Archive of Our Own

It's over.

Shigaraki Tomura is in a rehabilitation facility, Yuuei is intact, All Might is alive, Izuku’s classmates are safe, and it's over .

Or almost over, Izuku supposes. There is one last loose end to tie up, and a fairly important one at that. It lies at his feet now, bloodied and bruised, struggling to maintain ragged, harried breaths as its blood paints the concrete with tangled, interweaving webs of scarlet and crimson.

Izuku recognizes the thing's face, even as battle-marred as it is, drained and worn in the dying light of the sun. He knows its features from a memory he'd attempted to bury long ago, one from a time when he'd been too young to fully comprehend the implications of the phrase working overseas. He'd expected to see them again on a day far, far sooner than today, though not in a context even marginally similar to this one. 

The revelation had been a private event. A one on one fight, that's what the thing had wanted. A family affair, it had said, a phrase Izuku had originally taken to refer to the lineage of his quirk before it had removed the mask.

A poor decision, really. If the reveal had been intended as a battle tactic, a means of distraction or method for inciting feelings of sympathy, it had backfired miserably. Izuku doesn’t think he's ever fought as mercilessly as he had then, though he isn't proud to acknowledge as much.

Heroes are supposed to act from a place of duty, of concern for the lives of civilians and fellow heroes, not pure, undiluted rage. But perhaps the misstep of character can be forgiven, at least in this instance. If anyone deserves a dose of fury-fueled karma, it's Izuku’s father.

No. Not his father. Not even a person. A thing, less human than concept, a comic book villain made reality. That's how Izuku wants to think of it. How Izuku needs to think of it.

Because now, before all of this can really, truly be over, Izuku has to kill it. 

This shouldn't be a difficult task. He wants the thing to die after all, wants it with a depth of feeling that really should be considered unhealthy. 

But no matter how many wasted moments he spends attempting to dehumanize it, the immobile mass of broken bones and severed nerves at his feet is a person, and, worse than that, is his father, in a way that is wholly and truly undeniable. And as Izuku stares down at the man who, for however brief a period, directly helped raise him, he can't entirely ward off the conflicting emotions that knowledge brings.

"You need to be quick about this, Nine." It's The First who appears at his side now, speaking in a low, cautious whisper. "He may be indisposed for the time being, but I can assure you that however weakened, his regeneration quirk remains a very real threat. Eliminating him now before he has the chance to wake is our safest option."

Izuku grants the apparition a silent nod, crouching down beside his father. Pushing back the tidal wave of emotions crashing against his psyche, he considers the options available to him with cold, analytical detachment. 

After a moment of tense contemplation, he settles on the knife at his hip. It's a small thing, designed for medical use rather than combat, but it's sharp enough to grant an easy death. He removes the blade from its sheath, raising both arms to hold its edge, suspended, above one of the man's carotid arteries.

He takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes. One downward motion, swift and clean. That's all it'll take. 

He hesitates, and in the moment between thought and motion, he hears something stirring lightly against the pavement. In the next heartbeat, something reaches up to grab his wrist. A hand, indented in its center by a very distinct and singularly unique cavity.

Something rushes up Izuku’s arm, something sharp, and electric, and swift, something that strikes him with an immediate, intense sense of vertigo.

" Now Nine!"

In one forceful motion, he drives the blade home and holds it there. Eyes still glued shut, he waits for fifteen seconds that might as well be a lifetime. He feels the hand release.

"Vital signs," The First commands, breathless, "check his vital signs."

With harsh, shaky movements, Izuku raises a hand to check the man's pulse. Nothing.

"He's dead."

"He's dead," The First repeats, though his voice holds far more awe than Izuku’s. "He's really, actually dead. And you're certain that no trace of him exists in Shigaraki Tomura?"

"Yes." Izuku can't stop staring at the corpse, free hand latched in a white-knuckled grip around his still tingling arm. "I was there when it happened. In his mindscape, I mean. All For One is gone."

"Oh." The First is staring now as well, eyes brimming with resolution, but a thinly veiled melancholy, too. He blinks. "It's over, then."

Izuku swallows, rubbing at the insatiable numbness in his arm. He'd felt something strange in that moment, when his dying father had reached up to stop him.

No, he realizes with a frown, stop isn't quite the right word. There hadn't been any force behind the motion, no leverage, struggle, or pushback. Just a calm, resolute sort of acceptance.

Had he been trying to say something to Izuku then? To impart some kind of message? Or worse, had that brief, caustic shock been the result of a hostile quirk?

He dispels the notion with a slight shake of the head. He doesn't feel off aside from the pins and needles already dissipating from his arm, and besides, the possibility of a fear induced adrenaline rush seems just as likely a catalyst for the current as anything else.

For a moment, he considers telling The First for safety's sake, but then, he sees how the vestige's expression has altered. He's smiling now, a smile filled with hope despite its minute, lingering hints of grief. Suddenly, Izuku doesn’t have the heart.

The concern is hardly immediate. He'll visit Recovery Girl later. For now, he thinks, he'll allow the man he now knows to be his uncle a moment of repose.

"Yeah." He stands, looking out into the horizon. The sun has set. "It's over."

—

"As far as I can tell, you're completely healthy. Far more healthy than I'd expect you to be, considering the things you've accomplished."

Izuku thinks back to his fight with All For One. It's only been a night and a day since, but even so the memory refuses to leave his consciousness, its events playing back over and over again like the warped, redundant tones of a broken record.

The more he analyzes them, the more wrong they feel, incongruities stacking up on each other to form one inescapable mass of unease. 

Izuku fought All For One, Japan's most powerful and competent villain, to the death, and managed to walk away almost completely unscathed.

In the heat of the moment, he'd attributed his success to preparation, to training, to heightened emotions. In the direct aftermath, he'd negotiated it down to luck. But now, sitting in the nurse's office of a still completely operational Yuuei, he's had more than enough time to consider other, more realistic possibilities. He doesn't like them. Not one bit.

"I was surprised too. It's almost like…" 

Izuku grips either arm with cold, stiff hands. The pins and needles are gone now, but he could swear the afflicted limb still feels strange somehow. Off. The nails on his left hand dig sharp, piercing crescents into his tricep.

"Like he let me win. Like he wanted me to kill him."

The moment that replays the most often is the moment in which All For One had removed his helmet. He isn't sure which possibility is worse: one in which All For One had concocted, and later, enacted, some masterfully designed post-mortem plan for vengeance, or one in which his father, the man behind the mask, had really loved him enough to hold back.

No, that isn't true. Izuku does know which possibility is worse, of course he does. But that wouldn't make having killed a still-caring parent any less emotionally tumultuous.

Not that anyone knows that he killed his father, of course. No one else had witnessed the reveal, and as much as he may be certain he needs to, Izuku has no desire to verbally recount it. There's a connection there he doesn't want to draw, not in the eyes of his loved ones and especially not in the lens of the media.

He hasn't even told his mother yet. His mother, who is still waiting for a message back from the mouth of a corpse. They'd both received regular calls prior to All For One's initial imprisonment. Despite the considerable distance, he'd been a good husband, and even more concerningly, a good father. 

Or, at the very least, he'd put on a convincing show of it. That was what had made Izuku the angriest, he thinks, the fact that the villain had actually managed to make Izuku care for him. A long con, that's all it had been. A trick.

Even if there really hadn't been any clear benefit to it. Even if his father had called every week. Even if he'd sent checks every month. Even if he'd listened to Izuku’s problems, and supported his interests, and helped him with difficult homework, and told him, when no one else had, that he could be a hero.

A lie, and nothing more.

"Your fear is completely rational, especially considering past events, but I can assure you with confidence that you've succeeded where Yagi failed. The physician's report has been filed and publicized. This time, we can be absolutely certain that All For One is dead."

Izuku nods, though the motion is curt and mechanical. Recovery Girl must take note, because her next words are spoken far more gently.

"I know it may be difficult to believe, but your work is done. You're safe now, Midoriya. You've already given more than any of us had a right to ask of you. I believe some rest is long overdue."

Another nod, this one slow and deliberate.

You're safe now.

His right arm twitches.

—

The initial incident doesn’t occur until Izuku’s first night back in the Yuuei dorms.

"I think," Kaminari begins over a full plate of curry, "that this is a pretty complex issue, right? I mean sure, these guys did step down when the going got rough, but don't we like… really need more heroes right now? Even kinda bad ones?"

From her place across the table, Yaoyorozu offers a measured frown. "Well, yes, speaking from a purely pragmatic perspective, that much is true. But I think it's also beneficial to consider the manner in which the act of desertion reflects on the individuals in question."

Nearly half of the Japanese professional hero roster had fled following the nation's initial descent into chaos, meaning that nearly half of Japan's eligible heroic licenses are currently being examined for revocation.

The media has been following the case closely, and accordingly, so have the students of class 1A.

"Yeah, like, is having a ton of unreliable heroes better than having a few really loyal ones? I definitely don't think so." Mina gestures emphatically with her utensils as she speaks, leaning forward over her placemat. "Ideals are what make a hero a hero, right? If you stop protecting people the minute that it's inconvenient, then you're not really a hero to begin with."

"A lot of them have apologized. Does that count for anything here? I mean considering…" Mineta's gaze flashes briefly to Todoroki. "Y’know. Recent events."

"Ignoring the insensitivity of that statement, yeah, conditionally I think it does," Jiro says, side-eying her classmate, "like, does the person giving it actually mean it, or is it just an obvious PR stunt? There's an important distinction there."

"Whaddya think, Izuku? You've been pretty quiet."

When Izuku raises his head to meet Kacchan's question, an unspoken addition is practically painted on the latter's face.

You've been pretty quiet. Which is unlike you. Prove that nothing's wrong.

Nothing is wrong, of course. Izuku clutches, briefly, at the sleeve covering his right arm. The fabric bunches over an army of slender, blood-red crescents.

Kacchan can't see them. The very idea is absurd. But the way he's looking at Izuku now, it certainly does feel that way.

"I don't understand why anyone should care." 

He stares down at his plate as he answers. Anything to avoid those accusatory eyes. 

"Certainly the heroes in question were pathetic, I'm in no way denying that, and I truly wouldn't bat an eye if they lost their jobs or worse, but I don't see why the restructured Hero Public Safety Commission should give a damn either. We're at a crucial point in the rebuilding of society, and if the government can't employ enough peacekeepers to keep the newly empowered and largely dissatisfied public in line, then they will take the opportunity to revolt and demand structural change. Heroes aren't infallible bastions of moral purity, they're tools used to enact the unspoken threats leveled upon those who refuse to conform. Weapons. As long as a gun operates under the conditions you require it to, you don't ask anything more of it. The trick lies in knowing which scenarios best fit the weapon in question. These particular weapons just so happen to be better suited to use in peacetime, which, to my knowledge, we currently inhabit. Enlist them now, but prepare for their inevitable betrayal come future unrest. Easy."

Izuku’s response envelopes the room in a veil of complete and utter silence, though it takes a moment for him to actually notice as he continues to pick, noncommittally, at his food. When he finally does decide to look up, he finds his classmates' gazes fixed entirely on him, their faces expressing evident mixes of shock, dissent, and concern.

"What?" Izuku blinks, hand flying, almost subconsciously, to clutch once more at his right arm. "Did I say something weird?"

Uraraka blinks, sharing a worried glance with Iida before opening her mouth – slowly, almost cautiously – to meet her friend's question.

"Heroes as… weapons? Izuku? That just seems really unlike you."

"I…"

He mentally reassesses the immediate, knee-jerk response he'd offered, granting special attention to his commentary regarding heroes. When examining his words through a more conscious lens, it immediately becomes evident that they aren't his own, or at the very least, they certainly shouldn't be.

Izuku has always believed heroes and the morals that drive them to be inalienably linked; heroes thrive off an almost compulsory need to help those in danger, an innate desire to enact empathy in the face of cruelty.

More than that, heroes aren't tools or weapons, but people, people whose primary directive is to save, not enforce. Izuku doesn’t use people, he never has. But he knows someone who does– no, did. Someone who did.

He can feel the edges of his nails, sharp and unyielding, through the fabric of his sleeve. In one fluid motion he stands, casting aside his chair and sending his utensils clattering to the floor.

"I… yeah. I was just, uh… joking. I do feel a little sick though, so I should probably go. The rest of you enjoy dinner, I'll be back down when I'm feeling less… nauseous."

Cries of protest ring out from the table as Izuku rushes away. No one attempts to follow him though, a mercy that he's incredibly grateful for. When he reaches his room, he turns the lock behind him with a smooth, satisfying click. It's only then that he slumps back against the door, breath bated and heart thrumming disjointedly in his chest.

"First, we need to talk. Now."

There's a beat of complete and utter silence. Then another. And another. He waits, muscles tense and coiled against his dorm room’s wood flooring.

When Izuku next speaks, his voice is breathy and strangled. 

"First?"

Suddenly, something flashes across Izuku’s vision. A blurred figure kneeling in front of him with hands he can briefly feel clasp around either of his shoulders, mouth moving entirely devoid of the production of sound. Then, in the next moment, as quickly as a candle in the wind, it's gone. A ghost.

After what feels like an hour of stunned, frozen calm, a voice resonates through Izuku’s mind. The First.

"Meet me in the mindscape. I'd prefer to speak with you there."

Still shaking with a mixture of panic and fear, Izuku rises from the floor, stumbling over to his bed with unsteady steps.

"What was that?" He asks between too-quick exhales. No response. "Are you… are you okay?" A beat passes. The air is filled with nothing, save deafening silence. "Should I go get All Mi–”

"No need for that, all is well. But we do need to talk. Sleep."

Reassured by the First's words, Izuku slips into bed, shutting his eyes against the dying light of the setting sun. After a few breathing exercises and some considerable stress management, he surrenders to sleep.

—

"Hello, Midoriya Izuku. It's wonderful to speak to you again."

When Izuku opens his eyes, he finds himself inhabiting a mindscape partially altered from the one he's grown accustomed to. Aside from The First's chair, which has been repositioned to face front and center before the door of the vault, no thrones remain, though the now free space has been redecorated with new, equally ostentatious furniture.

When Izuku’s eyes settle on the lounging figure of The First, he smiles, the gesture tranquil and knowing. The expression is almost enough to quell Izuku’s nerves. Almost.

"Hello." He shifts from foot to foot, a new ability in this strange place, borne of his rapidly improving mastery of One For All. He's almost completely visible now, and clothed too. "You're alone?"

"Yes." The First's grin doesn't falter. "The others chose to slumber following the completion of our mission. They're understandably drained, I think. I volunteered to remain, in case you had any further questions or concerns regarding your quirk, as well as to offer emotional support."

"Oh."

Izuku feels a wave of disappointment at that, a slow, gnawing sort of grief. He'd liked the other vestiges, viewed them as mentors and friends, and the idea that they might disappear from his life without so much as a word of warning is as disheartening as it is hurtful.

It's true that he hasn't spoken to any of the vestiges since the first few days following the defeat of All For One, but he'd believed that to be part of a temporary resting period. A respite, not a departure.

"They didn't even say goodbye."

"They thought it would make their departure more difficult." The First grants Izuku a sympathetic shake of the head, though his smile remains steadfast. "This was always a job for them, you know. Not to say that they didn't wish for your success, of course, but you can't blame them for viewing you as a coworker rather than a friend, can you? It would be selfish to expect more of them."

The words pierce Izuku like a stake through the heart. He recalls long hours spent training with the vestiges, sharing stories, talking strategy, learning survival skills, and bantering over stupid, trivial little things like favorite fighting techniques and support gear usage. They'd always cheered him on when he'd succeeded, encouraged him to get back up when he failed, and consoled him on the rare moments when he'd broken down.

Had none of that meant anything to them? Had he really just been a project? A tool? The final box on some sort of posthumous heroic checklist?

"Did they… did they leave any messages for me, at least?"

"No. Not one."

Izuku can feel tears gathering in his eyes now, little ones that form rivulets down his cheeks and choke up his throat. He tries to hide his face from The First. He'd thought crying was a habit he'd already overcome.

"Now, now, there's no need for that." The First rises and walks over to Izuku, enveloping him in a tight embrace. " I'm here for you, you know. The affection I showed you was always completely genuine. We are family, after all."

Izuku hugs back for a long moment, willing the tears to leave his eyes as he buries them in his uncle's shirt. He only sniffles once before he manages to speak.

"Thank you. I'm sorry for breaking down in front of you like this, I just–”

"I know, I know. It's perfectly natural to be emotional in situations like these." 

Izuku feels a hand gently comb through the tangles of his hair. The proximity of the gesture is new, but he doesn't flinch from it. He and The First have always been close, a bond he's certain their newfound familial connection will only serve to solidify. What he says is true. They are family.

"Now… you wanted to speak with me, didn't you, Izuku?"

He nods, pulling himself from the embrace before raising a hand to wipe the tears from his eyes.

"Did you hear the conversation I had with my friends during dinner?"

The corners of The First’s mouth turn downward, but only minutely. "No. I was preoccupied with something slightly more pressing."

Izuku thinks back to the strange, flickering figure that had appeared in his room not so long before their visit. "Right. I saw a weird… shadow? In the waking world, just before I fell asleep. It seemed… agitated. Are you okay?"

Something flashes across The First's face, though the alteration in expression is far too brief to be properly read. Before the second is up, it shifts to another gentle smile.

"I'm fine, Izuku, that was nothing you need to worry yourself over. One For All must settle following the departure of its key components, strange occurrences like these are only to be expected after such a considerable shift."

"Right." Izuku swallows. "And… could a shift like that also be blamed for some strange behavior on part of its active user?"

"Strange behavior? What exactly do you mean?"

"I… I said something weird today, at dinner. Something really short-sighted and cynical. Something that… someone we both know might say. And First, I know I didn't say anything earlier, but he grabbed my arm just before he died, and-"

"Izuku," The First interrupts, the unwavering calm of his own voice greatly contrasting the rising panic present in Izuku's. The smile that sits on his face now is certainly reassuring, there's no denying that. But there's another layer to it too, one Izuku can't quite place. "You're referring to your father, aren't you?"

Inadvertently, Izuku flinches. "I'd prefer it if you didn’t call him that."

"Ah. Right." The First nods slowly. "So you think that All For One did something to you just before he died, and that the fact you said something that aligns with his beliefs indicates he's influencing you somehow, in death?"

The First’s voice is patronizing, but not in an overt way. It carries the artificial high notes of an adult attempting to indulge a child's outlandish fantasies, or perhaps a therapist coaching an especially disconnected patient.

Izuku feels a flush rise to his cheeks in an involuntary show of embarrassment, the reaction greatly exacerbated by the respect he feels for his mentor. 

"Is it really that improbable?"

"No," The First assures, voice unchanged. His eyes are set to match now, brimming with an almost condescending sort of tenderness. "But haven't you already been checked by your school physician? Did she notice anything wrong?"

"She didn't…" Izuku clasps a hand around his arm. "But I thought that you might've. I mean… I can't think of any other explanation for what just happened."

"Hm." A heavy pause. “Follow me.”

The First guides Izuku across the room to his seat, gesturing for his nephew to pull up a nearby chair. He complies, though the now white-knuckled grip enclosing his arm never falters. 

“The sort of experiences you underwent during the past months certainly couldn’t have been easy.” The First’s gaze drifts to the swirling, navy edges of the mindscape, chin balanced lazily on a propped arm. “I… we put quite the burden on your shoulders. Some resentment towards the heroics system would be perfectly understandable, especially considering what we asked of you regarding your-”

“ Don’t call him my father. Not again.” Izuku doesn’t mean to snap, but the words are out before he can swallow them, caustic and biting against the plane of his tongue. He tries to soften the blow by following it with a gentler request. “And… please don’t think I resent you for asking me to, uh… get rid of him. I definitely don’t want you to feel any guilt over it. It had to be done. He was a monster.”

“Not a human, but a monster. Right.” 

The way The First nods then, still with that paper-light condescending grin, lights a small spark of defiance in Izuku’s veins. Not a fire, not yet, but something resembling one. With a slow, deep breath, he extinguishes it. 

The First is not his enemy here, not even marginally. Any insensitivity he presents is the result of the demons he’s wrestling, likely the selfsame ones that plague Izuku. Memories of kind, gentle smiles, of a voice ever caring and concerned, of a paternal figure who loved, or at least knew how to perform a damn good approximation of the action.

“Yeah. Exactly. Right,” Izuku repeats back, and his arm, still locked in a delicate sort of deathgrip, clutches desperately at the armrest beneath it.

“So maybe you don’t feel any resentment over your final confrontation. Sure.” Izuku doesn’t fail to note the maybe. A word with a host of implications bearing a magnitude entirely unsuited to the emphasis it’s given. “But there were other slights too, weren’t there?”

“I have no idea what you’re referring to.”

“No idea?” The First scoffs, one eyebrow quirking upward beneath the curtain of his bangs. “Self-imposed falsehoods aren’t productive, Izuku, I thought you would know that by now.”

Izuku shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“What was the most concerning aspect of your discussion in the common room? The piece of dogma that convinced you of All For One’s interference?”

A question for a question. Izuku’s arm is beginning to hurt. He doesn’t really mind it though. The pain feels invigorating. Cathartic, even.

“I said that heroes were weapons.” 

An involuntary shudder. No blood reaches the base of Izuku’s arm. His left hand is a dam. His fingers grasp at the upholstery all the same, numb and pale with undue deprivation. He likes the pinpricks that fill the empty spaces. As though the limb is lost. As though no part of him still exists that was exposed to the vector of his father’s hand.

“Tools. And when I said it, I really did mean it. I could tell I did. I could feel it.”

“And you had every right to. Your statement was educated, if not entirely palatable from the perspective of the collective Japanese consciousness. You were sixteen, Izuku. Sixteen, and forced to bear the burden of spearheading a war effort. Of striking out alone. Of facing public expectations, and worse, public rebuke. Of hunting and killing something that you convince yourself was a monster because the alternative might irreparably solidify you as one. What were you if not a tool? And what tool is designed to kill but a weapon? They pointed you at a target and you shot.”

“That isn’t true.” The pinpricks turn sharp. “I was a hero. Am a hero. They had every right to ask those things of me. You had every right to ask those things of me. I wanted this. I consented to it when All Might offered me this power.”

“But did you really?” The First’s voice is gentle. Laden with sympathy. With pity. “You didn’t know what acceptance would entail. No one ever really asked anything of you; there was no choice in what you did, only the illusion of it. Someone like you, someone with such an altruistic nature, could hardly refuse the opportunity to help, to protect, to save . Your idols knew this, Izuku, and they used it. Doesn’t that hurt, just a bit? To have been used?”

Izuku thinks of gentle smiles, of a voice ever caring and concerned, of a paternal figure who loved, or at least knew how to perform a damn good approximation of the action. It does hurt to have been used. But does some part of him, deep and subconscious, buried under layers of respect, and idolization, and imitation, truly believe the heroics system to be guilty of doing the same?

“You think I’m repressing something.”

“I know you are. What else would explain the outburst you’re describing?”

Izuku’s arm is screaming now, nerves ringing out with pain. Too long, they say, too little blood. He can feel his nails break the skin as they tighten. No release.

There is another explanation for Izuku’s odd statement. One tied to genetics, and nature, and perhaps even a part of himself that has always existed, undeniably present yet eternally undetected, waiting for some terrible realization to turn his eyes inward and bring it to light. One that currently rests in the vacant space that pain has filled just above his wrist, but also in every one of his cells, in the very blueprint of his being.

One he refuses to speak aloud.

So he forces himself to think back to the things he endured in the weeks prior. The pressure of leading a team of professional, internationally ranked heroes. The fear of being hunted, always running, never hiding, breath bated and muscles burning. The gnawing hunger of days without a proper meal. The collective grime that latches on with exposure to desolate, ruined cities, stinking of sweat, and fear, and longing. The feeling of finally giving in, of surrendering to hopelessness. The terrible, guilt-ridden calm that follows the taking of a life.

There’s resentment to be found there, certainly, but it isn’t his. Not yet. It can be though, if he wants it to be. And maybe he does. It’s better than the alternative. 

Yes, it’s definitely easier to process, to work through, to overcome than – he can feel the blood under his nails now, bubbling up and racing down in tiny, inconsequential rivulets, rivuleelts he can’t detect against the screaming of his nerves, of his arm, the arm his father grabbed, reached out to – other explanations might be. If he had any to begin with, of course. Which he doesn’t.

He can convince himself to be bitter, just this once.

“Nothing, I guess. You’re right. I’m angry.” And when he says it, he really does mean it. He can tell he does. He can feel it.

The First’s ensuing smile is either a flashlight or a blackout. Maybe it’s both.

“And you have every right to be.”

Izuku’s hand releases.

—

The next morning, Izuku’s palms begin to itch.

It isn’t a regular, mundane sort of itch, like the feeling of a fly brushing hair or the oily touch of poison ivy, but something far deeper. More vital. It exists beneath the skin in the core of his hands, burning, and clawing, and weaving with all the invasive exigency of a parasite.

Izuku’s arm, razed to a bloody mess in his sleep, is no longer of consequence. He douses it with antiseptic and wraps it with gauze – haphazard motions fueled by petulant ire and stubborn haste – before forgetting it completely. His body is at war and the battlefield has changed.

Gloves. Izuku needs gloves. And he finds them. 

His hero suit is back from support, rips and tears completely erased under the hand of a dedicated worker. They hadn’t even had to replace it. Only a few scratches, the note pinned to the fabric had said, and Izuku had been able to sense the awe in it. Everyone knows what he did in that costume, and now, some unnamed support student knows how easy it was to do it.

The blood is gone from the gloves, completely and totally. They’ve been washed, of course, and dried, and deftly repaired. But when Izuku slips them on, they feel damp against his hands. Against his palms.

And they itch, and they itch, and they itch.

—

It's with gloved hands and an irritated scowl that Izuku finally returns to his pre-war homeroom, fingers tapping restlessly against the smooth, unblemished surface of his desk. It takes careful focus not to scratch at it.

He's polite with his classmates, of course. All strained smiles and practiced positivity. They circle his seat, words heavy with a brand of concern he finds both heartwarming and terribly anxiety-inducing. He hates to be seen as a burden, so he does what he can to alleviate their worries.

No, he doesn’t still feel sick. Yes, he got enough sleep last night. His hands are okay, he's just grown so used to the gloves. Of course he’s excited to get back to school. Everything is fine. Everything is completely fine.

Every word he speaks is underlined and bolded by that intense, insatiable itch. He’s the only one who can feel it. Of course he is. But when his mind flashes to a memory of twin palms, each with a pitch black cavity in their center, he feels the need to hide his own in his pockets.

The itch is the result of paranoia. An overactive imagination. Recovery Girl hadn’t noticed anything wrong with him, and neither had the first. He just needs to work through his issues with the heroics system. If he can do that, then all of this will go away.

No one knows about his father. No comparisons can be drawn. And no comparisons should be drawn. They aren’t anything alike.

The second incident takes place in the cafeteria later that day.

Izuku is seated in the same place he’s always sat, next to the same people he’s always sat next to, eating the same food he’s always eaten, discussing the same topics he’s always discussed. But something feels irrevocably different about the experience. Less alive, somehow. More hollow.

Heroes, that’s what his friends want to talk about. Men and women running around in colorful costumes and smiling for expensive cameras as they place bandaid upon bandaid on society’s wounds, all the while insisting, cheerfully, that none of them exist to begin with. Inconsequential at best and actively harmful at worst. Militant peacekeepers wrapped in the alluring veneer of consumerism and sold to the public like the action figures they so selfishly produce.

He thinks all these things silently to himself as his friends speak, barely registering their words. They sound naive. Comically so. Bright eyed children smiling in the face of an inescapable void. And for the briefest of moments, he hates them for it.

His palms itch.

And then, he’s brought back to himself.

As soon as he realizes the direction his train of thought has taken, he’s shocked by it. Appalled, even. Because as much as he’d agreed with The First’s diagnosis in a vacuum, he’d done so out of intentional avoidance, a desire for an out.

He’s caught off guard by the reality of it. The immediacy. Some part of him, regardless of how repressed, is actively resentful towards the selfsame heroes he's worshiped his entire life. 

Something must show in his face, because it’s then that Iida attempts to pull him into a conversation he’d long since abandoned monitoring. “I’m certain you must be receiving all sorts of agency offers, yes, Midoriya?”

“What?” Izuku blinks, slowly raising his head. “Could you repeat that?”

“He said that he’s sure you’ve already been contacted by heroics agencies for internship offers this semester,” Todoroki clarifies, “I mean it would be much weirder if you hadn’t, right? You upstaged every professional hero in the nation with your actions this past month.”

“Hardly an impressive accomplishment,” Izuku mutters disdainfully, “All Might was incapacitated, Hawks fought with an inhibited quirk, and Endeavor was a joke from the start. If the top ranked heroes are already so pathetic that they have to rely on children to do their dirty work for them, then I don’t suspect that those of lesser talent have any significant knowledge to impart either. I haven’t checked my offers yet, and to be completely honest with you, I don’t think I ever will. I'd be much better off relying on my own instruction.”

Izuku regrets the words as soon as he speaks them. He doesn't want his friends to notice the discrepancies in character he's been experiencing, the odd shards of destroyed faith that have buried themselves in his brain. They're concerned for him now, he can tell, and reasonably so.

He's concerned for himself too.

He meets the gaping silence with an apologetic shake of the head. A worn, noncommittal frown. A twitch of all ten fingers.

"I'm sorry. I know that sounded bad, but…" He searches his brain for an explanation. None present themselves. "But I'm just tired. Really tired. I didn't sleep well last night."

His present friends exchange glances. Something silent passes between them, the sort of unspoken words Izuku would normally be capable of catching. He's disconnected in that moment though, the line of his innate, silent understanding with the three severed and frayed.

"Are you… sick?" Ochako ventures, her tone betraying worry and fear in equal measure. "You've had this weird look on your face all day, like you're annoyed or in pain or something, and paired with your nausea last night–"

"I'm fine." A too-quick answer. Izuku already knows what Recovery Girl would say if he were to visit. That there's nothing wrong with him. Nothing physical, at least. "Just tired. That's it, really."

Another exchanged glance, this one long-held. When Ochako meets his eyes again, she doesn't smile.

"Alright, Deku. Just be sure to get some sleep tonight, okay?"

"Okay."

Izuku doesn’t speak again for the rest of lunch. Or the rest of class. And when he's finally released back to the dorms, he immediately rushes to his room without a word.

He can work through this. No one needs to worry. Everything is fine. Everything is completely fine.

—

As soon as he locks the door behind him, Izuku begins to immerse himself in heroics. Specifically, the aspects of heroics that originally drew him to the profession, that lit the fire within him that would later be realized with his acquisition of One For All. He has a passion for the profession, a passion he knows can't be stamped out by a few weeks of impermanent suffering.

All he has to do is rediscover it.

He watches his favorite video on repeat. All Might's debut. An infallible hero smiling brilliantly as he rescues countless civilians from the flaming remains of a building, never faltering, never failing, over and over and over again. It's inspiring.

Or at least, it certainly should be.

On the first watch through, he feels nothing. The second, a slight tinge of annoyance. During the third, that annoyance turns to exasperation. And the feeling only worsens as the tally rises, discomfort growing over the course of the fifth, and the sixth, and the seventh, and the eighth…

Always ridiculous. Always disappointing. Always unmotivating. Over and over and over again.

But he's supposed to see something in this, isn't he? Something important? Something greater? Something he wants to become?

So he hits replay. And he hits replay. And he hits replay. Over and over and over. Each time he watches All Might emerge from the fire, the itching beneath his skin worsens.

The First appears beside him at opportune intervals, always uttering easy, unbothered commentary.

"He was the only hero on the scene that day. It's odd, isn't it? So many expectations placed on the shoulders of one man, even prior to his rise to prominence. I don't believe villains are the only ones the public views as inalienably other. You've experienced that yourself, haven't you? The transition from human to hero? You can be accepted into a society and still be excluded from it."

"That smile is emblematic of so much, yes? Better to lie to the doomed than reveal the horrible, bloody truth. Official reports say that every civilian All Might saved lived, but that isn't quite true. The media always ignores deaths that occur following bodily removal from the inciting incident. A form of propaganda, though it's subtle. And what of those he couldn't save? Those that died? No one ever mourns them, you know. No one thinks of them at all. We don't remember the corpses, just the rescues, and only ever in relation to the heroes who saved them. Funny, isn't it?"

"All Might never truly possessed an identity outside of heroics, you know. No family, no friends, no hobbies… he's a living legacy. A martyr. And you've spent the past year attempting to become him. What does that make you?"

The video isn't Izuku's favorite anymore.

It isn't until two in the morning, lying on his side in a dull, empty daze, that he finally gives up on his attempted reignition. He pauses the video, briefly, on All Might's face, the only source of light in the otherwise pitch black room.

Then, he shuts off his phone, and everything goes dark. Abruptly, the itching stops, and a new sensation rises to take its place. Izuku’s hands feel incredibly strange. 

A memory flashes through his mind. Twin palms, each bearing one small, central hole.

Did All For One think the same sorts of thoughts Izuku is thinking now, lying awake at night, haunted by a world so flawed as to evade accurate description? Did he lose faith slowly, or had his descent been as immediate as Izuku’s, as wholly and completely unexpected? Did his palms also itch when All Might smiled?

Could emptiness really be a tangible, genetic inheritance?

Izuku abandons the thought almost immediately. He doesn't understand All For One, and he has absolutely no desire to try. Involuntarily, his fingers curl inward.

A realization crosses his mind, alarming and urgent, though he tries his best not to indulge it. His palms don't have holes. Of course they don't have holes. But even so, shouldn't he check?

He raises his hands, gripping the fabric of the right glove at its base. His hands remain suspended in the air for a moment after, frozen in the act of initiation. Then, unceremoniously, they fall back to the mattress.

Izuku didn't inherit All For One. If he had, The First would notice. Izuku would notice. So he doesn't need to check. Not one bit.

His issues are completely psychological. Maybe this method of healing didn't work, but another will. All Might will regain his appeal, Izuku's passion for heroics will return, the emptiness will be gone, and everything will finally make sense again.

Izuku is in a rut, that's all. He isn't like his father, and he never will be. Everything will be fine. Everything will be completely fine.

—

Quirks.

All Izuku can think about when he attends school the next morning are quirks. Specifically, his classmates'.

He latches onto them like lighthouse signals shining over a stormy bay, grounding himself with their analysis and exploration. 

Izuku hasn't touched his analysis journals in some time, and now, looking back, they read as incredibly short sighted. Juvenile. He spends every free moment between periods updating them, extending the research they hold beyond the capacity of his flawed childhood observations.

Entirely juxtaposing his prior behavior, Izuku can't physically prevent himself from approaching his classmates. He has questions to pose regarding the intricacies and applications of their quirks, questions that they appear to have, in many cases, completely failed to consider themselves.

For the first time in days, Izuku feels truly happy, something he'd previously begun to suspect himself incapable of. There is an odd catch though.

Sometimes, when he delves into a particularly involved bout of questioning, he begins to reach out, involuntarily, for the subject of his inquiry. His hands are still gloved of course, and more than that, they don't have holes in their centers, a fact which should disqualify the unfortunate comparisons the behavior calls to mind.

He's just imagining the impulses. They're a response to the decline in itching, The First explains when prompted, or more precisely, a new sensation to take its place. Izuku’s paranoia is manifesting in the form of physical symptoms, a common enough occurrence under circumstances such as these.

Izuku still hasn't voiced his concerns regarding his father. He doesn't have to. He and The First understand each other in that regard, he thinks. They both carry an innate, programmed fear of unsolicited inheritance, the sort of interpersonal comprehension only borne of shared trauma.

Occasionally, Izuku’s observations are interlaced with further incidences of uncharacteristic behavior. He suggests a lethal quirk application to Kaminari, something that immediately horrifies Izuku almost as much as it appears to unnerve his conversation partner.

Then, The First steps in, all calm and compassion. Izuku was simply speaking in hypotheticals. Isn't it natural to want to explore every potential administration of one's quirk, even those that society might deem unfavorable? Heroes encourage each other to push their abilities to the brink, don't they? How is this any different?

The words settle into Izuku’s mind and find a natural home there. As if they were Izuku’s all along. And maybe they were. More often than not, The First seems to understand what Izuku is thinking and feeling far better than he does himself.

That doesn't mean the thoughts scare him any less. 

He apologizes to Kaminari, uttering another half-baked explanation. Maybe he says he's tired. Maybe he feigns sickness. Maybe he simply shakes his head. He can't quite recall, though it makes no difference regardless.

Everything is wrong. Everything is completely wrong. And no matter how much Izuku attempts to hide it, his classmates are beginning to notice. To stare. To whisper. To judge. Maybe even, a quiet, terrified aspect of his psyche suspects, to draw comparisons.

And all he can think about are quirks.

—

Izuku stares into the mirror, mouth pulled taut and eyes unblinking. He holds up a picture of his father for comparison's sake. Same hair. Same freckles. Same posture, and jawline, and frown.

There are differences too, of course. Plenty of them. Enough to form a lifeline, maybe. Izuku certainly tries to. He tries and tries until he sinks back against his bathroom counter and down to the floor.

Phone still in hand, he navigates away from the picture of his father, pulling up the call app. It's a difficult task when performed by hands encased in gloves, but he manages. 

He dials his mother. The line picks up on the third tone.

"Izuku? Hello?"

"Hi, Mom. Sorry to call so late, but I wanted to ask you a few questions about…" A pause. "About Dad."

"Oh."

Izuku doesn’t mean to be blunt. It just happens. Most things seem to happen to him now rather than because of him.

He doesn't receive a yes, but he doesn't really need one either.

"Are we anything alike? Do I act like he did before…"

"Before he disappeared?" The pain in his mother's voice is palpable. Almost tactile. "Well… yes, Izuku, in many ways, you do."

Now it's Izuku’s turn to breathe out a shaky "oh." After a moment's pause, he continues. "In what ways, exactly?"

"You're both very smart. Driven. Stubborn, too, though you do come by it honestly. And you're polite, of course, and so considerate, and… his smile. You've always had his smile. I see all the best parts of him in you."

The observations are intended as compliments, of course they are, and under any other circumstances, Izuku is certain he would take them as such. 

But in these particular circumstances, lying prone on the floor of a dimly lit dorm bathroom in the dead of night while assailed by inexplicable obsessions and the tactile illusion of too-empty palms, they make him shudder like nothing else.

I see all the best parts of him in you.

The lies then. Even before he knew the truth, Izuku’s identity had been a patchwork of lies. Is that why it's crumbling now, its foundation torn asunder by a revelation it was never designed to handle? Is the truth rushing forward to fill the gaps in personality his imitation can no longer justify?

"I'm sorry. For asking you about this, I mean."

"It's alright." Izuku can hear his mother's smile in her voice, soft and understanding. "I miss him too. But somehow… I know he's still out there. Call it a wife's intuition, but whatever happened to him, he's safe. We just have to wait for him to come home."

Izuku’s stomach leaps into his chest. He doesn't intend to hang up, but he hangs up, nonetheless. The action is automatic somehow, immediate and compulsory in a way too ingrained to be denied through the application of rationality.

His fingers go slack, sending his phone clattering to the ground. As it hits the floor, the room resounds with the sharp smack of glass colliding with uncushioned tile. He doesn't check to see if the screen is broken. 

It's like the gloves, he thinks. Maybe he's better off not knowing.

"It isn't a bad thing, you know. Not necessarily."

Izuku rises at the sound of The First's voice, propping himself up against the counter. Its handles dig into his back. He lets them.

" What isn't a bad thing, exactly?"

"You know full well what I'm referring to." The First is leaning against the far wall, arms crossed and mouth upturned into an easy smile. "You're inalienably similar to your father in a myriad of ways, but I'm not certain that the implications of that reality are negative."

"Yes they are." Izuku’s voice shakes as he speaks. Shakes with dread, and fear, and fury. "You know they are. He hurt you as much as he hurt anyone."

"That isn’t entirely true." The First blinks. "You recall how he interacted with you as a child, yes? Always present, always doting, perhaps a bit overbearing, but undeniably caring all the same. He certainly loved me, the only issue between us was that we had very different ideas of how love was intended to manifest. He wasn't responsible for my death, you know. He would never intentionally kill a member of his family. Would never kill you.”

Guilt bubbles up in Izuku’s throat, venomous and acrid. He recalls the feeling of a knife sliding between blood and skin, an artery severed by a driven blade. The almost reverent shock evident on the paramedics faces as he'd emerged from the rubble. The note that had been pinned to his restored gloves: only a few scratches.

Like he let me win. Like he wanted me to kill him.

"It doesn't matter. He would've hurt more people if he'd been left alive. People other than me."

"But no one ever tried to rehabilitate him, did they? To save him? He was different from Shigaraki Tomura somehow, that's what they all said, but what was the deciding factor, really? He had trauma just like yours, Izuku. He was born into a world that hated what he was before he was even old enough to speak the word hate, raised in a society governed by laws designed to break him, and forced to raise himself completely independent of parental influence."

The First's voice is low. Calm. He isn't smiling anymore.

"He endured pain, and that pain caused him to grow bitter. To resent the system that produced and perpetuated it. But when he spoke out against that system, when he tried to change it for the better, he went too far. Just like Shigaraki Tomura, and Toga, and Dabi, and Spinner. But they were spared, weren’t they? They were saved. So tell me, Midoriya Izuku. What about your father was different?"

"He…" Izuku attempts to swallow through a bone-dry throat. He fails. "He didn't want to be saved. Didn't regret anything he did, didn't feel remorse…"

"And how do you know that?" The First tilts his head, eyes an almost luminescent green in the low light of the bathroom. "Shigaraki Tomura never directly communicated with you, did he? Never asked for help? You had to reach out first. But you never reached out to your father, did you? Not even when he reached out to you."

"I didn't want to kill him, you know." Izuku can feel the tears returning to his eyes now, and this time, they sting. " You encouraged me to do it, you and everyone else. It wasn't easy for me, I didn't enjoy it, didn't anticipate it in any way, it just..."

"Appeared to be the only course of action available to you?" The First’s brow creases. "Just as I said, Izuku, they used you. You weren't wrong in calling heroes tools."

There's a heavy pause as Izuku turns the thought over in his mind. Just as all the others The First offers, there's a place for it there, already prepped and hollowed. Another new ideology to add to his growing collection.

He accepts it.

"You said that something set my father apart from the others. Something that we… something that the heroes hated. What was it?"

"I'm afraid my question wasn't rhetorical, Izuku. I don't know what shape it took. I just know that it was there."

"Do you… do you see it in me?"

"A better question would be…" The corners of The First’s mouth turn upward, slow and easy. For the first time in any of Izuku’s traceable memories, his uncle's smile reveals teeth. "Do you?"

"I don't know." A shiver runs down Izuku’s spine. "I don't want to, but… I don't know."

—

As the days pass, Izuku can feel himself receding inward. The incidents aren't quite so sporadic anymore, and then, at some point, they aren't sporadic at all. Bitterness is less a feeling now and more a cold, inescapable reality.

Whatever high Izuku had originally experienced regarding the analysis of quirks has dimmed and dulled. He still obsesses over them of course, but they've lost their luster somehow. Now, when he considers the application of his friends' quirks, all he can focus on is the inherent incompetency of their wielders.

He could use the quirks so much better than they are. He understands their potential. He needs them.

He always comes back to himself in the end. Always realizes that quirks aren't something he has any right to take. Aren't something he has the physical capability to take in the first place.

He's horrified with himself so often now. The First never is though. He's far more patient with Izuku than he deserves. Trauma is a powerful thing, but shared trauma is stronger.

Izuku still cares about his friends, but it's a different sort of care, he's come to realize. They're so naive, so blind, so willfully delusional that speaking to them always feels like walking on eggshells. A practice in restraint, and more than that, guile.

Knowing the right time to smile, to offer agreement, to feign sympathy, is an art, an art at which Izuku discovers himself to be shockingly adept. He hates it, the pantomime of socialization he's been forced to adopt, but at least his friends stop staring. Stop whispering, and faking smiles, and drawing comparisons.

Well, that isn't entirely true. Kacchan – no, Katsuki – that childhood nickname really is just so ridiculous – still stares.

He's different from the others. More stubborn. Izuku can see the things wrong with his classmates, their fighting styles, their quirk usage, their study techniques, and battle tactics, and project design. And when he sees them, he's always overcome with the desire to help. To correct. To control.

Most people are easy to fix, he finds. All you have to do is discover a tactic that works. Uraraka responds well to flattery, Iida to logical appeals, Yaoyorozu to backhanded compliments, Jiro to subtle mentions of insecurities, and Todoroki to blunt commentary. While the method may vary from person to person, the result doesn't. Izuku is very good at making people into what they need to be.

Or, well, every person aside from Katsuki, at least.

And it should be easy. It really should. Reverse psychology is a tried and true method. It always used to work so well, back when they were children. But now it doesn't, and Katsuki's eyes, those horrible, piercing red eyes, constantly bore into Izuku with some invasive, unholy mix of suspicion and fury.

Like he knows that everything is wrong. Like Izuku’s act isn't working. Like he sees a spark of something that Izuku desperately doesn't want to be there to begin with.

Izuku avoids Katsuki, when he can, and the rest, he continues to fix.

Oftentimes, he finds himself silently wishing there existed some way to protect them. To save them from themselves. But that kind of praxis takes power, power that Izuku doesn’t have.

There's a thought.

Izuku hasn't seen All Might since before school began. Sometimes he thinks to try, but then he recalls the video. The unreported dead. The concept of martyrdom. That stupid, fallacious smile. And he withdraws.

Things certainly aren't getting better, but they aren't getting worse either. Izuku's mental state is static, a ball suspended mid-throw. He dreads the inevitable collision. The moment when motion returns.

But it doesn't have to. If he bottles everything up, ignores it, pretends it doesn't exist, then maybe nothing will change. It's possible that inaction is, in itself, a sort of salvation.

Deep down, he knows this to be a false comfort. He can feel it in his bones. His mind is a dam, and the pressure is building. This isn't a flood he's capable of mitigating.

So he pretends. And he pretends. And he pretends, and pretends, and pretends.

Until one day, a week after the initial incident, the dam bursts, and Izuku’s world comes crashing down with it.

—

"So." Katsuki eyes Izuku up and down, mouth twisting into a disquieted frown.

Izuku returns the expression with a vague sort of nod. "So."

It's Tuesday, which means that 1A is participating in a proctored Heroics lesson. This particular week's is a team exercise, specifically a practice in on-site rescue communication. Seven mock civilians are scattered about the downpour zone of the newly refurbished USJ, and Katsuki and Izuku are meant to rescue them. Together.

Not an ideal situation by any means, but Izuku will endure. He has plenty of practice, after all. Katsuki doesn't plan on making it easy though. Izuku can tell by the look in his eyes. The strange, singular slant they've adopted, all fire, and obstinance, and fury. A sure precursor to conflict, if memory serves.

It does.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The question takes Izuku completely off guard. All he can do in the face of it is blink. 

The two are positioned under an awning now, waiting away their allotted planning time in cold silence before Aizawa activates the starting buzzer. Despite the canopy above them, the rainfall reaches them all the same, arriving in slight, misty, sideways gusts. It batters the concrete at Izuku’s feet, its wild beat forming an incongruent rhythm not unlike that of a war drum.

"Excuse me?"

"You aren't Izuku. You may look like him, and sound like him, and carry around his stupid, nerdy notebooks, but you aren't him. Izuku doesn’t roll his eyes when people answer a question wrong in class, or smirk – fucking smirk – when someone asks him for help, or hide laughs when he reads over the ethics section of our heroics textbook. You might be able to fool the others, but you can't fool me. So I'll ask again. Who. The fuck. Are you?"

Izuku’s heart leaps into his chest, and for a long, long moment, the blood runs cold through his veins. Katsuki has noticed. And every behavior he's noted, every involuntary reaction, every inane little tick, appears to be cherry picked to shake Izuku to his core.

And they do. For a moment.

Then, The First materializes at Izuku’s side, a gentle hand falling to rest on his shoulder, briefly, before dissipating once more into the pouring rain.

Izuku regains his composure.

"Oh, Katsuki." His classmate flinches visibly at the glaring lack of nickname. Izuku can't help but grin at the reaction. There's a power to it, a power he likes. He's finally found Katsuki's method. "You should know better than anyone, shouldn't you? People change. Even if the changes are sometimes–" 

Izuku pointedly eyes his classmate's hand, a bitter smile playing on his lips.

"Superficial. Meaningless. I never really did accept your apology, did I?" 

Izuku advances, slow and sure, the pounding of the rain forming a powerful background drone. He spies one of the USJ's cameras through the corners of his eyes. He knows the model. No audio. Just video. 

He makes sure to don a smile, the very same one he's practiced in the mirror every night since his initial incident. It's still his, he's assured himself. Still heroic. Nothing like his father’s.

Katsuki is, evidently, the only one to have detected a difference. That makes Izuku indescribably afraid. And these days, fear shifts so effortlessly to anger.

"No. But you still took it, didn't you? You're good at that, assuming you have a right to things that aren't yours. And always from me. Names, for one thing. Deku to Izuku. I never asked for that. Not once."

Izuku steps ever closer. The rain continues to drum. It may be his imagination, but it almost sounds harsher now. More profound.

"Another, your absolution. Forgiveness isn't won, Katsuki, it's earned. That display in Kamino? That was farce, and pathetic farce at that. I accepted your help because it was prudent, not because I desired reconciliation. You are nothing to me. You lost my admiration a long time ago, and you aren't getting it back. Not now. Not ever."

Izuku can tell the words hurt, and he's glad that they do. They were designed to.

It's natural, he thinks, to want others to hurt the same ways you have, especially when they've previously hurt you. The First had told him that three nights ago when he'd broken down, intentionally destroying an All Might figurine in a fit of ill-contained vitriol. And just like every other piece of advice, it had fit perfectly into place.

Izuku wants Katsuki to feel the same pain he is. The stabbing guilt of having failed to save. The terrible, cutting sting of perceived rejection from those you trust. The horrible, insurmountable fear of becoming the very thing you hate.

He twists the knife.

"You tried to change because of me, didn't you? Well, I suppose your example served as an inspiration. I changed because of you."

Izuku gestures broadly to the hollow, waterlogged city around them, still advancing ever-closer, still enunciating every painstaking syllable in his most cheerful, bright-eyed voice, still smiling that perfect, practiced smile.

"All of you! Do you know what happens when a society is too focused on winning? When claiming superiority and maintaining it is foisted as the most principal of achievements? People fall to the wayside, Katsuki, and they suffer, and kill, and die. But you wouldn't know about that, would you? Your apology was always doomed to remain stagnant at the level of hollow performance because just like every other self-obsessed limelight glory-hound, all you ever cared about was yourself. My forgiveness was always a prize for you. An ego boost. An empty, hollow pat on the back. And I'm not letting you have it."

The rain is slamming down in sheets now, forcing Izuku to scream over its prominence. He revels in the volume, the backdrop, the expression. Katsuki's suffering is a drama and Izuku is its key actor. Or maybe, more accurately, its director.

He's a breath away from Katsuki's face now. He can see the minutiae of his expression. The way his pupils rove back and forth with poorly concealed panic. The way the corners of his mouth twitch, fighting, violently, to maintain a neutral line in the face of complete and total devastation. The way his muscles tense, strained with an anticipation born entirely of fear.

Izuku's smile isn't a performance anymore. Now, it's real.

"Bakugo Katsuki, I am going to make you experience loss. A loss so ultimate that you will never recover. But not here. Not now. Because in a few seconds, when the buzzer goes off and we're set loose into the rain, we are going to win. You're going to bluster, and yell, and save some stupid, inconsequential mock civilians with me, and then, both of us are going to pretend as though none of this happened. And if you refuse, well… I wonder which one of us they'll believe? You can lose twice today, if you really want to."

Katsuki shudders. Katsuki actually shudders. Because of Izuku. What a torment. What a victory.

But then he opens his mouth, and the words that come out are a far cry from celebratory.

"Sure, whatever. I'll play nice for one exercise. But you should know one thing. After your bullshit speech, I'm dead fucking certain. Whatever the fuck you are, you are not Midoriya Izuku. Hell, you aren't even Deku. And I'm gonna make damn sure you regret using his face. Get back to pretending, asshole, because you definitely aren't going to be able to much longer."

The buzzer sounds. Katsuki sprints away. Izuku is left standing, completely dumbfounded, in the sideways path of the rain.

And he's angry.

—

The downpour duo had the fastest time of any rescue group in class 1A, even considering Izuku’s greatly delayed start. Katsuki had been driven , his classmates comment as they rewatch the footage, a force of nature. They compliment Izuku too, of course, but not before they ask him if he's alright. He visibly lost his composure out in the field.

Because of Katsuki.

Katsuki, who really is pretending as though nothing happened. Katsuki, who hasn't so much as looked at him since that final address. Katsuki, who confirmed every single one of his fears and more and didn't suffer one bit for it.

Izuku lingers in the locker rooms following the class's return to main campus. Katsuki receives the message. He lingers too.

It isn't until every other classmate has filtered out and the bell has rung that the two finally make eye contact, positioned tactfully in a corner of the room completely devoid of cameras.

"So? You ready to confess yet, you shitty fucking phony?"

Izuku scowls. "I am Midoriya Izuku. You just can't accept it."

"No, you aren't. Honestly, you're way more like that creepy-ass hand fucker. Or that stupid, heart-eyed vampire chick. Or maybe…" Recognition lights Katsuki's face. Recognition that makes Izuku’s skin crawl.

Before Izuku has a chance to react, Katsuki makes a dive for his hands. In one swift, fluid motion, Izuku's right glove is gone. For a moment, he doesn’t look down. He doesn't want to. But then he hears Katsuki's strangled gasp, and suddenly, he can't control his eyes. They meet with the unthinkable.

A hole marks Izuku's hand, positioned exactly dead-center in the hollow of his palm.

"Holy shit," Katsuki breathes, and for a moment the world is still. Then, Izuku blurs into motion, and suddenly, it isn't.

The fear takes over, he thinks. The fear of being discovered. Of being known. Seen. Compared. Ridiculed. Judged. Outcast. Ostracized.

This is the difference between the other villains and All For One, right in Izuku’s palms, and he wants all evidence of it gone. His arm reaches out and latches onto Katsuki's, automatically, instinctively, and he can feel something occur. A transfer.

He drops Katsuki's arm, raising his palm to rest beneath his face. He wills an explosion into being. There isn't much sweat on his palm, but there's enough.

Izuku stole Katsuki's quirk. And it felt right .

" Give it back ," Katsuki growls, his voice all venom and no caution. "Give it back right the fuck now ."

Izuku is hyperventilating now, he can feel it. The enormity of his actions comes crashing down on him, his ego-fueled, grandiose speech, the threats, the lies, all designed to hurt, to destroy, the way he's taken to manipulating, to controlling, the bitter resentment he now holds for heroes, the fact that he stole a quirk, the holes in the centers of his palms.

The holes in the centers of his palms .

And Izuku is back to himself.

"Kacchan, I'm so sorry, I swear I didn't–"

"Don't," Kacchan barks, "don't you dare pull that Kacchan shit with me! Don't pretend to be him, don't play stupid, and definitely don't lie, just give me my quirk back right the fuck now!"

"I'm not pretending, I'm just as terrified as you! You're right, I'm not acting like I should, I'm not–"

But no one ever tried to rehabilitate him, did they? To save him? He was different from Shigaraki Tomura somehow, that's what they all said, but what was the deciding factor, really?

Do you… do you see it in me?

What had Izuku originally intended to initiate by sticking around after class? A confrontation, obviously, but what kind?

He thinks back to the rage he'd acted on, sharp and searing. To the desire that had overtaken him, to hurt, to hollow, to humiliate. Completely remorseless. Comprehending, but uncaring.

Some part of him, however small, had known he could take Kacchan's quirk. Had wanted to. Had planned to. And he's still not certain he feels any disgust for the desire, only the way that it reflects back on him. The mirror it puts to his face.

No one had wanted to save All For One. No one had even considered him worth saving.

Do you?

"I'll give it back, Kacchan! I promise I'll give it back! But you can't tell anyone else about this, not until I've fixed it, you can't–"

"Oh no, you don't have any right to tell me what I can and can't do! We are so far past the bargaining phase at this point, asshole!"

Now it's Kacchan's turn to advance on Izuku, brow furrowed and eyes alight like blazing twin flames.

"In what fucking universe would I have even a single reason to keep this to myself? I'm telling everyone . You can't walk away from this. Now. Give me back my quirk."

Izuku’s heart beats a rapid, wild pulse in his chest, breath escaping in strangled, compact whisps. Izuku is just like his father, is bitter, and angry, and villainous, and irredeemable, and now, everyone is going to know, and he can't do a thing to stop it.

Except… he can, can't he? He does still have Katsuki's quirk, after all, and the climate of the locker room is far from cool.

"Make me," Izuku challenges, stepping out of the corner and directly into the line of a camera.

And as Danger Sense so politely telegraphs, Katsuki does.

The punch lands on Izuku’s chest, and when it does, he raises his hand to meet it. The explosion isn't big. Isn't impressive. Isn't even really all that painful, outside of the initial impact.

But to all outward appearances, Izuku is certain it looks as though Katsuki used it on him, outside of a sanctioned setting, while both were wearing their school uniforms, and better yet, the attack was completely one-sided. Izuku didn't even fight back.

"What the–”

"Hey! Midoriya, Bakugo, are you guys still in there? Class started back up, like, ten minutes ago, and–" Sero freezes in the doorway. "Holy shit. Midoriya, are you okay?"

Sero's eyes flash from Katsuki, still standing slanted with fist extended, to Izuku, lying on the floor in a shirt charred and torn to reveal a quickly purpling bruise.

"Bakugo, what the fuck?"

"That isn't Izuku!" Katsuki is quick to insist, pointing at his injured classmate. "Either he's possessed, or he's been replaced, or something, but that isn't him! You know he's been acting weird as hell for the past two weeks, you guys can't fucking shut up about it! Like I said, there's a reason for it, and–"

"Yeah, and that reason is because he just got back from fighting a fucking war! Jesus Christ, Bakugo, show some tact for once. I seriously have no idea why this needs to be said, but you can't just go around assaulting people for processing shit in a different way than you do. Get the fuck over yourself."

Izuku must look nothing short of panicked, because when Sero walks over to offer him a hand up, his expression is absolutely brimming with concern. "I'm so sorry about this, Midoriya. I mean Bakugo’s been acting a little off for awhile now, but I never thought he'd-"

"Don't touch him!" Katsuki extends a hand outward, as if in demonstration. "He's dangerous, he took my–"

Brilliant, miniature explosions spark to life on the surface of Katsuki’s palm, dancing with the same force and fury as always. His eyes go wide before swiftly narrowing, their pupils lowering to meet Izuku’s. There's ire in them, certainly, but relief too.

"You brushed my hand during the punch, didn't you?"

"What? What does that have to do with anything?" Sero blinks, gaze vacillating rapidly between his two classmates. "What did Izuku take from you?"

"I didn't take anything." 

Izuku’s bare hand curls inward as his gloved one rises to accept Sero's. He can feel the other boy's quirk writhing beneath his skin now, more solid and stubborn than Katsuki's. The difference between mutation and emitter, he thinks.

And a part of it calls out to him, low and primal. He can take it, if he wants it. One glove is already gone. So easy. Too easy.

He snatches his hand away as if burned, breath returning to the familiar sharp and swift staccato of a panic attack. Katsuki is wrong. He isn't his father. He doesn't steal quirks, doesn't lie, doesn't act on selfish instinct, doesn't deserve to be killed.

But he did just take a quirk, didn't he? And in the moment, when a choice needed to be made, he'd caused the explosion, given back the quirk, and even now he's feeding into the lie.

He can set it right now, can tell the truth, but then he thinks of his hands, hands perforated with twin holes as dark as voids and twice as empty, and his mouth refuses to budge.

They'll hate him if they find out. They'll ridicule him, and cast him out, and maybe – maybe – even kill him. Because that was what he'd done, wasn't it? Kill a monster – no, a human, a living, breathing human – for being exactly what he is now. What he possibly always has been.

What he'd do absolutely anything not to be.

"I didn't… I didn't mean to take anything," he reiterates, this time with palpable guilt in his voice. He meets Katsuki's eyes, his own wide and pleading. "I'm sorry."

Katsuki scowls. Then, evidently unable to contain his growing anger, advances, slamming Izuku's torso against a line of lockers with a resounding clang.

"Hey!" Someone barks from the locker room doorway. And this time, it isn't a student. Aizawa. "I don't know what's going on here but I do know that it needs to stop. Back away from Midoriya."

Katsuki doesn't budge. "You don't understand, this isn't–"

"Bakugo attacked Midoriya," Sero supplies, "twice."

"Release Midoriya, Bakugo."

"But–"

" Now ."

Heads peek in from either side of Aizawa's frame, likely drawn by curiosity at the combined sounds of yelling and physical impact. Most are from Class 1A, though a considerable enough number aren't.

"You're coming with me to the principal's office. Can someone walk Midoriya to the nurse?"

A hand raises at Aizawa's side. Uraraka.

"Now that that's sorted… get back to class." Aizawa turns to glower down at a crowd of wide-eyed first years. "That order was for all of you."

They immediately scatter.

Izuku retrieves his glove, sliding it securely back into place, while Katsuki is led away by the arm. Incredibly unfair on all accounts, the fact that the unequivocal antagonist escapes scott-free while the hero who sniffed him out is punished.

As Izuku watches Katsuki depart, he feels something work a slow, agonizing cavity into the core of his chest. Guilt. And suddenly, he can't look away.

"Deku?"

He feels a hand on his shoulder. Uraraka's this time, not The First's.

The emotion dissipates all the same. Like it was never even there to begin with.

"Sorry." He turns. The nurse's office is in the opposite direction. "I just feel… bad. That's all."

"Yeah." Uraraka grants him a sympathetic nod. Oddly enough, he senses guilt in it, too. "I know."

—

"We knew you weren't okay," Uraraka states simply. Unflinchingly. Her eyes swim with a deep and utter sort of regret. "I mean what with all the weird things you said, and then the crazy two-day quirk phase, like you were trying so hard to distract yourself from something. But…"

"But?"

Uraraka shifts uncomfortably atop the thin white sheets of the nurse's office bed, biting her lip in a blatant show of hesitancy.

"But you've felt so… distant. After all of this. Not just emotionally distant, though that too, definitely that too. But also… distant in the same way as All Might."

Izuku feels the bridge of his nose crease. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're, like…" Uraraka gesticulates vaguely, hands circling each other like twin satellites above an imperceptible Earth. It takes her a moment to find the words she's searching for. "On another level,  somehow? You're the guy who saved the world. I mean… approaching you about your personal issues, asking you to go to the school counselor… it might sound ridiculous, but it seemed too intimidating. Like we needed you to come to us, or at the very least meet us in the middle."

I don't believe villains are the only ones the public views as inalienably other. You've experienced it yourself, haven't you? The transition from human to hero?

"We should've tried to help, I know that, but well… it was just difficult to believe that you of all people would need it. You used to cry so much, you know, but recently, you've seemed invincible. Like nothing can shake you. So when you started acting okay again, we all thought you'd worked through it by yourself somehow. That you were better. Except for Bakugo, I guess. He really did think you were invincible. Obviously, he had no idea how to handle anything that suggested otherwise. But I get it. You're a hero before you're anything else right? That's how you've always acted, at least. And I think we all have a tendency to assume that heroes are just heroes sometimes."

All Might never truly possessed an identity outside of heroics, you know. No family, no friends, no hobbies… he's a living legacy. A martyr. And you've spent the past year attempting to become him. What does that make you?

"But that isn't true. Heroes are just as vulnerable as anyone else, I know that now because I am one. And you were obviously suffering. Us ignoring that, well… that's unforgivable."

She swallows visibly, staring down at the hands folded neatly in the cradle of her lap. A long beat of unblemished silence passes. Then, she raises her head.

"Deku? You aren't… you aren't saying anything. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Izuku blinks. "I'm…"

Not a human, but a monster.

And who's fault is that?

In the calm of the nurse's office, Izuku is finally able to consider the realization that fell upon him in the locker room, in the moment that Katsuki had torn away his glove. And he doesn't like the implications of it. Not one bit.

Izuku has All For One, a development that intrinsically cannot be genetic based on both its timing and gradual onset. The day that Izuku’s problems began, the day that he'd begun slipping from contentment to resentment, he'd felt a hand on his arm. Something had transferred.

He recalls Shigaraki's predicament. The way he'd changed, slowly yet wholly. He'd admitted that he still felt wrong even after All For One had been expelled, a stranger in his own skin beset by thoughts that to him appeared indistinguishable to his own but according to others, weren’t. He'd been irreversibly changed.

Izuku feels a shiver run down his spine.

He should tell Uraraka. He really should. But if his theory holds true, then he really is like his father, far more than even genetics or nurture can account for. And based on the things Shigaraki said to him, before he was carted away for rehabilitation, Izuku isn't certain that whatever impact he's left will ever go away.

Izuku may despise heroes forever, may manipulate, and lie, and cheat, may act selfishly, may want to steal quirks – holy shit, does he love stealing quirks, and he's only ever done it once – even if he never acts on the impulse, may never have any passion for the life he's locked himself into again. And he may never even recognize the difference when he does.

He's been infected. Invaded.

And if he tells Uraraka, if he gives into guilt and lets Katsuki – Kacchan, he always used to call him Kacchan even if it does sound juvenile, and ridiculous, and embarrassing to him now, it didn't used to – off the hook, if he shows anyone his palms, then they'll all know.

He already isn't human. But no one else needs to see where he falls on the scale of monster to hero.

Izuku can fix this himself. He has to.

And he needs to do so before things get any worse. If he stops this now, while it's new and clean, he can still be what he's always wanted to be, even if he may never actually want it again.

Better that than the alternative.

"I'm not fine, actually. I need to be alone right now. I… have to check something."

Uraraka blinks, mouth twisting into an injured frown. "Oh. I understand. Just… know that I'm here for you if you need me, and… if you don't want my help, please accept someone else's. Okay?"

"Okay."

—

"First?"

Izuku enunciates the word like it's a bomb. Like one wrong move could shake it. Set it off. Tentative, that's what he is. Too, tentative, maybe.

He receives no answer.

"First," Izuku repeats, this time louder and with more urgency, "I need to talk to you."

Nothing responds save the low, background whirr of the dorm building's ac unit. Izuku gulps.

He knows this confrontation is inevitable. He can feel it in his bones. Either The First is who he says he is, or… he isn't. 

Izuku recalls what he'd seen when he'd visited Shigaraki's mindscape in the early stages of the war. All For One hovering over the younger villain's shoulders – his shoulders, the same place where The First always places a hand – and delivering suggestions. Dogmas. Commands.

But Izuku trusts The First. He's supported Izuku through all this, hasn't he? Always saying just the right things at just the right times, giving voice to the thoughts Izuku can't quite manage to articulate. Always so supportive, so relatable, so accessible. Maybe too much so.

Did the other vestiges truly leave, or had some worse fate befallen them in the void?

No, Izuku doesn’t trust The First. But he desperately wants to.

"Fir-"

Something flashes in front of Izuku’s vision. The same figure from all those days ago, still transparent, still blurry, but now more defined than ever.

The First.

And this time, when he mouths something to Izuku, the latter understands. Eighth, the soundless lips insist, all urgency and haste. They blur out of focus. Then, a moment later, again they appear, mouthing a clear repetition. Eighth.

The next moment, the apparition is gone. And Izuku is completely alone. Without a second thought, he rushes out the door. He needs to speak with All Might.

—

We need to talk ASAP. Emergency. Somewhere secluded. Office unlocked?

That was all Izuku had texted All Might prior to cloistering himself in the hero's empty office, door locked and legs pressed to his chest atop the surface of one of the room's admittedly stiff guest armchairs.

He hadn't been able to check his phone until nearly ten minutes after sending, hands shaking and stomach churning, but eventually, he'd managed. According to the app's helpful timestamp, All Might's response had been near-instantaneous.

Yes. Go there and stay put. On my way.

Now, Izuku waits, locked in a prison of dreadful anticipation and ominous silence. No more strange visions of The First, transparent and wispy. No more insidious, corrupting monologues from someone who looks like him, but oh so clearly isn't. No more intrusions.

Just still calm. The kind that hangs in the air just before the moment when the other shoe drops. When the world comes crashing down.

Then, the door opens and All Might rushes in looking a complete and utter wreck, not just in expression, but in dress as well, hair unbrushed and clothing lacking any reasonable color scheme or planning. He must've been at home when Izuku called, enjoying his retirement, or more likely, only trying to.

Izuku can't help but feel a small sting of disdain at that. All Might doesn't deserve to relax, to retire, not after all of the people he's duped into accepting a flawed system, a flawed reality, so willingly. A symbol of peace, but also a symbol of complacency. Of falsehood. Of failure.

And even now he isn't human. Isn't real. No hobbies, no friends, no life, outside of the shadows that have been left to him in the wake of heroics. All Might may not have died, but he's still a martyr.

No identity outside of heroics. Just like Izuku.

No.

All Might came here to help him. Dropped everything at a moment's notice. He cares, and that means something.

Cares for his legacy, more like. His quirk.

And Izuku. As far as he knows, All For One is dead. His legacy is secured. He's here for Izuku now, not for One For All, and not for the symbol of peace.

But is Izuku even really anything more than the next symbol of peace to begin with? Is there even a person there for All Might to care for? And if there is, does that person still exist, or are they irrevocably altered? A warped reflection of what was once loved, once cherished?

Does whatever trait had set All For One apart from the others, had made him unreachable to the side of heroics, exist inside Izuku now? Is he capable of being saved? Is he worth it?

Does he want to be?

"Midoriya, my boy, are you alright?"

Izuku flinches at the nickname. An obvious indicator of youth following a possessive. It doesn't sit right with him somehow, though he knows he used to welcome it. Used to find it flattering.

"I came as soon as I could. I know we haven't spoken in the past few weeks, and I'm sorry for that, but I just assumed–"

"That I was busy? Yeah." Izuku pulls his arms to his chest, suddenly reserved.

"Well, yes, that. And… that you needed your space, too. You usually contact me first, and– well, none of that is important right now. What's wrong? Tell me everything."

There must be something telling in Izuku’s expression, because All Might moves to comfort him, hand reaching out for his shoulder. Before the limb can make contact, Izuku flinches away.

All Might blinks, obviously taken aback. "I'm sorry, I–"

"Sit down," Izuku orders, gesturing to the chair opposite his own with a nod. He makes a split second decision. "I'll tell you everything, but… I need to ask you some questions first."

"Alright." All Might sits, face pale. "Questions about what?"

"All For One."

It's All Might's turn to flinch. "Midoriya, why-"

"This relates to the emergency, just…" Izuku waves a hand dismissively through the air. "Just humor me for a minute."

"Does this have something to do with him? If that's the case, then you need to tell me. If he did something during your fight, anything-"

"Shut up." If All Might looked taken aback before, now he appears to be at a complete loss. "I mean just… wait. For now. I'll tell you everything in a minute. After you answer the questions."

If I decide I can trust you with the truth.

Tentatively and with the very same voice Izuku is certain he's heard him use with trauma victims, All Might responds. "Sure, kid. Go ahead."

"What made All For One unsalvageable?" The words come out in one quick, rapidfire burst, tripping over each other in their rush to exit his mouth. "What was the defining factor?"

All Might blinks. "I understand that doing what you did must've been difficult, but–"

"This isn't about that," Izuku snaps, "just answer the question."

"Well, I'm not certain there was any one, definitive factor." All Might's voice is gentle. Cautious. He thinks he's got Izuku’s problem pegged. Izuku wishes he were right. "It was the culmination of a number of failures of character. He viewed people as dispensable, for one thing, tools to abandon or discard when their usefulness had been outlived.”

Heroes aren't infallible bastions of moral purity, they're tools used to enact the unspoken threats leveled upon those who refuse to conform. Weapons. As long as a gun operates under the conditions you require it to, you don't ask anything more of it.

Enlist them now, but prepare for their inevitable betrayal come future unrest. Easy.

“He was cynical, I think. Defeatist. It wasn't just that he abhorred the idea of a peaceful society, he didn't believe that such a society was possible to begin with. When we fought he'd always question the efficacy of the Hero Public Safety Commission, of heroes driven by personal gain rather than the implementation of ethics, unable to see any good in a system far too complex to completely eliminate the possibility of internal moral decay.”

Heroes, that’s what his friends want to talk about. Men and women running around in colorful costumes and smiling for expensive cameras as they place bandaid upon bandaid on society’s wounds, all the while insisting, cheerfully, that none of them exist to begin with. 

Inconsequential at best and actively harmful at worst. Militant peacekeepers wrapped in the alluring veneer of consumerism and sold to the public like the action figures they so selfishly produce.

“He was selfish. Manipulative. It wasn't enough that he ruined his own chance at happiness, he had to drag everyone he could down with him. Take advantage of their insecurities. Whisper falsehoods in their ears. Bring them to his level.”

Most people are easy to fix, he finds. All you have to do is discover a tactic that works. Uraraka responds well to flattery, Iida to logical appeals, Yaoyorozu to backhanded compliments, Jiro to subtle mentions of insecurities, and Todoroki to blunt commentary. 

While the method may vary from person to person, the result doesn't. Izuku is very good at making people into what they need to be.

“He was always so… sadistic. It was like a game to him, tearing people down and watching them struggle to pick up the pieces. He wanted to watch people hurt. Reveled in it. It didn't matter if they were his allies or his enemies, his intentions were always the same.”

He's a breath away from Katsuki's face now. He can see the minutiae of his expression. The way his pupils rove back and forth with poorly concealed panic. The way the corners of his mouth twitch, fighting, violently, to maintain a neutral line in the face of complete and total devastation. The way his muscles tense, strained with an anticipation born entirely of fear.

Izuku's smile isn't a performance anymore. Now, it's real.

“He had so many opportunities to change. To better himself. But he didn't. Every time he could've spared someone, he backslid. Every time he was offered the chance to express mercy, he denied it.”

But he did just take a quirk, didn't he? And in the moment, when a choice needed to be made, he'd caused the explosion, given back the quirk, and even now he's feeding into the lie.

He can set it right now, can tell the truth, but then he thinks of his hands, hands perforated with twin holes as dark as voids and twice as empty, and his mouth refuses to budge.

“I know your primary directive has always been to save, kid. It's one of the things I admire most about you. But your inability to help All For One wasn't a failure, or a shortcoming, or whatever else you've convinced yourself it was. It was a necessity. It's a hard truth, certainly, but some people simply can't be rescued.”

Some people. People like All For One. People like Izuku.

You got rid of him, Shigaraki had whispered, troubled, as cuffs were applied to his unsteady wrists, but he's still here. Not literally, but… I still think like him. Still wanna steal your dumbshit quirk. I wouldn't even be able to tell the difference if it weren't for the memories I have. They say I wouldn't have any reason to want to. I think whatever he did might've fucked me up forever, and it's driving me crazy. Makes me wanna scratch my neck raw. Except I won't, because a part of me keeps thinking about shit like presentability, and public image, and the fact that you could see the marks over a shirt collar. 

He'd looked so empty then. So lost.

Still dunno if that part’s him.

For the first time in a long time Izuku feels tears well up in his eyes. Feels his body tremble, and his heart leap, and his lungs fumble the breath fighting to escape his throat. Hears himself whimper.

“Hey, hey.” All Might rises to approach him, and before he can protest, he's been pulled into a tight, comforting embrace.

A hug. From All Might. He might just sing. He might just hurl. He might just scream, and flail, and ran his head into a wall, and jump off a building, and– and– and–

All he actually does is cry.

“It's alright, kid. It's okay. Let it out.” All Might smoothes down Izuku's hair with a steady hand. Like he understands what his successor is going through. Like he cares. “I'm here.”

“Did you hate him?” The words surprise Izuku as much as they evidently surprise All Might, shock making itself known in the hitch of his breath. “Do you really think the only possible absolution for him was death, or are you just saying that because you think it's what I want to hear? What if… what if…”

A mangled sniffle.

“What if I were like that? Like him? What if I were selfish, and sadistic, and manipulative, and stubborn, and cruel? What if I didn't want to be a hero anymore? If I lost my faith in heroics entirely? If I… if I began to resent you? Would I be worth saving? Would you hate me too?”

There isn't even a breath between question and response. All Might answers immediately. Intuitively. Genuinely.

“Of course I wouldn't hate you.” 

And Izuku's heart soars. But only for the briefest of moments. There's an entire universe of disparity between an ignorant answer and an educated one.

“Why?” He asks, pulling away. He studies All Might’s wide, earnest eyes. The concern plain in the slant of his mouth. “Why wouldn't you hate me? Because you know me?”

“In part, yes, but also… well, Midoriya, you're you. I know there'd be some way of fixing you, of pulling you back from it, that before you were resentful, you weren't, and that something very painful must've happened to you to make you that way.”

“That isn't good enough.” He's grimacing now, tears sliding down the plane of bitter, twisted lips. Why anger? Why is it always anger that rises to the surface in situations like these? “That's weak, it's conditional, it's disingenuous, it's–”

“Kid, please,” All Might says, growing alarm evident as his eyes scan Izuku's face, “calm down for a moment and talk to me. I can't give you an educated response until I know the context behind the question. What's really going on here?”

“This.” The gloves fall to the carpet. Izuku raises his open palms to his chest, his monstrous, guilty palms, and watches as the muscles in All Might's body tense. “This is what's going on.”

“Shit.”

“I should've told you sooner, I know, and I would've, but All Might, he's in my head, he's in my head and I'm thinking like him, acting like him, speaking like him, and I can't help it, can't stop it, can't even tell the difference, most of the time, between him and me, I'm not even sure there is a difference anymore, I'm–”

“Calm down, kid,” All Might says again, very obviously panicked. His hands shake as he places them on Izuku's shoulders, as he kneels down to look him in the eye. “We're going to figure this out, we're going to fix this, we just need to get you help. Aizawa, maybe, or Eri, or… or… someone. You'll be back to yourself in no time.”

“But what if I'm not?” he breathes, eyes glued to the ground, “this happened to Shigaraki too and he told me it wasn't getting better. All for One changed him, and he wasn't changing back. What if we get him out again, and I'm still… this? What then?”

“I–”

“I know, I know. You said you'd help me, that you'd try to fix it, that you'd still care, but did you mean it? You're not in my head right now, you don't know the kinds of things I'm thinking. How hard it is for me not to hate you. I can lie without remorse now. I got Katsuki sent to the principal’s office for something he didn't do, and thinking back on it, it's hard not to be proud. I have a whole notebook chapter outlining every way my friends could kill someone with their quirks. I'm pretty sure Yaoyorozu is going to need therapy to get over some of the complexes I gave her. Everything I touch I'm compelled to either control or destroy, and it's so unimaginably difficult to feel bad about any of it.”

“But you're reaching out to me,” All Might says, grip on Izuku's shoulders tightening, “you're seeking help, and owning up to your mistakes, and trying to get better, and it doesn't matter how long it took you to get to that point, not one bit. You're fighting this. That's how I know you're still you. Okay?”

Izuku bites his lip, mulling the explanation over in his head. Is the fact that he doesn't want to be his father really enough to prove that he isn't him already? That he wasn't always like him to begin with?

If there's one thing he's learned since all of this started, it's that whoever All for One was, really was, beneath the bravado, and the grandeur, and the showmanship, he was absolutely, irrefutably miserable. Did he want to be himself either? Would anyone?

All Might had said that if Izuku were ever so self-centered, he'd assume that something horrible had occurred to make him that way. Had something horrible happened to All for One, too? So horrible that he wouldn't seek out help? So horrible that it accounts for the differences between himself and Izuku that genetics can’t?

Izuku makes a split second decision. He'll never really know if he can be saved until he allows the people he cares about to try. That's his lifeline now, the fact that he's actively seeking help. That he wants it. So he nods. 

“Okay.”

It all happens over the course of a few seconds.

Izuku feels a strange, unrecognizable pang in his chest. Looks down. Something sharp, and spiraled, and thin extends out from his collarbone. Pierces All Might between the upper ribs. Retracts, gore-stained and bloody.

All Might blinks, evidently shocked. Looks down. Releases Izuku's shoulder to feel at the growing bloodstain on his shirt.

“Fuck,” he says, eloquently, as he collapses to the floor. Izuku couldn't agree more, especially once he raises his head to see, looming ominously over the still bleeding figure of his fallen mentor, the vestige of All for One.

He looks like Izuku's father, still. Wears his face. It's enough to make Izuku's heart hammer against the confines of his ribcage. To make his breath hitch. To bring that horrible, startling realization to the forefront of his mind. Sometimes a thing isn't real until the proof is standing right in front of your face.

Izuku killed his father. He killed his father, and now he's being haunted by him.

“All Might.” Izuku stumbles back, almost tripping over the office carpet in his haste. “All Might, he's here. I didn't do that, I think he did. He's smiling, he–”

“Ignore him,” All Might grunts. Izuku vaguely registers the fact that his attack missed his mentor's heart and lungs. He's bleeding out, sure, but slowly. Slowly enough that he can be helped. “He's trying to distract you. Call Recovery Girl immediately and tell her everything. She'll bring Aizawa and they'll get this sorted. There's absolutely no reason to panic. He isn't physically here, and he can't do anything that you don't empower him to. I'll be alright, and so will you. Remaining calm is key.”

“Izuku.” All for One's voice–his father's voice–resounds through his skull like surround sound. So much louder than All Might’s. So much more familiar. “You poor, poor thing. He really has managed to convince you, hasn't he? That he's capable of forgiving what you are. That anyone is.”

“Shut up.” Izuku removes his cell phone from his pocket, but he doesn't bring up the dial screen. He's far too afraid to take his eyes off his father. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Oh, but I do.” A sympathetic frown. “I understand you in a way no one else living or dead is currently or ever will be capable. I know what it means to be ostracized. Abhorred. Unforgivable. Monstrous. We’re one and the same, you and I. You're my son.”

“Don't call me that,” Izuku growls, “don't you fucking dare.”

“Look, kid, I have no idea what he's saying to you, but please remember we need to stay on task. I'm trying to tourniquet this, but I'm not exactly well-supplied here.” Izuku's eyes flash, briefly, to All Might. He's pale. Slumped. Shaking.

“I'm sorry, All Might, I just–”

“Do you really think they'll forgive you after this? After learning what you are? Even if All Might’s reassurances were born of concern rather than fear, he didn't know the truth when he delivered them. That you're enjoying his fretful, squirming attempts at survival. That you don't regret impaling him in the least. That you revel in the power of holding him under your thumb.”

“You're making me feel those things, you're messing with me, with my head, you're–”

“Even if he somehow finds it in his heart to forgive you, what of the others? How do you think your teachers will react when they learn what you've done? What about your classmates? How many will desire to remain in the orbit of a liar? A megalomaniac?” The specter's eyes flash to the pool of blood on the floor. “A killer?”

A sharp exhale. The words hit home. His eyes flash down to the residual blood coating his chest. The hole in his shirt. “I'm not going to… I won't…” He swallows. “You don't know them.”

A grunt from All Might. He's managed to staunch the flow of blood, but it's rough. Clumsy. It won't hold long. His own cell is on the coffee table. Out of reach, in his current state of limited mobility. “Kid, please. I don't want to rush you, but we don't have all day.”

“I do know them, Izuku. I've known them my entire life. How do you suspect my peers treated me, when I was your age? When I acted as myself instead of donning the palatable, conformist mask they anticipated? You've known it all this time, haven't you, intrinsically, that were you not to sand down your sharper edges, not to curb your more natural tendencies, that they would detest you? Fear you. There's a reason you've been concealing your fangs.”

“They're not my tendencies to begin with,” Izuku sputters, anger boiling over and infesting his words with hot, biting malice, “they're yours. You're the one who made me like this, you're the one who made me unforgivable, and you have no right to act as if any of this was unavoidable! This, all of this, is your fault!”

All for One doesn't flinch at the rise in volume. Just smiles, sweet and gentle. “There seems to be a minor misunderstanding at play. While I may have amplified your feelings of resentment, they've existed within you for quite some time. As has your pride, your cruelty, your desire for control… I raised you, Izuku. I would know.”

“You're wrong.” 

The words are more a bark than a yell, caustic and guttural, grating against the walls of his throat. Maybe it's because, as much as he's certain that his father is wrong, that he never felt these things prior to his intervention, that he used to be normal, or at least something approaching it, he can't for the life of him be certain.

His memories feel so alien to him now, so distant from the person he's become that they twist and melt in his grasp like water, intangible. He can't comprehend them in the same way he used to, but when tries, they blur and shift, unclarity allowing for interpretation. For insertion.

Maybe Izuku had been bitter and resentful when he'd seen what the heroes had done to Nagant. He relates well enough to it now, the feeling of having been used. 

Maybe he'd only ever saved Eri out of practicality, a desire to preserve a useful quirk, and the protectiveness he feels for her now, the desire for control, had followed naturally. 

Maybe he's harbored the desire for revenge against Katsuki since his childhood, playing a long con until he wrenched out an apology he could redirect, could repurpose into a weapon, a blunt instrument suited perfectly to the purpose of schadenfreude.

Maybe he really is his father's son.

But he can't be sure.

All Might sees something worth salvaging in him. He's reaching out. That means something, doesn't it?

“Why are you doing this to me?” He quite nearly whimpers from the oppressive weight of obscure, half-sung memories bearing down on his shoulders. The pressure of painful unknowns. “You planned this, all along you planned this, or you wouldn't have thrown our fight. Wouldn't have let me… let me kill you. Why?”

“You've convinced yourself I never cared for you, haven't you? That I never cared for your mother?” All for One's voice is so steady. So soft. So calm. How can it be so calm? “But you know that isn't true. I did hold back during our fight, Izuku, and not for my sake, but for yours. All I've done has been for your benefit.”

“Midoriya, don't listen to him, he's–”

“In the same way it was for Shigaraki’s?” His voice shakes almost as much as his hands. Almost as much as All Might, inching his way across the floor to the coffee table with wary, pained motions. “You're planning on taking over my body, aren't you? You realized you were losing so you decided to jump ship to a new host, and that host was me. You're using me just like you use everyone. I know you are.”

“But I'm not. Izuku, if I truly desired to erase you, I could've done so long ago. It only took me a day to fully overtake Tomura. You've been yourself for weeks. Or– some variation of yourself, at least. I will admit to meddling, a tad, but with purpose. You're my son. I love you.”

Something stirs in Izuku's chest, violent, and vital, and voracious. It's longing, he thinks. To be accepted by someone, unconditionally, as the thing he is now. To not have to worry about performance, or posturing, or platitudes. To be loved as he is, as he possibly always will be, while simultaneously being known. Understood.

He pushes the feeling down. Sucks in a breath. Bears his teeth.

“Bullshit.” So empty. So harsh. So grating. “You’re lying. You'll say whatever you can to keep me from helping All Might. You don't care, or you never would've isolated me like this.”

“Ah, but I know you see the fallacy in that. We're so very similar, you and I. You must understand then, how I value my family. How I long for an equal. Someone who knows the way I think and feel, who does more than fear, or barter, or admire, but understands. I'd always hoped that Yoichi could fill that void, considering the depth of our shared experience. Show me the comprehension I so craved. But like all the rest, he proved unable. My followers worship an idol. Your mother, as lovely as she is, as valuable, is enamored with a web of falsehoods. But you… you're capable of more.”

“I…” Izuku sucks in a breath. “I don't want to be. People hate you, I hate you, hate myself for being like you, I–”

“Why?” 

All for One steps forward. Izuku doesn't step back. He's too scared too, maybe. Too panicked. 

Or maybe he wants his father to come closer. Wants to read the look on his face. The motion of his outstretched hands. Wants to see his eyes. Wants to find compassion in their depths. Understanding. 

Maybe.

“You've wondered, haven't you, if I have a reason for being as I am? I do and more, but if I didn't, would it matter? Izuku, whether or not something occurred to make us this way, this is what we are. What we always will be. Are we undeserving of happiness, simply by merit of our singularity? People like us aren't given empathy, son, we have to take it. If you remain here, with them, they'll imprison you. Poke and prod at you. Try, in vain, to fix you. And once they realize you're unsalvageable? Once they discover the truth of the metamorphosis you've undergone? Our blood relation? They'll dispose of you, just as they disposed of me. You're a cog, Izuku, and you no longer match the machine you were designed for. Heroes are tools, yes? And what do we do with broken tools?”

“We…” Bile rises in Izuku's throat as his father approaches ever closer. He swallows it down. “They let me kill you. They endorsed it. No one thinks it was wrong. No one. Not even…”

“You're not him, kid.” All Might has fallen to the floor again, panting as the makeshift bandages around his chest cloud with blood. His health was already so poor to begin with. A part of Izuku's mind can't help but find it pathetic, his struggle. Amusing. “No one is going to hurt you. So many people care about you. Whatever this is, it isn't going to change that.”

“But if you follow me, I can grant you a new purpose. One more suited to your current worldview. The Doctor has yet concealed labs, you know, labs whose locations he would never betray under questioning. We'll locate a new, more suitable host to receive my consciousness, then perform the proper procedures. Under my instruction, you'll be more than capable.”

Izuku knows it's true. He's incredibly intelligent, incredibly resourceful, if he wanted to bring his father back, he could.

“You desire to protect your friends, don't you? To place them on the proper path? To ensure their eternal loyalty? To keep them close, even after they discover what you are? How you view them; naive, foolish, inherently lesser, but all the more endearing for it? A socially unacceptable desire, but a noble one. Together, we could create the kind of world where such profound interpersonal control is possible. Acceptable. We can save them, Izuku, from themselves. Your friends, your mentors, your mother… she would be so happy, wouldn't she, to be reunited with her family in full? We could give her the world, you and I. With our quirks combined, all we'd have to do is take it.”

Does Izuku really want that? Unparalleled power? Complete control?

He does, he realizes. Of course he does. But more than either of those things, more than anything, he wants to ensure that his friends won't leave him. Can't leave him. Can't resent him, or betray him, or fear him in the way they should. The way they will, if things don't change.

Izuku had been lonely his entire life, before Yuuei. Before he became someone. Something. A hero. He can't lose that. Can't backslide into isolation. Into obscurity. 

Even if the relationships are tenuous, even if his friends don't understand him, can't understand him, not now, not anymore, they're there. He can keep them, if he's willing to go to extremes. He can make them understand, or at the very least stay. He can still be something, even if that something isn't a hero.

And his father would understand him, wouldn't he? This is by design, certainly. The result of careful planning. Of manipulation. But can what his father's done to him really be so heinous if he, placed in an identical position, would do the same himself?

Izuku wants to be known. So, so very badly he wants to be known. Known and loved in spite of it. He doesn't just pity his father, he emphasizes with him, comprehends the terror of ostracization, the alienation of being different, other, inhuman.

He could conquer the entire world, grant it all that it desired, force it to kneel at his feet, and still not be loved. Not in a way resembling anything more than blind, fanatical idolization. Not in a way that matters. To have someone capable of caring for him, even one, singular person, would be invaluable then, wouldn't it? Would he ruin the future of an innocent to achieve that level of happiness? Of acceptance?

Yes. Yes, a million times over. It's hardly even a question.

Izuku realizes, then, that he loves his father. He has to. Because if he isn't capable of loving his own reflection, dark, and shattered, and twisted as it may be, but his all the same, then who in the world could ever manage the gargantuan feat of loving him?

“You promise that you won't overtake me? That you'll let me maintain my autonomy?”

“Think, Izuku. Would you ever erase yourself, were you in my position?”

“No.” Izuku shakes his head. “My individuality is what grants me value. You might've changed me, but not beyond recognition. You want affirmation from a separate source. Informed, consensual compliance from a person, not a puppet.” Izuku feels, for the second time that day, tears form in his eyes. “You really mean it, don't you? That you care about me?”

“Midoriya, step away. Please. He's manipulating you, you know he is.” All Might is desperate now. Begging. Izuku recalls their first meeting. It's almost funny, how dramatically the tables have turned. How much joy Izuku finds himself subconsciously taking in the reversal.

Comical and deeply, horribly, gut-wrenchingly sad.

“As I've said…” A smile graces All for One's face, welcoming and unimaginably warm. As genuine as a smile can be, considering its source. Which is to say, hardly genuine at all. But it's fine. Sometimes–all the time–vulnerability is difficult. Izuku knows. He understands. He's the same, after all. “You're my son.”

Izuku basks in that for a moment. Lets the comfort of it soak into his bones. Makes a shroud from its security. He's wanted. He's cared for. He's known.

It feels like something he's desired for a very, very long time. Longer than he's been alive, maybe. Longer than anyone has.

He picks up All Might's phone from the coffee table. Studies it in his hands. “I'm sorry, All Might,” he begins, words touched by a deep chord of strange, alien regret, “but I can't stay here. You don't know what I am, and once you learn… once they learn, All Might, I–” His voice breaks on the pronoun. “There's no future for me here. Any possibility of one vanished the moment my palms went hollow. Even if you can accept me, you're different. A special case. The rest of you, the other heroes, the active ones, the commission, my friends, they'll… they'll dispose of me, won't they? They won't see any other option, if they can't fix me. Can't eradicate him.”

“I wouldn't let them,” spoken weak and fading, from the course, fibrous bed of the office carpet, “you know I wouldn't.”

“But I don't,” Izuku mutters, bitterness rising to fill the cracks left by fast fleeing nostalgia, “I never could. You killed him, didn't you? You'd kill me.”

“It's different–”

“That's the thing you don't understand. It isn't. It isn't, and it never will be.” Izuku exhales, harshly, into the crook of his shoulder. Fiddles with the screen of All Might's cell. Holds it out, above his prone body. “Here. I've dialed up the nurse’s office. All you have to do is place the call.” 

He drops the phone within reach of All Might's extended arm. Watches, dully, as he scrambles to receive it. Tries not to smirk at the urgency he displays. At the complete and utter loss reflected in his eyes. The frantic dread. The fear. He mostly succeeds, he thinks.

It doesn't matter now, though. None of it does.

“I have no idea how much blood you've lost, but I wish you the best of luck with your recovery. I… I know it didn't mean much, in the end, but thank you for believing in me. You shouldn't have, obviously. It was unwarranted. But… thank you, regardless.” 

He walks to the door. Pauses, inexplicably in its threshold. Tries to move and finds he can't. Then, he shakes his head with emphasis, and his trepidation evaporates like water in the sun. Like the receding figure of a ghost. 

“Please don't go looking for me. I have no idea who I'd be when you found me. I already hate you enough as it is, and I don't want… I don't think you want me to kill you. Don't make me, okay?”

Izuku doesn't wait for a response. Just bolts, blindly, out into the cavernous silence of the third floor hallways.

Escape is easy. Quick. Simple. All Might only has immediate access to Recovery Girl, and he's her first priority, not Izuku. He's in the hall before the call is made. Out a window before the alarm is hit. On the streets before the barriers rise.

And then he's running, and running, and running, away from heroics, away from his future, his past, his friends, his mother, All Might. Away.

“You made the right decision,” Izuku's father's voice assures. All he can do in response is nod. Of course he did. He must've. He can't live with himself otherwise.

But for whatever reason, as his feet pound heavily against the gritty asphalt of Musutafu’s remote back alleys, he can't, for the life of him, stop crying.