The weather was still sour as we pulled up to the front of the warehouse. Sitting in the back of the police cruiser like some criminal, I idly watched the rain roll down the windows.

"This really the right place? It's not exactly homely."

"It's not a home. My mentor for the week chose this place as our training camp."

The driver nodded. "You sure you want to do this by yourself? We can talk to Grey Hawk ourselves, you know. Though... I can't recall ever hearing of the guy before."
I hid my panic as nonchalance. "Nope, it's fine. I feel like this is something I have to do by myself anyway. It is sort of my fault that we're not going to be training together anymore."

Tsukauchi, seated upfront in the passenger seat, looked like he wanted to interject with something not so nice when I said this whole thing was only sort of my fault.

"That's very mature of you, son." Officer Caterpillar-Lip said.

I wasn't happy about being forced to kowtow to some officer after doing their job for them, especially without getting so much as a 'good job' from anyone at their useless precinct.

"Guess I'm just a mature sort of guy." I said, slamming the door shut behind me with more force than necessary.

It was just after one in the morning according to the clock on the dash, but as soon as I stepped inside All for One appeared. I worried that he would be found out after arriving so suddenly, then again not everyone was lucky as I was to sense quirks popping in and out of view.

"Judging by our company-" He gestured outside to the cop car just barely visible through the shattered windows. "- and the fact that this place isn't swarming with hero scum, your little showdown is going to cause some changes to our training schedule."

"They want me to train under Endeavor and say that I've been doing so since day one."

That the number two Hero had been stationed in Hosu and my going there would save me from a vigilantism charge was so obvious it didn't need stating.

"How unfortunate. Not to worry though, we'll just have to change our training times. You don't need any sleep as long as you get to cell revival after meeting with that second rate hero. We need only shift your morning session an hour back and your evening one can probably stay as is. You'll only have around half the hours to train freely as before but I still think I can have you ready to beat that little nemesis of yours by the week's end if you take things more seriously. "

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"No. I realized it after fighting Stain- I don't want to have anything to do ith you anymore. You're a villain, a bad one. Even though my quirk has gotten much, much stronger in just the few days we've worked together… I can't accept the help of a villain. Even if I really want to get stronger I'm not going to stoop to that anymore."

All for One wasn't even a bit ruffled by my news. "Somehow I'm not surprised. Still, I have a few parting gifts for you."

"I don't want them."

"I wasn't giving you a choice in the matter." All for One said. "The warehouse is yours. I had always planned to get rid of it after Golden Week, that can be sped up now that it's been compromised."

And then his hands were on my shoulders. I didn't even try getting out of his grasp. I knew it would have been a waste of effort.

My blood felt like it was boiling and I fell to a knee, mouth open in a silent scream. Then it was over.

"You seemed to take a lot of enjoyment in playing with cell revival in your time here. I thought you'd like something similar."

"Regeneration..." I murmured drunkenly.

"You know, when I gift a quirk to most people they don't take to it very well at first. It is a very painful, drawn out experience. But with you there was no hesitation, practically no struggle to accept at all. Now, that quirk is a rather weak one compared to cell revival, I'll admit, but now you have an opportunity to practice your strengthening any time you want. And you'll never have to be quirkless again."

Being quirkless was a nightmare of mine. I still remembered the jokes back in kindergarten, before mimicryTXI had been awakened and I'd still been the soft, picked on kid who quietly doodled pictures of All Might and fantasized saving people with a smile. Even though I knew that All for One must have scratched through my head to figure out what made me tick, was probably listening in even now, I couldn't help but be grateful.

"I... Thank you."

"It's not a problem. And Izuku?"

"Yes?" I tentatively asked.

"This isn't the last you'll be seeing of me."

"Last stop for the night. " the mustachioed officer said, then yawned.

At this late an hour even the upright Tsukauchi in his detective coat had let fronts slide and was deep asleep.

For the first time in three days I could relate. I was dead on my feet, physically and emotionally. A night's sleep sounded heavenly right now.

"Thanks." I said, hopping out for the second time that night.

The tired driver still gave one more parting bit of 'advice' before leaving. "You stay out of trouble now, son."

"Sure." I said, waving him off.

The light in my apartment was still on. The guys at the desk had called ahead to let mom mom know of what had happened, in redacted terms. Looks like she had decided to stay up to greet me.

"I have keys, mom." I said when the door swung upon, my hands still fumbling in my pockets.

"Izuku!" She said as I was scooped into a hug.

"Missed you too."

"Eventually she let go, then stared back at me. For once, she actually had to crane her neck to look me in the eye. "Have you gotten taller?..."

"I guess so. Growth spurt or something."

"It's only been two days!"

"A really big growth spurt."

"Your hair is longer too... And were you this fit before you left?" She said suspiciously.

"Like I said, big growth spurt."

She sniffed the air. "... Do you just stop showering when I'm not around?"

"I'm lost without you, I guess." I said, chuckling.

"It looks that way." She agreed. "Take a shower then go to bed. I made you a few sandwiches too if you're hungry."

I was really tired, but suddenly my hunger overpowered it. "... Could you double them up for me, please?"

"Looks like you'll be having another growth spurt soon if you're not careful." She laughed. "I'll have it done by the time you're out the shower."

"We have a very special guest here tonight, ladies and gentleman. A rising star from the illustrious UA Hero Program, a first year who has captured the attention of the world and a very talented young man, Izuku Midoriya!"

I was nearly blinded by the stage lights as I stepped out onto the stage to great applause. I held back the urge to wipe at the makeup that had been pretty much forced on my face out of sympathy for the poor woman I had terrified backstage for only doing her job.

The host, a balding Japanese man with a comb-over that was fooling no-one and teeth so bright they looked porcelain shook my hand and ushered me into an uncomfortably shaped couch that was meant to look nice on screen rather than feel comfortable to sit in.

"Izuku, it's good to have you on tonight." he began, teeth glistening.

"Right."

He coughed. "Anyway, I am sure everyone at home wants to know. Just how is it that a fifteen year old kid in his first year of hero studies can take on villains even professionals can't handle and come out on top?"

I bit back the immediate flippant reply. "UA is a really good school, I guess."

The host laughed, slapping his knee. His reaction seemed so phony it was ridiculous nobody called him out on it. "And he's humble too. Since you took down that slime villain in Musutafu before you were even accepted into UA I don't think that could be it. Come on now, what's your secret?"

"I eat my vegetables."

The host laughed again. "You're a real budding comedian, Izuku. A man of many talents."

I could tell he was getting really frustrated though. I just wanted to dig the knife a little deeper. "I don't know about that. You seem to be more of a comedian than I am. Ever thought of a career change?"

"That's very kind of you to say. On another note," the host said, eager to get back to his planned bag of questions and answers. "I understand that your recent skirmish with the villain Stain held a lot of personal significance to you. Did you plan to confront him after hearing the unfortunate news regarding your fellow classmate?"

I recalled the lines Tsukauchi had made me rehearse over and over. "My fight with Stain wasn't planned at all. I just happened to come across him while patrolling for any injured during the attack on Hosu. He came across him and felt that I needed to slow him down while waiting for my Golden Week mentor, Endeavor, to show up."

"And as we've all seen you managed to take him down yourself. Do you have any idea why it is that your mentor was so slow in getting to you? After all, had you been a regular student things may not have ended so well."

What a scumbag. The media really was the worst.

"At the time Endeavor had a lot on his plate. There were still Noumu on the loose. Had he known exactly how bad the situation was he would have made it out to me as soon as he could. I couldn't exactly ask Stain to let me make a call to explain my situation before he attempted to murder me. "

"But surely someone of Endeavour's stature should have been able to tell something was wrong."

"How? He isn't omnipotent. He did the best he could in a really tough situation. Any hero who was active last night will tell you that if it wasn't for Endeavour's help there would have been hundreds more casualties and millions more in property damage. I think we should be cheering him on instead of trying to poke holes where there aren't any."

The audience burst into applause, many standing up to agree with the sentiment. Some had family in Hosu, others were in the city at the time of the attack.

The host looked bitter at the turn of events. His attempts to criticize Endeavor for publicity and controversy had been taken down. There was nothing he could do except go along with the crowd and act like it was his idea all along. "Yes, I agree with you completely. Endeavor did a splendid, splendid job last night. The nation should thank him."

"Now, what do you think could have been done differently to minimize the damage inflicted to Hosu? we know that the city has one of the largest allocations to hero funding of any city in Japan, but has such a large scale attack managed to show some holes in their defenses?"

After some more back and forth where the host seemed to ask me ever more complex questions and seem surprised or vaguely annoyed by my answers, or that I seemed to ward off any attempts at fostering scandal while he played this jolly, friendly guy the interview ended.

" And that's all for tonight, folks. I'd love to thank my guest- though he was more of a co-host tonight- Izuku Midoriya. Not just me and the nation, the whole world is eagerly awaiting the day you turn pro. It may not be so far fetched to say that the next symbol of peace had his first interview on my show tonight!"

"Thank you, Jon. It's been fun. "

"From me here at J7 Studio, Asahi Tower, I wish everyone a good night! We'll be back tomorrow night with more game shenanigans with the multi-talented young actress, Mio Shibara"

On cue the in-studio audience stood up in applause, some shouting my name and whooting.

The studio lights faded to continued cheers and I had to sit completely still in my ridiculously uncomfortable chair as the show ended.

"Cut!" The studio hand called, and the lights came back on.

"Whew. What a night, right?" The slimy show host said.

"Yes. It's been an experience, for sure."

"I said it on the air but I'll say it again, I'm really happy that you were on my show tonight. My director says it's the highest ratings we've had yet- sixty million viewers live!"

So that's what that squat little guy was holding his fingers up for. "That's fantastic. I'm happy for you."

For the first time the night Jon-Jon seemed to genuinely smile at the praise. If anything it made his creepy on-show smile seem positively benign in comparison. It was the type of smile I imagined a serial killer would have. "Twenty million live... Can you imagine it? I'm sure that by this time tomorrow the whole of Japan would have seen our interview. If it's not the talk of everyone by tomorrow morning I'll eat my shoe!"

"Hey, if you do eat your shoe do it live. I think you'll break twenty million if you do."

Jon-Jon laughed an ugly laugh. "You really are a funny young man. I'll be seeing you back here soon, Mr Midoriya."

He stuck a hand out and I shook it, though the feel of his hand made me want to shiver.

Tsukauchi, the orchestrator of this whole thing, had given me most of the day after my showdown with Stain off, only sending for me in the afternoon to prepare for my interview.

"We need to get you on television as soon as possible to legitimize your attack on Stain. As popular as you seem to be right now there are doubtlessly people who will want to emulate you, the young and reckless may think it's a good idea to illegally go after villains as well. We need to dissuade them from that notion. " He had said.

I felt that Tsukauchi would have made a great politician.

He had also said that the reason I was being given this reprieve from mentorship was because I must have been really tired after my showdown with Stain and what happened to my friend. I got the feeling that Endeavor had to be clued in to what was going on and that right now the man was on the warpath and couldn't be bothered about mentoring.

Any talk of taking on a new temp halfway through Golden Week would not be good for the messenger's health.

Still, the man must have agreed because I was shuttled to his hero agency in Hosu by an unnamed officer in plain clothes. Public transport had quickly been made a no-go. I had been swarmed by so many reporters and well-wishers when stepping out of the apartment that Tsukauchi had to make other arrangements.

"I heard the railway system in Hosu was attacked. Are they even operating now?"

"Yes." The young officer said gruffly. He couldn't have been more than twenty-one, at the best. A fresh graduate it looked like, made to do delivery duty. Ahh. How quickly his ideas of police life must have been cut short.

Probably posted him out to get donuts too, the poor bastard.

"Must have worked overnight to get them working right?" Usually I would have preferred to stay quiet but when I knew that talking would make this guy's job more miserable I couldn't help myself.

"Hm."

"And what about buses? The roads were torn up, weren't they? How did they manage to get those operational so soon?"

I could seeTI the man grinding his teeth. "Sent for Cementoss."

"Oh, he temporarily patched things up enough so it's usable, right?"

"We're here!" The man said, sighing with relief.

Ah. That was too bad. "I'll be seeing you later, officer."

The man looked terrified. I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up to pick me up later with a few drinks in his system.

The cop car pulled away more vigorously than was appropriate for one not on call.

Endeavour's agency building was a dour looking thing. Black glass and steel shaped like a rectangle. There was no smooth lines, no adorning features. It was all business.

"Lifeless." I muttered.

The floors for Endeavour's agency started at the fortieth I'd been told. That was as high as the building's public elevator went. Must have been another elevator on the fortieth. It wouldn't do for just anyone to go up to Endeavour's office, after all.

"Endeavor will be down to see you in a few minutes. He instructed me to direct you to the meeting room with the other temp."

The secretary, a buxom redhead in a red dress that clung to her thighs recognized me immediately.

"Follow me." She said, waving along.

I fell in step alongside her until we reached the room in question.

There, stood off in the corner leaned up against the white wall of the meeting room was Shouto.

It made sense that he would fall into his dad's agency, though it was a little tacky for a man to mentor his own son I thought.

"Thanks." I said to the secretary who nodded and went back about her business.

Todoroki didn't make to greet me. I didn't want to greet him either so we both just sat in an awkward silence until Endeavor arrived.

Broad shouldered and with a literal flaming mane, Endeavor stamped into the room with all the confidence of a man on his home turf. He looked angry as hell too.

"Maybe you expected me to train you in hand to hand or take you on some phony patrol. That won't be happening. That's what the school wants, for us Golden Week mentors to give you a taste of hero work without scaring you off or putting you in harms way. We are not in a situation where something like that could be acceptable." Endeavor began, formalities tossed aside.

I don't get why he was so surly. After my interview last night his popularity, always rather low thanks to his poor temperament and excessively brutal takedowns of criminals, even petty ones, had shot to an all time high.

Endeavor had never been as well thought of as he was now.

"The media is trying to downplay just how severe this situation is. This city was just brought to its knees by a handful of rogue villains who, by all appearances, did the whole thing on a whim with zero strategy. Hundreds murdered, homes wrecked, businesses broken... "

"Who knows how long it will be before the citizens feel safe again? This can't be tolerated. We need to rally our defenses, to improve our surveillance and response times, to proactively hunt down troublemakers and upstart organizations that keep poking their heads out from the dirt before they even dream of making the sort of attack done here. "

"But first we need to bring these villains who had the audacity to attack my city to heel, with fire and brimstone." Endeavor announced, the flames of his quirk bursting with vigor and heating the air in the room till it cackled.

"I'll be sending you both further instructions via text. Do not reply. Do not call me unless absolutely necessary. Any questions can be directed to Roxanne at the desk."
Then, two minutes after showing up, he strode off as a man on a mission. Figures both my Golden Week mentors were the hands off sort. Just my luck.

And there you have the fallout with All for One.

Izuku has learned that there are people you shouldn't associate with, no matter what sort of benefits they provide. Though, since he now has a place to train and a healing quirk that he may or may not take to wolverine-like levels in the future when overloading the quirk the benefits still persist. There may yet be more consequences for his dealing with the devil, but that's not for any time soon.

His scene with Jon-Jon on live tv was something I loved to make, the host being a partial amalgam of multiple real-life and fictional tv hosts was something I liked, the slimy, rating-seeking show host out to gain fame by deliberately stating the outrageous or seeking to create controversy annoys the hell out of me. Making this sort of written caricature of one was cool and came across well, I think. I hope.

In the final scene we see that Izuku is pretty annoyed at Shouto, this is because of the whole situation involving Tenya and Izuku's thoughts on what should have been done, and especially on what Shouto should have done. They will be coming to heads in the next chapter.

As a final note on this update, this chapter is probably the one I'm most proud of from a writing perspective even if it's a bit shorter than typical. Mimicry is the first time I've written in first person and though I think I've improved a lot in its use third person is still what I'm best at. Using a bit more of my third-person methods while incorporating a more light-novel like style of less exposition and more dialogue also made the whole thing feel more 'smooth' to me overall. I'll be playing with the first person perspective some more in coming chapters but make sure the story doesn't suffer as a consequence.

The appreciation you show me, whether that be by reviewing, adding this to your favorites or following will be condensed into ration form then shipped off to the sword-wielding knights in my head to sustain them as they fight off the monsters that threaten to end all writing related productivity. Thanks! :)