his brother Shigaraki in following their likely great-something grandfather, Sako very much was not.

That being said, Nedzu was hardly comfortable playing judge to the man for a crime he might never commit.

Sako was clearly loyal to his cousin Midoriya or Nedzu suspected the man would have taken the opening Nedzu had offered for him to bow out of joining in on the test. Additionally, there was the fact that, ultimately, Midoriya’s strong sense of right and wrong had been cultivated by the man’s family and their belief that it was the job of the powerful to help those that were weak. A belief that Nedzu himself did have to admit to supporting.

So he would watch and wait.

He just hoped that Sako would take his warning before the test seriously.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Izuku felt a stab of guilt about what he was about to do. For the plan he had only told Neito in private to hear his thoughts on it.

He was about to betray Atsuhiro’s trust for the sake of fairness to the Hero teams.

For the sake of multiple optional objectives.

A successful prison break, betraying a teammate, and feeding the Heroes false information about an upcoming plan.

As far as Atsuhiro knew, they were planning on combining the hostage situations objectives with the bank robbery objectives.

But they weren’t.

No, the hostages would be collected and dealt with later. As would the bank when there would be few Heroes to interfere.

As far as Atsuhiro knew, Izuku was working towards the goal of completing all the objectives by the third day.

That wasn’t the plan.

Doing that would have never given all his teammates their time in the spotlight after all.

Izuku checked that his voice modulator was on the right setting one last time as he picked up the payphone off the hook and punched in the Hero Line emergency number.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Ochako picked the phone up off the hook before it could ring for a second time. The phones had been ringing off the hook since they had gotten into the test site but aside from the bombing earlier (which they had not even needed people calling in to report) most of the calls had been pretty minor stuff.

Someone reporting directly about finding new “Hands of Fate” graffiti on the back of their building when they took out the trash. People asking for help with directions or reporting someone they thought looked sort of suspicious looking. The police forwarding a case report to them when they linked a minor crime with the rising Villain group.

“A Agency, how can I help?”

That is why you couldn’t blame her for being surprised when the smooth deep voice of the Tower came from the other line. “Ah, Uravity. So lovely to hear your voice! I was just calling to inform you that we have a robbery in progress at the museum. I believe that Tailman and Chargebolt should be patrolling nearby. Perhaps you should send them that why?”

Ochako’s mouth went dry. Still, she didn’t freeze up and immediately not only set out the alert over the network about the possible robbery in progress with a note that it might be a trap and started the phone trace.

Okay.

She could do this.

She just needed to keep The Tower talking. Easy. He (or maybe she?) liked the sound of their modulated voice clearly.

“Why are you telling us this? Isn’t ratting out your teammate sort of counterproductive?”

A hum. “True but this way is more fun. And more fair to you Heroes I suppose. Magician is far too experienced a player in these games to stay in permanently. Consider his capture as an offer of goodwill of free Hero Points. I hardly wish to make a real enemy of our class after all.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what to think of that. “So you are definitely the 1-A Villain team leader?”

Another hum of confirmation. “I have the team leader card around here somewhere, yes.”

“Who-?”

“And spoil the surprise? Where would be the fun in that?”

Ochako felt a spike of irritation. “What? Is this all just fun and games to you? You bombed two blocks over nearly a kilometer! Killed thousands just like that!”

There was a pause. “Uraraka you do know this is a game right?”

The lilting cadence was gone. The act momentarily dropped.

Ochako didn’t care though. “Still! How could something like that be okay with you?! You are supposed to be a future Hero! How am I supposed to trust anyone who could look at that level of destruction as okay?!”

A slow exhale of breath. “Oh. I see why Aizawa-sensei is so against this test now for our year.” There was a bitter sounding laugh. “Well, I guess the next couple of years are going to suck. It was nice talking with you all the same.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

That was a punch to the gut.

Izuku dropped the phone onto the hook before taking a shaky breath and resting his face up against the cold metal of the booth. He couldn’t stay here long. Uraraka was smart enough to realize that she should be tracing the call.

Still, the words she had said were bouncing around his skull on repeat. He gave a broken sob as he found himself falling to curl up in the bottom of the booth, ripping the mask and balaclava off his face.

He couldn’t stay there though.

He couldn’t bring himself to leave though.

His worst fear about the test had come true and he hadn’t even gotten to the really bad part of his plan yet.

He had lost one of his best friends at UA.

A crackle of static came from his ear. “Ten Mill? Where are you? No one can find you anywhere at base? Are you getting up to some mischief without us?”

Izuku wanted to reply back but his throat clamped down on his voice like a vise. All that came out was a broken keening noise.

“Shit. Okay, Ten Mill, give me a second to locate your earpiece. Ah got it! You’re not far from where Snipe Jr. is perched to keep a lookout. I’m sending him to come to get you okay?”

As Mei kept babbling over the line, Izuku felt the air get knocked out of him as a new realization hit him. One that he should have had a while ago. His teammates were his friends too. They had been worried about him.

They were worried about him.

He closed his eyes and let the sound of his girlfriend’s voice wash over him. It would be okay.

He would be okay.

Because they were also here in the same boat with him. Except unlike him and Neito, all of them chose to be here with them. Back on that first day of the test introduction, Uraraka had clearly never considered that the Villain team leader would be him. She had not even considered waiting to find out what the Villain team would be like and had just written it off.

Iida, he had understood. As the other boy had explained, after his own near stint in murder in his brother’s honor, it made sense why he would be reluctant to join the team. Add that to the fact that he had previously chosen to not team with Izuku back during the Sports Festival and Izuku was not terribly surprised. It was that latter bit that made him so sad though. Not because of Iida but because, despite being all in on working with her “friends” for the Festival, she chose not to when it frankly mattered more.

He was still curled up struggling to breathe when he felt a hand on his back that began to rub small circles. “It’s okay, kero. Just breathe Midoriya. In 1 2 3 4 and Out 1 2 3 4.”

Mei’s voice cut off in his ear to the sound of the other female voice. Female, meaning not Tsuburaba who she had sent.

Froppy had found him.

It took a few more rounds of her counting his breaths to get him out of the clear panic attack that he had just had (Thank you Aizawa-sensei for making sure everyone in the class knew how to help with those after the USJ) for him to quite register that she was there and he wasn’t wearing his mask.

He blinked at her. “Tsu?”

She gave a soft smile. “Are you okay now Midoriya?”

“Ye-ⵢ-ah.” He winced at the voice crack but she didn’t comment on it.

“Don’t worry about having to run. I told the others on my team that you, Tower that is, had already run. No need to rush yourself, kero.”

Izuku stared at her slightly bewildered. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Because it seemed like the right thing to do. It would hardly be fair if you lost because Uraraka gave you a panic attack. Consider it just a time out, kero.”

Izuku however felt something click into place in his head. The one optional objective that neither he nor Neito had thought feasible to do.

“Tsu? Why did you not consider joining the Villain team at all?”

She tilted her head in thought. “I had assumed that since both Uraraka and Iida were already signed up for the Hero team that you and Todoroki would as well. That and to help keep Mineta in check but you already handled that for me and the other girls, kero. Thanks for that, kero. I suppose the fact you joined the Villain team makes more sense now. You didn’t have a say in the matter.”

Izuku grimaced. “Mine and Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather was the Peerless Thief. The main reason Nedzu is having us do this test sooner than in other years is because he was concerned about what would happen with me when the Commission found out that my Mom’s foster family is still very much considered our family despite them never bothering to fully adopt her.”

“I suppose that makes sense. If they consider you a risk of going Villain, having a record of what you are like when acting in the role makes some sense, kero.”

Izuku bit his lip. “Tsu… would you like to join the Villain Team?”

She tilted her head again. “Is that even allowed?”

Izuku licked his lips. No going back now. “It is one of the Villain Team's optional objectives. Convert a full Hero at the start of the game into a Villain team member. I think it is how spies on the other team are normally planted if there are no Heroes dealt the Traitor role.”

She seemed to consider that. “So you do already have a spy in the Heroes, kero.”

“We weren’t exactly planning on hiding that fact. Not with our spy not at risk of being found anytime soon.”

She nodded. “So you don’t want me on your team to be a spy, kero. Why risk asking me?”

Izuku gave her a smile. “Because you are not only my friend but you risked your grade to help me with my panic attack.”

That earned a smile in return. “Okay, I'll join. Just one thing first though. I heard that you were dating Hatsume from 1-H but also that you as the Tower were flirting with Death.” Izuku snickered at the look she gave of disbelief as what she said seemed to hit her. “Wait, was the flirting with Death thing a joke? For the pun, kero?”

Izuku laughed. “Uh, no actually, I hadn’t even realized I had done that. Uh, no, Hatsume and I are in a poly relationship with Shinso from 1-C and… the 1-B Villain team leader. Um, you will have to wait on that though. I would rather not say who it is out in the open like this.”

She stood back up and held out a hand to pull Izuku up to his feet before reaching down to pick up the mask and balaclava. “Well, then lead the way, kero.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tsu was pretty sure she was a pretty unflappable person. Still, the sight of Monoma from 1-B rushing across the room in the Villain hideout to tackle Midoriya in a hug caught her slightly off guard.

At Midoriya’s sheepish look at her in response, she just stared back. “Midoriya, I am not sure if I am more puzzled by the choice or the fact that you somehow managed to keep him from outing himself as the Villain team B leader more.”

“Hey!”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Atsuhiro was not one hundred percent sure what had happened, even if he had a pretty good guess. Even if Izu didn’t know it, he knew all the Villain's objectives thanks to Nedzu.

Izuku had sacrificed him for the sake of optional points.

He wasn’t sure if he was more proud or puzzled by the choice.

Well, at least it went a long way in explaining why Little Izu was using him so much on the first day. He was getting as much mileage out of having Atsuhiro around as he could before he “betrayed” him.

Yeah, he was definitely proud of his blossoming little Villain cousin.

Izu was definitely a natural at this.

Still, it had taken restraint on Atsuhiro’s part to not just escape when he realized what was going on. The fact that all of this would be recorded for posterity later had him holding back from showing all of his tricks. After all, if he were to be grabbed by a Hero in real life, he would very much rather be able to escape than not.

A rapping of knuckles on the metal table draws him from his thoughts. Red Riot and little Katsuki. If he had to guess from Katsuki’s temper, it would be a case of Good Cop, Bad Cop. He gave the latter a wide smile. “Ah, Katsuki, I haven’t seen you in person since you were still a toddler. How are you?”

That seemed to completely unbalance them. Katsuki though was quick to recover though and slammed his sparking palms on the table. “What the fuck are you talking about Villain?”

Astuhiro cocked his head slightly. “Ah, are we playing it that way? Shame. I had hoped to catch up with you since I haven’t seen you since I last babysat little Izu. I’ve not had the chance to visit you and your family with all the prep work for this event going on. I suppose we can talk later.”

Red Riot was quick to hold up a hand to stop Katsuki from snapping at him again. “So you are Midoriya’s cousin then?”

He flashed a smile. “Guilty as charged there. I have been enjoying the chance to catch up. It is not often my schedule has lined up with both Izu’s or Auntie Inko’s at the same time.”

Katsuki pushed the other boy’s hand away. “So you’re the Magician right?”

Atsuhiro shrugged. “I mostly go by Mr. Compress but yes, that is my title among the Hands of Fate. Why do you ask?”

“Then you know who the rest of the mystery fuckers are on the team.”

“But of course.” There was a pause as the pair of boys stared him down. “Oh, were you expecting me to reveal them to you? I am afraid I will have to pass on that. My loyalty is to Izu and therefore his teammates.”

Katsuki ground his teeth but Red Riot gave him a sympathetic look. “Even though they clearly betrayed you? Tower called us to tip us off.”

He hummed in agreement. “Yes, well the fact that my backup failed to back me up was a rather large clue. Still, I am not surprised that it happened, just that it happened so soon. Most of the Villain team didn’t seem to think my being on their actual team as fair for all of you so removing the temptation to keep using me for their plans was rather inevitable. Plus I suspect removing me so that Zippy couldn’t get back into the Support Lab that Power Loader set up for her during the test was probably an intentional choice given that she is apparently inclined to the use real explosives in her fake explosives.” He cocked his head as that statement he had not thought of before it was leaving his mouth rang true. “Actually, I am starting to think that might have been the main reason.”

“Um, Zippy is Midoriya’s girlfriend, right?”

“Well if you are asking that then I suppose there is little harm in confirming it. Young Hatsume is really quite the terrifying young woman… which knowing Auntie might explain the appeal to Izu.”

Atsuhiro was amused as a flicker of grief of all things flashed over Katsuki’s face. “Shit, now that you point that out, I can’t unsee it. Fuck he and the crazy support chick are probably in it for the long haul, huh? I am not looking forward to seeing the little monsters that the two of them might produce.”

Red Riot looked sort of lost at that. “Uh, Bakubro, why do you say that? Midoriya’s like one of the nicest guys in our class.”

That earned a laugh from both Atsshiro and Katsuki. “Where the fuck have you been? Did you completely miss his fight with Icyhot or the fact he tried to punch Shigaraki in the face? Deku is fucking unhinged.”

Atsuhiro snickered as he nodded. “I do have to admit that about him at least, as much as I love him to bits. He might not look like it, but his first instinct when being held by someone when he does not want to be is to bite them as hard as he can. The only reason I came away from babysitting him for years unscathed is that we were able to convince him to stop doing that was because we told him that Heroes don’t bite people. And don’t get me started on him and Quirks. If I have learned one rule about him is you do not get between him and a cool new Quirk.”

Red Riot looked positively dumbstruck.

There was a knock on the door before Uravity stuck her head in. “Um, Red Riot, sir? Maybe I should take over. Neither of you seem to be getting much of anywhere, for all that he is saying. Besides, you need to issue a public statement about Mr. Compress’s arrest.”

“Ah, right! Um, Bakubro do you think you could-”

Katsuki grabbed him by the shoulder and started to steer him out. “I am not fucking talking to the reporters for you. I’ll help you write up your statement but the rest is on you.”

After the door snapped shut, the happy smiley face on Uravity was gone. When she spoke, it was short and clipped. “Right. You are going to tell me everything you know.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

When Ochako snapped the door to the jail cells closed, she had to force herself to take a calming breath. “Right. We have a potential hostage situation and a chance to maybe catch Deku so we can talk.” She slapped her cheeks. “I can do this. I can do this.”

With that, she squared her shoulders and began the hunt to find Kirishima to give her report of what she had learned.

Chapter Text

Izuku winced as Recovery Girl placed the cold metal of the stethoscope against his bare skin. Apparently, when the teachers had spotted him struggling to breathe on the camera they had called Recovery Girl into the site. The only reason that she had turned up at their base instead of being rushed to the site where he had collapsed was because Tsu had found him first and helped him stabilize his breathing.

She pulled the instrument away. “Well your heart rate is still rather elevated but your breathing sounds nice and strong now. That being said, you are no longer allowed to go out in the field for the rest of the exam on your own. Doctor’s orders.”

Izuku winced. That would not be too hard to work around even if it was less than ideal. “I understand.”

“You better. Now I am going to have to insist that you tap out for the rest of the night and get a good night’s sleep. If you have anything else that you were planning for the night to do yourself, you are not doing it.”

Izuku nodded. “No, nothing big tonight. I can sleep it off. I was fine really. You didn’t need to come into the test site.”

Recovery Girl sighed. “You know, there are times when I can’t help but see you as Toshinori’s boy and this is one of them. Just because you were able to walk away under your own power does not mean you are okay. The brain is just as capable of suffering from illness and injury as the rest of you. If you ever feel too badly stressed out by the test, there is no shame in stepping back to have someone fill in for you so you can recover.”

Izuku felt his gaze drifting down to his hands. “I know, I just wasn’t expecting Uraraka to be so… mean about things. This is all just a game and I am playing a role you know but she is acting like I want to actually hurt people.”

Recovery Girl patted him on the leg. “I am going to fill you in on something I have learned as both a Hero and a Doctor. Sometimes you don’t really meet someone until you meet them on a battlefield because people will always show their true colors when they are scared shitless. The fact that she is lashing out like this verbally just goes to show how scared she is of what you are doing. While under normal circumstances, I would say to take that as a sign to dial it back a bit, given the nature and the reason for the test normally, I would say you are doing a good job in the role you were assigned. After all, real Villains would not go easy on your classmates so if you are going to make this a realistic scenario, you are doing a good job.”

Izuku gave a watery smile to her. “Thanks. I think I needed to hear that.”

She gave a fierce nod. “Good. Now I am going to head out. You better go straight to bed young man.”

“I will.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

“Shouta, you should probably go to bed now. Kan has an eye on the kids. They all seem to be bedding down for the night anyways.”

Shouta gave his husband a weak glare before sighing and pulling himself to his feet. “I’m still spending the night here in case of an emergency.”

Hizashi snorted and held out his sleeping bag to him. “I know. I’ll bring you a nice cup of coffee in the morning while I enjoy our nice soft bed all alone.”

Shouta huff. “You can’t guilt trip me into leaving. It is bad enough that Midoriya had a panic attack bad enough that we had to send Recovery Girl into the test site to look him over. I am not leaving until all my kids are out of the test.”

Hizashi, the bastard, lit up. “So you admit it! You are attached.”

Shouta huffed and buried his face in his scarf as Kan laughed at his expense. “Yamada has a point, Aizawa. You nearly died for those kids, I would be more surprised if you weren’t. Now get some rest. I can watch the cameras. Trust me to look after your kids like I am trusting you with mine during daylight hours.”

Shouta snatched up his sleeping bag. “It still feels wrong trying to go to bed this early.”

Kan snorted. “And it feels weird for me to be staying up so late. Doesn’t change the fact that it is better for you to be up when Midoriya and Monoma are up than it is for me. If one of their plans goes wrong, you being rested and at the top of your game is important. Especially with Midoriya’s Quirk being like it is. Sleep. I’ll fill you in in the morning about anything you might have missed.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Katsuki waved to Raccoon Eyes. “I’ve got the phones. Go get some fucking sleep.”

She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Ugh, thanks. The last couple of hours have really sucked. How the hell are you so awake already?”

Katsuki snorted as he slid into his seat. “Unlike all of you apparently, I am a fucking morning person. I am normally up around this time every morning anyways. I’m more surprised I stayed up so late last night.”

She snorted in return. “9 at night is not late.”

Katsuki gave her a smirk. “It is when you wake up at 4 in the morning. Now go sleep so you aren’t fucking useless all day.”

She gave him a smile. “Night Bakugou.”

And then Katsuki was alone again. Just how he liked his mornings. After he finished checking over Raccoon Eye’s logs of the night, he stood back up and started clearing some space for his morning ritual of a quiet workout. He would not be going out on his morning run until Glasses woke up in a few hours at 6 to take over but that was fine.

It was extremely unlikely that the Villains were going to be doing anything at such an early hour anyways with so many of the two class’s night owls on one team. That was one issue that Katsuki had realized when he and Shitty Hair were working out patrol schedules. Out of their class, of the people remaining on the Hero team, only two were night owls. Sure Katsuki and Glasses were the only morning people in the class but most of the class clearly struggled to stay up later than midnight too. It meant that Raccoon Eyes and Pikachu were the only two who could take the late graveyard shift and with Pikachu currently under suspicion, that only left Raccoon Eyes to take the phones.

He was in the middle of push-ups when Pikachu stuck his head in. “Oh, did Mina go to bed already?”

Katsuki stopped and popped back up to his feet. “Yeah, about twenty minutes ago. Where the fuck were you? Your patrol should have ended a while ago.”

Pikachu looked embarrassed. “I might have gotten a bit lost. Everything looks pretty different this late at night. Vlad-sensei took mercy on me a few minutes ago and gave me directions back after he realized I was completely lost.”

As much as he didn’t trust Pikachu to not be at least working for the Villain team, he did have to admit that sounded rather believable. Especially when he had gotten turned around a couple of times on the practice patrol he had done with the extra with the tail earlier before they had brought in Deku’s cousin. “Just go to fucking bed. You need to be up again by noon.”

“You don’t want me to do my post patrol report?”

“What are you even going to put in it? I got fucking lost for over 4 hours? If something had happened, I figured you would have led with that.”

Pikachu was very red in the face now. “Ah, right. Night Kacchan!”

He bolted before Katsuki could retaliate for the nickname. He hated that Pikachu had picked up the habit of calling him that from Deku so fast. If it wasn’t for the fact he had started with that shit back before the Sports Festival, he would have considered it evidence of him potentially being on the Villain team. The guy knew he didn’t like anyone but Deku calling him that but did it anyways. Apparently, he thought it was only fair since Katsuki liked to “jokingly” insult the rest of the group of extras that hung out around him.

It wasn’t like Katsuki was ever going to admit the real reason he did it. That he genuinely struggled to tell people apart and the nicknames were how he kept people straight in his head. It was easier when they were all in costume but when everyone was all in uniform until he heard their voices or saw them use their Quirk, half the time, Katsuki had no idea who he was fucking looking at.

There were exceptions of course. Major visible mutations were easier for him but he wasn’t going to tell Raccoon Eyes she was one of the few people he could easily recognize. Besides, he was pretty sure she liked the nickname he gave her since it was apparently an insult she had not heard before regarding her alien looks.

He internally winced as a thought occurred to him.

Deku knew.  There was no way he didn’t after knowing Katsuki for so long. Did the idea for the uniform for the Villains come from him? Surely he would have realized that Katsuki at least would not be completely fooled by the full body coverage.

It was probably why they had gone to such lengths to disguise the voices and body language of Death and Tower. If it had just been one of their classmates doing a voice, Katsuki would have still known it was them.

It was something to think about later though. For now, he had a workout to finish that hopefully would not be interrupted by the phones.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

It was odd waking up so early. Even having made a habit of doing morning runs since All Might had started training him, Izuku was still at his heart a night owl. In hindsight, that had likely been one of the worst contributing factors to Izuku making himself sick trying to follow but improve upon All Might’s original plan. Once All Might had shifted things so he was doing more of his working out after school hours instead of before, he had felt so much better and things had only improved after Izuku took fully over his own workout planning and reduced his morning workout to just his daily run.

He was still probably not getting nearly enough sleep normally but his Mom would have flipped if he had taken up running in the late evening instead. It was one thing to start running while it might still be a bit dark out and another thing when it only got darker as you ran.

Still, since he was up and wide awake after the early night, there was no reason to not take his morning run now.

“And where do you think you are going?”

Izuku jumped slightly at the voice behind him. “Ah, Shiozaki, you startled me.”

She gave him a mildly disapproving look. “Didn’t Recovery Girl say you weren’t allowed to go out alone for the rest of the test?”

Izuku blushed at the reminder. “Yes…? I thought it would be okay if I did my run this morning still. I am pretty sure that there aren’t many people up yet.”

She shook her head. “Wait here, I’ll change into my gym uniform.”

Izuku nodded and began to do some more warm-up stretches while he waited for her to get back. The moment she returned, they slipped out onto the streets at a casual jogging pace though Izuku kept his eyes peeled around them for any of the Heroes on an earlier morning run of their own. It was not likely they would see any with how few morning people there were between the two classes and even by that standard, it was stupid early.

To Izuku’s complete unsurprise, they completed the short impromptu 5k without running into any of the Heroes. As Izuku began to run through his cool-down stretches, he gave Shiozaki a questioning look. “So why are you up so early anyways?”

She gave him a pointed look. “After you were sentenced to an early night’s rest, we eventually realized that you would wake up before everyone else so of the few of us that qualified as morning people drew straws for who would get up a little earlier to stop you from potentially going against Recovery Girls orders. That being said, even if we had not drawn straws for it, I likely would have gotten up anyway. It is not much earlier than I normally wake as it is unlike is the case with both Yaoyorozu and Kaibara.”

Izuku winced at the reminder of the time. “Sorry, all the same. So what do you do this early normally anyways?”

“Gardening and tending to my vines. It is better to water twice a day, once at the start and once at the end after all. I suspect my Quirk has led me to develop my sleeping patterns based around getting the maximum amount of sun. If I have extra time after that and perhaps a morning workout, I like to spend the extra time with my art.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Waking up was odd for Tsu. For one, she was not being woken by the sounds of her younger siblings but by the sounds of Ochako and Tooru trying to quietly get ready for the day without waking Mina who had likely only been asleep for a few hours. Secondly, she was waking for the first time with the knowledge of the fact that they were no longer her teammates for the exercise.

Last night had been interesting, albeit not terribly informative, about what was now expected of her as a member of the Villain team. Midoriya had not gotten a chance to really hash out a plan for what she should be doing with Monoma before Recovery Girl had turned up and forced him to bed early.

Still, she had learned the answer to the biggest mystery about the Villain Team; who was all on it. Answer? Surprisingly there was only one mole with the Heroes in Aoyama who had accidentally tripped his way into being completely cleared of suspicion by pure chance. With the Hero team convinced that the Villain Team leaders were hiding in plain sight on their own teams, they had blinded themselves to the possibility of the truth: the Villain team leaders were hiding among their underlings.

She had also learned the reason that Kirishima had not ever consulted her for her input on the situation, that she was a suspect for being the Villain team leader for their class.

She had to wonder if Midoriya would want her to play that role for the Heroes later on.

For now though, she was here among the Heroes playing along as if she was still on their team. Perhaps she would get a chance to talk with Aoyama about things later if they ended up on a shared patrol.

It was something to possibly look forward to.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Shouta hated mornings. There was little getting around that fact. It was something that his friends had learned early on about him during his time at UA as a student and the lessons they had learned from that carried on to this very day.

The most important one?

Shouta was not to be woken without an offering of coffee.

Shouta opened a bleary eye to the smell of the heavenly beverage that Hizashi had likely woken up early to prepare for him as was their normal morning ritual. This morning however broke with tradition slightly as Shouta registered the stiffness in his back from sleeping in his sleeping bag on the floor all night and the sounds of other voices.

Shouta ignored them for now as he unzipped his sleeping bag enough to grab the coffee that Hizashi was sitting on the floor next to him holding. After a long drag of the hot liquid, Shouta demeaned himself human enough to figure out what was going on.

Ah. Nedzu and Kan were talking. Neither seemed agitated so nothing had likely happened while he was out cold.

Beside him, Hizashi snickered. “You awake yet Shou?”

Shouta blearily looked at his husband. “No.”

As Hizashi laughed, he took another sip of his coffee. “There is more coffee where that came from.”

Shouta decided to ignore his ridiculous spouse in favor of the other two. “What time is it?”

Kan cast a glance off to the side. “Just before 7. Most of the Hero Team kids are starting to get up by now but only Asui, Aoyama, Midoriya, Shiozaki, Kaibara and Yaoyorozu are up on the Villains though the first two are likely only up because of the Heroes waking up. Midoriya and Aoyama are texting while most of the guys in the Heroes believe Aoyama is busy fussing with his hair and doing his skincare routine which to be fair he is actually doing as he texts.”

Shouta nodded at the update. “So he knows about Asui’s team shift last night then?”

Nedzu cheerfully nodded. “Midoriya is updating him about that now, yes, as well as giving him orders to pass along to her and how they should handle each other.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

La Menace Vert:

Froppy is now on our team

???

Is that even allowed?

La Menace Vert:

Converting a “true” Hero to the Villain team was an optional objective so yes

I need you to inform her to slip away to meet with me when she gets the chance since I wasn’t able to really talk to her about what she should be doing last night

Avoid patrolling together alone for now if you can help it without making it obvious

She will help with your “kidnapping” later on so when that time rolls around make sure you are set to patrol together alone

Otherwise continue as you have been

Will do

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tetsutetsu was bored.

Ever since early this morning, he had been stuck playing guard for the bank on the B side of the City because of a supposed planned robbery and hostage situation at one of the two major banks in the faux city.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his 1-A buddy Kirishima to not try and give them bad information but with how they had gotten the information… Well, Tetsutetsu had to agree with Kendo that it seemed like a trap or a red herring. The man they had gotten the information from was intentionally given up by the Villain team. Honestly, it would have been smart to not give the guy accurate plans for what they had planned for the test so they didn’t have to worry about him telling the Hero teams anything.

Of course, there was also the chance that they were banking on the Heroes to assume the information was bad and were going to do it anyway. That was why he was here. Kendo had assigned him the post by himself, trusting him to be able to at least stall long enough for backup to show up if push came to shove.

He had positioned himself up on the roof of a nearby building to watch the front of the building out of sight but so far nothing.

A flash in the corner of his eye drew his attention.

Tetsutesu snapped his head around to spot movement on a roof not far away on the opposite side of the street. The opposite side of the too wide street for him to get over to without alerting the Villain.

Scratch that.

Without alerting the Villains.

He immediately tapped on his coms. “Guys, I have sights on three of the Hands.” He squinted, trying to ID all three. “Looks like Strength, Emperor and Empress.”

A voice crackled to life in his ear (Shoda). “Copy that Real Steel. Mudman and Shemage are already heading your way. Where are they?”

“A few roofs over on the other side of the street.” He paused as he finally registered their location. “Shit, they are on top of the Commission Building! They must be going for the Commission Representative!”

“Correct.”

Tetsutetsu froze as a familiar voice came from behind him. He whipped his head around to meet the masked face of Todoroki, leaning slightly over his prone form. Before he could do much more than activate his own Quirk, he found himself incased up to his chest in ice, completely unable to move. The boy far too casually held up his left hand to Tetsutetsu’s ear with the com in it before pain erupted over his face as he saw flames licking across his head.

Understandably, he screamed.

Thankfully, his reaction was enough for Todoroki to withdraw his hand and replace it with the just as painful cold of his right side. “I’m sorry. Recovery Girl will be here shortly.” He paused. “Oh. The teachers want me to inform you that you are now considered dead so if your teammates happen to find you before she does, you aren’t allowed to say anything about what happened.”

“Happen to- Why wouldn’t they-?”

“Because you were talking with Shinso, not Shoda.”

Tetsutetsu winced. “You guys hacked into our coms again?”

Todoroki hummed in agreement. “I think you would find keeping Hatsume out of them a rather futile gesture.”

“Your spies keep letting her back in then?”

“No. I am not sure how she does it though. You would be better off asking Nedzu or Powerloader if you didn’t want to wait to hear her explain. Is your face feeling better?”

Tetsutetsu gave a jerky nod. “What was that for anyways? Surely if you wanted to ‘kill’ me you had other options that would have hurt less.”

Todoroki shook his head. “Not with your Quirk. Either we would have had to deal you a lot of concentrated force in one spot, wear you down until your Quirk stopped working or cause a temperature differential to make your Steel brittle. ‘Melting’ you was the easiest to do safely to prevent long term damage. As it is, you are still probably a bit burned on that side but hopefully I kept the temperature low enough so we do not have matching scars.”

That startled a laugh out of Tetsutetsu. “Shit, that shouldn’t be so funny dude. I already have to deal with guys in our school saying I am the inferior version of Kirishima with how alike our Quirks are, the last thing I need is people comparing me to you.”

Todoroki cocked his head slightly as if he was listening to something. “Ah. Midoriya wishes for me to inform you that your Quirk is way harder to counter than Kirishima’s. That is why he had to use me against you since besides himself and Monoma copying my Quirk, there was no one else on the Villain team that could really even hurt you. I was the obvious choice to use with that under consideration since my Quirk control would have been the best.”

“Midoriya is listening in? Isn’t he busy across the street?”

“Midoriya is rather good at talking while he works. Especially when Quirks are involved. Besides, he was just taken along with Tokage and Awase to help open doors and carry the body since it is faster when he does it.”

“The body?”

Chapter Text

It took them far too long to realize something was wrong.

Kendo winced as she ripped her eyes away from the dummy standing in for Tetsutetsu’s body. It was far too realistic for all that it didn’t look anything like him. It was intentional she knew since the teachers had warned them about the body dummies that would replace the “dead” people “killed” by the Villain team but this was worse than she was expecting.

The body had been encased in solid ice before the head had been cooked- no- had been cremated. The flesh substitute material was gone leaving just the ceramic bone of the skull blackened with heat.

There was no question at least who had done it.

Fighting down bile, she dialed her phone with the other agency’s number.

“A Agency, how can I help you, mon ami?”

“Can’t Stop Twinkling? It’s Battle Fist. Can you put me through to Red Riot? We have a problem.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

The Hospital morgue was crowded even with just six people. It wasn’t because the room itself wasn’t a decent size, but because Real Steel had not been the only body found.

The Villains had been busy. Two more dead Heroes and the head of the city's office of the HPSC missing and they hadn’t even had a clue it was happening.

Sero’s “body” had similarly been found after they had realized he wasn’t reporting in during the rushed roll call after Tetsutetsu’s body had been found. Given that his dummy had been dropped off the edge of the building he had been keeping watch of the bank sitting on with no sign of him using his Quirk to either fight or try and catch himself…

Mashirao had to control himself to keep his tail from moving in his own fear bubbling up. “They have Shinso from the Sports Festival on their team. He Brainwashed Sero into jumping off the roof.”

Kendo shook her head. “It might have been Monoma but I think you are right about his Quirk being used. I mean, it makes sense why they would recruit him given that he made it to the Tournament bracket but his presence is concerning.”

Aoyama, who had been looking rather green looking at the bodies, averted his gaze up towards the ceiling. “He would probably be Judgment then, would he not? Given the colors and the fact that he would likely have been able to pose for pictures with Mic-sensei the easiest.”

Shoda shook his head. “In hindsight, it should have been obvious that Shinso was at least one of the outside class recruits. Judgment was far too prominent in the group to have just been some other random kid from Gen Ed or Support. He probably asked to have an important position in the group for them to recruit him.”

Kamakiri growled slightly and spun away from staring at the “body” of his apparent close friend. “Damn it! They can’t keep doing this to us! We outnumber them!”

“No, we don’t.”

Kirishima’s voice cut through them all like a knife.

Kendo shot him a worried look. “What do you mean? There are still…” She trailed off. “Oh. Shit .”

Mashirao quickly looked between them. “What? What is it?”

Aoyama sighed. “They realized that the Villains now outnumber the Heroes, even with one of their number captured, 21 to 18 with the spies. Still even without, they now would regardless.”

Kendo shared a quick look with Kirishima. “Change of plans. How big is your agency? Most of the bigger potential targets are on your side of the divide.”

He frowned. “Big enough. You can’t seriously be saying what I think you are saying? We aren’t abandoning half the city just because they have gotten the drop on us twice.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to any more than you do but right now we are easy pickings divided like this. We can retake the B side later on once the numbers are more in our favor. As it is, we are spread too thin. No one should be partoling alone from now on.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

As Astuhiro sat in his cell listening to the panic going on in the building above him, he felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest. These poor kids had no idea what was coming for them if some of the ideas that Izu had thrown around were actually on the table.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tsu only managed to slip away due to the confusion of the two groups combining into one. Thankfully, she only needed to go over a few streets.

Midoriya met her in the stairwell. “Oh good, you're here! Here, put this on and talk for me. We need to tune the voice modulator to work with your voice.”

Tsu took the choker-like device without question and snapped it on. “So there-” She cut herself off momentarily as she registered the voice coming out of her own mouth sounding male. “Oh, this is weird, kero. How does that even work?”

Midoriya pointed at the one around his own throat. “It sits on top of your vocal cords and vibrates to modulate your voice up or down in pitch. Now just keep talking. It doesn’t have to be about anything in particular, I am just tuning you into close to the right frequency. Judge will do final adjustments if needed before you go hopefully but if he isn’t back in time to, well, it should still do the job.”

“What job is it for, kero? I have been wondering what the plan is for me since last night. Is there a reason you are trying to tune my voice a specific-” She cut off again as the smooth timbre of Tower’s voice escaped her own lips. “Oh.”

Midoriya grinned. “Basically, we are going to prove the Heroes’ theory about you being the possible Villain Leader right. Don’t worry about them catching you as a Villain team member if you need to play the card early since we will bust you out with Atsuhiro later but if you can hide it until it is time to ‘kidnap' Aoyama, that would be great.”

“And when will that be, kero?”

Midoriya pulled out a phone from his pocket to check the time. “Not long now. If all goes to plan the two of you should have a patrol together tomorrow. You just need to hide that you are ‘Tower’ until the two of you leave on that patrol. After that, you can follow Aoyama’s lead on that since we practiced his kidnapping a few times before the test. Theoretically, you won’t need the voice modulator until it is time for the broadcast but I thought it was better to get it to you sooner rather than later.”

He grabbed her hand and brought it up to the device so her finger found a small switch on it. “That is the on-off so you know how to switch it later if you need to but for now, I would just leave it on and pull it off since your costume’s neck is not high enough to hide it.”

Tsu nodded and pulled it off to tuck it into one of the pouches on her belt. “Anything else, kero? I should probably get back before they realize I am gone.”

Midoriya shook his head before giving her a thumbs up. “You should be good. Thanks again for agreeing to join us. You have no idea how much easier this makes things.”

“Of course. What are friends for?”

The smile she got in return was one of the most open and happy that Tsu could ever remember seeing from Midoriya. It was a rather bitter-sweet realization to have she realized as she slipped back into the confusion that was the Hero B Agency move into A Agency’s base of operations. After all, as happy as she was to see him clearly happy talking with her, it was tainted with the realization that despite Midoriya being a good friend with her and the others from their normal lunch group, he clearly had not trusted all of them to show his true face to them until this test had worked him up into such a state that he had a complete breakdown when he probably realized that he had been right to at least a degree.

While she did not know what exactly Uraraka had said to Midoriya, whatever it was had clearly been taken extremely personally. That was not okay and now she was left wondering if their friend group had been permanently changed in the wake of it, even if she did not know it yet.

Of course, it had probably already changed with Midoriya’s change in relationship status. It was no secret among the girls in their class that Uraraka had been crushing hard on Midoriya since Day 1. Even setting aside the Villain reveal yet to come, that was still likely would have changed something, if only because she likely would have felt hurt about him hiding his boyfriends and girlfriend from the group.

A pair of fingers snapped in front of her face. “Yo, Earth to Froppy. You in there?”

Tsu blinked away from the box she had been clearly staring at for a while to meet the gaze of Kaminari. “Sorry, kero.” She made a show of rubbing at her eyes. “I did not sleep well last night and now I am having trouble focusing.”

“Oh. Mood. I mean, not last night obviously but it was kinda hard for me to sleep after I got back in this morning since everyone waking up and moving around kept waking me up. You have trouble sharing a room with the other girls or was it something else?”

She shrugged and opened the box up to start unpacking it. “I normally sleep with my window open this time of year to listen to the cicadas. I didn’t realize that not being able to hear them would make it hard to fall asleep when I am fine the rest of the year without them…”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Toshinori was glad that he would likely not have to see Young Midoriya for a few more days. At this point, he wasn’t sure how he would have acted around him otherwise without the time to process things.

He was also not sure how he would explain what he was doing right now to the boy either. Not after avoiding meeting with the boy’s mother for so long directly out of concern at first that she would have stopped him from passing down the Quirk.

Especially since with the recent revelation, Toshinori was no longer one hundred percent sure that it had been the right choice.

It was not that he didn’t believe that the boy was a true Hero at heart but that was no longer the only factor in the equation. Between the clear blood close connection with Shigaraki and the revelation that All for One was possibly still alive…

Midoriya Inko opened the door shortly after his first knock, drying her hands on a kitchen towel in her hands, Toshinori likely having interrupted her while she was preparing to make herself dinner. “Can I help you?”

“Midoriya Inko? My name is Yagi Toshinori. I am one of your son’s teachers at UA, I was wondering if I could come in and ask you a few questions about him.”

The small woman narrowed her eyes at him. “All of my son’s teachers are Pro Heroes. Who are you?”

He tried to give her his best reassuring smile. “Ah, I’ll show you if you let me inside. If it is all the same, I would rather not activate my Quirk while in plan view but perhaps this will be enough for you?” He finished out his Hero License, something he had not had to use in decades, himself as All Might being a household name these days.

She took the license and seemed to momentarily lock up as she saw the civilian name printed in small font below his picture, placed and sized just so that a Hero could show their license to a civilian without revealing their own civilian name unnecessarily. She looked back up at him, slightly dumbstruck, before moving aside and gesturing him inside. “Can I ask what happened to you, All Might?”

Toshinori winced as he took his license back and put it back in his wallet. “I fought a powerful Villain about six years ago and suffered a major injury. It is part of the reason I am teaching at UA now. I was hoping to transition into teaching so my retirement from Heroics here won’t be a complete shock to everyone in a few years but the time I can work in my more Heroic form is getting shorter and shorter faster than I was expecting.”

“Does Izuku-?”

“Your son knows, yes, but most of his class still does not since I have yet to figure out how to reveal my current real state without making them panic.”

That got a look of confusion. “And you had no such worry with Izuku?”

Toshinori blushed and gave a nervous blush. “His discovery of my condition was not originally planned even if him knowing has admittedly been helpful in covering things up with his classmates. I happened to meet him for the first time while I was almost out of time on my transformation and failed spectacularly at running away from him to power down. He can be very stubborn when he wants something as I have come to realize.”

That earned an amused smile. “Very true.” Her smile dropped. “But you are not just here to talk about that. I assume you are not here in an official capacity for UA or I suspect that they would have sent another one of his teachers that I would have recognized surely and obviously, this doesn’t have to do with what is going on with Izuku during his test since if something that important happened, UA would have called to inform me on an incident first if Atsuhiro did not beat them too it.”

Toshinori sighed. “True. Officially speaking, nothing major has happened during the test that I am aware of that needed to be brought to your attention but unofficially, this test has brought a few questions about your son to my and a few others' attention. Namely, the suspicion we have of a highly probable blood relation of his to the Villain who gave me my injuries. Given that our only known family of yours that we have are your adoptive ones, we were wondering if you would agree to a possible DNA test to check to see if the Villain in question is related to him through you since your birth parents are unknown or his biological father. Additionally, I was curious if you could provide the identity of the man in question since as far as I know, Young Midoriya doesn’t know who he is.”

There was a long pause before Ms. Midoriya sighed and shook her head. “Actually. I do know who my birth parents are. My mother left me a letter to open when I turned 18. I’ll go dig it out here in a moment. As for Izuku’s father, he’s Salamander. At the time I slept with him, I was unaware that he was already married so cut my losses when I realized that fact after I discovered he had gotten me pregnant with Izuku.”

It took a second for the name to ring a bell. “That is one of Endeavor’s Sidekicks, correct?”

She nodded. “We met while I was coordinating with Endeavor’s agency over a property damage claim. He seemed nice enough at first that I humored him when he asked me out for drinks. I found out about his wife and son on my next visit. Excuse me, I’ll go find that letter.”

“Take your time.”

As she opened a hallway closet and started pulling out old photo boxes, briefly turned to case him a puzzled look. “So who is this Villain you think Izuku and maybe I am related to? Besides dangerous, I mean.”

Toshinori considered that for a moment before deciding that given the connection that Young Midoriya had with One for All alone, she deserved to know just as much as Young Midoriya did as a possible target. “He goes by the name All for One. He has been around for a long time and is far older than he seems. Among the many crimes he has committed, he also killed my mentor Shimura-”

“Nana.”

Toshinori locked up. “How-?”

The woman whose face was now drained of blood gave a slightly hysterical-sounding laugh. “What are the odds? Your mentor and my birth mother being the same person.” She opened the box in her hands and a yellowed envelope flew up out of it and into her newly freed hand. She held it out for him.

Dumbstruck, Toshinori took it. He didn’t have to open it to know the contents would confirm it.

After all, he would know Nana’s handwriting anywhere.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Izuku hated how easy all this was.

It should not be this easy to fool his classmates like this. To manipulate them into what he wanted them to do.

Tricking the Heroes into consolidating their forces like this had made the whole day a walk in the park as their actions on what they referred to as the B side of the Divide as the Heroes were too spooked by what had happened that morning with Sero and Tetsutetsu. Additionally, the confusion of the quick move had made it easy to tag all the point targets that belonged to B Angceny that the Heroes had brought with them with the tracker rounds and tags to ensure that they knew the locations of all the objectives in case they moved them later after Tsu’s “betrayal” tomorrow.

The remaining few that the Heroes had mistakenly left behind in the evidence locker were quickly claimed for some easy points. It seemed that they only took the evidence that was marked as being clearly linked to the Hands but not all of it. To be fair to the class 1-B Heroes though, how were they supposed to know that the All Might bunny themed Kigurumi was relevant to the case?

One of the many things that the Villain Team had to do in preparation was provide “evidence” that linked their civilian identities with their Villain. Basically, they each had to pick an item to represent themself for the Heroes for them to later recapture for points. The items had probably seemed rather random given that all the ones belonging to class 1-A had ended up in B Agency and vice versa.

After all, how were the students of 1-B to know to link the collection of photos taken of a conspiracy board about noodle shops being related to Todoroki or 1-A know that the box set of old horror manga was for Yanagi? Answer? They weren’t supposed to. That being said, if said objects were viewed by those in the same classes as the Villains, they would have been quickly identified.

Of course, there were also some red herrings thrown in by Nedzu to mask the true meaning such as what Hitoshi had been amused to reveal was one of his Dad’s hair scrunchies and an otherwise empty wallet with a picture of Midnight’s cat Sushi. Additionally, there was the extra layer of difficulty in the fact that the evidence wasn’t all filed as such. The reason that the handful of items remained at the Agency was due to them being in the Agency’s lost and found and thus getting written off as unimportant.

Izuku was just slightly relieved that Aoyama’s item (a brown fedora) had been deemed as not important enough to take. To be honest, Izuku was not sure that even many of his own class would have connected the hat to the boy. He had explained his choice as representing the fact he was playing the spy as fedoras like that were common in old western fictional spy media and, as a hat, it also represented his love of fashion.

Still, Izuku was much happier with the hat being in their possession.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Hanta yawned at his seat at the desk in front of the camera setup. Being “dead” was somehow even more boring than he had expected it to be.

To make up for dying before the test was over, they had to peer review what the others did for the rest of the test right and wrong. According to Shishida from 1-B as well as their upperclassmen who had been taken out on the first day during what should have been their own final embedded in their own, today had been a much slower day on the parts of the Villains. Apparently, they had done a lot that the Heroes had yet to see or hear about.

Such as converting Asui to the Villain team.

Sero was not sure how he felt about that one.

Or the fact that apparently, up until he died, he had been a suspect for the Villain team leader and spy when the actual 1-A leader was Midoriya and the Spy was Aoyama who was clear of all suspicion.

Mineta grumbled as he clicked through the feeds.

Apparently, after hearing some of the things he had said about the girls from the two classes, the girl Hado had gone to Nedzu to get the boy banned from any feeds that had any of the girls in them. Additionally, to his own surprise, Mineta was apparently being reviewed for repeated misbehavior and sexual harassment.

That wasn’t to say Sero didn’t think that Mineta didn’t deserve it, especially after the incident in the locker rooms with that hole in the wall but he was surprised that the teachers were actually doing something about it. After all, given how Aizawa-sensei started the year by threatening to expel someone, the fact that Mineta was still in their class after so long had led him to believe that maybe Aizawa-sensei either couldn’t or wouldn’t for one reason or another.

As it turns out, he was kinda right.

Apparently, after Aizawa-sensei expelled his whole class at the start of the year last year all in one go, the school board revoked his ability to do so without them reviewing the student first. Normally, given what Mineta had been doing, this would not have been an issue as far as Sensei was concerned since he did actually manage to justify his actions last year to them that the expulsion for the course stuck for all of them and only a handful clawed their way back in before the end of the year from Gen Ed after learning their lesson.

The problem however lay with Mintea himself.

The reason?

Mineta’s father was a high-ranking member of said board. Because of that and the fact that up until the test began, Mineta had been smart enough to not get caught clearly on cameras harassing the girls of their class, he had been able to get away with it with his father defending him. Now though, Sensei had view proof, not only from the short two and a half hours that the boy had been in the test but from how he had spoken in this room too. After all, while they were no longer being tested on their physical performance, they were still being tested and thus monitored.

If Sero was completely honest, he wouldn’t miss him.

Sure, Sero liked girls as much as the next (straight or bi) guy, but he knew that that kind of behavior would never win him any favors with any girls. Besides, it wasn’t very Heroic behavior either.

“Oh, that’s interesting!”

Sero perked up from his thoughts to look back at Togata. “What’s up?”

The blonde boy pointed at his own screen. “Tokoyami is out in the open walking straight for A Agency.”

Chapter Text

Toshinori felt very out of place in his powered-down form as he followed his newly self-proclaimed little sister toward Endeavor’s Agency in search of Salamander to get to the bottom of things.

The past several hours had been… a lot for him.

Sure, she did not really think of Nana as her mother actively as such given her own adoptive mother, but she had seemed slightly amused by the idea of introducing young Midoriya to him as his recently discovered uncle since she had seen right through himself in regards to his own feelings for the woman in question.

Still, as happy as he was about the new familial connection that he had been granted with his boy… A part of him was disappointed to only hold the title of Uncle.

It was only fair, especially with the fact that even if there had been no connection, there had been zero chance of him stepping into their family as the woman’s husband to become his boy’s father between the fact that not only was he apparently was not really Inko’s type but there was the rather major factor of his own sexuality at play.

Or lack of one as it were.

As much as Toshinori had a soft spot for romantic stories, the idea of actually being with someone sort of skeeved him out. At least the squeaky clean brand image of him as All Might had helped act as a buffer from having to deal with questions like that too often.

Still, a part of him regretted not talking with Inko sooner but another was half wishing that they had still never met after she had reemed into him about giving her son One for All after what had happened to Nana.

He was drawn from his thoughts by Endevor’s voice. “Please don’t tell me someone is trying to start a frivolous lawsuit against us again because they don't have proper Villain insurance.”

Inko waved off the Hero who was clearly just coming back from patrol from how he stood at his own agency doors flanked by a few of his Sidekicks. “No, I am not here for that today. I was wondering if we could talk with Salamander about something personal?”

That earned a few groans, snickers and eye rolls from the crowd as Endeavor just facepalmed and held the door open for them. “Let me guess, personal suit from a woman who is accusing him of being the actual father of her child again?”

Toshinori felt his eyes widen. “Wait, does that happen often?”

“More than I would like, unfortunately. Thankfully so far all but one of the accusations he has gotten about actual paternity have been proven to be false. That one belongs to his now ex-wife. For as bad as he is about sleeping around, he is rather good about remembering to use protection.”

Inko just snorted, clearly not too worried about revealing the real reason they were there in front of the man’s boss and colleagues. “My son sort of proves otherwise.”

Toshinori was surprised to see Endeavor balk slightly at that. “Pardon?”

Inko crossed her arms with a shrug. “I never brought it up with him because it hardly mattered given that as far as I was concerned he was just my son’s sperm donor. It was not like I needed the additional financial support. If it wasn’t for recent developments regarding concerns about his family history on that side of the family, both Izuku and I would have been more than content ignoring the connection.”

Endeavor was grimacing now. “He’s still out on his own patrol but follow me back into my office. Perhaps I can clear whatever it is up.”

As Endeavor closed the door behind them, he shot Toshinori himself a questioning look. “And who are you and what do you have to do with this mess?”

Toshinori bit his lip. It was not that he did not trust his fellow Hero with the truth but… he knew it would likely be a bit of a shock. He glanced back at the door, to double-check that the other man’s Sidekicks were not eavesdropping before briefly powering up and dropping the form again to not burn too much of his time. “Sorry for the slight deception, but Inko and I thought it would be better if I didn’t attract every news crew in several blocks radius to your agency with how sensitive the topic of the matter is.”

Looking quite stunted, the other Hero fell into his chair. “All Might… What the hell happened to you? You look-”

“Like he is missing two vital organs and is terrible at looking after himself? Don’t worry, if I have anything to say about it, my brother isn’t going to drop dead on us any time soon.”

Somehow that seemed to surprise him even more. “Brother? All Might, I thought that you were an orphan?”

Toshinori flushed. “I mean I was and still am. My mentor, who was as close to a mother as I ever had, was Inko’s biological mother. Inko just considers me just as much her adoptive brother as the brother she grew up with because of that fact.”

Endeavor took the time it took for Toshinori himself to explain to recompose himself. “Right. Thank you for trusting me with this since I assume it is a safe assumption that none of this is known by many people given I'm sure people would at least panic if they knew about your current health. I’m guessing this is the real reason why you decided to try and take up teaching at UA?”

Toshinori sighed and nodded. “I was hoping that by doing so, my upcoming retirement from Heroics would come as less of a shock.”

“Six years ago, the six months you took off, it was for those injuries, wasn’t it? Why the hell did you not take off longer?”

Toshinori winced at the very pointed comment. “You saw how the public reacted to the news that I was going to be gone for even those six months.”

“Yeah, and the other Heroes and I held the country together just fine in your absence. Hell, we still are since you clearly never got back up to your old normal hours.”

Inko patted Toshinori on the arm as she shot the other man a pointed look. “As a reminder, we did not come here to talk about his health. You said you might be able to help us answer some questions about Salamander’s family history?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded. “Right, sorry. Yeah, I would probably be the better person to ask anyways since I doubt he has ever given more than a passing thought about that sort of thing since Nenha and Shuichi cut contact with him a few years back. To clarify since we are laying out all the cards on the table, Salamander is my half-brother on our father’s side. Let’s just say that our father was just as bad about sleeping around as he is and leave it at that.”

Toshinori felt a strange wave of… relief(?) at that.

Relief with the bizarre realization that there was actually a chance that the number two Hero was related by blood to his arch nemesis because if he was then a revelation about the relation to the Villain in question on his own boy’s part could not be justified as being enough to disqualify him from his future of being the Hero that Toshinori knew him to be. A realization that left him silently realizing that the man across from him did in fact carry some features in common with the monster that haunter his own dreams. They were small features that were easy to look past but… they were there.

The man’s general silhouette and jawline. His proud and stubborn nature. The coldness in his eyes when he was mad.

They could be just a coincidence that he was finding himself reading too much into but-

He was jolted from his thoughts by the appearance of Salamander opening the door and tugging off his mask revealing a mess of red curls that jarringly Toshinori was horrified to realize was both identical to not only his boy’s but All for One’s as well.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Fumikage was extremely nervous, a fact that he hoped that Dark Shadow would not give away as he walked as casually as he could in full Villain gear right towards the Hero stronghold. This would be his moment in the metaphorical spotlight as he played distraction while the rest of his team worked to set up the stage for tomorrow morning in the darkness created by the now set sun.

The two of them had to get all of the Heroes’ eyes on him or there would be the chance to actually lose more teammates in the game tomorrow during the “kidnapping” and break out if things went wrong. They would only get the one shot at it since there was no way that the Heroes would fall for the trick for a third time. As it was, he was uncertain that they would fall for it this time, even with Midoriya’s assurances.

He let out a calming breath behind his mask.

Like Magician, he was being set up as a pawn to be taken. Unlike the man, he carried hidden on him their means of escape.

‘It’ll be fine, Fumi! We will be the ultimate agents of darkness!’

‘Just… Try and stay in character.’

He shivered slightly at the dark chuckle his shadow gave as they peeled away from his body, their form now dwarfing him under the cover of darkness. A shiver at the reminder that he was hardly the one in control right now.

“Come out come out wherever you are little Heroes! It’s time to play~!”

A familiar snarl burst from the building as Bakugou appeared in the doorway shrugging off the hand of Kirishima who had clearly failed to rein him back in. “Are you ready for me to beat your asses again Bird-brain?”

Dark Shadow’s grin twisted in an unsettling way. “You are forgetting something, Bakugou... The Night is our domain.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

“Why aren’t you stopping him?”

Eijiro turned to Kendo with a clear look of defeat painted on his face. “You heard him. Bakubro has made up his mind and clearly has no plan on listening to us anymore.”

One of the remaining class B boys (his name was Shoda right?) peaked out the door. “He knows it is probably a trap right? That there is no way that they are out there by themselves alone.”

Eijiro winced but before he could comment, Kaminari cut in. “I mean he is kinda right though. That we are just going to lose if we just let the Villains do what they want without challenging them.”

“He is also banking on the fact that Deku would have cut a deal with the Villain team so that he could be the one to take Bakugou out himself. Something that given what Midoriya said before he even picked the Villain team officially, I have to agree as being likely.”

Eijiro turned back to Iida who stood at one of the neighboring windows. “Now that you mention him, I don’t think we have really seen Midoriya since this whole test started. It is kinda od-”

He was cut off by a shockwave that blew out the glass of the doors and windows.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Yuga winced as the glass at the window he was at shattered, thankful for the protection of his fashionable glasses of his costume. He had suspected much like the rest of his team that Bakugou would not hold back once he realized just how powerful Dark Shadow was at night but this seemed excessive.

He blinked as he registered the fact that despite the light from the blast that Dark Shadow was still somehow overpowering Bakugou.

Or perhaps not.

Oh dear, this could be a problem.

How were they supposed to break Compress out if the pair won their fight that they were planned to lose?

As if hearing his worried thoughts, his phone lit up with a text from the Green Menace.

La Menace Vert:

Back Kacchan up.

Don’t worry about the Heroes reprimanding you later for going against orders to stay put.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Katsuki winced as the recoil of his explosions began to make his arms ache. Clearly, he needed to add more recoil protection for the large blasts if it was going to hurt this badly to use them since he had overestimated their ability to finish off the living shadow in one go. He would not have the luxury of being wrong in that kind of level of misjudgment out in the real world.

If fucking sucked though that he might actually lose this fucking game before he and Deku got their fight though because the rest of the Hero teams were being fuck cowards. After all, if Deku was going to fight him, surely he would have cut in by now?

His thoughts were broken by a pained scream from the shadow as a beam of light sliced cleanly through it. Katsuki risked a glance back to the agency to see fucking Glitter Bomb of all people was the one coming to his aid. “Sorry to cut in mon ami but I believe I am the better match to shine bright against this darkness. While I play the beauty to this beast, perhaps you could capture their host?”

Katsuki felt his grin return more feral. “That I can fucking do.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Atsuhiro’s eyes widened as he watched as the Devil Lovers were carted past his cell not long after the sounds of nearby explosions tapered off by a smug-looking Katsuki and the smiling face of their Hanged Man.

“Interesting.”

His current guard, Mudman, gave him a questioning look. “Not expecting that?”

Seeing little harm in being truthful, Atsuhiro shrugged. “I had assumed I would be the only piece sacrificed in Death and Tower’s game. Especially the Devil Lovers given that as soon as those two handling them were out of the game, they would have been impossible for your team to stop.”

He considered that. “Of course, perhaps that was the point? Give your team a fighting chance against them for the sake of fairness like sacrificing myself?”

Mudman gave him a questioning look. “You seem fairly confident that the Villains are going to win.”

He smiled behind his mask. “But of course. After all, how can your team hope to win when you have no idea who you are playing against?”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

“Sako’s got a point there. We could end this test right this second honestly with how bad of a lead the Villains have over the Heroes. Even if the rest of the kiddos somehow managed to find and capture all of the Villain team members, they’ve earned enough Villain points and the Heroes have lost enough opportunities for points that the Villains definitely won early this morning.”

Shouta watched Nedzu just nod. “Still, we need to let things play out. Think of it as just a good learning opportunity instead of a test.”

Shouta snorted. “A learning opportunity for you. Psychological torture for the Hero team students. The Problem Children aren’t taking any half measures and at this point, I can only assume they took your list of ways to earn points as a personal challenge to complete as opposed to just different paths to take.”

Kan who had arrived not long before the recent fight, paled sharply. “You think that they actually going to-”

“At this point? Yes. The real question is who Midoriya is going to do it to. Why do you think we basically kicked Yagi out of here for the rest of this test?”

“But those goals are only on there to check the Villain team members' reactions to them even being on there. They can’t actually do them without breaking the rules of the test about hurting their classmates.”

Shouta felt Hizashi’s hand grab and tighten on his wrist. “The only rule about that is to just make sure to try to not permanently maim the other students. So long as they all come out in mostly one piece and should have no long-term injuries, it is fair game.”

“But it is literal torture.”

“And is something that the Commission has no issue in dealing out themselves to those they consider deserve it.”

Kan fell silent under Nedzu’s pointed comment.

Shouta ignored the exchange in favor of the list in front of him of the ways that the Villain team could win points to read the ones left.

Recover all lost items from the Heroes.

Prison break.

Torture someone.

Successful ransom of a hostage.

Film a murder.

Fake the death of Villain.

Kill all Heroes to take the city.

After the past two days, that was it.

After the past two days, they had already committed so many things from the list that they had not been expecting.

Forcing someone to commit suicide.

The Mass bombing.

Killing all the Vigilantes.

Stealing all the target items.

At this point, he was more wondering how Midoriya was planning on stretching things out to last the remaining three days.

Assuming that he didn’t draw out the torture of his victim for too long.

Shouta hated the sickening feeling of relief that his son at least was safe from that as a member of the Villain team. “When it comes time for that, we need to be ready to interfere if Midoriya takes it too far.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Hitoshi fell into the nest of bedding and electronics that his boyfriends and girlfriend had made out of their bedding in the small more private room. “So is everything ready for tomorrow then?”

Izuku gave a brief thumbs up, not looking up from the phone in his other hand that he was quickly testing on. “You get in contact with Tsu then?”

“Yeah, finally. She had to wait until all the girls not on night shift went to sleep before she could sneak out to meet me to double-check the voice modulator. In hindsight, I should have been the one to hang back at base earlier to meet her.”

Neito yawned and propped himself up. “Yeah, probably. We weren’t exactly thinking about that earlier but yeah adjusting plans for that probably would have been a good idea.”

“Hey Ten Mill, the Heroes are beginning to wonder where you’re at since they haven't had any sighting of you as Strength yet.”

“But Real Steel…” He smacked himself on the forehead. “Oh right, I didn’t think about the fact that with us intercepting the call, that they would not have known I was involved in the kidnapping. Ah, well, they will see me tomorrow while we do the livestream.”

“Do we know yet who will be joining Aoyama as one of the stars?”

Hitoshi watched the look of clear guilt that flashed over Izuku’s face at the question. “I had him arrange things with Kirishima so that Uraraka out be the one guarding Atsuhiro and Tokoyami when they break out but it will ultimately be up to them to decide.”

Mei gave a noise of clear approval. “Oh good! I was hoping for a chance to get back at her for making you cry.”

That startled a sputter out of the now blushing Izuku. “Mei you can’t just say something like that. We are literally talking about torturing someone!”

Hitoshi snorted as he reached around to tug the other boy into a hug. “Yeah, and we are Villains.”

“Playing Villains.”

Neito exchanged a glance with Hitoshi. “But are we?”

Izuku stiffened. “What?”

“Are we just playing at this point? Izuku, that speech you gave yesterday… that didn’t sound like you were just playing around. You meant it.”

Izuku gave a clear fake laugh as he began to shake slightly in Hitoshi’s arms. “You guys really shouldn’t joke about-”

“Ten Mill, there aren’t any cameras watching. It is just us.”

The boy immediately crumpled. “You’re sure?”

Hitsohi snorted and nuzzled into the other boy’s neck. “You really think she wouldn’t know?”

That earned a more genuine laugh. “Right, stupid question.” His face dropped again. “You want to do this for real? Become real Villains and hurt-”

“Help people, not hurt. Help the forgotten like your great-grandfather by working against the system that hurts them. Tear things down to build them up for the better so no one has to grow up dealing with the shit we and our friends have faced for being ourselves.”

They lapsed into silence following Nieto’s words as Izuku seemed to consider them.

“How many?”

Hitoshi felt a smirk cross his face. “Not including us? Todoroki for sure but I would not be surprised by others. I have been very careful about feeling everyone out before coinciding approaching them. I suspect after last night that Asui might be open to things after how she acted when she found you during your panic attack as is likely the case with your cousin but I have not had the chance with either of them. With how naturally Aoyama has taken to spying as well, he might be one that we want to sway to our side if he is not already on it.”

That earned a snort from Izuku. “Given how happy he was to play spy, that might not be a hard sell so long as one day he can have his dramatic reveal.”

The smile dropped again. “I hate that not only am I considering being an actual Villain but that I want to.” He gave a bitter laugh. “How messed up is it that working as a Villain has made me happier over the past few weeks than all the time I have put into trying to be a Hero?”

Hitoshi tightened his hug as two more sets of arms wrapped around them. “It is because who you have been pretending to be as a Hero is not really you I think but you as Tower is. Someone who is a natural leader and planner, not just someone who rushes in to punch things as hard as needed to stop things.”

“But that was just a show-”

“You can’t fake a presence like yours was during your speech. Even if you might not think it was really you because you rehearsed it beforehand, that doesn’t change that it was you who wrote that speech.”

Izuku turned slightly to look at Neito. “Do you think that too?”

Neito made a show of rolling his eyes. “Tower, do you really think I would have given up so much control over the planning to you if I didn’t realize that you were better at it?” His gaze dropped. “Honestly… I am not even sure what I even contribute to our group. You are the mastermind, Zippy is the tech god and Judge is the one that knows people. Me-?”

“You are the pretty face obviously.”

Neito blushed as he shoved at Hitoshi. “I’m being serious.”

Mei snorted. “I think so was Judge, Chance. You are our front man so that we can work without the attention falling on us.”

Izuku froze again as his eyes widened. “Like Shigaraki is for All for One…”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tomura glared at the phone in his hand as it once more failed to connect. “Are you sure that the guy gave you the right number? I keep getting a number not in service message.”

Giran shrugged. “He probably has his phone compressed right now for some reason. I’m sure he will pick up eventually. Worse comes to worst, I can pass the message that you want to meet him when I see him next.”

“I thought you said the guy was excited to join us for any plans on attacking UA again? Why would he go no contact like this if that was true?”

Giran scratched his chin. “I mean, he did tell me the last time he saw me a few days ago that he was going to be working a job this week but I didn’t expect him to completely drop off the map for all of it since he hasn’t done that before. I’m sure I’ll get a good story out of him about it later.”

“Remember there is no need to rush Tomura. The Summer Training Camp is still well over a month away.”

Tomura winced slightly at the gentle reminder from Sensei. “I know, I know. I am just a bit annoyed since I had thought this would be a straightforward thing from what Giran said about this Mr. Compress guy...”

Chapter Text

Toshinori watched with a hint of jealousy as the other three began to get drunk as they sought to avoid the reality of the recent revelations now relocated to the privacy of Enji’s home. The discovery of confirmation to Toshinori’s own fears as well as another jarring truth as they worked out a full family tree. Not only were the two other heroes blatantly the great-grandsons of All for One but their father’s sister was the mother of both his own former Sidekick Mirai and the woman who had married Inko’s one biological brother. A family that had been dead for a decade and a half at this point.

Well, all but one of them.

Toshinori snorted to himself as he stared down at the photo of the young boy who was likely the true identity of Shigaraki Tomura. Shimura Tenko. “No wonder the DNA test came back with him so closely related to Izuku.”

Inko gave a sad sigh as she tore her eyes off the picture of her nephew. “Given that he was registered as Quirkless too, do you think his Quirk was also given to him? By All for One?”

Toshinori winced slightly. While the truth about his own Quirk was now open knowledge to everyone in the room out of necessity, it was still jarring to hear someone new openly talking about it. “I wouldn’t put it past him. That being said, we cannot also rule out All for One paying off the boy’s doctor or someone else to give a false positive diagnosis for Quirklessness and then just sat back and waited for the enviable. Decay is an extremely volatile Quirk from what little we know about it. Regardless of which it was though, I can only imagine how badly things went when it activated for the first time given the report about the destruction of the property… and the lack of human remains despite the amount of blood found…”

Enji dropped the tablet that he had been working on in favor of taking another swig of his beer. “Do you think your Sidekick knew about all of this? Nao was his sister so he should have been notified when it was discovered that she had died as his last known living family.”

Toshinori shrugged. “If he was, he never brought it up with me, though given he knew my connection with his brother-in-law, and the fact I was avoiding learning what happened with him after… our mother died to try and uphold her wishes, that might have been intentional.”

Houryu stared blankly out over the garden. “Someone is going to have to call him to at least let him know about the Supervillain in our family tree. And someone not me should probably tell Shuichi too since he won’t pick up if I try to call him.”

Enji groaned. “Shit, I just realized I am going to have to talk to Rei and the kids about this mess after Shoto and Izuku are out of their final exam.”

Houryu turned back to give his older brother a puzzled look. “Are you sure that is a good idea? Telling Rei that is, not the kids.”

Inko frowned. “I’m afraid I am out of the loop on that point. Why wouldn’t he?”

Enji grimaced. “Rei is a willing long-term patient in a mental hospital. Interned her there after she suffered a mental break after we lost our eldest Touya and attacked our Shoto mistaking him somehow for me which gave him that scar.” He tapped his own face where his youngest son’s scar sat. “She has been able to check out for years now but has always been too afraid of hurting our kids again to leave. It was only after Shoto himself started visiting a few weeks ago that she started to actually consider doing so. He’s worried that she would take the revelation that I am actually blood-related to a Villain to twist me into something to fear again.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Hisashi paused in his work rearranging funds for his planned possible capture so that Tomura and the Doctor would not have to worry about the Heroes freezing all of his own accounts following the inevitable raid on his successor’s current home as an alert popped up on screen. Someone was digging into the Shimura family.

How curious.

He quickly traced the data download to the requesting client device and toggle the microphone on the device to transmit to his own system.

“No wonder the DNA test came back with him so closely related to Izuku.”

Hisashi froze at the sound of All Might’s voice. Cross-referencing the audio with the other device’s display of an image of young Tomura before his Quirk had come in they had to be talking about him… but who was Izuku?

A woman’s sigh cut in next before a voice began that he did not recognize. Likely not someone that he had come across in relation to All Might before then.“Given that he was registered as Quirkless too, do you think his Quirk was also given to him? By All for One?”

Hisashi would have winced if he could as he listened to All Might’s response with his own thoughts on the theory. Every day he was thankful that Tomura himself had clearly never had such a thought, even if it wasn’t true. Of course, given that he very clearly stress manifested his Quirk before actively repressing his memories of the event, that was not too surprising…

Wait.

Quirkless too?

Did that mean that Izuku was the Ninth’s name then? Huh. What were the odds that All Might would pick someone related to Tomura?

The Quirkless part was at least not too surprising given that Eighth was originally Quirkless himself so it would not have been too out of character to have picked a Quirkless boy himself as a successor for the Quirk. Especially given that he had previously no idea that Hisashi himself was alive.

It was Endeavor's voice that derailed his train of thoughts given that he knew for a fact that the man had previously been in the dark about the truth behind All Might’s Quirk.

“Do you think your Sidekick knew about all of this? Nao was his sister so he should have been notified when it was discovered that she had died as his last known living family.”

That was at least less of a surprise. He had known about that connection for a while even if it was clear that the Heroes talking on the other end had not.

“If he was, he never brought it up with me, though given he knew my connection with his brother-in-law, and the fact I was avoiding learning what happened with him after… our mother died to try and uphold her wishes, that might have been intentional.”

Hisashi noted the clear trepidation in All Might’s voice at openly referring to the Seventh as such. Interesting. He had never called her that aloud before. Hisashi had to wonder what had changed there.

A third male voice that took him longer to place as belonging to Salamander chimed in after an awkward pause on the other end. “Someone is going to have to call him to at least let him know about the Supervillain in our family tree. And someone not me should probably tell Shuichi too since he won’t pick up if I try to call him.”

As Endeavor groaned, likely in complaint about his Sidekick clearly indirectly asking him to do it, Hisashi severed the audio connection and began the process of wiping his digital tracks. That had been rather interesting at least.

Perhaps he would do a little digging later into All Might’s successor earlier than planned. It was something to consider later. For now, he had funding to secure.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Atsuhiro was surprised to watch as one of his own marbles bounced across the floor to young Uraraka’s feet. A glance to Tokoyami who had to have tossed it from his own cell confirmed the request that was being asked for him.

With a snap of his fingers, the girl in question was attacked by the formerly compressed drone that was already sparking worryingly. With her sufficiently distracted, he was able to quickly compress the glass wall in front of him and then the girl before snagging the drone out of the air before Hatsume’s device could explode.

Tokoyami gave him an impressed look. “With how fast you did that, I am surprised that you did not escape on your own already.”

Atsuhiro shrugged. “I figured that if I was given up intentionally, I should stay put. How did you drop that marble from your cell?”

Tokoyami pointed up to the metal grating at the top of the cell. “Your marble was small enough to fit through the mesh.”

Dark Shadow curled out to perch over his shoulder. “I shoved it through!”

Atsuhiro smiled at them as he removed the door to their cell. “Ah, well it was a job well done by both of you. I take it that this is my cue to break us out?”

The boy nodded before pulling out a folded-up piece of paper from his boot. “Before you compress me to carry us out, read this.”

Atsuhiro took the note and quickly scanned it.

Magician,

No need to worry about cameras given that Fool has you covered. However if you would be so kind as to collect all the items tagged by trackers and bring your former guard on your way out, that would be much appreciated.

-Tower

Before Atsuhiro could ask, Tokoyami handed him the marble he recognized as holding the transponder. The one that would likely explode within a minute of him uncompressing it. Fun.

“Well, I did say that I wanted a challenge…”

“And breaking out of here unnoticed won’t be one?”

Atsuhiro chuckled before giving a small bow. “I am a Magician, my dear Devil. Vanishing acts are what I do. Honestly, the only trouble will be finding everything before the timer runs out.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Yuga gave Asui a relaxed smile as they walked out of the agency the next morning on their “patrol.” Finally, he would be able to stop pretending to be one of the Hero team members. The thought of the freedom from the extra layer of stress he had inflicted upon himself by agreeing to play along with this plot was liberating.

He wondered if it would feel the same to come clean with Midoriya about being forced to spy for All for One when the boy finally admitted to himself that he did actually want to be a Villain. Because there was no doubt in Yuga’s mind that the other boy would one day have that realization with how he had relaxed so comfortably into the role of Villain team leader. Maybe if he was lucky, when the boy eventually went rogue, All for One would decide he would rather have Yuga spy on Midoriya over spying on UA.

“You seem cheerful this morning, kero.”

Yuga flashed the girl another smile before lowering his voice intentionally ineffectively so that Iida who was monitoring all comms currently could still clearly hear him if he had decided to tune in. “It is for the civilians' benefit. If they see that we are not worried, they will not worry themselves.”

She hummed in agreement. “But you are worried, kero.”

“Oh horribly so but alas that is life. That is why I am trying to think on the bright side of things. For example, we have three of the Hands sitting in our cells, two of which I helped take down personally.”

Asui gained a thoughtful look. “I’m not sure if we should really count Tokoyami and Dark Shadow separately. They are sort of a package deal, what with Dark Shadow being Tokoyami’s Quirk and all.”

Yuga frowned. “They are very much separate entities mon ami. Dark Shadow is not even the same gender as Tokoyami, remember?”

She gained a real look of realization. “Oh, I didn’t know that. What are Dark Shadows pronouns then?”

“They are agender so they/them if you need to. Do most of our class not know?”

She shrugged. “We will have to ask around later. Why do you know since I am not sure anyone else in the class does?”

Yuga gave her a puzzled look. “I asked? I noticed back during our first week that Tokoyami seemed to favor referring to Dark Shadow exclusively by their name which seemed a bit excessive at times.”

“Huh. Out of curiosity, outside of the test, would you say that you three were friends then?”

Yuga shrugged, seeing little harm in being honest. “Dark Shadow and I at least, for all that they dislike how I twinkle. I do join them both for lunch quite often. Dark Shadow shares a love for a romance series that I am fond of, so they have been borrowing my books to read while Tokoyami and I eat. Tokoyami I fear might be annoyed with me getting his constant companion hooked on the series though from some of the complaints that he has raised about the two of us discussing the ships.”

“Ships? What do boats have to do with anything?”

That startled a laugh out of Yuga. “Relation ships , mon ami. I take it from that question you are not involved in any real fandom spaces online or surely you would have heard the term in that context before.”

She gave a small blush. “Oh, now I feel silly. Yeah, I don’t really get involved with that sort of stuff even if I am aware that it exists. The romantic relationships of other people, fictional or otherwise have just never interested me much.”

Yuga chuckled. “That is fair enough. While I personally live for interpersonal drama like that, I am more than aware that it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Especially given that it really is not Tokoyami’s.”

Before she could respond, a flash of light from an alley signaled that it was finally showtime. Yuga made a show of wiping his head in that direction to spot Midoriya in normal jogging clothes pause in the entrance of an alley before darting inside it as Yuga raised his hand in a point and clicked the comm’s ping function to get Iida’s attention. “I just spotted Midoriya in street clothes run into an alley just North of the intersection of King and 4th. Froppy and I are in pursuit.”

“Copy that, Can’t Stop Twinkling. Backup is heading your way. Don’t engage if you can help it, just keep on his tail.”

“Roger that!” He gently shoved Asui to pick up the pace as their performance began.

The moment that they were out of sight, Midoriya stopped and held out a hand for Yuga who happily went boneless as the other boy tossed him over his shoulder to play dead to Asui’s wide-eyed amusement.

After just a short beat, Midoriya began to speak as they pulled open the door leading up to Sako’s apartment. “Ah, excellent work Strength. If you could carry him for me, that would be appreciated.”

There was an explosion of shouts over the comms from the Heroes before he clicked his tongue chidingly at them. “Now, now. There is hardly any need for that. I’m afraid you will have to wait just a little longer to discover the fate of your missing party. In the meantime, however, I believe you have a more pressing issue. After all, what happened to your prisoners and their guard?”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Atsuhiro chuckled to himself as he heard the panicked shouts below him as most of the Heroes rushed out down the street from his view out of one of the upper windows. It seemed that their escape was still completely unnoticed even nearly an hour later. It had taken a little longer than expected since he had been forced to comb through the evidence locker visually to find everything since he had barely avoided the transponder blowing up when he had briefly used it to find the general direction of the items near the start.

Now to just find a window to crack open enough to marble himself through.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Izuku was amused at the slightly gobsmacked look on Tsu’s face as he dropped Aoyama onto the couch. “How did you do that?”

Aoyama pouted at Izuku before giving her a questioning look. “Do what?”

“Go limp like that. It was impressive.”

Izuku hummed. “Wednesday has put a lot of hours into practicing his performance. While it was not likely that we would be seen during that part, I thought it would be better safe than sorry.”

“Wednesday?”

Aoyama flashed her a smile. “It is a reference to the god Odin who was the original Hanged Man. Most of us have alternate Villain names inspired by our Arcana since some of the names are a bit long and some wanted to be called something else in more casual settings since Chance and La Menace Vert assigned all of our Arcana to us from the start. The Arcana are more our titles than Villain names.”

Izuku huffed. “I’m not a Green Mence, Wednesday.”

Aoyama chuckled. “Well, what else am I supposed to call you? You are the only one who did not pick an actual Villain name besides your Titles.”

Izuku considered that. It was a good point. After all, he could hardly go on to operate as a proper Villain after the test if he didn’t pick something else or all of his work in the shadows would immediately be linked back to himself. As he blinked back into focus, he saw the look of shock on Tsu's face.

“I just said that out loud didn’t I?”

Aoyama, who Izuku was both unsurprised to see was unbothered by that fact and annoyed that he wasn’t at the same time, chuckled. “Just a bit mon ami.”

“You can relax, Ten Mill. The teachers are clearly more focused on the Heroes' side of things from the cameras that are active. I just glitched out the camera and took the feed down in a way that corrupted the last couple of seconds before your mess up. While Nedzu could probably recover the data if he notices right away, so long as he doesn’t notice the corrupted footage by the end of the day, it will be gone-gone.”

Izuku looked back over to Mei who had been hacking away on her laptop at the dining room table to cover for Atsuhiro’s escape. “Thank you.”

She glazed up to give him a smile. “Of course. What else are girlfriends for but to help you get away with your criminal activity.”

“Midoriya, you are seriously considering-”

“Decided and yes, I plan on doing some of this for real. Before you freak out, just know that actually hurting people who don’t deserve it is not something I am planning on doing. Just… overthrowing the current system of doing things to help people more in the long run.”

Tsu gave Aoyama a pointed look. “And you already knew this?”

He shrugged. “Technically no but I had my suspicions.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with this.”

Aoyama’s expression crumpled slightly. “To be absolutely frank with you, Midoriya scares me enough that I couldn’t care less which side he was on, just that I know I want to be on it.”

Izuku flushed. “I’m not that scary am I?”

Aoyama paused as if considering him for a long moment. “Do you want the full list?”

“List?”

Mei snorted. “That means yes.”

“Alright.” Aoyama held up a hand and started counting off fingers. “The first time we met, you went from running around like a chicken with no head to totaling the Zero Pointer in less than a few seconds, broke three out of your four limbs in the process and were clearly planning on breaking the fourth to catch yourself before Uraraka slowed your fall. The second, you threw a softball with enough force to shatter a finger and then instead of going to see Recovery Girl right away, you instead continued with the test. The next day you then nearly brought a building down on yourself for just the chance that you might win. But not only that but you had the forethought to redirect both your and Bakugou’s attacks in such a way to help your teammate several floors above you. Then during the USJ attack you not only picked a fight with the Nomu designed to take out All Might himself but with Shigaraki who would have killed you had Snipe not shot him when he did. And don’t even get me started with the mess that was the Sports Festival or the fact I am like, 95% sure that you chose to pick a fight with the Hero Killer Stain and won. Add all of that to the stuff I have seen and heard you do since this test started even the planning stages and can you blame me?”

Izuku’s face felt extremely hot as Aoyama recounted all of that. “Oh.”

Tsu seemed to consider all of that. “I think you are underselling what happened during the USJ. It was his quick thinking that probably saved most of our lives down in the courtyard.”

Izuku reminded of the other girl, snapped back to look at her. “You are not going to say anything, are you?”

She considered that. “For now, no. I need to think about it but you are my friend so I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now. That being said, if you did anything like the bombing in real life, I would not hesitate to inform the other Heroes of the truth.”

Izuku waved her off. “I have no plans on hurting anyone innocent, now or in the future. While I might be planning to be a Villain, I have no intentions of becoming a monster .”

“Heads up, Nedzu is turning on the cameras!”

Before he could respond, Nedzu’s voice cracked out of her laptop speakers. “Can I inquire what happened to the cameras in here?”

“I was wondering how long it would take you to notice while I was playing with the Hero Agency cameras.”

“Yes, well done on that Hacking but I do ask that you merely affect the camera feeds locally as opposed to everywhere in the future. I did not appreciate you hiding Sako’s movements from us.”

Izuku looked away from the laptop as the door opened to the apartment to reveal Atsuhiro himself. “I’m not too late am I?”

Izuku rushed over and pulled Aoyama to his feet. “Not yet but we should move into the vault. It is only a matter of time before the Heroes start searching door to door.”

Chapter Text

It took Kaminari checking the street cameras to narrow in on the Hands hiding position, but it wasn't even because they could see them on camera. No, they had found them by following the camera glitches. Eijiro patted him on the shoulder. "Great job! I never would have thought to check that!"

Kaminari shrugged. "It isn't that big a deal. Honestly, with how good they are at hacking things, I am surprised they left such a large trail."

Bakubro shook his head. "No, Shitty Hair is right. I wouldn't have thought to check since I know from the hack earlier that they are better than this. They are getting cocky, so are starting to slip up." He turned to Eijiro. "You leading the raid on the place or am I?"

Eijiro straightened his shoulders. "I'll do it. I am the team leader after all. Can you start pulling together a team of our heavy hitters? I'm going to check with Kendo on the investigation about what the Villains might have done while they were here."

Bakubro nodded and slapped the back of Kaminari's chair. "Find someone to take over for you and Glasses on cameras and phones from our class. At least we know who our spy was now so all of you idiots are in the clear."

Eijiro winced at the reminder of Asui's betrayal. Iida had not been taking that well. Between that and Uraraka's kidnapping, he had stormed off a little while ago to presumably sulk.

He found Kendo in the evidence locker. "We have a lead on their hideout. You guys figure out what they took?"

She sighed. "Besides the door? No. The problem is we don't fully know what all was in here since no one thought to catalog things after we moved over so anything missing could either have gotten moved during the move or wasn't brought over in the first place."

Eijiro sighed. "Well, maybe we will be able to get whatever it was back soon? You want to join the raid?"

She shook her head. "No, one of us should stay here in case your lead is just a diversion to pick off anyone staying behind. I'll hold the fort. Anyone from my class you want to take with your group?"

Eijiro scratched his head as he had to think about who was left of her class. "Bondo maybe? To help with capture?"

She nodded. "Sounds good." She tapped her ear to open up a call over the 1-B closed com network. "Palmo, this is Battle Fist. Red Riot is about to lead a raid on a potential Villain hideout and wants you along for the ride. Meet him at the doors."

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Tenya was beginning to get the sinking feeling that he and Uraraka had made a mistake in joining the Hero team without considering the possibility of just who was the Villain team leader. In hindsight, Asui as Kirishima's counterpart made sense. Like Kirishima tempered Bakugou's behavior, Asui did the same for Midoriya at least to a small degree unlike the rest of their friend group because let's face it, Midoriya needed to be reined in just as much as Bakugou.

Tenya had been worried for a while about the fact that Midoriya was playing Villain but finding out Asui was the one running the show gave him the honestly terrifying realization that everything that had happened so far was with her reining him in. How much worse would this all be going if Midoriya had been left unchecked?

Because this was clearly him running things behind the scenes. The fact that the Villain team was exploiting a loophole to bring in Midoriya's cousin to the game was all the proof he needed of that, even if he had been hoping he was wrong before.

But there was no denying it to himself any longer: the terrifying monster behind the mass bombing was one of his best friends.

Tenya was not sure how he felt about that.

Not with the following realization that this was not the first time he had seen this side of his friend, just the first time he had been on this side of his dangerous but controlled wrath.

Or with the thought that this was just his friend playing the role.

Or with the knowledge that if Midoriya had been behind Tower's speech, his friend had been that badly hurt by Hero Society and never admitted that was the case to the rest of the group.

Tenya could only hope that he could make things right between all of them at the end of all this but he worried at this point that perhaps it might be too late to salvage the friendship between Uraraka and Midoriya with how Uraraka had been reacting to the actions of the Villain team.

There was also the fact that Midoriya was dating Hatsume, which, while Tenya merely considered the other boy’s taste in women questionable after his own encounter with her during the Sports Festival, had hit Uraraka hard.

Tenya had to wonder if the reason that Midoriya had hidden the fact they were dating was because of that or because of the fact he had known about her crush on him and hadn’t known how to bring up the fact that he was interested in someone else. With how easily flustered that Midoriya could become around her, Tenya had assumed that the crush was mutual and had just been waiting for them to work that out for themselves but perhaps he had read that wrong.

Midoriya basically never spoke about his life before UA outside of a few passing mentions of growing up knowing Bakugou. Perhaps he just wasn’t used to being friends with a girl. Or at least one like her given that he seemed more normal around Asui but to be fair, Asui was a lot more mellow than the rest of the girls in their class.

Honestly, Tenya suspected had his older brother’s best friend not been Midnight of all people and the fact that his family had run in similar circles to the Yaoyorozu family growing up, he might have found himself feeling similarly lost at finding himself as such good friends with some of the girls in their class.

…

A thought struck Tenya.

If Midoriya was the one to write Tower’s speech, had he been someone “falling into despair” and faced abandonment?

Was perhaps the reason he had been so secretive about his personal life not because he was concerned about their feelings but because of something that had happened when he was younger?

Midoriya had always seemed so happy while they were at school together but was that just a mask he wore?

Tenya’s mind flashed to the fight with Stain and their following stay in the hospital. Midoriya had seemed different afterward but Tenya had not really thought about it, still reeling from what had happened because of his own stupid decision to go after Stain but something had changed in Midoriya even before the fight given that he appeared in the fight with a level of control over his Quirk that he had just never possessed before.

Was the lack of control over his Quirk the result of something traumatic that happened when he was younger?

It was a fairly well-known issue in Hero circles that trauma could lead to Quirks “breaking” under the wrong circumstances. Or the right ones in some cases. Quirk Evolution was rare but certainly not unheard of. Had his friend gone through one?

It would explain a lot, even if it did raise more questions.

It certainly explained how he could have been struggling so much with his own Quirk even with how much he knew about how Quirks worked and how fast he could figure out the Quirks of other people. Habit was hard to break so if his loss of control was due to him having to relearn old habits of control to compensate for his Quirk now then the sudden turn around with his control during their Work Studies made sense.

But now there was the question of what his Quirk had been like before.

Whatever the case, Midoriya was clearly not open to talk about it since he had never brought it up. Not yet at least.

Perhaps Tenya could satisfy his curiosity about things by quietly asking Bakugou about things in private. If they had grown up together, perhaps he would know some of the answers and then Tenya would not have to make Midoriya uncomfortable with a line of questions he clearly would not want to answer himself for now.

“Glasses! Suit up! We have a Villain hideout to raid!”

Speak of the Devil.

Tenya looked around to check that they were actually alone in the room before grabbing the boy’s arm as he turned to leave.

“Actually, Bakugou, can I talk to you really quickly about something? It has to do with Midoriya.”

Bakugou immediately frowned but stepped back into the room to close the door. “You figured it out too?”

Tenya’s brows shot up. That had not been the reaction he was expecting. “Too? I’m sorry what do you mean?”

Bakugou pinched his nose and shook his head. “Forget I said anything. What do you want to talk about Deku for?”

“What was Midoriya’s Quirk like before UA? He went through a Quirk evolution, correct?”

That caught Bakugou clearly off guard as his eyes widened slightly but there was a hint of something else there. Fear? “What brought you to that conclusion?”

Tenya bit his lip. “A lot of small things that make more sense if that were true. His lack of control over his Quirk for the first few weeks of class being the main thing.”

Bakugou stared at him in silence for a long time before shooting a glace up to the one of the cameras that they could see. Bakugou crossed his arms in a clearly defensive way. “He was basically Quirkless. Everyone thought he might actually be one. His Quirk is a stockpiler so until he actually fucking stockpiled anything, he was as good as. There is a reason I freaked when he used his Quirk back on the first day. It took a bit for me to figure out what exactly happened but no he didn’t have a Quirk evolution, he was just misidentified since his Quirk was a mutation from what his parents have.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Shouta didn’t notice he dropped his pen until the sound of it hitting the table jolted him back into focus. He immediately snapped his head around to Nedzu, his hair swirling around his face as he instinctively activated his Quirk in anger. The rat had the nerve to pretend to be surprised by this earth shattering revelation. “You tampered with his file.”

“No? What are you…? Oh! Oh dear. No, I did nothing of the sort but I would not be surprised to learn that All Might might have done so. No, his misdiagnosis as Quirkless should have been clearly noted in his file. Like young Bakugou said, Midoriya’s Quirk doesn’t match either of his parents. I believe it is a reemergence of his paternal great grandfather’s Quirk but I am still investigating that given his mother’s side of the family might have a similar Quirk in a more recent generation.”

Shouta’s brows shot straight up. “You have his mystery father’s family tree mapped that far back?”

Nedzu shrugged. “After discovering the man’s identity as Salamander, it was not hard given he is our number 2’s half-brother. More interesting of a discovery was the revelation that their father was the brother of Sir Nighteye’s mother which I only realized after noticing a distinct family gene marker that all of them shared with both Midoriya, Shigaraki and the Villain All for One.”

Harijima frowned. “And you didn’t want to bring this up in front of All Might because…?”

Nedzu sighed. “I wanted to make sure I knew the extent to the family tree before I told him because they aren’t the only ones I discovered with the gene. Sako at least has it too, which either implies another unknown sibling of Endeavour's father or, more likely, another unknown child of All for One.”

Hizashi, who Shouta now saw was doodling a family tree of some sort, paused. “That is a hell of a coincidence. How did you find that out?”

Nedzu picked up his tablet to type something. “I might have required him to submit a DNA sample to allow him to use his Quirk to assist Midoriya with the exam. I had unrelated concerns about him possibly being involved in a few minor crimes after his background check was flagged for Villainous sentiments in online posts. While that test cleared him of anything thus far, that was still a nasty shock.” He turned it around to show the DNA comparison between the boy and his older cousin. Only a 46% match. It was not that close, but the highlighted sequence on both was a perfect 100%.

Shouta frowned. “You let a possible actual Villain into the test?”

Nedzu flicked his tail in clear amusement. “It was my hope that he could get the desire out of his system and not act on it in the real world. To be fair, he is fully aware I know about his inclinations and I made it perfectly clear that if any of our students were hurt by him during the test, he would be in prison so fast his head would spin. Amusingly, it seems he has clearly chosen to interpret that as needing to keep young Midoriya in check as well, which has most certainly been helpful.”

Shouta felt the blood drain from his face. “You think that this is Problem Child while acting with restraint? Just how far are you afraid the boy would take things?”

Nedzu shrugged. “I am afraid I could only guess. Thankfully, the fact that Midoriya knows we are watching, so I do trust him to keep himself at least partially in check, which is why I am so curious about how he plans to handle the torture goal. What I do know is the boy is playing this game not only to win but prove to his classmates just what he can do without his Quirk. You’ll notice that he has barely used his own since the test started.”

Hazashi drummed his fingers on the table. “So what do you think Bakugou meant when he asked if Iida figured too?”

Shouta was momentarily thrown by the off-topic question but Nedzu clearly wasn’t. “Oh, he was likely asking if Iida has realized that regardless who are the actual Villain Team leaders, Midoriya is clearly in charge. Your guess is as good as mine as to why he hasn’t brought it up to his own teammates. I have already docked him points for it, assuming he doesn’t defect to the Villain team at some point during the test. I am not sure when he figured it out, though, which does leave me wondering. I will have to inquire about it after the test. If he figured it out back during the preparation phase, I will return the points on the off chance he kept quiet thinking that speaking up about it would be cheating because of when he made his discovery.”

Shouta frowned. “That might be it. Both he and Midoriya do live rather close to one another so there is a chance he overheard something from the Villain team members when they were over at Midoriya’s place. I don’t think he plans to switch sides. With how upset he was back at the Sports Festival with Todoroki for throwing their fight, I think he is looking forward to having a proper fight with either him or Midoriya.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Katsuki glared at the fucking blast door in the middle of the apartment that they had found the Villains working out of. And it had to be their secret base and not just some random apartment from the fact that was there.

“And the walls?”

Glasses shook his head at Shitty Hair’s question. “It's no good. The reinforcement is consistent all around the room, including from the floor above. We might be able to get in by tunneling under them but that might take a while. If I had to guess, the room was built with Support students and their devices possibly exploding in mind.”

Dunce Face poked at the biometric reader. "Yeah, I am not sure I can get into this. It looks like one of the hardened readers from the main campus. I don't want to short it and risk actually trapping them in there."

Katsuki put his gloved hand against the door seam and put a finger on the pull pin on his gauntlet. "You all might want to get clear. I am going to go all out on it to try and crack the door open."

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Shouta frowned. "Should we stop him?"

Harijima snorted. "Nah. It will hold. I designed the damn room to be Hatsume-proof so she couldn't get in without authorization. It being explosion proof and therefore Bakugou proof goes without saying. Honestly, using the lab as a safe room that only they could get into was pretty clever on the Villain team's part."

True to prediction, the explosion only served to knock Bakugou back away to slam through the far wall from the reflection of force back and knock him out.

Hizashi winced. "Ooh, that's gotta hurt."

Nedzu sighed and started typing on his tablet before turning on his microphone to speak. From how Kirishima perked up on the screen from where he had been checking on Bakugou, it was his earpiece. "I am going to go ahead and save your team more self-injury and inform you that you will not be able to get into that room with the Quirks you have access to. Recovery Girl will be arriving at your headquarters to check over Bakugou shortly."

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Eijiro gave the camera in the alley above them that he could see a thumbs up. "Copy that." He turned to Ridiko. "Sugarman, you think you can carry Bakugou back to base?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I can do that."

Eijiro turned back to the others. "Okay, new plan. We can't get in to where they are but they can't stay there forever so we are going to keep a watch on the door. Who wants to stay here?"

Iida immediately raised his hand. "If only one or two of us is to remain, it would probably be best if one of them is me in case we need to make a strategic retreat since I am the only one on our team remaining who stands a chance of outpacing Midoriya if Bakugou is not an option."

Eijiro frowned. "You sure? I mean, you would be fighting your friends."

Iida nodded. "It's fine. As I discussed with Midoriya and Todoroki before we signed up for the teams, there are no hard feelings about fighting one another. I knew what I was getting into by joining the Hero team if they picked the Villain one."

Eijiro bit his lip, unsure. “Even now, knowing Asui is the Villain Team leader?”

Iida gave a small, noncommittal shrug. “In hindsight, I should have been more suspicious about that. Especially with Mineta being clearly targeted at the start. But no, it should be fine.”

“Alright, if you’re sure. Just keep your comm open.”

“Will do.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Nedzu watched Mic scratch his chin. “Am I the only one who is picking up on Kirishima being suspicious of Iida?”

Aizawa sighed and shook his head. “No, I am getting that too. Problem Child recruiting Asui has clearly given him trust issues with Midoriya’s friend group. I hope that isn’t a long-term issue for him and the rest of the Hero Team after the test is over. The last thing we need is the class dividing permanently with the threat of the League possibly targeting them again.”

Chapter Text

Shuichi cursed as he quickly ripped his new mask off. “Just a second!”

Even without him speaking, he knew who was on the other side of the door from the reactions of his neighbors as he had been walking up. Of course of all the times his Uncle who had barely ever acknowledged his existence turned up at his own place, it was literally when he was trying out his Villain costume for the first time.

Shuichi tossed all the identifiable Stain cosplay into a kitchen cabinet before ripping the door open to see the Number 2 Hero in full costume glaring at his neighbors sneaking pictures of him with a tall thin blonde stranger in a poorly fitted yellow suit. “Oh for fuck’s sake! Get in here before actual paparazzi turn up!”

His Uncle just rolled his eyes and gestured for the thin man to enter first. “You ignored my phone call.”

Shuichi huffed as he slammed the door closed behind them, not because he wanted to but because the stupid door wouldn’t close unless he did. “I was still asleep. I figured I would call you back around lunchtime like I normally would. What did my father do this time to warrant you turning up like this when you clearly are supposed to be patrolling? And who’s the suit?”

His Uncle sighed and deactivated his Quirk before gesturing to the stranger. “Shuichi, Yagi Toshinori. Yagi has been digging into our family tree because of your younger half brother that no I did not know about until yesterday and neither did your father. He is the boy’s other uncle.”

Shuichi felt his eyebrows rise at that. “Okaaay? And why does that matter? It is not exactly like the fact I might not actually be an only child is some sort of huge revelation.”

Yagi sighed. “It unfortunately matters due to the recent discovery of the original identity of the proclaimed leader of the League of Villains and the subsequently discovered connection to an extremely dangerous Supervillain that is suspected to be the real mastermind behind the group. It is only a matter of time until the connection is made public knowledge. I am going straight from here afterwards to similarly warn Sir Nighteye who is apparently both your father and Enji’s cousin on their father’s side and his mother’s which is how we never made the connection before now.”

If Shuichi’s brows had not already been raised, they would have shot up through the ceiling now. He looked between them confused. “Enji? Not Todoroki?”

His Uncle snorted. “Of course that is what you focus on.”

Yagi gave him an amused smile. “Ah, to be fair, he is probably just confused by your choice to use my family name over my given one when I used yours.”

His Uncle shot Yagi a pointed look. “I am still getting used to even knowing your civilian identity, Yagi. Give me a few days to wrap my head around that and I might change that.”

Shuichi decided at that point to just give up being surprised. He gestured to the blonde. “So he is secretly a Hero’s alter ego or something? Okay, whatever, what’s so important about who Shigaraki actually is?”

It took a flash of confusion on both their faces to realize his slip up. His Uncle’s gaze hardened. “How do you know that name? The names of the members of the League of Villains hasn’t been made public knowledge yet due to the current ongoing investigation.”

Shuichi scrambled quickly for an unsuspicious answer. He ended up settling for a less suspicious one then the truth of his plan to try to join by asking around. “I was following the Stain stuff online just out of curiosity about what people were saying and someone online identified the guys on the roof watching the Nomu attack in Hosu as Shigaraki and Kurogiri from the League of Villains. Hold on, let me get my phone. I might be able to find the Rollr post since I reblogged it.”

SpinnerOfTales 🔁 GameOverForHeroes 🔁 GreenSmallMight

     For those wondering, the guys on the roof from that news footage are definitely Shigaraki and Kurogiri from the USJ attack

     #Hosu #Hosu Incident #Shigaraki Tomura #Kurogiri #League of Villains #LoV #UA #UA Hero Course #Class 1-A #Deku #Bone Breaking Kid

Wonder if they were trying to get spotted by the cameras so we would know they were behind things 

#it was not like they hid from the cameras #they could have just dipped after letting the monsters loose

Yagi’s brows shot up as he took the phone from Shuichi’s hands. “It looks like someone you are following is following your brother’s account. It looks like he was the original source. I will have to talk to him about that.”

“Wait, the bone-breaking kid is my brother?”

Yagi winced and nodded as he passed the phone back. “Yes. Is that really how he is known to the public at large?”

Shuichi snorted as he clicked on GreenSmallMight’s name to open his blog and started strolling for the last picture of himself he had posted. “Well on Rollr at least but assuming that is actually his account, he is memeing on the fact he breaks his bones all the time himself so I don’t think he really cares that other people do. You know, now that I actually look at him again, I am not surprised to hear we are actually related. He does kind of look like a small green version of our father. Back to the Shigaraki thing, what is so important about who he actually is? It is not like we are connected in any way.” Yet anyways.

His Uncle and Yagi shared a look. “About that…”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Yuga shifted his hands slightly at their place behind his back in the “Quirk suppression” cuffs. “I am ready, mon ami.”

Midoriya gave him a smile before shooting Asui who was now dressed in a copy of his Tower costume an apologetic look. “Just remember, this is all an act and stick with the script showing on the inside of the mask that Mei sends you. We’ve all rehearsed this a bunch of times. We are not actually going to be hurting him.”

She gave a calm smile. “I believe you.” She turned on the voice modulator and placed the Tower mask over her face. “I think Uraraka has been waiting to join us for long enough.”

Sako nodded and tossed her marble at the chair beside him and released her with a snap. While she was still disoriented, Midoriya quickly overpowered her and got a set of cuffs on her binding her to her chair before more casually, wrapping a Band-Aid over one finger on each hand.

She shook her head to clear it. “Wha- Aoyama?”

He gave her his best “freaking out” smile. “Oh dear, so they got you too. That is rather unfortunate.”

Midoriya walked over and took a fake punch at the side of his head, Yuga snapping his head to the side as if hit harder than the light tap used to transfer the bruise powder that was invisible on the outside of his black gloves. “Shut up.” He turned his masked face back to her before pointing to her. “That goes for you too.”

Yuga watched as an indignant looked flashed over her face. “Deku? I thought you said the reason that you joined the Villains was because they promised to not just use you as just muscle!?”

Asui turned her head slightly from where she had been standing beside Hatsume as she rapidly typed at the front of the room next to the cameras that Tokoyami had been assisting with setting up as Sako uncompressed the many cables. “We have. He was essential with the planning phase before the games started. After all, our Fool and Magician here would not have joined us otherwise. Nor Judgement I suspect.”

Dark Shadow peeled away from Tokoyami to drape themself over her. "Oh! Don't forget he was the one who helped unite the classes against the Hero scum!"

Tokoyami sighed. "Dark Shadow, please do not call our classmates that. I know you are having fun playing the Villain but that seems excessive."

Asui laughed, the sound warped to reassemble Midoriya's deepened one. "There is nothing wrong with not wanting to break character while in front of the enemy team, Devil. Lover is not hurting anyone by having their fun."

Yuga cleared his throat, pulling Uraraka's attention back to him. "Why all the cloak and dagger still, Asui? Surely it is obvious that it is you under there to the Heroes now with how you grabbed me."

He caught Uraraka stiffening out of the corner of his eye as Asui made a show of sighing before pulling off the mask to show her face. "That's probably true. Still, Death would be disappointed if we backed off with the theatrics before the final act and grand reveal, kero."

When Uraraka's voice came out, it was weak. "Asui? You are the one behind all this?"

She shook her head. "No, kero, it has been a team effort. To answer your real question though, the idea for dividing the city was actually Midoriya's idea and the how was partially Todoroki and partially Hatsume's ideas but the snipers after the initial attack were class 1-B. This kidnapping though was mostly Tokoyami and our Hanged Man's plan. And before you ask, no I am not revealing their identity just yet even if my own has been revealed."

Yuga made a show of pouting at Tokoyami and Dark Shadow. "The two of you are horrible best friends. If I had known that all our weeks of enjoying lunch together would lead to this, I wouldn't have shared my volumes of Mew Mew Kissy Cutie with you."

Tokoyami snorted. "I wish you hadn't."

Dark Shadow gave a dramatic gasp and recoiled back to perch on Tokoyami's shoulder. "Take that back!"

Midoriya broke into a laugh, unable to keep a straight face at that bit of improv on their parts before patting him on the shoulder. "Thanks for being a good sport about all of this but you are ruining the mood."

Yuga flashed him a smile. "I should be thanking you for at least warning me about your plans for me."

He made a show of shrugging getting back on script. "Well the rules state we can't do any long term damage. I figured psychological damage probably counted in Aizawa-sensei's book."

Uraraka stiffened. "Wait, warned him about what?"

Asui just gave her a smile and put the mask back on, turning to Hatsume. "Are we ready to begin?"

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Eijiro had just made it back to the Headquarters when all the screens inside lit up with an icon of a black gloved hand holding a fan of cards with the English word “FATE” printed on the exposed backs. The familiar sound of Hatsume from the sports festival rang out over the speakers. "Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3! Are we coming in loud and clear on your end, Pitiful Heroes!?"

Eijiro grimaced at the sound. She sounded way too happy pretending to a Villain.

Kaminari cursed next him and brought a hand up to his headset. "Damn it! How does she keep doing that?"

She gave a maniacal laugh. "Don't bother Chargebolt! I have your systems fully locked down under my control!"

A sigh came from the other side of the call before Midoriya spoke up. "I think they get the picture Zippy. You should probably turn on the camera now."

"Oh! Right!" The screen changed to reveal an image of Tower standing in front and between Aoyama and Uraraka seemingly tied down to chairs and they in turn were flanked with Midoriya and Tokoyami with Sako directly behind to complete the triangle. Behind her .

Asui tilted her head slightly before speaking with the deep smooth modulated voice. "Can they see us?" A pause. "Ah, good. Hello Heroes, it's time to play a game called Hostage Negotiations!"

Eijiro winced as he heard Hagakure shout from down the hall, "We don't negotiate with Terrorists, Asui!"

"Ah. How unfortunate. I am sure that the HPSC representative will hate to hear that."

With a snap of her fingers another video picture appeared inset in the bottom corner. One showing a very bored looking actor sitting on a chair in a cage with two of the Hands outside that he eventually placed as being the Sun and Moon (Kaibara and Kuroiro) who looked to be playing cards with him. After a beat, the pair of Hands stiffened and shot up to their feet to stand at attention at either side of the cage as Death strolled into the shot flanked by Judgement (Shinso),Temperance (Todoroki) and Wheel of Fortune (Monoma).

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Under the mask of Death, Awase Yosetsu sweated from nerves. He might have known for a few weeks that he was going to play Monoma's double for this but after he heard about Asui flipping sides and taking over for Jiro for playing as Midoriya’s double, he had sort of been hoping that someone from 1-B might jump ship and be able to take over for him. It wasn’t that he didn’t know he could do it, but the worry he could still screw up was there.

He turned his head slightly to meet the gaze of the actor who had been a pretty good sport about his kidnapping. “It seems your time has come early. The Heroes have chosen to abandon you.”

A voice rang out over their earpieces from the audio feed from A Agency. “Wait! Invisigirl doesn’t speak for all of us! What do you want?!”

Yosetsu turned his head to face the camera. “What do you think? I wish for you to make a choice. A life for a life. Let’s say in this case… Uravity for the representative perhaps?”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Ochako stiffened as Death’s voice rang out around on their earpieces. So this was how she was set to die in this screwed up game. As she opened her mouth to say, well, she didn't know what she was going to say, Deku covered her mouth before leaning over to whisper in an unnervingly familiar smooth tone completely unmodulated. "Don't say anything. This is a choice for the Hero leaders to decide between classes A and B."

She felt tears beading up in the corners of her eyes at the truth of what was really happening hit her. Despite what Aoyama and the others thought on their team, it wasn't really Asui behind things, it was Deku who was the real Tower.

Which meant that the Death speaking in their ears was probably not the real one but another double and she was seated right in front of them.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Hatsume frowned, unseen behind her mask. That was weird. There was a brand new backdoor into the comms channels that was just listening in.

Eh, when she wasn't too busy in a bit, she could probably trace the signal back while she waited for Ten Mill to give her the signal to go to the next phase of the plan. It could probably wait thirty minutes.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Hisashi was only slightly freaking out as he picked up his own voice dripping off All Might's successor's lips. It had been a bad enough shock hearing it coming from a voice modulator when he had first tuned into the UA audio channels but that hadn't been a case of voice manipulation from the lack of audio artifacting, just the boy's voice going deeper as he lowered it. Sure, it wasn't quite as low as his own voice yet but given the boy's otherwise clearly prepubescent voice, it was only a matter of time until he hit that range for real.

What the Hell?!

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Asui winced as she saw the next part of her script pop up with how long the Heroes were clearly taking to argue about what to do. "Perhaps I can provide a stronger motivation to make a decision quickly? Strength, if you would be so kind?"

There was a sickening noise behind her of breaking bones followed by a scream from the direction of Aoyama after Midoriya and Tokoyami quickly switched places. She really hoped that they were playing an audio recording and Midoriya had not actually broken either of their bones. She hated that she couldn't have put it past him to do either.

She clicked her tongue following directions as the Heroes really freaked out shouting over one another that they were breaking the rules. "Now, now, damage is fair game so long as it is within Recovery Girl's ability to heal it without creating permanent damage. Don't worry, Strength knows exactly how much damage he can do."

There was another horrible crack and scream.

She closed her eyes as she fought down the urge to be sick. Thankfully, she didn't have anything else to do until the other team made a decision.

There was another snap and scream.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Shouta felt the blood draining from his face as Midoriya seemed to dislocate Aoyama's shoulder. "We need to stop this."

Nedzu fucking chuckled. "There is no need. As Midoriya reassured Asui before they began, it is all an act." He flicked a file over from his tablet to Shouta's. A medical record. "They are taking advantage of Aoyama's previously broken collarbone to simulate breaking his shoulder and if you look carefully from the room security cameras none of Midoriya's hits are actually making full contact, just breaking the swapped more fragile costume pieces."

Shouta closed his eyes and flipped the tablet down. "I know. That is not what I mean. They are psychologically torturing all of the remaining Hero students. We need to stop them."

Nedzu just sighed.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Eijiro was relieved as Nedzu's voice crackled over the radio. "That is enough, Midoriya. The opposing team gets the point."

Midoriya pulled away from the broken form of Aoyama who was shaking violently in his seat, one shoulder drooping in an unnatural way. He pulled his mask off for a second to reveal his face (not that there had been any question it was really him from the sight of his Quirk in use) to stick his tongue out at a security camera. "Killjoy." He then promptly pulled out a gun and shot Aoyama in the chest. "There. He's dead. Now he can leave to go meet Recovery Girl."

“Enough of this.” Asui pulled out her own and pointed it at Uraraka and pulled the trigger, paint exploding over her chest as well.

Death’s voice rang out in clear disapproval. “Tower…”

She huffed. “They were taking too long to decide so I decided for them.”

They sighed. “That is not how this works, Tower.”

She shrugged. "We can just kidnap another one of them and try again later."

"Fool, cut the feed to the Heroes."

The screens all went dark.

Chapter Text

Nedzu released his paw off the mic as a wild grin spread over his face. "Oh, that was clever. Using the mechanics of the game against them."

Aizawa rubbed his face. “What are you talking about now?”

Nedzu tapped away at his tablet as he took notes. “Aoyama has bulletproofing in his chest armor, so getting ‘shot’ there doesn’t count as a death, but as far as the Hero team currently knows from the act, he is considered ‘dead’ like Uraraka. Now he can walk straight out with her past any guard that the Heroes have set up and she can’t say he is actually not dead. Using Sako’s Quirk, he can carry them all out.”

Mic gave an impressed whistle. “Damn. That is clever. Not only are they getting a free escape from the Hero team’s plan to grab them when they leave but that also crosses of the whole convincingly fake one of their member’s deaths thing and filming a murder. Shit. All that is left is actually successfully ransoming their hostage and killing the rest of the Hero team members, right?”

Maijima snorted. “If that live stream is anything to go off of, they are going to go for a two-for-one on that one too by making the Hero Teams have to agree to trade one of their team member’s lives for the Commission rep stand in’s.”

Aizawa dropped his head down onto the table in clear emotional exhaustion. “And the Hero Team members know it too. Midoriya, intentionally or not, is driving a new wedge between the inner and outer circles of the ‘trusted’ Heroes.”

Nedzu gave the man a cheerful smile. “Oh, it is clearly intentional on his part. Midoriya has clearly inherited All for One’s tendency of being rather thorough in planning for how the enemy responds to his actions. I will have to speak with both you and All Might after the test finishes about making arrangements for additional lessons with myself to see about teaching him how to view and use that skill for Hero work, not just a tool for this little game. The last thing we need is for him to later decide to make use of those skills for less than legal plans out of boredom.”

That snapped Aizawa back up to full attention. “You actually think Problem Child might go Villain on us?”

Nedzu sighed and made to pour himself a new cup of tea. “Had you asked me this time yesterday, my opinion would have remained what I told All Might before I had him removed, that despite the clear blood connection to All for One, I trusted the boy’s desire to become a Hero in the same vein as All Might to keep his distaste for the current way things operate in check. Unfortunately, or perhaps if you look at it in a certain way, allowing the test to continue has allowed me to discover I grossly misunderstand the way the boy’s mind works. While I still doubt he would ever become a Villain of the same variety as All for One himself with how close he is personally with All Might, I would not be terribly surprised if after this test finishes there is at a bare minimum a new Vigilante running around. The fact the boy is willing to pull this level of psychological manipulation on his classmates while he still believes he is under active observation by All Might himself shows that the boy’s fears of disappointing the Hero he looks up to the most are grossly outranked by his clear drive to make this game scenario as real as possible. As it stands, I am currently hoping that desire comes from a place of wanting his classmates to understand just what they will be facing out in the real world as full Heroes but the fact I don’t know for sure is still concerning.”

“Fuck.”

“Indeed.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Midoriya didn’t even bother unlocking the cuffs around Yuga’s wrists, he just snapped the connector between with his Quirk before he was flying around the room to help his cousin and the others pack. Yuga rolled his shoulder back into place before taking the key that Hatsume tossed at him to start unlocking himself. “Uraraka, you remember that as someone dead, you can’t talk, correct?”

She stared at him in shock as he stood up on his "broken" leg with no discomfort. "Wha-?"

He smiled at her and wagged a finger at her before moving to begin freeing her. "Ah ah ah. No talking. To answer your real question, allow me to introduce myself. I am the mysterious Hanged Man. Now if you can be a good girl and play along, my real team and I would very much appreciate it."

That snapped her out of her shock. "What is going on!?"

Asui reached over to give her a reassuring pat on the back as she pulled off her mask, voice changer now off for what should be for good. "I'm sure someone will explain after Recovery Girl escorts you out. The Short version is that the Villain team is going for a perfect score since the teachers didn't stop the test as soon as the Villain team had scored more points then the Hero team could possibly make up the difference of and win, even if they somehow caught all the members. Just be glad that we took you out of the game like this, kero. Some of the team from 1-B really wanted to draw out your death in the game to get back at you for causing Midoriya's panic attack the other night."

Sako shoved a handful of marbles into Yuga's hands that he was quick to palm like he had been trained. "Remember to close the door behind you."

Yuga gave the man a smile. "Of course! See you in thirty!"

He reached out to Compress Asui. "In thirty." He compressed himself.

Yuga quickly picked up the last two marbles, palming them as well as he straightened up. "Alright, Uravity, if you will follow me, I'll lead you to the recovery point. Right this way."

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Ochako left the room in a daze. A panic attack? When had she...?

She returned Iida's sad smile and wave with her own dazed one as she and the apparent secret traitor Aoyama walked out past him with Aoyama faking a limp, arm over her shoulder, before spiraling back into her thoughts.

When had she done anything to cause Deku to have one of those?

Oh.

The phone call.

Right. If Deku was the real Tower then that meant that she had yelled at him for what had happened with the bombings.

Oh. She had ended her friendship with him, hadn't she?

Told him that she would never trust him as a friend again for pulling that stunt.

And she hadn't been lying.

She didn't trust him anymore. Not knowing that he could ever consider manipulating all of them like this just to win. Or anyone on the Villain team for that matter since none of them had clearly tried to stop him and from how Aoyama cheerfully acted when there were no active Hero team members eyes on him anymore. From how he acted as they parted ways, her finishing the walk to the exit and him disappearing down an open manhole cover that closed up behind him immediately showing that another team member had been waiting for him just out of sight down there.

She didn't come back into focus until Sero came to greet her at the door of the room that Recovery Girl led her to. "She wasn't lying about the 1-B students you know. Monoma was absolutely pissed with you about what happened with Midoriya so spent a good chunk of that night after Recovery Girl sent him to bed early planning alternative ways for you to get taken out in more gruesome ways. It was to the point that Midoriya had to change plans to take you out early before they went behind his back to get back at you so, uh, I would be careful around them on campus once this is all over."

She blinked as she processed that. "How do you know that. You weren't dead yet?"

The only other girl in the room, one of the third years that had 'died' in the bombing waved at her. "We told him what was going on after he noticed them conspiring behind Midoriya's back yesterday. Welcome to the Dead Club!"

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Shuichi had to sit down. “So let me get this straight, all of us are related to what is considered the most dangerous Supervillain of all time who everyone thought All Might killed about six years ago until Shigaraki, who is apparently cousins with my little brother on both sides of the family, turned up with his League of Villains which has a bunch of monsters with multiple Quirks which means that All for One is actually still kicking since he is the only one with the ability to move Quirks around like that.”

Fucking All Might nodded. Yeah, he got why Endeavor was still struggling with that one now at least. “That is the gist of it at least.”

Shuichi pressed his palms together as he felt his control slipping on his Quirk in his shocked state, not wanting to accidentally stick himself to his kitchen table they were now all sitting around. That would just be embarrassing. “So Stain was definitely not working with those guys then?”

His Uncle snorted. “No, the whole Shigaraki wanting to kill Yagi thing was likely not appealing to Stain. From what I have been told since taking him in, before he turned Hero Killer, he was a fairly well known Villante by the name of Stendhal who was rather well known for ‘cleaning up’ after the mistakes of what he considers ‘fake’ Heroes, an ideology that has decayed to the point of now just boiling down to only All Might and Deku as being true Heroes and the rest of us being ‘fakes.’ He actually killed one of the Nomu to save your brother from being carried off to possibly be further harmed by the League after he, Shoto and one of their classmates survived a fight with him.”

Shuichi perked up at that. “So the rumor that you didn’t actually take him down is true? The kids did?”

His Uncle looked wonderfully uncomfortable with the question. “I was pressured into taking credit for the takedown by the local Heroes, police, UA, and the Commission. Technically only Shoto had permission to fight with his Quirk during the incident though your brother’s supervising Hero retroactively granted the boy permission as well, despite disobeying his order to stay put when he learned the reason the boy ran off was because he knew one of his classmates was in the area and he immediately sent out an SOS to all of his phone contacts when he realized that his missing classmate had stumbled into Stain right as he was about to get his head chopped off who himself had found Stain as he was about to kill Native.

“Unfortunately for them, given that Native was still conscious, what normally would have been a legal exception to act with their Quirks even without permission became illegal Vigalisim due to them refusing to follow his direction to run away and abandon him. The whole thing is idiotic since they clearly were right to refuse since they not only saved his life but made it possible to take Stain in. At the very least, Shoto should have gotten credit for the take down but he refused to take it without the other two boys getting it as well so I got stuck with it.”

That actually got a look of surprise from All Might. “Wait, Gran Torino would have let him get away with the Vigilantism? He never would have done that for me.”

Shuichi was glad that the number one Hero’s sudden sulking seemed to surprise his Uncle too. “Who is he anyway? I had not even heard of him until he turned up kicking a Nomu I was fighting in the head.”

All Might made a strange face. “My mother’s former Hero partner. After All for One killed her, he was my legal guardian for a few months until I was legally an adult myself after which he chucked me on the first flight overseas to America and cut contact until Izuku showed up in the Sports Festival when he called me to demand an expansion as to why I hadn’t called him for help teaching him to stop breaking all his bones since I clearly was over my head. Our relationship is… complicated.”

Shuichi stared at him for a moment before it clicked that neither All Might or his Uncle got what was actually happening there since neither of them clearly grew up with grandparents. “So this Gran Torino raised you even if only for a little bit right? And you have been the closest thing to a father figure to Izuku as his uncle right?”

“Yes…?”

“That is just the grandparent effect at work. Crazy strict with their own kids but would let their grandkids get away with murder. I know that grandfather Todoroki died before either you or my father had kids but I would not have been surprised if he spoiled the shit out of us. My mom’s parents definitely did for me. She used to complain about how often they would let me stay up until stupid o’clock in the morning playing games when she sent me to stay with them when she and father were fighting when she had always had such a strict bedtime. It is a pretty common thing from what I have heard online.”

As his Uncle seemed to process this, All Might seemed to rapidly go through the stages of grief. “Shit.”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Inko felt extremely awkward as she walked into the Nighteye Agency a full hour before her recently discovered brother had agreed to meet her there to bring his former sidekick up to speed but she was worried that if she waited until Toshinori was with her, that she would never be able to work up the courage to ask her question. Not with Toshinori right there in front of her knowing how badly it would hurt him if it came up. She had to know if he knew. And tell him if he did not.

The young woman behind the desk was clearly another Hero working for the man that was evidently her late brother’s brother-in-law. “Hi! How can I help you?”

Inko fidgeted with the briefcase that held all of their compiled notes into the mess that was their family that they had found so far awkwardly. “Is Sir Nighteye in? I have a matter I need to speak to him about a private matter related to his sister Shimura Nao and her family.”

The woman’s eyes widened slightly before she picked up the landline next to her. “Sir? There is a woman here asking to speak to you about something related to your sister…?” From the questioning tone as she trailed off, she had likely not known that the man was not an only child. “Er, no. She only mentioned that your sister’s name was Shimura Nao? Hold on, I’ll ask.” She lowered the phone. “What was your name? You didn’t say.”

Inko gave the woman an apologetic smile. “Ah. Sorry. It is Midoriya Inko but you should probably tell him that my birth family name was Shimura. His sister married my biological brother from what I have pieced together over the past 24 hours.”

The woman’s eyes somehow widened further before she quickly passed the information along. “He said to send you straight up. Just go through those doors there to get to the elevator and got up to the third floor. His office is directly at the end of the hallway the elevator will open up to.”

Inko gave her a small bow of thanks and was quick to depart. She only had an hour before Toshinori got here after all.

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Mirai stared at the phone he had just replaced on the receiver. Whoever this woman was, she was a creative liar though not as well informed about who he was as she clearly thought or was at least pretending to be. After all, unless you counted Toshinori who's claim was dubious at best even Shimura Nana’s successor, his brother in law had been an only child.

Plus there was the issue of his sister and the rest of her family having been killed in a Villain attack alongside their parents well over a decade ago. There were no more loose ends there sadly outside of hiding the event from Toshinori to save his dear friend from suffering from the same heartbreak from the news, even if he had never known Kotaro personally.

To be fair, neither had Mirai since he himself had largely cut contact from his sister and their parents when he decided to get into Heroics to try and prevent they from being targeted by any enemies that he would make as All Might’s SIdekick.

He sighed. It had been a nice thought but a pointless waste.

All for One had killed them anyway after all.

It just figured of all the people she could have married, Nao had picked someone already on All for One’s list of targets.

He shook his head to rid it of that sad train of thought.

It was an interesting choice of the mystery woman to try and create a fake link between the Shimuras and All Might’s poor choice of successor though. It was honestly so utterly ridiculously of a thing to make up that it clearly had been done to get his own attention.

So imagine his surprise when the woman who walked through his office door was definitely the boy’s actual mother, a woman he had been nebulously aware of for years even before Toshinori had made his mistake of choosing her son. She didn’t even bother stopping to greet him before she was shoving a letter into his hands and the picture of All for One that had been inside it fell out face up on the desk.

“You should start by reading this….”

---WGIO-WGIO-WGIO---

Hisashi was spiraling slightly as he processed his discovery and the revelation of just what he had missed by not paying more attention to All Might's conversation yesterday. The Supervillain in the family tree, not Villain. They had been talking about himself.

He was a grandfather .

A grandfather multiple times over.

Tomura was not just Shimura's grandson to be manipulated to be body snatched at some later date if need be but his own great-great grandson to be raised and cared for.

The Fourth had been his SON .

He needed to course correct immediately.

He wasn't going to let Tomura kill his own cousin unknowingly.

Hisashi froze as another smaller realization hit him.

Something more controllable.

Something to help himself regain his own footing.

He clicked on his microphone connection to the bar. "Tomura, I hope I am not interrupting but I thought you would like to know why you couldn't contact Mr. Compress."

Tomura, who had apparently been sulking about the lack of interest on the part of other Villains about joining him, perked up at his normal place at his bar. "You found him?"

A small mischievous smile flickered over his own face as he realized just how he could break the news about his cousin. Or, well, cousins since there was also the Todoroki's to consider. "Yes, it seems he was being less than truthful about why he wanted to join your group for your next planned attack. Here, let me show you."

He threw the live camera feed of the "Villain" Team's hideout where Izuku was trading costume accessories with the Frog Quirked girl as Sako recounted his troubles recovering his targets in the Hero team headquarters before escaping to a few of the currently unbusy members of the team. "-not certain I could have found them all had Izu not ensured that we all memorized everyone else's items."

Tomura perked up in clear curiosity. "Wait, why are he and all the Hero brats dressed up like that?”

“Team unity I assume. UA is in the middle of their final exam which is an exercise based on the idea of a game of Heroes vs Villains. All Might’s successor Midoriya Izuku there is the Villain team leader. I assume from the fact that Mr. Compress is there, they found a loophole in the rules to let actors join their team and had him infiltrated the acting group.”

Tomura unconsciously scratched at the side of his neck. “So he and Greenie have a history? He called him Izu which sounds pretty familiar.”

“They are cousins but I wouldn’t exactly count that against him given that both Izuku and Todoroki Shoto there are also yours.”

Tomura stiffened. “What?”

Hisashi’s smile widened. “Yes, the fact that both All Might’s successor and the current Number Two Hero are my descendants is a rather amusing discovery though admittedly I really should have suspected the latter sooner.”

He could practically hear the gears turning in his grandson's head. "Wait... does that mean that I'm..."

"My great-great grandson, yes, but that has never really been in question," he lied. No reason for him to not pretend that his choice of naming Tomura his successor was intentional since his old plans were well and truly out the window. "Has that really never come up?"

"No! Sensei why- Erm, I mean, Great-great Grandfather-?"

"Sensei is still fine Tomura. It is less of a mouthful. Besides, it would be more beneficial to your reputation as a Villain if you were to keep your name separate from my own. Less accusations that you only got as far as you did because you were riding on my reputation as your own."

Tomura seemed to nervously fidget with his energy drink can that he had been nursing when Hisashi had called in as he glanced over at Kurogiri who had been listening to their conversation in silence. "But... I have been using your connections."

Hisashi hummed. "Just my connection to the Doctor and Giran and both of them you would have met on your own soon enough regardless. The Doctor would have reached out to you by now even had I not taken you in personally since he has an interest in the descendants of the One for All Holders and the effects it may or may not have had on their Quirks. That was what led him to Kurogiri after all. I'm sure that as soon as he learned of your desire to kill All Might, he would have reached out and connected you two regardless. As for Giran, he wouldn't be as friendly with you if he didn't actually like you. You did make a rather large impression on him the first time you met a year ago."

That actually provoked a reaction from the Advanced Nomu. "Pardon?"

"Ah, yes, I suppose that you wouldn't know that. Your biological paternal grandfather was the Sixth Holder, the Hero Smokeeater."

Tomura quickly cut in. "No, wait, back the fuck up! Are you saying I am also related to one of the previous Holders too?!"

That caught Hisashi off guard because he did know that Tomura knew about all the previous Holders and therefore about his grandmother at least. "...Yes? Two actually though given that the fact we are related had somehow not come up, I was only expecting you to know about the one connection... Tomura... Do you actually not remember...?"

Tomura had jumped up to his feet now, his form laced with directionless aggression. "Do I not remember what?! What the hell are you talking about?!"

Hisashi felt slightly sick as details that he had brushed off as unimportant due to his former plans about Tomura and his unstable Quirk clicked into place. "Tomura, what was your birth name?"

Tomura gave a violent flinch. "What the fuck are you asking? My name is Shigaraki-"

"No." Tomura gave another violent flinch as Hisashi cut him off. "That is your name now but it was not the one you were born to. You really... you don't remember..."

"I don't remember what!?"

Hisashi rubbed his face where his eyes had once sat. There was no good way to handle this. "Kurogiri, could you come here please?"

Hisashi had to wonder if the swiftness in the Nomu's compliance was due to his programming or a sense of self preservation given that Tomura's control was slipping to the point of his Quirk starting to eat through his shoes. Tomura snarled at one of the cameras. "What are you trying to hide from me?!"

Hisashi took a deep breath and told him.