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Yamada and Aizawa return to their home along with their adopted son, arriving just as predicted. None of them know Izuku’s in there. He awaits them at the kitchen table, gun on the table and cat curled up in his lap. It feels ridiculous that his feet can’t reach the floor. Given that his growth curve plateaud years ago, they probably never will.
The heroes freeze when they enter the kitchen and see him. Only for a moment. Then, they both shove Shinso back, getting between him and Izuku. Good. Izuku approves. The black cat mewls and slinks down from Izuku’s lap to instead rub affectionately against the shins of her owners. Shinso picks her up, holding her close.
“Any reason you’ve broken into our home, Taskmaster?” Aizawa asks, stern as ever, eyes aglow and hair afloat.
Izuku, to be quite honest, isn’t sure what to tell them.
“Not one that needs to end in a fight,” he decides to state plainly to begin with, his hand resting on the table. It’s not on the gun, but it is near it. “But I will defend myself if you choose to attack.”
Yamada whispers to his husband. The tired man sighs, eyes falling shut and hair sinking. He rubs at his eyes while Yamada moves for the coffee maker.
“Coffee for you, Taskmaster? Tea, maybe?”
“No. Shinso, go to your room.”
The boy looks to Aizawa; the man nods. Shinso leaves the room raptly, a door closing softly moments after he does. Aizawa sits down across from Izuku while Yamada prepares two cups of coffee. He joins them, then, setting the second cup in front of his husband. Izuku sits forward. He clasps his hands together on the table. Yamada and Aizawa watch him; his blank, expressionless mask stares back.
“I intend to be…sincere with you,” Izuku informs them. “There’re things that you…deserve to know. I’ve thought about contacting you for a while, and I even decided to talk to you last week. But…I admit, I chickened out.”
At that, Yamada smiles softly, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’re here now and that’s what matters.”
“I’ll try my best to be…sincere,” Izuku goes on, “-but you have to understand. Sincerity has become somewhat of a foreign concept for me.”
Aizawa scoffs. “You had no problem being sincere during our exercise last week.”
Izuku cocks his head. “That wasn’t sincerity. That was honesty. There’s a big difference. Either way, in reality, interacting with people in a normal fashion isn’t one of my skills. I’ve been told I’m not very personable. And well, that’s mostly because I don’t really think I’m quite a person. Not anymore, at least.”
“Wait, not a person?” Yamada says quickly, as the concern begins to bleed onto the faces of both men. “Task, are you okay?”
“Physically, yes. Mentally… That’s questionable. Given the life I’ve had, I think we’re all lucky I haven’t lost it completely. But this isn’t about me. Not entirely. As I was saying, there are some things that the two of you should be aware of. Things that…I hope you can forgive me for. You’re aware of who All For One is?”
“Yeah. Big villain, old as heck, died a few years ago. Why?”
“I killed him.”
The men glance to each other. “You…”
Izuku nods curtly. “Yes. Him and the doctor. I rarely feel remorse for killing, it’s rarely deserved, and for those two, I will never feel remorse. They were a couple of miserable little blights on humanity and it was my utmost honor to remove them. All I regret is that I couldn’t do it sooner, or make them suffer a bit more. Circumstances prevented, as it were. But to the point. The doctor, as you might be aware from his recovered database, had created vile creatures he called Nomu. Grotesque lumps of flesh, flooded with drugs, and fed more quirks than any one body should ever contain. They were designed to be weapons. Soldiers, for All For One to use and discard as he pleased. Overpowered, brainless slaves. I killed them all. I erased any information detailing their manufacture, so you don’t need to worry. They weren’t complete yet, so really, killing them was just a matter of turning off the life support. However. There was…one Nomu. One that was finished.”
“Dear God,” Yamada whispers in shock. He quickly lays his hand on his husband’s arm. “Is it still out there? Do we need to be worried?”
“No. I…killed it, too,” the masked boy informs. “But… The base of the Nomu is always a human being. A corpse. From that base, it’s augmented to the grotesque, like I said. The only viable Nomu was named Kurogiri. His base… The human they made him out of… He was…”
This is hard. It is difficult to choose the words. He wishes to be sincere, yet…discrete, if even that is the correct word. He’s very aware of the emotional states of the two men before him and how it may be affected by his choice of words. Maybe a bit too aware. It’s uncomfortable.
“Yes?” Aizawa grunts.
Honesty. Yes. That is probably best. “I… This is more difficult than I had anticipated. I was planning to break it to you gently, but… That’s proving pretty damn hard. Okay. I’ll simply state the facts.”
“Go ahead,” the tired hero says, shrugging.
Very well. Izuku will be straight to the point.
“The incident that killed Oboro Shirakumo was not an accident. It was orchestrated by All For One to kill you, Shota Aizawa, and use your very valuable quirk as the base for a Nomu. However, Shirakumo was the one who died, and never one to miss an opportunity, All For One chose to use the body now available to him. By mixing his quirk with some others, All For One was able to create a warping quirk, which was incredibly valuable to him, but the Nomu, Kurogiri, was just like every Nomu would be. A mindless slave. There was nothing of Shirakumo left except for the flesh. Killing him was both putting Shirakumo out of his misery, and protecting the world from the danger of a Nomu being studied and replicated. One Nomu alone could be devastating to an entire country. Imagine an army of them. Kurogiri needed to die. Your friend did not. I am very sorry.”
The men stare at him, eyes huge, mouth hanging open. Izuku withdraws a USB stick from his pocket and places it in front of his hosts.
“This is Shirakumo’s files. I incinerated his body and threw the ashes in a nearby river. You’ll find the location in the file, if… If you want it.”
They stare at the memory stick. Their eyes are tearing up, Izuku can see.
“I’m sure you’d like to be alone, so I’m gonna leave you be. But when you get the chance,” he says, placing a folded paper note next to the stick. “Deliver this message to All Might for me? There’s…a few things he needs to know, too.
Neither the two men speak.
Izuku doesn’t expect them to. He gets up. He slides his weapon back into the holster on his hip, then walks away.
He has done what he came to do.
*
All Might has a reputation for stopping for any and every minor incident he comes across, but on this occasion, he is punctual.
Izuku awaits him at the location detailed in his message; the hero arrives right on time.
“Taskmaster,” he says, his normally booming voice subdued.
“All Might,” Izuku mirrors.
He closes the distance between them, offering the picture in his hand to the hero. Though confused, All Might accepts it and studies it for some moments.
“Who are they?”
It’s a family picture. The Shimura family, that is.
“Nana Shimura’s son. His wife and kids.”
The hero smiles rather softly. “He grew up well. I never agreed with her giving him up, but…I understand why she did it. It must’ve been a horrible choice to make.”
“They’re dead.”
All Might’s eyes dart up and land squarely on Izuku. You would think Izuku had just stabbed him in the heart, with how his face has fallen.
“Eraser said-“ He has to pause and swallow the obvious urge to cry. “He said you needed to tell me something.”
Izuku nods. “Tenko. The boy. He had a desiccation quirk, five-point activation. It came in when he was four and he lost control. He… He killed the whole family.”
At that, the hero actually does let out a muffled sob. He clutches the photo close and covers his face with one hand.
“All For One was watching them. Waiting for some opportunity to get revenge on Nana, I’m guessing. He took Tenko. Adopted him as his successor. Planned to raise him as a weapon against you. He did the same to me.”
All Might wipes his face on the sleeve of his costume. “You? You were with Tenko? And All For One?”
“Yeah. He raised me with Tenko for a while, but Sensei… One day, he told us not to stop fighting until one of us was dead.”
Izuku stares at his feet.
He doesn’t like talking about this. Tenko is one of the only, if not the only, murder he regrets committing.
“I… I killed Tenko.”
All Might says nothing.
Izuku doesn’t want to look at him. He used to be such a fan of All Might. God, as a kid, he worshipped All Might. Now he’s ashamed to be the one to stand in front of him. To be the one who is still here, while innocent, manipulated, corrupted Tenko is long since dead.
“I killed All For O- ough!”
The noise that leaves him when he’s crushed to All Might’s chest is that of all the air being knocked out of him. All Might is on his knees and he’s pulled Izuku to him and is hugging him almost painfully tight.
“It’s alright, my boy,” the man insists, despite his voice wavering with tears. “You were a child, put in an impossible situation. None of it is your fault. You survived, and that’s what matters. The choices offered to you were unthinkable and you were an innocent child. You did nothing wrong. If anyone is to blame, it’s the man who put you both in that situation. It’s All For One. He is to blame. Not you.”
He goes on. Most of it runs together after a while. He doesn’t let Izuku go. He doesn’t say anything about it when Izuku hugs him back. Izuku is not sure why he does it. All Might tells Izuku over and over that it wasn’t his fault.
Secretly, quietly, hidden by his mask, tears roll down Izuku’s cheeks.
Strange. He hasn’t cried in… Years.
Very strange.
Very strange, indeed.