Izuku Midoriya wonders exactly why he answered his father's summons.

The city is empty, devoid of life, and he has no idea why. No, he's pretty sure it has to do with the evacuation signals blaring everywhere but he hasn't the slightest clue how to evacuate in a city this complicated.

Everything from the buses to the trains is shut down. The nearest shelter is about two kilometres away, and that's assuming the roads still exist.

He stares at the picture of the woman supposed to pick him up. Young, surprisingly enough, and in a skintight bodysuit. He's glad no one he knows can see him because he'd rather not be labelled a pervert. Not that anyone would care.

Hiding in his back beneath layers of personal items is his phone. He's not sure if he's switched it on in the last week. Maybe his guardians sent him a message but they had said their perfunctory goodbyes before he boarded his train. The chance of seeing them again is low.

Unless father sends me back. He sighs, pocketing the picture, just as he hears tires squelching on the tarmac. A blue car careens down the road heedless of the speed limit. His eyes widen and he takes a stuttering step back when the car doesn't slow down.

Too late.

The car stops abruptly next to him, the window rolling down to reveal a woman with dark hair cascading down her back. He's more concerned with the three inches between him and the car, a space so narrow that he wonders how a human could navigate it.

"Izuku Midoriya?" she asks.

"Y-yeah?"

"Colonel Nemuri Kayama. Nice to meet you." She pushes the door open. "Get in. We need to get out of the area now."

She grabs his collar and tugs him inside, not caring for his yelps. Before he can regain his bearings, there's a seatbelt around him and they're moving so fast it makes him sick. She swerves and makes tight corners that shouldn't be possible.

And then they're in the air, the car flying over a hill. They hit the ground hard enough that his teeth rattle, but the Colonel shifts gears confidently, speeding up as they descend the bumpy hill. He's almost certain this car wasn't meant to go off-road, but she drives it like the car was born for the most treacherous terrain.

Maybe she's just crazy and the car's given up on fighting with her.

She's driving towards a bridge held up by thick pillars of concrete and steel. She swerves around the columns and parks in the shadow of one column.

"Get down," she snaps, and then jumps over him, not giving him an instant to gain his bearings.

When the explosion hits them, he's glad for it. His head slams to the side from the impact and he hits the door.

His vision blurs and his ears pop. It takes a few minutes for him to regain his hearing, and then he realises the whining is the Colonel calling his name. The nausea is from her shaking him harshly.

"Please stop," he croaks, fighting to keep his breakfast down.

"I can't believe they dropped an N2 mine this close to the city," she mutters angrily, helping him up.

Her hands are poking and prodding at his body, searching for injuries. He hisses when she gets to his lower ribs and then feels her lift his shirt.

"Just some bruising."

Finally, he gains the strength to force his vision to align. He is greeted to a world covered in snow and knows he's hallucinating. All of this must be a hallucination. There aren't giant monsters and Japan certainly doesn't snow.

The door is easy enough to open despite the Colonel's protests and he stumbles out, awestruck by the mad sight. He reaches out and touches the snow.

It's warm.

Brown dirt and a layer of dust cover his hand, not cold snow. The hill is covered in warm ash, not snow. The hill behind them still stands, though it looks shorter than before. From here, he can see the plumes of pitch black smoke and the haze of heat distortion.

He stares at the destruction in awe. "How are we alive?"

"They're clean bombs," the Colonel says, pulling him back into the car gently. "No need to worry about lethal doses of radiation."

There's a small cut on his arm, one he didn't notice before. The Colonel holds his arm gently whilst she rummages through her glovebox with the other.

"You really do look like him," she mutters, inspecting the injury.

He frowns, doing his best not to stare at the plunge of her neckline. "Who?"

"This looks worse than it is." She applies a band-aid to stem the bleeding. "The commander."

That kills his mood. He nods, looking away from her. There is no way to verify that claim given that he hasn't seen his father since he was a child, and his memory of the man is hazy. The man is the ghost that left him behind.

"Thank god they told me about the mine ahead of time. I might have totalled the car and I've only got five more payments on this bad boy." She smirks at him and it is unsettling. "Are you a bad boy. Izuku?"

He trembles uncertainly. "No?"

Her smirk turns to something softer. "Alright, let's keep going."

She starts the car once more and then they're off. The drive is silent, Izuku too off-balance to ask questions. Even then, what does it matter? He's been under his father's control since the moment he accepted the summons, and now he's under Colonel Nemuri's control.

"Aren't you curious?"

She's staring at him and not the road which makes him only slightly more nervous for his life.

"Why should I be? You'll tell me what I need to know if I need to know. Isn't that how your organisation works?"

They enter a tunnel. He's surprised to see a few turret emplacements and slots for barricades to rise up. There were a few systems like that in his hometown, mostly in places like the mayor's residence.

"Who told you that?"

"Everyone whenever I tried to ask about my father's work."

They come across a set of gates. The Colonel reaches over and removes the key card wound around his neck by a lanyard. She swipes it and the gate lights cycle green.

"Thanks. It looks like the Support department's actually doing their work for once." They set off once more, this time at a much slower speed as the Colonel looks around cautiously. "You're really not going to ask anything?"

"Not like you'll answer."

She sighs as they come to another gate, this one with a giant logo on it. He stares at it, the grand sign of his father's organisation that has haunted him so often in life. Emblazoned upon a golden leaf are four simple letters:

HERO

"Quirks are the final gift to mankind," he reads. "Bear them with pride and embrace your life. Work hard and win your power."

"Welcome to HERO's Mustafu-3 Division," the Colonel says. "That's a message you'll see a lot. Back before HERO was founded and the world was in chaos, protected only by heroes, one would come forward and say those words to the UN's Public Safety Commission. They founded UA and that was the motto they chose. A lot of us are from that first organisation and we carried the motto. No matter what else comes, remember that you're part of mankind. Be proud and try to live."

He says nothing to her words. What can he say to those words? He still doesn't really know anything about what's going on.

"Sometimes, part of that is demanding answers," she continues, thrusting a booklet to him. "If you ask and you don't get an answer, at least you've taken that first step. But if you never ask, you'll never learn who you are."

The booklet is marked 'Top Secret' and 'For Your Eyes Only' in bold red. He opens the first page and sees his picture and medical information. He feels a bit ill seeing his interest in quirks history—idealises the first wave of heroes—and classical music—cello used to deal with anxiety, performed on the national level at eight years old —broken down in excruciating detail.

There are pages with his acquaintances from his music teachers to his childhood friend—though that, to his surprise, is almost entirely redacted—and the nature of his relationship to them. There's a section on something about sympathetic quirk resonances, something he's never heard off, and the blacked-out sections don't help.

He keeps on reading as they descend deeper into the base. There's something about a HERO exam that he supposedly took, one held by UA, though he can't for the life of him remember that. There's data on his pacifism—stemming from long-term abandonment issues—and his suitability as a candidate that is overridden by some sort of test score that he's sure he never once saw.

"What is this?" he asks softly, waving the file to hide his trembling hand. "This is my entire life. Why?"

Nemuri hums, her chin resting against her palm. There is something almost predatory about her gaze and it makes him feel like a boy, a child, someone too young to be in the same city as her, let alone close enough that he can see the slight pattern of her dark bodysuit and smell the peachy body wash she used. Though she is young and wears makeup, he can see permanent creases from her smirking.

"See something you like?"

He flushes. "You're avoiding the question."

"Maybe I don't have a good answer. Look, Izuku, I think it will be best if we just show you. I've worked here long enough to know some things need to be seen to be believed. Like that monster you saw. That's an angel. UA and later HERO were founded to battle angels. We've been preparing for years for this moment."

"And I have something to do with this?"

A bright light creeps into view and then they're outside, floating hundreds of metres above the ground. He experiences a wave of vertigo for a moment. Only for a moment, however, until he sees the buildings above them hanging from the ceiling like [stalactites].

"No way," he says, looking down and seeing the giant pyramid. "It's an actual GeoFront. I never thought I'd see one."

"There's a lot more you're going to see, trust me."

The tram takes them down slowly, winding its path in the air like a serpent. He takes in every inch of the GeoFront, somehow lit despite being underground. Then he spots the slits in the ceiling through which the setting sun shines through.

There's a transit nexus that they disembark on. The Colonel exits the car and he follows behind her, walking towards their new destination, a series of smaller trams. There are strips of red emergency lights guiding their way.

He follows her blindly, reading through more of the booklet. There's a brief section pertaining to HERO's inception though it goes into greater depth of its formation. None of the names means anything to him as they're all long dead.

They're ascending an elevator when he finally looks up. The Colonel's fiddling with her watch and checking her phone.

The elevator doors open and he sees the Colonel freeze first, then grimaces.

"Knock knock," a stranger says, smiling, and shoving her way into the elevator.

She has green hair tied up in two buns and wears a white lab coat. The expression she wears is equal parts expectant and disappointed despite her small smile.

The Colonel sighs. "Who's there?"

"Someone on time."

"Can you be serious for once?" Colonel Nemuri.

The stranger glances at him, then dismisses his existence. "Serious? I don't think the boy would like serious."

"The boy has a name," he says coldly, cutting through their conversation.

"You're definitely your father's son."

He recoils, lips curling in a sneer. "I'm not."

She raises a brow, stepping out when the elevator opens once more. "Did you hear the joke about the roof?"

"Fuck my life," the Colonel mutters, pulling Izuku along.

"Well, did you?"

Izuku frowns. "No?"

"Well, I'd tell you, but it tends to go over people's heads." He simply cocks his head in confusion. "And that's how I know you have deep-seated daddy issues. You don't even cringe at a dad joke."

He grits his teeth but stays silent as the Colonel follows the stranger.

"You think you could be serious for once, please? The kid does not need your brand of insanity on his first day."

"You want serious?" The stranger stops suddenly. "Fine, I'm Doctor Emi Fukkado, head of HERO's Support Branch. We're here for one reason. And that's to save mankind."

"What?"

The lights come on and he's struck almost immediately by the visage of the robot. Predominantly blue with lines of red and white, the most noticeable features are the two golden horns. It looms over him, judging his very existence, and maybe he's imagining the contempt, but he's almost certain it finds him lacking. Just like everyone else.

"This, Izuku, is the Evangelion. This is mankind's last chance at salvation. Unit 01, the final test model, called the All Might."

His hand trembles. "This is my dad's work? This is what he called me for?"

He expects a response, just not who gives the response.

"Yeah."

He looks up and sees his father for the first time in nearly a decade.

At that moment, he understands why Nemuri said he looks like the man. He thought he took after his mother from the green colouring he inherited, but nothing prepares him for looking into a mirror a few decades in the future. The nose, the chin, even the shape of the ears and the hairline are almost identical. Yes, his father has more wrinkles, but Izuku can see similar lines whenever he smiles or frowns.

Even if he had never met his father, he would always recognise the dark-haired man.

"It's been a while," his father says calmly, a hint of arrogance in his voice.

Izuku grits his teeth. "Seven years. That's how long you were gone."

His father shrugs. "I was busy."

"Busy," he mutters, looking away.

"Prepare to sortie."

At that moment, it all comes together. The reason why his father called him back. He ignores Nemuri's arguments, ignores Emi's explanation of Unit 00, and focuses his attention on everything that's happened up until now. The security clearance. The attack and the giant monster. The robot. Even his father meeting him from his throne in the sky.

This, everything, is all part of a sadistic cruelty. One which astounds him because he's not worth the effort of this charade.

"Why?" he asks, raising his voice for the first time, and drawing their attention. He glares at his father. "Why, father? Why after ten years are you trying to kill me?"

"Izuku," Doctor Fukukado snaps. "He's your father. That's a terrible joke."

"And the only reason I know that is because I look like him. This plan is madness. I don't have any training. I don't even know what we're fighting. Don't tell me I was your first choice because I know that's a lie."

"You're right," Hisashi says coldly, "you weren't my first choice. Not even my tenth. But now I don't have any other option. This isn't about you, Izuku. This is about the survival of mankind. I don't care if you're scared, because there is no other option. I don't care if you're confused because we can teach you. I don't care if you doubt yourself, because mankind is placing its future in your hands."

He glances at the doctor and sees no support there, only cold determination. Flanking his other side is the colonel and he sees only resignation in her expression.

"No. I can't… don't make me do it."

His father scoffs. "I gambled a lot on you, Izuku. I see I shouldn't have bothered."

"Commander," Nemuri says in sharp reprimand. "That's not going to help."

"Izuku, mankind doesn't have time to waste on your hesitance. Pilot or leave."

His heart skips a beat. That's it, the ultimatum. Walk to his death or walk to his death. Piloting and leaving are the same thing. He can't face that monster even if he pilots. But if he doesn't, then the monster will kill him anyway.

The ground shakes violently. He ignores the orders being barked and the status reports. Who cares if a few blocks are on fire or if armour layers have been stripped down?

"Why did you come?" Nemuri grips his chin and forces him to look at her. "You have to try. It might hurt, but that's better than giving up."

His fists are clenched tight. She doesn't know anything he's gone through. Was she there when his mother died or his father left? Was she there when his only friend said goodbye and moved across the world? Every time he's tried, it's only hurt him.

"This was a cruel joke, Commander." Though she says those words, the doctor walks away, sending orders to her subordinates.

The colonel squeezes his shoulder. "I'm sorry." And then she leaves him as well.

It's just him and the robot. This is his father's work, this blue giant with golden horns is everything his father abandoned him for. Even it seems disappointed by his choice. The light blue glow of its eyes darkens, abandoning him totally.

The giant doors to the side open, heralding a stretcher and a medical team. They move quickly, never once saying a word to him. There's a girl on the stretcher, dark-haired and red-eyed, covered in bandages. For a moment, he's struck by a wave of vertigo looking at her.

A blast rocks the base, a deep and terrible tremor that knocks him off his feet. Time slows and he sees the world, sees what is to come: there, falling into the red fluid are the nurse and the doctor; here, an injured girl falling off her stretcher; above, a collapsing steel scaffolding.

He's close enough to the girl that he can reach out and catch her before she collapses. He twists around, using his body to shield her from the scaffolding.

Clang.

The sound is loud enough that it leaves his teeth rattling. But there is no pain. He looks up and sees a giant hand above him. It belongs to the Evangelion.

He stares at it in awe, stunned, even as the doctor screams about restraints and dummy plugs. Then he sees his father from his throne in the sky, glaring down at him. Judging him. Challenging him.

"Momo's the only other pilot we have," his father says. "A cripple and a coward are my only options. Your mother would be disappointed."

He cradles the girl in his arms, teeth gritted. "I hate you."

His father scoffs. "If this isn't enough… play the message."

A holographic screen comes to life and Izuku sees someone he never thought he'd see again. Katsuki Bakugou, larger than life and just as angry as the last time they spoke.

"Is this thing on?" he childhood friend says, fiddling with something. "Fuck it. Your bastard of a dad asked me to make this because apparently, you're too much of a pussy to pilot the Eva. Don't be a fucking pansy and get in the fucking robot."

"But—"

"Get in the fucking robot, Deku!" Kacchan roars as though he knew what Izuku would say. "Get your ass in gear and pilot the damned thing. Because if you don't, then we're all sorts of fucked. And if I die because you couldn't grow a pair of balls, I swear I'm gonna haunt you through every fucking reincarnation cycle and make you suffer. You got that?"

Izuku swallows, terrified. "Yeah?"

The Kacchan in the recording in the image points at him. The anger, the bluster and the rage, all that he's used to from his childhood friend vanishes. There's something unbelievably raw and vulnerable there.

It reminds him why he always stood by Kaachan when they were kids.

"Listen to me, I don't know where you've been or what you know, but this time it's not just some bullies you have to face. You need to be a hero, Izuku. Get in the robot and prove to your dad that he's an ungrateful piece of shit and you don't need him. Remember: you and me till the end."

The transmission cuts off and Izuku knows what isn't said. They can't stand together at the end of their story if it concludes this early on.

The All Might's eyes flash a bright blue. Whatever contempt he imagined is gone. All that remains in that gaze is a challenge, a challenge to be better than he was before.

He stands, an unconscious girl in his arms. He glares at his father.

"Fine. I'll pilot."

—HERO—

It tastes like blood.

Everything around him is tinged red by the fluid around him. Somehow, he's breathing water like a fish.

"Izuku, do you read?"

"Yes, Colonel," he says bitterly.

"The All Might is built around the quirk One For All," she explains. "It's the simplest unit in terms of ability, but there isn't one that will ever come close in terms of physical abilities. Trust in your instincts, alright."

He takes a breath, or at least what amounts to a breath when your air is replaced by a superlight hyper-oxygenated non-Newtonian fluid lining your mouth and nose and lungs. At the very least, it helps him calm down a bit.

"Alright."

"Sync him."

Then they connect him and the world shifts.

It's like being blind your entire life and suddenly seeing everything. The image is so clear and perfect that it astounds him he never saw like this before, never saw infrared or ultraviolet at will. It startles him that his awareness has always been so limited. Why could he never tell the structural integrity of his every limb? Why was he so blind to the network of nerves and muscles and electronics integrated so seamlessly within him?

Were his horns always there before? They feel like they were, just like the bolts restraining him and keeping him docile. There's so much power within him, power like lightning and destruction, that he is amazed something so mundane as bands on his arms can keep his chained.

"—ku, Izuku."

He looks up and sees Nemuri.

He doesn't just see her on the screen because his eyes are connected to the command centre's camera's and he can see her from a dozen angles, can see Doctor Fukukado and so many other people he can't recognise—and the moment he thinks that, he accesses the Yuuei system's databases, and knows who they are: he knows Ken Ishiyama and his personnel file, though parts are hidden from him; he sees his father and all he knows about him is his name and title; the man beside him, Sorahiko, Gran Torino, Vice-Commander of HERO, is just as mysterious.

"Your sync rate's hovering at seventy percent, Izuku," Doctor Fukukado says, surprised. "How do you feel?"

That's a hard question to answer. There's so much he's feeling, almost like sensory overload, but there's something in the back of his mind managing it all. A system, or a presence, maybe even a ghost in the machine, regulating the All Might's sensory input.

'Alive,' he tries to say, but his jaw isn't working. There's something wrong with his jaw, something thick and heavy keeping him from speaking.

He panics and tries to remove it, but his limbs are locked in place. He's tied down and can't move, stuck in a cage.

Nemuri, why can't I move? Why can't I talk?

"—rate's rising faster than he's ready—"

He's looking at them all, monitoring their vitals with access to the Yuuei system. Nemuri's heart rate is elevated. So is Doctor Fukukado. They're speaking to each other and he doesn't know why they're panicked.

There's something wrong.

"Sync graph is inverting," he hears her say. "His ego border's too malleable. Cut the circuits."

Why am I trapped? I'm doing what you want. I'm piloting the damned robot.

Then he loses control of his senses. His vision disappears and he loses access to his knowledge. Somehow, he's cut off from his many eyes and loses control of his limbs.

"Izuku, can you hear me?"

The words sound so dull. There isn't an otherworldly clarity to those words. He can't tell how loud they are down to the decibel, can't tell the pitch based on the frequency. It's like losing most of his hearing and being forced to accept an absurdly tiny range.

He blinks, wondering why his vision is so narrow. "Yeah." He twitches upon hearing his voice and feeling his jaw moving of his own volition.

"What happened?"

A screen appears in the plug suit. He wonders how that's possible for a moment before remembering the synaptic connections on his head. It's not a real image so much as something projected directly to his brain.

The base rumbles once more, a reminder of the enemy they face.

"Shit, we're out of time. Izuku, I need you to listen to me." He nods. "The quirk system was designed to enhance your combat abilities, but it comes with a drawback. Whatever you do, just remember who you are. What's your name?"

He swallows. "Izuku Midoriya," he says and finds that to be true. "My name's Izuku."

"You're not Unit 01. You aren't the All Might." He sees her glance to the side. "He'll be fine, doctor. Reactivate the circuits."

The connection comes back like being struck by lightning. He shudders, hunching over, as feeling returns. He gains access to the camera and threads his way back to Yuuei's systems, accessing the databases for information on the weapons he's being given.

This feels right, he thinks and feels a spark of agreement.

A part of him has always felt empty, always felt incomplete. And now he knows why. The Eva is part of him, or rather he's part of the Eva. They should be one and the same, but there's still a layer of separation.

"Izuku, are you ready?"

He nods his human head and forces only his human jaw open. "Ready," he says with conviction because he knows All Might will fight alongside him.

"Eva unit 01, launch."

Guided by electromagnetic rails, he ascends into the night sky.

He zooms in on the creature. It hasn't noticed him yet, too busy firing at the GeoFront. It's missing, based on the 3D map of the entire city nestled in the back of his mind. Like this, he can tell how much damage it's done and how much longer it will take for the angel—Sachiel, the Eva supplies—to get through with its blasts.

"Sync rate stabilised at seventy percent, but the AT Field isn't forming."

A second ago he wasn't aware of what an AT field was. Now, however, he knows it's the power that makes Angels almost invincible. It is the same power that the All Might has access to. Power it refuses to expend on something as pathetic as Sachiel.

He takes one step forward, moving in unison with All Might's spirit.

And he trips gracelessly.

The crash is slow and ponderous and rattles his body. He's fine, no, the All Might is fine even if Izuku himself will have bruises tomorrow.

He tries rising. And then he freezes. There is an angel no more than a few metres—11.6 metres planar, 6 metres vertical—away from him. There is no recognisable emotion in its gaze, nothing approaching a human emotion that he can identify.

This is something alien and unknowable.

When it grabs him by the head, he realises one of those emotions is hate. Pure, unending hate. The kind of hate that starts genocide and leaves the world red with blood.

A pink spear forms on the angel's free hand. He has all of a second to react before it thrusts the spear.

The pain is like nothing he's ever felt before. His shoulder feels like it's on fire. He roars in agony, clutching it pitifully as the angel twists the spear deeper into his flesh.

"Izuku, it isn't your arm!"

That doesn't help when it feels like his arm has been stabbed through. He tries to lift his arms, tries anything to protect himself from more pain.

The angel stabs him through the torso next.

He gasps, clutching at his heart.

"Make it stop!"

The angel doesn't care for his pain. It lifts him higher, observing him curiously. Then a spear forms at the end of the arm gripping his head.

Imagine being stabbed through the eye. Imagine the pain as a blunt blade gouges out your eye. Imagine every nerve screaming in pain.

That is what the first blow feels like.

The second and third are much worse. If the first was a blunt blade, the second and third are heated pokers digging around the ruined eye socket.

The fourth, however, is the worst of the lot.

The spear tears through Eva's skull, tears through his skull, tears through their skull. The pain is everywhere, his brain itself damaged but it's not his brain, it's the Eva's, except there's no real distinction between the two, not anymore. His pain is its pain, his fear its fear, and its rage his rage.

He's screaming even if the Eva is still, and everything is wrong. The Eva shouldn't be still when he's moving, they shouldn't be two separate entities, but it hurts so much. It feels like a part of his brain is missing and he doesn't want to hurt anymore.

And then he's gone, floating somewhere beyond space and time and physical sensation.

He's not wearing any clothes, he realises. Mostly, however, he's focused on the endless emptiness. Except, it isn't empty. The moment he acknowledges it, he sees something towering over him.

"All Might," he whispers, seeing the Eva in its true glory.

It is still blue, yes, but the bindings restricting it shine brightly. The blue is so bright that it hurts. It is the horns, though, which startles him. The two golden horns are like twin suns, their light illuminating the emptiness.

He should be terrified. He knows an hour ago he would be pissing his pants. But he feels warm arms embrace him from behind, a soothing cocoon of calm cascading over him. It is love, deep and fierce and crushing.

Go, Izuku. Win.

Someone shoves him forward into the Eva's giant maw. He screams with no voice as All Might consumes him.

And then he can see once more.

"—life support activating—"

His world is fire and rage and blood. It is hatred so thick that it chokes him, and the only way to breathe again is to roar for all the world to hear. He feels the power coursing through his body, more than before, more than enough to kill Sachiel. It isn't One For All in its entirety, not even close, but it will do.

Half his vision is dark, the optical sensor ruined, but that's fine. The city has camera's everywhere and the Yuuei system is connected to them all. The right side of his vision is filled with camera images from a hundred different devices of different resolution and quality, but the massive computer he's connected to stitches them together to a cohesive whole.

"—vitals restored—"

The Eva moves him—them—forward, and Izuku doesn't resist. The Eva knows how to fight and how to win. Its instincts were hardwired to kill angels. His human instincts failed him, too much in the way of fear responses to truly be effective. Only bloody violence will ensure their victory.

"—gone berserk—"

They leap forward, crossing the distance in one motion. They slam into an immaterial barrier. An AT field, the light of the angel's soul, bars their way.

Just another distraction.

With the arm that had been broken, they call upon One For All's offensive quality. That quirk, that distinction of All Might's soul, is pure strength. But, a part of it tastes like ozone. It tastes sharp and powerful. It is that quality that they draw upon.

Shimmering claws appear at the end of their fingers. It lets them find purchase on Sachiel's AT field. It gives them that inch they need to tear it apart with a single swipe.

"—sync rate at one hundred—"

The field shatters.

With it gone, there is nothing to protect Sachiel from their power. They move forward, ducking beneath those long arms. They slash at the angel's neck and feel their claws sink deep into the flesh. With a mighty sweep, they rip apart the angel's mask.

They kick, sending the angel flying into a building. The mask lands on their outstretched hand and they stare at it.

"—determine who's in control before—"

It feels delicate without an AT field to empower it. Nothing more than dried bone. They clench their fist and the mask shatters. A thousand fragments all as large as a person fall to the ground.

They grin and it is glorious.

A high-energy reaction catalogued by the Yuuei monitoring systems and fed to them alerts them to Sachiel's desperate attack. The beam once terrified them—no, it terrified the smaller and lesser part of them, that which gave them movement and rationale—but no more. They fling their arm, shaping the AT field carefully. Sparks of green lightning, their strength manifested fully, surround their arm. They deflect the beam with contemptuous ease.

It illuminates the night sky, a perfect beam of pink destruction. At the apex of its journey, it collapses upon itself. That collapse brings forth a conflagration in the form of a massive cross, the largest thus far. They notice all this errantly, using a tiny portion of their processing power to observe the event.

Mostly, they're interested in ripping the angel to shreds. Claws to rip flesh and fists to grind bone are their weapons. They glorify in their strength, take joy in annihilating this creature only one step away from godhood. Against them, it is nothing but a chew toy.

"—rejecting all signals—

With one might sweep, they sever the angel's heart from its housing.

It looks so tantalising, the purest red, that of freshly spilt arterial blood. It is life and power and they wish to consume it, to prove their superiority against this failed angel.

They raise the heart with both hands, holding it with a level of [gentleness] bordering on reverence. Their jaw opens, ready to receive this final proof of their superiority.

"Don't do it, Izuku!"

They pause, finally listening to the buzzing that's been following them since the battle began. They follow the audio feed and find it to be the one identified as Nemuri. There is shock and horror on her features, a sentiment echoed by the others in the command centre. They look at themselves through the feed the command centre uses.

With it, they seem themselves as the humans see them.

There, drenched in blood, and marked in gold like royalty, is their greater physical form holding the angel's heart like a bloody chalice. They are strong and fearsome, a bound god of unmatched power standing atop the corpse of their broken enemy. Their raw destructive power is terrible in its immensity. Their eyes, an incandescent blue like burnished steel, are reminiscent of binary stars.

And yet, it is not that screen that has them terrified. It is the screen showing their internals, the screen that shows the intersection between heart and soul and mind. It is the smaller half, the human vessel, that terrifies them. They see the portion of themselves known as Izuku Midoriya as the command staff sees Izuku Midoriya.

The Izuku subsection of the Eva has its teeth barred, feral and bloodthirsty just like the greater unit. The subsection's arms are raised, mirroring the Eva's grip on the angel's heart. Those eyes, once dull and indifferent to life, are filled with primal anger and rage, a promise like green lightning ready to strike down the world.

This is what it means to truly pilot an Eva unit: there is no separation between human and machine, no difference between the Eva's AT field and the human's deepest desire. Instinct and thought are melded as one, senses intermingled and connected perfectly. Most of all, their disparate natures are ground down till there is no barrier between Eva and pilot.

It is because of that lack of separation that the Eva directs the AT field around the angel heart long before the Izuku Midoriya subsection makes its decision. Long before the idea of their acts has affected their heat-soul-mind, the Eva is already crushing the angel heart. And once Izuku Midoriya remembers who he is, remembers that he isn't forty metres tall and possessed of God's power, the Eva has already carried out his will.

All Might, Eva Unit 01, crushes the angel's heart.

The angel's physical body collapses upon itself, no longer able to maintain its impossible mass without the impossible engine of its power. The angel's flesh ripples, shudders, quakes, before simply failing. It unleashes a deluge of blood, an ocean of crimson as a final marker of its presence.

Izuku MIdoriya lowers his hands in the plug suit and the Eva follows his actions. He stares indifferently at the blood, hating the sticky hot feeling it leaves on his legs—no, the Eva's flesh.

Someone's calling his name but Izuku doesn't care. None of that matters compared to the memory of what he did, the feelings he felt, and the final act he only narrowly avoided.

Has this always been there, hiding in the dark below? Have I always been an animal?

No answer comes.

The cockpit goes dark as they cut power to his—its—body. The LCL fluid is warm at the very least.

"Izuku, respond."

It is the sheer, raw desperation in the Colonel's voice that pulls him from his thoughts.

A sigh escapes his lips. "I got in the robot."

He opens his eyes. Then he blinks, surprised.

He hears a sudden eruption of cheers and wonders why they're so glad. Can't they see what monstrous deeds his actions have wrought? Maybe they're just as blind as he is.

"Hey Colonel," he says softly. "Can you turn the lights back on?"

"Sure, kid."

In a moment, the lights return and illuminate half the plug suit. No, that isn't accurate. He tilts his head to the right and suddenly the other half of the plug suit is lit up.

"You did good," he hears the good doctor say. "You did better than we could ever imagine."

His smile is bitter and angry. "Then why am I being punished?"

"Izuku, what are you talking about?"

"Then why am I blind?" he roars more than he asks, a guttural and terrible animal sound of pain. "Why can't I see in my right eye?"

He wipes his tears before they can form but it doesn't matter. He can try to hide from it, but the truth will remain. Just as he may not be able to see in one eye, it doesn't mean the world will disappear.

"Pilot extraction is our top priority," he hears Nemuri order. The command centre erupts into a flurry of activity he's distantly aware of.

He misses it, misses the sight he had. Not the paltry human sight, but the Eva's vision. He misses being able to sync up with the security systems and see Nemuri from a dozen different angles. He misses the status updates and hundreds of data logs of every second keeping him appraised.

"There's no physical damage showing on the vitals," the doctor says. "It might be psychosomatic from the injury but I can't tell until we get to him."

"Where the hell are we on extraction?"

Izuku closes his eyes. Better the entire world be dark than just half of it.

—HERO—

"Sir, the Public Safety Commission is requesting answers."

Hisashi Midoriya, Commander of HERO, rubs his eyes tiredly, running a hand through his hair. It's longer than he likes, but Inko liked it that long and it was the last memory Izuku had of him. Their hairstyles are similar enough that it constantly reinforces their relationship. Not that he needs to. Izuku is a carbon-copy of Hisashi at the same age outside of their different hair colour.

He wonders if he would have been able to manipulate Izuku if he more closely resembled Inko. He likes to tell himself it wouldn't make a difference. He's also smart enough not to lie to himself.

"Could they have waited a few more hours?" he asks Saruhiko, his mentor and friend.

"Get off your lazy ass and get to work."

The old man's height, or lack thereof, hasn't made him less intimidating. If anything, he's become even surlier and grumpy in old age. Hisashi appreciates his mentorship but damn if he doesn't want to punch the monkey.

"They can wait ten more minutes," he mutters.

Hisashi opens a drawer, blindly searching for a pack of cigarettes. He knows he has one. Or maybe he ran out and needed a refill. It gets hard when the world is on the line.

Something flicks him in the forehead. He stares bemusedly at the cigarette and then at Saruhiko's extended finger.

"Smoking's bad for your lungs."

Hisashi shrugs and breathes a spark of fire to light it. He takes a long drag, letting the nicotine soothe his nerves. He hates meeting the Commission, hates having to manoeuvre around their plans.

Inko was the one born for it, not him. She was bold and determined where he was precise and methodical. Theirs hadn't bee a partnership of equals by any stretch, not when she was the sun to his moon, but they had climbed the echelons of power together. All the dirty work she loathed he had dealt with. She was the one who charmed people with her kindness and compassion, people who never once realised that it was a manipulation. It was the truth, yes, but still a manipulation.

He savours his cigarette before he needs to deal with the most powerful people in the world.

The moment Gran Torino leaves, the meeting begins.

His room, already dark and intimidating, turns pitch black. Black monoliths illuminated by an inner light surround him in a circle. The only light he has is the one below his desk.

"Begin your report."

Hisashi speaks quickly and concisely, relaying the facts without embellishment or lie. There's no real point given that at least two members of in the command centre are reporting to them. Which is why only the good doctor and Nemuri are informed of certain secrets. They and a few others are the only people he knows for a fact aren't his enemies.

The monolith marked with a glowing one speaks for the first time. "Enough, the plan is progressing apace." The voice is female, clear and smooth. "The damage done was minimal. Continue monitoring the pilot."

Another of the monoliths, this one numbered two, scoffs. "You're only being lenient because he's your grandson."

Hisashi wonders whether Best Jeanist has a death wish. There's a lot to be said for not antagonising the most terrifying woman in the world. Not many people would be willing to cross Nana Shimura.

Despite his critical position in the plan, even Hisashi is wary of pressing her patience. Apparently being the second wealthiest person in the world gave you a bigger pair of balls.

"What of it?" Nana's monolith asks brazenly. "His results speak for themselves. The angel was defeated with minimal damage. What has your candidate achieved?"

He got my son in the damned robot, Hisashi thinks.

Katsuki Bakugou is one of Best Jeanist's two candidates, the more prominent and important of the two. The other one is… eccentric is the kindest word for that pilot.

"It makes me wonder how long you've been training him in private."

A dangerous accusation. Training a candidate in secret is a violation of the cardinal laws.

Oh, he knows the Commission has a candidate that they're hiding from him, and he's certain they all have backup pilots they haven't disclosed. That is all to be expected. But brazenly training one and sending him forth would be an act of war.

Nana huffs in annoyance. "The boy hadn't seen an Evangelion till the day of the battle. My son-in-law will be more than willing to verify that."

Inko, your mother is a bitch, he thinks bitterly.

She's throwing him under the bus as another one of her many tests, the same tests Inko had grown up with. Maybe Nana wants to see him stumble and burn now, to see if he's still worthy of bearing Inko's name, the Midoriya name he took on the day he wed his wife.

"The boy has been isolated from the HERO program since its inception. Unless he's a time-traveller attempting to fix his past mistakes, his capabilities are purely a result of natural aptitude and high sympathetic quirk resonance."

The phenomena by which the Evangelion program had truly become something unique, the phenomena that let them imbue quirks onto god machines, is part of the reason Izuku did so well today. The very best quirks, those with immense potential, had been implanted in the Eva units.

One For All, Nana's former quirk, is one of them. The family quirk gifted to both Izuku and Inko through the All Might Evangelion. Nana could have kept the quirk for herself, but Inko had managed to convince her to gift it to the All Might.

That night he had been certain she had gone too far. That entire night had been spent in tense silence, his gun loaded and his quirk ready for assassins. Instead, Inko had walked in and stolen the gun with her quirk, told him to calm down, and went to sleep.

He loved her all the more for her brazen defiance.

"Just give it up," the third monolith, Giran, says. "None of us are stupid enough to get caught breaking one of the rules. I'd rather not waste my time here listening to needless arguments."

"I concur," the fourth monolith, Rikiya Yotsubashi, says. "If there is nothing more, I will take my leave."

One by one the monoliths vanish. He doesn't react as they leave even as the tension leaves his body. Every completed meeting guarantees another few days to execute Inko's plan. This juncture is the most important. Everything is being set in motion, and now he needs to arrange things for his long-term victory.

Some factors he won't be able to control. He can't force Izuku to start an Impact nor does he know what monstrosities the Commission is hiding on the dark side of the moon. But, if he makes HERO strong enough, then he can face whatever Damocles blade they will seek to use against him.

Right now, he needs to deal with Nana's monolith that hasn't followed her peers.

"My daughter's husband," she says, reminding him that he isn't truly a Midoriya or Shimura.

Those names hold genuine power in the highest circles. His family name, Atakani, is nothing more than a pauper trying to sit on the throne. It marked him as a pretender. Inko's name is just another weapon to be used, one he uses as a bludgeon compared to her scalpel.

He nods his head respectfully. "Lady Shimura."

"I don't have time for that act, Hisashi."

For a moment, he wonders if he has overplayed his hand and exposed too much. Then he remembers that she's just a bitch who hates him almost as much as he hates her.

"What do you want?"

"See to it that my grandson is suitably rewarded for his actions," she demands simply. "I don't want another cackling mess like Tenko."

Her hatred may have something to do with the years of hallucinogenic drug dosages he fed the kid over the course of a decade. She has no proof, not a smidgen of it, but he's not going to assume she isn't planning her revenge. The only reason she hasn't had him killed is because of the plan and Inko's importance in it. His importance in the plan because of Inko. There is no one else suitable to guide Izuku and manage the insanity of his staff members, as well as deal with the manipulations from foreign governments and the military.

Hisashi smiles a tiny false thing. "I had a few options planned. Thank you for your approval."

"Was one of them your affection?"

He keeps his body perfectly still, letting nothing show.

"I see it wasn't," she says spitefully, seeing through him as always. "Treat the boy well, Atakani."

And then she's gone.

He curses her, curses her blasted plans, curses her grandchild. Out of every member of the Commission, she's the one he wants dead the most. She's the one he'll need to eliminate first if he wants a chance of winning.

The door opens once more, heralding Gran Torino. He's smirking as though he heard every single word. Which isn't something the retired hero is more than capable of doing.

"What did she want?"

"She told me to be nice to Izuku."

Gran Torino cocks his head. Then the old bastard laughs. It is a deep chortle, one that reverberates in the room.

Frustrated, Hisashi spits a gout of fire at his vice-commander. As he expects, Gran Torino is on the other side of the room once he can see past the fire. The old man is fast, his quirk letting him move at speeds Hisashi is hard-pressed to see, let alone react to.

"She got you good."

Hisashi slams his head against his desk.

A/N:

If you've made it this far, the join along for the ride. This isn't a straight 1:1 mapping of MHA characters to the world of Evangelion. Whilst the general themes remain true to Evangelion, this goes a lot deeper into the connection between pilot and Eva.

Either way, if you've enjoyed this, let me know. If you haven't, still let me know. Either way, see ya later.