Izuku
I pick my way over the various unconscious people on the ground to where Shoto is sitting with his back against the wall. Next to him is Yoayorazu Momo, who I had noticed working together with him during the exam.
Shoto shoots me a half-hearted glare when he catches sight of me. "You, are a horrible person."
My lips quirk upwards as I laugh. "Don't laugh, I'm bruised, tired and have no plans on moving anytime soon.
"Then I guess, I'll have to go to the café myself."
He gives another glare. "You're treating me."
"Sure." I agree smiling fondly. "You're welcome to come too if you want."
"Thank you for your offer, but my parents made plans to go out."
"Another time then. I'm sure we'll see each other in school."
"I'm… not sure I got in. I didn't do much." She shrugs.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much. The judges weren't looking only at your offensive power. They were more interested in your adaptability and your ability to cooperate with strangers. Most people here have no experience in the field, they aren't expecting you to be perfect."
"You do? Have experience I mean." She asks surprised.
"He takes down kidnapping rings in his spare time."
"Hey! That last time was totally not my fault."
"No, you just happened to walk in on it happening." He responds sarcastically, fully knowing I was acting on my intuition. "Like that time at the convenience store. Or the bank. Or…"
"Ok ok I get it." I whine. "It's not like I can help it."
Shoto doesn't bother responding and just gives me a deadpan stare.
"Alright, you've made your point. I've got to go debrief; I'll meet you at the front of the school in about 30. It was nice meeting you, Yoayorazu-san."
"Likewise." I wave as I jog up to the observation platform. I chuckle when I hear her ask "Wait… how did he know my name?" Just before I'm out of earshot.
I knock on the door and head in before someone answers. Most of the people in the room, I've met, or have at least heard of. But there is one person I'm surprised to see there.
"Yagi-san? What are you doing here?"
"You've met before." Aizawa groans in defeat.
"Yeah… he talked to us after the sludge villain."
"Well I suppose it's better to get this out of the way now." Nedzu nods to himself. "It's not like we were going to be able to keep it a secret from you anyways. He's All Might."
"Nedzu-san!" Yagi- All Might lets out a mouthful of blood in surprise.
"What, it's not like he wouldn't figure it out the second he saw your hero form. You're going to working here, it was inevitable he'd find out."
I suppress the urge to fanboy, not that I'm very successful from the amused look Present Mic is giving me. But hey, I didn't squeal, so I'm counting that as a win. But how did this happen? From the amount of atrophy, it's clearly gone on for a while. Years probably And now that I think about it, All Might has drastically reduced the amount of hours he works. His injury must prevent him from working long hours. I start running down lists of villains I know he fought within the last couple years. Toxic Chainsaw is the most likely culprit I can think of, but my intuition tells me they're not responsible.
"Izuku." Aizawa startles me out of my deep thoughts. He gives me a long-suffering look. "You're mumbling again."
"Ah, sorry." I sheepishly rub the back of my head and try to ignore the shocked stares. And Present Mic's laughter, which I will certainly pay him back for later.
"Well, you've already worked out most of it Young Midoriya." All Might tells me. "The fight was never made public, we couldn't afford to let people know I was so badly injured." I wince in sympathy when he lifts his shirt to show me a grotesque scar. Gut wounds hurt like hell. "The fight left me without a stomach, and part of my lung. And as you pointed out, I currently can only hold my hero form for 3 hours a day."
And that won't last forever, I pick up on what he didn't say. So, he's using his valuable time as a hero to work at UA. Why? To teach the next generation? Partially right, Ok. My eyes widen in realization. He's looking for a successor. The next Symbol of Peace.
Things previously unrelated start falling into place to form picture I previously couldn't see. All Might is on the fast tract to retirement. And there's no one to take his place. There won't be for years to come. The villains know it too. They may not know everything, but they've definitely realized something is up. I think back to the reports Byakuran gave me, the odd increase in villains located around UA.
Someone knows All Might is weakened. And the school just became a prime target.
"Young Midoriya? Are you alright?" All Might's voice breaks through the coming panic.
"I was just thinking." I try to assure him with a shaky voice that convinces no one.
"About?"
"If you teaching here and the general increase in unrest in the underworld are related."
The room goes silent.
"There hasn't been an increase in crime."
"Well, no." I agree, "But I've been getting the feeling something was… not right. So, I had someone look into it for me." At Aizawa's disapproving glare I hastily add on. "I was going to talk to you and Tsukauchi-san about at our meeting tomorrow."
"This wouldn't be the same person you had deface Endeavour's agency?" Nedzu-san asks with a raised eyebrow. But it thankfully breaks the suffocating tension.
"I have no idea what you're talking about. I had nothing to do with that." I tell him in my most serious voice. The one I reserved for telling Reborn, no, you can't just shoot him. "Besides even if I did. The asshole deserves it."
Someone chokes. I think it was All Might. No scratch that, blood's pouring out of his mouth again. It was definitely All Might.
"Putting aside your dislike of Endeavor, what did your source tell you?"
"While there hasn't been an uptick in crime, there are a lot more villains lurking around than is usual so close to UA. Which is weird, for obvious reasons. But also means there's probably someone holding the leash."
"Any idea who?"
"All I can tell you is that they aren't based in the city." I shrug.
"I want to meet your contact." Aizawa demands.
"I'll set something up."
"I'd like to meet him as well." Nedzu-san asks. I can't help but wince. "Is that a problem?"
"No. I'm just imagining all the destruction this will likely cause." The slightly unhinged principal and the clinically insane Byakuran will probably get along like a house on fire. It's slightly terrifying. I then realize that any destruction caused, won't be my problem. And therefore, I no longer care about the disaster those two meeting will cause.
"Is he dangerous?" I choke on a laugh. Considering Byakuran anything but dangerous is a hazard to your health at best.
"Well, not to me. And he knows better than to try something against what he considers to be my people." An alternate him tried that once, it ended with him dead. Needless to say, he never tried that again. "So, you'd have nothing to worry about. Just… do me a favor, don't mention Bakugou. I really, really don't want to have to run damage control."
Because stopping Byakuran from painfully murdering Bakugo would be my problem. And I also don't have an endless supply of idiots to throw him at anymore to keep him occupied. It's times like this that I actually miss the mafia.
"We'll… keep that in mind."
"Now how about we get on with what this meeting's actually about."
"Shoto and Yaoyorazu were the only ones to work together, I'm biased when it comes to Shoto, so I'll leave that to you, but Yaoyorazu adapted to the situation pretty well. I wasn't particularly impressed by anyone else. Inasa, however, has no situational awareness at all, and was the main offender of friendly fire in the exam and was incredibly easy to rile up. That's all I think is relevant."
"Thank you for that Izuku, you're free to leave if you want."
"Don't be out too late, we still have patrol tonight."
"Ok!" I leave them to discuss the exam. I push the heavy topics we talked about out of my head for the moment and focus on something more relevant to the present.
Mainly, how much cake it's going to take for Shoto to forgive me.